Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Highlights of my evening so far

  • cooking dinner for my children who were to flippo to eat any because their friends were coming over soon - bad
  • the kids who grab into the bowl... this is my cheap candy, dammit, get your hands out of it - very bad
  • calling a kid "you little smartass" because I said "please don't trample my flower" (a giant mum) and said kid mimicked me... so I'll see eggs later I'm sure - not so good
  • the little 3 year old dragon - good
  • the 15 year old scratchoff lottery ticket (it was numbered balls.... I just had to laugh.. think about it... ) - good
  • being told my pumpkin was cool - good (it's a ghost, not like Johnny V's pumpkin porn, which I am hoping he does again this year....)

Well

I lasted until 7:10 before turning to Mr. Carly and saying those three little words*.


*"Get me wine."

Another job for C24SA*

*Carly's 24-hour Safety Advisors

My son is already smarter than me.

"Uh, mom?"

::::typing stops::::

"Huh?"

"I think I saw on tv that you shouldn't put a lighted candle inside of a pumpkin"

::::cursing:::: (me, not him)

"But it's a Yankee candle...." (Autumn Woods, which is really awesome, by the way...)

Damned if it wasn't already scorching the inside of the pumpkin, after only 20 minutes. What the hell is wrong with me?

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Slow day

Today at work Viral Johnny Virgil and I amused ourselves with talk of whether one could go to work dressed up as the golden deer. I have to admit, our elevators are so slow I thought about the logistics while I was waiting to leave today. But I hate Halloween too much...

Monday, October 29, 2007

week 3


a few quick jabs:



  • new work schedule might actually work out - if I actually leave ON TIME the whole thing after school works better

  • 214 days until the next Freihofer's Run for Women

  • I really hate Halloween. No, really. I do!

  • I didn't work on the mural at all over Saturday & Sunday but I did do over 50 scrapbooking pages. Viva la power layout. No journaling, so dock points accordingly, but frankly when I'm in a big crowd I just can't. Maybe later (okay, months from now) I'll scan a couple of my favorite pages. I tend to rely on solid colors and only a little bit of embellishment but I did drag my 50 lbs worth of sizzix and dies along with me to share, so that helped.

  • Today other people's indecision kept me from doing the work I intended to do, because now they might revise the whole thing I spent the last 3 weeks doing. A true welcome to programming.

  • So, the most productive thing I did at work was get the handle fixed on the ladies' room door. I had visions of being stuck in there with the handle in my hand, and me without my cell phone, becaus I am not one of Those People who take/make calls in the stalls.
  • Book of the day - Know Your Pig - I'm planning to buy this, I'll let you know how I like it

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Can't try this at home

...because I don't have one, or I'd know. What?

If I ever do win the lottery I will need to hire Suzy as my constant companion and saftey advisor. She will tell me "No, don't do that" as needed, probably at least on a daily basis. Because she knows me, I do things, and, well...

I was away for the weekend with friends, and last night after dinner some of the girls went back down to the room where the entire group was gathered, but I'd already planned some time in the jacuzzi tub. The smart ones among you will see where this is going.

Ok, so I don't HAVE a jacuzzi tub, have always wanted one, and have never been in one. So, yes, I *am* dumb enough to put bubble bath in a jacuzzi tub. Just a LITTLE bit of bubble bath.

Jets? Jets alright. It took less than ten seconds after I turned them on and climbed in. Turbo jets, frothing a few cc's of soap to an IMPRESSIVE wall of foam that would have put out that pesky campfire out west. Holy shit. Literally, 6 to 8" high. From a capful of a sample sized bottle from bath & body works... I mean, you'd think I would have listened all of those times when my boyfriend Alton was explaining what whisking egg whites does to them...

So they were growing SO rapidly, and seemed to still be growing even though I turned off the jets, for a moment I thought The Bubbles Might Be Alive and I got panicky and had visions of calling the front desk to explain about a small flood, so I admit I tried scooping up armfuls of bubbles and trying to throw them over the wall to the shower stall...which worked about as well as you might expect... finally I gave up and just went back in, hoping to sink under the wall of tiny popping bubbles and just never have to explain to anyone what I had done.

But when my roommate for the weekend, who has known me 20 years, came back to the room later, I more or less had to confess because there were still bubbles sliding down the wall of the shower stall. She just laughed, and laughed, and on until she almost almost cried.

