Oh man, am I in a bad way.

A super shitty mood.

This doesn’t happen often, so i’m a bit thrown here.

I ran a beautifully fast and fun half marathon on the other side of the US of A yesterday with 20,000 other women and a handful of utterly insanely brave men, and yet.

ugh.

Disclaimer:  I am beginning this post after 2 glasses of wine.  By the time I have finished it (the post, not the wine), i shall have finished it (the wine, not the post).

I wish I could blame this mood on something other than what it really is.

I wish I could blame it on the following things:

That I just found out that unicorns don’t exist.

That Ricky Gervais stopped posting on Twitter.  (“If you want to know why I don’t believe in your god, just ask yourself why you don’t believe in any of the other gods. Hope that helps.”)

That I couldn’t RUN anymore.

That I just found out that FOX news always had it right (see: unicorns, above).

That “happy baby” was never actually a legit yoga pose.

But no.

These are not the reasons.

I actually can’t pinpoint what it is.  And I find myself really pissed when i’m pissed.

Seriously.

I am an extremely healthy woman with more than enough means to pack up shop, move to the mountains, and live happily ever after.  I have no debt, no (known of, as of this posting…) illness, no pain, no heartache. I have never cheated death.  I have never felt the terror of an attack.  I don’t know what it’s like to go hungry, I have never been profiled.

I have lied, I have cheated, and I have stolen.

And only on one of those three have I been caught.  But it’s when I was 10.

So coming home and being angry, quite honestly, is taking it’s toll on my attitude.

I’m going to correct it right now.

With this.

AC’s TOP TEN “THINGS THAT MADE ME HAPPY TODAY SO I CAN PUT MY SHITTY MOOD INTO PERSPECTIVE” LIST. 

10) MY DAUGHTER’S ELITE AND AIR JORDAN CREW SOCK COLLECTION. 

So I’m already in a bad mood, and I’m thinking… “what better way to exacerbate this crappy mood than to fold laundry?”  I wander into the dryer, and about 8 billion socks fall onto the floor.

I smile.

Because they all belong to my 11 (soon to be 12) year old daughter. A basketball obsessed female tween. In a sport where men get too much of the glory.

So for fun (since she is out playing Clutch basketball tonight), i pull out all her socks.

that’s 22 pairs. of socks. for basketball.

9) COMIC SANS FONT

It’s disastrous.  I’d probably only use it if the choice were between me using it and killing a unicorn.

however…

I’m just so happy that there are still people in this world who use this font.  And i’m not the only one.

8) “I FORGOT WHAT EIGHT WAS FOR.”

If you know, you know.

7) MY DAUGHTER’S BATHROOM.

I’ll go ahead and post the photo first.

Please note a few things:

_the iPad for constant music entertainment.

_the hair-straightening spray.

_no attempt at folding clothes.

_the 20 or so brands of lotions, soaps, and face creams.

_glass of wine with fruit soaking in it (ok, that is MINE.  had to put is SOMEWHERE to take the photo).

_the shoes that were in fact mine, but she has now claimed as her own.

6) JOHN DENVER

I was in such a pissy mood, i needed some music that would make me happy. If you know me, you know i am a HUGE John Denver fan.  I can play just about every one of his “greatest hits” on guitar (as defined by me, NOT his label).  My all time favorite, (if you were born, say, before 1995 you may know this.  If you were born after that – or maybe before… I don’t know the John Denver statue of limitations on knowing his songs by heart – you might not know one lyric at all, so for that, only I am smiling for this bullet point tonight) is “Wild Montana Skies.”  On Greatest Hits, Vol. 3.

5) THE WORD “SWIVET.”

I learned this word from my stepmother’s cousin yesterday. And of COURSE learning a new word is cause to smile.

But because learning a new word is a big deal (not when you are 11, as that’s not a big deal at all. But at 42, that’s a bigass deal), I have asked my sister, a blogger herself, to help me use it in a sentence.

And, as usual, she prevailed.

here we go:

a) “Mitch McConnell was in a swivet when John Boehner tried to kiss him.”

b) “My sister (that would be me) was in a swivet when she finished her last bottle of Chardonnay (it was Pinot Gris tonight, but alas, it was finished and I was in a swivet).

c) “Fox news was in a swivet when Tsarnev’s constitutional rights were upheld.”

does this help?  indeed, it should.

4) WALLPAPER.

We got this amazing wallpaper last week, and it just makes me so happy.  It’s got bats and venus fly traps all over it.  Probably nothing Julie Andrews would sing about.  (“The hills are alive… with the sound of baaaatttsssss.”). Nope, not so much.

3) WILDFANG.

These women are entrepreneurial geniuses.  They work hard, they play hard, they love hard. And they sell a necklace (amongst many other in-fucking-credible things) that has a harmonica attached to it.  That actually plays music.

and then, when I ordered a bunch of these from them for all of my girlfriends, they sent me a handwritten thank you letter, which i’m pretty sure nobody does anymore.  They even said i was a Badass, which i’m pretty sure, at 42, is impossible, but just because they took the time to do that, and write it on a card, and put it in the mail with my order, diminished almost the reminder of my surly mood.

I also, because the lighting allowed it, tried to do a unicorn, just because i thought that was just as nice as the letter.  But because i am not a shadow puppeteer, and i’ve had, now, a full 3 glasses of wine, it turned out more like a beluga whale that has mated with a unicorn and had a “belunicorn” baby-child.

2) HAND WRITTEN THANK YOU LETTERS.

1) THE NUMBER ONE REASON REMAINS PERSONAL.

I am already lighter.  There are too many good things, day after day, that happen.  And all too often we don’t even give our energy to them. My number 1 thing is obvious.

to me.

And for you, it’s a totally different thing.

Which is good.

So here’s the thing.

Dirty bathrooms are worth a laugh, not a nuisance.

Imagining a belunicorn could exist is dreamy.

providing socks for my daughter is not something I should take for granted.

Whatever kind of over-the-top shitty day you’re having, don’t let it get you in a swivet.

With all the post attack amputations, nuclear threats, potential chemical warfare, and suicide bombings…

it’s simply wasn’t worth it to end my day in any other way than with grace and gratitude.

and so it is ended.

#shareyourtop10.

Peace.

AC