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Today I am angry and frustrated because of decisions that someone else made. This means that I am angry at the pair of people who made the decisions. I am not a keeper of grudges. I believe that harboring anger will only hurt me without helping situations at all. This is particularly true since I know that there was no intent to harm. But this does not prevent me from getting angry, it just means that there is a process that I have to work through so that I can let go of the anger and forgive.

Step one is to minimize the damage. For this particular instance, I’m still working on this. I won’t know until next week exactly how much damage was done to me and mine. Right now I’m doing all in my power to make sure the damage is as small as possible. Hopefully the only damage will be additional stress that my family had to cope with. Part of minimizing damage is to not communicate with the people in question. I also need to not spill all the details and names in a place where they can be hurt by it. There will be a time later to talk, but I need to not be actively angry.

Step two is to assess the situation. Here I assess how much damage was done and how that affects other things. I have to decide whether I believe that the incident was a single unfortunate event or indicative of a larger pattern that needs to be addressed. I decide whether preserving a relationship with the people is important. Sometimes the best solution is to drop the relationship. If the person is someone I have to deal with on a long term basis (family, or coworker, or neighbor) then the option to abandon the relationship is absent or very complicated. In that case I have to decide how to speak to the person about the issue. Hopefully the problem can be resolved and will never happen again. If the issue can not be permanently resolved, then I have to take action to minimize or negate future damage should the same problem re-occur. The key here is that I take time to look at the situation from all angles before taking actions.

Step three is to actually put into action the plans I made in step two.

Hopefully somewhere in the process I can let go of the anger and forgive. Contrition from the other party really helps with that, but isn’t critical. It is possible to let the anger go even if the other people are unrepentant.

Note: I always read this kind of entry and wonder “was it me that made her mad?” If you are asking that question it isn’t you. I don’t believe the people in question read my journal. If you have ever commented here, it isn’t you. If you have never met me in person it isn’t you. If you see me regularly, it isn’t you. If you’re still wondering, you can email me username at livejournal.com and I’ll tell you that it isn’t you.

The closet in the boy’s room is full of shevles. This is a good thing because my boys have lots of space to store their stuff. Unfortunately Link and Patches’ idea of cleaning up is to shove everything onto the shelves at random. If something falls off the shelf, they shrug and walk away. If I catch them doing this, they’ll pick the toy up and shove it back on in a slightly different location. We had reached the point where the shelves were shoved so full of precarious piles that adding anything created an avalanche. It was time to clean.

I decided to clean without the help of my boys. In theory the ideal way to do this would be to make them help me sort and teach them how to decide what needs to go. That would be a good thing to do, but I really did not want to spend hours arguing over keeping scraps of paper. I grabbed a garbage bag and started to clean when they were not paying attention. I started by scraping everything off the shelves into a gigantic pile in the middle of the room. It took me two days to sort through that pile. I threw out broken toys. I accumulated a pile of toys to give to thrift stores. These were the toys that never get played with. They just get scattered when the kids are looking for something else. I threw out scraps of paper and old school worksheets. I am confident that neither boy will ever miss any of the things I got rid of. I sorted pieces of games so that they are back together and playable. I put sets of toys together. I placed everything neatly on the shelves so that the boys can find the things that they want.

Link came in when I was part way through this process. He was delighted to be able to find all of the pieces to toys in the same locations. He thanked me several times for the cleaning work I had done. I’m glad he was so happy. I was a little worried that he’d freak out because I went through his stuff. But apparently being able to find toys to play with is worth the risk that Mom might have gotten rid of something.

Patches is also pleased at the new state of his room. Now hopefully we can teach the boys that “Put it away” doesn’t mean “Shove it on a shelf at random.”

A couple of days ago Howard declared his readiness for summer to be over. He is tired of hot and would like to have some cooler weather. I would also like to have the weather cool down a bit, but I don’t know that I am ready for Fall to arrive.

Fall means the kids going back to school. The past two years have been tough school years and I am drained. Theoretically this on will be easier, but my subconscious won’t believe that until it is an established fact. Kiki starts junior high this year and I can’t believe that transition will be entirely smooth. Link is going into 4th grade, which tends to be a tough year for kids. It is particularly tough for kids who sometimes struggle academically. Gleek is going into first grade. She had so much trouble adapting to Kindergarten and first grade is so different. In hindsight part of Gleek’s struggles with Kindergarten were due to a less-than-stellar teacher. I hope she gets a good teacher this year. Patches will have his first experiences with preschool. I hope that he loves it. It is never fun to try to detach a young child that is barnacled to my leg.

Fall also means a return to a schedule that I do not control completely. This is probably good news considering the shambles of my intended summer schedule. I look forward to more schedule so that my days can regain a rhythm. I look forward to regular times when I’ll have a reduced number of kids in my care.

Fall means cooler weather and longer nights. I like Fall weather. I like changing colors and falling leaves. But I can not forget that Fall is followed by the hard cold gray winter. I fear winter. I’m not entirely sure why I fear winter. I’m not afraid of cold. I like snow. But there is never enough bright sunlight. Last winter I consciously did some things to alleviate winter blues. They helped and I got through. I’ll do the same thing this year. I feel like I’ve talked myself into having Seasonal Affective Disorder. In my case it can’t qualify as a disorder because it does not interfere with things I want to do. Yes I had a really bad winter in 1999. Yes I’ve had a dip in my moods every winter ever since. Shouldn’t I be over this by now? I’ve done piles of emotional purging and sorting and examining. All of that is supposed to make it better. And yet I can not deny that I feel dread at the thought of oncoming winter. I dread Fall because winter follows it. As hot and miserable as the weather has been lately, a piece of me wants to stay right here because it is as far from winter as I can get. (Staying in Spring would be even better, but apparently that isn’t allowed either.)

