Gaaaaa!!!!!! September 7, 2009

I do not understand why, or indeed how, people persist in having bunches of children.  It seems to me that at some point you reach a kind of critical mass.  And after that point it is impossible to even entertain the idea of having any more not to mention the fact that there are too many children around, and at all hours, for a couple to even be able to do what would be necessary to do in order to have some more.  (I may be sharing a little too much here.)  And for us that point seems to be four.

Game over.

PS.  I do not want to hear about how your critical mass is different than my critical mass or about how you never had a kid make a lake out of your kitchen twice in one day or about how toddlers are so cute or about any of that crap.  Just keep it to yourself ok?  In fact, there, I turned off the comments.  Just go about your business, this misery doesn’t want company, I just want to sit in my corner and howl at the moon.  Now go away.  And take my kids with you.

The Verdict August 21, 2009

The committee meeting to decide about our appeal of Sean’s lack of pay while recovering from surgery was Wednesday.  As far as I can tell it went a lot like this:

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Of course in this case it’s the employee not the customer but well, the sentiment still applies.

PS. I just love DespairInc.  Don’t you?

This Is Not a Public Service Announcement July 28, 2009

See, I just entered and give-away.  I don’t usually bother but they’re giving away some cool stuff and I figured why not?  Right?  And I get another entry  if I blog about it and post a link.  So I’m doing it.  But really I’d prefer it if you didn’t follow the link and if you didn’t enter and if you stayed far far away.  Because, let’s face it, the more people who enter the less chance I have of winning.  So I’m not going to act all nice and sharing and all that crap and tell you that you all ought to head over so that you can have a chance to win.  Seriously, stay away.

There’s more that I should blog about, I have several posts rattling around in my head but I’m grumpy and I don’t feel like it so I’m going to post this video instead for any of you who live under a rock and haven’t seen it yet. And while I’m at it can I just say that I’m pretty new to the whole Buffy phenomenon (well, that’s not technically true I’ve been a fan of the movie for years but I’ve just started on the show) so I didn’t really know her story (particularly in regards to Angel) but can someone please explain HOW SOMEONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT BUFFY COULD THINK THAT TWILIGHT WAS AT ALL NEW or even particularly interesting?  There’s even an episode where Buffy can read everyone’s thoughts except for Angel’s!  Talk about taking a story that was interesting, switching a few parts around and calling it new.  (In her defense, it’s my understanding that Stephanie Meyer never watched Buffy.  I’m not saying that she stole the idea or plagiarized or anything nefarious, I just don’t understand the phenomena.  (And I should be so lucky as to have an old idea hit like hers did.))  I guess it’ just goes to show that there really is “nothing new under the sun,” see kids, the bible’s right after all.

Oh and head on over to Mormon Mommy Blogs and enter the give away, there’s lots of good stuff going.

I’m Just … GRUMPY February 18, 2009

I don’t feel like blogging.

I’ve still been posting about as often as I usually do.  And if you have a blog, I’ve still been reading, I just can’t bring myself to comment.  Because I don’t feel like it.  I don’t feel like talking and I don’t feel like making small talk and, sadly, I don’t feel like telling you that you’re funny (although you are) or that you’re smart (you’re that too) or that you’re so right (but I mean, obviously) I’m just too grumpy to do it.

Does that make me a bad person?

And then there’s the fact that my computer,Rufus, is freaking out and randomly clicking for me so if I leave the mouse somewhere other than at the end of the line I end up with sentences that look like this: not that th o read, see?  ere’s anything wrong with that but it does make them kind of hard t (of course when I let it go to write that sentence stupid Rufus behaved so it almost didn’t jump at all (actually it did randomly erase the whole paragraph but I couldn’t just leave it like that because it doesn’t make a lot of sense without the beginning of the paragraph) but then it did. Phew!)

And tonight I was going to put together the final kitchen post but my stupid camera is going through batteries like John Mayer goes through starlets so when I pulled it out it just turned itself off.  So I couldn’t take the necessary pictures so now you don’t get that post.  Yet.

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”

Maybe it’s the stupid cold, I’m tired of the cold.  Or maybe it’s the fact that the kids are off track, stupid year round school.  Or maybe it’s the never ending list of crap that needs to be done around the house (Kitchen’s done, yeah yeah yeah, but I still have to replace the window and build the desk and then there’s the living room…) Or maybe it’s just that I’m not that nice of a person after all.

Who knows?

I had a dream about an old boyfriend the other night.  It was super vivid and it really made me want to talk to him.  But he isn’t returning my emails so I guess that won’t happen.  Stupid ex-boyfriend.

I did the taxes a couple weeks ago.  When you have four kids and you make fifty cents an hour, doing the taxes is like winning the lottery (a small lottery but still).   That should make me happy.  Meh.

