. This Life Lately .

1. Alan-The-Orkin-Man-With-No-Left-Thumb-Or-Social-Skills came the other day. I know you remember my Spider Infested Shower, and I have to say - Alan has seemingly gotten control of the arachnids. I never thought I'd see the day. I only kill a few each month, and since it totally grosses me out, I just leave them where I kill them (kind of as a warning and kind of because I can't even). Alan picks them up when he comes (and puts them in his pockets). This time around, however, he brought a companion. I'm not sure if it's because of the Impending Arachnid Apocalypse and he needed backup or if it was because he needed someone to give him a boost while he cleaned my siding out front with his super-legit-spider-killing-tool: a toilet brush. The jury is still out, but I'm still alive, so something is working. 

2. Tonight, I tried lawn work. Now listen - I'm not above working outside. I actually enjoy it much more than I ever thought I would. The trouble here is that most of the time, I have no real clue what I'm doing. So tonight, I decided to tackle my bushes out front. They're overgrown, so I was going to trim them. In his abundant foresight, my step-dad told me that I didn't need the shears you plug in (because that seems like a bad, bad, bad idea for a girl like me), so there I was with giant scissors going to town and living my dream.

Until I cut a wasp nest in half. 

Sigh. 

This. This is why people hire lawn care professionals.

Because I live on a main street in town. And I can almost guarantee you that eleventy people saw my holy-shit-they're-all-on-me hot mess of a dance in my front yard tonight. 

3. Can I talk to you about something serious? I've noticed an alarming trend with the word "anyways". Stop saying that. Stop writing that. Stop doing that. Okay? Okay thanks. 

4. If you're a real-in-life friend of mine on Facebook, then you know I fed The General a pickle the other night at dinner. And he thought it was the Real Pickle from Blaze the cartoon. He thought he was eating one of his favorite cartoon characters. 

I took a lot of classes in college that dealt with problem solving. I have my Master's Degree. I did a lot of "serious situational role play" when I was an RA, and I even know CPR. I have published four books, can play the piano, know how to ask for the bathroom in Spanish, and I taught my dog how to sit and shake. Listen. Nothing prepared me for the moment that my child cried because he thought he was eating someone he knew. 

He might get over it one day. I doubt it though, because let me just tell you the about how The Brother told me at dinner one night that we were eating my bottle calf, Norman. You better believe I'm not over THAT yet. 

5. I'm part of a "fruit and vegetable" group at work. I love them, but I don't love vegetables. For my day last week, I brought carmel and apples. Because life is short. 

6. I have a blog post running through my head about forgiveness. Sometimes words rest heavy on me and it takes me a long time to figure out where I want to put them. (Does that happen to anyone else?) It's been hard for me to tack down what I want to say, and I think it's because forgiveness in general is hard to tack down. 

7. There's a new part of my website. It's a black button on the right of this screen (if you're reading on a desktop) that says "Peterson" ... click it. :) 

8. Read this, okay? 

9. Merle Haggard died a week ago and I was very upset about the whole situation. I came into my fifth period class prepared to break the news. Prepared to offer grief support. Prepared to send kids to the counselor for extra kleenex and hugs, and prepared to have to send kids home. No one knew who I was talking about. They had no idea who Merle Haggard even was. I didn't even know what to do with myself at that point. 

#mamatried

Here's to May coming. Soon. 

​xoxo, B.