Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

The Summers' Welcome To Summer Dinner Party

Hey, depression got you down? You should throw a party.

I've wanted to have a dinner party in our back yard to welcome summer. This year it was especially important to host a party because since we left the Dream House I've been more reluctant to host parties. I just haven't been feeling it. 

For months I've been collecting ideas and inspiration. But mostly I didn't do anything to get ready for the party until 3 days before the event. I point this out because it wasn't entirely pleasant but on the bright side it goes to show how reasonably easy it can be to throw a dinner party for 10. 

I knew I wanted blue hydrangea and a really bright pink flower to go with it. I wanted a menu we could prepare and serve outside and I wanted to eat at a big round table. My round table dreams were dashed into the ground by a miscommunication with the place I reserved the table from in April, prime wedding season and a car that's not big enough to haul a 60" round table. Darn. 

I used the hanging lanterns I bought to use at our New Year's Eve party. I got them from Paper Lantern Store. Unfortunately the large pink one I bought came with the wrong size metal brace so we used orange instead. Logan hung a cable from the porch out to another cable he strung between two of our pine trees. We're adding a string of lights to it and will leave it up year round. Cost: $25. I may buy the nylon version to keep outside for most of the summer.

The blue hydrangea I bought at our local flower shop weren't quite as blue as I'd wanted. 

But they also had peonies and peonies make me want to cuddle. With them. I know, it's awkward now.

My camera is still broken. It's incredibly painful. Thankfully my guests had nice cameras and brought them for me to use. 

There was soda and Sierra Nevada to drink, but also other yummy things.

Like Helen Jane's White Sangria. 

Maddie stamped the napkin rings. Ideally I would have used real flatware but I own 8 sets and had 10 guests so we went this route.

We made the award-winning fish tacos from that Beyond The Shaker Challenge dinner we attended this winter. Logan made these little cards for me to write what each of the toppings for the tacos were. Each card said something we love about summer. 

Our friend Phil is The Grumpy Barista. He roasts coffee beans and makes a delicious cup of coffee at Tasi in downtown Royal Oak. He makes a fantastic BBQ sauce and also a fire roasted tomato salsa that makes you want to marry him even though he's kind of grumpy and you're a straight man. I'm speaking from Logan's perspective here. 

We asked him to make a batch for us to give our guests as parting gifts. Logan made the label and it looks fabulous.

Another of our friends was having a birthday on Monday. His wife made delicious mexican ice cream and I bought sparklers to stand in as candles. The wishes you make on sparklers are a lot better. 

Or so I hear. 

Not again.

Well, I thought the best way to handle this latest round of moderate depression was to just ignore it. Because, as I'm told over and over, what you believe is what is. If I believe I'm not depressed, don't give it attention, I won't be depressed anymore. 

Unfortunately pretending to not be depressed has resulted in feeling a lot of shame for feeling depressed and being unable to face even my very favorite friends. 

It's been a not-so-lovely place to be. The frustrating part is how I really don't have anything to be upset about. I'm no dummy, I know short of winning the lottery I am pretty lucky. I have a very nice life. A life that almost anyone would be endlessly blessed to have. 

Maybe minus the incredible urinating cat. (Yes! We're still being held prisoner by urine!)

And yet for the last 4-6 weeks I've been laying in bed waiting for the evening to come so the kids and Logan would be home letting me pretend I'm normal. 

Logan is convinced that I do this, it's a pattern. I start to go through changes in my life, good changes, new things, personality break throughs....and something inside of me panics and sends me hurtling into a depression.

I think this has some credence given that the depression got almost unbearable recently. Unbearable in the "Check Into The Hospital - I'm Only Alive Because Max Would Be Devastated If I Didn't Exist Anymore" kind of way. 

This set of really awful thoughts started after I visited Texas, came home very relaxed and very encouraged that maybe I could go back to "normal" again. Then, when I sat down to work on the goals my Life Coach and I started to discuss, it's as if the smallish-damaged child Melissa who still lives deep within the grains of my entire self started to have a temper tantrum.

I don't feel like I'm back to 100%. There are moments of great panic and I spend a lot of time not realizing I'm gritting my teeth and that awful pain in between my eyes is from me staring off into space wondering what comes next.  

I'm trying to breathe, to remember that letting go of who I am is allowing who I am supposed to be to come forward. 

In the meantime school ended on Friday and I'm hopeful this summer with the kids will be good for all of us. This summer my time is my own without any freelance clients depending on me to maintain the same working schedule I had while the kids were in school full time. Except that in the summer they're home pretty much full time and terribly resistant to day camps. Babysitters often make more than I did in a month, making them troublesome to, you know, pay. 

This year I'm home with the kids with nothing but time to fill and luckily we like more of the same activities and they're pretty good company with minimal whining and almost none of the tasks that made parenting young kids so physically demanding and intellectually un-stimulating.

I'm planning on lots of friends, days at the pool, movies, parties and maybe a few craft projects. Most of all it's been nice not being alone all day allowing my brain to pummel me with anxious thoughts and faulty logic leading me to hate myself. 

It's hard to hate yourself with a kid like Max around. It's easier to hate yourself around Maddie but that's just her age...at least I hope so. 

I've also got a second interview for a full time job out of the house. I'll admit, the whole thought of that gives me some anxiety, but I am working very hard to prepare and not worry. So far, with a couple of weeks until the big day, that's going pretty well. 

Talk to me the morning of the interview and I'm sure this will no longer be true.

Less Navel Gazing, More Doing.

It's been difficult to write on this website. 

