obsessions | Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I have been having some issues this past month and I decided it’s high time I let you all in on one of my little quirks. Because I think it is one of my duties to make you all feel better about yourselves and life in general and what better way to give someone the gift of self-assurance than to flat out confess that I might be a little crazy.

I can't help it, like GaGa, I was born this way...

See, you feel a bit more normal already, don’t you?

Anyway, I may have mentioned in passing that I have a few addictions. One of them is coffee,

Like I said, it started at a young age...

Another is bagels, and, well, get me in a room with puppies and I am in danger of an overcommitment similar to that of the Megan character in Bridesmaids.

Yeah. 9 puppies in a van. That would be me.

Look at me, I'm possessed....

Obsession. We all have it in us. Sometimes it’s a great thing. Sometimes obsession pushes us to test our limits of capabilities and finds us climbing uncharted mountains, speaking foreign languages, running marathons or, you know, at the Grammys or something.

But sometimes it ain’t so pretty. Like when you snap out of a chocolate chip cookie induced coma to find that you have been watching a marathon of “Dance Moms” on a Sunday afternoon, for like four hours straight. The realization that you may never get those brain cells back is a tough pill to swallow. And the realization that there are actually women in this world who are that awful…and they get their own t.v. show…can also be something that puts you at risk of a late night call to your therapist.

Yeah, I’ve had my fare share of obsessions. From my addiction to blending things, the semester in college where I couldn’t fall asleep without watching re-runs of the Cosby show on TV Land and the six months I spent determined to find myself a pair of the original Zubas…in my size…in pink and black…just…like…I…used…to…wear.

Needless to say I had to wean myself off of Ebay the same way I had to quit Theo.

It was painful, but necessary.

Yes, I have been known to go overboard. You witnessed it a few months back when you caught me sitting at my kitchen table in my sweatpants, crazy eyed and determined to craft something. It goes wwwaaayyy back people. Back to my days of 4-H and wildflower hunting and learning to ice skate on the frozen stock dam, practicing for hours so that one day it might be possible for me to compete in the Olympics.

I am delusional. But in those moments, the moments I am spinning on ice and getting ready to use my toe pick to launch into the triple axel I am so utterly confident I can land, I believe myself. And then I crack my tail bone on the ice and decide that perhaps I should get back to latch hooking.

Yeah, I’ve been known to possess the not so productive, not so calorie burning or brain-cell friendly obsessions in my lifetime. And I will admit that not many of them have turned out the way I had intended.

But some have. Like my this one right here:

Ummm, hmmmm, that turned out alright sisters.

Yup. I am the woman who finds something she likes for breakfast and then eats it for breakfast like….every….single….morning. When I have a favorite menu item at a favorite restaurant I order it…every…single…time. Like a song? I press repeat. And then I press it again. Then I buy the album and NEVER take it out of the CD player until I find another album to torture my friends and family with for months at a time. Seriously, I have literally worn out CDs….

And so I guess that explains my five year marriage to a man I met when I was eleven, in case you were wondering.

Yup.

Which brings me to today. I’m flaring up.

And I am blaming the advancements in technology. See, it used to be out here in the wilderness you were protected. You didn’t have access to a shopping mall, so maybe you wore the same boots every day and didn’t know any different. You were happy. You fell in love with the music that you heard coming through the radio on drives in the tractor or in the feed pickup.

All seven of them.

And you were happy humming to George Strait. George Strait is the man. And Zubas were only a fond memory. A memory that had absolutely no potential of becoming a reality again because there was NO SUCH THING AS EBAY!!!

But now I’m screwed. I have high speed (well, high speed for middle of nowhere) internet and I just found out that Pinterest was invented AND I NEED FURNITURE AND LIGHT FIXTURES AND I NEED TO CRAFT THOSE LIGHT FIXTURES OUT OF RECYCLED WINE BOTTLES AND THE FURNITURE OUT OF BARNWOOD AND PILLLOWS I HAVE TO LEARN TO SEW FROM SCRATCH! IDEAS! I’VE FOUND ALL THE IDEAS!!!

And then, my little sister came home and introduced me to Spotify, an online music sharing site that gives you access to any artist and all of their albums. So I downloaded it and have been crying in my office at work for like three days in a row as I listen to Lori McKenna‘s new album on repeat for eight hours.

I mean, who writes lyrics like this?

I was just a little girl
When your hand brushed by my hand
And I will be an old woman
Happy to have spent my whole life with one man”

Who is this woman and why is she singing about my life?
Can we be friends? Lori? Lori? Can you text me? I’m dying. Sniff. Sniff. Sob.

I think I’ll stalk her on YouTube

Lori McKenna: How Romantic is That

But here’s the worst thing of all. Something I’ve known is out there for years. Something that has fed an already brewing obsession. Something that allows for that obsession to be delivered to my door with a click of the button. Something that is filling my already to capacity closets to the brim, inhibiting me from making wardrobe decisions, has me standing in front of the mirror in jeans on one leg, and then the other… It’s keeping me up late at night.

It’s costing me hundreds of dollars.

And the worst thing of all is that I can’t quit. They don’t make a patch, they don’t have a help line, I can’t call my momma cause she has the same problem…my sister is hooked too. It might be hereditary. It might be the devil…if the devil was fashionable and sexy….

Yes…you guessed it. It’s online boot shopping…and I need one of the following in every color.

I need fancy boots for singing, practical boots for riding, comfy boots for walking (because these boots are made for walking), boots that look like slippers, slippers that look like boots…

I need boots that go over your jeans, and ones that go under, and a pair that do both just in case. I need high heeled boots and mid heeled boots and well, normal heeled boots. And I need high heels that look like boots.

I need snow boots for trudging, and snow boots for shopping, and muck boots for slopping around in the shit in the corrals.

I need hiking boots to climb the hills and boots that go in my snow shoes. I need hunting boots. I need cowboy boots, and sexy cowboy boots, and boots that kinda look like cowboy boots, but aren’t.

I need hippy boots and professional boots that go with the suit I might wear some day. I need square toe, round toe, pointy toe and the ones that are kinda square and kinda pointy…