There I was, minding my own business as I motored down the highway this afternoon. I had just picked up the Boy and he was making googly eyes at Tiff in the backseat. We were all just sitting there and I was a little tired when I noticed something a little odd about the car that was behind us. It looked awfully familiar.

Now I've smiled fondly whenever I see a car that's the same color as my old car. You know, the one that was stolen twice and broken into god only knows how much before I finally let the insurance man total it out last spring? It was a deep cherry color, not the bright young red but more the red of a fruit or a wine when the sunlight shines through it. I slowed down a little to let the car pass me, because that's the kind of gal I am.

As it passed I saw the carmax sticker on the left bumper. Hmm, thought I, that is the same placement as the sticker was on my old car. Hmm, thought I, this car has the same peculiar roof arrangement.

It can't be, I told myself. I sped up to pass it, just to convince myself. Along the right side were the same scrape marks and unique lack of paint on the passenger side. It struck me as insanely funny and I couldn't stop giggling.

What are the odds that several hours away from where I signed over the papers on this car, it shows up on the same stretch of highway at the same time as I did? The mind boggles.

Another day, another sink full of dirty dishes. As I sprayed hot water over the sugar ant convention in our sink I supressed an urge to giggle maniacally.

How, exactly, does one giggle maniacally? It's really quite easy. Imagine that you're a goddess, looking down from on high and smiting the ungodly heathens below. Or that you're smiting the infidel enemy invaders. Either way, it can be both fun and mildly alarming to your loved ones. My husband is used to my little insanities by now. Just as well, because I am tired of coming up with new and unique ways to hide it.

One of the things common to those who live with borderline personality disorder is that they view life as a non-stop drama. We script out soap opera-ish fantasies in our heads that cast us in the role of whatever psychologically damaged hero/heroine catches our fancy. We'll watch tv and movies and rewrite the whole thing in our head to accomodate our fantasies. This can seem at times more real than the world we're moving through. A constant temptation is to try to bridge the gap by taking as much of the inner dialogue into our real life relationships as we can get away with. I think this is why so many of us are alone- we burn out the ones who care for us, we overload our friendships and destroy our romances because nobody can ever live up to the constant drama and playacting that goes on.

Not that I'm saying this is deliberate. Far from it. Most of us don't realize what we're doing or how much we're doing it until it's too late. It took me 10 years of therapy to both realize it and to learn how to avoid doing it. It took almost losing the Boy I love and it took breaking my heart to give me the incentive to learn. Now that I know how, it's still hard sometimes to avoid the drama. I crave it almost as much as I crave the addiction of self-injury. As much as I crave control over my body and food intake. I look at my husband, I look at my daughter, it lets me find the strength to keep it together. I will not bring my daughter into my dramas. I have that much pride. I won't let things get bad enough that I have to give her up, even temporarily.

I've chosen to be a grownup. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I love it.

Monday. I had a decent day today. I cooked a real dinner for my family, one in which real Fresh Veggies were used. And leftovers from the fridge. It was cool, it was frugal, it was delicious.

Now if I could only transform this ability to the rest of the house... to the unpacking of boxes. The putting away of clutter. The disposal of trash.

Unpacking has hit a wall; I got so far before I got sick, and that was it. Nothing more has really been done to date, although I do have nifty new appliances to show for it. We've got sugar ants in the kitchen (those little black ones) and twice a day I'm out there scrubbing and spraying to get them gone from my sight. I don't know where they're coming from. Maybe the drains? In any case this is a normal bug thing that I can deal with. We're living out in the country now, and sugar ants are a normal thing to have in the spring and summer when the ground wakes up. Tomorrow I'm going to get some ant traps and see if that helps the problem any.

I'm almost finished knitting the thistle shawl. It's lovely and warm and soft, and I think it's going to sell pretty quickly. I'll post pics here when I'm all done.

Bath night is becoming one of my more dreaded weekly events. Tiffany does not like baths any more. She used to like them. She used to love playing with her toys and the washcloth in the water, splashing around and exploring how things feel and taste and all of the usual things. One day a few months ago she woke up and apparantly decided to not like baths anymore.

