It’s the Little Things

As I struggle with the humongous task that it is to find the meaning of my life (you know, the what am I here for?) instead of getting clearer, my life line gets more confusing and blurry because I really do not have a clue.

 

We are supposed to be here and make some kind of impact. Plenty people have gotten there – Nobel Prize winners, for instance, will definitely populate the pearly gates list of “Made Positive Impact on Humanity” – they have big gonads that drove them to that point.

 

Then I thought, why does it have to be in such a huge scale? It may not. I can probably make itty bitty impacts daily and at the end it will be added together for something other than a mediocre life.

 

So I decided to take “baby steps” (did you ever watch a movie called “What About Bob? Very funny!) and I decided to make “change” in small opportunities:

 

• The jackass co-worker that never shuts up is complaining he is hungry – gave him my last pack of peanut butter crackers.
• The coffee breath person seating next to me in a meeting? Gave her a piece of gum AND a mint before she even asked me.
• Shared my meeting notes with the bitch that has no clue on what’s going on, but gets around in many other ways – if you know what I mean.
• When my little one had his last meltdown, I simply took him to his room and closed the door instead of joining a less than calm discussion of why he could not throw the football in the house (for the 500^th time!)
• I didn’t tell my husband that I hoped his ass would melt like a volcano next time he farts next to me.

 

You get the drift. I have been very calm and full of patience with these fools. The fact that I am not exploding like the sarcastic atomic bomb I really want to be every time I get annoyed or irritated, should count for something. BABY. STEPS. Little by little I am making my mark in this world – I can FEEL it, don’t you?

 

Here is the clip of “What About Bob?” baby steps… 

 

My Family’s HUB

 

Well, I’m just wondering why is it that everyone in my household ALWAYS wants to be in exactly the same room that I am? Believe me I am thrilled that I can be what it feels to be the central HUB of this operation, but seriously I need some me time, sometimes. 

 

I live in a household full of testosterone. We have the boys, then the one who calls himself “The Man” (this my friends, is always a questionable statement) , two male dogs, and that leaves two of us only biotches: the cat and me. 

 

I try to hide. I’m not ashamed to admit it – I run away to the office (while we are still in the big house, as in a couple of weeks we are downgrading to a house half the size of this one and I won’t have an office anymore – THE HORROR!). First of all, the cat is always in the office. It is the coziest and craziest place in the whole house. Then come the dogs and they start playing. I guess the noise attracts the rest of the HE-MEN living in the house and next thing you know I have to leave to find refuge somewhere else. Then it all repeats, because apparently nobody living in this house can leave me the hell alone! 

 

The same happens in bed. We have a king size bed that for some reason I don’t understand, my husband absolutely, unquestionably needed that big of a bed. I’m the kind of person that sleeps in the same spot all night, almost always near the edge as I feel suffocated otherwise. When I wake in the morning, my side of the bed is hardly disturbed, and only needs a few tugs to set straight. My husband’s side, looks like a hurricane just hit it and he was buried somewhere beneath all the blankets. The point is, that even though I only need a very small space on the bed, my husband won’t stay on his side. He comes over and hounds me on my side of the bed to the point I can’t even change positions because if I move, I WILL FALL OFF. How can anyone who is not a large person use such a big bed in that way?  

 

I have tried to turn around and sleep head-on-the feet type of thing, and I have tried moving to the other side… but I’m always found out and asked to “come back” to my righteous spot… If I don’t a pleading argument ensues and my sleep goes away – leaving me feeling cheated while “The Man” snores away into oblivion… No’ fair **sigh** (can you see me pouting?) Then comes the little one. He has gotten in the very bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night and coming over to our bed. Talk about crowding the bed! This little being has a particular way to squeeze himself in the tiniest spot and then… He spreads all his bony joints into my side and stretches out like an accordion… dang, I tell you, I just want my own room! Not sure if he does the same to his dad or not, because “The Man” sleeps quite hard. And LOUD. 

