The Highlight Reel

There is this interesting accusation flying around, it’s this whole idea of a highlight reel. You see it everywhere on social media, people post the best moments of their day, week, month, year and so on. They tell you how wonderful everything is and two months later you run into them and you get the real story and you realize that everything in their life is a disaster. I’ve even heard the phrase “don’t compare someone else’s highlight reel to your behind the scenes” because of scenarios like that one. It’s not always true, and it doesn’t always happen, some people really do have wonderful lives all the time.

I’ve been accused of this phenomenon before, life starts to beat on me a little, but the way things are portrayed here make it seem like things are good. I’ve made a conscious effort to make this space a positive one, because quite frankly, everywhere I turn there is something horrible on the news, work is insanely busy and my personal calendar doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for spontaneity… none of these things make me unique to anyone else, but you know what? Complaining about those facts don’t make them go away, and turning this space into a grumble fest doesn’t help either. We all have a daily grind and a highlight reel. This space is a little heavy on the highlight side, but on days like today, I’ll give you a nice mix.

I woke up on Sunday morning and found a pool of blood on my white comforter. It was where the dog had decided to sleep the night before. I was all over her, searching for any evidence of what had happened to her and I found nothing. I fed her, obsessed over her every move and by the end of the day she was giving me the “get lost” look. So, I figured she was fine, and it was some weird fluke where she chewed her bone too hard. The next day, I came home from work and started to greet Abby, I looked down at my now damp hand and found more blood. Again, I was all over her trying to find what the heck was happening. I found that all four of her feet were cut in some way or another. We grabbed her and went straight to the vet, who laughed at how much of a daddy’s girl Abby is, promptly wrapped the feet that are really bad and sent us home with antibiotics. So, the dog may have taken a couple of years off my life, it happens.

And for those of you keeping track, Chipmunks 2, Abby 1.

I fell over the 4th of July, it was a total fluke. I was grabbing something from the dock and putting it in the boat, and my foot slipped on the tiniest bit of water and my face found the side of the boat at the same time my leg found the corner of the dock. I don’t usually bruise to that extent, but I did this time, and my leg hasn’t really been the same since. I’m still struggling to sleep on my right side and wearing pants didn’t happen for almost 3 weeks after, shorts or dresses only otherwise my leg throbbed all day. On the bright side - I have an awesome 1970′s laundry room floor and great legs!

We’ve been getting house projects done like crazy lately, summer is very quickly coming to a close (just in case you haven’t noticed). House projects have included the dreaded fence fix we’ve been putting off. Just when we get 4 or 5 of these types of projects done, we break something and have to fix it. For example, the blinds in our front room. I go to swap them out for a nicer set only to find the MacGyver work the people before us had done to get the fixtures to hang right. After three days of attempting to pull off my own MacGyver magic, I give up and settle for a fancy spring rod and curtain combo. Classy, yes? Whateveridontevencareanymore.

This was the pile of junk (and a tree branch we took down) that was living in my 2.5 stall garage preventing me from being able to fully open my car door at the end of the day. It’s the little things people. This took me an hour and a half. The garage floor was so clean for like 2.5 minutes there that you actually could have eaten off of it. I called the junk people… you really do point and they take it away. Worth the money, but it was nowhere near cheap.

I spent 10.5 hours of last weekend in the car. We went to Milwaukee for a wedding. I had absolutely no desire to see Milwaukee, nor did I want to spend more than one night there. I was a total hater about it. Please note: it was more about the drive than anything. I see 10.5 hours of my weekend gone and I think of the house projects I could have gotten done, the laundry pile on the floor, the pile of work I need to accomplish the next week, and so on. Turns out, Lake Michigan is B-E-A-UTIFUL, almost as pretty as the bride. I was only car sick for about 30 minutes. For me, that’s not too shabby.

On the bright side….

My husband is H-O-T hot.

And, as it turns out, I can rock a conductor hat for my favorite 3 year olds birthday party!