Mmm...that's good cheese

A couple of weeks ago I bought one of those refrigerator magnets that say things. I was never one to boast a magnet or a car decal that advertised my state of mind, other than the name of a band I liked or (in the case of refrigerator magnets) a place I'd been. And the places I've been haven't been too exciting. People don't pass by a refrigerator magnet that says "Biloxi Beach" and say "You've been there too?! Well, goddamn!" Once, I had a sticker on the back of my car that was a silhouette of Bill the Cat from Bloom County. There he was, tongue hanging out of his mouth like Gene Simmons, with his tagline next to his head, "Ack!" That pretty much summed up my state of mind at 18.

So now I've got this refigerator magnet. I saw it at Barnes and Noble and when I read the first few words I thought, "This would be good to read when I get up in the morning. It's cheesy, but I could stand some cheese in my brain food diet." Here is what it says, "Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life keep peace within your soul." It's helped. It helped this morning in fact when I was getting the kids ready for school and there was, well, a lot of noisy confusion. It's the "be gentle with yourself" part that helps me, really. It's so easy for me to beat myself up for not doing a perfect job in the mornings of getting everybody out the door.

I've got some good news. I got a technical writing job! It's like a real full-time writing gig that I can support myself on! This is a first, people!

I'll write about it some more later. My timer is about to go off. Yes, I set a timer for this blog. It was hard to wipe the dust off of this thing and start writing again. The last few months have been really hard and painful. There have been good times, though, and Chris and I are getting along. That's the important thing. I've resolved not to write much about our breakup out of respect for Chris, my kids, and my in-laws. There will be no rants or anything like that. I'll write about how the kids are doing though. They're having a rough adjustment, as expected, but they are still their wonderful little selves. We're falling into a new routine, which helps. Claire starts guitar lessons on Wednesday, Christopher's gonna start basketball in a couple of weeks, and I found art lessons for Emma.

I will leave you with an Emma quote for the day. It's taken out of context, but even put back into context it's still just as whacky: I learned the hard way not to fall asleep on a lamp.