 

I know what you are going to say – you are so lucky they all want to be around you.. I know, I know. In spite of what everyone thinks, I do count my Blessings daily. In a couple of weeks I’ll have nowhere to run and hide. Which will force me to deal with all the testosterone and somehow I have to learn to like it. Me, the HUB of this household will continue to connect everyone around me. And I will be grateful and joyful to have my zany family around me every time it happens.

Unemployment Blues

I have not been very inspired since I was one of those poor people who got cheated out of a job due to the bad economy, blah, blah, blah. When what really happened was that the company did not plan for the year very well and spend insanely amounts of money in traveling and hiring people for all these acquisitions that were gonna happen but didn’t. I got cut right before the Thanksgiving holidays that weren’t very holida-y due to being unable to find another job.

 

And so it goes. I was unable to find a job that suited my background. Instead, I took a  Customer Service position offered at an airline company. Hey, I’m not too proud to start over after working myself up for the last 15 years, but dang, the pay sucks.  Let me just say that is really close to nothing. HOWEVER – I do not want to sound ungrateful as there are plenty of people out there making actually nothing. So I do feel blessed to have this opportunity.

 

On a side note, if you have never worked for the airline industry since 9/11 – let me tell you, the hiring process in so freaking complicated, I may feel that I was being hired for a CEO position, if it wasn’t for the reality of the compensation I was offered. I had to do the following:

 

• Complete a questionnaire online (took over 1 hr),
• Phone interview in English,
• Phone interview in Spanish (it’s a bilingual position),
• View a presentation online,
• Go to an informational session,
• Took a typing and math test,
• Had a face to face interview,
• Job offer pending successful completion of training
• Urinalysis
• Fingerprinting for background check (10 years)
• Then I have to attend a 3 week training (unpaid unless successfully completed, then they will pay for the hrs attended)

 

SERIOUSLY!!! No kidding, I’m worn out just thinking about it!

 

OK – going back to the unemployment, this situation has actually become our financial ruin. We can’t keep up with anything anymore. But I actually do not feel sad about it. I have felt sad in the past, because we have worked hard to obtain all these really cool material things that are supposed to make us so happy. We are now at less than zero. Simpler times. In stepping back and looking at the big picture, we are mostly grateful that we still have a roof over our heads (although it’s not the same roof we used to have). We are healthy AND have health insurance. We have food on our table (thank GOD for mac & cheese and hot dogs, and all things Walmart brand that are cheaper than name brand… Although I am not downgrading my American sliced cheese. Sorry – I just can’t!). We have clothes, and most of all, I am thankful for being given a fighting spirit that won’t quit looking for a way out of this mess. Uh! I almost forgot: I still have internet access. Dear Lord – Thank you for internet access. I really wouldn’t know what to do if I could not have the internet. That would REALLY suck.

 

But I’m thinking positively and I re-listened to my “The Secret” CD’s and I know my rewards are coming. – JUST BECAUSE I ASK – The Universe will respond to my requests, hopefully sooner rather than later, but they are on their way nonetheless. Hey! Can you blame me? Everybody has to hold on to something! I have Faith, Hope, Religion AND “The Secret” – Ain’t no way but UP from here!!!!

 

J

 

A Not So Sappy Thanksgiving Story

Every Thanksgiving, our family (along with 2 other families) take our travel trailers (a.k.a. campers) and go camping to a very nice campground called Florence Marina, on the Georgia side of Lake Eufaula. 

 

Unlike popular belief, this is NOT roughing it out. Our campers have beds, bathrooms, kitchens, and lo & behold – even microwaves. This, my friends, comes along with cable connections, heat and air conditioner. No real suffering for us city folks.

