Troubling Truthful Tales

It's been a weird week all around so I thought it was time for an insight round-up. Also because I'm really bad at chain-tweeting so here goes:

1. It really doesn't matter how old your kids are, you could announce to the world that you are going to be using the restroom by having it flash across the screens in front of their faces, the second you are out of sight they will be on your tail like a fanboy on a spoiler site: "Mommy! Where are you?! Can you help me/dress me/answer me/find my whatever? I was so worried about you!" Guys. I'm right where I told you I would be not 30 seconds ago. This is why you will never pee in peace until they move out of the house and maybe not even then.

2. Along the same lines (but with adults), the first time you answer any question for anyone, you become their go-to source for everything. It doesn't matter that you know nothing about what they need, it's assumed that you'll find the answer for them because no one understands them like you do. If you don't, you're not a team player. You don't want to not be a team player, do you?

3. Your kids could have electronic devices coming out of their ears and the second you decide to purge some of the older electronic toys is the second they decide that playing with them will be hella fun. But oh no! They haven't touched them in months so they have no charge and/or dead batteries. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

4. My favorite time of the day is when I get to eat. I love food. That is all.

5. I especially love jelly beans but I cannot be trusted around them so I've come up with an ingenious work around: Blow Pops. I get the hard candy/fruity flavor I crave with keeping my mouth busy chewing the gum and I think that I'm gonna stop right there. 

6. There is something incredibly satisfying about bludgeoning chicken breasts with a meat mallet.

7. Our new fish puts himself in time-out. You do you, Danny.

8. Never underestimate the confidence boost provided by a pretty yet functional bra. You'd be surprised how often the two don't intersect. Or, at least, I was.

9. The day that you overstock your freezer with the children's preferred breakfast of double cinnamon French Toast sticks is the day they will declare that only extra fluffy waffles are suitable for the morning repast, how could you even suggest otherwise you HEATHEN?!

10. I need a nap but my right eye is oozing gunk so sleeping in my contacts would rank up at the top of the list of Very Bad Ideas so I'm forced to go walk in the gorgeous sunshine instead. It's a cruel, cruel world.

Only one day and a handful of hours to go before reaching the crazy that is the weekend for on Saturday we shall do all the things. Ever last one of them. And then a couple more. Just because I can't handle any more truths today. Or maybe ever again.

And that's the truth.

Random Thought Round-Up

Lots of little thoughts have been scuttling through my head but none meaty enough to warrant its own post so to preserve precious memory space, I'm uploading them to the blogCloud. This is sure to be very very secure. And also boring.

1. I've already started assembling gift basket stuffs for teachers this holiday season which is nothing short of a miracle as my usual MO is to wait until the week before winter break then employ Kermit arms liberally.

2. Playing dress up is great. Mixing dress up clothes to create the Good Pirate Fairy and Evil Fairy Conductor? Genius.

3.  My company supports The United Way of Central Maryland and every year we have an event known as C-Day (Charity Day). We have the option of making payroll deductions to contribute and each location hosts fundraising efforts. My plant did carnival games and department basket raffles. For the first time ever, I actually won a raffle drawing: a fire pit.

They included beer. Beer! I think I'm in love.

I'm super stoked about this because who doesn't love a fire pit, amirite? Plus flattened marshmallows! It doesn't get any better than that. Then I read the directions. Don't use under a balcony. Okay, makes sense. Don't use within 10 feet of a building or wall. No brainer. Don't use near trees...especially dead ones. Oh. Oh. Therein lies the rub as we live in a townhouse. With a deck. And a postage-stamp sized front yard. And a dead tree. So if anyone wants to let us borrow some space to use our new fire pit, I'd be ever so grateful. I'll even bring the stuff for s'mores. Fine, and the beer too.

4. Last weekend I offered to take Noelle shopping for new clothes as she has few pants that fit. She declined. I offered to take her to Toys R Us so she could start getting ideas for what she might like for her birthday and Christmas. Nope. Schools are closed tomorrow for Rosh Hashanah and I have them both with me; she asked me to take her shopping tomorrow. I'd love to honey but I doubt your brother wants to spend all day in dressing rooms.

