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.

Mean Moms

I got the best email tonight! From, who better than, my mom.

Mean Moms

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:

I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to not say "I told you so"! when youdiscovered that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.
I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Those were the most difficult battles of all.

I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.

Was your Mom mean?

I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world!

While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.
And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison.

She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them.

She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We weren't allowed to go to kids house that my Mom thought were trouble.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work

We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trashpick up our messes and all sorts of cruel jobs.

I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them.

While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16 .

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced.

None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime.

It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults.

We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what's wrong with the world today.

It just doesn't have enough mean moms!

I’m sick.

I’m sick of being in my car 2 hours a day.

Sick of rushing to get the kids up and out the door.

Sick of rushing to get them fed and asleep.

Sick of picking up everybody else’s slack.


I’m sick of missing my kids growing up.

Sick of being too stressed to let go.

Sick of falling asleep at 8:30.

Sick of waking up at 5:00.


I’m sick of worrying about celebrities’ lives.

Sick of arguing about who’s right.

Sick of caring about upsetting others.

Sick of others upsetting me.

I’m sick of politics.
I’m sick of semantics.

I’m sick of elitists.
I’m sick of antagonists.



I’m taking a break.
I’ll explain next week.

The Cowardly Butrfly

I do my best to stay away from hot-button issues like politics, abortion, fur – stuff that instigates arguments. Because, while I do love when people come to my blog and comment, I don’t want a big throw-down here. Maybe I’m kind of a wussy, but I get out my opinions on other sites. However, Lindsay at Suburban Turmoil has a special talent, I’ve noticed. She could post a one-word entry…like “Chicken”…and she would have 50 comments from people who feel very strongly for AND against chicken. Sometimes it’s funny – sometimes it gets scary – sometimes you’re left scratching your head saying, “How did THAT start such a heated debate??”

I won’t bother to link to the post because the ugly comments have been ‘erased,’ but her post over the weekend was just a funny little story about her hair. This led to a discussion about Locks of Love (which is, from what I’m reading, not as great of an organization as I’d thought!)…which led to the crazies popping in with their big long rants about why she shouldn’t write what she does.

The “crazy” I’m talking about reminded me of someone. A while back, on my old blog, I wrote about my ‘encounter’ with actress Diane Farr. I found out then when a self-righteous bitch this woman was. This is probably the most controversial thing I’m ever going to post. But since I don’t have time today to write about something else, I thought I’d leave you with this to read.

Originally posted October 24th, 2006

I subscribe to Daily Candy – a great website that acts as your 'in-the-know' friend. They have great tips on shopping, travel, what books to read - you name it.
Last week, they sent me an email about www.otherannouncements.com. This is a website where you can order cards detailing the changes in your life to send everyone you know. Now, the creator of this 'business' is Diane Farr, who is apparently an actress (and author) as well. Call me "out of the loop" if you will, but I've never heard of her before (even with my Daily Candy). After seeing her picture, I vaguely recognized her as the woman from "Numb3rs" which I never had the slightest desire to watch. I also do not watch Oprah, as I work full-time - so no, I didn't hear about her there, either. I guess she was also mentioned in Glamour, which I actually do read, but still can't recall hearing of her.

I guess this whole 'business' started when Ms. Farr was dumped by her fiancé after she'd already sent out her wedding invitations. She didn't know how to tell all these people that her guy dumped her, so she sent out another card stating that she was now single. How embarrassing for Ms. Farr - yet what a clever idea.

Apparently, she got great feedback about this, so she created more cards. You can now order cards to send to all your loved ones when you:
*Have a child come out of the closet.
*Have a pet die.
*Lose your job.
*Get plastic surgery.
*Break up with your significant other.
*Get a DUI.
*Get sober.
*Go into remission.
*Have a miscarriage.
*Pretty much do anything, because you can customize them!

Now, can anyone guess which one of these pissed me off to no end?

If you guessed "miscarriage" you're right and you win … nothing - but be happy you were right.
The fact that she developed a card for people to inform their acquaintances of their loss is not what bothers me, as I've had to do this and, yes, it's hard to do face-to-face. What bothers me about it is what it reads: "I'm not fat. Unfortunately, I'm not pregnant anymore, either, but we'll be trying again soon while my boobs are still big. Thanks for your support."

