Random Tuesday Quickie

I just got back from The Girl's 4th grade field trip. Wonder of wonders, I was actually picked in the random drawing for chaperones. The Girl was happy, because it is also her birthday. I was happy for several reasons . . . I got to spend the day with The Girl on her birthday, I only worked a half day and the half day I am working is at home, so I can catch up on some laundry.

Oooooh, I just remembered, there are leftover cupcakes from Sunday's party in the fridge downstairs. Be right back . . .

Okay, that's better, where was I?

Oh yeah, the field trip. Boy, can 40 4th graders on a bus be LOUD. The chocolate cupcake was for medicinal purposes, you know, for my headache.

Okay, I'm done. Told you it would be quick (I'm working ya know).
Click on the button and go see Keeley for more Random Stuff.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

You are TEN today. I honestly can't believe it.
Your dad and I are so lucky. You are a great kid - fun and smart and kind and loving.
I love you more than you can know.
Happy Birthday!

Monday Morning Blah

Sleepy this morning (for the record, I've always had morning issues )...

We celebrated The Girl's birthday yesterday with some family and a few friends. It was pretty tame, with football on TV and the kids not quite killing themselves or each other in the basement, but I'm still exhausted. I always end up with too much food and I run around like a nut and never sit down and enjoy my own parties. I need to fix that.

I finally watched the House premier while folding laundry last night. I'm a Hugh Laurie fan, and he was great in this episode. I think it is going to be an interesting season.

Remebering Tom

We went to a fundraiser last night to benefit my cousin Tom's family. Tom was killed in a skiing accident this past spring. He was 52 and the father of five, ranging from college to third grade.
Tom was 10 years older than I am, and his family lived in Connecticut when we were growing up, so I wasn't really close to him when we were kids, but as we got older, we got to know each other more. He moved to the Boston area and was always coming to family events. He had a big laugh, a big spirit and a huge heart. Judging from the tremendous turnout at this event last night, a lot of other people felt the same way about him as I do. His kids and his wife will always miss him, but I hope that they can take some comfort in how much he was loved by so many.
I gave The Girl and The Mailman extra hugs when we got home last night.

RTT - Can somebody wake me when it is time to go home?

The Mailman and I went to the U2 concert last night. Good show, not great, though. It did cement in my mind the fact that I'm done with stadium shows. I love live music, but stadium shows, just not worth it to me anymore. On the up side, we got some good advice about parking, so we were out of the lot in about 15 minutes (after hearing 2 plus hour horor stories from the night before). Too bad we'll never be able to use that advice again because I'm never going to a concert there again.

----------------------------------------

We got our U2 tickets on a pre-sale, with the "secret code" months ago. Granted, we cheaped out and went for the lowest priced tickets, but I would like to have thought that might get us something a little better than the not quite top corner of the stadium. Umm, not so much, and when chatting with the couple in front of us, they mentioned that they bought their tickets a couple of weeks ago. I should have done my spin last week on how much I hate ticket companies.

----------------------------------------

My friend sent me an e-mail the other day after I had done something typically dorky. She said "You are such a goober." My immediate thought was "At least I'm not a raisinette." I don't know what that means, but I think it proves that I am, in fact, a goober. My second thought was (everybody sing!) "I'm a goofy goober, Rock! You're a goofy goober, Rock! We're all goofy goobers, Rock! Goofy, goofy, goober, goober, ROCK!" That only proves that I'm the mother of a ten year old.

----------------------------------------

Right now, I'm not as tired as I thought I'd be. Come by my desk and poke me at about 3:00 though, because I'm sure I'll be dozing by then.

I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight

The mailman and I are going to the U2 concert tonight. Tailgating with friends before.
Gotta get into my late 80's / early 90's self . . .
Gotta try not to let the traffic in and out of the stadium get to me, and not to worry too much about work tomorrow and how tired I'm going to be. I will show up, but no one can make me be productive . . .

Spinning my hate

Okay, so technically, I think I'm late for this spin cycle, but it has been one of those weeks, 'kay?

The Girl is in fouth grade this year, which is the end of elementary school in our town. At The Girl's school, every year, there is a fourth grade "Moving On" ceremony at the end of the year. So, during the first week of school we get a paper home looking for volunteers for organizing said ceremony. "Volunteers Make a Difference!" "We can't do this without volunteers!!" So, I put my name on the piece of paper and send it back in to school. I get an e-mail that the first few meetings will be at 9:00AM on Thursdays . . .
So, apparently, the only help that is wanted is the help of the clique of stay at home moms that have their mitts into everything and complain that they have to do it all?!
Consider me really, really irked.
I don't HATE these people, I HATE that they just don't get it. I hate that they don't have any comprehension that there are those of us out here that don't have the luxury of being stay at home moms. We HAVE TO go to work. We WANT to help. We WANT to be involved. Don't make it so G D difficult for us to be involved and don't complain that you have to do it all.

