I want

I want my own office. I swear my next home will have one. It might be a closet, but it's going to be my little closet, soundproofed if possible. Two months ago I swore I would try to come back and blog again soon, and you know what, it didn't happen. I've got all kinds of excuses as to why it didn't happen, but mainly it's the lack of privacy. Not that I blog about anything sensational or anything, just that I need a little peace and quiet to be able to think and properly form sentences. Already in the first 5 sentences I've been interrupted. See? How am I supposed to keep a train of thought. Right now my desk is in between the kids' desk and my husband's desk. Usually he's playing music on his computer, one of the kids is playing Webkinz on their computer and the other two are fighting over the Wii in the room next door. I was an only child. Raised in a home with two people. I can't think with that many noises bombarding my brain and fighting for attention. With that said, I'm going to attempt right now to write about some of the things going on in my life until I get interrupted so many times I run away screaming.

Is it summer yet?

This happens every year. The day when the kids (or namely just the kid, you know, the ADD kid) just give up for the year. Classwork gets blown off and homework is a nightmare. It's like they know that it's ALMOST summer, so it should be goofing off time, right?

Yesterday I get an email from the teacher. "Kimberly refused to do ANYTHING today, I'm sending all the work home [for you to deal with]." Fabulous. Because I had soooo much extra time in MY evening to deal with homework PLUS three assignments she didn't get done in class.

Yesterday after school we had a meeting to review Kimberly's 504 plan. It went well. We made a couple of changes, took out some stuff that was outdated, and looked at what would need to be done differently for 6th grade. They start switching classes in 6th grade, so things are going to get interesting. Some things were rephrased, much to my delight, since I was a little miffed that the previous teacher's label of "disruptive" had remained in one section. All in all a good meeting, but because of it we had an hour and a half less time for homework and stuff that should have been finished in class.

Needless to say we weren't able to get it all done, so it carried over to today. When I picked the kids up from school Kimberly was rambling on and on about some video assignment she had to do. Now I have to admit I wasn't completly listening. For one thing, I have ADD too, and for another, Kimberly loves to talk. I swear she talks just to hear herself talk. Really. Like she will read the makes and models of all the cars we pass on the road. So I kinda tune her out sometimes. So I'm all whatever, she has some kind of report, it will probably be due in a couple of weeks and we will have some time to work on it. I tell her that we don't have a working video camera and I'm thinking to myself maybe some kinda powerpoint presentation will suffice.

We get home and I tell her to start on her homework, that she has a lot to do, because she has to get the rest of the assignments done tonight too. She asks "so you want me to do tonight's homework first, then work on the assignments from yesterday?" I tell her yes. She goes off to her room. An hour later I go to check on her thinking that she should be done by now and I need to prod her to get to work on the other stuff.

I find her sitting on her bed watching tv. I ask her where her homework is and she pulls her assignment sheet out of her backpack. Wanna take a wild guess what it said?? "Read for 20 minutes. Timeline - didn't do in class. 10 events in her life. She wants to do a video instead of writing." So not only has she wasted an hour doing nothing, we have last night's assignments PLUS now a timeline video thing that I don't have a video camera to do.

So I tell her "guess what? since you spent an hour goofing off AND this timeline thing could have been done in class to begin with, I'm not going out of my way to help you do a powerpoint on it, you are just going to write it." I'm such a mean mommy. For Kimberly writing is the most difficult thing on the planet. Not that she isn't incredibly creative, it just requires the kind of sustained attention that she is so terribly lacking in. So it's in her 504 that she can do alternative assignments that don't require as much writing.

Now it's time to play "let's make a deal". Kimberly loves to try and bargain. Someday she's going to make a great lawyer or snake oil salesman. After 15 minutes of her trying to bargain, now I'm getting frustrated. "YOU AREN'T GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND CHILD, NOW GET TO WORK, YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME TO GET THIS DONE".

Finally she sits down to work. On one of the assignments from yesterday. Answering 3 questions about a chapter in a book they are reading in class. Five minutes later she's whining about how she can't answer the questions because she didn't read the chapter, because she was still working on one of the other assignments that she didn't get done yesterday. ARE.YOU.FREAKING.KIDDING.ME??

