Nightly writings

So a friend of mine at work and I have been talking about "writing" pretty much for the last 6 years.  We talk about the novels we have in our heads, the short stories we really need to put on paper, the show ideas we'd love to pitch if we could only get the pitch written. I even flubbed an entry to the "Dark Crystal Prequel" contest with all my grand ideas and actual lack of putting the pen to paper. In yet another attempt to get that "writing" thing going my co-worker suggested just doing one paragraph a day.  I am a night person and so my paragraph has become the "last thing I do before I'm allowed to go to sleep" ritual.  I think of one idea that fits into my days' musings and write something vague-ish around it.  Here's what I've done so far:

Anger

To love someone so dearly and still get so aggravated with them that you just want to smack them in the head with a beer bottle.  It seemed something so terrible to me when I was young and only responsible for my own actions.  Having the charge of teaching another human how to BE a good human seems to be able to bring out the worst in my humanity.  I stare into my child's eyes, knowing I would jump in front of a bullet for her and at the same time wanting to smack the sassy grin from her face.  I get it. No parent is perfect.  No person is infallible. If I didn't have these flashes of thought I would probably be no better than a robot dispensing food and clean laundry.  But do you ever wonder why those thoughts come on SO strong, and SO evil?  Driving down the freeway, listening to the screaming of two children hurling their worst insults at each other. Part of me wants to laugh at how silly they sound with their seriousness at "poopoo head" and "stupid face", and a quieter, evil part of me just wants to drive off the side of the road into the empty reservoir below.  The thought that runs through my head is "at least we will all die together".  Seriously? WTH???

PMS

People love to harass others by accusing them from suffering from PMS whenever the mood turns sour.  I always thought of it as the crampy and therefore crabby time of the month when "Aunt Flow" comes to call.  But this weekend I really thought about the P.  It's not during MS it's Pre, as in right between cycles.  Funny I hadn't though of it before, having had the joys of being super in tune with my reproductive cycle while trying to conceive my children, but about 2 weeks after that dreaded, annoying Aunt comes to visit is when I seem to lose all sense of patience with my children.  I get emotional, go from wanting to take them to disneyland to wanting to lock them in their dirty room until either it's clean or they starve to death.  And then the guilt, the sadness over pretty much nothing.  My brain screaming at me that I'm being a prat, while my mouth screams at my children that they aren't being good listeners and need to do what I say even if I haven't said anything.  Yah, I'm thinking that maybe I should try some Midol..... but for now all I have is beer and cookies.

Time

I'm really good at writing down plans. I can fit about 80 things into a 24 period without overlapping them. Somehow that seems to be where my talent with time ends.  The list seems so easy to do when I'm thinking it out but when I actually begin to put the plan into action it's all of a sudden overwhelming and impossible.  Washing the laundry, check, super easy. Folding the laundry?  Ugh! I just need to relax for a few minutes first, which then turns into an hour, pushing the next task out of it's time frame and stressing me out further, which then requires more "relaxing" (relazing would be a better word for it).  Add a serious time deadline though and I can magically get it all done at triple speed.  If guests are coming over suddenly I can thoroughly clean the house, get the kids bathed and dressed, put on make-up and be all smiles in a matter of hours.  No guests... well, I can always clean the house tomorrow right?  And the kids are going to go swimming anyway so why bother taking a bath tonight. Ugh!

Puppy Pee and Responsibility

So we got a new puppy last night.  Rescued it as a woman was dumping it off at the animal shelter.  The plan was to just "look" and not bring one home until maybe tomorrow.. you know... after I had a chance to buy pee pee pads, food, water bowl, etc... but life never seems to go exactly as planned whether that's good or bad.  We stopped at the local huge pet supply house and got all the necessities, no worries there, but today has been a fail when it comes to potty training the cute fluff ball.  Hyper active children, weak bladdered animals and carpet just don't seem to go well together. And thus the delimna in my head.  Do most people go to the efforts I do to get that pee out of the carpet immediately? Or do most people just say "Whatever, it's a rental, I'll clean the carpets after the dog is trained."?  It would lower my stress level SIGNIFICANTLY if I could do the latter, not to mention save me money on paper towels.

