Merry Christmas to all...

Our cat is a Christmas cat. He loves to play with the wrapping paper, to lay on tissue paper, and to try to catch air that appears to be moving under presents.

Between him, my husband, the kids, and the rest of my family, I can't imagine a better Holiday.

I hope everyone out there has a Holiday as wonderful as mine!

And to all a good night...

My husband is attempting to make a cheesecake...

...and so far he has broken my mixer, stunk up the kitchen, and is now trying to mix the cream cheese with his power driver using a beater instead of a drill bit.

But I'm sure it will taste wonderful.

I love that he's trying something new, I just thought you folks might get a little chuckle out of it. I sure have.

My Step-Son is Smarter Than Your Husband

Let's talk about the size of the hole in your toilet, shall we? It's a big hole. It doesn't move. And, if you're a man, you know that there are a couple stray drops after the flow ceases.

Still with me? Okay...I clean houses for rich people. Not "Paris Hilton" rich but, "never want for anything and take vacations to Hawaii and Europe and Fiji and own a second house in Cape Cod" rich. The men of these houses are educated individuals who are CEOs and lawyers and financial advisors. They travel in cultured circles to swanky parties and drive Porches and Mercedes and BMWs. They have wine cellars and attend black tie affairs. They have houses with more bathrooms than most people have bedrooms.

But I tell you what they have not figured out that my 9 year old step-son understands: The pee goes IN the hole. Every last drop. Not on the rim, not down the sides, not down the front to form a miniature puddle at that will dry up into a crusty yellow spot. IN THE HOLE.

Near as I can tell, my step-son is a genious.

So, as the title states, my step-son is smarter than your husband.

Wisdom from Pink

I'm not up on contemporary music. I've reached that point in life where the majority of top twenties music is just obnoxious noise. I'm don't dislike all new stuff, I'm just very selective regarding what I'll listen to. So when one of the kids in my group was doing a full body spasm and told me he was mocking the video "Disturbia" I came home and watched it on youtube. Then the surfing began.

I have an unusual sense of humor. I found this video hilarious and surprisingly meaningful (you know, for a song by a girl who has named herself after the color of her hair). I just thought I'd share it. Now, I have no idea how old it is, and maybe you've seen it a thousand times, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I don't have a TV so it's all new to me. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oGBvN3rAi0&feature=user

Truthfully...I'm not all that interesting...

but...SBS has requested that I enlighten you all with 7 interesting things about myself, so, I'm going to try to come up with something. I apologize in advance if you are bored out of your skull while reading the following:

1. We don't have a TV. We sold it for 20 bucks in a garage sale this summer with our DVD/VCR player. We are both prone to television addiction and have therefore removed the temptation. And I can count on one hand the number of Seinfeld episodes I've seen. I think Jerry Seinfeld is an ass.

2. When I went to college right out of high school I intended to major in environmental science. But I had to change my major when I failed chemistry and simultaneously had calculus kick my butt.

3. I think there is a special place in hell reserved for bad tippers. They have to spend eternity serving ungrateful people who treat them like crap.

4. I was such a finicky eater when I was a kid that my diet consisted primarily of mayonnaise sandwiches, hot dogs (with the ends cut off because they looked like belly buttons), and cinnamon toast. I wouldn't touch a vegetable. Now I am a vegetarian. My mom loves to tell people all about her vegetarian daughter who wouldn't touch veggies as a kid.

5. When I was in high school I was part of the nerdy/loser kid clique. We were misfits for a variety of reasons but had fun together. Once one of my friends had a toga party...we all went to his house dressed in sheets and played stupid party games while eating the food his mom made for us. It was a riot.

6. I do this kinda nutty thing whenever I see roadkill on the side of the road. It always makes me sad so I envision it's soul and amassed knowledge being absorbed back into the earth and it's kin so that they know not to run in front of cars. Maybe one of these tidbits about me should be that I'm slightly insane?

7. My mother is legally blind. So I spent my the first part of my life bumming rides because she couldn't drive me anywhere. These days I feel guilty whenever I pass a hitchhiker. But I won't pick them up for fear they may be an axe murderer.

I Love Wine

No. Really. I do. And coffee. I like coffee too.

I've never been much of a substance abuser. I smoked pot once in my life and it was an awful experience that need not be repeated. Shortly after my first puff I feared that the local police knew exactly what I was up too and was scared to death that my boyfriend was going to die and I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. All this took place while my sister and best friend sat on my couch giggling uncontrollably about god knows what which just infuriated me because they simply didn't understand that the world was ENDING.

