Category: Uncategorized (Page 138 of 188)

… and a housekeeper to keep the dirty laundry pile from reaching my chin (thus reducing my guilt levels when indulging in below activities):

1. Paint the house. Now most everyone knows that I abhor manual labor, but I do quite enjoy being married and the hubby is a bit uptight about our still-unfinished paint job. We have a second coat on the back and a large portion of the trimwork to go.

2. Create a facebook account for my dad. I really think he’d enjoy the “social networking” life, but he’s a bit technologically challenged to do it (even more so than my mom, who called the other day for a tutorial in “attaching to the emails”). I’ve already been keeping an eye out for profile pics and have created a list of his interests and activities (corn hole, OSU football, vacationing, joining fraternal organizations, eating at Subway, gambling and feeding H blueberries).

3. Read Time or Newsweek magazine. Someone left an issue in the bathroom at the lake and I realized how much I missed it. I’d also like to catch up on Relevant and see if there’s a shred of hipness left in me.

4. Go to story time at the library. No, not by myself, but if I had time to do other things, I could stop trying to get them done with the kids and instead take them to fun things like story time.

5. Bake blueberry muffins.

6. Upload all our checkbook info into Quicken and do a quarterly report. Yes, I’m that person. Do you have ANY idea the happiness this would afford? Add 2 points if we are actually spending less than we’re earning.

7. More bike rides and walks with SC. Those are delightful.

8. Order my bookclub book from the library. I was getting ready to do it the other day when I realized that BC is this week! KLR said it was “interesting” so I’m not in a rush.

9. Make something with cream cheese to take to bookclub on Thursday so they don’t make a secret ballot to kick me out.

10. Blog more. I think I get less interesting with more time away. This has served as a decompression time of sorts and if I don’t do it regularly things get all jumbled up in there. Kind of like a mental constipation. Now there’s a pretty analogy.

 I have about 10 more minutes until I need to get my hiney to work. I have  full inbox to deal with on the last day of my first week back to really working. It’s gone pretty well… that is to say, KC and I haven’t went completely crazy as the only ones on the team in the office all week. We’ll probably have to have, as my momma likes to say, “a good stiff drink” after this week ends and her vacation begins. I’ll be back next week but in a different capacity. No pesky managers to deal with.

Once I get myself in the door (and find a cube… grrr…), I really enjoy working. I love what I do, I enjoy the pace. Keeps me fresh. However, getting myself out the door is another story. I mean, who wants to leave this little gorgeous who is currently sitting in my lap? And the sleeping hubby and toddler don’t help either. These crisp summer mornings, nothing is better than staying in your jammie jams and drinking coffee, sharing your thoughts with the world through that there interweb. I LOVE these kinds of mornings and days and tearing myself away to sit in a cube seems, currently, like torture.

However, I remember the days of yore, not so long ago, when I was dying to break free of the monotony of staying home. My friends hit the ignore button on me because I wouldn’t. stop. talking. I needed adult interaction in the worst kind of way.

So, much like before I left the worky-work world with questions, I return to it with just as many. My hands are full. In the right, I have the fact that I like what I do and the team I’m on. I like the pace, I like the challenge, I like the rhythm. I like making a wage that affords me to buy groceries. I like contributing what I have to offer.

In the left, I have the fact that I have less and less of a role with my kids. Of course, I’m the mama and always will be. But what can I say or how can I argue when another person is the one guiding and directing them for a much larger proportion of the day or week? And if I love contributing, why not contribute to my kids’ future by putting that energy and enthusiasm toward them? As well, I feel like our world is being institutionalized every where I look… the last thing I want is to institutionalize my kids from birth, making the years that are supposed to be filled with play and awe and wonder instead filled with schedules, rules and a 5:1 ratio.

Yes, women’s lib folk, I do thank you that I now have a choice. And it’s my choice, so I have no one to blame. I have opportunity to do any of the things I love and others can find value in it. But it’s the choosing that makes it hard.

But alas, all these mind games are going to make me late for work. Well, perhaps I won’t have a choice after all…. 🙂

I had some down time today while the chillins were napping in the hotel room, so I did some perusing of what the rest of the world calls “real” bloggers (funny… aren’t bloggers simply amateur writers? so by definition I’m an (aspiring) amateur version of an amateur writer? Sounds like I’m quite, um, green). I made a few observations.

A) All kinds of give-a-ways. $50 gift cards, store credit, books, movies and ipads. I have none of these things. I suppose, after doing a brief inventory, I have these to give away: an old hutch (given to me from an older couple. It was secondhand when they received it 30+ years proir); a treadmill (which may or may not be owned by my parents and given to one of their friends, but since it’s still sitting in my florida room I think it’s fair game); an ice cream scoop (at last count we have 5); a partially used box of bakers chocolate (at last count we have 3); and a sign that says “beware of pickpockets and loose women” (this is hanging in the husband’s garage but I hate the thing and would be willing to give it away).

B) All kinds of free stuff for the blogger! If enough people read, random companies will just fill a blogger’s mailbox full of goodies in the hopes that said blogger will write something complementary about it. I’ve read bloggers who’ve received fancy yarns, clothes, soap, makeup, lotion, papers, crafting items, baking tools… it’s amazing! Now, I’ve mentioned before about my lack of fashionability: consider it an open invitation!

C) And in the vein of selling things… lots o’ ads. So far no one is paying me anything to write words of brilliance. Perhaps I need to find a subject area that includes a problem in which a specific product would solve it. Then the owners of the product company would pay me millions.

D) And lots of these bloggers are quite social; joining blog rings, going to conferences (seriously, who pays them so much money that they go to CONFERENCES!?). Some have a social conscience as well, advertising causes and npo’s. Nifty little box ads and everything.

E) And the number one thing these real bloggers have? Readers. Novel idea.

Well, at least I can work on making things pretty (which, btw, I recommend the Google Picasa photo editor). Then I’ll work on just gathering topics that are a bit more interesting than spying on the rest of the bloggy world.

Until then…