I Learned That I Was Crazy When She Caught Lice

**I wrote this and never posted it! Join me as we jump back to July.**

I was brushing her hair right up until the moment that my heart stopped.

"Is her hair moving? Why the hell is her hair moving? No freaking way is her hair moving" I find myself thinking as my brain is scrambling to wrap it's tiny little confused brain cells around any plausible explanation for what I am seeing.

Yep, something is moving alright, but it’s not her hair.

It’s a bug. Oh no wait….it’s not “a” bug, it’s "bug's."

Lice to be exact.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly feel as if you are the dirtiest person on the planet? No? Just me? Well let me tell you, I’ve had that week. The entire freaking week has left me walking around feeling as though I need to tent my house for extermination, take a bath in bleach, and send the children off to daycare inside of large Ziploc bags to protect them from other germy people.

First the Boy Child came home from daycare with a lovely case of hand, foot, and mouth disease. Next I realized that there was a mouse in my house and now I find myself sitting here staring at the head of my daughter....who apparently has lice. 

Wait….do I have lice too? Is my head itching? Yes, my head is definitely itching BECAUSE OF ALL THE LICE I MOST CERTAINLY HAVE.

I make a call to the daycare center that my children attend and the director barely finishes saying hello before I blurt out “Hi, you know how sometimes you call me and say things that I don’t want to hear, things like “hey your kid just threw up and you have to come and get them? Well….my turn. My kid has lice and I think she got it from another child at your center.”

Sure enough, they check and she is only one of about 7 little girls that are now growing their very own personal lice farms right on top of their teeny tiny heads.

Gag. Me. Now.

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to take a minute to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know from interacting with so many of you that the holidays can be rough on a lot of people. Society's portrayal of celebrations involving big families, lots of food, and material goods, can, as one person commented, "put a spotlight on your own shortcomings."

Just know that despite what you do or don't have this holiday, this particular celebration starts with thankfulness. This is your life, you are in control of what you look at, so when you feel like the spotlight is on what you don't have, shift it over to shine on what you do.

I'm choosing to spend this holiday holding what I have so close to my face that I will be unable to look past it and view what I don't have. If I choose to look at my blessings, I won't be able to see my disappointments.

If you will, do me a favor and list a couple of things things in the comment section that you are thankful for, maybe a blessing that hasn't always been so apparent to you.

When you belong to a community like this one, a wonderful group of sometimes hurting hearts, it helps to remind each other that even while we are hurting, we are still healing. That the blessings are there even when they aren't as obvious as we would like them to be.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

May the spotlight shine so brightly on your blessings today that you are blind to anything beyond their view.

Sun Photo Credit

I Broke Up With Him

I broke up with The Detective Whose Name I Do Not Like.

It sucks, I'm bummed, but I'm OK with it.

Here's the thing; He was great. No really, he was. I have absolutely no complaints about him whatsoever. Super sweet, thoughtful, good looking, responsible, etc, etc, etc, and yet I broke up with him anyways.

Ugh you guys, I know, I KNOW.

"Eden stop doing this to yourself!!"

Remember the uproar when my guy friend told me he wanted to be with me and I told him no?

I never regretted it.

I don't think I will regret this either.

Although I miss The Detective Whose Name I Do Not Like.

I miss him a lot.

But not enough.

Not enough to make me reconsider.

I Couldn't Leave You By Your Lonesome ALL Weekend!

It's No Work Weekend again and we've been busy over here!

Do you know what's better than sitting at home on a Friday night while drinking wine in your pajama's?

Sitting at home on a Friday night while drinking wine while in your pajama's with your friends.

Like my monkey feet?

It's even better when they bring snacks and wine.

But anyways, just because I'm over here partying circa high school style doesn't mean I'm going to leave you without at least a couple of things to read while you are snuggled up on your own couch.

(Just click the links, which are the highlighted words, and you will be taken to an article I wrote elsewhere this week).