 

Every Thanksgiving, my sister in law (an organizer by nature – LOVE HER!) prepares the menu. Her mother in law always provides the hard work stuff, you know the truly Southern traditional dishes of collards, dressing, dumplings and cornbread cooked from scratch. Yes. You read it right: FROM. SCRATCH. **Yum.**

 

The “Men” take this opportunity to reclaim their caveman roots and clan leaderships of the past as they volunteer to cook all the meat. Nope. I’m not talking about venison (barf?). The meat that  feeds our clan during these momentous Holidays always consists of 2 turkeys and a ham. The ham is normally smoked and the turkeys (since there are no ovens in the campers) are deep fried. One is done with regular seasonings, while the other one is done with Cajun seasonings. I don’t like the way my bowels act after trying the Cajun seasoned bird, so I always stick with the “less – burning – when – you – poop” kind, the regular ‘ol bird.

 

All of us contribute with a side dish and a dessert. I normally make the potato salad and the banana pudding, because I am really picky as to how those two things need to be made, and how fresh they need to be. I don’t like stored potato salad, or potato salad bought from the store (it needs to be fresh), and my vanilla wafers in the banana pudding must be crunchy – not soggy, or is not good enough. You get the idea – right? Yes. I am very picky. Get over it.

 

The main point of this story is to tell you what happened last year. My oldest son was away attending a special training (this was before we knew he had a mental illness) and I had to go get him the day before Thanksgiving. The training facility was 3 hrs away from my house, and 5 hrs away from the campground. There was no way I could cook fresh like I like to do, and do all the road warrioring that needed to get done. Yes. I realize warrioring is not a real word, I just came up with it. Get over it.

 

So the task of bringing potato salad and banana pudding was assigned to someone else: my sister in law’s OTHER sister in law. You know, the lady married to my sister in law’s husband’s brother’s wife. I don’t even know if that would make sense to you, so if it doesn’t, read it slower a second time and try to picture the relationship in your head. I hate diagramming (so much for being a technical business analyst) so see if you can do it as you go. OR you can just assume that the third lady, the one that is not me or my sister in law is the one I’m getting ready to talk about. Let’s just call her “M & M” which is short for “Motor Mouth.

 

WELL, M&M just kept talking all day about how she had a lady she knew make this banana pudding and the potato salad. And she just kept bragging how awesome it all was. My sister in law and I just kept looking at each other, because my stuff is pretty good too, and I make it myself, I don’t buy it, so we are trying to figure out if she was trying to diss my food and make me feel bad, but we quickly got over it and just started to crave for the goods that were being promised.

 

Dining time comes, and we start to get all the goodies on the table. Suddenly we see M&M pull a aluminum tray from the ice cooler and when she opens it up our eyes got as big as they would get when we realize that exactly HALF of the potato salad was missing and the tray sat there on the table half-empty. I’m not saying that the tray was half full from top to bottom… nope. The tray was half full from left to right, meaning that the other half from the center of the tray all – the – way – to – the – right – side was missing. To our bigger surprise she takes out another aluminum container (these are like standard cake baking rectangular shaped containers). I could not resist my curiosity and as I peek under the aluminum foil covering, I see that it also had exactly HALF of what it was supposed to be a full container of banana pudding. I quickly turned to my sister in law and open my eyes really wide as my SIL whispers “no she didn’t” and I whisper back “yeah, she sure as hell did!”

 

People, I did not know one could be so tacky. If you are going to keep half of something you are supposed to take to a get together or a party, don’t be so tacky as to bring the half empty container and plop it on the table as if nothing had happened. There were many of us and many kids, the least you could do was to bring the ENTIRE thing and take your leftovers home with you. I wish it would all have ended there, at the half empty containers. But of course, it didn’t.

 

When I tasted the potato salad, the texture was that of potatoes’ that had been cooked many days earlier, not fresh ones. The flavor was that of sweet relish, not the mustard/dill relish we are used to eating here in the South. And you could not even see the eggs – now that I think about it, I don’t think it had any. ***sigh*** And, oh! Don’t get me started on the blob thing that she called banana pudding. We all know that banana pudding is made with vanilla pudding, and it has real bananas sliced in it – right??? Well, this thing she kept calling banana pudding did not – I must repeat – DID NOT have bananas in it and it was made out of boxed banana flavored pudding. The nerve!