I've been doing a lot of things, feeling a lot of things and dealing with a bunch of things that I either can't write about or I really shouldn't write about or I don't want to write about or that no one wants to hear about. 

So let's start with the things you don't want to hear about: Gary the cat is still sick. Aside from urinating in the house he is also throwing up more than I think is normal. My dog is adorable but a lunatic. She stares at people with her head cocked to the side and her ears perked up, but if you look back or make any move like you may touch her she growls and lunges. So, I'm dealing with a ticking time bomb. It's times like this I wish we'd gotten a puppy we could have socialized the hell out of because this is really awful. For everyone. 

I've been spending a lot of time working on my resume and collecting writing samples. It feels good to look back at the last five years and have something to show for it. I've also been applying for a few positions which is thrilling and terrifying. I'm in the middle of a crossroads of sorts. Luckily Logan works with a great lady, Jackie Trepanier, who's leaving her job to start her own business as a Career Coach.

Little did she know when we sat down for our first meeting I would start things off with a few barely held back tears. I feel a little lost is what I said in a few longer strings of words. Typically I'd explain to you how lost I am, why I feel that way, what I think my options are, but I really shouldn't. Or rather I don't want to, not yet anyway. 

The relationships in my life are also weighing on my mind heavily. I can't believe how difficult I find relationships to navigate. It makes me wonder how I've managed to stay in a relationship and in love with Logan for the last 17 years. Or rather, how he's been able to stay married and in love with me. 

Sometimes I think we're too open with each other, that maybe saying everything you think and feel is too hard to make a marriage work. But then we find our way through a rough patch and I think the only way we do that is to say what's going on. 

But it doesn't seem like that works with most other relationships and so I'm kind of lost in that realm of my life as well. 

Here's something that will throw you for a loop! You know, more than my continued navel gazing introspection. The last day of school is Friday and I am....excited about it! 

I realize I will be like all the other parents in the world about 2-3 weeks from now wishing we had year round school with several 2-3 week vacations scattered throughout the year. But for now, I'm looking forward to doing more stuff with the kids and having a more structured routine. I've been struggling with my lack of time management skills, I'm hoping having to entertain the kids will put some focus back in my daily routine.

And hopefully stop me from staring down at my toes wondering how I'm going to do this whole thing differently.

Even the embarrassing moments are bigger in Texas.

I can't tell if my trackpad is acting weird or if I've just been away from my computer so long I've forgotten how to use it. 

I gotta be honest, May kind of sucked. I know, I know, I'm bringing bad things on myself by focusing on how bad each month stinks. I was over April about halfway through. In May my animals all decided to get sick and require lots of cash to be spent on them to prevent them from filling my house with urine.

But June? June has been pretty darn great so far. 7 days in and I am living it up. 

I decided to take a trip down to Texas to see the Mitchell's. The family I've mentioned before who I used to babysit and for a while before I got married, lived in their basement. Which wasn't as creepy as that sounds. 

I used to come down here to visit when I was exceptionally overwhelmed by my marriage or by parenthood...or both. But now I just come down because the change of scenery is nice, the pace of this house is calming, and there is a lot of good food in this part of the country. HOLY CRAP. 

Oh and there's the pool...and 5 O'Clock happy hour...and Cake Wednesday (On Thursday).

I also decided to come down to San Antonio because I needed a shot in the arm of what I call "Jean". The part of me that would like to be normal and not a raging lunatic about silly things, like the phone. Progress on the phone has been minimal but I do feel more normal.

I chose this specific time to take the trip because it was the same time as the Moms Gone Marginally Wild trip to Florida. I decided not to go this year for a bunch of reasons but I was still torn and the thought of trudging through my daily routine while getting texts from my friends lounging at the beach and having a great time together was just too much to face. 

I can vouch it's a lot easier to hear about how much fun your friends are having while sitting next to a pool with an ice cold margarita.

So, here I am. 

So far I've gotten my nails done. Stalked Sophie the dog. 

Drank a few margaritas and ate some molten cheese served in a bowl of volcanic rock. 

Watched some hockey. Hung out with Miles and his siblings (oh and his mom). 

I gawked at Austin and became even more convinced I will have to bash Logan over the head and move him down there. 

I worked REALLY hard on getting some color on my blindingly white skin (I KNOW I'M GOING TO DIE FROM THAT). Oh and I performed a stunning act of acrobatics last night before bed. 

Here's the text I sent Logan moments after.

11:01pm "I just fell ass over apple cart over Dan's green truck. WTF?"

Here's Logan's reply at 

8:21am "What is this? Are you okay???"

So yeah I went up to bed around 11 after a little time in the hot tub and maybe one too many glasses of wine. There's this really cute antique green pedal car in the room I'm staying in. I walked into my room, trying to be quiet since the dad of the house was already in bed in the room next door, shut the door and managed to fling my body over the truck, head over heels, slamming my entire body into the wall behind.

.....

Just go ahead and picture it. 

.....

It's pretty funny, I don't mind.

So I'm laying on the floor, my head against the baseboard and my body up and over me along the wall, and I'm pretty stunned. I think I just did a back handspring, albeit a really clumsy and comical one. Then I remember Joe in bed next door probably thinking, "What the hell?" So I jump up and quickly try to act natural.

"That noise? No I didn't hear any noise. Weird. I mean, I was doing a little acrobatics before going to bed, but other than that....nothing unusual going on in here. Good night!"

I head home tomorrow and I'm going to try really hard to remain upright for the entirety of this next 24 hours. 

June, you and I are going to get along just fine.