I have never been as overwhelmed with work and hospitals as I was this week. On Monday John and I planned to go see Martha Jean at Northside as she had a scheduled surgery. Then over the weekend my pal Nicky managed to land on his head in the water and lost feeling in most of his extremities which incurred another surgery. Just for kicks my boss decided to have a heartattack. So in twenty four hours on Monday flowing into Tuesday, John and I were at three hospitals, which if your curious as to how that happens at the farm, it means LOTS of driving. We drove to Gainesville. We drove to Atlanta. We drove to Athens. In 24 hours. Monday was almost an 24-hour awake day as we were at Gainesville until four in the morning. That is hard on a body that is almost 31 years old. I used to do it all the time without batting an eye, but it crushed me this week. I am still tired. Well, not so much today. I was tired until yesterday. Then all week was work until 7 or 730 pm. whew. I didn't think I was going to make it to Saturday. Turns out that all three people are sorta okay. Mama Jean is home. Nicky is home and has feeling back. My boss...well my boss is crazy so I don't know that he will ever be okay. Yes, he knows I think he's crazy. This is not news to anyone. I took my job knowing how crazy he was!

I am excited today because John and I have been invited to fireworks. Not just any fireworks, Lake Burton fireworks. I know that Lenox Mall thinks they have it going on with fireworks, but Lake Burton has twice as much money as Lenox and the only thing they spend it on is the fireworks which makes it spectacular. The keenest part is that you are on a boat in the middle of a lake surrounded by mountains. This means that when the cannons fire there is an echo. When the explosions blow, there is an echo. You kind of feel like you are in a steel drum and someone is banging on all sides of it at one time. It is so cool! I can't wait. I even have a new patriotic broach to wear for icing on the cake.

Here at the farm not much is going on. Mikey ate a frog. Swallowed it whole and it made him sick. Really sick. John says that the dogs get high off the skin of the frog kind of like cats and nip. I thought he was nuts. I gave Mikey a little pepto with some food to make him not so sick. Baby has twisted her front leg. It is not broken, just spraned. She has been pretty settled this week as opposed to chasing rabbits and coyotes. When the storm came up though they both ran in the mud room. John even let them stay in there over night they were so pitiful. We have a baby calf that has no mama. She has to be bottle fed which is very funny. She hollers at the top of her lungs when she sees us comin and then drains a bottle like a drunk under Cheshire Bridge. Then she just stands there like whew, didn't think yall were ever going to get here. She then says thank you and goes back to the herd. Funny animals.

Some will strut and some will fret see this an hour on the stage others will not but the'll sweat in their hopelessness in the rage we're all the same the men of anger and the women of the page....

Whew...my kitchen is CLEAN. Almost. There is still the whole concept of painting the thing and getting the stuff that is not ours out of it. Just getting the stuff that is not ours out of it will be a task for the weekend. I did take the leaf out of the table and took out four chairs which gave us more room than believable. Tonight I tackle the living room and then tomorrow I tackle the lake! Gosh the difference on the inside of me is always amazing to me when I clean up the outside of me. I feel productive and useful and like I am slowly getting back to being me.

The lake always amazes me. Did you know that rhodedendrums can only bloom at a certain temperature? It has to be cool...not cold and not hot, cool. The rhodedendrums are still in bloom up here on the lake. It has to do with the mornings being so cool and the shade of the mountains and the natural underbrush. I think they have and altitude requirement too, but I am not sure about that one. It is so cool in the mornings that I have to wear a sweat shirt to work so I look a bit ridiculous with shorts and a sweat shirt. But this afternoon it is going to be 91 and there is no way to get around it.

The other odd thing about the lake is that there are two kinds of people who are on the lake. The diner next door is such a good theatre for it. There are those who live and work here and then there are those who live in the houses on the lake here. The difference between the two is about 100 grand a year. At lunch around 1130, all the men come in. They are constuction of every sort. Generally they are related to the women who run the diner. They have specialties and all work on any number of homes on the lake. Then around 1230 come the lake people. They are in their matching clothes, sun bleached faces, clean shoes. They are totally different. They come from Atlanta, New York, Charleston, the Bahamas. Yes, we have one set from the Bahamas. They typically have children with them who are unruly and have to be told to take their feet out of the booth. They aren't related to anyone and mostly are hard to wait on because they have such expectations that are just not true for this family diner. For example, Nanny makes the bisquits and when they run out she is not making any more and your nuts for asking. Her children and those who are married to her children and their children and those who are married to them do not ask for a bisquit, they ask if there are any left. The lake people get frustrated because their whim is not met. Nanny is 73 and doesn't care. HA! So different.

I like it up here. It is familiar. Comfortable. Well until it is 91 degrees, but then there is a lake to jump into so who cares.

Being overwhelmed is so overwhelming. My house is in explosive mode. I think it would be easier to burn the thing down and start over than it would to get it staight. I forget what it takes to work a full time job, be a girl, be a girlfriend or rather these days a wife, AND keep a clean home. I used to do it when I worked for the City at my apartment, but since the wedding my whole life seems upside down. Now that I am back to a life of regularity, I have forgotten what it takes. My house isn't kinda sorta messy. It looks like it has been hit by a tornado of clothes. Yes, its that bad. There is no way I can handle it any more and I am overwhelmed as to where to start. I know that I will start somewhere though. Tonight will be a Dixie Chicks/Indigo Girls/Dave Matthews Sing-fest and cleaning tirade.

It is really exhausting being overwhelmed. Just writing about it makes me tired.

I woke fifteen minutes late this morning which was bad because I needed to leave fifteen minutes earlier than usual. I managed to get out of the door fast enough to get to the bank and leave downtown Cleveland on time to be on time to work. Then when I got to work I was fifteen minutes early.

How did I do that?

Mom says that she misses the blog. And since I haven't done this in a while, I am not sure this entry will be all that well thought out, but just the same, for Mom...

I was standing,
You were there,
Two worlds colliding,
And they could never tear us a part!

Yeah, so I have fallen in love with my husband again. The whole adjustment period is finally over. Thank goodness, I thought that someone would be in for it like the Sopranos. We are very good partners. We both are learning about communication in the home place which can be great fun. Often there are a lot of "what?'s" passed back and forth as we have trouble understanding. That can be frustrating. But the outcome is so worth the what. However he did hear me when I screamed SNAKE! There was no miscommunication that there was a HUGE BLACK SNAKE in the house. He got that one without a what. That's a good thing. It means that we definitely have some level of communication, which is good.

Strangely, we get along really well in the workplace too. Did I mention that we are working together now? We are. Luckily there are two office locations and he is mostly at the real estate office and I am in the bookkeeper office. (Did you know that bookkeeper has the most double letters, back to back, in one word?) But there are not all that many whats at the office. It is mostly, did you? Yes, did you? Not yet...easy stuff.

You'd think that I would have learned how to communicate with someone by now. I have been walking and talking since 9 months old. But talking to someone as a roommate, a lover and a partner...never crossed anyone like that before, but you'd think it wouldn't be all that different from talking to my girlfriends. Yeah, he totally doesn't understand me when I go into girlfriend language. He rolls his eyes whenever Sherry or Meg call. Like, whatever! It turns out that husbands speak their own language. Weird. But wonderful.