In my own defense, yesterday I was forced to listen to the ENTRE CD titled "Michael Jackson - the #1 hits" or something like that. It made my brain leak out my left nostril (very messy, but not quite as messy as the bubbles).

So, Suzy will have quite a job on her hands.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Get Yer Beer Here



For some reason working on this makes me queasy. Not sure If I'm holding my breath while I'm painting or what. I feel sort of bleeeeaaaahhhh from holding my arm up do this stuff.

This was about 2+ hours of work (to do the buildings; the yellow was the other day. I need to work in some blue from the top... I forgot.) The base of the buildings are slightly curved because that white wall will arc around under them.

Oh, and that's not today's full moon, I must have a water spot on my camera lens.

Happy weekend...

Exciting news

1. I don't have to go to work today.


2. The new phones we are getting at work are JUST LIKE Michael Scott's phone on his desk which made me pause the DVR last night and scream "THAT'S THE NEW PHONE SYSTEM WE'RE GETTING!!!" because I clearly have no life.


3. My FFKAA* Marianne, a secret J-Lo fan who writes Saftey Week , is now contributing to Worst Mama Ever. Here is her first contribution. (I don't contribute there because it wouldn't be fair to make all of the other Mamas look so good. Just kidding!)

*Friend formerly known as Amelia, a name which is a little joke between us.


4. I have a few hours to work on the mural today. Somehow that is NOT exciting to me. It's more like the terror when you have to go get a cavity filled, and you don't know how long it will take or how much it will hurt. I mean, I want to do the mural. Well, I want to have it done. I just don't want to actually DO IT.

5. I am going away tomorrow morning, leaving the house as close to 7 am as I can; I will not do laundry or cooking or mediate squabbles or roll my eyes over things that I have complained about 37,000 times.... there will be a massage appointment and a queen size bed that will be all my own... no snorers, bits of legos, cookie crumbs,...... I wonder if the house will still be standing Sunday evening? How much can they mess it up in 36 hours?

6. I'm going back to bed now because as I mentioned, I don't have to go to work today. The kids are on the bus. Adios.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

By the way

The ENTIRE time I was writing the previous post, I was fending off the advances of a fruit fly who seems to have come in on this week's bananas, and seems intent upon sampling MY WINE.

No, really.

type type ::::try to smash teensy tiny bug:::::: type type

Rinse, repeat.

Easy dinner

If you've had a crappy day, and the Mr. will be late coming home, hopefully you have this in your freezer; it's better than actually cooking for yourself.

Granted, it's not THE most flavorful thing you could make; freezing makes so many things bland. The IQF method that eluded Hung in Top Chef seems to be at work here, as this comes out of the freezer bag as chunks of sauce, pasta, and chicken, with enough spinach thrown in to liven up the taste a little but not seem Too Healthy. (Hah! It's frozen food. Get real.)

Seriously though, add some seasoning. It could definitely use some fresh grated parmesan cheese on top (buy a block, or at least buy some that isn't the green can...) at least. For those of us who DON'T live in a kitchen stocked with the fresh, cheerfully wholesome ingredients for 30 Minute Meals, it will do, in a pinch. Better than many other crappy frozen entrees, if I say so myself. (Damn, now I've used "crappy" twice in one post. You would never know I graduated Magna Cum Laude from college. Damn. OK it was a math/ computer science dual degree but really... Profanity is the limited vocabulary at work. Did I ever tell you about the time I visited the professor of an english elective I took when I was a senior, and said "Listen, if you can see your way to giving me an A- in this class, even though I know I'm a B+, I'll graduate Magna, so would you do that for my Mom please?" )

But anyway, this can sit in your freezer for months, apparently, waiting for that day when your brain hurts so much that all you can do is cut it open, pour it in a skillet, and open some wine.

But if you have a nice glass of wine, maybe this, which far outranks this meal, but WHATEVER, and headphones to play the ocean on your iPod to block out ANOTHER Hannah Montana rerun, you can get through the evening and procrastinate on your son's mural until "Tomorrow...."

Like me.

Things I have learned this week at work

The client will ALWAYS say "it's a simple change"*, especially if they have no programming background whatsoever. *Because The Program Will Just Know that it's a type X and so then...

I tend to figure something out ( for example, a problem with the program that doesn't Just Know....) when I get up to go to the ladies room. So, either I'm drinking too much water and can't concentrate because my bladder's bursting, or I need to drink MORE water (because it forces me to get up and take breaks and let my subconscious solve the problem). I dunno. I'm too tired to figure out.

