Mostly whining

I've been terrible about posting. It's not that I haven't had the time, or even the inclination. Mostly I've just lacked follow through. Seriously. I can think of about 300 things I need/want to do, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Frankly I've just been a little depressed. Some of it is seasonal, but a lot of it is me taking things far too personally and letting far too much get to me. The rest of it is my own personal bullshit that I really need to take care of because it's kind of making me an asshole. I've talked about some of that with my husband, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to talk about it here, even if I don't really have many readers. Maybe I'll start another blog that I don't update regularly enough!  =)

One of the things that's been bothering me is my mom's group. A couple of years ago when I had a firm date for staying home I did some research and stumbled on a local mom's group run through a website devoted to getting people out and "meeting up." I went ahead and joined it, and somehow got over my sometimes crippling shyness and actually went to a gathering. I totally expected very stereotypical stuck up stay at home mom bitchy kind of ladies. Totally not the case. Everybody was really just awesome. Once I began staying home I became pretty active in the group.

Somehow in the past year and a half I've inadvertently become the main organizer. Unfortunately I've become an organizer at a time when membership seems to be in flux. A lot of the older members have gone on to pursue other things (many of them friendships made within the group), other people just don't go out much in the winter, and the others, well, who knows. Either way, there's not a lot of activity, either in attending or in helping schedule events.

This type of situation should be a challenge for me. And sometimes I want it to be, but most of the time it just isn't. Honestly, I just said I'd take over the group so that it wouldn't go away. I didn't want something that so many people had put time, energy and money into to just go away. Unfortunately that's not a good enough motivator. At least not for me.

I find myself spending 2-3 days per week scheduling and attending events that I probably wouldn't go to otherwise, socializing with people who are great, but not necessarily the people I'd like to be socializing with at the time. I've met several wonderful friends in this group and I would love to pursue friendships with them outside of the group, but I don't feel that I can at this point. I feel like these friendships are decaying because I don't have enough time or energy to put into them because of group obligations.

Add into that the group of women who have decided to join another local group. I'm more than fine with this. As a matter of fact I was a member of that group for some time while I was a member of my current group. It just wasn't really a good fit for me so I left. However, this group of women have become somewhat negative toward my group. Recently a couple of them RSVP'd to an event with my group, but actually attended with their other group. Hell, one of them I didn't even recognize and she's apparently been a member for years! I've just only met her briefly before. It really bothered me and it probably shouldn't have. A year ago, or even 6 months ago this wouldn't have bothered me all that much, but the other day it really did. I felt useless and dumb. I don't need to feel this way.

So what do I do? I feel like a dick taking the group just to dump it two months later. And if I do step down I don't think anyone will take over, which is probably fine. But there is a little bit of a bank account to go with it and I just don't want to deal with the inevitable estrogen-bathed fallout that will occur.

Don't get me wrong, I like most of the women involved in this group, I really do. Overall I've met a lot of great people that I would totally still hang out with. Hell, I'd probably get to hang out with them more were it not for this group.

Blah, this is shit I shouldn't even be talking about on a blog that some of the members probably know about. Maybe I'm looking for advice, maybe I'm just looking for an offer for a free beer.  Who knows.

Blah

I know I've said this before, but I really hate January. Everything is wet, dirty and just blah. It's really the only time of the year that I actually get depressed, and I definitely have been this year. It's not really the cold that bothers me, but more just the same-ness.  It's always kind of grey, it's always below 30, the snow is always just dirty, etc. I had a friend who used to go tan to make herself feel better in January. I'd do that if a) I didn't hate myself with a tan and b) my freckled ass, having grown up in Arizona, is about one overly bright reading lamp away from a skin cancer outbreak.

Before anyone gets terribly concerned about my being depressed, I assure you my depression doesn't really go much past OMGIHATEJANUARY, which is easily cured by February (well, the last half of February, the first half is really just extended January). Hopefully I'll be crawling out of this funk soon seeing as tomorrow is the beginning of February.