Don’t mind me, I’m fine, talk amongst yourselves.  I’ll be back with a more cheerful post or a meme or a report on the kitchen tomorrow.

It’s That Day Again December 18, 2008

Also known as that day, and that day, oh and that day.

How sad is it when I’m depressed about the fact that I’m depressed about  the same things at the same time every month?

In case you missed it, and you’re too lazy to follow the links, here’s a (by no means exhaustive) list of thiings that I’m depressed about today:

• The squalid state of my house.
• The laziness and disobedience of my children.
• The cold that prevented my breathing for the better portion of the night.
• The lack of sleep resultant from the lack of my sleeping for the better portion of the night.
• It’s COLD.
• The fact that I can’t let my children suffer the natural consequences of wasting time and not getting lunches made this morning.  (See here and here for details.)
• I took this week off from work and the week’s almost over.
• A complete lack of Christmas cheer.
• There’s still tile on my kitchen floor.
• I took this week off from work and blogged LESS than I usually do.
• That this is in fact my life and I’m missing it.

But hey, my kitchen walls should be ready to pain in a week or so.

Alison Wonderland and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day(s) November 22, 2008

Alternate title:  Best Week Ever!

I went to work as usual Tuesday night.  It was an average night, not too busy, not too slow and fairly early on when I had a minute I checked my work email.  And that’s when the crap started.

I had a message in there form my boss about a case that I helped out with (that I didn’t tell you about because I would never tell you about cases that I helped out with because that would be a HIPPA violation and I want to keep my job).  The email wasn’t actually about the case itself but about some staffing and other issues that we had during and just after.  Explaining would take a lot longer than either you or I am interested in spending here and it’s not very interesting but long story short, I felt like I was being called lazy and incompetent. (Again, these were not issues relating to patient care, I just want to make that clear.  Neither I nor anyone I work with messes around with anything that could potentially harm or even inconvenience a patient.)  Some of the things I was accused of I had in fact done but for reasons that I still find … reasonable and some of the things I was accused of were patently untrue.

Now I don’t get mad often.  Not really mad.  I get annoyed, I may even rant and rave a bit but it takes quite a bit to really make me mad.  Before I was even done reading the email, I was mad.  Really mad.  And it got worse the more I read.

It took me a good two hours to calm down enough to even write a response.  I did and sent it off.  It was probably a really good thing that we didn’t really have any cases that night and by morning I was too tired to care anymore. (Partially just because I was tired but also because in addition to not getting mad often, I get over it pretty quickly.)  So I went home and went to bed.

I got up at four that afternoon and after a quick shower I headed back to work because not only did I have to work that night I had to be there at 5:30 rather than 7:00 for some corporate training. (I sat there for an hour and a half and I got “say hello to your patients when they come in the room” out of it.  It was awesome!) Then I worked my normal twelve hour shift (not the worst shift ever, by a long shot, but I’ve had better).  And then rather than clocking out and going home and going to bed, I got to go teach CPR for another three hours.  So at 10:30 am I finally headed out to my car in the parking garage only to find a parking ticket on it.  Rock On!

I went home and slept form elevenish until about three when I forced myself to get up for reasons that I’ll explain in a minute, after I tell you that at about 4:00 we got a call form the mother of the Pea’s BFF where he was playing that afternoon, that the Pea had hit his head and cut his eye open and it was gaping quite a bit and would probably need stitches and would we like her to bring him home?  Yes, yes we would.  So she did and she was exactly right, it was gaping and it was going to need stitches.

So I went back to my hospital.  Because I just can’t get enough of that place.

At this point I caught some luck because while we were up in the OR (we went there first to try to ease the Pea, who has a tendency towards nervousness, into the idea of being at the hospital) a doctor friend of mine happened by and I got him to sew the Pea up without a three hour wait in the ER.  Ahhh the perks.

Because on the way to the hospital, in an effort to distract the Pea, I had offered him a treat when we were done, we went to the cafeteria where I got a freshly fried corndog (mmmmm, corndog) and we hung out there and ate and then we went home because I had to go to bed because after spending the previous two days and night turning nights into day I now needed to turn nights back into nights because I had to be back to work at 7:00 the next morning.  Luckily sleep deprivation and sleeping pills are now my good friends.

But after working a pretty horrific shift Friday, including some things that are really pretty interesting but I can’t tell you about because even after the week that I had I still want to keep my job I got off half an hour early and despite really horrific traffic I made it to Sampan in reasonable time and I got to meet a lot of fun, interesting women who blog.  So I guess it ended up ok afterall.

