Left at Home

We had a lovely weekend, complete with a birthday party for me and the girls (Happy Birthday Heather!) while Jeremiah went to a Boys Night sleepover with video games (and Happy Birthday Mike!)! Then today I went to work and Book Club while Jeremiah took the girls to an Easter Party at the local Democratic club and the girls wore the t-shirts I made them that say "Vote for my Daddy or you'll make me cry" and "Vote for my Daddy- He's good at fixing boo boos" (with a picture of the Earth with a band-aid over our part of the country).  We padded all that excitement with gardening around the yard and Jeremiah went door to door for several hours on Saturday.  We are a very tired family right now!

Best Moment: it was a lovely lovely weekend. Could the best moment be when we got free gelatis for the First Day of Spring? Or watching the stars and calling back and forth with an owl after a long car ride home? Or digging a trench garden with Jeremiah while the girls catch worms and "dinosaur eggs" around our feet? Or that several people attended my Gardening Workshop at work today!  It was a great weekend.

Worst Moment: I accidently stayed up too late last night doing nothing before I realized that I was subconsciously waiting for Jeremiah to come home even though I knew he was staying overnight at a friend's house.  I really really really hate being the only adult in the house when the kids are here too. It's so much pressure and I sleep so lightly!  

I had a bad dream last night and I didn't realize what it meant until I repeated it at Book Club. (isn't that always the way with dreams? You think it's silly until you say it outloud and then you get what it was actually about because you have to explain the context that you weren't noticing earlier.)  I dreamt I was in grad school in somewhere like Alaska (not Alberta Canada, where I really went).  Our seminar was on a break and I went out back with my day planner and some maps and I used my down time to schedule and plan.  I sat on a ice shelf on a glacier and was looking at the map and calendar when I noticed that in the water near my feet, dozens of killer whales were surfacing and it was beautiful and thrilling and scary.  I watched this for awhile and was glad that I wasn't in the water but I noticed that it was getting dark outside. I had to jump a small stream of water to get from my glacier back to the icy, snowy land but I was too scared to do it without full visibility. Then it was totally dark but I wasn't too worried. I started calling "I'm over here. Help me!" to my friends, knowing that eventually they'd come looking for me with flashlights and guide me back.  After calling for awhile, I woke up.

I wonder if I was actually calling out in my sleep like I do sometimes? I'll never know bc I was in bed alone last night. And I guess feeling lonely, though I didn't fully realize that until I said that dream outloud.

Thoughts of the Day: I decided it was ok to make our family into billboards for Jeremiah's campaign but I still dislike it.  The long line at Ritas Gelatis on "free gelati day" was right next to our car with it's "Vote Chiappelli" bumper sticker and huge magnetic car sign.  I was aware of that and fine with it (free publicity for the campaign!).  But then after getting our gelatis, I was forever getting the car unlocked and 2 little girls plus 3 overflowing gelatis into the car (plus I was wearing a light, flowing, shortish skirt and it was too breezy to bend over for car seats comfortably!).  As I'm maneuvering all of this, some friends in line notice and call out "Hey Jessica!" and we have a short, loud conversation over the whole line of people.  I had this moment of feeling totally exposed- first name said, last name on car, kids right out front, and skirt starting to billow. I was thrilled to get away from there.

When we had our weekend away, Jeremiah commented that it was so relaxing to just be anonymous. We're not at celebrity status or anything, but we're both sort of sensitive introverts (not always, but at the core).  Pretending like you don't care if people are looking at you is tiring.  It's a lot nicer to be somewhere that it doesn't matter if people are looking at you or not.