I love Sam!

Here is the only thing that made four hours of back-to-back birthday parties worthwhile on Saturday....

Sam, by the way, is the artist that drew us.  I think he nailed it. 

Take your sense of entitlement and stick it!

I am pouting like a petulant child.

There's something in my life I feel like I have earned, and yet, I've been denied it.

There is really nothing worse than being a grown up and feeling like you've really earned something, be it an increase in a credit limit, a coveted position on the PTA board, a promotion at work, or finally landing the ever popular position of Team Mom for the soccer team, and being denied it based purely on what someone else thinks about what you think.

I won't go into this here, for reasons of personal privacy. But there is something out there I think I deserve. I found out today I didn't get it. And I am not one bit happy about it.  Suffice it to say that I do not agree with the powers that be AT ALL about the reason they gave me for not giving me my golden ring.

In fact, I cried myself home today (and in case you've not been paying attention, I am not a crier). I am giving myself one red snotty faced, crappy assed night to cry over spilled milk, or whatever label you want to give it, and then I'm done with it.

Truth be told, my feelings are hurt.  I felt like I deserved what I thought I had coming. And when it didn't come to me, I felt like my legs had been kicked out from underneath me.

You might want to remind me that superheroes don't cry.  Oh yeah, tell that to my pile of snotty tissues. You might want to remind me that good things come to those who wait. And to that I would say, how damn long does one have to wait?  A month? A school year?  A decade?

So, tonight, I'm pouting like the spoiled entitled little brat that I am. Tomorrow, I will put on my big girl panties and head back into my day.

Screw 'em all I say.  You want a big fat happy face? That's what you'll get. In the meantime, I am gonna have a good cry and most of a bottle of merlot.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I'm sure it will dawn fresh and bright. 

Ever forward, friends.

I'm a dirty, dirty superhero!

From a CNN report...

"As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, according to an agency report obtained by CNN...More than half of the workers made between $99,000 and $223,000."

I'm not a particular fan of porn, but I'm not opposed to cruising porn sites all day if I'm bringing home a salary in the low 200s.

Call me!

Smack on the playground used to mean something else entirely

Thank God I'm from Texas! Here, we just worry about handguns....

Third-grader had heroin at Pennsylvania school

by Associated Press

Posted on April 14, 2010 at 3:49 PM

Updated today at 4:12 PM

WILKINSBURG, Pa. — Police near Pittsburgh say they have confirmed that more than 60 small bags a third-grader was handing out to classmates were full of heroin.

The 8-year-old boy brought the bags to Turner Elementary School on Tuesday before a teacher discovered them. Wilkinsburg police said at a news conference Wednesday that some of the bags were found empty in a trash can but there was no evidence any of the kids ingested the drugs.

School officials sent a letter home to parents about the incident.

Police say the bags had the words "trust me" stamped on them and would have a street value of about $1,000.

Police have contacted the boy's parents. The investigation into where the boy got the drugs is continuing.

Ya think??

Left, Left, Left, Right, Left!

Have you been missing me? If so, it's because my left brain buried me.

As my last post said, I've signed up for the 3-day walk, and I have expended a huge amount of mental energy planning and preparing for the task ahead. As a sales person, I'm already pretty focused on chasing the Almighty Dollar. But this is different, and I've had to approach it differently. So I've done all kinds of thinking about what will work, what won't work, and how to raise an inordinate amount of money so I don't have to pay it out of my own pocket. (Click the link to the right if you'd like to help me reach my goal! I'm just saying.)

I also got tapped at work about three weeks ago to assist on another sales team temporarily.  While I know my product inside out, upside down, front and back, I know only a teeny tiny bit about the other product they've asked me to sell. I've been selling for a decade, and I'm pretty good at what I do, but being asked to change horses mid-stream has had me absolutely bumfuzzled.  I work the other team in the morning, then return to my team in the afternoon. So I spend a big chunk of each day having to re-orient myself to the appropriate product.

At home, the balancing act of time and energy management continues. MrG made me fire the maids, so now, we have to do our own housework. (I don't like him much right now, for the record.) Luckily, he's been much more willing (and able, I should add) to assist in the housekeeping chores, and LittleG is a whiz with a Swiffer. After six and a half years of having someone else worry about the dusting and scrubbing the bathrooms, I now have to work that into our schedule. The laundry never seems to stop, and for some reason, those people that I live with insist that I feed them at least daily, which means grocery shopping and kitchen chores.