I tell her to go work on the timeline and I start thinking of how to solve this little dilema.
I search online for the answers.
No luck.
Maybe the library that is 3 minutes from my house has the book.
Nope.
Call Barnes & Noble.
They have it.
Hold it for me, I'm on my way.

Forty five minutes later I'm back with the book. She's finished the timeline and showered. She reads the chapter. She answers the questions. It's 10:15 and she finally goes to bed. Bedtime is supposed to be 8:30. Tomorrow she will be tired. When she's tired she has bad days at school. So her inability to get her work done yesterday is going to snowball and ruin our whole week.

I just want it to be summer. No more school. No more homework. I'm done too.

Easter

**Due to the fact that my router decided to stop sending signal to my computer the other night when I was in the middle of writing this, it sat in my drafts for a couple of days. **

I figured I needed to balance the negativity of the last post with something positive about Easter.

I like Easter, but since I'm not very religious, it isn't about celebrating Jesus' resurection for me, it's all about the candy, coloring eggs, and the Easter Bunny. Totally commercial and sugar laden.

Easter is the time that my very favorite candy comes out, PEEPS. Now I know that you are going to say, "Oh, but they have peeps for every holiday now, pumpkins for Halloween, trees for Christmas, hearts for Valentine's Day..." and to that I say no way. Peeps are for Easter and Easter is for peeps. I will not eat a peep that is shaped like anything other than a bunny or a chick. And I'm a purist when it comes to my colors too. No friggen green or blue bunnies, OK?? Pink and yellow only. **Eww yuck, I was at Target today and they had orange and red bunnies and chichs too. RED like bloody bunnies and chicks. That's just wrong.**

Easter is also the time that I get to get all artsy with egg dye. I'm particular about dye too. It has to be the kind that needs vinegar. The others don't make colors as vibrant. I'm all about leaving them in there forever and making the colors REALLY dark, or making rainbows on them by carefully dipping them in all the colors starting with yellow on the whole thing and then dipping each end until I have a complete rainbow.

OOOh, and don't forget chocolate bunnies. Now I'm not big on chocolate any other time of the year, but at Easter I have to have the biggest chocolate bunny they make, Bunny Big Ears. Maybe this is why I don't eat much chocolate the rest of the year, I get my fill on Easter. I'm in love with Bunny Big Ears for very sentimental reasons. Even after I was too old for Easter Egg hunts and baskets full of candy and goodies, my dad always got me a Bunny Big Ears on Easter. In the years since he passed away I have always bought myself one. You would think that maybe my hubby would catch on and surprise me with one, but just like the hearts at Valentine's he just doesn't notice that kind of stuff.

My kids, even though they are 12 (almost 13), 10, and 7, wake up Easter morning and want to hunt for eggs. Of course this might be partially due to the fact that I've been known to put spare change in plastic eggs.

I'm also super excited that we are gong to do an Easter egg hunt with my friend Maria again this year. Last year's egg hunt was super fun.

**Check out the latest!! Mom calls yesterday morning before I left for work. Tells me that her brother is going to be in town this week and is leaving Saturday. Due to that she's decided to do Easter dinner on Friday night. The Friday night that I.HAVE.TO.WORK!!! since I took off Sunday because I expected the invite to be for EASTER Sunday, not the Friday before. Can you hear me ROFLMAO??? Yup, LIFE IS GOOD!

Totally Awesome

I've worked at a restaurant for over a year. After conquering my fear of dropping things, I finally moved up to serving food. I've been doing it for a few weeks now, and I'm pleased to report that there haven't been too many mishaps.

I've put a couple orders in under the wrong tables again, but luckily realized my mistakes before the food came out and was able to intervene and fix it. I've been working really hard on trying to not make those silly kinds of mistakes. Then last night I dropped a burger. It wasn't in front of the whole restaurant, but the sad thing is, it wasn't even my burger. I was trying to be helpful and run the food out for one of the other servers and didn't realize that the one burger wasn't on the tray very well. He said it was ok, but I still apologized profusely.

My first full week went super fabulous. Each day got progressively busier, and by Friday I was amazed at the number of tables I could juggle at one time. I've managed to take a couple of large parties, but none as large as that 18 I almost got my first night, and I'm not afraid of the 18 anymore. I'm really getting the hang of it.

