A Bit of a whine

Once again, time has gotten away from me. I have started to write something several times but have not been happy with the way it sounds or looks. This is ridiculous as it should be whatever it is. So, here goes again. Summary of these past few weeks: * Books, books, books and more books. Weeding, reading shelves, and inventory. With this comes sore hands...every blasted year. * Technology...Google applications for my use now and next year for teaching and website. I have more sites bookmarked than I could possibly ever use. Is there such a thing as a website hoarder? Maybe this is a new variant of the hoarder illness. Guess I'll have to Google it! :) * Home life...a mixed bag of happy and sad, as is life always. My happiest news of this period is that over Memorial Day weekend my son, who serves in the military, came back to these United States. I cannot possibly overstate how happy this makes me, just knowing that he is within driving distance. Even if it takes several days to do so. The saddest is that once again the person who has the ability to harm the most is at it again. Sometimes I feel that I made the worse decision of my life marrying this man, while simultaneously recognizing that he was not always this mercurial. And, what would life be like without the wonderful children that we share. Yin/yang. Good/bad. My mother always told me that life is ALWAYS about taking the good with the bad and vice-versa. They key, I suppose, is to try to shift that balance with more good than bad, yes? This is what I am striving for in life, and hopefully this is what I will eventually achieve. I am thankful to see more snippets of happiness than sadness. But, when such negativity is thrown at my children from one who should be loving and supportive, I just want to scream. But, all of my children are adults, and can more than cope with any vicissitudes (how many points for this word in Scrabble?) that come their way, with the support of each other and good friends and family. I know this, so I step back. If I am needed I will be asked, and this is as it should be. When I want to lash out at he who vexes, I step back from this too. Why waste any more energy? And really, what comes from anger? There is no satisfaction to be had there. Rather, I write this missive that you are kind enough to read. Back to the up side, I had a lot of fun this weekend. I began my DIY project of replacing my deck with TREX. Bought 4 boards last weekend (that stuff is expensive), and will do so again this weekend. A few at a time and it doesn't seem as painful. I wish I was better at this stuff, but there is a lot of satisfaction in the learning and in the doing. I also enjoyed time with my family and a mutual friend this weekend. Ate, drank, sang and danced. You can't beat that! I will continue to pray for the wisdom to move through all and focus on the uptick of goodness and happiness in my life -- the love of my family, the gratification of my work, the support of good friends, and hopefully the grace that continues to come with age. Thank you again for reading. p.s. As I was doing inventory today, with vertigo to beat the band (cannot wait to see the ENT tomorrow), I deleted 666 titles instead of inventorying them. A real WTF moment that any of you librarians out there will no doubt relate. Now to add them back...sigh.......