Liv describes the feeling best:  like falling backward out of a chair.

We have been invited to leave the family business after Halloween.  I still have two years of school left, and Toby does not yet have another job lined up.  Our enormous house, which I love, was built around the footprint of the corset workshop in the basement. 

Everything is up in the air and I'm exhausted.  Do we go?  Do we stay?  (Raise your hand if you want to try living outside the Bible Belt once in your life?  I raise my hand and wave it around like Hermione Granger...)

I've always been proud of how we make a living.  I like making things with my hands, to be able to admire a shining stack of corsets at the end of the day.  It's such a concrete way to see what I've been working on. 

I'm watching myself go through the stages of grief over this.  The first time I sat at my sewing machine after "the talk," I did not expect to burst into tears.  I kept thinking how no one will know how good I am at this job, making corsets.  Because of the way the company is structured, I've rarely had anyone praise my work personally.  I will miss being skilled at a trade, though it has started to make my hands ache.

I honestly don't know how to feel.  I can see how the business could have supported all of us, I can see how we were a burden.  I'm sure I'm an asshole to work with.  But it all still hurts.  A lot.

We're fresh off the second round of Parent Teacher Conferences for the year.  The kids are doing very well.  I have realized that PTC feel like a statement about how we're doing as parents.  Especially since I went back to school, I've been sensitive about any evidence that I'm neglecting my kids' needs.

I don't have personal experience of growing up in a large family.  I have one sister.  Many of my childhood friends are from larger families, like between 8 and 11 kids.  These friends are still dear friends (or maybe a spouse).  They turned out fine.  So why am I sure that I can't take care of mine?

I realized the problem.  I don't have personal experience of feeling loved and cared for as part of a larger group of siblings.  I don't have an intuitive grasp of how that feels, so I'm insecure about being only one Mom for seven diverse little people.

Having a daughter (or four) makes me think about what hang-ups I have that I don't want my daughters to have.  Body issues, low self-esteem, perfectionism, martyr syndrome?  I don't want to infect them with any of that garbage.  What if I'm contagious?  How do I avoid it?

Watching my kids go through puberty has been freaky.  I've read that Barry White's voice went from little boy to the full Barry White overnight.  He said he woke up and said something mundane, like "good morning," to his mom, and they both almost died of shock.

My oldest daughter turned sixteen a couple of weeks ago.  I never felt like she favored me heavily, looks-wise, when she was younger.  But, somehow, upon reaching a semblance of maturity, my face just popped into being on her body.  So.  Weird.  Like, so, weird.

I have never been that fond of my face.  I have okay eyes and eyebrows, my nose is too big, and my mouth is too small.  All features are overwhelmed by my soft, chubby cheeks.  I had sort of an eating disorder when I was nine or ten, and even then, my face was round and soft, atop a skinny little malnourished body.

But then my face appeared on my daughter.  She's got blue eyes and paler skin, but we look a lot alike now.  Enough so that Facebook tries to tag us as each other occasionally.  You know what?  My daughter is gorgeous.  I can't hate my face anymore, because it's also her face.  How would she feel if I talked about being fugly (you know, fat and ugly...) when my face is so like hers?

It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I have one more class to attend before break.  I love school, but I am so ready for a few days off.  Then only one week of classes and finals week.  I think my grades are all A's right now, but we'll see how the rest of it goes.

The last few weeks have been crazy, even for us.  We had the house inspected for the end loan, and that means Toby spent about six weeks working on the business and working on the house nonstop.  I am taking thirteen credit hours this semester, and that's plenty.  I was also required to spend 32 hours observing for one of my classes, so I've been going to Diamond High School three days a week after my college classes.  I actually love this more than skipping from class to class for an hour at a time.  I got to know the teacher and the students, and I'm going to miss them.

We've managed to keep things afloat, somehow.  I'm not going to say it's always been pretty.  There are so many Little Caesar's boxes around here it looks like we hosted a frat party.  The floors are sticky and need a very good scrub.  But the kids are clean and healthy and not too neglected.  So now we can move on a little.

I get a little prickly when someone finds out how many kids we have, and asks me in an awed voice how I have time for school.  I know they don't realize this adds to the ball of mother-guilt in my chest, the one that tells me I'm a horrible mom for doing anything besides taking care of my house and my family.  I feel like they are asking me why I don't love my family enough to devote my time to them.