5. Chances are good that I've lost what little sanity I had remaining as at last count I have Noelle registered for Dance, Sunday School, Girl Scouts and now....Basketball. Plus I volunteered to be an assistant coach for whatever team she ends up on. And Noah's soccer league added an extra practice each week. Totally optional but getting 12 lessons for $20? C'mon man, you can't beat that. Unfortunately, this means that dinner will now consist of mostly sandwiches and/or cheese slices with sad grapes. Sorry Dylan.

6. My pants were getting hella tight so when school started back up, Operation Move Yo Ass went into effect. So for 5 weeks now I've been working out 30 minutes on the elliptical every morning and briskly walking the business park for around 20 minutes on my lunch break. And yet, have seen precisely zero movement on the scale. Granted, I never recorded a starting number because: chicken but still, I should have seen some progress by now. I mean, I've even cut back severely on the booze and junk. My afternoon snack is rabbit food and hummus for chrissakes. If this keeps up then I'll no choice but to start running and I hate running. Hate. It. Stupid perimenopausal body shit.

7. It would be incredibly helpful if people actually gave me all the information I need to make decisions when they first contact me. I mean, I'm going to request it anyway so you might as well cut down on the churn and just give it to me upfront. It's not like this is your first rodeo after all.

8. Speaking of work things that annoy me, why in the world would you make people go outside to smoke yet have the smoking pad right in front of the employee entrance thus ensuring that every single employee must run the gauntlet of cigarette smoke whether they want to smell like an ash tray or not? These things honestly perplex me. Though I guess on the stinky scale, cigarette smoke isn't even in the top 10 of Smells From The Plant That Destroy Your Will To Live.

That's all I got. Now to find a workaround to be able to listen to We're Alive since IT blocked it as being 'suspicious'. A girl's gotta have her zombie fix after all. Though it's suspicious that they think zombies are suspicious. Hmmm.

Awesome Science Mix

This is the hardest damn post to start; the temptation to wax poetic about the vagaries of life is overwhelming but does nothing to advance or introduce my point of today which is that my kids are awesome. Huh, that worked out better than I thought. Anyways, some cool things happened last week that I thought were pretty, uh, cool, that were totally the kids and not me and therefore much more interesting. And awesome. Ahem.

Unpacking Noah's book bag last Wednesday, I came upon a worksheet. His preschool/camp program has spent August getting the rising kindergartners back into the school swing by having them unpack their own lunchboxes, practice writing their letters and numbers and, most important (to me) work on their handwriting in general. Lines are still a quasi-foreign concept to him and keeping letters in a line and not 3/4 of the page in size has been a work in progress. But lo, what hath August wrought? It hath wrought worksheets with the vowel sound correctly identified and names - FULL NAMES. FIRST AND LAST - written completely and correctly and on a line! The boy can write a lowercase 'g'! This is cause for celebration! And balloons! And confetti!



The pride wellethed up and spilled over into my wineglass. It was delicious.

Later that night at dinner, we were talking about our days. Noelle has asked questions about my job before so she knows that I taste a lot of chemicals. No, really. That's what I do. Best diet plan ever and as a bonus I now glow in the dark. Anyways, she changed up the question on me this time: where do the chemicals you use come from? Well, there are companies that manufacture the chemicals we buy and.... No, I mean where do they get the chemicals from? How are they made? And with that, right there at the table they say, Mommy's science-loving heart grew three sizes that day. Thus began a good 15-minute conversation on how chemicals are made and how natural and artificial differ. Well the natural piece called to her and from there we went on to how different plants are harvested for different products and how even different parts of the same plant can yield different chemicals and from there the conversation turned to Big Agriculture. It was one of the best dinner conversations I've ever had and I couldn't be more proud that my kid makes those connections between what I do and what must come before.

Pretty good day, amirite? Well last evening was the Piece of Resistance. One of the steps for putting Noah to bed is to go over the behavioral rules he has to follow followed by 5 questions. I was digging the bottom of the barrel for these as unless the question is about his favorite color (blue) or game (football) the answer is usually 'My brain isn't thinking' which as you can imagine is not at all annoying when trying to hold up your end of the bargain. So I asked him, what would you like for your birthday? (A leading question as I already have his gifts.) (Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'd go out and get what he really wanted.) It was...the Lego Movie motorcycle and cop car chase scene set. AND I ALREADY HAD IT.  I win at life.

I hope that the awesome flows on to you because SCIENCE. And confetti.