Last week I worked a lot. That would explain why I haven't been blogging much the last few days. I kept picking up shifts and ended up working 40 hours. Several days I worked the lunch and dinner shifts. It was crazy, but so much fun. I came home each night with very tired tootsies, and one night even passed out at 9:30. Yesterday I had to be at work at 8 am for a meeting, then I worked the lunch shift, and after a short break, I worked the dinner shift too. I didn't get home until 9:30. Amazingly my feet did not hurt as much. I think they just needed to get accustomed to getting so much use.

When I got home last night and calculated how much money I made (tips plus hourly) I discovered that this job now qualifies as my second highest paying job EVER. Back in 2000-2001 I made a dollar more an hour at a 40 hour a week job that was an hour and a half commute, one way, wearing business suits and heels, and dealing with high stress and drama every day. So considering that this is 15 minutes from my house, I can wear jeans and comfy shoes, and even though there is some drama, I can easily avoid it, this job is WAY better. Add to that the fact that at that other job I couldn't just call someone else to cover for me at work if I was sick, or something fun came up that I wanted to do. In fact they preferred if I took my 2 week vacation in 1 and 2 day increments since nobody else could perform my job.

That is what makes this totally awesome. Times like this that my hubby is not working, I can work everyday and bring home decent money for my time. When he goes back to work, I can go back to working just a few mornings a week. In the summer when the kids are out of school, I can work a few nights a week so we can spend our days by the pool. If I want to go visit my hubby out of town, I can take a week off. If I fall in love with something at the store, I can work a couple extra shifts to make the money to buy it. How cool is that?

I think I may have found the perfect job for me. With all the self reflection I was doing several weeks ago, I think I've found my answer. Making this one change at work has made everything fall into place for me. I don't have to tie myself down to a set 9-5 Monday through Friday job in order to earn decent money and I can have a job that not only pays well, but that I enjoy too. I was always jealous of the fact that my husband had found a good paying career that he LOVED. One where he could get up every day and be excited to go to work. I've always said that the right job should be like that, not a chore you HAVE to do just because you NEED to pay your bills. It's taken me 19 years of working to find it, but I think I finally did.

Crazy Week

Wow. Since my last post things have been kinda nutty over here. I intended to make the Taco Soup on Wednesday, but I realized later that I was short one can of pinto beans and the can of diced tomatoes with green chiles. The tomatoes with green chiles really shocked me too, because I use those all the time to make salsa. I usually have several cans on hand, but with the hubby being out of work, the pantry is not as full as usual. Since I really like green chiles, I didn't want to make the soup without them. Therefore a trip to the store was needed.

Wednesday morning was my first official shift as a server. It went pretty well. Then the manager asked me if I could cover a shift that night. Being the helpful person I am, I said yes. In retrospect I should have said no way in hell no. I had barely two hours from the time I got off until I had to be back. I was in no mood to go to the store during this precious reprieve from work, so I came home and sat down instead. Of course then I didn't want to get back up, but I did. The evening shift did not go as well as the morning. Some really big parties came in and where did they decide to seat them? In my section of course. My first real day as a server and they put a party of 10 in my section. I do not even want to attempt this and ask another server to take them. He just got sat a party of 6 and doesn't want both, so I offer to take the 6 and he agrees. Just when I'm thinking that things are under control, they seat a party of 16 people in my section. Of course I flip out and tell the manager on duty that there is NO way I am ready for that. Mercifully she gets another server to take the 16, but I have to take 2 of her tables in trade. That's cool. I can handle that. Or not. So now I have her two, plus the other guy's one, plus a couple in my own section and that's when things went downhill rapidly. I was so frazzled that I put the wrong table number down on one party's order, so of course their food got delivered to the wrong table. There went that tip. By the time it was over I was so mentally and physically exhausted I just wanted to pass out. Thursday morning I worked again. I came in and found that they had created me a special little 3 table section where no big parties could possibly be seated. Yippee!! The manager that was on Thursday morning was the same one that had been on the night before. She told me that she wanted me to succeed and wanted me to have a section I could handle. Thursday was a good day.