One day her bath was fun and exciting. The next day she screamed at the sight of the tub and tried to climb into my shirt. Now her baths are once a week at most, because it seems so traumatic to her. I hate doing this, even though I know I have to. She needs her bath, I need to help her through this, and even though I'm sure it's just another developmental thing the screaming is starting to get to me.

So I'm treating myself to a super-long internet session tonight to make up for it. I finally caught up on some of my message boards. I've caught up on the online survey sites I belong to. I've spent some time talking to the Boy. I'm going to log off soon and kick back on the couch with my knitting and some tv.

I just wish. Oh, how I wish. That the Toddler would stop screaming at bathtime and return to the happy bright child that I know she is.

Thursday. Is it a Thursday? I've lost track of the days of the week again; this has happened more and more since I started staying home with Tiff, but I thought once she started her schooling stuff that it would get easier.

I'm nuts, you know, referring to it as "schooling stuff". She's 22 months old, for goodness sake. Not even two. Not even potty trained, although I want to start thinking about it and the Boy says that we've got to wait until she's talking and walking on her own. A little voice in the backbrain says that if we wait for that she may decide to never talk or walk. And what happens if she does have speech or physical delays relating back to her early start in the world? What happens if she decides to not talk until Kindergarten? I'd really like to have this done by then.

My cold/sinus issue/allergy problem continues unabated. Today we've gone from yellow snot to green snot to bloody snot to aching pressure back to yellow again. This means, in short, that whatever the heck is going on in there is draining nicely and that I'm on the road to recovery. Disgusting as it is.

I hereby nominate the Boy for sainthood, as he has listened politely to all my nonstop babbling about the quality of my bodily fluids and constant low-level ickiness without complaint. He has willingly shouldered all Toddler care as I have asked him to over the past week. He has hugged me when I've been feeling particularly fat and ugly, and offered his clean spare pair of sweatpants so that I can feel non-bloated and un-ugly for the evening. Despite his unwillingness to flout hospital regs and provide me with a cheeseburger and strawberry milkshake during the day and night leading up to Tiff's birth (when I wasn't allowed anything more than ice chips, cause they were expecting an emergency c-section at any moment) I will stand by the love and admiration I feel for his love for me.

This counts WAY more than flowers and candy ever could.

Still sick, unfortunately. I'm almost to the point where the meds have worn off long enough for me to grab a nap, but I don't know if the Toddler is going to extend her own nap long enough for me to grab a nap. Could that sentence have been more of a runon? The answer, of course, is YES. Let's be glad that I'm fully medicated today.

Another couple of boxes have made it out of the family room and over to the unpacking area. This time I concentrated on the Toddler's stuff- toys, clothes, bedding, the odd assortment of my sandals and flipflops that she's made off with and hidden in the closet or under her crib... do I want to know how some of these have made it there? No. I have some semblance of sanity regarding this. Especially as this is one more thing that whispers to me, "puppy." I have given birth to a small puppy, she's obviously not human because she's been eating off the floor, loves being chased around by a barking Mommy, and chews on the furniture. And shoes. If she can't get a good piece of furniture to gnaw on, she goes straight for the shoes. It makes me shudder a little; I know where most of these shoes have been, and it's not hygienic.

On the other hand, she might still be part monkey. The hairless spider monkey she resembled at birth is making a comeback appearance. This week she's started climbing up on the chairs and couch by herself. Last night she gave up trying to convince me to put down everything I was doing and grabbed her blanket and bottle. She made a nest in the recliner, and glared at me over the top of her bottle. This kid has quite the Tude. It would be a full blown Attitude, if she could use enough of her words to make her point. Right now she's continuing to settle for meaningful glares and facial expressions.

It's awfully cute, though. *sigh*. I have to remind myself that we shouldn't have another baby. I try to remember how bad the last pregnancy was, how much I want to settle in the new house before I'm landed on bedrest for most of a year. Cause if the docs don't put me on it, you can bet your binky that the Boy will insist. Remember, girl. Remember how bad it was at the end. Be happy that you've got a healthy daughter and settle all your energy on accepting that the family should now be complete.

