Six posts in a row! (not counting the weekend) On Monday, I saved a list of goals for this week and, though I'm a little afraid to look at what I've missed, this is at least one thing checked off.

Lordy, I have been having an off week.  I'm calling it emotional week, and though I am on my period (TMI? ok, it won't go live on the "Real Blog") I do have things to be bothered about, they're just hitting me extra hard, and maybe I've just crumbled under the weight of trying to stand up to life a little more and straighten some things out.  My 'strive' directive will not fall, but I'm bound be stressed every now and then -until I get used to being an 'awake' person.  Chalk it up to growing pains.
It started with confirming Kurt's drug addiction, the argument that was based on him getting his pills but had under the guise of I'm a bad/difficult/miserable person,  getting a confusing invite to Theresa's baby shower and coming to the conclusion that I wouldn't go after getting really excited to go, getting the zombie face from Kurt all week and continually having what I guess amounts to an anxiety attack over the inevitable withdrawal he will put me and Kara through, missing my brother, feeling guilty and finally this morning sending him a depressed weirdo email that I haven't gotten a response to yet, Robin being ridiculous, bitchy and intolerable, I was a little teary yesterday at work, and this morning had an actual little cry (which may not be 'all out' yet) and realized during my work walk that music is painful to listen to.
I'll be glad when my period is over.  It's the little things.

Yoga.  Maybe I need more.  I've been trying to get myself to look into more yoga while I'm at work and do a pose or some sun salutions once in a while behind the server racks.  But somehow I get sucked into the computer screen for most of the day and end up with a sore neck and hip flexors(<- seriously becoming a problem) and a eye-headache.
I found this workout on Pinterest and I like the way it's explained and love the pictures. (I especially love the backdrop and isn't the top she's wearing cute? love a dropwaist.)

 

I also love this tutorial on sun salutations.  I came across it a long time ago and actually tracked it down recently.  I would love to take a class with this woman.

Hopefully a happy, lovey, centering weekend.  Doin' it for my little girl. (We have plans for the library and finally flying her ladybug kite, she's been talking about that ladybug for weeks, poor thing.)

Oh, and Happy BDay L-Dog.  I vowed I wouldn't but I just opened my mouth and asked Kurt to invite her over for dinner: Cornflake Chicken, which I've been dreaming of wowing her with for months(ugh, why do I care?) and cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  I just set myself up don't I?  Strive, strive, strive. 

Update: Ladybug Kite Flying was awesome! KB amazes me every day with what she is able, willing and insisting on doing, and she had such a great time.  Pulled off L-Dogs little BDay dinner pretty well, I think she was happy (and exclaimed over the Cornflake Chicken: mission accoplished) -and KB helped her blow out candles!

Popsicles and Picnics

 

What's wrong with this?

I think this may be our best bet.

Then again, there's always this...

UncommonGoods

I'm in the market for some-good- popsicle molds. Last summer's trials have mostly made it into the trash can, possibly in a fit of frustrated rage. The popsicle need to come out of the mold. This seems a no-brainer for the popsicle mold making industry, but alas, nothing has worked as well as tearing away a dixie cup. I love this simple, rustic method -though they are a bit big for my little one- but when L-Dog saw them she said oh I'll have to find you some popsicle molds. Ok. Find me some.

I'm also semi-obsessed with this idea I have to -someday soon- take Kara to the park for picnic.  I love a good picnic in the grass.  A shady picnic table with a nice view isn't so bad either.  Last month, after going to the ACUA Earth Day festival, Dadela, K and I broke out my grandmothers yellow and red checked tablecloths for over our hard-won picnic table and had the most wonderful backyard lunch al freso, complete with a little white pitcher-vase full of dandelions picked by our little pee.  One of our most happy 'family moments' in my opinion, the kind that give me hope.

I'm loving these picnic images from a blog I came across today via ModCloth, The Clothes Horse.

And this little set would be nice.  I love the blue stripes!

 The I Heart Summer lovefest is getting out control.

Reading in the Summer

Summer has always been my favorite season, though now Summer doesn't hold quite the same promise that it used to. (Spring is edging in for first in favorites...)
The near-sweltering hot days we've been having the past week and are expected to have are making me think of those summer hazes, where nothing much gets done, but fulfilling exhaustedness sets in and everyone is happy.  (Unless the haters cut through your haze with all their complaining about the heat.  Stick a popsicle up their butts and move your beach chair.)
I love soaking up the sun  -after applying sunscreen of course- one of my happy places is sitting in a low chair (or even laying on a big towel) reading a book on the beach. 
I plan on getting into some of my  self-imposed summer reading requirements in this fashion:

It seems I am in need of a hat. 
...And how's this for cool summer nights?! Backyard movies!
(My favorite cool summer night places are the Ocean City Boardwalk and anywhere near water having drinks with friends. Bringantine, Somers Point and Mays Landing freinds' houses and The Deck at the Marina comes to mind.)

Longing for a Summer Beach Day.