 

People, you know me. I was trying to be nice. But as you know sometimes I talk without thinking things through. So before I knew it my mouth was moving and it said: “You know what M&M? We appreciate you bringing these items this year, but I should be able to pick back up my cooking assignments next year. So please, don’t get your hopes up thinking you can bring the stuff again next year.” I know. I was kind of rude – perhaps. Or maybe I was not. I was just stating the facts. I actually felt kind of bad that I could not rave over her food like she was doing. NOT. But it sure provided TONS of laughing material between my sister in law and I for the rest of that weekend. AND.STILL.DOES.

 

This year I am looking forward to bringing my contributions to Thanksgiving dinner: a FULL container of freshly made potato salad and a OVERFLOWING container of banana pudding with lots of REAL bananas inside it.  

 

They don’t call me ChunkyMonky for nothing!

Cashing Points from Heaven

It had been raining on and off the whole day. As I stepped out the building I hear a loud rumble that it’s warning me that more rain is on the way. I was pretty much running (which is a big feat for me on itself) out the office as my oldest son had a doctor’s appointment and I still had to drive 63 miles, get him and get to the doctor’s on time. “Atlanta traffic be dammed – move over, I’m on a mission!” I said gently to myself.

 

As I’m getting to the corner of the building, I see something red on the concrete as I was about to step off the sidewalk. “What was that?” – I mumbled.

 

You know I was going to notice something red, not because it catches the eye, but because it is my favorite color. After my double take, I bend over (Oh! The effort on that just about killed me – I’m so out of shape) and I pick up a car key, with the automatic lock thingy and a dealer description tag – Toyota of Atlanta – Scion.

 

A quick scan of the parking lot helps me to immediately locate the car. I was glad it was the sedan, as the other “boxy” models are so ugly they get on my nervesI did not want to hit the panic or lock/unlock buttons, because I did not want anyone to see me and accuse me of trying to take this beautiful, brand new smelling, no roof – but a glass roof!, gas saving (we could use one of these) CAR. Upon closer inspection, there was a lady’s purse (a Dooney exactly the one I’ve been wanting since spring), a laptop, and another bag in the backseat. Can I trade the keys for the purse, at least? Do you think she would mind much?

 

Oh, Hell No! What was I thinking?

 

What to do – time is ticking. I had to leave if I wanted to beat traffic. In our building, we do not have a doorman, receptionist, I mean, NOTHING. Not a damned person that I could leave the keys with. It’s the end of the day, so I could not take them with me ‘cause they were going to need them that evening. And as my luck goes, I drove in to work, so how could I manage to take 2 vehicles home with me at the same time? ***Just Kiddin’***

 

I called my friend Nicki, whose suggestion of leaving the keys outside, on the door lock – I did not follow. It was a stupid suggestion. There are far too many people out there who are not as honest as I am and would not hesitate to take the car and everything else in it – in less than a heartbeat. I told Nicki that instead of leaving the keys on the door, I was going to quickly open the door and put the keys on the driver’s seat. To Nicki’s excuse, she had a horrible day at work and I’m sure the last thing she wanted to hear was my dilemma about this car.

 

So I open the car door and it hits me – new car smell!  It’s there any other smell (other than a baby) that smells better than this? I forced myself to break the spell, and threw the keys on the seat. Almost locked the dammed thing (habit!) but didn’t. I closed the door and silently walked away – almost mad with myself for not being able to make the wrong choice. Why do I have to be so freakin’ good of a person?

 

As I was getting into my dirty, old SUV, I said to God – “I hope you were watching and I don’t wanna hear later that you were on a bathroom break – Got that?. These are extra points for Heaven and I want to cash them now: Can you please find some buyers for my house, like right now?

 

Suddenly, I hear another rumble, and then it started to rain. I guess God decided to show me LOVE as he was peeing on me from the skyes above.

