Long Live The Queen...

I really think our new puppy knows who exactly is in charge in our home, besides her that is.  While she terrorizes The Midget (my daughter – I call her that because she is so tall for her age) and attempts to eat the toes off of The Husband, she is so sweet and calm with me I wonder if she is even the same dog.  Yes, I have received an ankle lick or two, but when I make that ‘eh-eh’ noise at her, she stops, almost immediately and then heads off to make war with the others.

Chloe wants a cracker

She will sit on the Husband’s shoulder like a parrot and lick his head like he is a giant ice cream cone.  I am sure it has to do with him having a shaved head, but for some reason she thinks he needs a bath.  Left unstopped, she will continue until she falls asleep.  It is pretty funny.  Well to me it is.  If it were my head, I may have taught her how to fly by now. 

:-D

The Midget

The Midget forgets that she is twelve billion times taller than the puppy and will start screaming when the tiny, three pound puppy tries to jump on her.  This is HER puppy too.  If it weren’t so sad it would be downright funny.

The step-daughter, the Princess of Literal, has even decided that my decision making ability is a step higher than her father’s because she asks my permission to do anything, even when he sitting right there.  I think it is hilarious.

The good news is that the Husband does not seem put out or even slightly annoyed by any of this.  He is pretty good natured about having his toes attacked by Kujo and even volunteers to do his part in helping to raise our little angel.  I will have to say if this unchecked deference to my rule continues, we may have a Monarchy on our hands…  Long Live The Queen.

What was I thinking...

There are always going to be people in life that bite off more than they can chew. I fall into that category whole heartedly.  Somehow, I always manage to figure out a way to make it all work out and sometimes it works out in spite of my mismanagment ;-). 

We adopted a shiny, new puppy over the weekend.  She is 8 weeks old and a Toy Fox Terrier.  She is absolutely the cutest little thing I have ever seen - well, besides my daughter and that's different.  She loves to sit in your lap, give kisses and pee on the carpet.  Well, two out of three aren't too bad.  LOL!  She will get better at the potty training and eventually we can add something nicer to say about that part.

With work so hectic right now, the holidays fast approaching and a five year old that thinks life is incredibly unfair, I am not sure why I thought now would be the right time to add the responsibility of a puppy to the mix.  The daughter played with the puppy for all of about five minutes and now she is my responsibility.  I knew that would happen going in, but I still had high hopes that it would last longer. 

Add to the list that the husband has been out of town for work all last week and had to go back out for most of this week.  It sucks to be the low man on the totem pole for all of us. 

Friday night we went to the tree lighting ceremony at my daughter's school for Literacy Night.  They did NOT light the tree as there were not any lights on it - DOH, and the school website had posted that we could make cards for the soldiers that are oversees.  Literacy huh?  Oversees?  Are these soldiers overseeing our handiwork for the soldiers overseas or what?  I did get a bit of a giggle out of that, but then was saddened because these are the people that are responsible for learning my kids an edumacatn.

Wait your turn...

If you were in line at the bank, grocery store, post office, pretty much anywhere, you would never expect to see someone walk into the building and step in line in front of you.  Why then, as drivers, do people think it is okay to cut in line?  Just because you are in your car, doesn't mean that you are immune to the rules of society.  No, your time is NOT more important than mine and zipping past all of the other cars to throw your blinker on right before you practically run me off the road does not make it okay.

Once upon a time it would be okay for someone to not realize that they had to get over.  Maybe it was your first time driving that particular way and suddenly you find yourself in the right turn lane, but you don't want to go right. You look to the left to see if anyone is coming then try to safely make your way over.  If not, you go ahead and turn right to go around the block and try it again.

Now, people will purposely cut into your lane without so much as a blinker and expect you to yield.  This morning I almost lost it.  I had several cars try to get in my lane while I was in it.  The lane that I had already waited 10 minutes in to get to where I was.  They zipped past all of the other cars behind me and decided I was the sucker that was going to let them in.  Guess what?  They were SO VERY WRONG.  I did not let them in.  I held my ground and almost got a white stripe down the side of my very red car. 

