I Wish I Could Say...

The main event that started the recent stress ball rolling was arriving at daycare Wednesday morning to find out that Miss Lisa had been up sick all night- throwing up. Great. And I really loved the part where there was no phone call prior to bundling up children, scraping ice off the car, driving down the sheet of ice on the streets of the neighborhood, making frantic phone calls to find childcare for the kids... and no luck. So Jeff and I split the day. I took the morning and he took the afternoon. And we had decided that we were going to have dinner at church last night and I needed to swing by the food pantry to drop of the Heavenly Ham I had received at work. So the evening was hectic. My mom arrived this morning to take care of the kids- they could have gone to Lisa's since she now passes the "24 hours with no vomit" rule. But we thought a day or two with Grandma would lessen the exposure and give Lisa a break. On my lunch hour, I call home to check in and see how the kids are doing. And I get a lecture about my messy ("filthy" was her word) house. While my mom raised me as a single parent, she seems to have completely blocked out how hard that was. For the past 20 years, she has been a stay at home spouse and mom (There is a 15 and 18 year age gap between me and my brothers so she did things one way with me and then got to do it the "better" way with them). So she has had the time to clean and cook and bake and volunteer. Is my house messy? Absolutely. Is it "filthy?" Nope. Trash went out this morning. I did some straightening up yesterday morning when I was home with the kids. Jeff did dishes this morning. My bathroom (the one everyone uses) gets cleaned every other week or so. Do we have bugs? Nope. Rotting food? Nope. Is there clutter? Yup. Groceries in bags on the floor? Yup. Food sitting out on the counter (fresh fruit, canned goods, bagged snacks)? Yup. Clean laundry in baskets in my bedroom? Yup. I was very hurt and angry. I even cried. And was in shock. Had no clue how to respond. Ended the call. And have been handling it very poorly since. Thank heavens for understanding friends, a husband who gets me... and this giant bag of Cheetos and this cold can of Pepsi by my side. I would have loved to have posted on my blog about how special my mom is. About how lucky we are to have her in our lives. About how much she helps us out. About the special relationship she has with my kids and how I love watching that relationship grow. About how my kids get so excited about Grandma coming and so do I... because that is how it usually is when Grandma comes to visit... that is how I usually feel about my mom. But now I feel small and ashamed and overwhelmed. I feel like going home and going to bed. I feel like going home and telling her she can head back home tonight instead of tomorrow, that we'll be fine without her. She is at my house, cleaning and straightening and so on. And not playing and having fun. She said that Teagan is getting defensive about her cleaning. Well duh. Teagan wants you to play with her and do special projects with her. I'm rambling and all over the place because this is very emotional and scatter-y for me.

What do you say when someone is hurtful like that?

Maybe I should call that French engineer who lives in New England and ask for some pointers.

My Apologies

A quick note... For the past day and a half, I've had trouble logging in to Blogger. I go to sign in and it thinks about it forever and then denies me. So I haven't been able to post and I haven't been able to comment on the blogs I follow. Plus, life got a little hectic and crazy and busy so I just haven't had time. And my job is requiring my time today. And my mom is now in town and staying the night tonight and... See? A little crazy. But I will be back as soon as I can!! Hopefully tonight...

