Friday, October 31, 2008

Trick or Treat

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom acts as one with our very soul.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness--George Santayana

My 15th Halloween with my kids already. I can hardly believe it. This year I have a candy corn witch, a banana and a gangster. Yes, Maverick is trick or treating again. So if a 6 foot banana shows up at your door, don't be alarmed, just give him the contents of your refrigerator and you'll be fine. He doesn't eat much, just everything not tied down, especially skittles and Swedish fish, and maybe all your peanut butter and white bread too. He thinks a serving size of juice is a 2 quart bottle, but hey, he's learning to cook at his dish washing job, so maybe he will get refined tastes, like wheat pasta instead of ramien noodles. Yes, and I hope and believe in all the good things in life.

My costume this year is still the sweat pants, Red cross blood donor tee shirt and Aeropostle sweat shirt that I have been in about 8 months now. I used to get up, write, work out from 530 to 640, shower, get kid one up and yell at him to step closer to the soap today, pack my lunch, get kid two up and hook up her intravenous coffee, do my hair and makeup, yell at kid three to go shave and get a move on, let the dog out, sign papers, check email, unload dishwasher, reload dishwasher, start laundry, empty garbage, get something out for dinner, and leave for work; all in one hour.

Well, now, I roll over, crawl to the stairs, yell "Luke! Maggie! Get up, " stumble back to bed and pull the covers over my head. Luke makes coffee and hops in the shower. Maggie crawls in bed with me and says yet again that she is too tired to go to school. I turn on the news, cover up the dog, turn on a light, listen to the news, yell at Maggie to actually drink the coffee so she doesn't have to sit on the bottom of the shower to wake up, ask Luke to get something out for breakfast, yell up to Maverick to wake up and pile on more covers to keep warm while sipping my coffee. If I am lucky, I pull on sweats and drive the kids to school, but some days, (shh, don't tell anyone) I drive in my pink polka dot Jammie's. Then I get home, do Tai Chi, meditate to Wayne Dyer, do some writing and maybe look at job postings. Afternoons I do some more writing and a little house work, go to the park, visit the deer, come home, nap, and then do some more work. I am usually functional by 4 in the afternoon when the kids come home.

Well, that's all over for me now. One week of vacation before the I have to pull the big girl panties on and get back to work. Finally, someone believes I can do a job for them. Okay, so it took 12 hours of interviews and some whining to get the job, but at last, I have one.
Back to the gym and more regular schedules for me. Stop watching Leno and Conan. Actually get to sleep at a normal time. Eat real meals, not nachos for dinner. Know what day it is without having to consult a calender again.

Yes, its true, I do have abilities far reaching and its time to get there. Thank you to the Queen for networking and getting me a wonderful lead. Thank you to God for answering my prayers. And thank you to all my friends who helped me through this extended nap time. I couldn't have done it without you.

Now we just have to see if this is a trick or a treat of a job. But the really cool thing, after wearing silk long underwear, 2 pairs of socks and gloves to type at my last job----just a tad cold in the office--now I have my own thermostat. I am so excited. I can set my own temperature. I don't even have to fight with my always hot DH to turn it up. Wow.

Trick or treat, I'm ready. It was this or I would have gone out collecting candy tonight as a bag woman. Thank God for this, children really don't need to be scared tonight by me. Have fun, and save some snickers for me.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Beauty

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom acts as one with our very soul.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. ~Rumi ~

Took Maverick out on a photo shoot last night for his class. Took 5 pictures of the area and then we ran to get them developed at a quick place. Mrs. no-mechanical ability needs to see why her computer gifted child can't upload his pics. But still, as a Mom, who has a child taking pics on the last possible day before the project is due, in the final minutes of daylight mind you, we do what we can. We get thru this crisis and then suffer with whatever needs to be fixed later. Nothing but tenacious I am.

So we are there in the drug store, getting the photos and I pay. And the smiling child (who knew 7 year olds could work there) hands me a coupon. Have a nice night. I look eagerly at the coupon. One time it was buy a lipstick, get one free, so I am anticipating the fun. Not tonight, oh no, What I scream, as I read it. Sign up for AARP free?

