Tuesday List

Because I love lists, I have decided that Tuesdays will be List Day on this silly little blog.

Today's Theme: Sweet Things about Today- October 26th

1. I found the perfect birthday card for my bestest childhood friend. And I am sure she won't mind getting her card two weeks late (potentially three since I need to track down her mailing address).

2. The Target stores in Floriday sell wine. They really do have it all. I picked up a birthday card, chicken nuggets and two bottles of wine.

3. My mother is home today, so I have someone to talk to besides this wall.

4. The reason my mother is home today is so she can pack her bags for her flight here tomorrow. Which means I will have someone to talk to besides this wall AND someone to get after the grapes with.

5. I was planning on washing the bedding anyway, so it's not that big of a deal that someone woke up in the middle of the night to come into my room and pee the bed.

6. Our Minneapolis friend, in town for work, is coming over tonight to chef up dinner. Since I know she is coming over, I am going to bake a cake.

It's early in the day, so I am sure other sweet things will come up, but that's it for now.

It's been an hour and this day does keep getting better -

7. I have a job interview!

A Fine Fall Day

Today was bittersweet.  We had our very first friend visit us in our new digs. She is in town for work, so arrived a night early to stay us. Sweet. Also today, Troy left for a week long golf trip to Mexico. Bitter. 

Wanting to take full advantage of having another person to help corral the children, I mentally prepared a long outing for the day. There was a cute Fall Festival Day advertised in the local newspaper. Perfect. I thought that since the weather was going to be of no use getting us in the fall spirit, perhaps a little pumpkin patch and hay ride would do the trick.  So, I did as any good mother does and dressed the wee ones for a Fall Day. The Taz donned a lovely orange and yellow plaid tank top with a lovely brown open toed sandle. And Maggie wore a peach onsie. They practically screamed Fall.

It was a perfectly beautiful morning and a perfectly nice festival. It had all of the things four ladies needed. A bouncy house, a fancy hair clip tent, a cheezy animal balloon maker/magician, and reasonably priced bottles of water for such an event.  The only thing it lacked was the pumpkin patch. The very thing that was used to lure The Taz into putting on any clothes at all, little lone the facny pony tails I did up for the occasion, was the very thing missing. Pumpkins. We left the festivities with promises of a popcorn lunch and a pumpkin patch after her nap. And it may have just worked.

Except, for some reason, today the stars did not align. My only guess is that The Taz was invigorated by the fresh fall air. She held out long enough, kicked, screamed, laughed, cried and sang loud enough, long enough that she missed her nap entirely. And in the process woke Bear Cub up one hour early.

I put together a plan to try and salvage the afternoon with costume shopping and another pumpkin patch event at the YMCA. I felt it my duty to get the ladies some pumpkins after all the promising in the morning. At this point, I may well have been the only one interested in the stinkin' things anyway. But, focused am I. So we load up once again.

We pull into the local boutique (the one with the red bullseye) and get into a shopping cart. And right there, ten feet inside the store is a 6ft by 8ft table with a nice display of fat pumpkins. The Taz screeches. Bear Cub just wiggles because the screeching is her cue for dance moves.  My friend and I look at each other and agree that it is far superior to any other pumpkin patch we would encouter that afternoon, and go about the business of sizing each one up.  Other than the lack a cup of hot cider or seasonal spiced latte from the attached Starbucks (due to the sweating) it was a fine fall day.

The search is on...

Much like my search for employement, I believe I may have been going about finding my new local friend base completely in the wrong manner. And now that I have some direction for finding a job from the help of professional job seeker counselors, I am going to apply the same principles to this search of finding a friend as well. 

First you have to assess yourself.

My strengths as a friend:
              I pretend to listen pretty well, giving the other person a feeling of importance
              If there is something delicious in my house, but not enough to share, I will hide it or eat it  
              before a friend visits so they won't know they are missing out

My weaknesses as a friend:
             I am unavailable nights and weekends
             I only like to talk on the phone for 6 - 12 minutes at a time

The next step is to assess your ideal situation.

My ideal friend:
             Has a dog and is willing to bring it to our house a few times a week to "clean the floors" and 
             entertain the children.
             Does not have children of her own so that she can be talked into things more easily
             Is not within her ideal BMI
             Has a vaild driver's license
             Is used to having plans cancelled 1 out of 5 times
             Likes to bake
             Belongs to a book club that rarely ever reads actual books

The next step has something to do with search strategies, but that class isn't until next Tuesday, so until then, I guess I can feel good about making some sort of progress toward my goal.


             

Hiatus

I've been on a hiatus of sorts, mainly because I have been out of sorts. For me anyway.  In retrospect, I may have been spending too much time in my head asking questions:

1. Will that constant pool of snot on Bear Cub's upper lip ever dry out?
2. Why are granny cliques at water aerobics so hard to break into?
3. Will I ever be able to eat an entire meal without having to stop halfway through to deal with fecal matter?
4. Shouldn't having to deal with poopy children midway through dinner every. single. night. somehow help with weight loss?
5. Will the Taz ever go to bed without crying?
6. Will I ever go to bed without crying?
7. Should I put Director of Office Atmosphere on my resume as a job or under special acheivements?

I've only come up with one answer - I need a local friend. Tomorrow I start my search.

Breakthrough

I once worked with a girl from England named Ruth. She had a speech impediment and everytime she had to introduce herself, she had to clarify that the correct way to pronounce her name was not roof. She had a great sense of humour about it and I found her more endearing because of it.  I only knew Ruth for about three months, but I thought of her nearly ten years later when we were deciding what to name our first born. I could hear her British accent saying "shame really vat my mum didn't know I wouldn't be able to pronounce my own name right."  I took that into account when we decided that the little rootie poot booter in my belly was no one else besides Rylee. 

It gave me sheer delight to hear her say her name for the first time "Wowee." Yes indeed. Wow wee. That progressed into Wywee. And for a while I secretly hoped she would call herself Wylee. Because she is very wiley. But no, RyEEE is how it's been for quite some time. Until last night, when she just started saying it like a big girl. Now she has it all. No fear of meeting people and the ability to pronounce her name correctly. There really is nothing that can stop her now.