Inspired by my friend, Amalita I’ve decided to focus my internet energy on something positive for me. Sort of like an internet do-it-myself spa.

I’m going to be over here for a while.

If it’s boring, don’t worry about feeling obligated to follow me there. It’s just something I need to do right now. If anybody wants to join me, that would be fun, too.

I hope all is well with you and your loves.

I’m feeling self-indulgently hopeful. Something is in the air here. Do you feel it, too?

I know I should be thinking about Barack’s transition team, but honestly? The thing that has been foremost in my mind is Michelle’s red dress.

You wouldn’t know this from the artwork on this blog, but classically modern art is my fave. Despite the flak she got from her election night dress, I’m digging the classically modern designers she’s been using.

She’s probably a few inches taller than me, but generally Michelle Obama’s figure is similar to mine - small, high waist and full hips.

That red dress looks fabulous on her.

This is going to be fun.

I didn’t realize how dreary that last post was until I read all of your comments.

But then I guess if I had taken the time to re-read what I wrote I would have gotten clued in at that first sentence: “Oooooh, I am so exhausted.”

A week before that post I was actually writing funny posts in my head. In fact, I was cracking myself up. I was on such a funny roll that I noted to myself that I must be getting a decent amount of sleep again. I was even making my kids laugh again. My ego was boosted. I was on such a high I was close to signing up for NaNoWriMo. (Now THAT’s funny.)

And then everyone, including the baby, caught colds. A week later, I had that tight, heavy feeling under my eyes again and I couldn’t remember a single funny thing that I had been planning to write about. Not a thing.

I DID remember that I had been writing a post about coyotes in my head. It was a thoughtful post about the pack of coyotes right up in the hill in the back of my house. There was an entertaining episode in this hypothetical post about Rachel’s nightmare which had me chasing one of the coyotes around our backyard with a big red toy. But it wasn’t a really funny post. It was more of a reflective post on how my angst about my backyard reflects greater anxieties I’m struggling. No, not funny at all. Bleh. I don’t know why I’m talking like that post even exists.

What I did manage to write was that political post, which honestly DID make me feel much better, even though I thought it wouldn’t. And of course, i wrote that last post about my frenzied, “oy”-filled week of Halloween and birthday preparing.

Honestly, though, even though I can’t gather enough sleep to find the funny or even to stop noticing the spit-up splotches on the carpet every time I walk up the stairs, my life is so delightfully full that it frightens me.

To think that I ever could have thought twice about trying for this guy.

He is the easiest, most juicy baby, just oozing with well, um, happy babyness.

And I just spent the day with the most pleasant, newly minted five-year old. She was home from school with a cold, but somehow cheerfully managed to initiate and carry deep conversations with me that I promised to myself I would remember because they were just so perfect, but of course I forgot most of. I know that the morning started out with her suggesting that I homeschool her for the day, and later she carried out a long interview with me that started with the question “How well do you know the world.” An hour later, she was still throwing questions across the room like, “Have you been to Antarctica?” “How about Arizona?” And there were more question that were even better. And I thought, you have been so ready to be five for so long, haven’t you?

And then we walked into Trader Joe’s together, coming in from the parking lot in the rain. I was carrying the baby in one arm and holding Hannah’s hand with my other free hand and I looked down at her wearing her pink kitty rain coat and realized how little she still was.

And then I breathed in the fresh rain air and realized that this was a day that I want to remember even more than the election tomorrow.

As I said before, my life is so full that it frightens me. When my girls were babies maybe I checked to see if they were breathing once or twice. Now I get a sudden impulse to check the crib at least twice a week.

And then there is tomorrow and the vote. That hope is so full that it frightens me, too. Too much happy to imagine. But I want it anyway. I guess I’m a woman that wants it all-all the happy-for me and for my grandkids. Yeah, I’m drinking the cool-aid. Sue me. And while you do that I’ll be checking to see if I’m still breathing….and wondering when I’ll find time to take the carpet cleaner to those stairs. But not tomorrow. I’m taking tomorrow off. Gotta drink some cool-aid. There’s some for you, too, if you want it. Win or lose.