Relationships

Two friends of mine just announced their engagement today and though I am super happy for them both, my thoughts have turned selfish and painful.  What is so wrong with me that I am left unloved?  I already know the answer but it's more fun to wallow in self misery than be pragmatic about the direction of ones' life.  The reason I am single is because I consider myself undateable.  I hate my own skin. I feel superior and yet inferior to every single man I meet.  I hide behind my fat and sarcasm, daring anyone to break through the crusty wall I've built to protect myself from rejection and isolate myself from acceptance. It's so easy to blame it all on my desire to protect my kids, but really I've always been this way and the kids are a relatively new addition.  Maybe someday I'll get over myself and date again.  I hope so at least.

Restraint

Restraint with words seems to be lacking in the cyber world.  I fall victim to my own clever, snarky comments and type them mercilessly at whomever is unlucky enough to inspire my ire.  About half the time though, I erase them and don't hit that "post" button.  I know that my sarcasm isn't really going to "help" anyone and those words could only come back to hurt me whether it be with Karma or a potential job recruiter seeing me as too volatile for employment.  It could be just a tad bit of paranoia on the latter comment, but better to be safe than sorry, right?

Focus

So we went to the pound last week and rescued a puppy.  I, being the parental unit, have the joy of taking her outside 3 times a day (at least) to go potty (hopefully).  The poor thing is doing well considering it's been less than a week, but I notice that she is quite easily distracted from the task at hand.  Sometimes she even starts looking around hoping to find a distraction and I can relate to that.  Focus isn't something I am good at maintaining anymore.  Well, if I ever was good at it. I can jam through my work or clean the entire apartment in a pinch when I'm "in the zone", but most days I'm surfing back and forth between a search engine and social media site just hoping that someone, somewhere has posted something new to entertain me with.  If I could just "focus" on what needs to get done I'd be so much better off.  Lower stress, more time for the fun projects, more time to goof off with the kids.  Maybe the puppy and I can learn this together.

Ugh, ugh, and more UGH!

People suck, in general.  There are, of course, exceptions to this statement.  I mean, I personally don't suck.  I'm actually pretty cool.  But it seems to me that more and more people have absolutely no manners and live in their own ego-centric worlds specifically to make mine miserable.  Work.  Yes, my attitude change has helped, but now I'm getting serious ego-grief from people who had previously been deemed "decent" if not "slightly cool" in my mind.  Pfft.
Work is not my life, work is not my life, work is not my life.  I have to remember this and focus on the awesomeness that IS my life.  My fantastic kid lets, my little house that is my sanctuary from the outside world, the adorable dogs that come through my house on this revolving door foster program.
We had a foster nightmare over the weekend with a little dog who decided that Evelyn was the enemy and attacked her three times.  Luckily he was a lot smaller than her, but it was still frightening and he has been transported, by me, to another foster home with no kids.
We got a new dog today who I wouldn't mind keeping sofar. He's the same size as gonzo, a white terrier and 8 months old.  As I write this Gonzo is peeing on my clothes to mark my room as his... sheesh!  I could definitely live without the smell of dog pee for the rest of my life.
There are 5 super cute chihuahua puppies living in my office who are pee and poop machines.  Big hopes they'll all get adopted sooner rather than later.  I'll take the opportunity when they are gone to put a few more coats of polyurethane down on the floor in there for the next litter we end up with.
Rowan helped me cut up vegetables to make Ratatouille tonight and it smells delicious.  Fingers crossed that the kids will eat it.  Otherwise it will me mommies lunch/dinner for the next week.
Oh and I started weight watchers yesterday and have started swimming with the kids after work every day.  Determined to not be the whale I see in photos friends have taken of me and my kid lets.  That and I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up diabetic soon if I don't watch out.  I've been seeing the signs my dad had before he was diagnosed and I don't want to have to start the whole daily insulin shot routine, ewww.
Nite all, this mommy is tired and needs to get some sleep!

Attitude Change Success!

