Is it Mondays? Or do I really hate my job that much?

Gawd, I know.  I'm beating the dead horse.  Repeatedly.  Even I'm annoyed by my carping but holy hell am I not happy.  I work weekends to try to get ahead in my work, maybe take some of the stress off and come Monday morning (hah - almost typed 'moron'.  Freudian slip perhaps?) I'm faced with 5 voicemails and 17 emails all needing this that or the other released/extended/rejected.  Seriously?  I JUST walked in the door.  I realize that some of you start your workday at 0-dark-thirty but us working moms are constrained by that little thing known as 'daycare' and 'not wanting to wake the children up hours before first light'. 

Then my manager comes to me this morning (whilst fighting with our operating system) and asks why I didn't have any safety observations done last week.  You were here all week, right?  Um no.  No I was not.  I was having surgery last Monday and Tuesday and I left you a voicemail about it AS OUR HR DEPARTMENT HAS INSTRUCTED US TO DO.  Well, can you send me an email instead?  I can't remember voicemails.  Lord, please give me the strength to not take the Mallet of Excellence upside this woman's head.  Then our main operating system went down and has stayed down thereby ensuring that I will be spending a chunk of my weekend here AGAIN catching up.  Plus our scheduling department just went live on some new system which I'm sure won't add any extra work to my load at all because now they have the power to do I don't know what but it can't be good.  I can feel my blood pressure rising and remaining elevated as the events of last week threw the daily inanity into stark relief that this just doesn't matter.  I'm totally blaming the stress for what happened to me.  It's not going to get any better - this place is broken and fixated on the wrong things.  I have no power here, no voice so the only thing left for me to do is to get the hell out.  Which I'm trying to do but have that little thing known as 'responsibility' engaging me in an epic staring contest.  And I wear contacts so of course I need to blink. 

I really want to stop bitching about work.  It's a necessary evil and my family is worth it.  I would like to stop feeling flat and deflated at the end of every day, rushing through dinner and time with the kids to desperately find a bit of myself again before facing it on the morrow.  I'm gonna try to get back to telling the kid stories, they are much more fun and oh!  the pictures!  but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to need to find some balance before I can get back to what I want to write about.

I did do a lot of cooking this weekend so my house smells like meat.  Yummy, yummy roasted meat.  All hail the crockpot and cream of chicken soup!  Seriously,  I think that I used four cans in two meals.  And on that nonsequiter, I'm out.  Until tomorrow when I'm sure I'll more things to complain about. You can't wait, I know it.

Really? More snow? Gah.

As this will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, the east coast got slammed with snow.  Again.  And this time Baltimore took it on the chin.  After being out Monday and Tuesday having surgery, leaving early yesterday to pick Noelle up from daycare as they closed early, I'm stuck at home today as I can't get out of my neighborhood.  Dyl tried to get my car to the top of the street so I could get to work but he got stuck and very nearly wedged my car (and himself) firmly across the the top of the street thereby almost earning us the hatred of everyone on our road.  So now I'm forced to wait for the plow to be able to get out. 

Why should I be upset about this unexpected snow day?  Well, my company is open, others in my department made it in, I was out for 2  days already and I have this bizarre need to be there to support the plant even though I want nothing more than to just say 'eff it'.  This is what having a strong work ethic gets you:  a ridiculous amount of guilt over not being able to work.  How is this healthy?  It isn't.  It can't be.  For Pete's sake, we flavor food, we don't cure cancer.  And yet, I care.  I stress about it.  I'm beyond devastated that this was the first time in 13 years at this company that I have ever called out sick.  How stupid is that? 

So one bitter product development/sensory professional is available for hire who also cooks but tends to prefer brownies to cupcakes.

Knock, knock, um, hi.

Wow, this is awkward.  So I like disappeared for a couple of months.  Okay, it was more like 5 months.  This I am not proud of.  I had lots to say and stories to tell and felt like I was getting the hang of this thing when...life happened.  I've made no secret that I hate my job, it's a dead end, a soul-sucking venture to which I must submit myself every day for the good of my family.  I applied for 5 jobs within my company over the summer and early autumn and was rejected for each one.  Each declination a little bit more of me died, feeling that I would be trapped in this dead-end place forever.  I still feel that way though I'm working on a plan to get the hell out.  Then I had good, scary, and exciting news to share and that was just ripped away, literally and figuratively.  Suffice it to say that this has not been a good 6 months.  But damn it, I'm going to do my best to turn this year around.

So I don't know if anyone is still out there or is even interested but I'm slowly coming back. 

And I'll finish Noah's birth story.  I promise.  I just can't do it yet.