They're Coming

The in-laws are coming into town today!

Behind the Veil

So, one thing I'm kind of struggling with is whether to tell anyone in my real life that I have this blog they could read. Not that there's much content here yet, but maybe someday there will be. On the one hand, I could see where it would be nice to have people I know but don't always talk to in depth on a regular basis, read these posts and...I don't know, continue the conversation in some way. On the other hand, maybe it's better to just keep it for me, so that I can say whatever I want about them. That sounds bad - it's not that I'm dying to talk behind their back, but...there may be things I can say in a more free way if I knew that they WEREN'T going to be reading it. For example, I wouldn't tell Dave about how pissed off I was at what a crappy job he did cleaning the kitchen if we were just talking, and I have a post about it here.

Similarly, maybe I would be able to say things here about me that I wouldn't say if I knew the real life peeps were reading. (Wow - that sounds mysterious - doncha want to know the SECRETS I KEEP!!!).

I also think there are certain members of my family who would think it's weird to even have a blog, and others who might just think it's pretentious in some way.

I guess I'm inclined to keep it for me, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

TV

So let's talk TV. I love it. I watch, religiously, Lost, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Mad Men, and 30 Rock. When it was on I never missed Battlestar Galactica either, and still miss it. I sometimes watch The Biggest Loser, Survivor, and The Amazing Race, but I have to get hooked early into the season, and if it never clicks I bail. This year I'm watching Biggest Loser, but not Survivor or Amazing Race. I watched The Wire in a two month gulp on ITunes this summer and thought it was unbelieveably good.

I'm not at all this way about music - it's seriously embarrasing how little I know of music made after 1991 when I graduated from college. As for movies, while I'm aware of them when they come out, we rarely get to the theater, and unless George Clooney is the star I don't usually see them on video either. (But if George is in it I am so there).

I love to read too but that's a different post.

I Am The Enemy

Do you ever NOT do something you know you should do? And even think, several times, Gee, I really should do that thing I've been putting off doing. And then, just like you knew would happen, the consequences of choosing NOT to do the thing hits you. Or me, as the case may be.

I mentioned before that I manage litigation for my company. It's a particular kind of litigation 90% of the time, but every once in a while a different type of litigation comes in, that I'm not as comfortable with and don't enjoy as much, but because I'm the litigator, it comes to me.

This guy I've been working with has been out of the country for 10 days. Before he left, he sent me an e-mail outlining what he thought should be done on this particular situation, that likely will turn into a court case. It arrived on a Wednesday night I was out of town, and I didn't get back to the office until Friday, which was a half day 'cause that's how we roll on Fridays. I didn't worry about it too much because there was no immediate need to do anything, and the dude who sent it was out of the country, right?? Then Monday, I was in a meeting from 8:00-2:00, which made the rest of the day suck, because, duh, too much to do! From Tuesday to Thursday I thought, several times, I have to get on that project because dude's coming back Friday. Did I get on it? Nope. And Friday afternoon (late enough to ignore) I got an e-mail from him asking for a status update on what I had done since he sent the e-mail the previous Wednesday. The answer is, status remains the same as it ever was. That probably won't sound too good though, which is why I'm sitting here, at 9:00 pm on a Sunday night, trying to figure out what to say.

Now, to be fair to me, nothing NEEDED to be done on this situation. This is really just a management of people issue, since this guy WANTED shit to be done. But I KNEW that, and I still didn't get on it. I was really busy...but I also KNEW that I was going to get this very e-mail! Dammit. I hate being my own worst enemy.

And Hey! I have a Follower! Hi Follower!

Halloween Party

How do all you other bloggers figure out what to write about? When I read other people's blogs and they're just writing about their day to day lives it seems pretty easy, but easier said than done I guess.

Yesterday I volunteered to be a helper at Maddie's 3rd grade Halloween party. I only work 1/2 days on Fridays anyway (have I mentioned that I love my job??) so I just worked from home in the morning and then went to the school about noon. First, I helped the girls get into their Halloween costumes for the parade K-4 does. That was cute - one girl had a Spiderella costume with a great big stand up collar that WOULD NOT stand up. I managed to get it standing up with a couple of safety pins and I swear I thought she was going to hug me until she remembered that she was cool and I wasn't her mother. That was the high point, because from there it just went downhill.

