Monday, January 30, 2012

Conversations VII

Elizabeth, to Charles: You have glitter on your face.
Charles: So do you.
Me, to Elizabeth: Are you a vampire?
E: You don't know that? Way to parent there, mother.

Touche.
Elizabeth:  What if I grew a mustache  like this? (takes hair and holds it over lip)                                                                                          
Me:  I think I should get you one to wear for Halloween.
E:  Halloween?  I was more thinking for every day purposes.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Random II

I got a Twitter.  I just the other day figured out how to use it and to make sense of all the conversations that were going on and how to follow them...plus my sister got one and I want to torture her a little bit on it.  I still don't quite get it though...
@ewepsycho if you are interested.

Charles and I have been together for 10 years now.  It was actually 10 years yesterday, but I am still all marveling at this fact.  I mean, truly, I kinda half expected him to have drank himself to death, being married to me and all...yet I am the one on meds?  Huh.  Now I have a different perspective on this...

It snowed here for like the second time this winter.  OK, maybe the third.  Then tomorrow it is supposed to be warm and melt it all.  (Warm is relative...I am talking like 40* here.)  I think Mother Nature needs some meds herself.  That or humans need to stop creating greenhouse gasses...though then we could not manufacture the stuff needed to make my meds to give me my sanity so I can torture my family for another 10 years.  Fuck.

So the laptop is  working, but only because I installed Linux on it.  Windows was apparently beyond repair.  I can access all my old files, so it is just gonna stay this way for now.  However, I cannot use my wireless mouse with it for some reason and I have to find the cord for the printer because I can't figure out how to use it wirelessly.  The printer I can deal with...however, I HATE the touch pad mouse on this thing.  I hate that it moves my cursor all over the place and several times I have had to stop typing to move it back because my thumbs have brushed against it.  I hate that it is a PITA to try to scroll down a web page.  But mostly, I hate that when something goes wrong with it I have nothing to throw across the room like I did with the other mouse.

 I want to know who came up with the idea of taking a particularly lean meat such as pork and making the heart killer known as bacon.  I mean, I am not complaining or anything...but who thought of this idea?







Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Fish

I had to go to orientation for my new job yesterday.  You know, because it totally makes sense to get oriented to your workplace over a month after you originally started.

It was pretty much the typical shit you would expect from an orientation.  Lots of happy feel good crap about how we are the cream of the crop, etc. (because I totally did NOT get this job because of the people I knew or anything like that.  Nope, not at all...) and how HONORED the senior management is to have us working for them.  Then they threw in all the expected boring ass shit about HIPPA and getting fired for running your mouth and where to park and how to check your e-mail.


It threw me for a loop, though, when they showed the video about Fish.  It is basically this show about these guys who work in a fish market and they throw fish around all day.  And that is exactly how they introduced it, and I totally thought that they were joking until they showed it and that was exactly what it was, men throwing fish.

Except....they really liked their jobs.  They really had fun.  They were...playing.  While at work.  While LIVING THEIR LIVES.

Holy fuck.  These guys worked 14 hour days; had to get up at 5 AM, smelled like dead fish all day long...and they were enjoying life.  What the hell do I have to complain about?  I have a job I (mostly) love, a roof over my head, I (mostly) am able to pay my bills, I have three beautiful children...yet I often find the worst things to focus on.  I have to get up earlier than I want.  I sometimes have to work late.  I don't have the house I want.  I have a chronic autoimmune disease... but I am still alive.

I came to the conclusion that my attitude did, in fact, need to shift.  How quickly I forgot the exercise I did over Thanksgiving where I came up with something I was thankful for during all 30 days of November.    This is a stretch for me.  I am, by nature, one to see the negative in things.  I used to view it as being a realist and pragmatic.  Maybe I need to start looking for the magic in things.

I need more fish in my life.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Sick

So poor Alexis has some kind of stomach bug.  And of course, now that I have spent the better part of the day cleaning up puke, the smell is permanently burned into my nostrils and I smell it everywhere.  At one point she cuddled up to me while I was messing around on Facebook  (don't judge me; she was lying on the couch and Charlie was sleeping.  It's not like I was ignoring the kids to play on the computer...) and right after she did, she spewed all over me, her, the couch, and on my laptop.  You know you are a parent when you  have ever had to wonder if vomit will ruin your laptop.  Or a college student, but really if you are drinking and going on the computer you will real quick learn the disastrous results.  Today's version of drunk dialing, I suppose, but with a potentially unlimited audience.

Anyways, now I feel all vomit-y myself.  What is it about cleaning up puke that makes you want to puke, too?  Between that and the raging cold Charlie has going on, my children's germs are sure to attack my immune system from all sides in the hopes that someone, anyone, will be victorious.  I know from past experience that when I get sick it is usually not fun.  Of course, I don't have the luxuries that other members of my family have when they are sick.  I am still expected to cook and clean and remember things.  Today, for instance, Alexis's illness made her completely stumped by the complexities that are involved with buttoning her shirt.  My husband will frequently forget how to get up with the children when he is sick.  Elizabeth will take cold meds that knock her out and sleep for hours.  Charlie can emit a whine that really should be studied as a torture method.

Yet I fought off post-partum depression; I deal daily with the sometimes debilitating fatigue and pain from a chronic condition; I have had sinus infections and bronchitis too many times to count over the past year...and I never take a day off.  I am the one getting up with the kids; I do the cleaning and the running and still work 40+ hours.  Is it any wonder that my children tend to be perfectionistic and anxiety-ridden?  Their mother is the freaking queen of it!  I need to start reading my own words, looking at old posts, and make some changes in my life before my children end up in the same boat I am.