Okay, so my goal at work this season has been, to pretty much just not care.  Yup, not care.  Not care about the fact that other people are nuts. Not care that their schedule is behind.  Not care that someone might have to wait 5 minutes so I can go to the gym in the morning. Not care that everyone around me is hating someone else around me.  And I deem my goal successful!
It's an absolutely wonderful feeling to NOT CARE :)
I go to work, (have just started hitting the work gym before going to my desk) do as much as I reasonably can of whatever is on my desk, then go home.  I don't look for the work I'm missing, I just send out emails detailing what I have and don't have and let the people, whose job it really is, find the work and bring it to me.  I don't take it home after work to hit any of the insane deadlines some suit who doesn't even know what everyone's job are created AND I take a lunch break each and every single day!!!!
It's amazing the difference in my mental and physical health it's made.  I haven't had any meltdowns, I'm trying really hard not to laugh most of the time when I have to yell at my kids (serious voice isn't always easy), and I'm finally getting some of the projects I've wanted to do started (if not finished).  I'm on page 15 of my book and will hopefully be reaching my goal of 30 pages by the end of the weekend.  My goal on the book is a complete first draft by the end of June.  It's gonna be hard, but I can do it.  I'm estimating 300 pages is a good length, so we'll see how much of the total story actually gets into the first book.
So, people everywhere, stop living to make other people happy.  Bosses, friends, family, pfft.. screw em. Stop caring and you'll be amazed that everything works out better :)

Foster Failure

I'm sort of depressed at the moment, just a little.  In true me fashion I went overboard with the dog fostering.  I picked up a chihuahua from the pound who had just suffered a stillborn birth and been spayed. I had to wait 2 hours at the pound for her due to the rescue folk not letting me know that she couldn't be picked up until 4pm.  While I was there I met a woman who had picked up a stray little bichon frise (cute little white fluffy dog with poodle-ish curly hair) who had turned out to be pregnant.  I thought it would be a great experience to have puppies in the house for a little while.  The chi was only here for 3 days and then I drove her to West Hollywood to be fostered by someone else.  She actually got adopted that night, so yay.  I took the Bichon to the vet because she had a really red paw.  Turns out there was a little stone wedged in that I hadn't found the night before so they got it out, gave her antibiotics and asked if I wanted x-rays to know how many puppies and a progesterone test to know an approximate delivery date (so that I'd know when it was late and to bring her in).  She had 2, rather large, puppies in there and naturally the vet recommended a c-section.  I was thinking enough to at least ask what the estimated price on that is and it runs between $1000-1200.-  Yah, I'm already going into debt on a monthly basis.  I write the rescue I'm working with and let them know, but got no encouragement  to go ahead with the c-section or to not.  She went into labor Monday night at 9pm.  I had spent the weekend reading everything I possibly could on "whelping" and the bichon frise breed.  I stayed up all night with her, took the girls to school Tuesday morning, came back and napped on the office floor.  When I woke up an hour later she had half a puppy sticking out feet first.  Totally normal having the feet first, but she was definitely distressed and it wasn't progressing.  It took me another hour of encouraging her and even pulling on the pup for it to come out, but it was dead.  I felt terrible, but hopeful for the second one to deliver easier.  It was her first litter, of course delivery was going to suck.  I took the pup away but then read to let her have it til she realized it was dead so I gave it back and as I'm reading again on anything I can find to help with delivery, she started to eat it.  Literally skinned it.  It was disgusting, smelly, and I got up to take it away from her but she growled something fierce so I backed off.  I couldn't get it away from her until she went into labor with the second one a few hours later.  Timing sucked on that because I had to take my other foster dog to the vet to get a health certificate so that he could fly to his new home in canada the next day. When I got back with him she had another puppy half way out and this time I was more aggressive in "helping" her get it out.  She was so tired by then that she couldn't even keep her eyes open.  He came out a little faster, but again, dead. I put him in a towel and tried to rub life into him for 20 minutes, watching the clock the whole time because I was already late in leaving to pick up my kids from daycare.  The dog had no interest in him so I figured my trying couldn't hurt anything.  No luck, and I still feel as if I had just spent 2 more minutes he would have started moving.  I can't stand that feeling!  I was 5 minutes late to pick up Rowan and have no idea what that is going to financially cost me, but emotionally it was too much.  Thankfully the Bichon is doing good and healing up quick, though she's engorged with milk and now I'm worried she'll get a fever from it, UGH!
 So, I feel like I failed on my first pregnant dog foster.