As I said, this is an experience best not repeated.

But wine...wine is LEGAL. Now, before you go jumping to conclusions, and on the off chance that the mother of my step-children or her friends read this blog for some kind of validation that I am an awful influence...I must clarify that I don't drink often, and very rarely do I drink to the point of intoxication.

Now that we've got that out of the way, here's the truth: I'm kind of an uptight person. I take life a little too seriously and I suffer from more than my fair share of anxiety over relatively harmless nonsensical situations and such. Intellectually I understand that doing so makes me prone to heart attacks and the like, but tell that to the emotional portion of my brain that views its rational and intellectual counterpart as a naive moron that sounds something like the teacher in Peanuts. ("mwah mwah mwah."..if you catch my drift).
Now, I could take this opportunity to explain to you the psychological reasons that I have this 'anxiety problem' but that would bore the hell out of you and is not the point of this post.

No, the point of this post is that WINE fixes my uptightness and anxietyness. While I am not an alcoholic and am related to enough of them to steer clear of that path...I understand how people end up in that cycle. Wine makes me feel warm and happy. It makes the petty things in life exactly that...petty, and not worthy of a moment's worry. It makes me smile more and loosen up enough to just laugh.

This house purchasing process is slightly stress inducing. Today I called my sister and asked her how she stayed sane throughout the process of searching for her house and her response was that she drank more wine in that period of her life than she ever had before or after.

Now, for those of you who've never met my sister, let me explain: THAT'S SAYING SOMETHING. Because my sister, (remember, the girl giggling on the couch while the world was ENDING?!) drinks a LOT of wine. All the time. No, seriously. ALL THE TIME.

That having been said, I am not an alcoholic just because I drank a couple glasses of wine tonight. And, by the way, for those of you interested, I painted that beautiful watercolor you see above. And I may have been drunk at the time ;-)

There is a fog this morning which has muted all of the colors outdoors and seems to be muffling the sounds of normal early day comings and goings. My husband left early this morning for an appointment and the kids are still peacefully slumbering in their beds. The apartment is particularly quiet but for the purring of the cat who is overjoyed to have an early morning companion supplying body warmth and company.

I'm feeling a calm I haven't felt in quite a while. The pace of our lives of late has been overwhelming. I am working so much that my exhaustion and moodiness stemming from too little sleep makes me less than pleasant to be around. The stress of the fact that the children's mother is keeping the kids from us too frequently has taken a toll over the last several months. And the search for a house, recent bidding on one, and last night's phone call that our offer was accepted leaves me with mixed emotions of jubilation and terror.

This week we are vacationing, which may be defined as not working. We're relaxing, taking some family time, and not jamming our schedules with appointments and plans. So, with the kids sleeping, the cat purring, and the house quiet, my brain has been able to take a much needed and infrequently realized hiatus from constant worrying and pondering and thinking. The fog has served to blanket the frenzy of my thoughts and has forced me to just sit and be. To just enjoy the moment, to breathe, and to realize that this too shall pass. Sometimes life forces you to pause, to take a breather, to take in the majestic world around you, to see through all the crap to the beauty of any given day. And for that, and this fog, I am grateful.

Mixed Message

Funny, huh?

I wish I had a witty post for my two loyal readers, but I got nothin'. We're attempting to buy a house which, by the way, is every bit as stressful, and daunting, and time consuming and expensive as everybody says. I'm sitting here with a glass of wine and some chocolate chips waiting for a phone call from someone...I've lost track. Maybe the realtor? Maybe the mortgage broker? Maybe nobody because they've already called and my brain is so full to the brim with numbers and acronyms that my most recent interaction has simply fallen out of the back of my brain.

Either way, my ability to entertain is at a minimum. Remember when I used to write amusing and/or interesting posts? Yeah, me too. I'll get back there some day. Really. I will.

Cheesy Cheesiness

I wrote this amazing literary work while running an art therapy group the other day. I started a photography group with some of the kids I work with. The idea is to take pictures of the world from their perspective and write some kind of essay or poem about it. While the girls were writing their own works I was bored, so I flipped through pictures I had in my phone and found this photo, which inspired the moving poem you'll find below:

Dexter

I look innocent don't I?
But go ahead, look me in the eye

I'm a fierce beast
and I see your feet as a feast

When you least expect it
I'll become a big fat twit

I'll meow and howl, and when you turn your back,
that's when I'll attack

Then I'll be your friend
until we do it again.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Farmer's Market: A Photographic Exploration

Reasons I love the farmer's market:

Local berries taste WAY better than the ones shipped across the country, AND purchasing them supports local farmers, AND it's a more ecologically sound purchase as the fuel required to ship the berries across country is ridiculous.

