“Nothing Says Monday Like Cat Barf in the Hallway.”

(Okay…it’s midnight, and I’ve decided to go back to this blog and stick in a little preface at the beginning!  All day I’ve been getting messages and e-mails of reassurance and encouragement!  And believe me, they are appreciated!  But, it began to occur to me that perhaps my blog today was construed as whiny…at least at the beginning of it, and then so long-winded thereafter, that most readers didn’t make it to the fun stuff at the end!  Otherwise, all would know that my day may have started out roughly…but was swiped up into merriment later on!  Therefore, if this blog is too long for you to trudge through…feel free to skip to the end and just enter the contest, okay?  Ha ha ha!  And I promise I’ll do a shorter, less serious blog next week!)

I’m not gonna lie to you…I’m at a difficult, stressful, worrisome, stressful, not-to-fun, stressful, out-of-shape, stressful, sometimes-wonder-if-I-can-carry-on, stressful time of life. I’m sure you probably know (or will know) what I mean. And for some reason, this past week was extra, extra bad! It could have something to do with the fact that my poor, wonderful, valiant mother is losing every memory she ever had (and not slowly). It could have something to do with the fact that my oldest son who is in Law Enforcement, is chasing bad-guy-drug-runners at 125 mph and finding meth pieces the size of bananas when he arrests somebody else. It could be that my youngest son who is also in Law Enforcement, is in the Defensive Tactics phase of his training and has to get tazed, pepper sprayed and fight off and detain a 260 lb. opponent before he can head for the hose and the Dawn dish soap to wash the pepper spray out of his eyes! It might have something to do with the fact that I want to spend more time helping my daughter get her extra bedroom/storage room all cleaned up and organized so SHE’LL have a little less stress hanging over her head! It could be that Kevin had the flu last week and he NEVER gets sick, so it always makes me feel insecure and freaked out when he is! It could be that the book business is a nightmare…it could be that the election stuff is freaking me out because I can’t believe how this country has been brought to its knees in the last 7 years! It could be because my dad is 83 years old, living out in the middle of nowhere and trying to look after my mom as she’s failing, all by himself. It could be because I’m overweight, out-of-shape and not taking care of myself. It could be because my beloved cat of 19 years had to be “put to sleep” a couple of weeks ago and first thing every morning, I still think, “I better get Jed his butter snack.” It could be because I never have time to nurture my relationships with family and close friends the way I want and need to. It could be that I’m a Type 2 diabetic and ate ¾ of a cake all by myself this weekend! It could be a combination of all these things AND a hundred more things that keeps me feeling sluggish, weighed down, and defeated.

Right now you’re probably thinking, “Wow, Marcia! What a downer! What ever happened to your goal to be a sugar sifter rather than a manure spreader?”

But, fear not! I’m still a sugar sifter! However, I did want to take some time to thank all the other sugar sifters out there…even though you might not know you’re a sugar sifter! Even if you didn’t intend to be a sugar sifter!

Let me begin this way: I used to be a lark (morning person).  The nutty kind that hops out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and hits the ground running! I loved that about myself! (And that’s saying a lot…but cause I’m pretty critical and disappointed of, and in, myself most of the time.) At heart, I still am a lark. But these past few years, so much stress and pressure has been weighing on me, that I’ve turned into one of those middle-aged woman that, first of all, can’t get to sleep. It literally was taking me 3 hours to fall asleep there for a while! And since I can’t get to sleep by 10:00 p.m. or so, I’m not waking up until 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m….and even then I have time getting out of bed. My motivation is pretty absent most days.

Keeping that in mind, and the fact that weekends stress me out worse than weekdays, I’ve gotten into a pretty bad habit of lying in bed and scrolling through Facebook. In truth, that pretty much hurts me even more because there are so many sad things, mean things, etc. on Facebook these days. I know you know what I mean.

Well, anyway, this morning as I was lying in bed attempting to find the umph to get up and get in the shower…as I was pouting about the fact we’re now on Day Light Savings time (which is GREAT for night owls, but does a heck of a job on us larks), I found I was sinking into the depths of discouragement and a lack of motivation to do anything! I mean, I finished off the cake last night! So what’s to look forward to today, right?

And then, it happened!!!!! I read a post on my Facebook Newsfeed…and it cracked me up out loud!!!! Now, understand that the post wasn’t meant to be funny. At least I don’t think it was. It was a post about something I have experienced a few times (being that I did have a cat that lived to be 19 years old), and that I also know is NOT a good thing to wake up to. But, even though I know it’s a gross thing to wake up to, the post just struck me as so perfectly perfect for a Monday morning…so perfectly something I had experienced myself…so perfectly something I know can take the wind out of your sails in an instant, that I just literally laughed out loud!