In the meantime I've made a list of 10 things that don't really suck to remind myself not to be such an fun vacuum.

1.   Tomorrow is February
2.   Gamicon is coming up. I've always thought of Gamicon as my "soft launch" of Spring. Yes, haters, I know that Spring doesn't start in February. I also know that it is cold in February. However, I do know that the weather actually freaking changes in February. And that is all I need.
3.   Maggie is going to walk any day now, and that's always fun.
4.   I have the best husband ever.
5.   Molly turns 5 this month, that means she will go to Kindergarten soon, which I am very much looking forward to. We are both so.very.ready.
6.   I have 3 healthy, fun children (who are currently playing in the cereal).
6.5 I have above a 99% chance of NOT having any more! Yay surgery!
7.   I get to stay home with my kids and go to museums and parks and fun places.
8.   I have awesome friends to talk to at above places.
9.   We might get actual cancel school snow tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to that, I could use a snowed-in day. Plus, it might be fun to be able to go out and play in the snow if it's not too cold.
10. My new living room furniture is ordered and should be here this month!  Yay!

Because I'm an asshole

You know when you're driving along, minding your own business and out of nowhere some asshole in a huge car nearly mows you down?  Yeah, that happened to me the other day.  The being the asshole in the huge car and nearly mowing someone down part.

After dropping Molly off at preschool I was heading home with the other two kids and was clearly just not paying enough attention.  Short explanation is this, I stayed in the right lane, which turns into a turn lane even though I really wanted to go straight.  And once I realized my mistake (by "realized" I mean that the driver to the left of me, who was in the correct lane began honking at me and flipping me off) I didn't fix it, no, I compounded that shit.  Instead of just stopping, waiting for the honking car to pass, then gracefully slipping into the correct lane I decided to just turn right.  Mostly because I can't stand to be anywhere near the driver/vehicle I have just wronged.  It's just so goddamned embarrassing.  Seriously, I know they're still swearing at me and mentally re-hashing my bad driving.  That's what I do...and I know I'm not the only person who does that.

But anyway, so I decide to turn right, completely ignoring the fact that I'm almost a whole car- (and by car, I mean super-swank, sexy-bitch minivan) length past the turn.  Yeah.  So I basically execute this bastardized u-turn onto the side street.

The side street that has an oncoming SUV.  Who has slammed on her brakes.

And is also flipping me off.

Fuck.

At that point I pretty much just ducked underneath the dashboard and slammed the gas pedal home to escape my humiliation.  Okay, not really.  But I may have sped away from the scene a little bit.

And taught my two year old how to say fuck 'cause he can kind of talk now.  Yay, speech therapy!

Anyway, we lived, little man isn't dropping the f-bombs like I was afraid he might, but I still can't bear to drive down Benton street.

Here's a little pictorial re-enactment for your viewing pleasure. You can stop being jealous of my amazing art skills now, too.

I'm the red arrow.  The purple arrows are my innocent victims.  The little asterisk thingies?  When they started hurling obscenities at me.

I am f&*king lame

I am.

I just read 64 reviews of steam mops.  Which, in and of itself, is pretty goddamned lame, but then I ran across this.  I totally want one.  I was so excited about it that I even emailed it to my husband.

Now he probably thinks I'm lame, too.

I need another hobby apparently.  Not saying that my hobby is mopping floors, 'cause it's certainly not.  My floors are in desperate need of mopping, and I don't mean that in any metaphoric sense, I just mean that seriously, my floors like crunch when you walk on them right now.

Maybe I should actually you know, mop, instead of just reading reviews by people who do.

Yeah, I'll get on that now.

MIA

I've been totally MIA due to out of town guests, backyard tree clearing and general apathy.  No worries, I do have plenty to say, just haven't had the time to say it, but will again after tomorrow.

Random Sunday stuff

I'm far too scattered for an actual post, but I feel like I haven't posted enough.  And writing is good for me, stops the brain atrophy or something.  So you get a list of random thoughts I've had over the last day or two.