Could’ve, Should’ve, Would’ve… but didn’t

I can be a pretty bad procrastinator. I mean, I have been putting off a trip to visit my family back home (Dominican Republic) for 14 years, because I wanted to loose 30 lbs. before I go there… Not only did I NOT loose the weight, but I have waited and waited for so long that my nieces and nephews are almost grown up, and don’t even know me. That, my friends, it’s procrastinating at its best.

 

Now, I wish to talk about my favorite person in the whole – wide – world: My Dear Husband. When we moved to the Atlanta area over 2.5 yrs ago, my DH had a stressful job that paid more money. We felt we were moving up in the world and that we needed to go ahead and buy a house a bit pricier than the one we had. After all, I also had landed a pretty decent job and we were doing okay financially.

 

Then came the heart attack. Nope, seriously, my DH had one a year after we moved here. He was only 37. After his recovery, he proceeded to change jobs and get a more manageable job, which – of course – did not pay as much money. It was actually a starting up job, so it REALLY did not pay enough. But he was healthy and he was happy, so it was good.

 

Then, after about 6 months, I realized that our expenses exceeded our earnings (surprise! *gulp*) so we started to “borrow” from our savings, and we have not been able to replenish the pot.

 

A year ago, with my husband health almost normal (sans taking tons of medications to regulate everything from head to toe, and many checkups and follow ups, and thousands of dollars owed to hospitals and doctors), I gently nudged my husband into looking for a second (part-time) job. My hours and commute are brutal, so there was (and still is) no way I could have been available to a second/part-time job and still be able to get 4 hrs of sleep. But we had to do something!!!

 

Sooo, this is where all the procrastination (on my DH’s part) came in. He agreed to look for a part-time job. This is the kicker: he really believes that he could get a part-time position using an online job board, and that this job would pay him good money (***sigh***). And I’m like, Dude, reality check here! For the kind of job you are looking for, you need to get your ass out there and apply in person, so people can see you are not a crazy homicidal maniac, or worse like a pest control person who has been up close and personal with all the chemicals! – Duh! I’m wrong – he says – and proceeds to apply online for two or three customer service positions that he found.

 

Now it’s the time to reveal that my husband is not very computer savvy. He types using only two fingers (I’m not telling you which ones!). To this day I’m not sure what happened to the applications, but he NEVER got a call. Did he ever follow up with a call himself? Nope. It was always “tomorrow” and then tomorrow never came. Did he pursue other opportunities or tried anything else? Hell, no! He swiftly swept it under a rug and left it there. Instead of continuing looking, he talks me into putting the house up for sale. Which we did, and it still remains unsold.

 

It is now 11 months later and I brought up the subject again, very gently like “Hey, We have NO MONEY and if you want to be able to shower with hot water and watch Sunday Night football you better BEST get BUSY right now! If my happy ass had to break down and signup to sale for Avon (which I love), so you need to do something too in order to bring in extra money until the house is sold.”

 

His butt goes from the living room to the computer, and proceeds to google “part-time jobs in Newnan, GA”  I feel the anger shooting up from my toes to my head – and I said (screamed) “ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME?” at which he gives me a dumbfounded look and replies: “what?..” I turned around and walked out of the room. It was either that, or knock him upside the head with the (4 inches thick) metro Atlanta phone book that was sitting next to him on the desk.

 

I should not have procrastinated over the phone book choice.

‘Fessing Up

The truth must be told.

 

I have been avoiding this subject for a while. My oldest son was diagnosed with a Mental Illness – Schizoid Personality Disorder. I always knew I was somewhat crazy, but never thought that it would pass on to one of my kids.

 

He is currently under a psychiatrist care and the hardest part of it all is for me not being able to fix it.

 

You see, I have always taken care of me and my family. The decision maker – I am. This one here it’s driving me crazy (or crazier) because there is nothing I can personally do to take care of him. The doctor is giving him meds, but that is a medical trial all on its own, because sometimes things work and sometimes they do not.

