Short and Sweet......and Funny!

I love music, especially really good "Inde Folk" music. Yes, I did just make up that genre, but it should actually exists. So here I am, on my way home to have lunch, singing in my best (still horrible) voice to the Lumineers. Getting right to the good part of the song, where you can just feel his emotion pouring from the radio "Love......we need it now" (you know the part) when my car suddenly lurches forward. What the........I must have just been rear ended. The clear, obvious reason for you car to suddenly get slung into a forward motion, right? My eyes dart up to my rear view mirror, simultaneously glad Aida is not in the car with me, to find nothing behind me??? Confused by the lack of a vehicle now attached to my rear bumper, it dawns on me......

If one happens to be driving a manual transmission car and said car is in gear, then it is imperative that you keep the clutch pressed in. And if one happens to release said clutch without the gear shift being in neutral, then said car will suddenly lurch forward, which feels very similar to being slightly rear ended.

While deeply committed to my rendition of "Ho Hey" it must have slipped my mind that I wasn't in my automatic car. So after my embarrassing glance around the intersection, I restarted the car and kept on singing!

Women Fake It

Stop denying it, no judgment here. We all know it’s true at some point in your life (like my entire teenage years, because what teenager has a clue what they are doing……wait…..nevermind…..correction I was totally married before I crossed that line), but that really has nothing to do with this blog. I know, I know, you thought I was going to spill some juicy details about women and their love lives, but it was just my evil ploy to get you to come read my random thoughts of the day……

So, as I am driving to work this morning, on the radio they are having this contest. The DJ’s are talking to the woman that won and she states that “I am taking my kids to school and then going to work”. Female Dj says “So where do you work?” To which the contestant replies “just a consignment shop”. In efforts to not make it sounds less doom and gloom as the contestant had, female DJ replies “It’s not JUST a consignment shop, it’s A consignment shop, you get all the good deals first.”  Good attempt, but a fail.

I spend most of my shower, thinking of ways to solve all the world’s problems; and by world I mean my world, and by problems I mean all the things I need to do and what not. Doesn’t anyone else do this? No…maybe it’s just me. I mean what else do you do while you are in the shower? Nevermind, don’t answer that, because then we would be going back to the original topic of this blog and that’s not where I was headed, at least not right now, maybe tomorrow.

So I am in the shower thinking about all the things that we need to get done to get the house on the market. Then there is this stream of ADD thoughts that goes something like this; we need to get that……..so I need to pack that stuff up, man I don’t want to………how are we going to……..dang I forgot to take out the……..I need to make a list of…….how can I be almost 30 and not have a clue what the heck is going on in my life. Well now there’s a thought that stuck! So on the week’s eve of my 30^th, I decide to have this philosophical conversation, yes with myself (very profound I know), about the fact that somehow I am almost 30 and I have no idea what I am doing with my life.

Growing up I hated school, so at 18 the idea of 4 more years just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t mandatory, so I wasn’t going. With a slight brain in my head, I knew I needed to do something to make a living, so I went the way of the trades. “Beauty School” (which ps I hate that phrase, sounds like I am living in the movie Grease) was only 9 months if I went full time. So at 19 I was out in the real world, making the dough. I actually did pretty good business wise, but it never was for me. It was a means to an end. If you know me, I am not your typical valley girl stylist or way out there radical, I just like my jeans and t-shirts and pony tails. It was fun while it lasted, but I wasn’t really sad to see it go. After a move to the city, I went to work for a Psych Clinic. After one month, they fired the office manager and gave me the job! This is all great, except I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, sink or swim time. So I swam; I swam hard and I was a great swimmer. Then all the crazy just wears you down, so I went to a GI office to be there office manager. I loved it there. It was a brand new office (that looked like a spa in the waiting room), with two doctors that loved what they did and were all about their patients. And then the story of my life, we moved, again! With limited options in this small town, I went to work for the Assistant Superintendent of the school district. A job which I do actually love, but not one I ever saw myself having. My hubby, the wonderful Bovine Hunter, on the other hand has a “career”. One that I have moved all over the country for. He went to college and then back to college and then somewhere around $100,000 in debt later he has the career he has always wanted.

The point of this story is, I still have no idea what I want to do “when I grow up”, but that grown up stage seems to have arrived. We are in the process of moving again, hopefully for the last time and I have no idea what I will do when I return to NC, because I never had a career, I just followed Doug’s. Maybe that is my career, official follower, haha (do you watch the show The Following)! If I had it to do all over again, I would have went to nursing school. And yes I know that I could go back, but I still hate school, don’t want to sacrifice the time with our daughter and we have enough debit to pay back. So as I listen to the contestant say “just a” I went back to my solo conversation and wondered, will I always be “just a” job kind of person, “just” living day to day kind of person?

The Big 3-0!!!

Wow! How did I get to be 30?

Okay, well I still have 10 days to go, but it's fast approaching. It's kind of funny, I feel like I am letting down the "women united" because I am actually excited about being 30. I know, weird right? (Does that make me the exception? Oh I have ALWAYS wanted to be the exception to the rule!!!) Most women dread leaving their 20's behind, but for some reason, I am very okay with it! Now when we get to 40, I am sure I will have long ago stopped counting the years.

I guess I always felt like I was "a head of my time", an "old spirit" as my last two bosses have called me. I was always looking for that age that I would finally be seen as a responsible adult (although my once every few years drunkenness Saturday night might beg to differ) and not the "oh your still a child" (even though I have been married for almost 9 years and have a child of my own). I have been completely on my own since I was 18 (not that I will ever turn down a free meal from mom), was married 3 weeks after my 21st birthday, ran my own business, sat on a Board for a Non-Profit, but none of those things made me seem wiser in the eyes of my elders. So I decided 30 was it, that's the age when I would stop being "just a child". That was the age when people would stop seeing me as just another young person.