After work Thursday, I finally had time to go to the store and get the missing Taco Soup ingredients. By the time I got home at 4:15 after picking the kids up from school, I didn't exactly have time to start the Taco Soup and have it ready for dinner. And I had to leave at 5 to go pick up my oldest from cheer practice and then go to a PTA meeting at 6. I decided I didn't want to waste gas driving her home and then going right back to the school, so I whipped up some red beans and rice, packed some for us to eat and was out the door again.

Today I finally got everything for Taco Soup in the crock pot. Actually I got everything in but the meat. I left the browning of the meat and depositing it into the crock pot up to the hubby since I was running out of time to take the kids to school. Lately he's been taking them to school most days, but I needed to make fliers for a PTA fundraiser that is next week, so I took them. He did the meat and got it into the crock pot.

I have to say it turned out pretty good. I did add some water since some of the comments on the recipe stated that it wasn't very soup like. I didn't put a packet of ranch in there because it sounded slightly odd and to be honest, I forgot it when I was at the store. Today my mom emailed me a link to this online cookbook because of it's crock pot recipes. Taco Soup was in there too but theirs called for just one can of everything and the one packet each of taco and ranch seasoning so I wondered if it would be under seasoned. I finally decided to try some of the soup even though nobody else seemed to be hungry yet and did think that it could use a little more taco flavor. I just added some more taco seasoning, so we will see if that kicks it up a bit. I also added a drop of ranch dressing to my bowl to see what the ranch would do to the flavor after I had several bites. I was totally cool with dumping half a bowl if I didn't like it, but not so adventurous with the whole batch. I have to say, I liked the flavor that it added and I will certainly put the ranch seasoning in next time.

Thank you

A big thanks to Melanie for popping back over and fixing my hiding linky problem. You can see them now. See. They are orange. YAY! Why didn't I just email her a week ago when I first noticed this instead of staring at the code for hours trying to find what was doing it. It seriously took her 3 minutes.

When I grow up Part 2

Ok, wow. What a spirited comment from my good friend Beth in regards to my last post. Out of everything she knows about me (and she knows EVERYTHING) this post shocked her. SHOCKED with capital letters even. And trust me when I tell you, there are a few other things that she knows about me that I would have thought she would find slightly more shocking.

So in light of that, yes, let me clarify. In Junior High, when asked, I wanted to be a stay at home mom. In High School I hated all those personality test things that were supposed to tell us our perfect career, because I wanted to be a mom. When I went to College, I took child development courses because they would help me to be a better mom. In freshman English I got a D on an essay I wrote on gender issues because the feminist teacher didn't like my stance on stay at home parents.

Basically I wrote a paper stating that I felt the decline of our society was caused by the lack of parental supervision at home. That I felt that in most cases most families could get by on just one income so that one parent (I didn't specify which one, because I don't think it has to be the mom) could stay home, but it would mean not having matching Beemers in the driveway of their McMansion. Seriously, how many hours a week do you think parents are working a week to afford that kind of shit? And meanwhile their neglected kids were building bombs in the garage or wreak other havoc in their neighborhoods. So I feel that if you are willing to forgo the Beemer and the big house to stay home with your kids, our world will be a better place. I sure as shit know that if my kids built so much as a pup tent in my garage I would know about it. And if they were having trouble making friends and acting odd, I'd take them to a freaking therapist, every day if necessary, until they were well adjusted.

But I guess I'm drifting a little off topic. By now you get Beth's point. You understand why her world got turned on it's head when I said that I feel that something is missing.

Here's the thing. Being a stay at home mom is still looked down upon. Even though there are websites like this momsalarywizard that tells me that the work I do for my family is worth $124, 628 a year (that's more than my husband makes, hehe). Like I said in the last post, my husband gets it. He didn't always. When I was pregnant with our first and said I wanted to stay home with her he said "Until she goes to preschool right?" Of course by the time she went to preschool I had another baby at home and the same with my third. Over the years I have had a chance to impress upon him the fact that it isn't just when they are small that they need parental supervision and guidance. I think all it really took was asking him if he really wanted our kids to be doing the things he was doing as a teenager while his parents were at work. So when our youngest went off to Kindergarten, he was in no big hurry for me to re-join the workforce. Although he humors me when I talk about a career, he's just as happy if I stay home. He really thinks that the part time arrangement I have right now is perfect. I work only while the kids are in school, and even though I don't make a lot of money, it gives me a little spending cash and lets me get out of the house and talk to some grown ups. He realizes now the importance of me being home when the kids get home from school. The fact that he has a pathological fear of school busses helps too.

