Boy is my face red!

Well technically my face is always red. I have this skin thing...

blah blah blah I look like I have a permanent sunburn.

I live in Hawaii so I think it kind of works for me.

But I digress. Today my face was constantly turning a special shade of crimson as I performed one embarrassing act after another for my adoring public.

It all started last night at 10 o'clock. I snuggled in bed (by snuggled I mean threw myself down because I was not in a good mood about weighing myself for the week and doing laundry at 10pm) and closed my eyes thinking of the day ahead. The day ahead was Wednesday, never a good day for me, and that meant today was Tuesday.

"WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TODAY IS TUESDAY!"

"Honey, is today Tuesday? Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!"

As you may have deduced, I discovered something in this moment. Today was Tuesday. This particular Tuesday I was supposed to work for an hour because there were time sensitive items that needed to be place in mailboxes so they would go out on time. I never went to work so they didn't get done.

On top of that monumental flop in my mental capacity I had a meeting at 5pm.

I didn't go.

I was supposed to pitch a proposal. I was supposed to voice my opinions on an upcoming project. I was supposed to diligently take notes to share with our school community as is written in my job description.

I did none of those things.

At 5pm I did homework with my sons and made dinner.

This sucked.

I had no good excuse. All the way to work the next morning (It takes 5 minutes so you can tell I was in agony) I debated making up a story or telling the sad truth. I walked on campus still unsure of what I would say and how I would begin the apologies only to be immediately approached by a teacher asking, "Where were you last night?" I shamefully bowed my head and went with honesty mumbling, "I forgot" and shuffling off as quick as I could. This continued throughout the day and I felt a cone of shame might have been more appropriate attire for me then my lovely floral motif.

But, I made it through.

Huzzah!

Except the embarrassment didn't stop there. No, that would have made life to easy. Instead I continued to make many miniscule mistakes that added up to millions of moments ( also I heart alliteration:)) where my face turned crimson.

I forgot my keys everywhere I went. I went and copied the same thing, the wrong way, 3 times under watchful eyes that I could feel chiding me. I rushed to 30 something classrooms to quickly deliver the things I forgot the day before and at the end was huffing and puffing and almost blew a house down. Also my hair was flying everywhere and I would have been a shoo in at a Wolf casting call. I can make the 3 little pigs cry in moments like these, no problem.

As fun as it was for everyone to see me disheveled, ashamed and losing my marbles I made it through the day. I worked 5 extra hours, partially out of guilt and partially out of necessity and finally called it quits and headed home to my other job as housemaid and personal assistant to myself. I drove in and tried to empty out my car, completely jamming the car seat that I was trying to take out and pulling my dress off with it in the driveway. I like to spice it up people, what can I say? Pretty sure my neighbors love me.

Then I got brilliant. No really. I haven't exercised in 5 days due to a personal grudge and my husband keeps pushing me to get back into it. Sooooo, I decided I could take 20 minutes of my precious life and hop on my bike and take the dog for a run.

Am I brilliant or am I brilliant?

You can tell exactly how brilliant I am because I decided to do this task in a floor length strapless floral dress. It was a combo lazy/busy move. the bike ride went well, I looked full on crazy riding in my dress with a sweat band on my head, green sunglasses and a scrunchy in my hair.

Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want right?

I arrived back in 20 minutes exactly and my sisters fiance had just pulled in the driveway. He stood in my garage and I can see I wowed him with my graceful looks and sweet ride. I went to smoothly hop off the bike and say hello and got my dress stuck on the bike.

I mean stuck stuck. Like wrapped around the seat 3 times, cutting off circulation, almost showing lady parts stuck. A good 5 minutes later I finally unhooked myself from the bike with what I hope was only minor flashing and much awkwardness between us. Then I invited him to Walmart.

So off we go. I tried to make a phone call while driving ( I used my handsfree thingamabob so stop looking at me like that!) which of course distracts me and I drive the wrong way. And boy was it the WRONG WAY! The smell of fermented trash and dying cow was overpowering in my poor air conditioning deprived van. We're lucky I didn't pass out. Me and my big red face apologize profusely for the assault on our noses and we make it to the store. Then he asks me about the jeweler that I go to. Except he has an Irish accent and I am a nincumpoop so I stare at him blankly and say,

"The boys martial arts?"
No.

