At this moment, I am a raging ball of stress. In the grand scheme of things, there’s a multitude of reasons for this. None of them are terribly important to normal people but I can’t seem to shake it.

1. My daughter’s birthday is right around the corner and I am not prepared for this party. I know it’s only family coming but I’m a crazy person and what you would categorize as an “extra” mom. Examples of things I have done that seem perfectly normal to me that make other people give me epic side-eye.

• Valentine’s Day goody bags for her school classmates
• Themed birthday parties as indicated below

• Had my daughter’s playroom painted

• I built her a fucking castle

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There are times when Ross looks at me and just shakes his head. I’m not sure what the problem is – I mean that’s not true, I understand what he thinks the problem is – I just don’t agree.

For Scarlett’s 5th birthday, she wanted to have a tea party. And I might have gone overboard. I might also have created a menu and had them printed.

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The reality is that all this pressure is of my own creation. I understand that. However, it doesn’t make it any less stressful.

2. We are leaving on vacation in a few weeks and I am completely unprepared. Okay, I’m not. However, I feel like I don’t have this shit as together as I usually do and there is a whole bunch of things left undone. I really need this vacation too. If you couldn’t already tell.

3. My house is atrocious and I just don’t have time to clean it. Plus, I don’t want to. So there’s that.

4. I can’t get the people I work with to think bigger than their own little sphere of influence which is making me feel a bit defeated. I’m actually having nightmares about strategic planning and I’m not sure what to do about that. Because, really, who actually has nightmares about strategic planning. I didn’t even know that was possible.

5. Head lice keeps going around her class…AGAIN…and I just want to go in there with a pair of clippers and shave them all. Because there’s a mom or dad out there who isn’t dealing with this properly. Now, I’ve treated her twice for this and I’m not even sure she actually had it but I couldn’t tell and I wasn’t taking the chance.

6. I’m still writing this book. I just can’t seem to get into a groove. I’m at least at 60,000 words. This isn’t the completed word count but it at least passes the threshold for being a book at this point. So, I’ve got that going for me. This is the stressor that is eating away at me in the back of my mind. If I could just get it done, the editing/adding/deleting is so much easier for me. But getting these things into a first rough draft form has become like pulling teeth and I’m not sure why. Plus, it never goes away. There’s always something I have to finish on the horizon. The next Dahlia book. The next Brittany book. What comes after I’m done with all of them? Do I have another one in me?

This is the shit that circles around in my brain non-stop. So, if you ever need a pick-me-up, just remember, you’re probably not as crazy or stress-filled (self-induced or not) as Suzanne.

#you’rewelcome