I found this wrong on SO many levels. I, personally, cannot see how someone could find humor in miscarriage. I know there are many different types and I have suffered both early miscarriages and late-term pregnancy loss. While I felt a huge difference between them, they were all sad events. Never once did I think it was funny. Never once did I think, "I should jot down a little joke to let everyone know my baby died." I also did not see them as opportunities to try again "while my boobs are still big." In fact, sex was the absolute LAST thing I thought of when I was grieving.

When I saw this card, I immediately clicked the "Contact Us" link and told them what I thought - that the card was insensitive, sick and evil. I send them the links to the websites I have been supporting and told them to go read the stories these families had about pregnancy loss and see if anyone was laughing about it.

Well, wouldn't it beat all, Ms. Farr herself responded to that email. She told me about all the wonderful things she does for other people and how there was pretty much no way I'd ever do as much good as she does. And do you know she "literally wrote the book about honor amongst women"? I sure as hell didn't – nor did I care. She proceeded to tell me that I don't know anything about what kind of fears women face after losing a late-term baby, having to explain to all the people in their life that they hardly know where their baby was.

Hello? YES, as a matter of fact, I DO. I happen to work in an office with about 300 people, not to mention the 600 + people on the manufacturing floor. Over a year later, I still have people asking me how my baby is. I do know first hand how heartbreaking it is and no, Diane, I did not find a magic cure-all to let the world know. But as it happens, I didn't want the world to know. I don't care to send out sympathy requests. The people who know me well enough to ask about my child deserve to hear to their faces, despite how embarrassing it may be for them - or how hard it is for me emotionally - that she is now in Heaven. I also did not have $1200 to send a witty little note to the 2000 people I see on a regular basis. Nor did I want to send the misconception that I felt it was something to laugh about.
I told her in my response, "When you are a caring parent, you have a connection with your child; An unconditional love that cannot be dismissed with a joke."

As I said earlier, I had no idea who she was. So, after I found out she was semi-famous, I did some searching. Turns out, she does do a lot of public speaking, and the sale of her cards goes to charity. Well, in my opinion, anyone who makes a substantial amount of money and does not try to help the less fortunate is a scumbag. Even Britney Spears donates to charity and she has two babies and a freeloading husband. It does not impress me that you are doing your social duty – especially when you try to use that to define yourself as better than me.

I also found a picture of her – pregnant – on a celebrity gossip site.
I wonder if Diane had lost her child (God forbid – I would never wish that on anyone), would she have sent out her own card? Would she have thought it a funny little story to share with everyone? Probably not.

Apparently, she's been criticized for creating this card before:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005-07-31-web-dirty-laundry_x.htm.

In my first email, I asked what the difference was to her between losing an unborn child and losing one who had been born – as she did not have a funny card for that situation. She said there are plenty of notices (I'm assuming obituaries) for these types of deaths, but none for miscarriage (the same response she gave in the above article). When my brother died, we put his obituary in the paper. How many people do you know scan this section in the paper looking for people they might know? We were still faced with having to personally inform people about what happened for years to come. This does not convince me that I should perceive miscarriage as funny. I told her: "And as for your excuse that there is not another way to announce your loss, we went with an email with a forwarding request that said something to the effect of 'Last night we suffered the loss of our beautiful baby girl, Isabella Grace, due to umbilical complications. We thank you for your support and understanding during our difficult time.' I just don't think a witty one-liner would have explained the death of my beautiful baby the way I wanted to - the way it felt."

After having time to reflect on everything – my hasty and perhaps nasty initial email, her defensive yet still completely offensive response, and my more well-thought out response to her (haven't heard back yet) – I've come to realize that I don't only find the miscarriage card inappropriate. I still think it horrendous. But if I were to, say, lose my pet (the card reads "Got a shovel?") … Would I really want to send out cards to tell people about it? Who would I send these cards to? Who really cares so much about my cat that they'd want to receive a card notifying them when she died? Also, if so many people cared about my cat, wouldn't it be a little insensitive to jokingly ask them for a shovel to bury it?

