My Brain Is Fried, How's Yours?

Um, hi? Anyone still here?

Oh, what the heck, I can just talk to myself - no reason not to.

People, working with words 40 hours a week is exhausting. Oh, not steelworker or coal miner exhausting, but mentally - just wow. Each evening I'd think about sitting down and writing something here, and I just could not work up the energy. My brain, it is tapped out.

But, hey, new neural synapses are forming, I'm sure, so I guess neglecting my blog to stave off Alzheimers is a good trade, no?

Or maybe not. I love this place of mine on the Internet: not crowded, sort of cozy, and full of memories that I wouldn't have retained otherwise. I'm not ready to leave it just yet, even if my brain feels as though it is short-circuiting and giving off smoke by the end of the day.

Let's have some cookies while we catch up, shall we?

So, a quick sort of review here:

1. I've finally gotten to the place where I don't feel as though I have a gaping hole in my gum anymore. Yippee! It's more of a shallow depression now, which I can definitely live with.

2. I had a birthday! One a year, whether I need it or not, that's my motto. I turned 56, which is definitely the downhill side toward 60, but that makes no sense, because I'm not a day over, oh, I don't know...48? I'd feel younger, but I still have 3 teenagers. They make sure to keep reminding me what a dinosaur I am.

On the bright side, though, they'll fix anything I ask them to on the computer or on my phone, just so they don't have to watch me struggle to figure things out myself. I guess it hurts their little Gen Z'er sensibilities to see me shaking my phone like an Etch-a-Sketch. Or smacking the printer to make it work.

Birthday Blueberry Buckle - when you're too old for candles

3. In the past month or so, I've had 3 (count them, 3!) flat tires. The second time, I was picking up Brian at the train station when I noticed my steering was wonky. It was 2 days before our beach trip, so I spent the whole way back to the house wrestling the steering wheel and wondering if I could get the car fixed before we headed off on vacation. Hmm, I thought, it must be the power steering, or maybe the steering column assembly...

I like how listening to Car Talk for 20 years makes me think I can diagnose cars.

So I finally got home and realized that it was just a flat tire, which was really good news after calculating a $600 car repair, right? But picture Larry, sitting at home happily ignorant of any car trouble, until his wife (that would be me) comes sailing into the house announcing gleefully, "I have another flat tire! Isn't that great?!"

Trust me, the look on his face was priceless.

4. We've had a big change in our family since last we talked. Those of you (any of you?) who remember that eventful day when we finally bought ourselves a working toaster may even feel a little wistful to learn that it has gone to that big appliance store in the sky. You see, lately, every time we toasted something, a smell of burning plastic would permeate the house, so we figured it was time to bid farewell to the gadget that won my children's hearts on that trip to Kohls, 10 seemingly short years ago.

Yeah, I cried a little, I'll admit it. And this time, shopping for a toaster was different, more mundane - I didn't have 4 kids, aged 12 and under, in the store with me, excitedly checking out all the bells and whistles on the toasters and essentially acting as though I were buying them a puppy. No, this time I merely looked up some models online and then went with Rachel to Best Buy, where she used my debit card and her employee discount to pick up a beautiful - but somehow less meaningful - toasting appliance.

New family member - cute, but no real relationship yet

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, is what I'm saying.


4. I'm exhausted. Words cannot express how tired I am of deciding where to put commas. Maybe I'll just ban commas from this blog. I'm the captain now.

5. There was a beach trip. We ate ice cream and pie and went to the beach every day and I didn't get into a car for an entire week. It was glorious. Except I took my computer and worked quite a bit while I was there, because I need to save up some leave for later this year. That part wasn't fun, but I made up for it by eating more pie.

Have I mentioned the pie?

Here, have a picture of a sunset over the bay - it's free:

Oh, and Susie and I found the mother lode of all the cutesy beach house signs! For the record, the house we stayed in this year instructed us to Find Joy in the Journey and to Bee Yourself. 

Apparently, every beach house is required to have at least 3 of these, at least in NJ, anyway. Maybe it's an idiosyncrasy of that particular state, like not being allowed to pump your own gas.

So much more to share, but I'm typed out...g'night, all!