 

I have spent all morning (at my NEW job) calling and trying to find information on a day treatment program that he could attend. One of the major obstacles we have is the transportation, because he does not drive. I work (as you may know) 63 miles away from home (one way). But I must not dwell on the problems and must continue to seek solutions.

 

Here in GA it appears that there may be government sponsored programs that could help, but I need to make the call with Ricky because I was told that I needed his consent to schedule an appointment. Now mind you, the boy won’t even shower unless he is told to do so. It was suggested that I get a Power of Attorney, and since they cost about $60 I am going to move on that – just in case I need it in the future.

 

Another thing is that just like any other mental illnesses’ we will have setbacks. Boy did we have one last night!!! Ricky (my son) messed up bad. My DH was so mad he could not sit down to eat without rolling his fist into a ball! But we are still learning about this illness and the best way to cope with it. And even though there are days that I just want to sit down and cry, I keep telling myself that if I can just make it through this day, tomorrow I’ll have a chance to do things better than I did today.

I’m a Mass Murderer…

(note: I apologize before hand for all the cussing on this post. Sorry, but It would not have the same effect with out the bad words)

 

I confess… I’m a mass murderer. Sorry, you may not like me anymore after you read this confession:  I wiped out what it seemed to be an entire colony of FIRE ANTS moving about in my bedroom closet! Ants in MY closet – WTF???

 

I can explain my barbaric act: I had just endured 2 hrs of commuting time (train and driving) that alone will make anybody kill anything. When I get home, the first thing I do is to greet everyone: husband, kids and dogs. But of course it gets complicated. My husband greeting was: “Hey, you need to clean the little present your old cat left in the living room.”  My poor old cat, Baby (she’s 13 yrs old) I think she’s getting dementia, I’m sure. Her behavior is similar to that of old folks in the retirement homes. She poops in the most odd places. Anywhere but the litter box. And I clean the box twice each day! The other cat does not have a problem finding and then using the littler box, which is conveniently placed in the Laundry room, with plenty of clean litter. So I enter my room and put my ‘pocketbook’ (that word is sooo Southern – I love it!) and keys down. I was removing my clothes, and as I went to throw them in the basket, that’s the moment when I saw the invasion.

 

Self defense is still acceptable in court – right? Well, I was freaking out. There were so many and they were coming from everywhere. I could not find the trail. The solid lime green tanktop that I was wearing the night before, suddenly look like it had miniature black polka dots all over the place. GROSS!!! I start inspecting and I realized that they were all over my friggin laundry!!!!  Shit.

 

What should I do? Ok I did not say that. What I really said was: “What the fuck should I do!” and “What the hell are the ants doing in my fucking closet!” Now you get the picture that my sailor mouth was having a blast.

 

Now, I was running half undressed towards the kitchen when I suddenly stopped and realized it would not be a good idea to let the children see me like this. Not, I’m not shy. I just don’t want the little devils to have new ammunition to make fun of me. So I stopped at my bedroom door and called for my oldest one to stick his head under the sink and find the ant killer spray. And, of course, it takes him FOREVER…

 

Back at the closet, ready with the ammo and nerves of steel *ahem* I started the attack on to the masses. Then I realized that the killing fumes that are supposed to be unscented in fact smelled like something had already died, which was not the case yet – I must add. And worse, I was inhaling a big amount of that crap.

 

So, in the midst of all the craziness, I had another ‘brain fart’ (a.k.a ‘idea’) and decided the best course of action would be to get the clothes out of the closet and eliminate the masses in the bathroom instead. So I take a wee-wee pad (we have puppies) lay it on the floor, and start grabbing pieces of clothing, spraying the “unscented” Raid on them while shaking the pieces on top of the pad, causing some of the dead ants to start falling off onto the pad.