People at the farmer's market are HAPPY. There's a permeating feeling of community and overall pleasantness.

Mmmmm lettuce

What could be more visually pleasing than buckets and buckets of flowers?!

Pink lillies...pretty

It's so colorful!

It's something I share with my step-daughter. She loves accompanying me to the farmer's market. It's a little thing we do, just the two of us. She's the one who pointed out what a cool picture this would be.

This one's my favorite.

Being a Joiner

I used to write blog posts with much more regularity. I had multiple blog friends; people I met and connected with through sharing glimpses of my life via the written word. Many of those people are individuals that I no longer communicate with either because I or they have become too busy or focused on other things.

Tonight I was perusing the blogs in my husband's favorite's folders and went to this blog. I've been there before and it's enjoyable. He's come up with this concept of multiple people posting pictures within a theme and I think it's a really fun idea. The 'sky' theme jumped out at me primarily because of the picture posted above.

My first time flying was just a couple of years ago. I shared the experience with the man who is now my husband and his two children. The kids have been flying since infancy as they live on one coast and the majority of their extended family lives on the opposite coast. The fact that I was an adult who had never flown was an anomaly to them. They thought it was the funniest thing that I was going to take my first ever trip on an airplane with them. My future step-daughter was helpful as she showed me the pictures of how, should the oxygen masks fall, I should put on my own and then help her with hers. The three of them watched me during take-off as if they expected me to scream in a panic.

I survived take off in that little puddle jumper and still hate the feeling of taking off despite the fact that 2x4 and the kids insist take-off is the best part of flying. I disagree. I love flying over the country, parts of the world I have never seen before and getting the bird's eye view. One of the positive aspects of flying for the first time as an adult is that it I don't view it as simply the form of transportation one uses to get from point a to b, so much as an enchanting experience that I waited years to live.

The second time I flew was to my wedding in San Diego. I remembered to bring my camera and took the picture you see here. The photo, though the quality is poor, is a reminder to me that experiencing something common place later in life may just make that thing more magical. It's okay to delay in joinimg some clubs.

A Bug on a Rug

My cat was just entertaining himself by playing with some kind of flying ant that was crawling on my living room rug. I was keeping an eye on him as I logged into blogger in order to monitor the situation and kill said bug should Dexter decide the bug wouldn't be tasty or lose interest. He kept looking at me but I couldn't read his expression. Was he looking for approval? Encouragement? Kudos? Hard to say, whatever it was, he seemed to pick the bug up in his mouth a few times, bat it around a couple times, then all excitement ended and he walked to the other side of the room and is now bathing himself. I lost track of the bug and have decided, for the sake of my own sanity and limiting of creepy-outyness, that he ate the bug and it is no longer crawling on my floor or burrowing its way into anything I own in order to lay larvae that will soon become a swarm of flying ant-like creatures inside my home. Yeah, its being digested as I write this. Definitely.

I don't really get the whole eating a bug thing. Even for a cat. My cat has a very discerning pallet. He will only eat cat food. No tuna, no cheese, no milk, no fish...just cat food. But, he'll eat an insect. He turns his nose up at dairy but he sees a creepy crawly creature that very well may bite, sting, flit about in an alarming way, or all of the above,and he thinks, "Mmmm...that may be very enjoyable in my mouth".

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a cat person. I like dogs. Dogs make sense to me. Well, mostly. I don't really get the eating poop and your own vomit thing, or the drinking hot muddy puddle water instead of the fresh water in your clean bowl thing, but mostly I understand dogs. They're companionable. They answer commands, they can tell a good person from a bad pretty quickly, they eat the food you drop on the floor without missing a beat, they wag their tails when happy. And they have mastered the art of doe eyes in order to convey; "if you don't give me that thing that I want I might be so upset that I'll run out the door and get hit by a car and you'll be haunted by my memory for the rest of your life."

I've never had a dog that ate a bug. And even though they eat poop and puke, I have to give them a certain amount of respect for choosing to leave the creepy crawlies out of the realm of nutrition.

