Hi everyone!

Yesterday I had a post go up on BlogHer about the sources of stress. Not sources of stress like deadlines and traffic jams and being out of orange juice at 7 am, but sources of stress in your brainz. Here's an excerpt:

That said, I've spent most of my stress-fighting career thinking about how tohandle stress rather than what caused it in the first place. Things are rough all over, Ponyboy. And I've blamed myself a lot for not being tougher.

I recently read Stress Less (for Women) by Thea Singer, a book that appeared in the mail for review. One passage struck me in particular -- one that talked about stress research being flipped on its head when researchers stopped thinking about stress or age atrophying parts of the brain and instead studied whether people who stressed more started out less equipped to deal with the stress in the first place:

The vulnerability hypothesis of stress -- that is, that a smaller hypocampus, whether due to genes or early exposure to stress -- can predispose you to the damaging effects of stress, rendering you more vulnerable to age-related memory loss and disorders such as PTSD.

There was good news at the end! Read the rest on BlogHer!

PS: Last night the little angel asked for a drink of water while in the bathtub. I handed her the crappy hot pink water bottle we got with Culver's points. She took one drink and gagged. Then she said, "I don't know why, but yesterday I put Goldfish crackers in here." I opened it and there were bloated Goldfish floating in two inches of tepid tap water. And then I threw up in my mouth. 

I've read so much research on stress and optimism and half full and half empty. And I've written about it, too. 

Me on happy in 2009!

Focusing on what would make me feel better and not what is making me feel bad is helpful and obvious, and I wish I could get back all those years I didn't know how to do it. But if I hadn't had them, I wouldn't appreciate the difference now.

Me FOUR DAYS LATER in 2009!

And then some other annoying stuff happened at work, and then as I was hurrying home and stuck in traffic I remembered OH, YEAH, MY CAT DIED and we have to take the little angel in to have a 3.5-year-old tube yanked from her eardrum with no anesthesia in two weeks, so soon after she had her five-year shots in both arms and both legs and I had to hold her while she screamed, "No, Mommy, don't let her hurt me!" and then my head exploded and I called my parents.

One of my most humbling experiences as a writer is when people remember what I said before when I'm totally and completely contradicting myself, oh, say, less than a week later. Especially when I'm all "I am going to change for the better!" and then I totally don't, sometimes after a shockingly short period of trying.

But that was 2009. I've been really trying since 2009 to reframe things when I start feeling anxious. Note: This works better when I'm not either a) hungry b) tired or c) well, menstruating (it must be said). Like a toddler, I'm prone to hysteria when I'm tired, especially tired. People have been telling me my whole life the world looks better after a nap, and THEY ARE SO RIGHT!

Lately we've had a lot of unexpected costs pop up. And when I say "unexpected," I mean "of course things had to be fixed or replaced because we don't live in a vacuum or say on the moon, but I never want to have to pay to fix or replace it." I mean "I didn't expect to have to deal with both cars needing new brakes and the furnace motor burning out, like NOW." I understood intellectually that car brakes wear down the way I understand that light bulbs need to be changed, but when either thing conks out, my reaction is usually WTF HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEEE?

I know, I know.

This weekend, I was at Petsmart with Simon the New Betta Fish's tank. The motor unexpectely went out just about a month after we bought it. And here, when I say "unexpectedly," I actually mean it. Grousing to myself, I took it back with no receipt and the guy ... just ... exchanged it. Just like that!

Then, when I was leaving, the Corolla wouldn't start. Then it started and it died. I finally got it going again and drove it home and told Beloved because he drives that thing all over the state of Missouri, and I could just picture that happening to him late at night on the side of I-70 or something. He took it in immediately, and my brain was thinking OH HELL WE STILL HAVEN'T REPLACED THE BRAKES ON THE TRUCK HOW MUCH IS THIS SHIT GOING TO COST?

And then Beloved came home and told me that the Corolla had been recalled for that very reason, and we just hadn't received the notice yet. And they ... just ... exchanged the parts.