Lots of gesturing later, the person behind me let them in.  I was furious!  Stand strong, don't let these bad mannered drivers win.  Every work day I go through this dance to get to my office.  Every work day there are multiple people that believe their time is more important than mine.  Every work day I mutter to myself that they are very lucky I don't own any type of gun because the tire shop down the street would be pretty busy.

I really try not to let this get to me. I try so hard not to have road rage, to not let those bad mannered drivers get the best of me, but more and more people have decided that this is the RIGHT way to drive. They are entitled to my space, even though I am still IN IT!  Don't be surprised if you see a news story tomorrow about the woman who blocked the freeway off ramp not allowing anyone to pass while hysterically screaming at everyone from on top of her car.  That just might be me.

The downfall of a blogger...

I have noticed this same trend amongst some of the other bloggers out there.  When we have a burning platform or something exciting to announce, we are anxious to share with our blogger hoods.  When life is rolling along like a quiet river, it is not so easy to come up with new ways to connect to your friends.  I originally started blogging so that I had somewhere to write down the crap that was swamping me.  Between Nonna and the ex and the myriad of other stress factors I had in my life, I really needed an outlet.

Now, I am happily rolling down the stream.  Yes, Nonna is still a nut case and the ex is still a low life, but I am no longer wrapped up in those things.  Having this outlet has really helped me.  Who needs a therapist?  LOL!

That being said, I have been busy lately.  I have been traveling for work, seeing new cities and having a lot of fun being married.  The new household situation has become the norm and we are all playing nicely together.  That is all of us except the dryer which has decided that it will now loudly protest being used.  What is the point of a dryer if you can't use it? 

I hope everyone else is rolling along the stream merrily, merrily, merrily...

What do you do for others?

On a daily basis, I run through the gambit of what I need to do for myself, my daughter, my family, but seldom do I worry if I am doing enough for others outside of that immediate group. "I am too busy" I tell myself.  "I have so much going on, how could I possibly take on more" is another favorite of mine.  Then I ponder those "special" people in our lives that somehow always manage to do more.  They do for their families, they do for their friends AND they still manage to find time to do for others.  Strangers, neighbors, community members, each group gets some time from them.  You will recognize these people as the ones that always have time to chat for a few minutes as you are going in or out of the house or when you happen to run into them at the grocery store.  They are the providers of the baked goods to the family that just had a crisis, they are the hands that help after a tragedy and they are the hands that clap at our successes.

I tend to focus on the immediate.  What do I need to get done for me and my family today, this week, this month. Beyond that I can't be bothered. Why make those plans when I don't even have time to consider what I have to do now.  Then next month rolls around and I find that everyone else is just as busy as I am, but do I learn from my mistake and plan ahead?  No, I again get wrapped up in myself and what I need to do for now.

The funniest part of this is that I have never been a procrastinator.  I have always been a planner, looking ahead onto the horizon of what comes next.  Somehow in the last year I have become someone living just for the now.  If someone asks me about the future I get flustered and brush them off.  How will I know what I am doing then? It is still so far away.

At least now I have realized where I have ended up and can steer my ship back towards the horizon rather than continue to sail in the doldrums! 

What have you done for someone else recently?

Like a roller coaster...

Yesterday I rolled out of bed and grumbled…I am not and never have been a morning person. Then I launched myself into the mindless task of getting myself and my five year old ready for the day. Out the door we went, off to school and work.

Work was pretty non-eventful. I even had a decent day. I got a lot accomplished, everyone was nice to me today and I felt good about what I had been able to contribute. Then the downhill part of the roller coaster began.

