Work

It's hard to believe I've been out of work for two months already. I've been working harder than I have in YEARS. Actual, physical WORK. Hammers and saws and lifting heavy things and being so absolutely filthy that all you can think about the whole way home is collapsing in the shower WORK. Frozen snot, double-layered gloves, wearing men's long underwear LAYERED and crappy winter boots being thankful when the God-forsaken wind STOPS for a minute WORK.

Not that I didn't feel my old job was work - people don't believe how exhausting it is to HAVE to sit all day or to have to stare into the glow of a computer screen until your eyes involuntarily close or spasm. While that work left me so mentally drained that even emotional interaction became yet another thing to do, physical work left my body aching and tired, but my mind and soul energized.

When classes started, it got a little more complicated. See, the plan my mom and I formulated was this: I helped her work on the house she is remodeling, she paid for the classes I needed in order to obtain my real estate license. So I crammed 106 hours of class into a month, while helping my mom with her house and my brother with his business on my off days. Not to mention still being mom and wife at home.

Suddenly, I was getting the worst of both working worlds - I was physically aching and mentally drained. Since I finished up my classes the week before Christmas, I took time off the laboring work as well so I had time to bake like mad for our "homemade" Christmas.

We had our Christmas fun, but I can't help but feel like I cheated myself from enjoying the season, and subsequently feel guilty for feeling that, knowing that I was doing what needs to be done. And that given the times and our circumstances, we were lucky we had the time, gifts and food that we did.

Now that the holidays are over, I have this weekend to relax and get my house back in order before I have to push full-force into this new career. It seems almost cheesy starting down a whole new path in life at the beginning of the year. Like a really bad book plot. But at least it will make doing my taxes easier.

So, that's where I am with life right now. Taking every day for what it is and pushing past the tight cocoon of limitations I had set for myself, hoping that this leap of faith lands my family on their feet.

Very fast Chicago/Honeymoon recap

Thursday - Caught the Amtrak to Chicago at 7:50 a.m. Almost missed the train. Srsly - we were the people running with all their luggage at the "ALL ABOARD!" call. Train ride was lovely - the food was not as bad as expected. Arrived at our hotel around 4:30 (GREAT service here, but they charge for internet service and that almost killed me) and got acquainted with our room. Had dinner and a show at the 20's themed "speakeasy," Tommy Gun's Garage (good food, actually, although they almost sent me to the hospital with the surprise almonds in my green beans - show was great, too).

Friday - walked down to a shoreline park, then up through Navy Pier. Walked though downtown, rain started. Saw the Marilyn Monroe exhibit at the Cultural Center. Got a little freaked out. Walked around a lot more. Lunch at Buddy Guy's Legends (I know I sold myself short going here for lunch over dinner, but I am cheap and didn't want to pay the cover) where we enjoyed deep-friend okra, gumbo and a shrimp po' boy (for Mike). Walked around a lot more. Finally bought a Go Card for the following day so we could go IN places. Walked around some more. Then Volare for dinner. (Excellent. The place was packed at almost 10:00 and we still had great service.)

Saturday - it poured. And poured. And poured. Weather people said, "If you have plans, cancel them." We walked anyway. We walked for an hour to get to the Sears Tower, where we were told there was zero visibility. We went to the Art Institute and practically ran through it to have time to see other things. Caught the free trolley to the Field Museum where, again, we hurried through. Got done and had time left for one more activity. Left the museum campus to take a trolley to Navy Pier to do a shoreline tour on the boats. Was severely disappointed when nobody was there (after I called to make sure we could do it. I was mad. Very, very mad.) Defeated and feeling ripped off, we tried to find the Hershey's store to drown our disappointment with chocolate. That was another disappointment. I demanded that we go back to the hotel where our day picked up very well with the aforementioned pizza (from Gino’s East) and Iron Chef. Mike said we could go to Lincoln Park Zoo and Millennium Park Sunday morning before we left.