Now! There have been lots and lots of unbudgeted (which is a better frame than unexpected, really) costs since November. But then, in two days, two problems got fixed for free. The aquarium was $20. The car -- oh, hell, who knows? Doesn't every part in a car start at $600?

This is a very long and rambly way of saying if I have not succeeded in turning my Debbie Downer inner child into Suzie Sunshine, at least I am still trying. See? Look at me go! Take that, anxiety disorder! Take that, adrenaline and cortisol!

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. I've noticed I'm not alone -- a lot of folks in the blogosphere have been in a state of malaise for the past month or so.  I think my main problem is that I've been running on adrenaline -- I can almost feel it downloading into my veins on an hourly basis -- for about three months now.  In addition to my lovely full-time job, I've been planning this book tour (soooo not complaining, but let's be honest, it's a lot of work, but still, sooooo not complaining) in my "free time," and our family social schedule has kicked into preschool-ballet-class-recital-coming-up, backyard-barbecues, weddings-and-other-summer-travel, mow-the-lawn-every-week, full-on hypergear.  And my child!  My adorable child!  Who suddenly has started fighting me about every decision, every movement of her little finger, from which toilet to use when she has to pee to what she'll be eating for dinner to which barrette will go in her hair to when she can give Bella her treats.  EVERY DECISION.  EVERY TIME.  And lo, some days I am just NOT UP TO THIS. 

Yesterday I hit a big wall.  I called my husband crying after driving a half hour to my OB-GYN's office for the yearly appointment that apparently hasn't happened since 2005 (gulp - please cervical cancer, do not be there) and has been rescheduled twice, only to wait a half hour, get completely undressed, and then hear my doctor being paged to go deliver a baby as I sat waiting for him.  Ten minutes later, and I would've been done.  So I hopped off the table, rescheduled for the third time, and headed home.  Two hours wasted.  And I had SO MUCH TO DO.  My husband, rock star that he is, gave me a very firm pep talk about finishing strong, and how these book events are like replacing the door hinges and light switches when you remodel a room.  Why would you go to all the work to remodel a room and then ignore the details?  And I know he is so right.  I'm just so tired. 

After that, I was talking to Blondie when she got some bad news, and then my head started trying to figure out how to also fix Blondie's life in addition to attending to mine, even though I know she doesn't want me to fix her life and GOOD LORD, SHE IS AN ADULT AND DOESN'T NEED ME and all that, but I think my concern for her then pushed me completely over the edge.  I forced myself to focus on my job when I got back home (working from home again), and I made good progress, but I'm in the process of doing the technical equivalent of sorting a bale of hay into a new hay bale configuration.   I made like 200 changes and was still not done with even one tiny section.  FRUSTRATION.  Five o'clock came. I realized I hadn't written my BlogHer post for Monday yet.  By the time I was finished with that, I realized the little angel was going to be one of the last kids picked up at daycare AGAIN.  Failing, AGAIN.  Now I know some would say that is not a failure, but I hate how much time she spends at daycare, and if I hadn't had to blow two hours at the goddamn-someone-else's-baby (yes, I was in THAT frame of mind) doctor, MY BABY would've been picked up a lot earlier.

I brought her home.  She was not fighting me.  She wanted green eggs.  We watered the flowers.  She helped me make green eggs.  We ate our eggs, then we sat outside while she ate pudding and watched for my husband to come home from his guitar lesson. We decided to go across the street to the park.  I pushed her on the swing for a while, thinking how nice it was to have a park so nearby, and how much I really do love my new neighborhood, the neighborhood that I guess isn't new anymore, because we moved into Chateau Travolta a year ago next week, and how GOD WHY CAN'T I JUST RELAX ALREADY? 

The little angel broke my revelry.  "Push me higher!"

I pushed her higher.

"Push me higher!"

I pushed her the highest she's ever gone.

"Look, Mommy!  I'm getting lost in the sky!"

And then, like Bailey on Grey's Anatomy, I think I was able to see the big picture.

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Exercise makes you smarter.  Read the review at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.