What is it about a screaming child that really, really makes me want to scream too? My screaming child, anyway. Other people's children, I hear them in the grocery store, it just doesn't bother me. My own start having a fit, and all I want to do is tear my hair right out of my skull.

Instead, I usually end up putting them in their room and shutting the door, while I come here to the office and shut this door. And even though I have made all the typical New Year's resolutions about taking diet and exercise seriously for once, and even though I've been doing SO good for two whole days, the child-fit-throwing also makes me want to medicate myself with whatever kind of ridiculous food I can find. An entire box of doughnuts and a Pepsi sounds great about now. Instead, I'm on my second granola bar. It's sweet and chewy and not very good for me...but not quite the same as doughnuts.

Also: why is it that on days like yesterday, when I was full of happiness and energy and made an effort to get my house looking good, the kids and I were (cheerfully) alone all day. And on the day when I did not make any attempt to pick up the living room and the kids seem to have drunk a full cup of naughty juice for breakfast, unexpected company drops by?

In short, if someone could please orchestrate the universe so that everything is arranged to suit me, I would like that, thank you very much.

I really have had all kinds of posts floating around in my mind--about resolutions and goals, about books and reading, about all the ways I really want to make this year count--but I haven't found time to write them out in a satisfactory manner, and so here this blog has sat, un-posted-upon, all week. And now I do finally make the time for it, and what do you get? Just the dashed-off dregs of a frazzled mind. Sometimes you just have to take what you can get.