Why do we live here??

No, really - WHY DO WE LIVE IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA?? This is not a trick question. I obviously understand that we technically live here because Casey has a wonderful job with great benefits that provides a lovely life for us (see? I'm grateful, right?). I only pose a whiny, half-serious question to illustrate an incident that happened just a few moments ago. (Oh, the suspense.)

I've been sick for three years, and after a different sort of sickness for the past week I finally felt better today. This is a big deal for me, because it meant that I didn't have to do the bare minimum to keep my child and husband alive with limbs intact - it meant that I could vacuum the floor (gasp!) and mop the kitchen floor (no!) and even venture to measure the panels for our bedroom window that I have been meaning to make for 2 years (amazing!). I'll admit that sickness has been really hard on my family and myself, not only because the house has been less than clean much of the time but because I haven't been able to do nearly any of the things I have wanted to do as a wife and mother. Those who knew me pre-chronic illness know that I LOVE to host parties and be a complete idiot (translation: have stinking piles of fun). My college photos are replete with messy, silly memories that may not have happened had I not been a completely immature 18-21-year-old with a penchant for making those who seemed to be a little more shy act like idiots in a puppet-on-a-string sort of way (i.e. for my own amusement, I guess...you know who you are...and I did it for your own good, right? Right??). We dressed up, we sang at the top of our lungs, we had food fights and kidnapped blow-up plastic chairs and held them for ransom; we made sugar cookies that looked like Middle Eastern countries, we had a Christmas tree up year-round that was decorated in accordance with the current season; I even wore spandex and a side ponytail for our Napoleon Dynamite night. But with the onset of my sickness, it was all I could do to go to class or work, much less make or even eat a meal. I have completely mellowed out the last three years, and some of my friends have noticed. I had big plans to decorate my home, go on fun outings, dance with my baby, play and laugh and run and do - but these events are few and far between for us.

Why do I regurgitate such seemingly uninteresting, unrelated to the topic and personal information? Today seemed to be a day of reflection, of trying to let those closest to me know that they can trust me to follow through on things I want and need to do but haven't had the strength to. My husband sort of started the ball rolling in this direction last night when I realized that he didn't ask me to do things not because I was sick and couldn't do them, but because I promised to do them and they seemed to never get done. Do you see the difference? I did, at least, and that one hurt.

I'm here to say, though, that if that is the impetus for change in an upward direction, so be it. To bring this semi-introspective discussion full circle, the aforementioned reason is why I was furiously sweeping the entryway tile this morning, and it is why I posed the question that I will now repeat: WHY DO WE LIVE IN TUCSON?? (I mean, just south of Tucson, of course...)

As I was sweeping, a tan-colored something caught my eye that was half stuck under the front door. Upon pulling it out with the broom, I realized it was a SCORPION!!! Yes, folks, a scorpion, complete with a stinger and arms and way too many horrible characteristics to spout off. It was about and inch and a half long, dead (thank GOODNESS - I wasn't sure at first), and I could not figure out how it got under our door.

Oh, so many things come to mind from such a small incident. First, yes, I have a decent enough vocabulary and skill as a writer to compose a somewhat amusing account of the mundane in my life. Second, I obviously need someone to talk to since this is the sort of thing I spend my "free" time doing. Third, which should probably be first, is that Gavin plays over by the door, and what if he had encountered this before I swept it up? Worse, what if he found a live one??

That settles it. We are never going outside again unless it is to get in the car, drive to an airport, and fly to a place where everything doesn't try to kill you, from the bugs to the foliage to the weather to the wildlife. Then again, this one was halfway inside before he kicked the bucket, anyway...