Books and Childhood

I love to read. Makes sense since I love to write. I've been an avid reader since I was a child. I would read books over and over and over and over. I read Black Beauty 20-something times. I was obsessed. I would pretend I was Black Beauty. I would cry every time I read the part about Ginger... don't want to give anything away if you haven't read it. My imagination was very vivid and I pictured the well-described details so clearly... I was reading Lilly's Life today and she wrote about books and reading and books she read as a child and how she selects books based on how the cover looks and gives a great guide to selecting a book by its cover. So go check it out! I started to comment... and realized it was going to get long. So I brought my thoughts back home. I have some memories of books that I don't remember the names of. For example... A book about this popular teenage girl who tries to call this boy she likes but dials the wrong number and ends up talking to this other guy. Lon story short, they become friends on the phone and start to really like each other. Then she finds out who he is... short guy, big nose. And she has to decide if she still likes him or not. Another book was about a girl who would dream things and then they came true. And she would see bad things like a bridge blowing up and stuff. When I was younger, I was obsessed with a picture book that was also informational... The Album of Horses. I would play stable in the hallway of our apartment complex and I named every horse in the book and took care of them... and Black Beauty and Ginger were in that book for me... The funny thing is that I don't remember when I started reading... but I do remember the books I read and loved. The books that offered me an escape from feeling hungry or ashamed. That showed me that there was a better world than the one I lived in that was overwhelmed by chaos and wickedness. When I read, I became part of the world that was offered in those pages. I even created a little cozy reading cubby in my bedroom closest... which was also the scene of the crime that got me kicked out of the Brownies... but I digress. Charlotte's Web... anything by Judy Blume... Bridge to Terabithia... From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler... Harriet the Spy... A Wrinkle in Time... The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe...The Secret Garden... A Tree Grows in Brooklyn... Sweet Valley High... The Against Taffy Sinclair Club... The Girls of Canby Hall... I don't know that I could ever possibly capture all of the books that saved me as a child. From the serious to the silly. Each one holds a special place in my soul.

When Anger Bubbles Up...

... I turn to my blog.

What a morning!

Part of my job is to process paperwork for capital expense projects. This responsibility was previously handled by a different position in our department- but that person left and the responsibilities are just spread out amongst the rest of us now.

Last week, I received one of these projects to review, complete some paperwork, and forward along to the next approver. I thought I would get it done Friday morning but things from my actual job came up that were more pressing so it got pushed to the side. I was working on it this morning and needed clarification on part of it. I sent an e-mail to the engineer who wrote up the project.

Now let me first explain something about this employee. I've never met him but he already has 3 strikes against him when it comes to dealing with the typical Midwesterner.

1. He's an engineer.

2. He lives in New England.

3. He's French.

I'm really not trying to be mean. I've just generally found that a lot of engineers don't come across with the best social skills. They are more logical and to the point and often skip the niceties. I love the people I work with in our New England office... most of them, anyway. But New Englanders typically have a different approach. A more to the point and skip the niceties. Ah ha! A commonality. And then you add in the French thing... 'nuff said, right?

So he e-mails me back with the answer to my question. And ends his one sentence e-mail with...

"what a waste of time..."

EXCUSE ME?

So I start debating. Do I e-mail him back? "Yes, you are." Do I call and confront his rudeness directly? Do I ignore it?

Couldn't ignore it. Couldn't just let it go. It was rude and uncalled for and it was under my skin and wasn't going to go away. I needed to understand.

So I called him. No written record, in case it got ugly.

Yep, he meant it towards me. He then apologizes for being "rough."

Stop. Now. Do not even try to imply... and yes, this might be a stretch but this is how it felt... that I can't take it because I'm female.

So I interrupt him. "You weren't rough. You were rude."

I go on to explain to him that given he has never met me, seen me, worked with me, or even talked to me and given that he was wanting me to process this as expediently as possible... rudeness wasn't the best choice. I suggested that in the future, when he wants special attention or favors, he try being polite as that will certainly get him farther in his request. I explained that he and I may well have to work together again someday and I would hate to hold resentment towards him because he has already set rudeness as the precedent.

He then starts explaining that someone else sat on it and blah, blah, blah.

Whatever, dude.

I ended the call and walked around and vented to a friend. I then went to my boss as a CYA. In case this dude got his knickers in a knot and complained- even though I was very polite about it. I even used my best Mommy voice. I wanted her to know the story before she potentially heard it through the grapevine. The cool thing? Totally backed me up and took my side. Totally understood where I was coming from. And as she said... it's only a waste of time if this dude was writing his own personal check, spending his own money on the project. Company money... due diligence... not a waste of time.

And would you like to know my husband's response to my story when I called to relay it to him?

"If that's your attempt at a French accent... it sounds more Indian. I'm just sayin'..."

Thanks, darling.

So that's been my morning. How's your day shaping up?

Corrections: Man-Blogs and Gingerbread RV's

First, it was pointed out that I do, in fact, read a 5th man-blog. My husband's blog. And he did blog about the start of the gingerbread experience. So go check it out.

