1. Sometimes my body or my brain or God wakes me up and doesn’t let me go back to sleep. Sometimes (usually) it’s 3am. Sometimes it’s 1am because I think I hear the dog whining and I go sliding out the door and down the stairs like Kramer only to find a slumbering blob of dog that growls at me when I try to pick her up to go potty. Ok, sis. Message received. I spent from 1-4 ungracefully slinking down the Facebook rabbit hole. If I was liking your posts from 2005 – just carry on and know that my midnight brain needed to know your whereabouts back when YouTube was just a baby. I don’t ever mind the random wake ups here and there because my little only child soul needs quiet from time to time. I find that the wake ups usually coincide with seasons when there hasn’t been much of that. Like, oh. Say… a pandemic where I’ve been in my house with my kids for 96 days straight. Quiet is restorative for the souls of many an only child. It’s especially restorative for only children that went on to have a litter of mini thems.
2. I spent some of my morning alone half watching Married at First Sight Australia. I’m only on Episode 4 so don’t give me any spoilers. I am feeling how body positive they are in Oz. Some of the folks on this show are thicc and their mates (see what I did there?) are all about the curves. The first season of MAFS I watched in the US had that douchecanoe Luke and he stayed shaming poor Kate about her weight and she was like a size 4. Not in Australia. This one gal strutted out in a bikini that was about one fruit roll up on the top and one fruit roll up on the bottom. I am here for the confidence and body positivity. It doesn’t hurt this lady doesn’t have a csection scar, so worry not. I won’t be wearing a bathing suit designed by General Mills any time soon. I’m also noticing that every single one of these girls has lip injections. All their spouses seem to think they’re excellent kissers, so maybe the jokes on all us thin lip ladies.
3. I am the darkest body haired naturally pond water blonde person you’ll ever meet. My leg/underarm hair is especially jarring up against my Voldemort white skin. I didn’t shave under my arms for like 13 hours and Clara just informed me that I needed to make sure I took care of that when I told her I was going to get dressed. Little did she know she was about to get a body positivity conversation before 7am because I was coming in HOT off my Aussie body celebration. This conversation included me singing “it’s your body you can do what you want to” to the tune of “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” which ended with “that doesn’t go for teeth because I pay for those” which was a little off the rhyme but I felt was still an important message because dental hygiene good, dentist bills bad.
4. Y’all. I’m on the lam from the Parks Department. Ron Swanson and I are still cool though. I’ve been promising the kids for weeks that we could go to painted mines. We even had some friends go with us. I originally left Winnie at home because I wasn’t sure about the weather, but felt guilty when we were driving by base after morning donuts. I came back and got her and we hauled her the full hour out to painted mines only to be greeted with icy winds and NO DOGS ALLOWED. I could fix the icy winds with the crusty old sweatshirts and sweaters and jackets that have lived in my van since March 13. Yes, I could have certainly cleaned my van out in the time between March and now, but I could also just not because I haven’t even used a half a tank of gas and then what would we wear when it’s chilly out if we didn’t have a van load full of random items? Anyway, I had the dog and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her in the car because I like my van windows and my vet bills have made me too poor to replace them. I had just driven an hour out with 6 kids- so I broke the rules and put the dog in a back-of-the-van discarded tote and carried on. She was MAD about it though- my friend said she was cussing at me because she was making some serious noises- so a few times I had to put her on the path. I felt so guilty the whole time because I do not break rules that I could hardly focus for hyperventilating about my folly. Most people said the dog was cute or ignored her or whatever and didn’t give me a hard time but the rhinestone cowgirl in camo pants was displeased. I’m sure it had something to do with me handing her off to Jack, dressed as Mr. Rogers, so that I could rescue Laurel from certain chalky peril and him promptly letting Winnie greet her without her consent. Some people don’t like green eyed very good doggos saying hello to them in a no dog zone. Go figure. Winnie was worn SLAP out when we got home and was asleep seconds after I put her in the playpen. Being an outlaw is exhausting.
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