The more I think about it, the more I feel sad for the people who want attention so badly that they feel the need for these cards. I suggested maybe she should start up support groups for these people, where they may learn to express their own emotions in their own words.

Princess Finds a Home

First of all, I would like to proudly share that Ninja Boy not only went to his basketball practice this weekend - he even TRIED. He par-ti-ci-pa-ted. He passed. He caught. He made THREE baskets. I was shocked and amazed. So much so that I spent $1.59 on a Gatorade as a treat. Then I shared my Special Dark with him.

After we dropped them with Bio-Mom, we headed to Super-Wal-Hell and filled a cart up with junk food. We hurried home, stuffed our faces and headed downstairs to clean. I was so embarrassed to have someone in my house the way it looked. Seriously - You have NO idea.

We had a visitor coming. Two, actually. Ms. Adopting Lady and her cute little son. I found her (or, she found me) on Craigslist when I advertised Princess and her broken heart. (Props to Kristina for correcting me on their pet policy!!)

I’m so glad she wasn’t some weirdo. You know, like me.

Look, she looked totally normal:

Yeah, I took her picture. Can you imagine going to pick up a pet someone was giving away and they’re like, “Can I take your picture?!” Yeeaahh. She did act a little *surprised* when I asked.

It was at the request of Ninja Boy. I explained to both the kids individually that I had found a home for Princess. A wonderful home where she would have lots of brothers and sisters to play with in a giant aquarium. I think Ninja Boy was suspicious. I thought the request was a little odd myself, but now I see that he wanted proof we weren’t going to just turn the cat on her. But you know what? She got a cute gerbil, cage and lots of accessories for jack so I don’t think a picture was too much to ask. She was a good sport about it, anyway. She probably didn’t think it would be going on my blog, though. Well, that’s what happens when you go meeting weirdos on the internet!

So, Princess found a home with these nice people who surprisingly told us they would email MORE pictures once Princess was acclimated.

I spent the rest of the night vacuuming every last piece of stray bedding I could see and moving on to the next phase of “Reclaiming the Downstairs” (an ongoing effort to regain control of our family room).

Yay for being rodent free, but we’re going to miss you, Princess!

Small Change

I am often talking about all the selfless, philanthropic deeds I do…because I’m such a wonderful person and I want YOU ALL TO KNOW IT!!

No, actually, I’m pretty humble and even a little shy. I tell you all about it because I want to inspire you. If my rambling on and on every year about ringing a bell or walking will inspire ONE person to do the same, then what a difference WE will have made.

Well, this chicky BLEW ME AWAY.

She wrote about her resolution to be a better role model for her daughter. She wanted to start doing something small every month for disadvantaged children. She suggested maybe a group of people get together once a month and do the SAME activity benefiting children (who are not our own). She says, ‘Leave me a comment if you want to join’.

At last count, there were 99 people.

NINETY-NINE PEOPLE, people! 99 People who are all going to do ONE SMALL THING every month to make someone else’s life brighter. Can you imagine what a HUGE difference it will make when these 99 people all do something “small”??

It should be spectacular.


If you will please turn your attention to the right sidebar, you will notice the new button bestowed upon me (and anyone else who wants to copy it off her blog). Also new is a list of children’s charities. A lot of these charities I have first-hand experience with: Locks of Love, Cheerful Givers, March of Dimes, (I feel like I’m name-dropping). Some of them I’ve yet to work with. If you have any you’d like to see represented, let me know and I’ll add it.

From now on, the second Wednesday of each month will be Small Change Day. We will post updates on how we did with our last challenge, as well as unveil the new one. If you would like to participate, email me your stories, pictures, etc. and I will post them on Small Change Day. Note that you don’t HAVE to do the challenge. If the challenge is donating money and you’re broke, don’t feel obligated to dip into savings to be part of the pack. Do something else that makes you happy, like making a card for a sick kid. Which is, coincidentally, this month’s challenge.

