Doctors, couldn't you think of a better word than this one?

Okay, people of the internet, I almost kicked this blog to the curb. Right to it. I mean, it's nose was millimeters from the curb. This whole Christmas break I thought, "Blog? Do I even like you even more? Do I even have time for your face anymore?" I'd waffle back and forth. "Yes, I like you, blog. I never want to let you go." "Blog, you're a pain in the rear end. Walk that way. No, the other way. Walk faster." It's just that, well, I've had it for a while now. Sometimes I think it's pathetic, this blog life. Who am I talking to, anyway? I see that people are reading it, but why, you know? I've explored this topic before in my womp-womp post, "What's the point of blogging?"

I don't want this post to be womp-womp.

I guess I just want it to be more honest. If I am going to go forward with this blogging life and if you are going to be reading it, well, I need to come up with a plan. You see, I had always envisioned this blog as a very creative place. I never wanted to write about what my kids did all day and about dirty diapers. If I had named this blog "The Dirty Diaper Diaries" (I bet that blog is out there), well, guess what? That name would be out-of-date because there aren't any of those around here anymore and there won't be any dirty diapers around here until I either babysit my new nephew (he's two months and so, so cuuuuuute!!) or I get really stinkin' old and just let it go. (When that happens, please remind me that I once wrote a post about adult diapers needing decorations. I think that I'll really want my Depends spruced up later.)

As I was saying, I wanted this to be a creative place. I've done some creatin' around here. I've given a lot of my creativity to NickMom, too. You can see all that I've written for them here. One of these days, I'm going to gather all of my favorite, more creative posts and put them under the "favorites" tab up in my navigation bar. I feel like I have become less creative in recent months because I'm giving all of that creativity and energy over to my part-time job as a school speech-language pathologist. (If you are interested in speech and language development and activities to foster that, you might be interested in my "speech therapy stuff" and "Spanish speech therapy ideas" on Pinterest.)

I feel like I've neglected this little ol' Break Room. I've just left dust everywhere in here.

I feel like I can't just let it go.

For one thing, I feel like the blog has sort of become part of me. Isn't that weird? A friend told me that another friend refers to me as "Kelley's Break Room". That's my name. Kelley's Break Room. My Twitter handle is @kelleysbreakrm.. Want to know something? I don't even like that name. I wish I had never put "Kelley" in the title. When I was dreaming up this blog, though, I had no clue. It was between "Kelley's Break Room" and "Kelley's Krazy, Kooky Konnecting Korner". I'm just joking. It was never going to be that. I kouldn't have put up with all of those k's. I kan't tell you how much that would have annoyed me.

When I say that the blog has become part of me, I am taken back to an appointment when a doctor told me the name of something else that had become a part of me. It was a sad, mean old word. One day, for some reason, I reached up to my side and felt around to something on my back. My back has nothing on it. I don't have any moles or freckles or anything. It's just sort of boring really. So, when I felt a little bump on my back, I went ahead and freaked right out. My husband was nearby. I honestly, honestly started bawling. It was zero to tears in no time. It was irrational. I was just so afraid that I had skin cancer. It didn't help that I was working at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at the time. Cancer was always on my mind. So, of course, I made an appointment right away to see my doctor.

It wasn't cancer.

Thank the Lord.

It was a BARNACLE.

"Oh, it's not cancerous. That's what we call a BARNACLE."

Ohmygoodnessgracious, he said I had a barnacle. I mean, that's just horrific sounding. It's like I'm a big fat rock in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of oyster shells clamped on to me for dear life. I mean, could they not think of a better word than BARNACLE.

Original picture from Wikipedia.


"Hey, Lance, I have an idea. We could tell women they have a Harmless Skin Thing and refer to it as HST OOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRR we could just call it a barnacle. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! BARNACLE!!! Oh, they'll love that!!"

"Lance!! You're a genius!!! Let's definitely call it a barnacle!!! Hahaha!!!"

Thanks, doctors.

I'm not sure what's worse. Barnacle or SKIN TAG. Oh, my goodness. You should see my face right now. I can hardly type because I'm scrunching my face up in all sorts of ways. SKIN TAG. Dang it, that's hard to even type out.

"Ms. Jones, I'm sorry to break this to you, but you've got a barnacle and a skin tag."

Poor Ms. Jones! She's got BOTH!

If she had a plantar wart, too, peace be with her. Not of fan of the PW.

Anyway, back to me, needless to say, I got ol' Barney removed. But, yeah, the Break Room is sort of like Barney was to me. It's sort of attached to me. Kelley's Barnacle Room. That just doesn't have the same ring to it. So, although I gave Barney the ol' heave-ho, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to do that to this blog.

It just needs some brushing off and updating and stuff.

I'm sorry, but that brings me to one other thing. Speaking of brushing off and updating and stuff, over the Christmas break, the sweetest little girl came up to me with big, wide eyes and said to me, "You know what would make you pretty? If you drank a gallon of water a day."

So, Kelley-with-the-barnacles needs more water in her life. Kelley needs some refreshing and so does her Break Room. She needs some new concealer, too. So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put more water tanks around here so I can get in my gallon, buy some more concealer and I may even get a doctor set up in the other corner to do some barnacle inspections, if you feel you are in need of one. I'll tell him to be quiet about it. There won't be any, "LOOKS LIKE WE'VE GOT OURSELVES A NICE BARNACLE HERE, VICKI!" None of that.

But, I'm going to stay.

If you are still reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you for wanting to read what I write here. If this is the first time you've stopped by, I'm glad you are here. If you are a regular reader or somewhat regular browser/skimmer, thank you. I appreciate all of you more than you know!