Sunday - It was still f%@!&* pouring outside so the outdoor activities were cancelled. We enjoyed our room until check out then caught a cab to the car rental place - the cabbie suggested finding alternate routes out of town as rain and flooding was causing some exits to close. Got to the car rental place to find a line OUT THE DOOR. Amtrak cancelled trains out - O'Hare was cancelling flights (No line bumps for people who reserved their car a week ahead, either). FINALLY got our car and then spent over an hour trying to get out of town. We were at the Illinois border around 5 when we realized we had not eaten or drank anything (besides the Starbucks my wonderful husband(!) went out in the rain to get while I waited in line earlier) ALL DAY. Finally found a Chili's. The rest of the night was spent driving home with Mike demonstrating his amazing skill of really getting lost. :)

So, it started out fun and ended up frustrating me a bit. But the frustrations and disappointments helped to remind me why we were there in the first place - that no matter what the situation, we were there together and we could be happy together even when things weren't going the way we had hoped. And we can still laugh with each other when we're soaking wet, aching tired and insanely frustrated. And in the end, we still had four kid-less, jobless and responsibility-less days to just enjoy each other's company. And that we did.

It's Been A Long Week!

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Monday Morning You Sure Looked Fine

Highlights of my weekend:

~Worst part: My new gyno, “Wow! You sure got the stretch marks, didn’t ya?”

~Strangest Part: We stopped at Wendy’s for dinner Friday night, but they were absurdly busy. While we were waiting in line, some guy came huffing into the place, threw his money down on the counter and said, “I’m just going to have to give you this, I can’t use any more gas out there!” Oh, I get it…you can’t afford to burn your gasoline for five more minutes, but you can afford to pay for food you will not be eating?? Maybe he was running really low, but still…Why The Hell Did He PAY For It??? Also…you could see that they were busy before you even got to the lot. If they’re parking people at the drive thru and you’re low on gas…just use common sense!

~Ahem…The best parts...

~I paid full price for a pair of jeans at Tarzjay. To wear with my new shoes (also full price). Not exactly the Maddens and Baby Phat items I’ve been lusting after, but a nice change from Nothing At All…(even CLEARANCE CLOTHES!).

~I finally bought the new Killers CD - which is awesome. (Can you tell yet that I was mad when I went to Target?)

~I bought The Man’s stinking fishing pole offline so it will actually be here BEFORE his birthday.

~I made plans FOR his birthday! We’re going to play virtual golf. Which is actually going to be awesome for me. I got into golf last year, but we never had time to play a real game. Also, I was scared. This way I can get the feel of it without breaking anything, injuring someone or spending the day looking for my ball. Perfecto.

~Valentine’s Day is also Small Change Day…so make sure you check back for the new challenge!


**Title, in case anyone didn't get it, is from Fleetwood Mac...I've been really feeling lyrics lately, thinking about incorporating them more.

I ended my own post with "Word."

“Are we early?” asked Ninja Boy.

“No, we’re late.” I answered.

“Normal late?”

“No, really late.”

I hurried and dropped them at their daycare, spacing out that I wanted to ask her hubby what it meant when your coolant light wouldn’t go off. About 3 miles down the highway, I realized Sunshine hadn’t shut her door all the way. I pulled off onto a side road to jump out and shut it. I got back in the car, simultaneously putting on my seatbelt, taking a drink of coffee and proceeding down the road when I saw a huge snow bank in front of me. With no time to stop, I lurched my car up and over the icy bank, confirming the fact that there was a curb underneath it.

The tellers at a nearby bank watched as I rocked my car back off the embankment (no small feat), checked for damage and drove my car down the road the city had intended. To be fair to me, it snowed last night, so it wasn’t easy to tell which direction the road went – a sign indicating you needed to make a hundred degree turn would have been extremely helpful, so thanks for that, city council. The wobble in my tire suggests I may need to write a letter.

The thing that sucks the most is I promised myself this week would be better than last. Last week I nearly lost my mind.

Tuesday, my last ‘friend’ here at work got laid off. Luckily, she got another job the same day and was able to stay the rest of the week to help me, yes ME, learn how to do her work.

I am not happy about this. Not only because all the people who had only shown me ONE of their faces were GONE. (The rest of these women are very sweet to me – to my face. They spend half their days gossiping about everyone else in the office and I’d be a fool to think I’m an exception.) But I’m also very upset because I said 6 months ago that I did not want to do her work. I’d done her job before – three years ago when I started here – and I hated it. Doing that job is like asking to be criticized. Okay, that’s enough of that. You get the point that now I have WAY more work to do, right? Work that I HATE? Okay…moving on.