Silver Linings and Lemonade in a Red Solo Cup

So. Back from vacation. The one thing you look forward to for 51 weeks is over like *that* and in the midst of unpacking and still finding sand in the damnedest places, it's easy to sink into a real funk. The days of sipping cold beers in a beach chair by the water, trying to be heard over the roar of fighter-jet engines, and telling yourself that it's really okay to let the kids eat ice cream for dinner mean it's that much harder to return to reality and when you do, everything look bigger and worse than ever. Even my sunny self is not immune to it. So I'm trying something different this year: finding the silver lining in the stuff that's getting me down.

1. Vacation being over.
Silver lining - Got to dance to 'Red Solo Cup' and 'Handlebars' with my family at my cousin's 10th anniversary party. Also, I do the 'C' of the 'YMCA' backwards. Who knew?

2.  Back to work where things went 'kablooey'.
Silver lining - Okay, this took more thought but at the very least, my job is secure for years to come as no one wants anything to do with it. Also, I have another year before this clusterfuck happens again.

3.  The kindergarten teacher I was hoping Noah would get isn't in the school anymore.
Silver lining - She took a job at a different local school so I'm happy for her. And it's not like I won't see her; two of her kids are at Franklin, one in the same grade as Noelle. Even better, no more day care payments! Ever! And we've made a date to meet at the local ice cream stand The Cow. So really, it's still a mostly-win.

4.  Noelle didn't get the teacher she wanted either.
Silver lining - The same thing happened last year and she ended up loving her teacher. I just hope that some of her close friends are in her class this year.

5.  Jinx is not consistently peeing in the litter box. Poop, yes, but not pee.
Silver lining - Well, we found an awesome pet sitter for her. And as she prefers to pee on piled up papers and plastic bags, it's forcing us to keep the clutter down. Her secret peeing spot is somewhere in the basement where the carpet was already ruined by my old cats so it looks like we're moving up our timetable of replacing that carpet too. Oh darn, that means we need to organize and THROW STUFF OUT.

6.  Friends are fighting and things are changing.
Silver lining - This was the hardest one as I think the world of everyone I *think* is involved but I need to let it go and not obsess about it. It just means I need to alter the ways I check feeds and has nothing to do with me. On the bright side, I get to *meet* with two twitter friends face to face this month which I'm so excited about. One to give her daughter some coveted dolls and the other to share our city with her family.

Change is hard yo but on the bright side, NO MORE DAY CARE! EVER! HUZZAH!

(Did I mention no more day care? Because that makes me happy.)

(Also wine. Really, anything in a red Solo Cup. But that was a given.)

Random Tuesday Thoughts

I've got two working days left before vacation so my drive to get anything done besides vacation prep is slowly fading away. Not that I'll get away from work totally; I still have reports to run and apocalypses (apocalypsi?) to avert. But I won't be HERE while doing it. At any rate, VACATION! WHEE! But before we can get there, we gotta make it through this week. And it was touch and go whether we would or not.

Saturday night my computer mysteriously decided to eat my profile name so I couldn't log on. Usually not a big deal but I prefer to snark terrible SyFy movies from my trusty laptop and thus was relegated to using my phone. I know. Woe. It was still acting up on Sunday morning meaning that Dyl couldn't do his video show. Like a good wife, I said, 'Take it to the Best Buy service department. I'm taking the kids to my mom's to make cookies. Later!' Turns out that before they'd even look at it he had to buy a $200 technical services warranty contract thingy. Um, no. Not gonna happen. So he contacted a friend who was able to help restore stuff and now I own Tony beer and cookies. (Thanks again Tony! A new computer was not in the budget at this time.) He missed his show but at least I had it back to do my 'The Strain' recap. Priorities, yo.

Huh, everyone in Office Row disappeared. I hope there wasn't a meeting or something I was supposed to be at....

After getting pissy with Noelle's summer camp, I finally (FINALLY!) got her swimming reports for the past 5 weeks. They were on scraps of notebook paper. I think some of my end-of-camp suggestions will be to have a standardized form for the swim instructors to fill out for the kids taking lessons. It's not rocket science until it is.