"Jail?"
No.

"Gerard Butler?" No.

I embarrass both of us as I shamefully take one vocabulary misstep after another. I figure it out and apologize....again.

Now I am home and back in bed and thinking, "tomorrow is Thursday....hmmm what is on Thursday?

"Oh crap does that mean today is Wednesday!?!?!"

Goodnight all, and to all a good night :)

The dilemma

We have a busy weekend planned!

I am excited for all the fun family time we are going to have.

Except it means that I am going to get nothing done all weekend. (I rarely consider having fun an accomplishment or add it to my to do list) (maybe I should start?)

Here in lies the dilemma.

Tonight we are making fishing poles and having a family game night, no going out because the boys are exhausted from a late night earlier this week.

Saturday we have Aikido, Chinese New Year Festival, grocery shopping and a UFC BBQ.

Sunday is fishing and beach morning and superbowl bbq afternoon.

That is a serious amount of fun packed into one weekend for our family. We are generally one thing a day sort of people and whatever happens, happens. You can see why I am excited right?

Yet instead of focusing on the fun and excitement I am sitting here dwelling on the desk that needs to be organized, the plants that need pruning, the garage that needs cleaning, the room that needs to be reorganized, the house that needs to be pressure washed and the bike rides and walks I am missing out on. :(

Sometimes I really wish I could turn my brain off and enjoy the moment. Sometimes I can but then afterwards reality hits double hard as I realize I had fun at the expense of other things.This makes me behave like a pirate as I stomp around aaarrrggghhh'ing my way through the day. I get seriously huffy sometimes.

So, unbeknownst to my husband, I am going to make a choice to try and focus on the fun stuff and squeeze a little productivity in too. When he gets home I will ambush him with my brilliant ideas and he will support me, because that's what he does. This will require more effort on his part but could preserve some of my sanity. He'll probably think it's worth it, or maybe not because he just rebuilt his computer and is probably dying to use it. Maybe I can plan computer time in too.

Then I can have every minute of the day planned and when it doesn't work out, I can freak, cancel everything and vow never to make plans again.

Or I could take a deep breath and relax.

You know, I have options.

Here's hoping for a weekend of fun, food, friends and productivity.

Stupid brain, stop telling me I'm doomed!

Solitaire is a game for one.

My cousin sat down at the table last night and said he was going to play solitaire. 

Then, he asked if anyone wanted to play with him.

My face completely fell as I took on this dumbfounded/astounded look and said, "Isn't solitaire for one person?"

He explained that you can play with as many people as you want and there is a version called speed solitaire that's for two people.

I continued with my thought line, "But solitaire means for one?" (me holding up one finger quizzically)

Then my sisters fiance explains to me that there is a chinese solitaire game that is for more than one player and it's really fun.

I persist with my thought line, "But solitaire is solitary. It HAS to be called something else if it's for two players!"

At this point as I am raising my voice and getting rather insistent they both give up on me and I walk away. I walk down the stairs shaking my head in wonderment at how they can not understand this basic concept and word meaning.

Once downstairs I am still perplexed and almost to the point where I am feeling the need to go back upstairs and argue my point when I have an AHA! moment :)

Oooooooohhh yeah....they are not trying to trick me or lie to me and it doesn't matter what a game is called.

(seriously took me like 5 minutes to realize this. I may be a little slow on the uptake folks.)

I didn't think I was someone who really got fixated on things like that (I have some family members that love to argue about things like this so I am VERY familiar with the sort of someone it takes). Whoa, what was I becoming! I shook my head at myself and resolved to chill out a little bit.

Then my sisters fiance comes out by where I am exercising and just shakes his head and laughs at me saying, " man, that solitaire thing..."and that makes it official, I am such a dork.

p.s. Was very tempted to put the definition of solitaire here to rub in the fact that I must be right. I resisted.

Are you pregnant?

I'm not.

Really.

I promise.

Stop asking.

:)

But I am overweight and I do work around elementary age children so I get asked a lot.

And I mean A LOT!!!!!

