No amount of deep breaths, nature walks, Hershey bars or Daily Bhudda blog posts gonna help me today. I. Am. Pissed. Not exactly sure why, either, so that's an interesting paradox. Let's just go with it, shall we?

I think I've finally found mine again. For real. And man, it was reeeeeaaaaaaaally gone for a few months.

Funny how 15 years in advertising combined with 12 years of parenting still doesn't quite prepare you to handle it all (well) when the tidal wave of work/life crashes on you.

But it's better now. To celebrate my newly rediscovered sense of peace, here's a video of an artist in Vancouver who stacks rocks.

Kinda reminds me of the rock stacking by Lake Superior that you can do at Grand Marais. Haven't been up there since I was pregnant with Eric, but so beautiful!

TOTALLY UNRELATED: Can't understand why I can't post video anymore, but The Wingman is living his own zen - wandering Estes Park and Fort Collins, CO with his family - so gotta wait until he gets back.

IMAGE: Not by the rock artist in the video, but still cool.

(1) Saturday - Colton arrived home from camp looking like he'd been attacked by a cosmic chickenpox ray gun. (Very large mosquitoes in Yankton, SD, or so I'm told.) Other than the welts across 90% of his body, he seemed none the worse for wear. While unpacking his nasty camp bags I inquired as to the whearabouts of his skivvies. His reply, "Oh don't worry mom. I didn't bring any."

(deep. sigh.)

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(1) Drinking more coffee (not really a new approach)

(2) Trying real-coffee cookies Smither offered (ack bad bad bad)

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haha - funny and clever and designy poster for the negative space in "a" fonts.

Found via designfeed on Twitter - who found it at swissmiss.com

SIDE NOTE: If I don't get a good idea for this friggin' spec creative soon, Smither is going to fire my ass. And the AEs whose work I've been putting off will surely torch my office, however counterintuitive that may be.

Back to work.

ME: "Where's Colton?"

AB: "He's over at Matthew's house making a fire."

ME: "Uh, what?"

AB: "Don't freak out Mom. He just has a magnifying glass and some leaves."

ME: (incoherent spazzing)

AB: "How about I go down there and get him?"

ME: "Yes that would be very nice."

(2 minutes later the door slams)

COLTON: "Hi Mom!"

ME: (incoherent spazzing)

Tim didn't want to pay someone to haul the branches away from our tree-trimming extravaganza.

This is now what the corner of my backyard looks like. (I know it's dark and sort of hard to see, but it's like The Blair Witch Project that way.)

I love the man. I really, really do. But sometimes it's like he's new to this whole Being-Married-to-Katie Thing. Maybe the camo tarp was so I wouldn't see it?

Must. Not. Freak. The F*ck. OUT.

(breathing ... breathing ... breeeeeeeaaaathing.)

God I want a bottle of something. Wine? Maybe cough syrup?

More to come... including Little E VIsits the ER!

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So many of you guys live around here, so you already know we had ourselves a tornado rodeo in southeastern South Dakota tonight. Dicey.

Tim and Colton were at baseball practice - so they holed up at a nearby HyVee - Colton in his HyVee team jersey. Tim said one of the employees said, "Nice shirt." I'm just glad they never read this book or saw the movie. Grocery store? Storm? Unable to leave?

Gak.

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