I think it boils down to how you define success. I look at some of the people I went to high school with and they have become doctors and lawyers. No doubt people would say that they are successful. People look up to them for the fortitude they had to endure all those years of schooling to earn those degrees. I feel that my status as a stay at home mom isn't as prestigious. For some reason I'm embarrassed to say that I'm JUST a mom, and I feel the need to find some kind of career that will earn me the respect that the doctors and lawyers are getting, but at the same time I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice the time I have with my kids to have a career like that. Not for all the money in the world. Certainly not for a Beemer and a McMansion. So maybe what I should be looking for is not which career I should choose, but how to be proud of the career I CHOSE. Maybe I should stop worrying about what everyone else thinks, and listen to my good friends who know how successful I am. Thanks Beth.

Clumsy girl learns to be a waitress

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was going to start serving food at the restaurant where I work. How I was scared shitless about dropping trays of food all over the customers. Yeah. So the manager has apparently decided that I need the short bus training and scheduled me to learn to take to go orders before doing the regular training. I spent Friday and Saturday night learning how to input orders into the computer and practicing my new found skills on the customers who called ahead orders. Everything was going fine until they decided, in all their infinite wisdom, that I should take food to tables too. Now I realize that when I start serving I'm going to have to take food to tables, but I also know that I'm not going to start off working Friday nights either. This particular Friday night they were super busy and not only was the restaurant filled to capacity, there were three times as many people working as I am used to during the day. There were bodies everywhere and it was impossible to walk anywhere without bumping into someone. It was like trying to do brain surgery in a clown car. So someone decides it will be a good idea to send me out to a table with a GIANT tray, filled not just with baskets of burgers, but plates of entrees, something that is served on a cast iron plate, and SOUP. SOUP!!! What were they thinking??? I managed to carry the tray to the table, but there were no empty tables nearby for me to set this monstrosity on. As I was trying to maneuver my way around the table so I wouldn't have to pass food over their BABY, I got my right foot stuck on a high chair at the next table over. I feel myself about to not only drop the tray, but fall on top of it myself. NOT GOOD. So I put my left foot in front of me to try to avoid falling. I am now standing frozen with my left foot crossed in front of my right, knees bent, but miraculously still holding the tray. It was like a game of twister gone horribly, horribly wrong. The lady with the baby says "Good save". At this point I'm feeling pretty proud that I managed to not drop the tray, and I'm pretty confident I can stand up and get my feet untwisted without dropping the tray, but I still have no clue how I'm going to get any of the food off of it. Just then the manager saw me posing awkwardly with the tray and came over to help. I held the tray and she took the food off. All I can say is this is going to be an interesting experience.

So Far.... Not So Good

So it's been almost a month since my last post. Good thing I didn't wish to be a better blogger, because then I'd be definitely failing. Here is an update on how I'm doing on my wishes.

1. My next house will have a place for my crafting - FAIL

We have officially moved. My new house not only doesn't have room for my crafting, it doesn't have room for me. Or my big ass bed, pool table, most of my pots and pans, linnens, or anything else. The only good thing about it, is it's only month to month, so we are still looking for the house that will have room for my crafting. It's a good thing, because if I had to stay in this house too long, I think I would lose my mind. I seriously think some motels have bigger kitchens than this place. I spent this morning rearranging the kitchen because when we unpacked, we put all the cups in a cupboard that you can't get to when the dishwasher is open.

2. I will get my Etsy shop set up and start selling my crafts - C

I did get the Etsy shop set up, but since I can't find the craft supplies, let alone craft anything in this crackerjack box, the actual selling of stuff is on hold until we move again.