 

Just saw this amazing image on The Paris Apartment.  Love Love Love. Not only is it the beach image that is at the heart of my soul, I love the pastelly colors.  Nothing is more comforting, calming and centering than a day at the beach: the heat, sunshine, the sand, warm skin from the sun, the coconut-banana smell of sunscreen, the backround noise of waves, gulls crying and kids playing.  A low beach chair, a blanket, a good book.  Fair skin or not, K must experience something of this.

In the Market for...

 Having no clear idea of what to say today, and desperately clinging to my 'blog everday!' resolution, I would like to go simple: product lust. consumerism. trying to cover up the irritation that the 'spending less, aquire less, appreciate more' proverb is so difficult to stick to.  I'm all for quality personal development, but I also love art and color and beautifully made things.  I want to fill my life with more things that I love, things that personify me.
That being said, I am in need of a little 'mini' crossover bag.  I saw a woman wearing a little red one, which I believe this 'saddle' colored Fossil bag is an alternate of, and I thought, 'how conveniently perfect!'.  Running errands and going on adventures with a little one is more successful with a tremendous feat of planning.  I find myself only grabbing my wallet and throwing that into the diaper bag (K's out of diapers, but still needs 'supplies': potty seat, extra pants and underwear, wipes, and a good stock of dazzling occupiers), I end up wishing even the wallet were smaller -I don't need hardly anything in it, why carry it around?
This Fossil mini bag is adorable.  And functional.  There.  And though I yearn to be lead away from leather products, I love a good brown leather, a medium caramel color -though I love a dark chocolatey one too- and distressed is best.  Decent quality that convinces me it will last -for decades will win me over.

This one, a little bigger and not fitting to the criteria for necessity(poo), is awesome too.  Really into Fossil right now.  For a whole, I had fallen into the L-Dog and Daft Princess traphole of 'if its not a coach, its not worth having'.  Then I came to my senses when I realized what an asshole I would look like wearing a 2 to 3 hundred dollar bag while my daughter is being raised in Pleasantville (I plan on buying a house in a better school district, but has it happened yet? no.) and has NOTHING set aside for college.

That being said, the latter bad is $128 and the first, littler, more functional bag is $50 and I have no plans to get either one of them.

Girlie Painting

This is what we did yesterday after school/work and dinner (hot dogs, waffle fries and orange walnut salad -which turned out even yummier than I expected and K was more into it than I thought he would be).  I had been wanting to get the lady outside for some al fresco painting.  Its on that list of things that seem fun for a kid and summery to me.  These are the kind of days I want her to remember from her childhood.  She was completely engrossed -she kept saying 'I'm making a abstract painting.  Abstract painting.' over and over again.  Did I ever mention that I'm actually a big fan of Calliou? (The newer episodes. Yikes to the older ones.)  So KB and I made some good memories and K helped clean up -it was straight into the tub after this.

The fruits of our labor.  A fun afternoon.
(What do you think of my romaine lettuce stem stamp flowers? Ha! Did I mention I'm an aspiring artist? Er, maybe just aspriring to aspire...)

Percocets

I found an empty bottle of Percocets in K's car last week.  (My grandmother's car at one point, which I gave him, which now resemble a giant disgusting trash can with wheels -and a baby car seat in it.) Why is a bottle of pills that was supposed to last a month (one every six hours as needed it says. Ha!) empty two weeks after it was filled? You are either a drug dealer, a drug addict or both.  Then, days later, the morning after his pain doctor's appointment on Friday (May 27th), I find the same empty bottle and a script for more Percocets post dated for June 4th.  Its not June 4th, yet.  wtf.  I'm wondering what the reaction of a good mother should be.  My daughter's father is abusing pills.  Again.

On the side of this is the promise that was made to me that he would never do Percocets again, which came along with the admittance that he does have a problem.  And the promise to tell his pain doctor about his problem, not to accept a script for Percocets ever and to request that the doctor not offer him Percocets or any related medication.  K is a liar.  I have known this from within the first few weeks of dating.
I surprised myself at my first reaction on finding the bottle and then the script.  It hurt, I was frustrated, I cried.  I'm mostly mad.  The disrespect, the idiocy, the weakness, unending incongruence of effort between us.  The frustration and rage after unresolved, heated arguments that are irrational, defiant, belligerent, and completely ungracious with unsubstantiated nasty comments that are almost always completely unrelated to the issue at hand.  (Its mostly the side effects that make him intolerable, but the unresponsive zombie face is alarming and frightens Kara).  But in the end, the emotional wreckage that I normally feel is absent.  The shock and betrayal never came to burn me.  (Maybe he has desensitized me.)
As I focus on my effort to be the best person I can be for Kara, to give Kara the best I can give her and strive to provide for her the life she deserves (and hope to swing close), my thoughts go to the beautiful, intelligent, funny little girl who has to grow up with a bipolar Percocet addict as a father.
I am not going to take responsibility for getting K off of drugs.  Reciprocal to me taking control of my life and being responsible for my own happiness -not allowing him to control whether or not I can have a 'happy', productive life, I cannot control his drug use.  My responsibility to my daughter is to help her understand and deal with her father.  I will keep her close, and keep him closer.