We are upgrading our phone system. A year ago when we were upgrading our shared printer network, I was a Printer Champion. It was a title bestowed on me because I was foolish enough to say that I had the time to attend the meetings and be the point person for the shared printers in my vicinity. I even got a certificate thanking me by name, " for his/her participation in the project." It was hilarious.

Anyway, the printers are crap and we STILL have problems, a year later. Pretty soon though, the phone system will be upgraded and I won't be able to call anyone. This means I won't be able to call the Help Desk anymore to open a printer ticket, so my printer problems will be solved, in a way. If you can't open a call record, is the problem closed?

Saying the word "mana-mana" to people will piss them off, especially when you follow it with "Do, do, do-do-do" like the Muppets do.

Lastly, nothing is quite as nice as the Thursday drive home when you know you don't have to go in to work on Friday.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A close brush

Does anyone besides me take a wicked delight in the irony that RIGHT after Marie Osmond fainted, the very next song on the TV show, Dancing with the Stars, includes the refrain "I shall never breathe again" ??



No?



Oh well.



Tonight I started the mural on my son's bedroom wall. I dragged a few things out of the way, then painted for a total of about an hour, then got a little dizzy, no doubt from the extra doses of caffeine I accidentally took today. Lost track of my consumption. Ooops. It wouldn't have anything to do with trying to do toooo many things all at once. Nope.



So I didn't get very far. Just brushed in a sort of lemon yellow and cream blend, where the sky will hit the skyscrapers in the background of the mural. I'm not ambitious enough to start blending blue down into it.



This is the picture I'm working from. (The mural will look only a little bit like this in the end. )



With every cake I decorate, I reach a point somewhere along the way where I say "Woah, this is ugly." Usually I redirect, and work it out (except for that kitty cake). I'm hopeful that in the end I will have a mural he'll be happy with. He's pretty appreciative of things, so I think I'll be OK.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Super Hot & Heavy

If only that were more than the settings to be used to wash the towels while I'm out tonight.

Yes, I'm going to go eat cheesecake with Emmay, (and my answer is, "No, I don't think so, really, heads seem to be pretty much the same size as far as I can imagine" but you'll have to read her blog and weigh in on the question too) . We'll SEE how the condition of the house is when I return. Things have a way of going straight to h-e-double toothpicks when the guard is not on duty.

Changing channels, I'm in waaaaaay over my head on a program change that I agreed to take on because "we just need to add some verbiage to the online form and if they answer yes to the question we need a space to enter the account number." OK. I've now spent about 15 hours on this because that's just SO not what they wanted. They wanted elaborate prefilling and hidewhens on a web-enabled form and I got burned on this one, but good. No good deed goes unpunished.

I am getting help from various people I work with but I was reduced to tears the other day by a simple java concept (something like, the idea of "this" in a test for an If statement... ) because I see how far I have to go, and I want to BE THERE, already, and not be on the very bottom bunny hill of a rather steep learning curve. The others have been on the chair lift for a while now, and I'm on a rope tow, and I keep tripping and then I can't get my damn feet to line up together because someone is calling me to nag me about some random thing someone else on my team didn't do or some other nonsense like that.

SO, there may be wine with the cheesecake. Just possibly.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

We remember you

Today everyone wore their ties to mass. It was fun to look around to try to find them all, and see some that I recognized. All of the men gathered after the service out on the church steps for a photo, with Mrs. B right in the front and center.

Nice.

Sunday art


Since I have less than dazzling Saturday evenings*, on Sundays I'll be sharing more art with you.

This is by Gustave Caillebotte and is called Young Man at His Window. (I like art that contains things or scenery that is somewhat recognizable, and yes, that's an obvious name for this painting, but I'm fine with it.)

What I also like about this is the idea of wondering what he might be thinking about. Future plans, past regrets...? You can't read much of his emotion, since his face is turned away. I'm going with "pensive", since he seems to be staring out into the street.

(Edit: I realized later, re-reading the Wiki entry, that this is a painting of his brother, and was painted not too long after their father's death.)