I had to leave work at 4:30 to be to the elementary school by 5:30 to pick up frozen cookie dough, pretzels and cheesecakes that had been purchased for a fundraiser by my coworkers and friends. I have pretty strong feelings about these activities so this started me on a rant…

Why the hell do I have to pimp out my kid to my coworkers to sell crap for the school? Where are my tax dollars going? What will they get from the $1 they make doing this fundraiser? I would gladly just give them $50 to keep from having to sell their crap. Not only do I have to guilt everyone into purchasing a $16 box of cookie dough, but then I have to collect the money, pick up the crap and bring it back to work. Of course that is AFTER I have had to rearrange everything in my freezer to hold these items overnight so they don’t thaw out. I had to throw out that kidney I was saving for a future surgery.

The school gives us one week notice that the only day the crap is there to pick up is on the 25th and it has to be picked up no later than 5:30. I live out in the sticks. Nobody lives close enough to the school to make that happen unless they are a SAHM or SAHD. I guess because the PTA arranged this and most of them are SAHM’s they think 5:30 should be plenty of time. I’m just saying…

Gosh, I am sounding a little bitter here….

Then I pick up my beautiful child from her after school program. I hug her tight and kiss her little smiling face.

The roller coaster has headed up the next hill.

We walk out the door and I ask her about her day and she tells me how great everything was. We get in the car, I close the door then I open her backpack. It felt a lot heavier than it should so I was curious about what was in there. In it I find her boots, with the toes completely torn up on the front. The same boots I just paid to have new heels put on because she tore those up. The same boots I told her to be extremely careful with because I had just paid to have the previous injuries to them repaired.

And the roller coaster plummets…

“At least I got a green today Mom” she says. I told her that was a damn good thing because I was pretty ticked off about the boots and a yellow would have been pretty disastrous for her.

Off to the grocery store we go to purchase food for dinner. She is uncharacteristically well behaved and isn’t asking for anything until we are about to leave the store. “Mommy, you didn’t buy me ANYTHING at the store today. Not even a chocolate bar and my feelings are hurt”. I asked her if she thought her actions today were those of a child that deserved a chocolate bar to which she responded with a very sullen “No”. Then she went on to admonish me for still being angry about the boots. “They are just boots” she said. Just boots? JUST BOOTS? I realize at this point that the best way to win is not to play. If I get into it with her, it will end very badly, so I silently walk to the car, put the groceries in the car and drive home. When we get home she asks if I am still mad about the boots. I tell her it is in her best interest to not bring them up again…

My dinner guests arrive, we enjoy our meal, they leave and I start getting things ready for the next day. I open the backpack again and take out the binder to see if we have any homework and then I see her behavior paper. Yellow. She got a G. D. yellow. My mind flashes back to our conversation in the car. “At least I got a green today Mom”. The little shit lied to me about the green. Not only did she get a yellow, the third one in two weeks, but she lied to me about it as well. She’s only five I remind myself before I roar loud enough at her to rip her head off.

I sat her down and asked her why she thought it was okay to lie to me. Did she think I wouldn’t find out? Mom always finds out. She always knows the truth, that’s what mom’s do. We have been grounded from the TV and all video related products for the next two days. The reason I say “we” is because I won’t be watching TV or anything like that for the next two days either.

I wonder to myself if I let my emotions get the better of me. Did she lie to me because she knew how disappointed I would be to see another yellow on her paper? Did she lie because she didn’t want to get in trouble? Do I make it okay for her to fail in our home? These are all questions that I have been pondering today.

Overall, she is a really good kid. She isn’t really being a bad kid at school; she just has a hard time putting something away that she wants to play with. I think she is pretty much like every other five year old that wants to play until they drop. How do I keep myself from blowing up when I see that she wasn’t perfectly behaved at school that day? How do I help her understand that her poor behavior affects the other children in her class? I don’t know, I just pray that isn’t a tunnel I see up ahead…

Blogger Help

I want to change the gmail account associated with my blog, but it says I have to create a new blog to do that. Is that true?