This sweet little 6 yr old girl that I adore was waiting in line with me for the bathroom this week. Right when it was my turn to go in she says, "Wait!" grabs my stomach and says with the sweetest smile and most excited voice, "Is there a baby in there?" A quickly smiled, said "No" and rushed in to the bathroom so I could miss the inevitable follow up question that 6 yr olds always have, "Then why is your tummy so big?"

It doesn't bother me......that much :( I am trying to look at it as motivation every time I don't want to work out or start craving bread. This morning I was biking with my dog and for some reason it just kept running through my head, the scores of children that have asked me if I was pregnant.

So today I am getting my vindication and asking everyone who reads this (that's right all 7 of you) Are you pregnant?

Don't worry I won't ask the followup question :)

Hope you all have a great non-pregnant day, I know I plan to.

Why? Because I am not pregnant.

It could be something else.

At least twice recently I have had friends on facebook rant about harmless things.One was about someone not returning a cart when the return was 20 ft away. The other was about a lady that was bothered when my friend was on the treadmill more than the allotted 30 minutes and the fact that when she did get on she only went 1.7mph.

This got me thinking about 2 things:

1. How social media takes away social boundaries
2. How people could really stand to give others some leeway.

Now, let's blog about it.

1. When we can tweet it or post it it's like someone turns our filters off. A CNN writer just wrote a story about how mean some people were when posting comments about his articles. They posted mean, personal, derogatory attacks to a person they had never met. In real life it turns out the ones he tracked down were decent people and very apologetic when reproached for their behavior, they noted that they were mad about something he had written and spewed that anger without thinking there was a real person behind the written words.

It constantly amazes me to read on facebook how people lose their filters. All of a sudden it's okay to say things that hurt others, that don't honor who you are as a person? I value those that I see as the same person online as they are in person. It makes me leerier (is this a word?) than ever about making an online friend. It's way to easy to misrepresent yourself purposely or accidentally. I'm still learning techno jargon and all the time I am discovering new meanings to things like capital letters, italics, extra exclamation points etc...I bet I have pissed off a lot of people (I hope it was mostly unintentional) by my ramblings, judgements or miss use of semi-colons.

2. Now on to spreading some grace around. On the one friends post I made a comment that I leave my cart if I feel it's unsafe to leave my children unattended in the car or if I am so preoccupied (usually by my children) that I don't notice that the cart return is right next to me. It's not always laziness as he assumed it to be, there are a whole host of reasons why people do what they do. As for me, I choose to think positively and hope they didn't mean to be stupid, mean, rude etc...

I didn't comment on the treadmill thing, I felt like I would be starting an argument rather than enlighten them if I did so (meaning: I was too chicken!). As I read the post, I thought of myself as that other woman. Maybe I hired a babysitter so I could actually get to the gym and then I waited to use that treadmill knowing I had precious little time. When I planned my exercise around getting on the treadmill and someone was using it past their allotted time, I might have given a frustrated look as well. But what really got me was the comment after that. My facebook friend noted that when the woman got on the treadmill she could see why she was in such a rush, because she needed to do a 1.7mph walk. Oh snap! Maybe 1.7 mph was all she could do. Maybe she just recovered from cancer and was building up her stamina. We don't know, who are we to judge? Or maybe she was just a snarky woman, they exist too.

I am going to end this post by telling you about a woman I know. She's the mom of a good friend of mine from high school. I constantly think of her when I get frustrated with people because she had the most unique take on it I had ever seen. A man was speeding and cut us off as we were turning a corner. It made her hit the brakes and was a little scary. Expecting her to yell or express frustration at the mans bad driving instead this is what I heard, "Lord bless that man wherever he is heading and please help him get there safely. I pray protection for him and anyone in his car." I was astounded! This event occurred when I was 16 and at 29 it is still burned into my brain. She chose to believe that the man who endangered her and her family with his driving did it with good cause and had a genuine need or concern. And above that she took an extra moment out of her day to bless that man rather than curse him. I encourage you to think of that the next time you're tempted to judge anothers actions, I know I always try to.

Remember what they teach our children, "If you don't have something nice to say..."

Sometimes the things I say aren't nice but I do try to use this rule, "If I can't say it to their face, I can't say it online."

Aaaaahhhh, the joys of the cyberworld we live in.

Holy Snowstorm Batman!