Yesterday we were watching the Hawkeyes game and every time Ricky Stanzi took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his flowing locks (and they have definitely reached that stage of hair growth) I kept expecting them to run it in slow motion.  That would have been awesome.

Speaking of football, I noticed that Hy-Vee actually opens up on game day Saturdays at 6 a.m. as opposed to their typical 8 or 10 a.m. or whatever it is.  Fall is a great time to be an alcoholic in Iowa City, even with the ridiculous new tailgating rules.  I'll have to remember that if my painfully suburban life leads me to the bottle.

Last football thing, and this is a fake football thing, but still important to me.  I really needs to get season 4 of Friday Night Lights.  I love that tv show, and you would too if you watched it.  Seriously, watch it.  Then we can talk about Kyle Chandler's hair.

I have 3 things shipping to me and they should all be here tomorrow (companies/people shipping on Fridays are bastards--just sayin').  I fucking love getting packages.  I'm excited like it's Christmas or something.  I even debated bailing on a park activity that I'm taking the kids to, just in case my packages come early, because I love being home when I get packages.  It's an overlooked perk to being a stay at home mom.  At least for me it is.  But anyway, I won't bail on the activity, not only because I'm an awesome mom (okay, sometimes--like today, when I made carrot cake cupcakes, or is it carrot cupcakes, whatever), but because I know our mailman is always late.  We'll go, we'll have fun and when I get home I get new stuff!  Yay me!

Last thing.  I feel all awkward and self-conscious because my husband knows I'm blogging, so I know he'll read it when he's done reading to the kids 'cause he's awesome that way.  But I'm well aware that this posting is kind of lame and I don't want him to be all disappointed in me.  Shit.  I'll do better next time, I promise.

Bitch-Slapped

Blogger ate my post, so this is a re-post, which is probably just a pale shadow of the original post, which I can assure you was full of awesome.

Today I took the kids to a "Paint the Town" event at the library.  Based on the name I figured that the library had wised up and was going to use child labor to re-paint benches and shit.  Or that it would at least have something to do with graffiti.  But neither thing was true.  It was just painting on big pieces of paper on tablecloth covered tables.  Paint the town my ass, the only thing that got painted was Max's front teeth and my left thigh. 

But whatever, the kids feigned interest for about 5 minutes, then I let them change into their swimsuits and hit the fountain.  That's what they really wanted to do anyway.  And I have to admit that hanging out in the shade by the fountain was far better than dodging an army of 3-year-olds wielding large plastic cups of tempera paint.  So we played in the fountain.  I chatted with friends, chased after my son and tried to keep Molly from barking at strangers.  We were all having a pretty good time.

Until I got bitch-slapped by a mentally disabled person.  No, really.  I was standing in the middle of the Ped Mall, threatening my son gently requesting my son return to the fountain and stop loitering outside the Sheraton.  Suddenly I felt something hit my upper arm and shoulder, so I turned to look (I so thought it was a bird, which would have freaked me out, 'cause I really hate birds) and I got slapped in the face, well, more batted in the face, it wasn't really an open-handed slap. 

After slapping me, he/she (I'm not being shitty, I really could not tell if this person was male or female) just kept walking, trying to keep up with his/her companion.  I didn't do anything, well, except utter a few really choice swear words; I was just in shock.  I am glad I registered that this person was disabled, though.  Because if I had hit back or caused a scene of some sort there's no way I would have ever lived that one down.  Not to mention that I would have probably felt like a total asshole.  I do wish that I had said something to the companion because I'm not even sure she saw it happen.  She seemed far too busy just rushing about 10 steps ahead of the person she was being paid to take care of and that's not cool.  Especially considering the person she takes care of is clearly a hitter (unless it was just something about me that made her lash out, which is entirely possible).

The upside of the mauling (melodramatic much?) was that it knocked me out of my bad mood.  I was in a seriously craptacular mood all morning.  I didn't wake up that way, and nothing happened to cause it, it just crept up on me at some point.  Fortunately it wasn't the kind of bad mood in which I spend all day being pissy and snapping at everyone.  It was the kind of bad mood in which I just keep a running list of every single thing that has annoyed me all day long (quietly seethe).  I even debated posting my list, but I didn't.  I probably would if asked, though.  At least a few of the big things.

