Way back in the day, when blogging was fun and not something we did because advertisers paid us to, we used to do funny little blog memes. Present a topic, write your post, and then tag others and challenge them to do the same. I haven’t seen this done for awhile(or maybe I just don’t do enough blog-reading these days!) but seeing a post on Reddit tonight that asked the basic question “Who are you?”, it kind of inspired me to want to bring this back.

Who I Am…

I am a 33 year old woman

I am a computer geek by profession, and a blogger who blogs constantly, but writes little, and I want to change that.

I am smart. Like, REALLY fucking smart. Unfortunately those brains did not come with a lot of common sense, which I didn’t seem to acquire until my late 20′s.

I am married to an Irish guy, and after knowing each other for 5 years, his accent still drives me crazy. He works from home because he likes being his own boss, and I pretend there are benefits to this, but the fact is if I let him work outside the home women will start throwing their panties at him every time he opens his mouth. I’m not kidding, the accent is just that. damn. sexy.

Thanks to a very nasty divorce, I am a non-custodial mother, which still sounds really odd. It’s been this way for 2 1/2 years now, and I am pretty used to it by now. That doesn’t make it any easier, but I am far enough out to be able to see the positives of the situation. I often jokingly call myself the Disneyland mom- have fun with them on the weekends, and then send them home for the crappy parts of the job.

As of today I am also the mother of a 14 year old. This really doesn’t seem possible, as I am far too young for this. She must have skipped a few years when I wasn’t looking.

I love animals way too much, and am the owner of a rat, a bunch of tiger barbs, and a frog named ‘Asshole Frog’.

I know absolutely, positively, without a doubt that I do not have herpes in any form.

I have never broken a bone.

I tend to step up and take a leadership role in organizing events not because I enjoy the job, but because I want to see things happen and get frustrated when no one else will do it.

I have lost 14lbs in the last 6 weeks, and am committed to a low-carb lifestyle. I can’t even really say committed, it just IS what is normal for me now. Poor Paul is having a harder time of the adjustment, but is doing well with his own weight loss.

I am terrible speaking in front of groups or when I am put on the spot. In fact, I really hate large crowds in general, they make me anxious.

I used to deal with depression, complete with therapy and medication, but it has been completely gone since my divorce. Draw your own conclusions.

I am a voracious reader who was often told to put the book down and go play outside as a child. I read my first Stephen King book at the age of 9, and was reading on a college level by the time I was 10.

I am not a tv watcher, I think most of it is stupid and mind-numbing, and am very picky about the series I do watch. We have one television in the house and do not subscribe to cable.

I am always right. Even when I’m not, I am.

I love being 33, and feel like life is only getting better, even with the occasional challenges.

So, who are YOU? I do hereby tag Selina, Heather, Paul, April, and anyone else who wants to play.

As much as I love a new blog theme, I admit to really disliking when the need to change is because the old one decides to out of absolutely nowhere develop a rather stunning case of digital vertigo and start puking blog parts all over the page. Call me crazy, but I prefer my elements stay where I left them, thank you very much.

Finding a theme is one of the most pain-in-the-ass parts of putting together a site, and Paul can be a bit picky about what themes we use, due to how often WordPress makes major changes, and how slow designers can be to update and accommodate those changes.  I understand why he wants them to have been updated since the last major release, but it can lead to me calling him a lot of not so nice things under my breath as I bang my head against the desktop trying to sift through the few that might make the cut.

In other news we’ve started trying to get a little healthier here in Casa O’Flaherty. I am going low-carb, and Paul is grudgingly going along with it to support my efforts. It’s forcing us to really look at what we consider ‘normal’ eating, which tended to include a fair amount of processed stuff with long ingredient lists. We weren’t terrible about it, but who could blame us for having a hard time resisting the call of a loaded-down pizza and a loaf of garlic bread alongside it? As it is we are getting a bit closer to basics these days with the meats and vegetables, and we are getting into the habit of going for a good long walk at night as well. I say walk, but we are working on getting me up to jogging, another one of those things that I know he’s right about, but doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.(Crap, did I just admit in writing that he was right about something? Erase! Erase!) I didn’t realize how out of shape I am until we started trying to run. Ouch!

Here’s my latest addition to the hooker-heel stiletto collection. I needed something lighter for summer, and I figured these would go with just about anything.

Paul and I had a discussion recently about my blogging, or to be more truthful, my lack of blogging. For the longest time I hated my blog. The thought of opening the text editor made me both angry and somewhat panicky, because I had to be so incredibly careful about every word I said, knowing it would all be fodder for court. Emotionally I was incredibly angry and resentful of the things going on around me, and it was out of that darkness that my last theme was developed. Paul did a great job of turning out a beautiful theme, but we recently realized that where my blog was and where I am were no longer in sync.

As I look around my blog today I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. Lighter, more airy, less clutter, less crap. Much like real life for me these days.

Things are not what I would call anywhere near ‘settled’, but for now there is at least a sense of security that I was missing for the better part of the last 2 years. I can finally breathe easier, and that feeling of constantly worrying and waiting for the next shit-storm is easing off ever so slightly.

Not content to just wait for the effects of The World’s Worst Divorce. Ever. to wear off, I have decided to make the changes I want a very conscious choice, carried out by action rather than reaction. I’m working on not dwelling on the divorce so much, although I still maintain that anyone who has been as deceitful and vindictive as my ex is due for a whopping dose of Karma-times-infinity. (Then again maybe that’s exactly *why* he got the visit from the herpes fairy, she was filling in for Karma that day.) I know, I know, I said trying to work on it. Slow process.

I came back from my recent trip to Virginia happier than I’d been in ages, and with a strong desire to revamp my blog and start fresh with it. I didn’t want to get rid of my old content, but I did want to change my focus to the road of self-discovery I am on, rather than the hell and back I have been to previously. Paul worked out a way to do all that by archiving my old content, and clearing out my categories so that what is on the main page will be new stuff instead of old. (He’s so smart sometimes!) I decided clean and simple was the way to go, so I dumped the tag cloud, lifestream and other non-essentials and stuck with links to just a few networking sites.

Now that my blog is cleaner and more focused, I can finally get back to basics with my writing as well. My focus for 2010 is to start experiencing all that life has to offer, and to learn to not take myself so seriously in the process. I want to let my inner child out to play again, and re-discover the world through her eyes. I’ve had far too much darkness in my life over the last two years, it’s time to learn to laugh again, even if it’s just at myself.

Sara, hamming it up at age 3.