Disconnected

Slowly I am reconnecting. I expect by this weekend I should be completely plugged back in.

AB and I finished watching The Alaska Experiment that we had Tivo'd the other night. A Discovery channel series where four groups of people were dropped off in different locales with the "bare minimum" of supplies and had to survive for three months. (AB - being somewhat of a survival buff - is sure they would never take us, he keeps telling me this... though I think he is more telling himself this.) We finally finished the series and watched the reunion show the other night. Our favorite group of people, Jeff and Elizabeth, talked about how "disconnected" they felt upon returning to society and to their jobs after three months of interacting basically only with each other and the wild.

Disconnected.

The word resonated with me. Though I only spent about 9 days on vacation and it wasn't as secluded in Alaska and I most certainly had "cabin fever" brought on by too many people in a small place as opposed to traditional cabin fever, "disconnected" still struck me as the word I have been looking for to describe my return from our vacation. I got back from Alaska and felt a strange sense of loneliness, a touch despondent I think, as well as quiet and contemplative.

The day after we got back I couldn't even bring me to check my personal e-mail. I wanted to just hole up with my family and not go anywhere. Absorb myself in them and in our home. Relish OUR quiet home.

I immediately got back and absorbed myself in the details of my work. Often ignoring personal e-mails that didn't require immediate attention. I even reconnected with a friend of mine from high school, one of my closest friends during that time, and couldn't even bring myself to e-mail him back. I still haven't. All week I felt quiet, but couldn't really pinpoint it.

I am not a depressed person, never have been. And actually I tend to be quite even-keeled, if anything, not enough highs and lows to my personality according to my personality style.

It was probably one of my most productive weeks actually. I had little desire to interact with people and pretty much just plowed through work. A few times I felt as though I should apologize to people for being a huge grump. Because I did feel like a huge grump.

I am still feeling a touch disconnected, but I think I am starting to pinpoint the root cause.

I love Alaska. I really, really do. AB loves Alaska.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to live there.

I am curious what will happen when we go to Colorado in November?

Are we really just being hit over the heads with a big sign?

If only I had the time...

One aspect of being a SAHM that I seriously covet is having the ability and time to devote to one's creative side. I don't kid myself into thinking that SAHMs have a whole lot more extra time on their hands than I do... but they are usually more often in an environment that allows for creativity, even if it is in little spurts. Me? When I am at work, I am working far away from my sewing machine.

What really has impressed me in the recent years is seeing creative moms out there, some that I know, take their art to the next level and are not only CEOs of their homes, but CEOs for their own small businesses. And very often... doing the things they love.

Many of the women I know who made the decision to stay home, didn't envision starting their own small businesses - or at least I don't remember this as their goals. Many just happened into it with their niche and have found an audience in the internet. And then there are the ones who just flat out amaze me... the moms who actually have a day job, even a part time day job, and still find time to run a business on the side.

My niche... if I had time would be sewing cute kids clothes. I would buy the cutest fabric and sew adorable clothing and sell it online for a small fortune. My time, after all, is immensely valuable. Something kind of like what my online friend's daughter did here... I covet the clothes she makes, though our dual income still isn't in that bracket that affords me to do my shopping there. I just window shop.

My mom (my partner in sewing crime) is coming out in a few weeks and I have presented her with a challenge. To help me make Skadi the cutest Summer outfit *ever* out of this adorable lemon fabric I bought last summer (and intended on making the cutest outfit ever out of). See I needed her... she is a great seamstress, having made most of my sister's and my clothes from kindergarten through about 3rd grade. But I needed her to do the dirty job of going to the fabric store and picking out a pattern.

Thus insuring I don't drain our savings buying cute patterns and fabric for things I will never sew.

Another small business owner I am jealous of is my sister-in-law. This is my sister-in-laws business in Colorado. Photography... oh yes, I could be a photographer too. Oh wait, no I probably couldn't since my photos never turn out as cute as Angie's. I get one in 50 on a good day. And one in 50 doesn't make a successful photo shoot. But Angie rocks. (My nieces and nephews are in there... aren't they cute? She IS photographing my kids next time we are in Colorado.)

Then there is my friend Kacey. Kacey is married to AB's best friend, JB. Kacey is amazingly talented with her jewelry making as can be seen on her website, Subsixstudios. I just bought some earrings from there and I love them. Not only with jewelry, but I think Kacey has a great style and I am looking forward to her Oddments additions. Oh and she sells Barefoot Books too! On top of working part time, making jewelry, selling books and raising two boys, she is one busy girl!

