Category: Working Mom

I was just cruising my college class discussion board and received feedback on a paper I submitted. I earned a 98! I yelled out to my hubby, ” hey, I got a 98 on my paper!” He replied, ” that’s nice dear.” I worked on my paper for 2 days in between building a fence for the daughters new horse and entertaining the neighbors. That was a solid grade for all that I did that weekend, all while sporting an injury. Someday’s I’d just like to have a personal cheerleader!

I work hard, I do the day in and day out routine. It’s not perfect, but I get the job done. my typical mornings Monday through Friday  look like this,

0500- get out of bed , start waking the devil child so I can be called all kinds of names at    0630 when she finally rouses and yells that I didn’t wake her at 0500.

0510- pour some coffee, look at my email from work,listen to the news. attempt to wake    the child.

0515-attempt number 3 at waking child. let puppy out, walk around the back yard saying over and over again… poopers… poopers…

0520- attempt 4 waking child. sit at computer and check personal email, look at class online. maybe pay some ebills!

0530- realize I can’t see a damn thing and look for the reading glasses that the hubby and I share.

0545- pour cup number two of liquid gold sanity. attempt number 5 to wake the devil. at this point I am considering calling the priest because I know where we are heading! In about 45 minutes the head will be spinning and I will be the most stupid incapable person on the planet who can’t do a damn thing right.

0600- start waking the sleeping beauty “the teenage daughter”. She is sometimes emotionally balanced, but those grenades do go off from time to time.

0610- attempt number 6 waking the devil and attempt number 2 at the sleeping beauty. turn on the flat iron for sleeping beauty and consider my clothing options for the day.

0615- Finally, sleeping beauty arouses. I feed the rabbit, the dog, and the puppy. attempt to wake the devil for the 7th time. This time as I exit the room I hear, ” you idiot, it’s not 5! I continue to exit and try not engage as the holy water has not been blessed this morning. I do however attempt to get an answer to, “what would you like for breakfast?” In an attempt to get out the door at a reasonable hour. To which I hear, ” I DON’T KNOW, because YOU didn’t wake me up!”

0617- the coffee has hit the spot. The devil has risen and now as I am on the potty myself, I hear, “Where’s my waffles?  I told you I wanted waffles!”

0618- off the potty, I say, ” you want waffles?” Devil replies, ” what else is there?” I go through the list again as if it has changed since 0615. Yes, “I want waffles, I told you to make me waffles.”

0620- waffle iron on! Batter made! we might make it out the door on time!

0630- these are disgusting,you didn’t do it right! Make me pop-tarts!  I choke down the anger and think about the year 2026… instantly my mind goes to a tropical hut on the water and I am watching the fish swim through the clear floor. it’s so peaceful here in the future. There is a warm breeze and I can hear the ocean waves lapping against the dock. Seagulls are flying overhead and making their ha ha haaa sounds.

0630 and 30 seconds…. where are my pop tarts and don’t forget the milk!

0650- time to get dressed! This becomes another chore, another 25 minutes trying to find clothes because what ever I put out is not going to be right. My child ends up looking like a disheveled mess heading off to school. I swear they must think I don’t care about my kid!  The truth is I know I care too too much. I try to make everyone happy and in the end, day in and day out I’m miserable. It is my own making, I did this to myself.

 

 

 

I never really know what is going to come out in these posts. I just sit down and start to babble. I try to be relevant, present, and humorous if possible.  I recently attended a leadership conference with my place of employment. I remember as I was watching the division president (who is very cool) stand on stage and give his presentation, I thought, “Damn, I wish I could do that!” He was captivating. It was almost like I was watching T.V. I kind of chuckled to myself, as he paced back and forth reading from the teleprompter on the floor. My thoughts were exactly this, ” hmm, are they going to ask for money at the end, how did he get that suit to look that good, did I see him on a church program, where is the bathroom I really need to pee?”

My company always has a story from someone that was impacted by our care. This year we had two and I cried at both of them. I am a nurse and that means a lot to me. I have worked really hard to earn my degrees and I know the value that we have and the impact that we make everyday. Sure there are times when we cut up and make jokes, but it is necessary to be able to deal with some of the things that nurses deal with. We can have every range of emotion during a shift. A quick glimpse at a 12 hours shift can be joy for a birth or a life revived, sadness for a dying patient or their crappy family taking them for their money, and even anger at the system and the insurance companies. Sometimes the people that need the most help get none and the people that don’t need help get it all.

Nevertheless, by the end of 2 days, I was sold! I drank the kool-aid. It really was inevitable I mean they served really great food and that just makes me melt into submission. It’s how I ended up married the second time and what now keeps me married now! You might be thinking to yourself, “what the hell is she talking about?” Well, let me explain it to you.