Hmm. All of these things have been lurking in the shadows at the back of my brain. Pulling them out here into the light where I can look at them makes me much more comfortable with the impending Fall. Four weeks of summer schedule left.

I have run out of distractions.

All weekend I was so busy being stressed about getting Howard ready for Comic Con that I successfully ignored the fact that he was leaving. Leaving as in going to be gone. For a whole week. Denial was my friend then.

Today Distraction has been my friend. Within 30 minutes of Howard’s departure, his sister arrived with her two kids. She helped me clean my kitchen and talked to me about all kinds of stuff and then fed everyone pizza. It was truly wonderful. Then there was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. That occupied me until dinnertime. Then I announced to the kids that they could have a movie slumber party in the family room. I turned on a video for them and went upstairs to watch my own movie on my mini player.

Now the movie is over and it is time for bed and Howard isn’t home yet. In fact he’s still in the process of going away since he’ll get up in the morning and go even farther. I’m going to need more books and movies. I can tell.

Yesterday definitely qualified as Not A Good Day. All the pre-convention stress erupted and left both Howard and I as emotional wrecks. The kids were frequently snapped at. By afternoon we were stressed beyond functioning, but Howard was 90% ready to go.

Things turned around at 3pm when the mailman delivered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I let Howard have first read, while I opted to dive into a re-read of Half-Blood Prince. What a beautiful calm evening we spent in a world of muggles and wizards. This is why we need fiction. Sometimes the only way to make this world better is to step out of it for awhile. Then we can come back and deal with what is here.

In addition to Harry Potter, we had a wonderful visit from an old friend. We knew him way back when we were engaged, but lost track of him during the intervening years. It was fun to catch up, reminisce, and eat a yummy dinner all at the same time.

Today I get my chance at Deathly Hallows. I’ll be back when I know how it ends.

Last year the Sci Fi channel ran a mini-series called The Lost Room. Howard and I rented the two discs of it through Netflix and we were not at all disappointed. It is a tightly written, fascinating little universe that still has me speculating about alternate outcomes and what I would do if I were in the universe. The ending is satisfying while still leaving the series open to sequels. I don’t think I’m interested in sequels to this series. I like it the way it is with some of the mysteries remaining mysterious. If they try to unravel it all and explain everything, they’d likely ruin it.

Anyway I highly recommend The Lost Room.

Gleek was grounded from friends today, which meant she was bored. In fact by 7 pm she was in-my-face Boooorrreeed. I had to go to the mall and return a couple items anyway, so I suggested we make an outing of it. Patches, with unerring four-year-old senses, showed up and demanded to go too. So I took my youngest pair of kids to the mall. They were unbelievably good while waiting with me to return the items. Gleek did try to convince me to buy several clothing items. They were right there and obviously my size and so I should buy them. I didn’t. Instead I returned unwanted clothing items. Then we braved the wilds of the mall.

Our first stop was a toy and hobby store. Small stores have a very different feel that the big chain stores. The kids were intrigued to wander the aisles and discuss purchasing possibilities. They’d both brought their money and fully intended to buy something before we went home. The toy store didn’t seem to have anything they wanted in the right price range, so we headed out. Then Patches spotted it. A sword and shield set complete with axe and gauntlet. The whole thing was $4.99, which was just exactly how much he had. From the moment he saw the set, no other toys existed. He didn’t even care about looking at anything else. So we bought the set and went on our way.

Gleek requested that we find a store with more girl stuff, so we stopped at Claires. I do not think it is possible to find a more girly store than Claires. It is full of make-up, jewelry, hair decor, and all things pink. We quickly made our way back to the corner filled with Hello Kitty, Strawberry shortcake, Disney princesses, and Dora the explorer. Gleek fluttered from item to item like a little butterfly that is determined to sample every flower before settling to eat at the very best one. She loved quavering between to possibility of lip gloss or folding hair brush. Most of the items were quickly ruled out as being too expensive, so Gleek began circling the stands of sale items as she tried to narrow things down to what she really wanted. I would have loved to let her dither and enjoy the shopping experience for another hour, but Patches had begun to do his potty dance and was asking to leave. So Gleek finally selected lip gloss.

We wended our way home and Patches instantly broke out his new weaponry. Within 5 minutes each of the kids had one of the new items and they were all playing together hacking away at imaginary monsters. I love the way that my kids share. They’re really good about it except when they aren’t. It amused me greatly to observe Gleek sporting the new gauntlet and brandishing her new lip gloss in lieu of a sword.

When a child is missing, hollering her name all over the house is a good place to start. It stops being useful when the pitch and fear in the holler start an adrenaline rush which damp out thought. It would have been much better for me to alert Howard that Gleek was missing so that we could start a systematic search. Fortunately he heard the pitch of fear in my calls and started to calmly look in likely places. Kiki also responded with calm thought and went to ask our backyard neighbor. This was perfect because the backyard neighbor was the one who located Gleek in another neighbor’s back yard.

Gleek was missing a total of about 15 minutes; 10 minutes before I noticed she was gone, 5 minutes of searching.

We had a family conference discussing the importance of always notifying a parent of where you are going. I have carefully tried to not take out the post adrenaline crankies on the kids. Gleek is grounded from friends tomorrow.

I just wish I’d reacted more effectively.