Speaking of camp, she loves it there and has made lots of friends. Yay! But! She's also generous to a fault and has each week run out of snack money by Thursday buying snacks for her friends. Maybe 7 is too young but we give her money at the beginning of the week so she can get an afternoon snack and once it's gone, it's gone. She gets no more until the next week. I don't want to curb her generous impulses but we are starting to worry that she's being taken advantage of by these kids. She doesn't think so; she likes to share which: awesome but I'm really not in the business of providing snack money to other people's children. Today I instituted a new rule: you can buy treats for your friends one day a week; you choose the day but after that, the money is for you as I can't afford to keep replenishing it when you spend it quickly. It's a balancing act - giving her a safe way to practice budgeting her money versus BUY YOUR OWN DAMN SNACKS YOU GREEDY MOOCHERS!

Related, I really need a vacation.

We're proud of her generosity and her caring; this is a control issue for me that I have to work out. In the meantime, enjoy the closest approximation to the epically glorious behead she sported last week (combine the two and it's spot-on):

Did I mention needing a vacation?

Now, I need to just breathe and let it go.

Monday Brain Dump

Coming back from a long holiday weekend always tends to scramble my brain a bit. I was just lucky that that remembered to set the alarm for this morning. Or maybe cursed.... Either way, we're now on the backside of summer (if you listen to the marketers) but it's soul-meltingly hot today so in lieu of actual coherent content, I'm pleased to present a random list of things that have crossed my mind today. You're welcome.

1.  I have five different 'Words With Friends' games going on right now and I swear that at this point they're just making shit up.

2.  Speaking of summer being 'over', I should probably get the kids' school supplies now, you know, before Wal Mart sells out of everything by next week.

3.  Did I mention that it's only the beginning of July?

4.  How is it that my neighbors who drive a small car are completely unable to park inside the lines? I mean, I know they're from Russia but there are cars there too. It's not that hard people.

5.  There is a house for sale two doors down from us and we're trying to convince my mother-in-law to buy it. Seriously, this is the best idea ever!

6.  I have avocado slices on my sandwich today so I win.

7.  Three more weeks until vacation/family reunion time! I should probably start trying to find 'The Ba-boomp-ba-boomp song' (otherwise known as 'The Thing') for Rob. If he doesn't appreciate it, I know his kids will.

8. We'll probably need to rent a trailer for the beer.

9.  Noelle actually tried some new foods! Chicken legs are a go but red/green bell peppers are on the fence. With any luck, she'll eat more than 10 things by the time she graduates high school.

10. It wasn't a complete win as she's still terrified of any dog that weighs less than 90 pounds.

11. She and Noah are stupidly tall as she is a full head taller than her second cousin Raine who is the same age as her and Noah is the same size as Raine at three years younger.

12. Really, we're already doing back-to-school? What's next, Christmas in August? Oh wait....

13. I was very glad to send them both off to camp this morning as I couldn't take another day of playing Evil Decepticon Brains And Their Assorted Super Pets in the Star Cup Mario Kart Race.

14. If loving sangria is wrong, I don't want to be right.

15. Up yours marketers; you can take summer from me when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

16. There is only one episode left of We're Alive - A Story of Survival and if you've never listened to this radio drama podcast, you should. It's amazing. It has zombies. Go listen. Now.

17. It's SUM-MMMMMERRRRRRR!

It's Supercalfabricalious

We all have our weird hang-ups, I know that. Mine do not make me a special snowflake by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, I usually have them buried so deep that nothing short of zombie-producing gas quake will bring them to light. Except for knotty pine. I carry that loathing front and center. Recently though, I had to get new work pants as mine are ancient with fraying hems, missing buttons, and faulty zippers - sometimes all on the same pants! And I wonder why I can't get promoted. At any rate, it was time to bid adieu to my trusty Dockers but I have a big issue with textures. Specifically fabrics. Now I'm not saying that being covered head to toe in jersey-knot cotton wouldn't be ideal...wait. No, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Many years ago in my first go round at the plant, I had ordered the uniform pants which I may have tried on once before chucking them into the closet never to be seen again with a loud "Oh HELL no!" (My roommate and best friend can corroborate this.) They were stiff, they were itchy and they fit weird. I have a bizarre shape - very long legs with big hips, a moderate butt and no waist of which to speak (hello Hobbit torso!) so the regular women's style hit me in all the wrong places. So I shrugged and bought khakis. Well, two kids later, shelling out $200 to replace pants that I wear to work and get messy and smelly is simply not going to happen so I bit the bullet and ordered new uniform pants. They came in several days ago and with great trepidation I tried them on...oh god, the fabric. It's still weird and stiff and high-waisted which makes me cry. But! They. Have. Pockets.

