Vote, but not for him.

I should not be allowed to drink and internet.

Especially during a presidential election.

When I'm facebook friends with my mom's friends and my coworkers and some of my super right-wing customers, even! 

I used to not be afraid to speak my mind.  Now I'm a big fat chicken shit who is constantly scared of confrontation rising from any posting that could possibly be conceived as controversial, because, quite frankly, I just don't have the fucking time to deal with people who disagree with me or have opinions that are vastly different from my own. 

I should probably log off, right? 

Don't vote for Donald Trump. He is almost literally the devil.

You may regret reading this. I'm almost sorry in advance.

I vacillate regularly between feeling like I'm absolutely fucking winning at life and feeling like I am a complete screw-up who does everything wrong.  I remind myself constantly that I'm doing just fine - I'm not in a competition, and if I was, there are people who do things wrong way more often than I do.  The more I talk to the women in my life, the more I realize that we're all the same, experiencing these same crazy thoughts and emotions.  When are we ever going to be "grown up"?  Is that even a real thing, or just some illusory crap we make up when we're little  - maybe growing up really is just a literal thing.  Maybe we just get bigger, not anymore put-together. 

I know that's not true, of course.  I know some people who appear to have their shit together.  Appear to.  It could all be a farce - they all have secrets I'll never know about that cause them secret guilt and angst, I'm certain.  Because we all do, don't we? 

I almost lost my blog.  Again.  That happened once before, years ago, when I was just home from Texas and trying to get my shit together after my divorce.  I talked a lot of shit about my ex-husband in that blog - no lies or vitriol, just flat out facts as I saw them, even the dirty ones - and, well, he didn't care much for that once he found it.  I have a bad habit of using the same passwords, and he had someone hack my shit and delete it.  I didn't have a backup. I'm still really sad about that when I think about it, which is almost never.  I wrote something about my Granny that I'd really like to still have.  And I'd probably like to reread some of that tripe at some point, maybe.  Maybe not.  It'd be nice to have the option to ignore it. 

This time it wasn't that sort of thing.  This time, I had an expired credit card linked to my domain registration, and then couldn't remember the admin username or password to log in and make the necessary updates.  For weeks, I tried every few days to reset the shit, and for weeks, Google returned the same frustrating message: We cannot verify it's you.  WTF Google?  Did you not just send me a fucking message to this fucking account? 

Whatever.  So my domain expired on July 24.  I got a final notice on Wednesday, and so I decided to make one last-ditch attempt, vowing that I'd then call the helpdesk and talk a live person and make them fix my shit.  I'm not sure what different links I clicked on this time, but there in the middle of the screen I saw what I needed: "Your domain name may be (domainadmin@____)".  What the hell, I figured - I went back to the login screen...sure as shit, there it was.  Ta Da! 

And that's the story of how I secured my domain registration at least through 2019.  Goshdang I tell a great story.  :/


 

I should be sleeping.

It's 11:20 p.m.  I've been home from the gym almost an hour.  I'm baking peanut butter cup cookies, drinking a beer, watching Jimi demonstrate his new workout stretchy band things. 

This is not an average night in the Fowler household. 

I keep telling myself, "You'd probably see quicker results from your gym time if you'd stop eating cookies after working out."  But then I reply with, "But I've EARNED these cookies," and it's true so the argument ends until next time and I eat the cookies and swallow every delicious bite of guilt.  We don't discuss the beer anymore - we all know I'm not giving that up. 

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The highs and lows of parenthood continue to surprise the shit out of me regularly.  Three year olds are so moody I find myself cringing at the idea of dealing with this human as she morphs into a hormonal teenager - how will we survive?  She screams and yells and says, "I don't LIKE you!  I don't WANT you!"  She runs to her room and slams the door behind her. She hits her sister when she's not allowed to have a sucker. And then she says something like, "When I grow up, I want to be just like you Mommy, and drive my green car to Old MacDonald's and say, 'May I please have a large coffee with eight creams and sugars?'" and my heart skips a beat and melts and I just adore everything about this little creature we created who is so awesome and adorable.

The baby, the one who isn't a baby anymore, who is going to be two before Thanksgiving - the baby is the sweetest baby in the entire world, with a smile that lights up the room and the shittiest of moods.  Her temperament makes you forget that it's 3 a.m. when she coos and says "Mama!" and giggles when you walk into her room because she still wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse.  Every night.  But she's sweet and so you forgive...until that moment when you don't give her what she wants at the moment she wants it.  Then she becomes a screaming banshee beast who will scratch and claw and bite and cry until you placate her wants and desires. 

That's all before 6 a.m.  Every day.  This shit is not for those with a weak constitution. 

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My new job is so fabulous and amazing and wonderful.  I love my job.  I love the people I work with, I love the work I'm doing, I love my boss.  We can take our dogs to work.  My bonus paid my car payment last month.

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Now it's after midnight.  I have heartburn.  I need to go to bed. 

Sweet dreams.