And in the comments of the Gingerbread entry, Garret joked about finding a gingerbread RV. I took this as a challenge and started Googling and found this:

But then I went to the website from whence this came. I can only dream of this kind of talent. Seriously. This is the stuff of Food Network Challenges.

tinkerkate

In order to make up for my horrible over site of forgetting that I read my own husband's man-blog, I dedicate this tinkerkate cake to him...

Be sure to go to the website and see all the pics of all the cakes... and the further pics of the Gingerbread RV and the Dungeon Master... the details are really cool!

The woman who made these cakes is an artist in Philadelphia. She not only does the cake thing, but she also does murals and graphic design for billboards and chalk art. Very cool!!

Amazing how making up for an oversight and taking on a challenge leads you to really cool, neat-o stuff!

I'm Fabulous!

Joanie says so! Well... she says my blog is fabulous. But I think it's an easy step to me being fabu, too, right??

And there are rules. Ack! I need to name 5 other fabulous blogs. And I need to share 5 things that I find fabulous!

Fabulous blogs... You know what? This is really hard!! I went through my Blogger Dashboard to see who I read all the time and the notes I took ended up giving me a list longer than 5! It's also left me realizing that I don't read enough man-blogs. I read 4 man-blogs and the rest are women and many of those are moms. And of the 4, 2 are bloggers I've really connected with (Garret & Jim of RVing and Sam of Dwell & Cultivate). 1 is a new blogger that I haven't learned enough about and the other is a blogger who just puts information out there with some opinion and isn't so much interested in who reads him or what his readers think. I need to expand my blogging repertoire.

Anyway. I am going to force myself to stick with the 5 "rule." I love more than these blogs... but these are 5 that I've been reading for a few weeks now and have really taken something from. And these aren't the folks I've recognized previously with the Gold Card Award.

C. Beth Blog (Also hosts a second blog- The One Minute Writer- which you can link to from the given link)

Adventures in Motherhood and Other Risky Endeavors (And Lisa also has a second blog that I read as often as she posts that is a fabulous blog. You can link to Finnian's Journey on her blog.)

Mim's Muddle

CASA HICE

The Fourth Frog Blog

For the others on my list... I just need more time to get to know you!!

And things that I find fabulous...

Dark Chocolate. The good stuff. Hershey's Special Dark is NOT the good stuff. Lindt is close. Vosge hits the mark frequently. Trader Joe's always has excellent dark chocolate (I highly recommend the Concerto Chocolate Sticks). I am a chocolate snob.

Peanut Butter. Almost anything is better with peanut butter.

Fleece pajama pants. Do I really need to explain?

California. I look forward to being able to go visit that state someday, when the kids are older. I've got family out there and friends. And even bloggers! San Francisco is my favorite city. And I have family just north of San Fran.

My family. I was going to try and keep it light hearted. But my family is fabulous and I wouldn't be who I am without them. My kids, my husband, my parents, my siblings (the biological ones and the not-really-related-to-me ones... you know who you are)...

Gingerbread Extravaganza!

We spent Saturday afternoon admiring the Gingerbread houses on display at the living history museum near our house- Conner Prairie. Building gingerbread isn't my forte but I imagine that Jeff will someday build extravagant structures and perhaps even enter this competition at Conner Prairie.

Santa's Vacation

Candy Carousel A holiday decorated house... what does that little sign in the yard say?Vote Obama! My goodness! I knew this one was my favorite! (The funny thing is that I live in the "Most Republican County" in the nation and this museum resides in that same county.)

A lighthouse

Cool little detail from the lighthouse- Santa's water sleigh!

A gingerbread stable

A gingerbread version of the game "Candyland"

A gingerbread Nativity

A church- I should have snapped the pic without the flash. The windows were actually lit from inside and glowed- it was really pretty.

2 story gingerbread house with a chewing gum roof

A first place winner- I like the tree in the front window.

I'm so not a Spongebob fan. But this was incredible! And it even had a back! The details on this were really amazing.

Jeff and Teagan started a gingerbread house of their own but it isn't finished quite yet. They are currently building with graham crackers and cherry icing. Hopefully the full scale decorations will get done this week... and maybe Jeff will even share the pics over on his blog- Jeffardy! (Can you tell that I really want him to keep blogging?)