The room mother put me in charge of the craft table, which I could have told her was a mistake because I am the least crafty person you will ever meet. No creative sense, less patience. Plus, we didn't have enough pencils and only 2 pairs of scissors for a table of 5 kids, and only 10 minutes to do the craft (foam bats) before the bell rang and they had to move to the musical chairs. It was an exercise in frustration for everyone involved. The glue sticks weren't strong enough to hold the pieces of their bat together, they argued with each other over who got to use the scissors, whined that they didn't know how to do it, etc. I was ready to quit by the second group. Next time I volunteer it will be for something cool and outside, like the after school picnic on the last day. Then if anyone gets bored they can go play on the jungle gym.

Pet Peeve, Husband Style

Here is something that annoys the shit out of me. I travel for work with some frequency. One 3 day, 2 night trip a month, and then occasionally (about every 6-8 weeks) an overnight trip. As I said before, Dave is a wonderful guy and I love him. With that as a backdrop, I am comfortable saying that when I got home the other night I could have cheerfully killed him.

Let me set the stage: I arrive at 7:30 pm from the airport. Bedtime for Elizabeth is 7:30, bedtime for Maddie is 8:15. They have had breakfast for dinner (bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs). Fine so far - we do that once a week. I walk in the door, kids yelling, dog barking, suitcase banging into my thigh - all good. After I spend some time with the girls and put them to bed I go downstairs to the kitchen. Here's what I find:

Kitchen table, plates, silver and glassware cleared...to the counter. Table not wiped, still with syrup drips congealed on the surface. But hey - he "cleared the table," right? It gets better. Pancake skillet still on the stove. Dishwasher running. BUT! The sink is still full of dishes. WTF? A little investigation shows that he took out about 1/2 of the clean dishes from the dishwasher and put them away. Then, he haphazardly put another few from dinner into the dishwasher, right next to the CLEAN ones he was too "busy" to put away. So, in his mind, he gets credit for "cleaning up," but I've got just about as much to do in the kitchen as if he'd never touched a thing. Talk about getting your ticket punched. I DO love him...but he didn't get any that night, that's for damn sure.

Anxious

Maddie is a very anxious child. She's a perfectionist, which is often a source of great angst. She started third grade this year, and heard a lot from various grown ups in her life (including me and Dave) that third grade was the big leagues. TOTAL FAIL. Seriously, I don't know what we were thinking, 'cause guess what? 2 weeks into third grade she was crying about how much harder it is than second grade.

It really isn't though - she just psychs herself out. Mostly she likes it fine and does just fine.

You know what she's worried about this week? Passing the 1 mile run part of the President's physical fitness test. That's right, my child is afraid of gym class. She has managed to convince herself that running the mile means running, full tilt, as fast as she can, for the entire mile, and that if she does that she'll get a stitch in her side, her throat will hurt, and she'll throw up, which will be beyond embarrassing. No matter how much I tried to convince her last night that the person who finishes first and the person who finishes last get the same grade, and that running the mile just means jogging the mile, she just couldn't think rationally about it. Since the one mile run wasn't even scheduled to occur until Friday (tomorrow), I just cut off all discussion after a certain period of time, since it was obvious that she was just getting more upset.

So tonight, she brings it up again, and Dave says:

"Look - this is ridiculous. Did anyone die doing it Tuesday? (boys did it Tuesday).

"No."

"Did anyone burst into flames?"

"No," this time with a smile.

"Did anyone's head explode like a watermelon?"

"No," this time with a big grin.

"Then, on Friday, when you're doing it, if anyone dies, bursts into flames, or gets hit by an exploding head, you can start walking instead of running."

She laughed and hasn't mentioned it again. This, after I spent a half hour yesterday trying to coax her out of hysterics. I'm going to choose to think I laid the groundwork for this result.

Job Stuff

Okay! This post only took me 2.5 months to get to! Actually I debated whether I wanted to continue this, which is what took the time. That last post left me feeling...exposed. I suppose that's pretty typical, right fellow bloggers?? I just needed to commit dammit.