That is all . . .

Check out more weekly spins at Sprite's Keeper!

Get your randomness on

In an effort to save money and the environment, the building that I work in no longer puts liners in our office/cubicle trash cans, and they only collect the trash from them twice a week. We are no longer supposed to put anything food related in the trash in our offices, we're supposed to put that kind of trash in the approved bins in the pantry areas, which are emptied daily. Now, we have paper recycle bins in our offices/cubicles, so I'm not really sure what my trash can is for anymore. I've taken to bringing in plastic bags from the grocery store to put in my trash can so that I can put my coffee cup / tea bag / banana peel / apple core / yogurt container / whatever in it and "bus my own table" at the end of the day. It's either that or walk halfway across the floor with my garbage four or five times a day. I know I need the exercise, but it just ain't going to happen that way.

The grocery bags win. So much for the environment.

---------------------------------------------------------

President Obama apparently called Kanye West a "jackass" yesterday. Can't say I can recall hearing a President quoted using the word "jackass" before . . . Can't say I disagree . . .

---------------------------------------------------------

The Girl BEGGED me last night to let her sign up for violin lessons at school. She made lots of promises about practicing and commitment and I finally relented. The Mailman was out watching the Patriots game when this all took place. He's gonna kill me . . .

---------------------------------------------------------

The Girl and I heard on the radio this morning on the way to school that Patrick Swayze had died at 57. She said to me "57 is awfully young to die." Yup.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

I got a little bit more sleep the past two nights. I gave The Mailman "snore spray" and I think it might have actually helped. I didn't see the clock in the four o'clock hour on Sunday morning. I saw all of the other hours, but, hey, one slept through is a bonus these days.

Anyhow, an issue came up this weekend with one of The Girl's friends and I'm not sure how to deal with it. The friend called Saturday, late morning, and when I was handing the phone to The Girl I told her it was okay if she wanted to invite her over for a bit. It was raining, soccer had been cancelled, I didn't feel like doing much of anything, but we did have some afternoon errands to run. Her friend it turns out was home with her grandmother (parents both at work, grandmother lives with them), so she's not allowed to go out, but The Girl can go over there. This has happened before, never been an issue, so I said okay, but only for a bit. The phone rings about the time that The Girl is supposed to come home and she asks if she can stay there while I go out and run errands, and proceeds to put the friend on the phone. Friend proceeds to tell me that her dad is home and that it is okay, etc. Well, one of the errands is buying The Girl new shoes, so doing the errand without her isn't an option. I tell her that I'll need her with me, but that she can have another 45 minutes. (I did mention that I didn't feel like doing much of anything . . . ) I eventually have to go to the friends house down the street to fetch The Girl 90 minutes later. I'm mad about her being late, and mad about having to come out in the rain to get her. I see the grandmother when I get to the house, but not the dad. This isn't too out of the ordinary, we were just at the front door, so we say thanks and I drag The Girl home with a lecture about being late. When we're out shoe shopping, something The Girl says makes me ask her "Was Friend's dad really home?" She stops talking and shakes her head, "no." My brain starts buzzing with fury, but I don't want to make a scene in the rainy parking lot, so I don't say anything. The Girl says to me "I didn't want to lie to you, that's why Friend took the phone. And I'm really, really sorry."
We got home, had a conversation about how what she did was just as bad as if she had lied to me herself, etc. She lost some priveleges for the rest of the weekend. She gets it, and I really do think that she was sorry.
I guess my biggest issue is that this is NOT like her. We never had problems like this with The Girl until this Friend came into the picture. This girl is used to getting what she wants, and she does whatever she wants to get it. I need to figure out how to get across to The Girl that she doesn't need to just go along if something doesn't seem right to her and that she needs to make up her own mind and that she needs to be true to herself and our family values, but how do I do this without seeming like I'm badmouthing the friend (which, believe me, I am doing loudly in my head)? Do I say something to the friend's parents?

The Mailman wants me to let it go for now. We've had our conversation with The Girl, she had consequences from what happend and has been told that there will be worse consequences if it ever happens again, but my head is having a hard time letting it go . . .

Sleep . . . I need sleep . . .

The Mailman snores. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Recently, it has been A LOT. Seems to be worse when he puts on a few pounds, and we were recently on a vacation where I heard the words "second dinner" pretty much every night. 'Nuf said. Anyway, between his snoring and the cat licking the lampshade (I have no idea what THAT is all about), I don't get much uninterrupted sleep in. I've started taking melatonin again, which I thinks help me fall back to sleep faster after I have kicked nudged him or swatted at the cat, but still, I'm so very, very tired...

The Girl was supposed to have her first soccer game today, but it is pouring, has been all night, so the fields are a mess and all games have been canceled. I see a movie for the girl and a nap for me in our future.

