Emma, you couldn't be more right THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!

So, drove all day Monday, worked from 7-8 yesterday w/o a real break, from 7-8ish today, my diet coke (ewwww that's right no pepsi in this hole!) is frozen and I cannot drink it even.

My shoulders ache and I miss my family. Perhaps that is why I am so cranky. I think I was a little hard on the Shirring. I know you were trying to help. Just got super deffensive. You know what that should tell you? Is that I am worried about not being a good mom, so I jumped all over the poor guy when he was trying to ease my guilt. Dude, you are a great guy, didn't deserve that. It wasn't about you, it was about what is going on inside me. You still and always RULE!

I had two glasses of wine with dinner, after actually sleeping for about 5 hrs last night, I realized that nothing could take the place of alcohol for getting me to relax. So, with a little luck, I will sleep at least 5 or 6 tonight.

I'm glad everyone is reading me while I'm away. Sorry for the hostility, it really isn't me. I am just frustrated I guess, with the situation that I am in.
It is stupid for me to be here, better decisions in the workplace could've made this unnecessary. That's all. My kids are doing just fine, as much as I am struggling. They miss me, but they talk to me without getting weepy. I'm very proud. Proud of my husband too, for doing a great, really fantastic job with them. He's great. I cannot wait to see all of them. It will go quickly the work days are flying because there is so much to do, I'm like a machine and there are very very few interruptions.

Whooo Hooooo

I think I got my Canary Island hits back!!!!

Argh!

First of all, thanks to you all, for your kindness (sans shirring)...

I hate this. I worked from 7:00am till 8:00pm. No lunch (aside from eating for 10 min in a conference room). The good news? I get paid time and a half for everything past 8 hrs!

I miss my kids, I'm on the way to the lobby to mail postcards (daddy, if you read this shhhhh it's a surprise).

The work is hard, and our stuff doesn't work as designed.

Okay Chris, you DID strike a nerve!! Please, agree to disagree (as in, stop telling me that this is a good thing, it isn't!) I think you are an awesome guy, but I have to laugh. You think you can possibly access my situation. Call me in about 12 years, no, have your wife do it because only she will know the void, the fear, the unnatural anxiety brought on when you are 400 miles from your offspring. If you have researched attachment parenting, and I know you have, you'd sorta get what I am saying. By agreeing to disagree, I am begging you not to give me unwanted mothering advice. Okay? Please?

Thanks Novy and Mab, each of you has a uterus and therefore you speak coherently on the topic :-)

I'm sitting in a balcony area above the pool (which closes in 10 minutes and is currently occupied by some very loud women who, well, perhaps shouldn't be in swimsuits in a hotel pool which is overlooked by most of the rooms). It was easier than dealing with my shady internet connection in the room. Plus there is something less pervy and weird about sitting here in this lobby setting, than with the laptop on my bed (ew) like so many businessmen before me (yuck). Plus I feel like I am getting a tiny does of social interaction, cause I can overhear the pool ladies blabbing.

I had a tall draft beer with my dinner, maybe I'll sleep more than 1.5 hrs at a stretch tonight. That was my record last night (from 3:30 to 5:00 I did okay). My bed has a mean lean to it, I am going to try the other one tonight.

Oh ha ha, and I'm wearing steel toed shoes!! I am such a square peg at work. How did I end up here???? I'm going to the lobby now, to mail these things, get some change for vending and turn in compliments to the housekeeping staff. Then I'll take a shower and see if I might possibly can sleep....

An Ugly Development

Well, tomorrow morning I am leaving town. I can't believe it. If I think too much about it I will cry. It is very very unnatural to me to be leaving my children, for up to five days. It's just wrong. The way things have been shaping up at work, I saw this coming. I've been dreading it. On Wednesday my manager came down basically talking about me going. That's right, not exactly asking. Well I'm going. Kicking and screaming. I've spent most of my spare time this weekend doing laundry and trying to get everything organized (make a list for my hubby) so that things will still go smoothly in my absence. When I told my kids I was going, my oldest started crying. She sobbed and begged me not to do it. I feel horrible. I've never been away from either of my girls for even a full day. It just feels so wrong. I'm going with the attitude that I'm going to work like a dog and get it done as quickly as possible. There is a slim chance of coming home early, but more important than that, I want to dot all the I's and cross all the T's, so that they don't have any justification for sending me back.
This really sucks.
Okay, I guess I'm off to my little pony.com...

Dreams

On Monday night I had a few funny dreams. All pretty sketchy by now, but here's what I remember. Dream 1) Me and a girlfriend were together. In real life she is (last I knew) getting married this summer. So in the dream she and I were in the Atlantic Ocean. We see all these swimmers (pro's with caps over there hair) swimming in the gulf stream. There are hundreds of them. There are also boats of every size following the same path (I guess swimming with the currents?!) So she and I got in, and we knew we had to swim across the ocean to get to her wedding. So we were swimming and swimming and singing. Now the song we were singing was a rip off of that Oasis song that goes,"You and me, we're gonna live forever." But she and I were singing,"You and me we're gonna swim forever."
Dream 2) Don't remember much of this one, but have you ever watched the show Dinner and a Movie? They play a movie, but on the breaks they teach you how to make some kind of dish with a theme that somehow relates to the movie. The meal is always named with some clever rip off from the movie title or some famous actor or scene name. So in my dream I was on some kind of VH-1 type show where were did shows about bands, and cook a dish having something to do with the bands name. So I come on and announce that today we will be making "Blacked Eyed Peasza." How bizarre.