And related to my addiction with shoes and clothes for my daughter... well she has to have bows for her hair! Enter AK... who fulfills all my needs to have cute bows for my daughter's hair.



I looked at the Children's Place website today and noted that they had bobbledy hair clips too, for $2 a pair. But you know what? I would rather buy handmade and support a mom in her craft. So my daughter sports Hip Clips... when she doesn't yank them out of her hair and stuff them in her mouth...

Yes, I do have my blogging... both here and with the newspaper. And I love that gig. (And once I get the mess of domain hosting and my site designed how I want, I will take that to the next level and maybe be the next Pioneer Woman... ha ha ha.)

So in between my dreams of being a writer / seamstress / landscape architect / chef / photographer / counted cross stitcher, I will toil away in my office being a scientist. My childhood dream. Not many people are lucky enough to get to say they are doing what they dreamed they would do as a kid. Of course it is just a touch different then I dreamt it would be as a kid (Curious George's Professor Wiseman meets Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters).

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A really cool career!

If I just had a little free time... oh yeah, I am going to fill the upcoming half hour of free time with the gym in a couple months. A little more free time beyond that... which would I choose?

AB keeps telling me we just have to win the lottery... which in order to win, I suppose we would have to play.

My only regret in life is going to be not had enough time to try everything I want to do.

Top Chef returns Wednesday!

Anyone else notice TV sucks lately?

So supposidly the writer's strike is over now, but things won't return to "normal" until next season.

Honestly, it has been good for us. AB gets up and leaves for work by 5:30am, which he reminds me was "really" 4:30am Monday morning post-springing forward. Consequentially he is going to bed by 9pm most every night. He used to stay up much later than me on a daily basis. Now I have four (sometimes five) nights a week where the cat and I are the ones wandering the house togeether while everyone else sleeps.

I get home from work about 5:35pm with both kids. We get everything carried in and I get a Curious George episode started for Leif while I start dinner. AB usually wanders in a few minutes before 6pm. We juggle Skadi back and forth while finishing dinner prep and aim to have dinner for us all on the table by 6:15-6:30pm.

Many days we all have the same thing. There are plenty of other days where neither AB nor I are up for the whining about our choice in food (last night Leif told AB that the filet mignon was "yucky"...) and we put chicken nuggets, carrots or green beans and a pile of ketchup in front of the kids. Skadi thinks it is the coolest thing in the world to have her own chicken nugget. (She ate the filet like a champ though, truth be told there isn't much she won't eat... in fact, I can't think of anything so far. Even the asparagus, she shook her head and made a face with each bite, but kept right on eating.)

Ok, so I started talking about TV now didn't I.

After dinner we have a little time for play. Leif likes to play Cariboo during this time. The problem is Skadi does too. Sometimes we set the train up, or just play with random things in his room. Bathtub for the kids, bedtime for Skadi, snack for Leif, brush Leif's teeth and then his storytime.

One of us does stories while the other starts the evening chores. Clean up the dinner mess, make lunches for the next day, get bottles ready, make our stacks of things that get hauled to the car or carried to the Vanpool tomorrow.

On a good day we are both finished by 8:45pm. Sometimes it is more like 9:15pm.

TV? Many nights a week it doesn't even get turned on. That's not to say that our TV isn't working for us. Our little Tivo box is busy recording stuff ensuring we never need to make a trip to the local Blockbuster.

Right now we have 12 episodes of InTreatment, three episodes of Big Brother, five episodes of Smashlab, two episodes of Mythbusters, and Bernard and Doris (an HBO special movie that looked good to me - not to AB) in addition to many, many episodes of Curious George (you never know which one Leif is going to ask for). The one we always get to watch on Thursday night is Survivor, because you can't come into work without having seen Survivor the night before. The likelihood of it being completely ruined for you is too great.

Turmoil is about to hit our Tivo routine however. Top Chef returns on Wednesday.

AB and I are major Top Chef fans who have watched since the first episode. It is the one thing we both are likely to sneak and watch by ourselves when the other isn't available knowing full well we can't divulge any details and will likely have to watch a second time with the other. AND we are completely fine with that.

AB has given up on InTreatment, so I should be able to start plowing through those making room for Top Chef. He also doesn't succumb to the dregs of TV programming known as Big Brother... it's mine too.

I am anxiously awaiting Big Love which is rumored to be returning later this summer, AB won't admit that he is too, but he is.

However, AB just might be counting the days until Burn Notice returns. I am pretty sure he is.