Well, now that I finally reached my arbitrary age, I have discovered two things; A) I stopped caring how people see me, because between working full time, being a wife and a mother, I just don't have time to care and B) people a few generations older than me will always see me as "the child" because when you have kids the same age as me, you see everyone my age as children. What matters in life if not the number we declare ourselves, but the way we live.

So as I stand on the door step of my 30's; I embrace my grey hairs, marvel that I have been with my hubby a third of my life and prepare to celebrate the next decade of my life. Bring it on life, I am ready to live it up.......

Seriously!

So after Doug's emergency phone going off at 4:30 am, him getting up at 5 am, he heads out at 5:30 am to see a patient. Which in turn means the dog is now going crazy in her kennel. So I get her calmed down finally, fall back to sleep, only to be awaken by a crying baby at 6 am. So I bring Aida up stairs to my bed, where she proceeds to roll around for the next hour, resulting in no one going back to sleep. I give up at 7 am and decide we will go to breakfast. We go down let Isa (the dog) out, get Aida ready and then go up stairs for me to get dressed. Apparently Isa wasn't happy that we were all up stairs, so I decide to let her come up. Mistake one!

So we are upstairs and I tell Isa not to pee up there. Well apparently, we had a lack of communication! I find that she has peed right in front of my closet when I step in it with my sock! Great feeling by the way. Now, if you have ever been in my house, you know that the hardwoods upstairs are also the ceilings down stairs. This means that there is nothing between the two and allows liquids to go through very easily! Liquids like say, DOG PEE!!!! So I go down to Aida's bedroom, assuming it's probably dropped into her crib. Luckily, I can't find pee anywhere in Aida's room. Saved!

We head off to breakfast to see Auntie Jen and have pancakes. Since we are heading to SU to the Children's Fair, we swing back by the house to let Isa out and change Aida's diaper. Might as well potty myself, right! Well good thing I did, because what do I find when I walk out of the bathroom??? Dog Pee has run down the wall and is puddled in the hall floor. Apparently, my closet door is over the hall and not Aida's room, hence why I couldn't find pee in Aida's bedroom. Mad, again, I put the dog out so I can clean up the mess. At this point I really am just thinking that if I didn't have a toddler I would just go back to bed and start over.

Well to top it all, Aida and I go outside to get Isa and you won't guess what happens next. I was squatting down talking to Aida about a stick. I went to stand up and a bird flies right into the side of my head! How does this even happen??? How has a bird fly into their head??? Me apparently!

So I am not sure that going to this Children's Fair is the best idea with the luck I am having, but here we go! Wish us well!

How's your Saturday going?

How Exactly Does A Bunny Lay An Egg?

Ready for lunch, I stood up from my desk, grabbed my things and headed out the door. Only to quickly be reminded by the brisk, cool air that I was "not in Kansas anymore" (also known as North Carolina in my version of Oz). Settling in to my warm car (thank you sun for your warm rays) daydreams of warm breezes, Easter egg hunts and beautiful children running around my mom's yard carried me home.

After spending a rather warm, sunny and all out gorgeous weekend in North Carolina, it's hard to come back to the cold of the northeast. If I see even a tiny snow flake again, I may cry my bloody eyes out.

There in my car, with the sun beating down I was reminded of what a great weekend we had. Not just because of the wonderfully warm weather, but also the memories that were made. Although my sweet pea (the little one, not the big one) was under the weather half of our trip, she was able to enjoy her first real Easter, full of festivities. This was of course her second Easter, but considering she wasn't able to actual participate last year we won't count that one. Saturday was spent with all the family; from hunting Easter eggs at the Waugh's, to coloring/dying eggs, painting rabbits and a family dinner at mom's. I am pretty sure Aida would have continued to following Grandma around the yard as long as she continued to drop eggs, so that Aida could pick them up and put them in her basket. Ah the joys of toddlers, they don't care that you weren't hiding the eggs or even that they were empty, she just wanted to keep picking them up and putting them in her basket. Every time accompanied by an "ohhhhhh nudder EGG" (seriously the cutest kid ever, of course I may be a little biased). What more could you ask for out of life than to spend a beautiful day with your family. Laughing, bonding and staining your skin to the point of it seeming you haven't washed them in months, maybe even years. A girl really couldn't ask for anything more.....well other than one thing.....

How exactly does an Easter bunny lay eggs?

I honestly don't know the history (nor have I "googled" it), as I am sure most people don't, but if you think about it why would someone come up with a bunny and an egg? Granted I don't know that a chicken would have the cute cuddly appeal of a bunny, nor does it seem right to hide candy inside of a plastic bunny (this might be slightly more feasible than fuzzy chickens).

So do kids grow up thinking that bunnies lay eggs?

This seems like a silly question to ask, until I had a conversation with a friend, who had recently had to explain to her cousin (legally an adult) who grew up on a farm that the eggs we eat are not fertilized and therefore would never have become a chicken. Seems the cousin thought that there used to be a chicken inside, that didn't make it, and turned into the eggs we eat. Confusing, I know, but then again we teach kids that bunnies lay eggs (well at least one bunny). So no wonder she doesn't know anything about where eggs come from.

I don't know if I ever believe the bunny laid eggs (I am sure I did at some point) or when I realized this was not the case, but it does seem like a funny tradition when you think about it. Of course I will continue to hide eggs for my kiddos.