*The birthday cake didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. It was kind of a non-event, and I felt like we were just all going through the motions of gathering to "celebrate". At one point we were all out on the deck, (8 of us) and there was little or no conversation at all, despite being family, sitting together outside on a sunny, mild fall day. Since I was wearing sunglasses, I actually gave up, closed my eyes, tipped my head back against my chair ever so slightly, and gave into the urge to fall asleep for a minute. I'm exhausted and discouraged.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I've decided

I will make my family do the housework and I will bake all day on Saturdays from now on.

Haha. But really, that's what I WOULD do.

The cake is showing definite signs of promise; it's in the oven now, and the caramel creamcheese frosting is chillin' in the box. It's not quite caramelly enough for me but that's because I used a black nonstick pot so I couldn't gauge how dark it was and I've really never made caramel before and oh, whatever. It's yummy.

Work was brutal this week. Ambushes by clients (nothing like getting a call from someone who puts you on speakerphone then has 3 other people with her in the office. Bitch. It's called a meeting invitation. )

I was pretty exhausted by yesterday from the extra hours stretching my brain to do the new job duties I've taken on as part of this transition, and the sick kid, and the PTA nonsense I put up with all week. Yes, I know I am wimpy. But I made it! That deserves a glass of wine, yes? I even got to throw a whipped cream pie at one of my former bosses (some charity thing).

It's looking like a nice fall day here so I'm off to light a yankee candle and um, do housework. Woot!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

SO

...of COURSE, one of my kids got sick last night. Because, it's not like anything is out of the ordinary this week or I'm extra busy or anything.

So this morning (up early but won't go to work quite yet....) I was reading the blogs I have in google reader, and I came across Icerocket.com which lets you search for topics specifically in other people's blogs.

So then that lead me to these: Carmen - and I have to say, I'm very impressed and some of those ideas are ones I could modify and use* (what I'm saying is I'm definitely NOT as good as she is, her piping work is very consistent and her colors are great, and so on, but I can see things I could do, in her work). I have to check out her other gallery later.

You know, while I'm making toast and stuff.



*Like, if I made a cake for my friend whose birthday I forgot this week. Chocolate!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAggggggghhhhhh

Just saying.

At one point my PC at work had 12 windows open (and one was my email box which had 10 sub-windows open - things I was reading, trying to reply to , etc)

My supermarket loathing remains strong, despite having a cashier with an actual personality (expressed) today. I spent $138 and got... not much. But I'm making one hell of a pumpkin cake with caramel-cream cheese frosting for my mother's birthday...

No walk today. Can you tell? Hopefully, after dinner. Speaking of which, the water's boiling. Buh bye!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Colours

The Albany skyline was gorgeous this morning. The air had that crystal clear, intense fall look; there were inky purple clouds scattered over the plaza.

At lunch I walked in a nearby park. I realized while I was walking that this season is my pallette. When I scrapbook or make jewelry, I love the deep orange tones, the darker greens, with navy or the icy clear blue of today's sky. I don't love the weather getting colder, but I love my sweaters, the warmer and fuzzier the better.

Day two of longer workdays. Wow, I actually DO GET MORE DONE. Eeeks. The kids are scatterbrains. I reminded them of our new "plan" when we got home (ie, today you need to dust & vacuum the living room & family rooms for me) and because I got distracted with phonecalls they flaked out and ended up staring at the BrainSucker2000 (aka our tv).

Must go, must work on my drill sargeant impression.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Uno

Day 1.... new schedule...

No gas in my car, should have gotten that yesterday. Not a good start! Slightly late to work. Forwarded my phone to voicemail and went about catching up on something that should have been done Friday, and I was hyperventilating about yesterday (part of why I forgot to get gas: it's impossible to remember 37 things to do all at once.... do laundry make stew write bills prepare for PTA meeting start mural work on halloween costume for an early party next saturday but oh wait next saturday we were supposed to...oh crap I brought home WORK work too...)

Morning flew by, I went and found a quiet place to regroup at lunch. It helped IMMENSELY to check out and relax for a few minutes. I love my Sirius radio.

The afternoon dragged somewhat, being that I couldn't leave at my usual time, and traffic sucked a little (OK, the school bus that almost TOOK ME OUT really sucked) , but I'm home now.

My kids are being pretty good about trying to follow the new routine I laid out. We'll see how it goes. I've found they'll happily fold laundry if they can watch tv. Of course, you never get back your own underwear, because they're not REALLY paying attention to whose clothing goes in each pile of clean clothes, but hey, I like Spiderman.