Anyway. My job. So, I mentioned I'm a lawyer, the type that could theoretically try a case in front of a jury. The truth is though, that the vast majority of cases never get tried. The lawyers work them up, by exchanging documents, taking depositions, filing various motions, etc., but either somewhere in the middle there or towards the end, people start thinking, hey, this is costing me a truckload of money and what the hell do I have to show for it, or, hey, do I really want 12 fellow citizens who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty deciding my life? Then they start thinking about how much they could pay/get to just be done already.

For a LONG time - like, 10 years, this was pretty okay with me. I was still learning how to take a deposition, write a really good motion, etc., and was pretty terrified of being in front of a jury anyway. Judges were no problem, I did that several days a week on status calls and motions, but juries are scary. The few times in this 10 year period that I was in front of a jury did nothing to allay my fears.

Plus, doing all that other shit to get ready for a trial that almost certainly wasn't going to happen started seeming repetitive and yet overwhelming, because there was so MUCH of it.

So, in 2006 I got out, and went to work for a company, managing their litigation. THIS WAS BLISS, even though I took a 25% pay cut. Now I got to be the client telling my outside counsel what to do, and still left work at 5:00 pm. That job, however, was for a company that was losing market share like it was a competition to get to zero. As blissful as I was, I knew it couldn't last. My number one fear was losing my job and not having an income (see last post on NO MONEY), so I decided I had to get out on my own terms before the company failed.

In early 2008 I started at my current company, also managing litigation. Much smaller company, but much more responsibility, in a field that never bores me. Obv can't say much about it in order to avoid Dooce problems, but it's good.

The cat just horked up a hairball - gotta go!

The Good and the Bad

I was going to just write about the good today and the bad tomorrow, but that plan made this post sound too Pollyannaish so I'm doing it all in one.

The good is that I have a wonderful husband I still love after 10 years of marriage, two healthy children, and a job I enjoy almost every day. That is a lot and I know it. I do think I generally have the ability to see the positives in life, despite a grass is greener tendency that has gotten me in trouble more than once.

My girls are quite simply wonderful. I look at them and I see incredible love, intelligence, and beauty. The quality in Maddie that I value the most and try my best to encourage is her kindness and empathy for others. Even when she was 4 years old she was able to recognize when a girl in her class was being bullied by another, and brave enough to tell the bully that she wasn't acting very nice. True story - heard it straight from the teacher. Elizabeth is such a love bug - she tells me every day, sometimes several times a day, how much she loves me, how when she was an angel in heaven she asked God to give her to us, etc. I am blessed to be their mother.

My husband is a funny, hugely smart guy, and we're well matched personality wise. He has had a lot of depression and anxiety issues for as long as I've known him, and is not working now. He is a stay at home dad to our two daughters and is starting a graduate program in Chemistry in the fall. That program should yield him a Masters degree within a year and a half or so, and I am hoping so hard that he can find a good job that he enjoys when he's done.

That brings me to the bad: money. We never have enough. As I said, I have a good job I love, but Dave hasn't worked in a very long time, and between the two of us we have more student loans than most people have in a mortgage (and we've got one of those too). The day to day is usually okay, but we don't have nearly enough saved for retirement, college for the kids, or emergency savings. Suze Orman would tar and feather us! It's very depressing, so I'm going to stop talking about it now.

Next time I'll write about my job and why I like it.

Testing, testing. Feeling a little dumb doing this, but I figured I read enough blogs, why not try my hand at writing one? Yeah, me and 8 million others - I'm really original. BUT! I can spell and I do have decent grammar, so I've got that going for me (and you, incidentally).

So, the first post. Thinking, thinking...oh, here's one: my kids' school pisses me off. They don't tell anybody when Meet the Teacher Day (or, as we call it around these parts, Book Day) is until a week or two before it occurs. Because, of course, we're all just sitting around with nothing to do and no plans to make until the school tells us when we need to be there. I, for one, work full time and travel fairly frequently, so unless I know for sure when it is, there's a decent chance I won't be there. And that would suck, because I love that day! I have since I was a little girl. There's nothing like the feeling of newness and possibility that comes with starting a new school year, and I get excited for my daughters every time it comes around for them.

Okay, that's all I've got for the first one. We'll see if this lasts.