Anyway, bad mood gone, I was able to really enjoy the rest of the day.  The kids and I had a picnic lunch in the ped mall, and then we went for a walk.  Maggie fell asleep in the stroller and Max fell asleep on my back in his carrier, so I was able to treat Molly to a juice box (Max can't have them, he squirts them everywhere) and myself to a Blue Sky soda (oh how I love thee) at the Bread Garden.  We had a great time.

Then we went home, where it seems the dog enjoyed his own "Paint the Town" event.  All over the living room.  At least he kept it on the hard surfaces (mostly) and contained to one room.

It's been one year

If you know me, you know what song is going through my head right now by the title.  Just sayin'.

It's been one full year of stay at home mom goodness for me.  Well, technically one year ago today was a Saturday, and Mark was home with me, so I guess my new "job" hadn't started yet, so it hasn't been a full year, but whatever.  I'll take my milestone now anyway, k, thanks.

When we shared our Candace is going to stay at home plans with our family a couple years ago, we got a mix of opinions.  Most were pretty positive, well, actually everybody thought it was a good idea, so I guess it wasn't really a mix.  Thing is, most people didn't think I could do it.  Particularly my family.  I think the most optimistic time frame given amongst my family was 6 months (if they'd asked, I would've put myself down for at least 8).  They figured I'd be bored and sick of kids pretty quickly.  I guess I don't give off super fuzzy stay at home mommy vibes.  Granted, I don't, but they severely underestimated my ability to entertain myself and three small children.

All that aside, I was actually pretty terrified this time last year.  I really wasn't sure if I could be sole entertainment, source of snacks and nutritious lunches 9 hours a day, 5 days a week without going nuts.  I was definitely worried about having a lack of adult interaction, all of the typical things people bring up when I said I was going to stay home.  Not to mention the fact that I was newly pregnant and suffering from pretty nasty morning sickness (and only able to eat fast food chicken sandwiches without vomiting--so add in a dash of malnourishment).  So yeah, I was nervous, and I honestly have no recollection of what we did that first week at home.  I do remember that it went well, and that we had fun, though.

Overall this whole year has gone so much better than I thought it would.  We've done so many things, and gone so many places that we would have never gotten the chance to had I still been working.  I've had so much fun, and I think the kids have, too.  We've met so many new people and have made so many new friends (random plug - if you stay at home and are in Iowa City you should so be joining our play group), it's just been incredible.

One year down, and several more to go before my baby* is in school.  I hope that all of them go as well as this past year.

*In case you were wondering, Maggie is definitely the last.  Tubes tied.  Hopefully she tied those fertile little bitches with a double-knot and an extra dose of cauterization.

Can I have a hall pass?

I haven't meant to abandon this blog, I've just haven't used my laptop much this week.  Partially because it's not holding a charge much, but mostly because I'm cheating on it with my new phone.  In theory, I could blog from my phone, but I'm not a great writer, so I tend to edit a lot (no, really).  That would just get tedious on a wee screen.

But anyway, I've discovered I have a problem.  I probably have a lot of problems, but I have one immediate one that's been on my mind quite a bit lately.  It's silly, it's very silly, and you're going to think I'm insane, but nonetheless, it's been bugging me, so I'm going to share it with you.

I can't pee.  No, I'm not sharing some weird intimate health secret with you, and it's not that I can't pee, 'cause I can, it's that I can't find a good time to do so.  And it's only when we're out and about, not at home, believe me, my mama-martyr flag doesn't fly quite that high (oh noes, I'm so busy, I can't even pee).  Basically it boils down to a problem of logistics.  On the whole I'm pretty good at carting all three kids around, but when it comes to getting all three of us, plus our assorted gear into the bathroom for me to go, I just can't get it done.