Here's an old dream. We used to have those vending machines at the office where there is a rotating cylinder inside and it was filled with apples, sandwiches, yogurts, pizzas, pretty much anything you can think of. We affectionately called it the carousel of death. Anyway, there was this super strange guy I worked with. In my dream, he put his money in and hit the buttons, but when it spun around to his sandwich, his food went shooting about 40 feet across the cafeteria. He looked at it, walked over with his patented Fred Flintstone walk, sat down (Indian style) unwrapped it and began to eat it - right there on the floor. So I walked over and said to him, "Just gonna play it where it lies huh?" And I woke up hysterically laughing. Funny because I don't golf and I have never in my life actually used that expression.

A Quickie!

Don't have time for much posting right now, but I have a few updates.
As relationships go, and there has been a lot of blogging between me and my bro about that stuff lately... You know how you have ups and downs? Well I'm on an up. Maybe it is the impedinging doom that Glenn is facing, making me take a new perspective. But you know how some days you just feel taken for granted (a common theme in my blog) and tired? But othertimes, somehow your relationship feels renewed? Anyway, lucky me I'm feeling so lovey now and contented. I do have a v. nice husband.

Also, a few (probably very few) of my friends are taking me out to lunch today. Heather saw me and said something like, "I knew you'd be all dooded up." She knows me. I am wearing my new 'going out clothes' and even some jewlery today. But hey, can't be a guest of honor and looking like a wreck!

Sponge Bob Vs. The Care Bears

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when my 5 year old who was browsing through drugstore add, oogling all the Valentine's Day specials, said to her sister,"And I would much rather have that Care Bear one than the Sponge Bob." It makes me happy that she still prefers the bland, innocent goody goody shows to the gross out older humor of the sponge. My kids are growing up so fast, any evidence of innocence holding on a little comforts me.

Don't get me wrong, they watch SB at my parents house and they think it is hilarious (though most of it goes right over their heads).

Snowed In

Well, winter is back with a vengeance. I’m not sure what the official totals are, but on my car there was 2 or more feet this morning. I was so tired and I didn’t want to deal with it. I was up early, but I still realized that even if I got the car cleaned off quickly, I wouldn’t make it in time to meet my mom and drop off the kids. Plan B would then be to drive 20 min to mom’s house and then 35 min to work. Only with the weather the way it was this morning, I figured it would be 40 min to mom’s and over an hour to work. And that would be after I was already running late from cleaning off the car. I figured I would get to work around 9:30. Well that might not sound so bad, but if I get in late I have to stay later. I put on the weather channel at 5:50am. I learned that the snow was predicted to continue all day and that we were under a Severe Weather Advisory. I have a lot of vacation this year (5 weeks) and I am not behind right now on my contract. I just figured it wasn’t worth all the stress (white-knuckle driving with kids in tow) if I could just burn one vacation day and stay home. I do believe that if my husband had plowed yesterday, it wouldn’t have looked quite so daunting to me this morning. I don’t know how much we got, but nearest the garage, where our cars are parked was a real mess. The snow was as high as the car doors, and as I cleaned off the car, it got much deeper. The snow was so heaving I was making zero headway. I just gave up. My husband said that most of the driveway only had about 5 inches on it. I guess maybe I overreacted.




I am tired though, and I can get a few things done today. At least I didn’t call in “sick” right?

The Moon

Did any of you NE Ohioans notice the moon last night? It was truly breathtaking. It was low in the sky, red, and huge. Coolest moon I ever saw, this is a little bit what it was like. I ran out to get bread last night around 9:30, but I'm so glad I did or I would've missed this truly awesome sight.

Also this morning, the sunrise was incredible. I guess it is finally coming up early enough for me to notice it as I'm leaving my house 6:50 am.

Valentine's Day Lights

I cannot believe it, but on my way in to work I saw that someone had decorated their yard for Valentine's Day. That in and of itself is weird. I'd love to see the inside of this person's house. I always wonder about people with that kind of time on their hands. Is their house spotless? Well decorated? Have they read all the books they are interested in? What is this person like who is so bored (and has so much money laying around) that they purchase Valentine's Day lights? That's right, these weren't just red Christmas lights. These were red lights configured in the shape of hearts (some with arrows in them). First of all, it's not a real Holiday. Second, do something productive with yourself. Third, give the money to charity if you are having such difficulty finding a way to spend it all. Sorry, call me Scrooge (or the V-Day equivalent) but I just do not get it. Sure, hang a cardboard decoration in the front window, a few window clings perhaps, I'm okay with that. Even been known to buy a card and gift for my honey. But spending time and money to decorate your yard for Valentine's Day? Ok, maybe if your last name is Valentine, but even then pretty weird.
Anyone got an opinion on this? (Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that Novy does this? Sorry if I have offended, it's just my opinion)