UGH.

Oh.  My.  Gawd.  I feel like I've been trampled by a gang of Mexican tortillas.  And, when they got to my head, they JUMPED up and down on it and sprayed . . . damn, I can't even THINK yet . . . ummm . . . that red stuff.  Oh, HONESTLY, I just had to get up and look at the bottle:  Tabasco sauce!  Anyway, they sprayed Tabasco sauce into my head.  Via my ears?  I dunno.  Whatever.  I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

I went to bed last night with fantastic ideas of getting up early this morning and ATTACKING the day - getting the oodles of things done that I want.  Then, the phone jangled me awake - just a couple of minutes ago!  I was in suuuuuuuuuch a deep sleep that it, LITERALLY, took everything I had to crawl across the bed to squint at the caller ID.  A local number, but an unknown one.  I let it go and collapsed back onto my pillow.  UGH.  (Oh, right I already said that.)

I don't even have the excuse of a strong cocktail before bedtime to make me feel like this.  Nope, I had (are you ready?) . . . Sprite.  Yeah, I know:  ooooooh.

I'm trying hard to prevent myself from slipping into full panic mode regarding next Saturday's open house and sale at Chicken Mama Designs, and, while I need both today and tomorrow, I probably also need a break.  To take the break and hope that it makes me more effective in the upcoming days or to soldier on through and just work, work, work?  That is the question.  But, My Girl and I are overdue for an overnight, so she is staying the night tonight, and I wanted to get several things done before I brought her home.

I wanted to get the dishes done and the sink cleaned.  Got the dishes done last night, but that meant that I didn't go to bed until 1:00 AM.  And, I had to MAKE myself do that 'cause my audio book was at such a good spot that I didn't want to turn it off!  I needed to clean the downstairs toilet.  (The cleaning solution is soaking now.)  I wanted to shovel the front path.  (She's just gonna have to deal with that.)  I wanted to clean up the sunroom a little which is where she likes to sleep, on the hanging bed.  I'll probably still do that, super quick.  I wanted to vacuum the carpets.  Not gonna get done.  Blah, blah, blah.

Today, I'm hoping to get down to the wilderness supply store to see the ex:  he's playing Santa!  I'm hoping to meet up with two girlfriends for an overdue cocktail in the late afternoon (one lives in St. Paul and is returning tomorrow).  I HAVE to stop on my way into town at the local art festival which I've always been a part of (and still do the website design and some advertising for, pro bono) . . . until this year when I've been trying to get my own business going.  I don't feel like I can let my friends down by not stopping.  On the up side, I'll probably get some Christmas shopping done while I'm there.  I'll need to remember to focus on THAT rather than, "Dang, I can't stay here any longer!  I've GOT to get going!"  AND, in the midst of all of that and the shorter day at work it will be (since I'm taking the time for the overnight with My Girl), I want to finalize the 2011 calendar I'll be selling at next week's sale.  No, I HAVE to finalize the last changes, otherwise I WON'T have it in time for the sale.  Aaaaaghhhhh!  Sorry, I'm complaining.  And, what's my new rule?  If I must complain, limit it to only those things I cannot change.  And, granted, I can change all of these self-imposed "must-do"s.

I guess my excuse for writing about all of this is that it serves to both let you, my friends, know what I'm doing right now and why my blogging might be a little limited . . . and that this will be a journal that I can look back on in years to come and either say, "Seeeeeee?  The open house and sale was just fine!  You shouldn't have stressed so much!"  Or, "Hey, hardly anyone showed up.  Your stress wasn't worth it!"

So, thanks for listening to me complain!  I guess I just needed to get that out of my system.  Annnnd, the double bonus is that my body is finally coming alive in the time I've given myself here with you, and I almost feel like a normal human just waking up!

Lastly:  let's all try to figure out the meanings in the dream I was in when the phone woke me up.  Here goes.  I was dreaming about the boy I had a HUGE crush on but never dated in high school (he's happily married, thank you very much).  He was a farmer (not in real life, in my dream), and so I was sending SOME sort of crop through a machine that ground it up.  There were two big farm families working (his and the one I was with), and my dad (?!) was giving me plastic and metal tools (or some such thing) at the end of the day to send through the grinder, too.  I asked him, "Won't that be bad for the machine?!"  He said I just needed to be careful of any sharp metal shards that might be thrown out of it when it got to the metal in the parts.  I knew that, the next day, I had to take the machine down the road to the boy's family's farm and do the same job, but I was nervous about picking the right farm and not embarrassing myself in front of the boy.

Fast forward to the part of the dream I was having when I was awoken.  Now we were in a house with my farm family.  It was made up of a huge number of women from Bundle of Joy's family (a very religious and conservative bunch) and the sons of the couple who had become the ex's and my "adopted parents" when we lived down by the lake.  Now, though, I was straining home-brewed beer through cheesecloth and Kleenex (the Kleenex didn't hold up very well, imagine that!) on a indoor picnic table.  BUT, I wasn't wearing a shirt OR a bra!  The women weren't saying anything, but they obviously disapproved (again, imagine that!).  Finally, realizing that the guys were focusing a bit too much on ME instead of the straining-beer-project at hand, I decided to go find a shirt to put on.  The women all followed me into the bedroom(s) and, there, started giving me what-for for being so improper.  Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Just help me find a shirt.  There were ROOMS and ROOMS of clothes, and everyone was helping me, but I couldn't find ANYTHING that would work (too formal or too small).  If the top fit elsewhere, it wouldn't fit over my big tummy.  When I expressed that, the women started talking about how, yes, they overheard the men talking about my breasts and tummy:  some didn't mind the big tummy in favor of the nudity while others said that they loved the boobs but were turned off by the poochy pouch.  GAH!  I was panicking and panicking, knowing we had been gone HOURS, and I was just FRANTIC, trying to find something to put on amongst these RACKS and RACKS of clothes so I could get back to my job!  Then . . . the phone rang, and I woke up.

NOW can you understand why I felt like I'd been trampled by turtles (coincidentally, the name of a popular band from the Twin Cities).  A herd of buffalo?  Those Mexican tortillas?  A vodka-swilling, bad-teethed Bolshevik?  A headscarf-wearing, potato-planting Babushka?  Double ugh.

Once you've stopped laughing uncontrollably, let me know what my dream meant, will you?  ;)