Real, functioning pockets. Four of them! Deep for carrying stuff and making sure your keys/phone/access card do not randomly fall out while walking. Actually existing back pockets! Ladies, you know what I mean. None of those fashion 'half pockets', those sewn shut wannabe pockets. Pockets that are there and not for some strange fashion choice. I mean, really, what's the point of pockets in pants that have no depth or are just there for show? Why even bother? No, these are full sized pockets. Extra full sized. You could possibly smuggle a turkey dinner in them. These are the pants you want to wear during the zombie apocalypse. They aren't tearing as I believe they are made out of malleable steel, possibly mithril, you can shove a TON of shit in them for when you have to get out of Dodge quickly and in a understated navy blue, won't show too much wear and tear (or blood and guts). The only thing that could make these better would be in a cargo style (MOAR POCKETS) but beggars can't be choosers. If only it didn't feel like my skin was being sandpapered off....

Levi Strauss Company? Call me. We need to talk.

Some guys have all the luck

Shhh. I've got something to tell you about Dylan. Can you keep a secret? You can? Great. Here it is: he's really, stupidly lucky. I mean, beyond getting to be married to me of course; he'll never top that but he's lucky in the best way possible: finding parking spaces. (What? Where did you think I was going with that? Get your mind out of the gutter. Pervert.)

No kidding, the man has what I've termed to be the 'Lucky Parking Horseshoe'. He can find a parking spot close to whatever building he's going no matter how insane the lot. Case in point: when we were dating (or maybe engaged, anyway, we were together) we ventured to the local mall a few weeks before Christmas mid afternoon on a Saturday. We must have driven up and down and all around that parking garage for a good 20 minutes before he stops by the entrance to let me out. At that point I was ready to declare it a 'gift-free' Christmas but he tells me to go ahead and get started, we'd meet up in the first store in a bit. I got out, went into the mall and not 5 minutes later he comes walking up to me. Just after he'd let me out, a spot opened up right behind him. So he swung around like Evel Knievel and snagged it. Stuff like this happens all the time - the unifying theme is that I CAN'T BE IN THE CAR as I bring the worst parking luck.

The only mitigating thing is the kids and they're 50/50. We had to park about a mile away from the State Fair last summer but got a space right outside the movie theater a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon. With me though, it's a crap shoot. I've just pretty much given up at this point and park in BFE.

Eh, I needed to up my daily step count anyway.

Leggings are not pants and other random musings

1. They look like pants. They are put on like pants and yet, unless you are layering them under a skirt or pairing with a long shirt, thou shalt not wear them as pants. (Babies and toddler are exempt from this of course because RUFFLE BUTT!)

2. Why is it when you go to bed late and you have to get up early you are compelled to wake every 45 minutes or so to make sure you haven't overslept thereby negating any 'sleep' you do get? Also: still tired.

3. If the 'ladies' on Maury Povich want an easy way to identify their baby daddies, perhaps they shouldn't sleep with so many different men in the first place. (What? Isn't every break room TV tuned into Maury?)

4. Never, ever, EVER argue with the judge hearing your case. It's like the people on Judge Judy have never actually watched 'Judge Judy' before. You only piss her off and make yourself look stupid. Stop it.

5. We're big fans of quality talk TV here at work.

6. Recent dreams have included walking around Old Navy in my underwear and last night added in walking around topless. It was beyond weird but man my boobs looked great.

7. While Triscuits and peanut butter are a delicious combination, choosing to make them dinner two out of the past four nights probably didn't help with the dreams.

8. Related, someone needs to study the link between making extremely poor dinner decisions and dreaming about the lack of clothes. I'd try it again tonight (for SCIENCE) but alas, am almost out of peanut butter.

9. It does not matter what time I leave work in the afternoon; I will arrive home at 5:55 pm due to weather, traffic, stupidity (mine or others. Usually others), or some unholy combination of all three.

10. One word for you: Battleshots. Look for Riskbong to be a thing next year.

You drank my battleship!

Have a great day! Phases on stun, good luck, Kirk out.