With what seems to me to be seasonal depression – or even just “down” time – consuming me, the last thing I needed was more work. I have been doing everything I can to get all my work – of the paid and house varieties – done before I pass out, which lately has been 8:30. I can’t get up in the morning. I’ve had BAD headaches.

I promised myself that my weekend would be filled with nothingness. No big chores, no social events and no getting dressed if I could help it.

Well, The Man worked overtime Saturday, leaving me to get the kids to Sunshine’s basketball practice. Our morning went rather well. Until we were on our way to the school … Gee, this is starting to sound familiar …

A light came on. That’s all I can explain. I figured it meant my coolant was low (cuz I’m smart like that) but I had no idea what THAT meant. I finally got a hold of The Man and asked him to come home early. He did what he could – topped off the coolant, checked for leaks, he even changed my oil. But the light is still on. This will be a good test of my sales skills when I finally sell my car… “No, the engine light is just on…there’s nothing wrong with it.” “Oh, the coolant light?? Yeah, just stuck on…” “ETS…now I’m not even sure what that light means, but it’s ALWAYS been on…”

Anyway, so my weekend wasn’t looking like it was going to fix my bad week at all. Sunday, I had a horrible headache and slept most of the day. I did take some time to play Cadoo with the fam – which turned out to be REALLY fun. A little hard for Sunshine, who ended the game crying, but it does say ages 7+, so she did great.

So this morning, I forced myself to continue my Death Trek (I didn’t mention almost spinning out, did I??) to work, persuaded only by the thought that I might be able to leave early. I got here to find that the other lady I cover for had a funeral today and I was needed here to, well, cover for her.

I feel a little saner today, a little healthier, a little more capable of handling the extra work. But I do have to add that both my BONUS and my RAISE this year had better be adequate if they plan on me staying to do all four of these jobs. Word.

**Edited to add that I got my garbage disposal installed by a PROFESSIONAL this weekend. (He insists I call him that.) So, thank you Kristina, for lending me your husband. Now I can grind up garbage IN MY SINK. Word.

Of Course it's Long - It's Been, Like, FIVE DAYS

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Aside from the fact that my step-dad pissed me off for infinity around 11 pm the night before Christmas Eve, dinner at Mom’s went well. With that side of the family, it’s the usual suspects at every dinner, so it wasn’t a real surprise to see anyone. But it’s always a treat! All I really had to do was ignore everything SD said, which is hard, but it can be done – and graciously!

The kids were very rude when they got back from their bio-mom’s house. They came in and ripped open their presents, with no regard for the tags – or the person on it. There was one point where Ninja Boy half ripped the package open and, upon discovering cotton, THREW the package toward me – as if to say “It’s clothes – you deal with it.” I was ready to grab everything he’d just opened and fiercely take it away. I come from a family where everyone takes turns opening gifts, thanks the person who gave it to them (genuinely) and patiently waits their turn. Even my 4-year-old nephew understood this concept and followed through rather well with it. This was my “jackass” moment for Christmas 2006. The moment where I realize the $300 I’d spent on the kids is going to be torn through and complained about before I even get the wrapping paper cleaned up. I felt like going home and pulling half the gifts out from under the tree just so I didn’t feed this greedy, thankless attitude. I understand how they get this way – they are not expected to wait their turn OR give thanks when they are at BM’s. I also know that after opening so many presents, it gets to be kind of a mundane task. (Especially when people in BM’s family give him cash or toys that he isn’t into – it’s hard to fake happiness, although graciousness shouldn’t be faked.) I won’t stand for it. I am going to devise a plan next year that will kill the present overload. I don’t know what – or how – but I do know that getting 50 toys in one day is ridiculously excessive. No wonder they are so damn spoiled.

Christmas morning, when the kids opened presents at home – they were much more gracious. Even though Sunshine got a TV and Ninja Boy didn’t (he has an older one already), they held off on the arguing and finger pointing. We told the kids that they needed to send emails to everyone, thanking them for their gifts. I think this should really be done for every gift received (until I’m standing behind Sunshine, telling her how to spell every. single. word. waiting for her to type them out), but especially when they didn’t take the time to personally thank them when they had a perfect opportunity.

"It's a TV!"

I knew she'd love that game!

