I’ve seen a lot of really shitty stuff happen to people around me in my life time.  And some shitty things have happened to me, too.  But overall, I think my life has been pretty hitch-free.

But during every crappy situation I’ve had to witness people go through, and the ones I’ve lived through myself, there’s something that I see others doing that infuriates me.

Friends flake when the shit hits the fan.  Of course not everyone flakes out, but you know what I’m talking about.  There’s the emotionally distant friend who can’t mentally handle what you’re going through.  There’s the friend who acts like nothings different, and then you don’t hear from them after awhile when you just aren’t the same person for the time being.  There’s the friend who lashes out when you’re going through something hard to handle.  You know, the one who makes you feel bad for feeling bad.

I understand the emotionally distant friend.  Sometimes situations in the real world are really difficult to handle for people who haven’t been forced to deal with super-shitty life moments.  I understand the friend who feels you have nothing in common or can’t see eye to eye because that person wants to go party and do things exactly like before, and for whatever reason, your life is different because of whatever it was you had to deal with.  It may take a really long time for you to be “back to normal” or in a state of mind to just let loose and party, especially if you’ve lost a sibling, or parent, or close friend.

What I don’t understand, and get infuriated when I think about it, are the “friends” who flake out and attack the person who’s having a hard time.

I’ve thought long and hard about this behavior.  In high school, my BFFs father died unexpectedly.  The man was like a second father, her home a second home, and one day he dies.  I was able to keep my shit together for my friend for awhile, but one day I just couldn’t do it, and my boyfriend of time was no help, and told me I just needed to get over it.  When push came to shove, the jerk couldn’t handle the real world (and probably still can’t) and he hurt me deeply.  So, I’ve considered this type of behavior for awhile now.  10-ish years or so.

I think it all boils down to guilt.

If your friend can’t deal with emotions, or death, or whatever it is, they begin to feel guilty.  Then, once the guilt sits in that someone is having a hard time and they’re being a little shit about it, they become angry with themselves. But these are the types of people who think they can do no wrong and view the anger as your fault, because you made them feel bad in the first place.  So they lash out, and tell you to “get over it”, and that you’re not a good friend because you’re bringing them down all the time.

Heads up peeps.  Life isn’t all pink daisies and peppermint mochas and disney movies.  Sometimes life is all about stinging nettles, ipecac, and dark dramas.

Because I enjoy knowing what kind of “beauty” products actually work, I’m going to list the current things I’m loving:

1. Boots Botanics Clay Mask – Need a zit to go away?  This stuff is amazing.  I don’t know how it works, but I know that it lessens the time a zit hangs around.
2. Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner in Bourbon – These liners go on very smoothly, and stay for a long time.  This color brown is  perfect, in my opinion.
3. The Body Shop Tea Tree Gel Face Cleanser – Excellent cleanser for oily skin. Gets rid of the oils but doesn’t strip the moisture.
4. The Body Shop Chamomile Eye Makeup Remover – Nice eye makeup remover.  It’s super gentle if gotten in the eyes (oops), and moisturizing to the whole eye area.
5. MAC eyeshadow in Mulch –  I love this brown.  I’ve been really loving browns lately.

10 years ago today, I found my soulmate.

I used to hate that term.  HATE it. But then one day I realized that I actually had a soul mate.  That person that seriously made my life better, whole, complete, amazing…

So, here’s the proof.

I apologize ahead of time for the cryptic nature of this post.

Since January I’ve been facing some moral dilemmas in my life.  A situation developed within some family and things that I didn’t believe had grey areas suddenly NEEDED grey areas.

It’s hard to believe something to be strictly “black and white” and then suddenly, out of preservation and support for people that you love, you have to reconcile the amalgamation of black and white and accept the grey.

That was harder for me than I ever could have imagined.  It took weeks for me to be able to accept “grey” instead of “black”, and it has since become easier.  But I have a feeling that if I had different ideas of “morality”, this wouldn’t have been something I was able to work through.

Well, today that situation sort of ends.  Well, it starts a new book, I suppose.  And Chris is with his family while they deal with something ridiculous and heartbreaking.  And I couldn’t make myself go.  I just couldn’t.

And now I feel guilty and a failure as a wife, friend, sister and daughter in law.

But was there anything to be gained by me being there?  Who knows, but what I know is that my selfishness has left Chris there without me.  Blah.

Every Friday during the Cure, participants will receive an email from AT giving you info on the next week’s assignments.

