mishandled mocha 'inspires' how?

I didn’t have the best morning.  I went swimming, but I felt like a wet towel in the water. Not a great workout. Then I went to the fraudodontist where I wrote a big fat painful check to ensure Olivia can go through life equipped with an inexplicably necessary, beautiful straight smile. 

As consolation for the morning's questionable expenditure of so much energy and money, I treated myself to a coffee: large decaf skim mocha WITH whip.  What’s four more frivolous dollars? 

I savored it—hardly drinking any in the car.  I planned to write all morning and I do enjoy the ritual of having an extravagant drink to keep me company at the task. 

When I got home, I made my way in the door while juggling my purse over one shoulder, my swim bag over the other, the paperwork from the fraudodontist under my arm (slipping, slipping!), some miscellaneous trash in one hand, and my coffee in the other.  To be sure I didn’t spill it, I set my coffee on the shoe rack and kicked off my sandals. 

In came my wiggly 80lb dog for a meet and greet.  As she crowded happily into the small space, she knocked clumsily into me and my coffee.  All that beautiful creamy cake-in-a cup I’d been anticipating splashed down between my toes, splattered up my ankles, soaked my sandals, pooled against the step to my kitchen, seeped under the shoe rack, and continued to spread, collecting all the dog hair it could find in a sugary river of fur (doesn’t anyone vacuum around here?), that flowed towards the door.

Really?!  I could not belieeeeeve the mess.

Aaargh.  I make terrible coffee, and no way could I buy more. Who spends nearly $10 on coffee in one day? 

I cursed my small house with its cramped entryway, I cursed my dog with her clutsy 80lbs and her globs of shedding fur; I cursed my empty paper towel holder.  And as I looked at my sopping shoes that would never dry on this damp humid day, I cursed my aversion to air conditioning.  Why couldn’t I just be a normal person?!

The real clincher: I was coming home with my luxurious coffee to sit down and write a blog post thanking my blogger friend Thalassa for awarding me the Inspiring Blog Award!   Me, with my incessant cursing and my sticky, dog-hair covered feet, inspiring blogger extraordinaire!  

Clearly, I just needed to get over it (the mess, I mean).  No sense crying over spilled coffee, right? 

So my first order of business (after cleaning up the mess quite easily with an old t-shirt and some soapy water--no paper towels needed J), is to say a word about Thalassa and to thank her for the award. 

Thank you, Thalassa! 

Thalassa writes a blog called Musings of a Kitchen Witch: thoughts on parenting, paganism, witchcraft, nature, cooking, crafting and life by the sea.  She blogs about her faith and family in an open and inclusive way.  Her website is a virtual enclyclopedia of information about herbs, paganism and parenting.  She inspired and instructed me on my no poo journey, and I’m very flattered that she finds my blog inspiring as well!

As part of the deal, I am also supposed to tell you a few new things about me.  So here goes:

-        I love the color purple—not the soft lavender kind, the real kind.  I painted our main living area purple years ago.  I thought it would be a phase, like going Goth, or shaving my head (I never did either of those), but I don’t seem to be growing out of it. 

-        Despite my commitment to the environment, I am guilty of repeated acts of houseplanticide. 

-        I have a Ph.d. in English, but I forget nearly everything I read.

-        I eat chocolate chips out of the bag when the kids are at school.

-        I am trying to publish a memoir about my past experiences as both a graduate student and an adjunct professor of English.

-       I know the Meg Ryan movie, French Kiss, by heart.

OK – and for the last part, I need to share the bloggy love.   I want to nominate my blogger friend Jennifer and her blog, 1 Voice 4 Peace for the Inspiring Blog Award.  Jennifer will not shock you with foul language or dramatic tales of the circus we call parenthood.  Rather, Jennifer writes a quiet and mindful blog about peace that inspires me to be a better person and to see the world as a better place.  She even has a playlist that you can listen to while you read.  So cool, Jennifer!

Technically, I don’t think I can officially nominate either of these next two because they have more than 200 readers, but I want to mention them because they are also inspiring blogs that I read regularly. 

The first is An Inch of Gray by Anna See.  I have been reading Anna’s blog since she lost her 12 year old son in an accident last fall.  She inspires just by having the courage to sit down to the computer and share.  That she does it with such beauty and honesty amazes me. 

The second is the spirit of the river by Meredith Winn.  Meredith is a photographer who lives with her family in a yurt in Maine.  Need I say more?  Meredith photographs and writes about her life in haunting and inspiring ways.  I find her pictures captivating.

There you have it.  If you can, take a second to check out some or all of these inspiring blogs! 

Meanwhile, I’m off to walk barefoot around my floor to see if the dog did a decent job of licking up the puddles of mocha I may have missed in my clean up!