 

That’s when I realized that fire ants suffer from Lockjaw disease. Did you know that? I wonder if scientists have this most important knowledge. Hum. I may have to check on that. Oh, wait, How did I figure the lockjaw bit? Well, the motherf&^%* were so ticked off when I sprayed them, they BIT into my clothes causing them to DIE while holding on to the fabric. Can you believe that shit? I had to go get bathroom tissues (my assassin supplies are very limited) and wipe their asses off my clothes. Oh, that’s not all. The little buggers’ mouths were holding on SO TIGHT that as I wiped, their body would break in two pieces, and I had to end up picking their heads off my clothes. I contemplated the idea of just trashing everything and going to get new things, but that would require time and effort that I just don’t have any more of.

 

When I finally finished the spraying, shaking, wiping and picking, I looked down at the supposedly white wee-wee pad that now looked completely filled with dark brown ants and they looked like shit – literally.  I carefully folded the wee-wee pad and disposed of it in the trash.

 

I sat at the edge of the tub, panting and dizzy from all the fumes I had inhaled. I was trying to figure out how was it that I just faced a mass attack by fire ants. I do not have food in the closet (that only happened when I was a kid, no need to hide food anymore); I looked around the closet in the event Mojo, my puppy, had laid one out in there and I never noticed – but there was no poop.  That’s when I realized what had happened: I cook every single night for my family. Depending on what I cook, sometimes the smell stays permeated in the fabric of the clothes I wear, sooo the little fuckers were all over my clothes looking for food that was not there only because it smelled like food!!! They also could have gotten in looking for water, as the summer is hot in Georgia, and then smelled the food and started campaigning to take over my wardrobe.

 

Shit. That’s the thanks I get for being a good wife & mom and making a home cooked meal every night. I Spent over an hour mass murdering ants. Go figure.

I can picture mine saying this about my dog...

Back to School…

Summer Break is over!!!

 

As much as I enjoy my kids during their summer break, I am glad it is finally over. First of all, during school days, I only have to pay for after school care for my little one (he’s 7 and in 2nd grade). The cost for after school is $55 per week. During “Summer Camp” they about triple this into $160 per week, with the excuse that all field trips and meals are included. Well, maybe I don’t want my son to go see the stupid magician or any other lame outing they may come up with. If it was an amusement park, putt-putt, or a museum of history, I would gladly pay the money for that, but since I had no input on these decisions, I’m a little bitter (can’t you tell!). 

 

This year my husband and I are exchanging roles for the 1^st day of school. You see, due to my new job having a “90 day probationary period” I am unable to take any time away from it unless I am absolutely dying. If I get hit by a truck and somehow manage not be pronounced dead on the scene, they may let me off the hook as well. On top of that, it’s not like I can get to work just a bit later, because I friggin’ work 1 hr + 15 mins AWAY from my home town, and my hours are 7:00 to 4:00.  The school just happens to be located ½ mile away from my house on the main road off of the subdivision. So, I don’t even get to make progress on the driving distance by going to the school before going to work. *sigh*

 

Soo, my dear husband is in charge of the first day of school activities. One of those activities (besides my son’s wearing all new clothes, new shoes and new backpack) is the (our family tradition) 1^st day of school pictures. This is mandatory, folks. I have been doing it since my little one started pre-K.  For some unknown reason, my husband did not seem to comprehend the importance of this unique life event. I almost had to threaten him about not cooking dinner, but then he got a little feisty: “I may not have time to do that.” On top of his ‘battitude’ I suddenly remembered he does not take good pictures, they seem to be always off-focus. This newfound knowledge calls for a change of strategy: “I tell you what,” (that was ME all sugary sweet all of a sudden and my husband looking at me funny), “you can wake up <oldest son name goes here> and while you are sitting in the pooper for 20 minutes, HE can take the pictures on my behalf!”

 

Problem solved. Yes, he did called me a smat*ss, but I really try hard to always get what I want. Whatdayasay? Me? Spoiled? Nah. I’m just a proud mom.