Anyway, my point here is that I have been compartmentalizing all the "stuff" I have on my mind. At work, I'm focusing on just where in the building I'm sitting at the moment, and what that particular product requires of me. At home, I'm balancing the chores I've been used to, as well as working in the ones someone else has been handling for me.  I assign myself the title of Soccer Mom for practices and games, and PTA Board Member when that time comes.  With all of my free time, I'm thinking about how in the world I'm going to rasie the money for Komen.

So my left brain has been working overtime. Planning, scheduling, putting continengcy plans in place in case my original plans fail. I haven't had the smallest itch to be the tiniest bit creative.

But a beautiful thing happened yesterday.  I found my right brain!  I wrote. I baked. I decorated. And I created a cake that I may be as proud of as any other I've ever decorated.  See?

I should note for the record that I'm an Aggie, and this is an Arkansas Razorback cake.  It pained me to make it, but my friend who asked for it has promised a nice donation to my Komen pot, so I struggled through it.

I don't have any grand delusions that my right brain will ever trump my left. I think all that we can hope for is tiny glimpses into my emotional, creative side.  Hopefully my right brain will have its moments of brilliance and greatness through interesting blog posts and beautiful cakes (even if they are cakes with red and black pigs).

At least that's what I'm planning for!

The sound of silence

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." ~ from The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

This poem has hung in my mother's sewing room my entire life, although since my dad died and she got the house repainted, there's really no way to know where it is has been relocated. Regardless, during my years at home, it hung there, and I saw it, maybe a million times, and still take its words to heart.

I heard yesterday that women spend something like three years of their lives shopping. As a working mom, I'm not surprised by that at all. My stolen minutes of shopping time - be they at the grocery store or the mall - are often my only quiet times of the day. I work in an office surrounded by people who make noise, a lot of it. I leave my office and drive five minutes away, where I pick up LittleG, who makes noise, and a lot of it. Once I get her to bed, MrG and I have our grown up discussions, or time in front of the TV, neither of which is quiet time. So I spend my days surrounded by noise.

When times get tough, as they often do, I will slip away to pick up an item or two at the grocery or drug store. I often find myself uncharacteristically dawdling during these trips. After all, a trip to the store for band-aids should be just that - in, out, done. But I tend to wander the aisles, looking at the pretty shiny things. During this time, my mind is my own, with no intrusions from coworkers, clients,or needy family members. In these days of horrible customer service, I rarely have to worry that my quiet time will be intruded upon my a store employee. But that's another blog.

I had some time alone after work yesterday. LittleG had soccer practice, and I somehow convinced her father to take her so I wouldn't have to go. They left the house, and I started dinner and pulled out a work project that still needed some attention. I worked quietly by myself until they got home about an hour and a half later, bringing with them a a swirling dervish of noise and mayhem.

I didn't realize until they came in just how quiet it had been. I had not turned on the TV, radio, or iPod. I was in the kitchen, where the only sounds came from the flipping of my paperwork, and the bubbling of food on the stove. Even the dogs were quiet.

My dad used to ask for "peace and quiet" for his birthday every year, and now I understand why. As a textbook extrovert, I tend to thrive on the noises from people around me - laughter, chatter, quiet conversation. But as a mom who is stretched pretty thin, silence has become therapy for me.

I haven't shared this news with many people yet, and now is as good a time as any, I guess. I've made the decision to walk the Komen 3-day walk in Dallas this November.

Beyond the obvious benefits that come from participating in a walk like this - comraderie, friendship, exercise - I will be giving myself the gift of silence. I will have to train for hours and hours, and most of that time, I will be alone. Even when I'm walking the days of the event and I'm surrounded by others, I have to think that some of my time will be spent in silence. The sheer determination that it will take to push my body to walk 60 miles in 3 days will dictate quiet time.

So I will push forward during this next seven months, remembering the peace there is in silence.

Hugs,
LadySteele

P.S.   My sweet aunt pointed out I should make it easy for my dear readers to donate to the cause. If you're so inclined, click the widget on the right of your screen to make a donation online!