We got a call Christmas morning from the in-laws, “Are you guys planning on coming out today?” Hmm, is that why we REPEATEDLY ASKED his siblings EVERY DAY last week when they were doing dinner? They never gave us an answer, so ‘NO,’ we didn’t PLAN on doing anything with them.

ALREADY Confiscated!

Man, do I need a new camera!

We were both apprehensive, but decided we’d just go out for a couple hours so the kids could see their cousins. HHH was there and hasn’t changed too much. I guess I can’t say she hasn’t changed – she went through a lot with the drugs and prison, and I wasn’t there to see what she was really like during that time. BUT, personality wise – she’s same woman she was when we were friends. She still picked on her kids, showed everyone her blown-up picture of Britney’s Oopsie, and is still louder than a Harley. But she was courteous and almost pleasant. She is going to church now and listens to Christian music – that’s pretty much all she talked about. I have seen this a hundred times where someone goes to prison, finds Jesus and comes out talking about how much their life has changed…until they can hook up with the ‘old crowd.’ In fact, several of those times, it was HHH cleaning up her life only to destroy it just months later. I’m holding out hope, though, because if everyone expects you to fail, wouldn’t you? So, I’ll offer my congratulations on things coming to order for her and hope that she’s serious and planning on being a real mom to her kids.

Things ended up going so well over there that we stayed much longer than we’d planned – 6 hours! Six. Freaking. Hours. Then The Man invited his little sister and nephew over. They didn’t leave until 10 pm. I think The Man and I ended up getting to bed about midnight. I do not question at all why I don’t remember shutting my alarm OFF Tuesday morning.

That said – I was L-A-T-E on Tuesday. Not my normal late, where I’m not really late, because my boss doesn’t really EXPECT me until 8 – but I’m supposed to be here at 7:30. No, I was LATE – where I had to skip lunch and stay an extra 45 minutes to make it up. Oh, I also forgot my badge, so I had to get escorted into the building and write out a timesheet STATING that I was late getting in, skipped lunch and stayed late.

Yes, I was one of the unlucky bastards who got stuck working yesterday. The Man had the day off (as he does AGAIN on Friday!).

Not only did The Man stay home with the kids on his day off (daycare was still an option), he CLEANED. He did laundry, he did the dishes, he got rid of all the garbage left over from Christmas. He cleaned off the refridgerator and the microwave. He made the kids clean their rooms.

However, this miraculous deed was overshadowed by the fact that he nearly gave me a heart attack.

I tried calling the house about 2:30, then again about twenty minutes later. A little after three, I started getting obsessive and calling the house, then his cell, about every ten minutes. By the time I left work at 4:45 I was getting really concerned. Halfway home, I was crying. The entire hour ride home, I called non-stop. Thousands of situations ran through my head, sometimes scaring myself, sometimes trying to convince myself it was okay. But where the hell could he and the two kids be that they weren’t answering the phones? I sped down all the roads in my neighborhood – something I NEVER do. I pulled up to the house, thankful that at least it hadn’t burned down, and the Christmas lights were all on, but the upstairs was dark. The Man’s car was in the garage. I dialed the house again, just to see…walked in and saw Boy sitting downstairs, playing with his toys. I could faintly hear the telephone ringing upstairs. Ninja Boy said, “Hi Amy!” and seeing the look on my face said, “Dad, Amy’s upset.” The Man jumped up and prodded, “What??? What’s wrong??” “Why the hell weren’t you answering the phone?” I sobbed. “What phone?” “ANY PHONE!!!” He could not understand why I was so upset – not for the life of him. The prick even got mad at me for being so upset with him. All THREE of my cordless phones were in my bedroom (one on the bed, under the blanket), along with his cell. The door was closed. “You should put the damn phones away when you use them!”

I finally get to break out the Ball Puncher!

I know he didn’t mean to upset me, and he was probably hurt that I didn’t mention how spectacular the house looked, but I was so upset that I HURT. My chest hurt, my eyes were swollen - I was still shaking after I’d found everything to be okay.

And I thought I had no imagination!

Anywho…The Man also surprised me with…A JUNK DRAWER! He felt we really needed a place to store all of our “junk,” (because, you know, putting stuff AWAY is just LAME) so he moved my potholders from a completely logical place to a completely illogical place. See if you can guess where he moved them to. And also, where would you keep them if it were your kitchen??