Mute Monday: Things/Places I Want to Exerience in My Life

Incan Ruins

Chianti Vineyards

Nepal

Mardi Gras

A Sunflower Field

A Poppy field

C is for Cookie

To know me is to understand that I have an almost insatiable sweet tooth. As my husband has stated, "Slim never met a piece of chocolate she didn't like" and "I can't believe Slim doesn't weigh 300 pounds". It's understandable that he would state these sentiments aloud because the temptation to eat large amounts of sugary foods is indeed my biggest weakness. You can keep your salty chips, or your dollops of sour cream, your tabs of butter, I'm not really tempted by those things, but set a cinnamon role in front of me and the vacuum action begins, will power doesn't even enter the equation.

My husband is not immune to the desire for sugary substances, he just has a little more will power than me on most occasions. On his last grocery shopping trip he picked up a half gallon of chocolate ice cream and pre-made peanut butter cookie dough. This wouldn't be the first time he has made himself cookies in order to dip them into ice cream for an after dinner dessert. And he knows that these types of treats are likely to disappear a lot faster if I am privy to their existence. When I got home from work the other night, 2x4 was still awake, which was a special treat because he's usually asleep by the time I get home. The apartment smelled really good so I asked him what he had made for dinner, assuming that was the source of the aroma.

"Burger" He replied

"That's all?" I asked "Because it smells really good in here, and burgers don't do that."

"Yup" He answered with a sort of grin on his face. I thought about it for a minute.

"You made the cookies!"

"They're mine! Don't eat them!" He asserted. I kissed him goodnight, told him I was going to make myself dinner, and left the bedroom.

"Don't eat the cookies!" He shouted as I closed the bedroom door.

I proceeded to make myself some pasta, sit down and watch an episode of Lost on abc.com and for dessert had one cookie. ONE. This in and of itself is a showing of will power in its grandest proportions because who, really, can eat one cookie?

It was about an hour an a half later that I crawled into bed beside a slumbering 2x4. He has always had the enviable ability to conk out seconds after his head comes into contact with the pillow. So, by the time I came to bed he had undoubtedly been sleeping for a while. I cuddled up next to him, listened to his slow breathing and whispered that I loved him.

Then, a groggy, sleepy voice asked, "How many cookies did you eat?"

That Last Post Was a SERIOUS Downer...

...so I'm going to tell a couple of my infamous foot in mouth stories in order to bring back positive vibes.

Story 1:
My mom and I were shopping in the mall and had to stop for a bathroom break. We went into one of the department store restrooms that only had three stalls, all of which were empty, and the foul stench of someone having recently emptied their colon. I went on a miniature rant to my mom about the importance of the courtesy flush. I asked her, "Why do people not get the concept of a courtesy flush? Seriously, everybody poops, I get that, but we don't all want to smell it! So, flush a couple times, it's not a complicated concept!"

Mom looked at me with this weird amused smile. But the amusement seemed to transcend what I had said somehow. It was as though she had some knowledge which I was lacking. And she was particularly quiet, which is not typical of my mother in any way. So, mom went into the stall on one end and I went into the stall on the other end, leaving the third, middle stall unoccupied.

Except there were feet there.

In the empty stall.

Crap.

I just embarrassed someone and totally didn't mean to. I thought she was GONE. I swear that stall was EMPTY.

I exited the stall at the same time as my mother. We washed our hands quietly as my mother was silently hysterically laughing at the bug eyed look on my face. We left the bathroom and I shouted, "I didn't know she was still IN THERE!"

"I know" said my mother, who, as it turns out, knows when to keep her mouth shut. Unlike her daughter.

Story 2:
My mother has just finished redecorating her living room and dining room. New paint, new furniture, it looks really nice. I saw the new dining room set the other day and it's a HUGE improvement over the circa 1970s hand-me-down hideous set that she's been living with for the last 20 years. I complimented her on how beautiful the room looks but couldn't just give her a blanket compliment, nooooo. Had to go the extra mile to insult someone unintentionally town.

"Wow, it looks great mom. This dining set is really nice, it changes the whole space. All you have to do is replace those blinds and it will be all set."

Mom's response: "Those blinds are new"

Luckily my mother has a good sense of humor and found my faux pas amusing.

Self Awareness*

I'm a primarily outgoing person. I'm talkative and personable, and I try to be nice whenever possible to everyone from the check out guy at the grocery store to the bank manager (except for when they piss me off, then look out). But lately I've become aware of a certain level of emotional disconnect that I experience in my interactions with the world at large. It's difficult to put into words. It's like I'm emotionally detached from most of the people I come into contact with. This includes friends, relatives, and strangers. I'm present in interactions with these people intellectually but very rarely am I present emotionally. It's like the thinking part of my brain is present but the feeling part is floating over a field somewhere nearby, uninterested and preoccupied, unwilling to be engaged.