School Lunch Duty

I volunteered to help out at Rowan's school on Mondays' this month.  Today was my first day on the job there and it wasn't so bad.  The kids were great, the lunch looked more decent than the other ones I've seen (today was grilled cheese sandwich day) and the weather was hot.  I was disappointed, however, in the school administration yet again.  The principal "thanked" me for coming to help without even the hint of a smile and the "on staff" lunch helper (in hind sight) bullied me in to saying I would help the other classroom kids instead of my own.  I told Rowan I had to go with the other classes and that bummed her out so much that the staff lunch helper from our class sent someone back to get me and told the other "helper" that I was here to help my kid's class and not to ask me to do anything else.  Wow, I totally let myself get bullied by an adult I was already predisposed to not like.  Damn I'm weak sometimes.  Seriously! Why the hell do I try to "help out" for people who are just plain nasty to me?  Freaky!
So next Monday I have no intention of even speaking to the unpleasant staff helper (who, by the way, spent the entire lunch gossiping with the principal in the corner and neither helped out with the children at all, though that is exactly what they are being paid to do - sheesh!)
On a more positive note... though you may think I'm even more crazy.....
Another Facebook plea from a friend about a preggo chihuahua at the pound needing a foster/rescue.  I've ignored a few of those, knowing that I just couldn't handle more, but I'm feeling pretty good now so I answered this one.  I'll be "pulling" the preggo pup from the pound tomorrow and bringing her home for a month (yes, I told them I could only watch them for a month, I'm learning).  As I answered that I could help, the woman who runs the rescue typed in that she may have found a home for little Nube (our current foster dog), which is pretty awesome.  I hope it happens.  I worry about the little guy getting too attached here and suffering more in the long run.
Ugh, which reminds me.... Evelyn let Nube out of the house after it got dark tonight and didn't say anything until he'd been out for at least 5 minutes.  I thought, "Great, just when he finds a home he's  gonna get killed by a car."  Nope, I caught the little guy... and then I see a car slow down on the road as I'm waiting for it to go by so I can carry him home.  .... and then I see Evelyn running into the street!  Damnit that kid is going to give me a heart attack!  I grabbed her and pulled her to the sidewalk and the couple in the car stopped and said, "We saw her and thought, was that a baby? No, couldn't be."  Wow! I thanked them and explained what happens which made them laugh and the drove off.  Thank goodness they were paying attention or she would have been splat and I would probably be dead from a heart attack right now. Try explaining to a willful 2 year old that they have to listen to mommy and are NOT allowed in the front yard.  I gave it my best shot.  If I catch her trying to get out again I'm going to either install an electric fence or some sort of baby lojack that hobbles her if she tries to escape.  "Action baby", it isn't just a cute name for her, it's true!