It’s Not That There’s No Love At Home, Honest November 13, 2008

I tend to not be a very serious person.  I joke, I kid, I make snide and sarcastic remarks, it’s who I am.  I’m not the life of the party, I’m the girl in the corner making rude comments about the life of the party.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that I’d rather be thought funny than pretty.  (Although both works even better for me.)

And if you’ve spent any time at all here in the Wonderland you know that it’s all about the rodents and the two-year-old felons and not a whole lot about the intangible real things that life is really all about.  (Yesterday’s post excepted, although it even started out tongue in cheek.  Sorta.)  Despite the fact that according to Mormon Mommy Blogs I’m a thinker of big thoughts, I am in fact a thinker of a lot of small insignificant and mostly irrelevant thoughts.

I spent a little while reading C Jane last night.  Do you read her?  Her writing is beautiful.  I hate her.

I secretly aspire to one day write beautifully.  I want to paint the proverbial pictures with my words.  I want to write about important life, and more importantly, heart altering things.  I want to write in a way that does something to your soul.

I’m not sure if I can.  And I’m afraid to try.

I read a lot of blogs but I don’t read many blogs like hers or Brooke’s at This is the Life and I don’t even consider going to Segullah.  All of these women give me a massive inferiority complex.

And I can’t help but wonder, do they really see that much beauty everywhere?  How?  And how do they bake with their children (or nieces) and focus on baking with their children (or nieces) rather than on the mess that is being made that they’re going to have to clean up or the fact that if they could just do it on their own it would be done so much faster?  Are their living rooms really as clean as they look in the backgrounds of the pictures of their adorable children?

I feel infinitely out-classed, out-homemade (homemaked?), out-momed.  And then to add insult to injury, they out-write me.

I could rail on about the unfairness of it all (because having to work full time rather than getting to be a stay at home mom and drink in all the beauty or, er- snot, is so much more unfair than say, having your sister nearly die in a plane crash and end up hospitalized for months and spending the time that you should be enjoying being the mom to one little baby caring for said sister’s kids) but the fact is that some of it is how I am and a lot of it is the life that I chose.

So I’m trying to see the beauty.  I’m working to see the beauty in a case that I did a few nights ago that will allow two people who I’ll never even see live for years more than they would have, and to spend those years off dialysis.  It’s a beautiful thing but that end of those cases can be very hard.)  I’m trying to see the beauty of the case I mentioned last night that I won’t go into (because I can’t) but you can read about it (in a round about way) here.   And I’m trying to see beauty in my six year old son who is so willing to help and unconcerned while saving his mother from one of her biggest fears.  And an almost one year old son who’s content to just lie next to me and sort of smile up at me when I’m done nursing him, if only for a few moments.

And once I see the beauty around me, maybe I can write about it.

Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness October 25, 2008

Melanie J over at Write Stuff posted the other day about how she can decide on her mood.  She can chose to be in a good mood even when she’d not naturally in one.  I can do that too.  (In fact I believe that most of us can most of the time.*)  And yet today I didn’t.

Today I was melancholy personified.  And when I wasn’t brooding on the inadequacies and unfairness of my life I was short and snippy and occasionally downright rude to my children.

Why would I do that?  I don’t think I’m particularly sadistic or masochistic.  I don’t get anything out of the pain and discomfort of others I don’t like practical jokes for just this reason.  And yet I chose discomfort not only for me but, let’s face it, for my whole family today.

My kids are cute and funny and often they’re sweet and if I had focused on that my mood would certainly have improved.  In fact, I even thought about that a few times.  But I didn’t focus on it.  My house is now cleaner than it has been in months.  Focusing on that would probably help.  I don’t wanna.  I feel like I’ve seen more of Sean, and I know we’ve spent more “quality time” together in the last few days than we have in a long while but I wouldn’t want to let a little thing like that cheer me up now would I?

Nope.

Why?

Because I would really have preferred to be hanging sheetrock than mopping my kitchen floor despite the fact that the floor desperately needed to be done and sheetrock is really a two man job (some sort of lame joke about how a two man job is the same as a one woman job is floating through my head but, I’m not in that kind of mood).  Because Sean and I haven’t spent a night without children since we started having children.  Because I’m tired of not having the money to do the things I want to do and of living in this hole of a house and of being cold (and it’s only October).   Because I haven’t written a good blog post in weeks.

I’m not writing this for your sympathy, nor am I fishing for compliments, really, I don’t want them.  I’m writing this because I can’t figure out why I made the choice I did and I’m wondering if I’m the only one who does this?

I’m writing this because I can’t understand why anyone would chose to be miserable.  And yet, that’s exactly what I did.

*Yes, I know that there are people out there who can not make the choice.  Please spare me your comment about how you deal with depression and it’s hard and I’m an insensitive jerk because I take my relative mental health (if you can call it that) for granted.  I already know that.