To be frank about it, I haven’t really sat down at my computer in days, and just now got around to checking emails from days ago.  This week was just plain exhausting.

So, this week’s assignment is to go through all of the stuff in my kitchen and make three piles:

1. stuff we use regularly
2. stuff we use occassionally
3. stuff we don’t use/forgot we even had

We don’t have that much stuff in our kitchen.  But we have enough to make things feel cramped, so this week I’m going to work on that.  I hope that this feels liberating and not really like a horrible chore.

Y’all, my weekly Kitchen Cure assignment is almost finished.  All that’s left is going through the tea that I have and deciding what I need to do with the stuff I don’t like, or won’t drink.

It’s an accomplishment, if a small one.

The weather today is freaking amazing.  I feel so much better about myself, life, and my moods are always elevated when there’s blue sky and sunshine.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the occasional overcast day, but the sunshine, and the perfect temperature, it all just makes me happier.

But since the warmth has broken here, the crazies keep coming out of the woodwork and into my SBUX.  I’m happy my store is doing well, making a profit, despite recent economic hardships, but crazy effing busy when we’re just not prepared is a bit much.  I mean, really, you people didn’t want a freaking coffee or latte last week, and now you’re all about it?

It makes a barista feel used.

I Belong to You by Muse

When these pillars get pulled down,
It will be you who wears the crown,
And I’ll owe everything to you

How much pain has quaked your soul?
How much love would make you whole?
You’re my guiding lightning strike

I can’t find the words to say,
They’re overdue,
I’ve traveled half the world to say,
I belong to you

And she attacks me like a Leo,
When my heart is split like Rio,
And I assure you my debts are real

I can’t find the words to say,
When I’m confused,
I travelled half the world to say,
You are my muse

Ah! réponds, réponds à ma tendresse,
Verse-moi, verse-moi l’ivresse,
Réponds à ma tendresse,
Réponds à ma tendresse,
Ah, verse-moi l’ivresse,

Verse-moi, verse-moi l’ivresse
Réponds à ma tendresse!
Réponds à ma tendresse!
Ah! verse-moi l’ivresse

I belong,
I belong,
To you alone

I can’t find the words to say,
They’re overdue,
I’ve traveled half the world to say,
I belong to you

Today I begin my Kitchen Cure.  AT encourages sharing of pictures of befores and afters and progress, but I’m not sure I’m ready to bare my kitchen cabinets to the world.  Call me crazy.

So, instead of actually beginning the cure, I’m blogging, of course.  Any sort of cleaning project just makes me anxious.  I feel overwhelmed just thinking about organizing something because I never know where things should be and how they should go, and I’m not very good at making things look pretty on display.  Things just look like “stuff on a shelf” when I look at them.  Maybe I’m overly critical?  Or maybe I do really just suck at making things look pretty.  I want my things to look pretty, and I think we have lots of pretty things that ought to be out where people can see them.

Anyway, we’ll see.  Today I will be looking at every piece of food in the pantry and fridge and freezer, and deciding if I need to keep them or not.  Then, after purging, I’ll be wiping every piece down, and then putting it back. That sounds like way more intimacy with my condiments than I ever anticipated.

How would you feel if you had to give up your baby to Hades?

Holy cow, how is it 3:30 already?  Where did my day go?  Oh yeah, researching things on the internet, doing laundry, baking, spraying for bugs, debating straightening the house, looking at new bedding for the bedroom, and curtains, and how to create a nice frame spread on a wall…

Not a bad day off, if I do say so myself.

Also, today starts week 1 of Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchen Cure .  I need this.  Not even kidding.  It’s not that the kitchen is a mess, it’s just not easy for me to organize, and it’s driving poor Chris insane.

Have I mentioned before that I’m a messy and he’s not?  No?  Well, basically, if you were to look at Chris’ desk, everything is nicely lined up in perpendicular lines and right angles, and if you look at my desk, it’s sort of covered with a sewing machine, yarn and various piles of other things.  Have I mentioned before that if there’s one thing in our marriage that causes any sort of argument or problem, it’s my cluttered-ness?  No?  Well, there you go.

I don’t even know where it came from.  It’s just something that I never really could do.  It’s like there’s a mental block or something that just keeps me from being able to successfully clean something. Perhaps it’s a sickness, and even if it isn’t, it’s a plague on our house.

So thank you, Apartment Therapy, for doing the kitchen cure, so that I won’t kill my husband with my plague.