Foster Dog Nube

So 3 weeks or so ago I took on a foster dog.  This means, a dog that would otherwise have died at the pound or been put back into a pound or whatever, that I have taken home so that a dog rescue group can find it a new home.  Ours is Nube, which is totally appropriate since I'm a Newbie with this whole foster thing.  Today was his first "adoption event" at a petsmart out in beverly hills and, sadly, he didn't do so well.  Decided to bark ferociously at every dog and some of the men who walked by.  Ad to that, he was the only dog there and the Petsmart is new so there wasn't any advertising about it... ya, he's back home with us again.  At least the head of the rescue got some good pictures of him so she can try the online means of pet adoptions.  Naturally Nube is completely pissed off at me now and has gone from "perfect dog for obnoxious children" to "food aggressive scary, feisty dog who needs to stay outside for an hour or so til he calms down".  Ugh!
I really hope she finds the "right" home for him.  He's got some issues that most people would dump him because of.  For example: pees on everything, digs through the trash, runs away if he can get his nose out the door, chews up the kids toys (hey, they have like 950 little plastic toys, I say, thanks for helping me get rid of some) and barks at 4:30am at something I haven't determined yet.  Ya, he needs a dog lover with a nice backyard and a lot of patience :)
In other news...... my mother arrives this Thursday to watch the kids for the weekend.  I am going to Wyoming for a spinning/knitting retreat and am seriously looking forward to it.  I'm tempted to bring the laptop to write, but we'll see.
I've cleaned my room and the girls room sofa this weekend and am hoping to get them organized and the hallway cleared by the end of tomorrow.  That would only leave the breakfast nook as a cleaning challenge and some time left over to work on my editing and book. :)  Cuz' ya know, I'm all about the relaxing.
How do people do all this and work a full time job?  I know I sure fail on the house stuff while working, and I'm soooooooo not looking forward to going back in 3 weeks.  I could totally do this "stay at home" mom thing if someone would care to donate $2 mil (after taxes) to my bank account so I could retire :)

Meh!

Epic failure on the cooking front, but whatever!  I did get Rowan excited about making some homemade mac n' cheese by showing her a clip of a cooking show.  We tried it last night and she was a great helper.  Both girls loved it for the first 3 bites or so and then decided it was gross and fought to not eat any more.  Naturally their desire for candy left me the winner.  You don't eat a reasonable dinner, you don't get any candy, period!  I may have to keep using that tactic to get them to try new foods until we find some healthy ones they'll eat without manipulation.
I've been dealing with a lot since the last post.  Work issues, massive school issues, family issues and a minor nervous breakdown.  Ain't been fun, can't say I want to repeat it.  The results of all these dramas sofa include my decision to learn a different career path, namely animatic editing.  My good friend Anne has fiercely agreed this is a good transition for me and is acting as my mentor.  She's very determined that I be ready as quickly as possible to get me out of checking and off my current show posthaste.  Shya, all for it.  Bring it on.  I'm currently on a 5 week unpaid hiatus and am using it to do 5 practice animatics and get myself comfortable and up to speed on the editing program.  School issues have made me realize that the 10 year commitment I was making to them is bogus and the tiny bit of stability that gave my world gone.  I HAVE to work one more season in my current job to get my health benefits locked in for retirement.  After that I can literally go/do whatever I want.  There is no longer anything holding me tight to California (other than my awesome friends and this glorious sunshine).  Family issues, meh, they'll always be there.  I need to learn to ignore them.
Another glorious outcome of the nervous breakdown is the drive to write the damn book!  I've come to the conclusion that nothing is my life will ever get to a "norm" until I get at least one of the stupid books in my head onto paper.  So, weekdays I learn editing... weekends, I write!  You know, as long as the children will allow me to.. teehee.  I almost feel like doing a hiatus diary to show myself if I'm using my time wisely...lol.  Day 1, mildly successful.  Got a lot of errands done, cleaned a bit (since destroyed by said children), edited and figured out some of the buttons on my own. Day 2, also mildly successful.  Went to the DMV, post office, picked up a prescription (that I still need to get filled) from the doctor, spun some yarn and hung out with the kids.  Day 3, again successful.  DMV again - got the car registered and have the new plates, edited a lot and asked Anne what I think are good Newbie questions.  Day 4, slightly less productive, but still successful.  Took a nap and had a 3 hour park playdate with Rowan's classmates, then went to the market and bought ingredients for mac n' cheese.  Day 5, success but I really need to be more productive.  Cleaned, cleaned and cleaned (though you really can't tell), made home-made mac n' cheese with rowan and hung out with the girls til they fell asleep.
Today is Day 6 and if I manage to get the damn book started AND do something fun with the girls (looks like it may be a little too chilly for the water balloon fight I promised in the backyard) I shall call it successful.  I'd like to keep cleaning and get at least 1 room finished today, but the book is first.
So, here's to writing.... and eventually learning how to post pics on this blog thing so I can share something more interesting than my cleaning and cooking failures. :)