I am trying my best in a difficult time. I'm not sure how I'm doing, really, but I've been doing some things. I made up with the husband while letting him know that I truly mean it about him and the children picking up after themselves and pitching in a little bit. The children know that there won't so many movies, baseball games, or cool gadgets anymore if they won't clean up after themselves, and I am working on the husband to help enforce this policy when I'm not with the program.

My bank hunted me down Sunday and it gave me a terrible fright. I apparently tripped my own security alerts that I have in place to protect me from identity theft, (which scared the bejesus outta me because I also sort of count on these measures as a 'crazy alarm' of sorts, but don't tell anyone). Yeah, some of my recent 'unusual purchases' (industrial cleaner, a shop vac, and the drop cloth tarps for the sectional sofa) probably made them think someone had offed me and stolen my card to finance the clean up of the crime scene. Whatever. It disturbed me greatly that some outside person thought my activity to be 'unusual'. I like to blend in, you know? (And I'm very afraid of becoming crazy.) At least I was aware of every single purchase and I'm not totally nuts and no one has stolen my identity. But when the bank rep informed me that I needed to verify my identity, I nearly choked on my coffee. The inner chatter made me want to laugh and cry at the same time: "Verify my identity? Maybe that's a job for the shrink?" "Identity? Do I have one of those?" "Who exactly are you looking for?" "You are YEARS too late, pal. The whole identity theft caper was gotten away with DECADES ago," and last, but certainly not least, the voice of sanity said, "Shut up. Name rank and serial number only. You know the drill." Jesus. I'm sure I appeared very composed and I'm glad everything is fine. But then I went through the whole process of 'checking myself' all day. "Are you in a rabbit hole? Have your recent purchases been unusual as in 'different', or unusual as in 'crazy'?" "Are you doing it again? You running like the devil? Doing it to get your head away from the prison visit you need to make?" "See Jane. See Jane run." I NEEDED SOME STUFF TO HELP CIVILIZE MY HOUSE, but am I doing it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Then I went and bought the groceries. And a new dishwasher and garbage disposal. Um... I need these things. Mine are broken and I have been afraid to replace them because the husband breaks them somehow when he's left to his own devices if I'm in a rabbit hole for too long. He is not appliance friendly. I bought the extended service plan for the dishwasher, so maybe it'll be okay. And I hope it won't inspire any inquiries -- "This cheap broad has never bought the extended service plan for anything that can't surf the internet. Maybe it's not her and we'd better check it out." I'm just trying to get some comfort from somewhere and I'm kinda starting from scratch. That's all, right? I just need some comfort without it causing a problem. It upsets me when the search for comfort results in fear of some kind. I just need some kind of comfort.