HOLY
I will only make it through the next few months by relying on God. This does not make me holy but the word does remind me that I don't have to shoulder all the worlds burdens alone, he is willing to help.

SNOWSTORM
You know how good things come in 3's? (I may have gotten this saying confused but... :P) Well concerning things come in the hundreds, it's like a snowstorm. One day you get some news and it stresses you a little, the next day there's more and things get worse, the next day five new problems arrive and all of a sudden your world is falling in. Also, it's easy to get lost in a snowstorm. That's where I am now. Not really stressed or concerned or overwhelmed or mad or anything I maybe should be. Just a little lost, it's like life turned into a blurry snowstorm.

BATMAN
My sons and one of my best friends favorite super hero. Also one of the only superheroes you could realistically hope to be since vats of radioactive waste or more sparse that one might have hoped. Thinking of Batman makes me think of my boys and it makes me smile. I imagine the many times they've dressed up as the caped avenger, played games and how whenever you can't understand my youngest it's usually because he is excitedly talking about Batman. Gotta keep the humor flowing peeps!

So, Holy Snowstorm, Batman!

You may hear me muttering this a lot in the days to come.

Don't worry, it's a good thing.

I'm THAT parent!

I've reached a profoundly horrifying, yet sort of amusingly awesome, moment in my life. I have become THAT parent. You know the one, or maybe you don't, don't worry I'll enlighten you.

I have become the parent that listens to their child's ideas intently and then snatches those sweet, innocent, cute, simple ideas and turns them in to my convulated, involved, exciting and totally not from a child ideas.

Yep, that's me.

Here's how I discovered this. Last weekend the twins spent the night at their grandparents and we kept the wee one with us. He was a little bummed to be missing out on the fun so we thought it was time we started the "date night" tradition with him, something we had been doing for awhile with the twins. He wanted ice cream and fun factory and to play at the mall. I turned that into, "Let's surprise him with a bunch of fun stuff other than his idea!" We still had fun but he did cry at the end because we hadn't done everything on his list. I shrugged it off as him being tired and me being awesome to think of so many fun things for him to do **patting myself on shoulder repeatedly**

Then came this weekend when the twins each had their"date night" The oldest didn't get to choose. We couldn't find a babysitter so he was instructed to go to daddy's work Christmas party (yes it was in January, whatever...) while mommy stayed home with the other two. He got to eat seafood (his favorite) and play a lot of games on daddys phone while the adults talked so he was pretty ok with it, it helped that he's 6 and we haven't fully explained the "date night" rules so he is unaware that we broke them by not letting him choose any part of it, at all.

Finally, it was time for my "aha!" moment. The younger twin asked to have his date night the next two nights, both times I forgot I was supposed to take him out and we had other family things planned. So we said how about a week night? He said ok and then his idea was to go to Lahaina for pizookies. I didn't want to drive to Lahaina on a weeknight so I began to guide his "date night" ideas.

I suggested we could make pizookies at home and daddy could keep brothers out of our way. He loves to bake and has this whole plan abotu opening a dessert bar restaurant when he grows up. So, needless to say, he was like, "Yeah, let's stay home and watch a movie and bake and brothers won't be allowed upstairs!"

Good plan right?

Except that I couldn't leave it at that. I had already guided his idea, he was overwhelmingly excited about getting in some dedicated baking time, but I had to suggest more. I then went on to plan that he do a trial run of his restaurant, invite over 20 of our closest friends (I may be exaggerating), have it on a weekend so he could stay up late, bake like 20 things (none of which come from his recipe book collection that he really wants to use), put them in sample sizes, make a sign and a menu and serve them to guests.

At this point it's going to take a week of planning and a lot of me pushing him to make it happen. But now it's been promised and he sort of thinks it's his plan and why did I go and turn this into a big thing and become that person who takes over that no one likes but everyone is scared to tell off?!?!

It's because I'm that parent. I know I should be proud of my children and their ideas and gently guide where needed but give them space to grow and learn on their own. But every once in awhile something comes over me and I become the one that will make all the plans and will make everything great and everyone happy and if I have to make them cry to get there.

I think I need to chill out.

Anyone want to come to the grand opening of Mallo Brothers Dessert bar?

:)