You know what I have realized?  I am a better mom now.  I am working toward something that will provide financial stability for my family. I am providing an example to all of my children that education is important.  I am excited to go to school, and I like getting feedback that I'm good at it.  I have more energy to take care of the house and my children, because I'm not depressed.  That's pretty huge for me.  I spent about ten years taking care of everyone else, resenting it, and feeling awful all the time. 

It is crazy.  But so is having seven kids.  I think once we crossed the threshold of impossibly difficult, adding a few more responsibilities seems fairly doable.  (Not that I don't get overwhelmed sometimes.  I burst into tears about three times last week.) 

Plus, things are starting to calm down.  The house is mostly done, and all we need to do now is some carpet in the attic and a few pieces of trim.  Only a couple of weeks of school are left.  We spent all hour Halloween money on finishing the house, and customers all wait until Black Friday to get a great deal on grab bag corsets, so next week we'll have money again.  It's all calming down, or will soon.

Can I give a shoutout to my drums?  Playing a musical instrument is emotionally cathartic...drums doubly so.  Playing drums always makes me feel better.  I turn stress and sadness into sound and sweat and it is glorious.   I broke my first stick last week, and was chuffed about it.  A day later I noticed that I've also put several cracks into my crash cymbal...and I'm not so thrilled about that.  I'm working on changing my cymbal technique from a swat to a glancing caress. 

In conclusion, crazy busy, light at the end of the tunnel, drums.  The end.

It's October and I love wearing sweaters and jackets and boots.  I love being in school and I love that our house is nearly done.

What I don't love?  Today is a gray, misty day and I feel like the world is tipping sideways a little.  I'm gasping for breath and trying to hold on.  After emerging from a major depression, each bad day fills me with panic.  What if I'm going back downhill again?

A boy we used to know from church died last night.  He was seventeen, or maybe eighteen.  My dark day does not compare. 

These are my two science classroom bulletin boards for Classroom Management.  I'm kinda proud of them.  If I were doing this for my actual classroom, I might put QR codes instead of links in the top one.  Then students can just scan it.  I wanted to put Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking, but I didn't have enough room.  I also figured Brian Cox might appeal to high schoolers more, amiright?

This post should more accurately be titled:

Jill and Fall Out Boy, A Love Story

or

I Went To See Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was Great Memories, A Contact High, and A T-Shirt

or

The Little Blond One Touched My Hand (Well, Not Mine, But Some Guy In Line After The Show)

A few of my favorite bands went through phases in which they didn't name songs something that would help you connect the title with the lyrics. Things like "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes," "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet," and "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet."  So each of my alternate titles would make a good song title.

I have listened to a LOT of music lately.  In recovering from the latest round of depression, I discovered that music makes me feel better.  It helps me be motivated and work quickly.  The faster, the better, the louder, the better.  I even started singing along, and that helps, too. 
Mostly Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy, but I'm getting into My Chemical Romance, too.  According to my teenage daughter, that means now I'm into the Emo Trinity.

Anyway, Olivia, Laural and myself saw Fall Out Boy in concert last week.  There was a bit of unpleasantness with the hotel reservation going awol, then the reservation service placing us in a skeezy replacement.  Whatever, we were still seeing Fall Out Boy, so who cared?

I was not there for the opening acts, but they were interesting.  Wiz Khalifa does what Liv describes as "weed rap."  How a whole genre of music be about weed?  Well, it was.  Literally every song was about pot.  Sometimes, by looking at the crowd, you could tell who was there for Fall Out Boy and who was there for Wiz.  Not always, though.  A teeny blonde soccer mom in the seat next to me screamed her head off for him, and later came skipping back from the merchandise tent announcing, "I got a Wiz Khalifa t-shirt!"

There was a lot of pot smoke in the air that night.  Some guys about ten feet in front of us were passing a joint around, and the smoke was blowing right back onto us.  Maybe it made us a bit high, and maybe not...I don't know what to look for, really.  We were giddy with excitement and having a very good time, but I think that would have happened anyway.  At one point I texted Toby that we were still waiting for Fall Out Boy, and my eyes were kind of wiggly and didn't want to focus on the letters.

Wiz Khalifa's big finale included twenty-foot-long inflatable joints being tossed into the crowd to bounce around, and a confetti cannon.  The confetti cannon was actually really neat.  Imagine a packed arena filled with a blizzard of red and white little strips of tissue paper.  The wind was swirling them around in the air for a truly remarkable length of time.  After the concert, we found confetti all the way out in the parking lot, at least a quarter-mile from the concert.  I still have a few bits in my purse.

Wow, this is getting long.  To be continued...