"Of all the Things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

Oh yeah, it's been happening for awhile.
The fog is moving in alright and it's moving in way up North...
into my cerebral hemisphere.
Which is nowhere near the equator, by the way.

I have not been able to get into my account for this blog.
Couldn't remember my username or password.
Couldn't use the "forgot username/password" feature either.
Yep, I had forgotten which email was associated with this account.

I have several email accounts.
One I consider my family account, which I have with my husband.
One for all my homeschooling stuff.
One for the many different online "groups" to which I belong.
An sbc account which came with our ISP, which we typically don't use but have to keep as long as we have our dsl.
A couple yahoo accounts which came with yahoo ID's I created ages ago.
An Opera email, which I set up when I started using their browser, just to see if I liked it.
An aol account which opened itself when I created an AIM screen name so I could instant message my college girls.
And actually, I thought I created a whole new gmail account just for this blog.
Don't ask why, just go with it.

Okay, do you really want to know?
My guess is because I tend to be compartmentalized in my approach to things.
This is probably why I find myself feeling very fragmented much of the time.

I need things to be clear cut.
Separated and lined up nicely in a row.

I never mixed my food together on my plate as a kid, nor do I now.
My husband likes to lump all his stuff together into one big food mountain.
Meat, veggies, potatoes or rice...then top it off with a nice big glop of gravy or some gravy-like substance.
I suppose it's a more efficient way of eating. And it's all going to the same place anyway, right?
(at least that's what they have been telling me)

I, on the other hand, usually eat all my veggies first, then my carbs, then my proteins.
I don't do this on purpose, it just kind of goes that way.
And now that I'm thinking about it, I realize that I don't even make casseroles.
I think I've made a total of 2 in the 19yrs. we've been married.

Wow, that was a big detour.
I need to find the ramp that get's me back onto the main highway.

Email Exit. 2 lines ahead. Keep left.
Back to my email accounts.

After wracking my brain for the past couple of weeks, and searching my hard drive for files which might contain this information. It came to me. It just suddenly popped into my head.
My email and password.
I never realized that there were such good hiding places in this gray matter of mine.
I know that there is a lot more information stealing away into all those nooks and crannies.
Wouldn't it be weird if they all popped out and presented themselves at the same time?
Whoa! Talk about your screen freezing up.
I'm sure I don't have enough RAM to handle that scenario.

I'm happy with just being able to retrieve my email and password for now.
My brain is exhausted.

Time to save and publish.
"click"

My dad thought that living in a spotless, "immaculate", organized, and orderly home was really important.
"A place for everything and everything in its place."
That was one of his mantras.
Another was,
"Cleanliness is next to godliness."
I was an older teenager before I realized that this ideology was not actually scripture.
But I've found that as an adult my dad's all important creeds haven't helped me at all.
I am neither "immaculate" nor orderly.
Not spotless or organized.
But, I have this innate desire, almost an obsessive need to be those things and more.
My daily emotional balance and intellectual capabilities hinge on it.
If things in "my world" are not organized, orderly, or spotless then I suddenly go into a fog and I can't think clearly, my mood starts to change and I feel very confused and unable to function at a descent level.
So, living in the organized, spotless home with the very strict schedule and home life didn't seem to benefit me at all. In fact, in many ways it seems to have hindered me.
Not only do I find myself unable to be fully functional without my surroundings being next to perfect, I am also incapable of creating and keeping that state of being in my life and home with my husband and children.

So, for some reason, my father thought those things were very important and he assumed that they would be beneficial to us, his children, then and in the future. He spent a lot of his time, his emotional and physical energy making sure that he instilled those things into us, into our lives.

And yet, the outcome hasn't been what he expected.

I don't want to cause a repeat of this in my children.

It makes daily life more of a struggle than it should be.

So, again I ask..."What's really important?"

Maybe I'll ask my children and see what they say.

Flashbacks

My hubby at 2yrs.
Back in the day when
it was considered "cute"
when a child played with guns.

My oldest daughter
when she was 7yrs.
She's now 21.
Beautiful both outside and inside,
and boy can she make me laugh.
I love her dearly...
I'm very blessed.

My two oldest when we only had 2 and not 7.

Now the younger one is taller than her older sister. :)

Hillary at 12yrs.
~~~~~~~~~

Emily at 2yrs.
~~~~~

Lily at 3yrs.
~~~~~

The Comics Section

A favorite website of a few of my children is Neopets.
Here's an original comic my daughter created and submitted to the site.
(click on the comic for a close-up view)

This is one of my other beauties.
Hillary took this one of herself.
She loves to play with the camera like I do.
I love this photo.