I think this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Well, my realization is recent, I'm not sure if the phenomenon is. I'm not good at frank discussion of emotions. I guess that's one of the biggest immediate attractions I experienced to my husband. He's really good at emotional discussion, and made me comfortable opening up to him, really sharing my feelings and being present and honest with both him and myself about what I'm feeling/experiencing/desiring.

I had a miniature epiphany tonight as to the roots of this emotional detachment. I guess, had I really thought about it, I would have come up with the answer fairly easily. It's kind of a no-brainer. My dad was never one to discuss emotion. As a matter of fact, he's the guy whose backside you're most likely to see should the subject of his own emotion come up while I'm in the room. Sure, he'll say the words, "I love you very much" but that's as far as it goes. I can't ever recall "I feel" statements being emitted from his mouth. Besides loving me, I don't know what else the man feels.

But my dad is only a minor player in this epiphany. Tonight, after I angrily told my mother never to defend my step-father to me, EVER; several pieces of the "why I am a train wreck" puzzle fell into place.

Here's the deal; My step-father (a term that is purely technical because the man is not in any way someone I think of as a father) was an abusive Nazi. Not 'Nazi' in the literal sense but in the metaphorical. His 'running' of the household primarily consisted of fear tactics. I spent the better part of my childhood walking on eggshells for fear of angering him and suffering his wrath. He was generally drunk within half an hour of arriving home from work and my mother generally joined him in his drunken exploits. She also clearly feared him and literally jumped out of his way as he passed through a room. He was a tyrant. We couldn't walk too heavily. We couldn't talk on the phone for more than 10 minutes at a time or we'd lose phone privileges for a week. We needed to run and get into bed when we heard him coming to bed or we'd get into trouble for staying up too late (regardless of the time). When my sister and I were little, we had to be upstairs in our rooms whenever he was home. Whenever I had to venture downstairs to use the only bathroom, I was accused of being 'nosy' despite the fact that I had held it for as long as I could, knowing I would be accused of such. We were never permitted to join in when his kids came to visit. Instead we were banished to our rooms and if they were so inclined, his kids could come upstairs to our bedrooms to say hello, but that was the extend of our communing.

The abuse is not a matter I will articulate upon with regards to specifics. It's not a pleasant topic. You don't want the details and I don't want to share them. Suffice it to say that it was very damaging for me. The thing is, I was cursed at an early age with intelligence. I'm not bragging. What I mean is that I knew, even as I suffered his abuses, that were I to tell anyone about it, life as I knew it would cease to exist. My home would have been ripped apart and my mother (a legally blind woman with no higher education) would be left to fend for herself with no means to do so. I guess that's when the emotional disconnect began. The rest, as they say, is history.

So, this evening, when I referred to my mother's husband as an 'asshole' while speaking with her, and she chose to defend her husband, I realized that my anger towards him has dissipated. I have in fact, forgiven him. He has not had an easy life. He is paying for his sins. In fact, I think he's paying for the sins of others as well.

My mother, on the other hand, has not been granted my forgiveness. I am realizing that I still have anger towards her; the woman who made me her sacrificial lamb, who didn't protect me, and who, to this day, defends that man. It is she who I must find the strength to forgive. It is she who is going to force me to finally admit that maybe, just maybe, I need to see a therapist. Christ. What a thought.

* I should mention that I've had a glass of wine (or 3) prior to and/or while writing this post. Therefore, my spelling and gramar may be suspect. However, thanks to the wine, I don't care.

The Smoking Nazi Polyester Princess

I'm a little on edge lately. What with the husband's ex being heinous, the working 60+ hours a week, financial strains, planning the shower for my sister's impending wedding, the job search, dealing with troubled youth who just happen to ooze disrespect and animosity, and my customer's dog taking a big smelly dump in the kitchen while I was cleaning this morning; my stress and anxiety levels are high.

So...today when 2x4 and I were arriving from separate locations in order to have a meeting with a financial advisor and I parked in the HUGE and EMPTY Wendy's parking lot nearby, I became somewhat enraged when the polyester garbed smoking Wendy's employee told me that I could not park there or she would have me towed. I yelled at her a little bit. Nowhere NEAR as much as she deserved and moved my car to the next door lot. The ugly minimum wage making biotch apparently needed to have some authority over someone today and pick the woman in the 11 year old rusty cheap model Toyota.