I met my second husband before I divorced the first. No, I didn’t cheat. Actually, I was left at my cousins house to “learn” how to be a good wife. His words not mine! During that time, my cousin and his best friend spent a lot of time together and therefore I spent a lot of time with my cousins best friend! I finally got divorced and he made good on that meal that he kept promising to cook me . Ah, steak and lobster. I really wish I had known that the wedding meal would be frozen, the food would be cold, and the cake that you save for your 1 year anniversary would be lost. Now, it is the ice cream and the secret candy bars I buy when no one is looking that keeps me going.

 

There is no possible way to know what someone is thinking all the time. I know  they are working on developing technology, but to my knowledge it hasn’t happened yet. I am sure that it will because it was on a movie or Star Trek at some point. Let’s be real, that stuff that was on those shows has eventually happened. I mean, look at captain Kirk’s transponder. Duh, we have cell phones. Which is odd when you think that we worked really hard to get the phones as portable and small as possible only to now make them as large and readable as we can! Do you think when you are watching a movie from the 80’s and the cell phone is in a portable case and HUGE that it is funny? It wasn’t in the 80’s, it was cool and elite. I wonder what things we do now will be funny 35-40 years from now?

I will be old enough to make fun of the little whipper snappers these days… I’ll be saying, back in my day… and we had it much tougher than this generation. The whole we had to walk 2 miles uphill in the snow will be we had to ride our hover boards on unpaved paths and chance they would burn up just waiting to recharge. Terrible. Just terrible.

You’ll never know the struggle.

Today is my service awards dinner to celebrate my 15 years with the company. Of course, there will be others celebrating a lot more time than my meager 15 years. Kudos to those people. Anything that can be sustained any amount of time is worth celebrating. Much like marriage. It should be celebrated too. These days, it is far to easy to throw in the towel and act as if you never loved, hated, fought or made-up. True fact, if you talked to your co-workers and argued like spouses often do, you wouldn’t make it to 15 years.

Maybe spouses should treat each other like business partners. When things get heated leave for 10 hours then return and do it again the next day. Have planning sessions to plan planning sessions, steal each others lunch from the fridge, and have your own bathrooms.  Now that is a novel idea! Take vacation away once a year and enjoy a few long weekends away. Just the thought of that is delicious.

Just food for thought…

I really love my job, no sarcasm there. I have worked hard to achieve what I have. I started close to the bottom and it has been a slow climb to get to this mid-point. Mostly, because I didn’t even know I wanted to be here. Growing up I always loved the outdoors. I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I kept having the same dream over and over that I was drowning. If I can use the premonition excuse I will. It somehow works for all those superstitious people in the world. I get that “awe, she had a dream, but she didn’t want to die fulfilling it” look. I maybe misinterpreting that a bit. It is probably the look of ” this lady is bat shit crazy!” I am not really sure because I get those two mixed up more often than not.

It seems like if you are a woman (not to be confused with a feminist in the crazy pink  labia wearing democratic sense) the more you are driven the more it is interpreted as a negative. When men are driven it is interpreted a whole lot different and usually positive. The reality is, I just want to be a success at whatever I make an attempt at doing. I actually had an employee ask me if I was pregnant because I was emotional (not crying) when I was discussing my passion regarding a project.  I shouldn’t have engaged the question, but I did. I replied HELL NO! His reply, keep trying! I somehow think that was inappropriate. I have never asked my bosses if they were pregnant. On another note, I am past the baby making stage after all, I am 29!

I think that we are equal in the workplace, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. It is the struggle to prove you can do something and do it well. In honor of the upcoming nurses week, I want to say thank you to all the nurses out there who have helped me reach this point. We are in a female dominated job, which is sometimes a very big plus, and sometimes not!

Something as simply going to the store can be treacherous. It all seems fine when we get into whichever vehicle we decide we should take, his or mine. Of course, it’s generally his truck because my car immediately causes him discomfort. After 5 minutes he is generally squirming in his seat like a toddler that needs to pee. Yet, he won’t complain until the 5th or 6th time that I ask (pry) what is wrong out of him. It is generally, “I hate your car its so uncomfortable.” Well, I hate it too. I had a perfectly good suburban that was loaded with all the great features like it cared about me. I could start it up and it always wanted to make me comfortable, it remembered how I like to sit, where my mirrors were best suited to protect me, and the best part… It could tell if it was too hot or cold outside and cool the SUV or warm the seats for MY comfort. But those days are gone. Why? Well WE needed a boat and the payment didn’t coincide with keeping my SUV so I downsized to a tiny ass Malibu that doesn’t even have room for my multitude of CD’s. Keep in mind, I need my CD’s. I love to sing in the car… oh yeah it had a Bose sound system too. I miss that,  I really miss that.  UGH …

So, we get to where we are going this morning and I mention, since we are by ourselves which never happens, I’m hungry. What does he do? Drives past a perfectly fine cracker barrel. I was sad again this morning. I really wanted my standard order of ole’ timers with eggs sunny side up, bacon, hash brown casserole, and biscuits and gravy. But more than that, I wanted to be alone just us together and a restaurant full of people we didn’t know.

I just don’t know how to get on the same page. It’s like I’m reading a romance novel and he’s reading One Fish, Two Fish. Lord help me make it through this realization!