I May Or May Not Have Accidentally Stolen Something Kinda Large

So…..I accidentally stole something kind of large recently.

I swear it was accidental.

Here let me explain. Remember the dishwasher that when bought, just happen to come with a date from the appliance guy who we referred to as Piano Man? Well if you remember him then you must remember how fabulously things ended with him; in a screaming match on the phone while he called me a bitch and I hung up on him.

That was pleasant.

Well low and behold not two days after that did my brand spanking new dishwasher stop working. Of course that would happen, OF COURSE IT WOULD.

Well I’m not about to let a little boy drama get in between me and what I consider to be a very necessary appliance, so I didn’t waste any time contacting the store.

But, let’s just say that Piano Man must have spread the word about what a bitch I was because the response I got was less than friendly.

Basically they didn’t care.

Yea, that’s not really gonna fly with me. 

I called the corporate headquarters, explained that the dishwasher wasn’t working, that the manager refused to replace it, and they got the store manager on the phone with us in a three way call. Only after the corporate office representative gave the manager a passive aggressive reminder of their company policy did the he agree to send a technician out to look at it.

A few days later a representative, not from the store but from the dishwasher manufacturer, showed up, took a look at it, and without doing so much as opening and closing the door, deemed it broken and unfixable.

It Only Hurts Because I'm Too Good For You

My daughter started seeing the grief counselor at school three weeks ago. She goes once a week and they talk about loss. After her first appointment I asked her what she talked about and she said "the lady asked me to tell her something sad that happened to me. I told her that we had a daddy but he left because he didn't want us anymore."

Devastation.

My heart breaks for her. I was hoping that because she was so young when everything happened that maybe she would have an easier time adjusting, but that hasn't proved to be the case.

When my ex first left I got her into counseling immediately. She seemed so non effected by all the changes that I was worried that maybe she just wasn't able to express how she was feeling. The counselor worked with her for several weeks in a play therapy setting and eventually discharged her with the statement that she was "extremely bright and well adjusted."

I gave myself a little pat on the back, sent up a little "thank you" to the sky, and went about my merry way.

Now though, she is older. Along with her age appropriate inclination to question everything I tell her, her developing brain and natural curiosity are bringing to the surface a sudden need to question why her dad left us.

I don't even know why her dad left us.

I mean I understand logically why he did, but I just can't get my momma heart to understand how he would leave his own children.

Her dad is gone and not only can I not fix that, there are no justifiable reasons to explain why he left her. Every explanation I give her, every reason I try to explain to her, is washed away by her feelings of grief and the very real absence of her father's presence.

Easy Bake Pancake Muffins

Winter is coming.

Ugh, I hate winter.

I live in the wrong state.

My friends are all "yay! Winter!! Yay!! We can stop working out, eat brownies, and wear big sweaters!! Yay winter!!" and I'm all "I still have to stand in front of a group of women several times a week in my underwear. Screw winter."

With that being said, winter is upon us and I feel myself slipping into the baking and cooking frenzy that seems to accompany fall in this household. By the time I get the kids home at night, lug everyone in, peel off 3 layers of slush covered winter wear, and turn the heat on that I turned off when I left for work that morning, the last thing I want to do is make dinner.

But....we are all most likely frozen from the inside out and starving; thus enters the cooking frenzy of fall.

As a single working mom I simply do not have time to make three meals a day. Combined with the fact that my financial situation doesn't allow for much wiggle room in the food-budget department, I really need to plan ahead. What this means is that I usually designate a couple hours in the beginning of the month to making meals in bulk and then freezing them. Last week I made 6 pounds of chili. SIX POUNDS of chili you guys.

I then split it up into family sized servings and froze it. After that I made four pounds of taco meat and ten pounds of baked sweet potato cinnamon bites. None of the meals took me longer than twenty minutes to prep and when everything was done cooking, I had quite a bit of food ready to pull out of the freezer as needed.