3. I will make enough money to buy the things I want (mainly new furniture) without pulling from the regular budget - A+

Although I don't have room to buy any furniture for this house, I am making progress towards increasing my income. I have decided to try a different project on that work at home thing that I did for a whole 3 days last year, hoping that people ordering flowers will be slightly more intelligent than pre-paid cellular customers. No offense intended to anyone reading this that actually has a pre-paid cell phone, if you are able to read this blog you are obviously not one of the 20 or so people I helped (or attempted to) in those three days. In addition to that I'm actually going to start serving food at the restaurant where I work, instead of just parking people in booths. I'm kinda clumsy, ok I'm really clumsy, and I've been scared shitless of dropping trays of food and everyone laughing at me, but it's time to play with the big kids. It's been a year, and because of my ADD a year is about the longest I stay at any job. Since the economy sucks and there aren't too many jobs to be had, I figure that rather than look for something that isn't out there, I'll just do something else where I am. I'm still scared shitless that I will drop trays of food, but oh well.

4. I will take better care of my health - B

I did actually find a doctor, make an appointment, and see that doctor. Of course she referred me to an ENT and I haven't made that appointment yet. Why? Because I need to have my tonsils out and I don't have time for that right now.

I also finally made an appointment to see the denitist to deal with the tooth that has been bothering me for months. Of course since I had ignored it for so long, it required a root canal, and $300 that I didn't have.

5. I will do a better job of keeping in touch with friends who are spread all over the country - B+

Wow, Facebook, you are my friend. So if my friends are on Facebook, I'm now in touch. For the people not on Facebook, well, I haven't quite figured out what to do about them yet.

6. I will put money away so we can take a nice family vacation this year - C

Since the hubby is still not working, right now we can't afford our bills, let alone save for vacation, but hopefully my different job endeavors will make this one a reality.

7. Lose the pesky last 5 pounds - FAIL

I was all excited this morning. I found my scale. It's been lost for 2 weeks since we moved. I have been able to get into some pants that I have not been able to for a few years, so even without the scale, I thought I was doing well on this one. So I found the scale and put it in the bathroom, in front of the toilet, on the rug, since the bathroom is so small, it was either there or in front of the sink. I weighed myself and it said I had lost 8 pounds since I wrote that last month. I was all kinds of excited. Until the hubby came to me and said "I think the scale might be broken". Apparently putting it on the bathroom rug was making it weigh about 10 pounds less than reality. So instead of being down 8 pounds, I'm really up 2. I think I'll put it back on the rug.

So that's pretty much the update. I'm going to be super busy the next couple weeks learning to not drop trays of food, and ordering people flowers for Valentine's day, I'll try to drop by and write, but I'm not promising anything.

Updates

I was reading through my older posts just now. I like reading what I write. I crack myself up. Hopefully lots of other people think I'm as funny as I do. In reading my old posts I came across a couple of posts that I felt required updating. So here you go.

Remember when I told you that Lizards Can't Swim? Kimberly fished a dead lizard out of the pool and then decided it needed to be buried? I even included a nifty picture of the burial? Well about a month ago I found a box in my garage labeled "Do not open. Lizard inside" Yup, you guessed it. Apparently after the burial, Kimberly decided she wasn't done playing with the dead lizard and robbed his little lizard grave and played with him some more. Then she decided to stash him in the garage for safe keeping. Well let me tell you, by late June it's a nice 110 degrees here, and it probably gets up to like 130 in the garage. Not the best place for keeping a 4 month old dead creature. Eww. I threw the whole box away and didn't even peek.

On another note, remember in March when I proudly told you I had finally sorted the sock basket. Well, I can now, not so proudly tell you that it hasn't been touched again since. In my defense we haven't had much need for socks in the last two months with the kids out of school and all, but I'm still pretty ashamed.

Lastly, remember when I told you about our 504 meeting. It went so well. I was so encouraged. Well by the time I got the actual printed version in my hands I was not happy with how things were worded so I sent it back asking for certain things to be corrected. The teacher then countered my corrections and refused to sign off on it. We ended up needing to have two more meetings with the District 504 supervisor on hand to mediate. Of course she understood where I was coming from and the fact that I was 100% right on everything I was asking for. As a bonus, she even suggested some really cool shit I hadn't even thought about. The end result was, the day before school ended we finally had our 504 plan in place. It only took all year. The teacher still wasn't thrilled with the fact that she had to sign off on it, and I wanted to say "Why do you care? It's not like you are going to have to do any of these things since there is only one day of school left", but I didn't. I think maybe she was worried about the other teachers kicking her ass when they found out about it.