Labor on Labor Day, Blogging Blockage (Less Painful Than It Sounds) and Fighting With My Mom

I had this genius idea to import ALL of my CDs into iTunes this weekend. I already had about 40 gigs of music saved onto an external hard drive and I saved about 20 gigs more this weekend.

This morning I tired to import more and my heart started to beat fast and I broke out into a cold sweat when I realized the external drive is broken. The light comes on and I can hear it whirring like it’s working, but it won’t mount on my desktop. Not only is that music probably gone but so is about 10 years worth of digital photos.

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This Labor Day weekend was full of hard labor.

After years of mildly neglecting our back yard we decided to really focus on getting it the way we want it.

With two dogs the back yard has gotten a little beat up—plants have been trampled, eaten, pulled out of freshly dug holes, and the grass has turned yellow in a few spots and is totally bare in others. To be fair, it’s not all the dogs’ fault. We have oak and birch trees that were planted almost 30 years ago and they give us a lot of shade—too much for the grass to take in some parts.

Almost every weekend for the past month we’ve spent time outside cleaning furniture, re-seeding the lawn, and concocting ways to keep the dogs out of the flower beds. Now that we know how to barricade the dogs from the flowers (a vinyl version of chicken wire placed around the beds) I spent the weekend bent over the dirt, planting flowers, weeding, putting trees in planters, cleaning patio furniture.

Just in time for summer to end.

I’m sitting out back right now. For the first time this season. Which seems pretty lame when you think about it because it’s the first mild summer that I can remember—July, August and September are usually over 100 degrees—and I haven’t taken advantage of it.

Hopefully, it stays this way long enough to enjoy it. The yard AND the weather.

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I haven’t spoken to my mom in about 4 days. Which is weird and unusual.

I usually call my parents on my way home from work a few nights a week, and when I talked to them on Thursday my mom and I got into it over something stupid. The call ended with me saying “Fuck this”, which I’m sure she heard as “Fuck you” and I hung up. (Yeah, I know, don’t lecture me on swearing around my mom.)

So now I’m holding my ground and she’s holding hers.

This morning my dad sneaked a phone call to me to ask me if I’d call her and apologize.

Even when I know I’m wrong apologizing isn’t my strong suit. And I know that she’ll never graciously accept an apology without giving me a bunch of shit. Which, of course, makes me stand my ground.

I am 41 years old. When does this mother-daughter battle end?

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Blogging has been sporadic around here lately. I seem to be in some kind of a blogging block. I’ve started about 5 good posts but I can’t seem to finish them.

It’s frustrating yet oddly kind of liberating. Usually, I start to freak out when I don’t post after a few days because it feels weird to “disappear” from my space. But this time it didn’t bother me. I’d still check in every day to see if anything was going on over here, but I even stayed away from Twitter for the most part. I’ve seen a lot of shit go on in the blogosphere lately and it kind of turned me off. But mostly, I think I needed the break.

Hopefully, I’ll get my mojo back soon. I’m starting to miss this place.