Visit Make A Child Smile’s website to see this month’s featured kids. Read their stories and pick one (or all!) to send a card to. It doesn’t have to be fancy, though it can be if you so desire. You can make a card, buy a card, you can even buy a gift if you can afford it. There aren’t a whole lot of standards or regulations. Just use your imagination and your heart.

I am planning on doing this with my kids tonight. Wednesdays are No Homework days, so it’s perfect. I’m going to tell them about each child’s story and let them pick which they would like to mail a card to (forced charity is hardly ever feel-good charity). They are going to hand-make the cards and I will mail them in the morning.

Don’t forget to snap some pics if you do this…if not to show off your artistic abilities, then to at least give others some ideas!

I feel like a total rump-kisser constantly telling Beth how glad I am to be a part of this. But do you know what I see? I see a wonderful organization in the works.

Apparently, so do 98 other people.

Goodbye, Blackie

Friday night I woke to the kids standing in my doorway, crying for us to wake up. It was pitch black still – 2:45 a.m. As my eyes adjusted I saw that Ninja Boy was holding something in his gloved hands (glow-in-the-dark, no less!). He was crying, saying “Something’s wrong with Blackie!”

All I could get into my brain was that it was 2:45 a.m. and the children were awake – in my room. By the time I realized that a rodent fit into that equation, The Man was already up and on his way downstairs.

He came back with the news that something horrible had happened to two and a half of our gerbil’s legs and he died. He didn’t offer any more information and I quit asking.

The next morning the kids woke and remembered what had gone on the night before. I was still hung up on the fact that they were awake at that time.

Ninja Boy said he woke up and could only hear the clock ticking, so he was worried about the gerbils. I still find that hard to believe, but I’d rather believe that than some of the other things I came up with. That wheel is a pretty incessant sound in our house – or was.

I tried my best to grief counsel the kids. The problem is that they SAW him...gnawed legs and all (I want to throw up just thinking about it!). I, thankfully, didn’t see it.

They were pretty mad at the other gerbil, Princess, thinking she attacked him. I don’t think she’s guilty. I did a lot of internet searching this weekend and found it is common for stuff like this to happen to baby gerbils – when the mother feels inferior to or incapable of caring for them. Blackie and Princess came from the same Petco aquarium. They had lived in the same cage together for just over a year. From everything that I’ve read, this kind of thing doesn’t just happen.

Blackie was the ‘tortured soul’ of the pair. Princess was always friendly while Blackie was skittish. We also nursed Blackie back to health not too long ago from some kind of illness we couldn’t diagnose – but one of his legs was affected by it.

My theory: He mutilated himself.

Gross, sure. How else do you explain this??

Princess has been standing in the bare part of her cage - just standing, shaking. It won’t be long before she freezes to death herself. They are supposed to burrow into the bedding to keep warm when they sleep, but she won’t move. She misses her sister. (Yes, Blackie was actually a girl – I didn’t need any babies and it’s super easy to lie about their sex.)

I would love to give her another companion so she isn’t scared and lonely. The thing is that I didn’t care for the gerbils. We went to Petco that day to get the kids FISH. How we ended up with rodents is something I don’t remember well. $150 dollars and three months later and the only time the kids wanted to show them any attention was when they had friends over. Then, they would put them in cardboard boxes and stow them in their rooms (yes, cardboard!). Or make them play in the Barbie house. Cleaning the cage was a nightmare. We tried to have the kids do most of it, but it resulted in the gerbil mess reaching even further than the family room. We ended up ‘reclaiming’ the gerbils as OUR pets – meaning it was solely up to The Man to clean the cage and the kids weren’t allowed to touch them (or squeeze them to near death trying to make them lie down in Barbie’s bed).

I’ve been inactively trying to find them a new home since. We are only home for about three hours a day and it was a plain mistake to think the kids could fit such a time-consuming pet into their schedules. Fish, on the other hand…

So, now I’m left with trying to find a new home for ONE gerbil. I don’t think she’ll make it long enough to put an ad in the paper. Craigslist doesn’t accept animals. I’m at a loss. My mom suggested that I call the school and see if any teachers would like a classroom pet. Do they still do that?? I really need help!



In the meantime, let’s have a moment of silence for the dearly departed…