Seriously, it took me a good 2 hours to calm down and I'm still plotting my revenge which will likely involve multiple opened ketchup packets being smeared in hard to reach places throughout the restaurant while I'm parked in their lot.

I'm okay with being petty and small on this occasion. I'm tired of taking the high road. The high road blows. All the hip and happy people are on the low road. I'm taking that route this time.

Job Application Process

Me: "Hello, I emailed a resume to you folks a week ago and would just like to be sure that you received it."

Human Resources Drone: "I'm sure we did, there's just a really long process it has to go through before you hear back (insert long explanation of the avenues resumes take here) and then if you're qualified the supervisor will call you."

Me: "Ummmmmm, okayyyyy" Gee, I wonder if they received my resume.

Step-Parenting 201: Being the Bigger Person

We've all heard the stories. They all start the same, "I didn't know it was possible to love another human being this much until I held my son/daughter in my arms for the first time". It's that unconditional parent/child love. The stuff Lifetime movies thrive on. It's the reason kids continue to love abusive parents and parents love their kid even when he becomes a serial killer. It's scientifically unexplainable but the biological parent/child bond is a well known phenomenon.

Step-parenting is NOT the same. Step-parenting is (in my opinion) more thankless than parenting your biological spawn because that carte blanche forgiveness and love are not guaranteed. This is complicated shit people. And not for the weak of heart. And no matter what you think ahead of time, you have absolutely no idea what you are getting yourself into. No idea.

There are, of course, different levels of step-parental involvement. I know step-parents who have as little to do with their spouse's children as possible with no intention of changing that dynamic. My husband and I, however, take a much different tact. We are a parenting team. The results of parenting choices effect us both and we therefore make the majority of those decisions together. The kids know this and it almost nullifies the going to the other parent to get a different answer problem. And it makes the kids realize, quickly, that walking all over step-mom is not a sanctioned activity and will not be tolerated. This is really the only option for me. My husband is an involved father and laissez-faire step-parenting would not have suited my personality nor our lifestyle.

But I tell you what, I sure as hell didn't foresee my husband having the flu and my having to bring the kids to their soccer games, which take place an hour away from our home, ALONE. I've been involved with the kid's school and social lives long enough to know that the parents in and around their community primarily fall into two categories; The ones I don't know, and the ones I don't like. The kids attend school in a small "tight knit" (read: Stepford) type community that I'm pretty sure views me as a hussy idiot. I'm really okay with that. I'll serve as my husband's trophy wife in their eyes, I find it amusing...when my husband is there.

So, today, while my husband lay around with a fever and body aches, I spent 6 hours either driving, watching soccer games, or killing time in between games. My husband and his ex are on the verge of 'Parenting War 3' and I was flying solo into this mission. And I sooooo didn't want to do it. I told the kids just that as they were taking their time getting ready. I said, "Look, I don't even want to go so it doesn't matter to me if you never get ready, we can just stay home".

But I went. Without my husband. And I was polite to his ex and dismissive of all the other losers that have been looking down their noses at me for years. I wasn't obligated to do this in any way. I did what was right. I took on this parenting role with an open heart and I love those kids. For this reason I spent my Saturday playing soccer mom. I figure the fact that the kids didn't thank me just means they do indeed see me as a parent, and you don't generally thank your parent for everyday stuff like rides to soccer.

I just finished my therapeutic bowl of peanut butter cup ice cream while chanting the mantra, "I am the bigger person" over and over again.

I'm witty!

I enjoy writing. I find that whenever I read a good novel and find aspects of myself in the characters it gets my brain going. It makes me think that if I create characters with just some of the quirks I have and some of the experiences I've had, I could write a very entertaining novel. The problem: writing takes time. And I like to sound eloquent and educated. That's not as easy for me as I make it seem. Therefore, between working 60 hours a week and sleeping periodically, writing takes back burner to the rest of life (as do all of my artistic endeavors).

I've been given a friendly kick in the pants by fellow blogger SBS. She has rated my blog as Excellent entertainment. I found this particularly odd because these days I do about one post every six months. So I went back and read some of my old stuff.

And it made me laugh. I'm funny! Well, not all the time. Sometimes I'm negative and whiny. But my funny posts are witty. So, I'm going to start using that little notebook in my purse again. I'll start writing blog ideas so that they're accessible on the occasions when I fit in writing time.

And maybe I'll start working on that semi-autobiographical novel I started a while back.

Maybe.

Here are some of my funny posts:
That is so not what I meant!
World Domination
Cake and Poo
Lunatic!
So I'm biased, but I thought this meme was amusing