My friend Lisa Mangum’s uncomplicated, effective, and “made my day” post was simply this:

“Nothing says Welcome to Monday like cat barf in the hallway.”

Ah ha ha ha! I soooooooooooo know what that is like! I sooooooooooo LOVE the simplicity of the statement! I sooooooooooooooo know it’s gross and wasn’t a good way to start your Monday, Lisa…but you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo made my morning! You put a smile on my face when I was having a really, really difficult time smiling! You warmed my heart and perked me up and made me feel like hopping out of bed and getting something done!

And, fortunately for me, Lisa wasn’t the only Angel of Mercy in my life this morning!

As I was still grinning over Lisa’s post, I decided to read one more post on my Newsfeed before hopping up to face the day. In the past, this is, 99.9% the time, a mistake… meaning, if I read something that makes me happy on someone’s wall, sure enough it turns out to be a mistake…because it’s 99.9% of the time something angry or dressing that just deflates me all over again.

Still, because Lisa’s post had made me feel so much better, I took a risk and read one more! And it was ANOTHER post the squashed the statistic and proved to be sooooo soooo soooo ME, and sooo sooo sooo funny, and sooo sooo sooo worth reading!

The very next post on my Newsfeed was on my friend, Marie Viator’s wall, and said this:

“Tomorrow I will watch Hoarders, get grossed out, realize my house isn’t that bad and clean.”

Epic! Totally epic! I LOVED Marie’s post, as well, and felt further revitalized!

You must know that I love to watch the show, Hoarders…because the people that are featured on that show just really tug at my heartstrings. They’ve always endured some sort of horrible loss that leads them to hoarding, and I find it fascinating how the heart can literally be so broken it results in that particular compulsion.

But what you further need to know, is that I only watch Hoarders with my friend, Gina! Gina lives in an entirely different state, so we used to save up a bunch of episodes of Hoarders and have a marathon when we’d get together once a year! She’s my only friend that has the same intense interest and empathy for the people featured on the show to the same depth that I do. And even though we haven’t been able to have a Hoarders marathon for a couple of years, we did watch one together recently, via syncing our TVs and talking on our cells while watching. It was awesome and actually helped me feel like Gina was right there with me as we empathized and agonized over the episode.

And so, this is my point: No matter how low I feel, no matter how depressing and angry Facebook gets, no matter how much I think the day is going to be something I have to trudge through…there is always something either beautiful or perfectly funny that pops in to pull me up…and it’s always gifted by the sugar sifters that still roam the earth…often unknowingly sifting their sugar!

Furthermore, sifting sugar should be something that is, not only paid forward, but returned! Thus, I’m offering this small token of my appreciation to both Lisa Mangum and Marie Viator (and to anyone else who needs a little lift today): This is a link to video that I had made years and years ago in hopes of offering a little moment of levity to my friend, Sheri. I had completely forgotten that it existed, because it was only ever meant for Sheri to see. But one year, while my angel of a daughter, Sandy, was going through our old family videos, she found this video of me that she’d never seen. It cracked her up the first time she found it, and it continues to crack her up every time she watches it. It’s not really that funny, so don’t expect much. And when I did it, I didn’t realize there was more than one verse to the song, so when the other verses began, I didn’t know the words. Thus, it remains the worst lip sync I’ve ever performed. But for some reason, it makes my kids smile. In knowing that it may, or may not, make you smile, at least I’m trying to sift sugar today, right?

Now, whether or not my dorkiness of December 17th, 2001 amused you or not, it’s time for this week’s Blog Contest AND the announcement of last week’s Blog Contest Winner!

First, last week’s winner (winner of all the Pepe le Pew/Skunk stuff) is Melody/Fox Girl (who loves foxes and Disney’s Robin Hood/Fox)!  I e-mailed you, Meloday…but please e-mail your shipping address…at marcialmcclure@cs.com, and I’ll get your prizes in the mail to you!  I even added a little something extra!

And for this week’s contest…well, Lisa Mangum and Marie Viator have already won boxes of Godiva Chocolates simply for pulling me out of my funk this morning!  So girls, send me YOUR shipping addresses at marcialmcclure@cs.com and I’ll get those in the mail by the end of this week!

Meanwhile, this week’s contest is for a box of Godiva Chocolates like the ones Lisa and Marie will recieve!  Nothing helps a girl make it through Monday (especially when cat barf and new episodes of Hoarders are involved) like chocolate, right?!?!  So leave a comment here, on my Facebook page, Goodreads, or e-mail me at marcialmcclure@cs.com and you’ll have your name put in my hat for the chance to win this box of Godiva Chocolates, okay?  Your comment can be anything at all…but I would especially love if you included something random and simple that makes/made YOU feel better at some point in your life, okay?

Now, go forth and conquer Monday, my lovie dovies!