Faeries, mysteriously appearing trees and suffocating anxiety...

I left the house last Friday morning dreading coming home after work, which is COMPLETELY wrong and unfair...it's simply not right to dread coming home on a Friday, but the house was a disaster. Complete and utter. There were clothes strewn all across the living room, dirty and clean intermixed, hardly a square inch of room visible through the clothing explosion. L's toys had ALL seemed to migrate from his toy room into the living room, and what wasn't covered in clothing was covered in Matchbox cars and ramps and books and balls and tractors; a severe amount of tripping hazards and toe stubbers. The kitchen counter was a mess of bills that should have been in the mail and credit card and refinancing offers and payed bill stubs that should have been filed last Spring. There was a mile high stack of dishes piled next to the sink...the kind that don't go in the dishwasher, that need to be washed by hand; the kind I HATE and will avoid like the plague. The entry/laundry/cat room was nasty; boots and scarves and recycling overflowing, cat litter strewn about (damn cats, are they NEVER going to learn to wipe their feet?!? REALLY.)

So I knew that when I got home, there would be no relaxing on a Friday night after a long week of work. My obsessive self would not leave it till Saturday morning. I would need to address the mess I had ignored all week.

That evening, when I trudged through the door lugging L and bags and purses I noticed immediately that something was not how I left it that morning. The entry was tidy and vacuumed. For a moment, I though that my wonderful husband must have vacuumed before he left that morning (for a weekend of ice fishing with 'the guys'), but that thought immediately vanished when I turned and set my purse on the dryer, which was empty and obviously wiped off.

L and I proceeded into the kitchen, and that's when I knew my cleaning faerie had paid us a visit while we were at work and daycare...the dishes were all washed and put away, save a few obscure pieces that have no visibly apparent home; these were neatly stacked on the stove top, ready to be put away. The floors were swept; no dirt and dust balls sticking to my feet as I crossed the floor. L's toys had all found their way back to his toy room, and were arranged neatly. The clothing explosion had been gathered into some sort of group in one corner of the living room and besides that, the room was SPOTLESS; all of the throw blankets folded neatly, table and entertainment center spotless and dusted.

It was the best feeling...

I love my mom. As much as she can get on my nerves and drive me fucking INSANE sometimes, she has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. She has done this cleaning faerie appearance on a few occasions...always seemingly when it will mean the most for me. She has a key to my house, a privilege of which she is way more respectful than I would even expect, but which I appreciate greatly. Even when I tell her to go ahead and stop in tomorrow to drop off such and such while I am at work, she will still call me when she is on her way and let me know she is dropping it off.

I called her right away and thanked her and let her know how much it especially meant to me that day. In her way, she downplayed it, and was just glad that I could relax a bit with L instead of cleaning...She said she felt it was the least she could do seeing as she forgot my 30th birthday earlier this month (Yeah, my mom, the birthday queen herself, forgot her own daughters 30th birthday!?!) and I assured her that this was a gift greater than ANY card or well wishes.

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Since W was out of town and L and I were all on our own this weekend, I decided to treat L and I to a cheeseburger and fries at this place instead of chowing down on mac-n-cheese or corndogs for lunch. As I was cresting the hill into this little town, I noticed a tree that seemed out of place...an empty branched winter tree sitting just beyond the ditch in the field at the side of the road, all by itself...I could not, for the life of me, recall EVER seeing this tree there, and yet, it was apparently NOT a new tree...it was well established, it had to be a good 20 years old judging by the size. A tree, I could not recall seeing, on a road that I have traveled LITERALLY THOUSANDS of times in my life; riding in the car, driving in the car, on foot, on bicycle. I could drive this road in my sleep...I can name every house along that 2 mile stretch, I can picture all of the fields and barns and silos and hills and valleys in my head...I had passed this spot thousands of times, and yet this tree, which jumped out at me this day, had never caught my eye before.

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I have been feeling the anxiety creeping in lately, trying to break down my walls and wrap it's (ITS, even - damn preggo brain) bony fingers around my neck...I have been beating it back; barely. At times I feel the shortness of breath and tightening of chest starting to overtake me.

I am scared about W's job security, and in turn our financial security. I am nervous once again about how we will afford this addition to our family. I fear how much worse is worse before better comes along? I can't handle unknowns and uncertainties...

I hate that FINANCES can do this to me. WTF. I hate that I feel this way when there are those that are so much worse off than us.

I hate that there is a part of me that knows that as long as we have each other and our love, the rest is all unimportant, and yet, that part of me is not strong enough to overcome the fear and anxiety.