(So yes, I'm anxious about this, because I am expecting the house to become loaded with piles of junk and spiders. Wait. It's already that way. I'm going to go work on that now. SPIDERS! Ugh.)

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Gallery


I have a MOMA book from my trip to Manhattan, and today I'm enjoying the picture "Glasses, Newspaper and a Bottle of wine" by Juan Gris. The second is called "Glass of Beer and Playing Cards".




***


In choir today we sang "On Eagle's Wings." Can I tell you? I hate that song. So many people would gasp in horror, if they heard me say that. It's pretty much a standard, esp. for funerals. But it's a total pain in the ass to sing, unless you have a HUGE range, which I don't, and especially if you have a frog in your throat, which I did today. My voice cracked like a 14 year old boy's. I was rather annoyed.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Reeeeally done


And ERASED the name this time, didn't just blur. So there Sgt ;-)
No one seemed to care that the cross hung over the back & front edges of the cake a weeeee bit. Ooopsie. Good thing it was on a cardboard cake board. Easy to take off, except little green balls fell everywhere (insert Martian vd joke)
I'm going to go sit on my couch and eat the rest of the buttercream frosting. (By the way Poly, since you're loafing around, send me your fondant recipe, eh?) Buh-bye.

Really Almost Done

Check out the royal icing butterflies Suzy made. I made the rose, but it's pretty easy with rolled fondant.



This will be finished at the baby's house (because I have to carry it on my lap in the car and the grass along the front edge will otherwise end up on ME.) Yes, I used evil FONDANT to cover the cross but I have to say, it came out nice... even if it is HANGING over theedges.






This morning before I go I'll attach the butterflies somehow to the cake. Haven't QUITE decided.... regular icing wil slowly mush them, so I'm stalling. Enjoy your weekend people.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Alrighty then

It's FRIDAY. I actually had to leave work the other day so that my brain wouldn't explode. So I used some vacation time and watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith. (Due to excessive shooting, NOT a movie to throw in when you have a pounding headache to start with.)

Which leads to my other painpoints this week....

  • To the ladies in my building.... if you're wearing a jacket to work, it's time to put the sandals away. And for the love of Pete start getting pedicures.
  • To my doctor's receptionist... I sat in that waiting room for two hours ... you were almost the one who ended up with stitches. SO not the thing to make a joke about, honey.
  • My hair is still way too dark; I'm using Sunsilk for Blondes and pretending that it's getting lighter each time ('tis a deeeeeep auburn. Color me not happy.)
  • Icky Dick started off the choir season with his usual tardiness. And, he waves his hand slightly off-time so I have to hold my sheet music so that I can't see it, because I stand right near him when we're in our "performance" lineup.

So, the things I am thankful for:

  • It's Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • I still have more vacation time to use this year and don't need to arrange someone to cover my shift like so many people who work so much harder than me
  • The stitches are out and the mole wasn't skin cancer which I pretty much was 90% sure of but yay.
  • We are starting Christmas songs and I love Still, Still, Still.

happy weekend.... more cake photos to follow (today's task is a Christening cake and yes Sgt the name will be blurry again)

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Homework Blues

Is prayer more like homework, or a bulletin board?*

Am I more annoyed than a shoe, or a hammer?

Seventh grade is still a little young to be wrestling with abstract philosophy alone at the kitchen table.




*for the record she had a series of these -- I told her to think about words that come to mind for each one (homework: practice, brings knowledge & understanding, bulletin board: a way to spread news or remember things). She had to come up with one on her own so we chose refridgerator (safe, calming) vs stove (warm, comforting). Well, I chose it. But I explained my approach to her, which is more than the teacher did. Hmmmph.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Practically finished



Or... well... not.

Suzy brought over an art projector and I used that to trace the mural design onto my son's wall.

(You might be able to see it a little bit more if you click on the photo at left.)

It took about an hour and a half and one problem was that the photo I was projecting was a little too grainy for what I was doing. For the life of me I can't see BASES in the original I was working from.

Baseball fields DO have bases, right???

This should get interesting. I might end up in a nicely padded room.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Things

you should not do on a Saturday night, EVER....
  • vacuum
  • laundry
  • anything related to switching clothes for warm weather and cold weather (pack, unpack, launder...) because it's been 80* all day anyway
  • rip a room apart with the intention of starting a mural on one wall just because you have a three day weekend**

Far better to drink wine, watch Office on your DVR, and perhaps go outside to see if the lawn chairs and the fire pit are soaked from the thunderstorms, or if you might eke out a bonfire despite it all. (no chance)

Downloading enough Jimmy Buffett songs to fill a CD might not be a bad idea. (even if only for the temperature today).