Dear So-And-So

Dear Women That Work on My Floor,

Really? Peeing all over the seat? This is an office, a professional place of business, not a bar or a truck stop or Fenway Park or a port-a-potty. If you don't want to sit on the seat, use the little paper seat cover thingy. And do you not notice that you have PEED ALL OVER THE SEAT when you turn around to flush? It makes me shudder to think about the state of the men's room.

Un-Freakin' believable.

Totally flabbergasted,
MA

-----------

Dear American Idol,

I wasn't sure it was possible for a *Reality* show to "jump the shark" but I'm thinking that Ellen as a judge might qualify. Don't get me wrong, I like Ellen, really enjoy her talk show on the rare occasions that I can catch it, but American Idol I just don't get. Ellen and Cara? Can Simon get out of his contract now? I bet he's checking.

We'll see . . .
MA

------------

Dear Local Town Paper,

I know you have a monopoly on town news, and if I want to know what the School Department or the Board of Selectman are up to I don't have a lot of options, but I might have to reconsider now that you're raising your home delivery rate to 80 cents a day, four dollars a week. That doesn't include a tip for the nice neighborhood boy (and his mom) that deliver you to my door. It takes me, on average, all of 2.5 minutes to read you every day, including the comics and Dear Abby, your grammar and spelling are atrocious, and last week we got two Tuesdays, 9/1 AND 9/2 . . .
Yes, I know you know I'm bluffing.
MA

Will everything become clear now?

42. The ultimate answer to life the universe and everything.
Don't believe me? Just ask Deep Thought. And make sure you know where your towel is.

Random Tuesday

Yup, it is Tuesday. Feels like Monday after the long weekend, but I'm sure that everyone has heard that already today.

I read this on Boston.com today, and it made me sad thinking about the possibililty of a generation of kids growing up without books. We love books in our house. We have too many books in our house. The Mailman goes to the library at least once a week. I can see myself someday using a Kindle or some such, but I just don't see it in the same way as curling up with a blanket and a book.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I told The Mailman that I want an iPhone. Not holding my breath.

Why do I have to fill out the same paperwork for The Girl's elementary school every year, when NOTHING has changed? There has to be a better way. One of the forms is a computer printout with all of the information on it that I have to sign to say it is correct, but then I need to fill out five other forms with the same info. WHY?!?!? I get that the teacher needs a copy, the office needs a copy, blah, blah, blah, but why can't they use the info that they have IN THE COMPUTER? Yeesh.

Thanks, Keely... I love RTT!

Unofficial End of Summer. Bummer.

The end of Labor Day weekend. Is it really the end of summer? I hope we can sneak in a few more of these warm days and cool nights. Back to school and work tomorrow. Sigh. The Mailman took tomorrow off, though. His day off this week is Wednesday, so why would he go to work on Tuesday?

So, The Girl went to a birthday party yesterday, for her friend from down the street. Friend is a year younger than The Girl, but they get along pretty well, and it is nice for her to have someone in the neighborhood. Anyway, I bring her over to the party, and some of the parents of the other kids are there, and they all know each other, and no one knows me, and no one talks to me. Okay, I admit, I am VERY shy and let myself get intimidated in these situations. I try to make eye contact and smile, but don't seem to get any reaction, so I give up. I know I need to get over this, I just don't know how. Hell, I'm (almost) 42 years old. Is it too late? I ended up coming home and trying, again, to teach myself Photoshop. (I need to find a class, but that's a subject for another day.)

Okay, first post . . . What to say, what to say.
I've been thinking about trying this blogging thing for a while. I'm turning 42 in a few days, so I figured what the heck, just jump on in.

I guess a little bit about me might be the best place to start.
I'm four days away from turning 42, married for 16 years to my high school sweetheart. We'll call him The Mailman. We have a wonderful, almost 10 year old daughter, The Girl. Well, she's wonderful most of the time, but does have the capacity to make me completely nuts.

I work full time in the financial services industry. Snore. Not really what I want to do when I grow up, but I still don't know what I would do if I was given a choice (other than being one of the "idle rich," I suppose). I needed a job out of college and am still at the same company. They've changed the sign over my head a number of times (this IS the financial services world), but I haven't left.

I like to try to be "crafty" but find that I don't have too much time for it. I am the queen of the unfinished project. I like to take pictures, and am trying to learn more about that. A few months ago I purchased a "big girl" camera, and hope to someday know how to use it to take more than snapshots. I'll have to see if I can get up the guts to post pictures here at some point . . .

I hate housework. I love Jimmy Buffett. I love Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. I guess some people would call me a geek, though I'm not really sure that's the right word. Right now, I'm listening to Carrie Underwood.

I guess that's it for today. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the long weekend with The Mailman and The Girl.

Enjoy!