I can't seem to get my gut to agree, though. Still. It leads me to wonder how much in denial I am about my health issues. How much I am starting to feel that as long as the Boy loves me and the Toddler reaches out her arms for Mommy I will be immortal and immune from all disaster. Pretty big words for someone who's sniffling, snuffling, and who can't seem to shake the sinus headache beginning to build up behind my eyes.

It's been a while since I've been so fired up about cleaning my house. Maybe it's the mint-scented soap. Maybe it's the tub'n'tile stuff and the tough'n'tender stuff that makes it such an easy proposition- no more lugging big buckets of splashy and dirty water from room to room. Now I can just spray, wipe, and maybe if I feel like it go through one more time with a damp rag just to wipe one more time. Heaven. Anything that makes my job easier and safe to do while the Toddler is awake and running around.

So today has been declared laze-about day. We're all in various stages of sickness again. There is something about moving that makes everyone here sick- the week before and the two weeks following are generally spent in a state of stuffiness and ickiness. Tempered with the appropriate cold medications. The Boy is recovering and almost on the far end of his germs, the Toddler is one day past the hump of congestion (that magical point where the stuffy can't breathe feeling is transformed for a few hours into a searing pressure pain in the sinuses, and then begins that slow leak of thick yellow discharge). And me? I'm beginning the slow road to that sinus pain. However, I'm still on my feet and my hands smell all minty. That solves a lot of my issues.

It's hard to unpack and settle into a new routine this time. Harder than before in some ways, easier in others. Making the move from apartment living to a house is... interesting. Not bad-interesting, just interesting. There aren't any dumpsters now to stuff with the debris of unpacking -and refill three times a week- so we're rationing out how much can go out front on our one day of trash pickup. There are the settling in growing pains- a drawer that fell apart when I tried to open it. Knowing that I can fix it any way I damn well please instead of going back and back to the leasing office and try to get them to fix it properly on a timetable that suits me. Knowing that hey, for the minor and major repairs I can just call in a pro on my own, and even though we'd have to pay for it at least it would be done "right" and the way we need it to be done for our own sakes. All in all I like living in a rented house instead of an apartment. And not just because I can park in my own driveway and walk barefoot in my own yard without having to check it for broken glass, used condoms, and cigarette butts.

Operation House Hunt 2007 was a resounding success. Now we face the unpacking, and the boxes of stuff, and sorting out all the stuff that we meant to throw away before we packed but never got around to from the stuff that we actually use and want to keep. It says something about me that I’d rather throw out the stuff now than do it before the move. Maybe because now it’s all sorted into manageable hunks, sealed away in little mini-capsules of crapola? Maybe because now every last thing must be gone through and dealt with. There’s literally nowhere for it to hide.

The Toddler is enthralled with her new backyard. Mommy lets her go outside and play, and doesn’t hover over her taking things away just as they begin the long journey of exploration and tasting. I wait until she tries to come in and then take it away. Yesterday I pried from her mouth a rock, a piece of old candle, and the crumbs of stucco that came off the side of the house where she had started to lick it.

Don’t look at me like that. I don’t encourage her to eat the house. But the stucco is all in very good repair, it’s relatively clean, and it can’t fall on her. And as far as that goes, if I let her taste the house freely in the beginning, she’ll lose interest a helluva lot quicker than if I play keepaway. The main advantage to having a fenced in yard that I’m using now is that I can let her out, check on her every three minutes or so, and then go back inside without interrupting her.

The Boy rolls his eyes and calls me farmgirl these days. He’s asked how I like moving here from the “big city”. (I love it, btw) He tells them that I’m planting a vegetable garden. Heh, I haven’t started it yet. I’ve started the seeds in little cups and planters, but I haven’t dug up the beds yet, and I haven’t christened my new gardening gloves. These things will come. I choose to believe that deep down he’s really enjoying having me play in the dirt and do these things. We’re gonna make this house a home. I plan on leaving my stamp on it. Wonderful freedom.