**I think I'm in Trouble.... he wants Yankee stadium, from high behind home plate. Oh, and if I'm bored, over the doorway I can paint a scoreboard, with the Yanks kicking Boston's ass, because his best friend likes the Red Sox. Because, like, I didn't bring home work to do this weekend.

I have work to do this weekend, mind you. I just didn't bring home some of the papers I needed on Thursday, because I didn't know I would need to work from home on Friday because my kid MIGHT have strep throat and I didn't want to be That Mom Who Sent Her Sick Kid To School.

Got frosting?

http://alittleimagination.blogspot.com/

check out the cute cakes....

found it with blogger play

The only part of me running was my mascara

Today was the Susan G. Komen race for the cure in Albany. I headed down there to watch and pick up my t-shirt. I haven't really run since I hurt myself in July, but I am not limping anymore, and have slowwwwwwwly started up again with walking. I'm being realistic. After a life of barely participating any sports, you don't train like a college athlete.

So it was with some degree of envy that I watched everyone line up. Today is a beautiful fall day, a little bit cool, but with the sun coming out of the clouds during the race, which runs up a hill in the city, through a wooded park with a small lake, and back down the hill. Damn. It would have been such a good day to run, just the kind of day I enjoy stumbling along.

I have to admit it was pretty amazing to see the winners. F*ck, I will NEVER run that fast. Their form was something I can only HOPE to imitate someday. (I guess I jog, and they were running.) The winner completed 5K in about 15:30 -- and boy, did he fly. It was impressive. He was all alone too, at least 30 seconds ahead of 2nd place.

I hung around to cheer on the runners, because I remember how much I appreciated it in the spring. It was nice to see (sisters? best friends?) running hand in hand on occasion. You knew that one had gone through the experience, and the other was by her side the entire time.

The single moment that all of the spectators seemed to respond to, from the heart, was about 2/3 through the race. A woman came down the hill toward the finish line. Tall, very thin. Bald. Clearly in the middle of fighting breast cancer, and not willing to let this shit get in the way of her doing this race. She got a huge ovation.

Hopefully, I'll see her when I run next year.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Colors




I loved these rings and wanted one... until I figured out I was looking at $2000 - $5000. Dang.





I also have been coveting a Prada bag that I saw in InStyle. That's soooo not usually me. I just like the way it fades from grey to black.

Speaking of Grey - I'm feeling all "meh" about Grey's Anatomy.

But the OFFICE, now that's a tv show. When I realized Creed dyed his hair with the printer ink, I just about died.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

I don't recognize her

Who's that girl in the mirror? It's me. Yesterday I had hair that was short but not so much so, kinda long for my liking, and light brown with blonde streaks. I said "I want it a little bit red" and now it's DARK brownish red. Not a little bit. Oy vey. People literally said things like "gee I almost didn't recognize you" to me all day. Me, without a hat to hide under. It's been a while since I had a cut like this. Technically, people say it looks nice, it's just VERY different to have changed the color and the length all at once. (Oh and I didn't mention the razor she used cutting it, but the length is more like what I prefer. Aiieeeeeee. A razor. )

* * *

I'm trying to gently break the news to my kids that with Mom's new hours come a more structured routine for M, T, W, & Thursdays. As in, officially having chores to do. They're not delighted. No tv before dinner????!!!!!! (F-ck the Disney channel. I only have cablel so I can have a DVR so I can record the Office every damn Thursday night. So there. ) I do not plan on spending an entire basketball season cleaning the house constantly simply because I'm the only person home.

The thing is that if I don't get more help from my precious darlings (who are very good, truly, but have never had their feet really held to the proverbial fire) I will become a new spinoff series for Gordon Ramsay, where he walks into a house and wrinkles his nose in horror at the disarray. He will walk around saying "Bloody Hell!" too much, and the cameramen will track MORE dirt everywhere and the sound men will pick up me swearing and / or weeping in another room. Over my hair, of course.

Things will get better... right?

I distinctly remember a day in... maybe February?  I remember the moment, but not what day it was. I was sitting at work thinking about plan...