Yes, I know the mall has a family bathroom, and I know that handicapped stalls are fantastic for bringing "bathroom helpers" with you, but neither option is working for me.  The reason?  Max.  Max knows how to open all doors.  Having to squat-run, pants around my ankles to shut a bathroom door before any small children or pets are traumatized has gotten tiring.

I used to love the stinky family bathroom at the mall because I could just put the stroller in front of the door and turn on the hand-dryer.  That used to be enough of a distraction.  Well, now Max likes to sit on the little potty and get soaking wet (when he's not climbing the stroller to get to the door).  Having to follow up a trip to the bathroom with a run to Target to buy new pants can get a little expensive.
 
And I won't even go into Molly's running bathroom commentary on volume, fuzziness and who may or may not be pooping in the other stalls.  I've gotten used to that embarrassment and know that I can just hide in the stall a few extra minutes if need be.  Can't do that once people have seen you crab-walk your half-nekkid ass to the open bathroom door.

You're wondering what I've been doing instead of going to the bathroom?  No worries, I haven't been peeing behind bushes or anything, I've just been holding it while we're out.  So, if you see me in public, feel free to offer to watch my kids for a few minutes, 'cause I've probably really gotta go!

Oh, you're not joking

Today I went to Wal-Mart.  Shut up, it's not something I do often, but I needed pectin and flour and I knew they had the former.  Once I had grabbed the few things I needed (carrying more than my recommended weight limit, by the way, stupid recuperation) I went to one of the self check-outs and put my stuff on the belt right away, so as not to strain myself (again, recuperation, pity me).  The woman in front of me was just finishing up, bagging her 5 packages of bacon (no, really) when the belt with my items rolled up toward the scanner.  Instead of paying and leaving, she attempts to find a divider to put in front of my groceries.  Unfortunately there were none there, in the self check-out line.

Her:  Oh, sorry, there are no dividers, I don't want your stuff to get all mixed up with mine.
Me:   Really?  You forgot what you bought and you don't want to ring up all of my stuff as yours?
Her:  Dirty look.  Pays.  Stomps away.

Okay, yeah, I was snarky, but in my defense, I thought she was kidding, she was kind of smiling at me when she started talking to me!  Really, wouldn't you think she was kidding, too?

Netflix

This lapse in blogging was brought to you by the TV show Friday Night Lights and Kyle Chandler's hair.  I'm addicted to both.  I seriously can't finish a post until I know if Matt Saracen takes the Panthers to state.

Damn you, Netflix streaming!

Lovely parting gifts.

I'm having surgery in a week.  Not a huge deal, and nothing I'm terribly concerned about, in fact, I'm kind of looking forward to the overnight hospital vacation.  Okay, the looking forward to the relaxation part is not entirely true, as staying in a hospital is anything but relaxing.  But they do have drugs and cable, which will likely make me nostalgic for college.

My largest concern about this whole thing is my doctor.  For one thing, he looks like a shorter, less-ginger Conan O'Brien, which is a bit disturbing.  Makes it just a touch harder to take him seriously, not to mention the horrible nightmares in which he starts the surgery, but Jay Leno finishes it.  But I think it will be okay, I'm certain he can he can yank a gallbladder in his sleep.  I believe it's something they teach the first semester of medical school, right after ingrown toenail and appendix. 

The other problem is the fact that I don't know him, I've only met him once.  I know that's the standard with a general surgeon, but it's just not something I'm used to.  I've had 3 other surgeries, all of them c-sections and all of them done by the same doctor, a doctor I've been seeing for about 13 years.  Our relationship has been much more organic, starting with a meeting in her office, which slowly progressed to the grope 'n' poke, then eventually to surgery.  With this doctor, it's just hello, slice.  It's weird, and I almost feel like I'm cheating on my OB something, I mean she's the only one who's ever cut me open before!

And here's my last concern, my other surgeries all involved getting to come home with a squishy, pink (okay, in my case, yellow), yummy smelling prize.  I have the feeling that I do not get an awesome parting gift with this surgery.  And if I do, I don't think I'm going to much care for it, let alone want to feed it or send it through college.