God, I must look bad. I mean, I know I need to start buying the hair dye in 50 gallon tubs. My irish heritage shining through with white roots every 2 weeks now. And the lip hair, really needs a tub of Nair again, it could be braided its so long. And well, mabye I am skimming on the moisturizer. 7 months out of work tends to make you buy the 99 cent one gallon all purpose moisturizer-car lube special. And well, who needs makeup on a boring Monday night, right? And the sweats held together with a safety pin by the one big hole; that probably wasn't a good idea either. And oh, nice, I have an old Red Cross blood donation shirt on, something most seniors wear. And I'm holding a coupon. And I have the really big, multi-purpose purse/lunch bucket with me. And the cheap sneaks. Gawd, I look like a bag lady tonight!!!!!

I don't even thing AARP would have me. I look too old. I look like, oh my, my mother. And my grandmother before her, God rest her soul. The safety pin in the pants is the kicker. Jeesh. Mom always complained that Gram wouldn't wear the nice clothes they bought her, but kept on wearing the old rags instead. And would blow her nose, and miss the garbage can with the kleenex. What's that on the rug? Excuse me, that is not mine, no its must be the kids. I would never be so messy (Please be quiet about that Mrs. Queen, no one is as neat as you.)

All right, time to go back to work already. I have a kick ass interview Thursday. Everyone pray for the bag lady.

I'll keep you posted. Time to go, um, lots of shopping to do. Anyone have a coupon for L'Oreal hair dye and Nair? And a Girdle.

Monday, October 6, 2008

World Crisis

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom acts as one with our very soul.


Good morning, happy fall Monday. Turn on the news again and its the world financial news again. Crisis. Take all your money out. Doomsday is near. Save yourself, but don't jump off the cliff. Blah, Blah, blah.

Near as I can tell, the ones telling us all how to handle all our money are men. Doomsday alerts abound now because the end is coming. See, they won't have beer money and are getting worried. They won't know what to do, how to survive.

Men really don't know how to handle crisis. Women get training at an early age, its called bad hair days. We wake up late, have trouble moving but go through the motions, get dressed, get our food, mentally make our to do lists, feeling we can handle the loss of time until we get to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Hair everywhere. Twenty directions all at once, curls when we have straight hair, a drooping flop when we have waves, grease when we have hair so brittle we buy conditioner in 5 gallon buckets; women have been through it all and survived. We are tenacious, we persevere, wearing barrettes and hair bands when our hair is one inch long. We get wigs when we loss all our hair due to illness or simply go with a pretty bandanna if we want.

We don't need Rogaine, we have our inner strength to carry us through and our girlfriends to make us feel okay about it. See our girlfriends will tell us it looks okay when we whip out the curling iron and make Farreh Fawcett waves in our stick straight hair, covering up the lion's mane we woke up with. Our girlfriends will laugh with us and remind us of our youth when we whip out a hairband when the hot flashes hit and our hair falls faster then Wall street when told their bonuses might be taken away. Our girlfriends will call us "skunk head" for the streak of white hair which showed up overnight in our bright red hair.

We know how to make each other feel good and go on. We still make our lists, multi-task and overcome despite serious illness making it hard to walk. We get up and drive our kids to appointments we made months ago rather then stay in bed because we feel we might puke any minute. We cook meals out of the remnants of a fridge so bare from unemployment that the food bank must surely want to bail us out, and then we share them with our new neighbors and 5 kids who have nothing to cook today.

We do it all and always have. Financial crisis or not, we go on. We learn how to make soup of leftover bones and make a happy meal out of macaroni and day old bread. We have birthday parties and fantasy play time to make our kids happy, even when we want to cry. We work the extra 20 hours to get the big project finished at work and come home to do laundry and pack lunches. We don't lay don't and cry over the money, we keep going.

We keep going because we know we will get through. We lean on chocolate when we need to and we give up things all the time for our kids and neighbors and coworkers in need. We may have to use mascara on our hair lines to stretch out the dye jobs now, or we might scrap the ends of the foundation bottle rather then buy a new one, but we'll do it.

Maybe we need to pass some tips to those heads of corporations who feel that can't go due to being only worth $70 billion instead of $140 billion. Maybe if they knew how to find a dinosaur picture at 6 a.m. or make homework reappear from the dead, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Let's all give them a shoebox and some paint and have them make a diorama at 5 a.m. I think restarting their creativity is all we need get over this. That, and giving them a bad hair day to make them smile. Or maybe they just need some chocolate to stop whining.

Or a bottle of wine, and a long distance call to a girlfriend who pees while talking to you. That would make them stop whining for sure.