Kind of funny how a change of dress can change your day.

I got up today wanting to wear a dress to work, but it is that inbetween time of year, and just to look in my closet is overwhelming. I have summer and winter combined and it is just plain hard to figure out what to wear, or what is where. My eyes scanned the mess and I cued in on my familar grey ensemble...long skirt, striped long sleeve tee, and coordinated zip up vest. Sounds fetching, eh? Colorless and shapeless, I was setting myself up for a great day. Then I stopped. I thought to myself that on a grey day, I deserved a bit of color. Out shopping with my mom a couple of weeks ago I had purchased this great, polka dot print, green wrap dress...slinky and clingy in all the good ways, without being sleezy at all. I cut the tags, threw it on, and instantly felt a spring in my step. I thought of my black, tall, high heeled boots, and put one on, but then had a feeling I was teetering on the edge of "inappropriate for an elementary school." I resolved the problem with some simple black heels and headed out to face the day.

It is funny, but I clearly recall the last TWO times I had a green dress. One was a wonderful turtleneck dress with a long swing skirt and a VERY FAUX reptile WIDE belt circa 1987-89. Actually, I had the dress in brown, but my mom had it in green and it is documented as such in my Senior portrait. I wore her dress, instead, to picture day, in order to compliment my greenish eyes. Too bad it couldn't do anything to compliment my bad perm, but such is the passage of time on film, where hideous choices are preserved for posterity. The second green dress came in the early 90's, with student teaching, aka virtual adulthood, just around the corner. I was doing some shopping, at the mall in Plattsburgh as we were at a cousin's graduation or something. Tim and his brother Terry endured me trying on dresses at Lerner NY, back when it didn't look like a bargain basement. I picked up this tunic and pencil skirt ensemble in green. Wore it to death, and always thought of it as the "cruel dress." Barenaked Ladies had their first album out and Terry was into them. They had this quirky song, that of course would one day be part of our cultural lottery obsession "If I Had a Million Dollars." It emplored us not to buy a real fur coat, and certainly, "not a real green dress, that's cruel." Well, I had committed the sin, I had bought the green dress, and damn it, as a poor college student, most certainly without a million dollars, let alone $10, I was wearing it.

Whew, I guess it has been a while. I've run the gamut now of several wine colored dresses, and the bevy of black, but it seems I have come back to green again. The highschool and college green dresses are long gone, and I haven't had one since, until now. I walked into school today and every person I saw had something to say about that dress. I looked DAMN good, and I felt good too. Like I said, it was a grey day, but that dress did put a smile on my face. I was walking tall, I had energy, I had wit. I got a ton accomplished and did some good teaching. Most of all, though, I laughed with the kids, and at the kids, at least enough to retain my own sanity. I kept my cool, and let the day's crap roll off my back. I wasn't under a black cloud. As posted, yesterday kinda bit, but today...well, change your dress/change your life? A bit much to believe, but a real green dress, at least today, was not at all cruel.
-Cheryl

WELL, really, I suppose, if I was going to be honest, I only have myself to choke, but whatever.

Home today, half day, as my darling daughter came into my classroom around noon, having been sent down by the lunch lady. Her stomach hurt and she looked like crap. I am always saying what a great thing it is to work in my kid's district, but on days like this, I kind of wonder. If she were at another school, might she have toughed it out? Who knows, and overall, I have sick days for this reason, but let's just say it is adding to the pile that is sending me over the edge lately. Looking back, though, it is a wonder I am doing as well as I am.

I was in that deep and dark "I don't want to go back to work tomorrow" funk pretty much the MOMENT I woke up on Sunday morning. I have never been a lover of Sunday as it is the END of the weekend, but this school year has been good so far. I had the fleeting thought that perhaps I had moved past the phenomenon of "Sunday's little black rain cloud," so its arrival, took me a bit by surprise. Yet, as the day wore on, and my hubby and I cleaned up the house...once again full of dust and dirt that had been generated, this time, due to three new doors being installed, I got to thinking. Major surgery...if you had it, you'd give yourself time to recuperate, no? Well, in the past year and three months our home has had major surgery 3 times as we replaced every window, tore out old walls and replaced/painted in the dining room, and now put in 3 new doors and storm doors. Keepin' the storms out, but feeding the storms within. Or perhaps, feeding the fires of irony while burning the candle at both ends. Still more projects are lined up, necessary things like the roof, siding...smaller things like painting, bathroom remodels (ugh!) and even "fluff" like a pool and decks. All things I WANT to do. All things that HAVE to be done to an extent, before the timing is all wrong and certain opportunities have passed us by, but still, yikes! And I wonder why I am stressed.

Of course it is not just house stress either, but the "rest of life" over the past year as well. We've had three weeklong family vacations, and we all know "family vacation" should read "After my vacation I need a vacation." There just was a big family wedding, in Canada no less, in which Gwynn was flowergirl. Then the not so nice stuff, like my "bout" with a possible autoimmume disease, still in some ways unresolved, and mom's true bout with cancer, still a mental stumbling block at times. Factor in the typical, neverending and perpetually annoying work stresses and normal everyday life stresses. All that on top of a year's worth of birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and the obligations they enfold. I know that to understand life is, in some ways to recognize that it is, at its root, a series of neverending tasks, and that the beauty of life is very much in the doing, and in the cycles, but could it just slow down for a while? Could life hold it's inevitable curve balls and just send nice easy pitches my way for a bit? Could we just STOP working on this damn old house?
-Cheryl