Theme Thursday: Blogging

Every Thursday, a handful of bloggers follow a theme chosen by the very wise and sometimes sarcastic guru Jenn at Something Clever 2.0.  Did you know that she can tweet, drink wine, and make fondant covered cupcakes all at the same time?  That in itself is worth a visit to Theme Thursday EVERY FREAKING WEEK!  This week’s theme is blogging.  Be sure to check out all of the other “Themers” that contribute to this epic event. 

To start this off, I thought I would look up the origin of the word “blog”.  Here is what I found on good old Wikipedia:

A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log)^[1] is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject. More recently “multi-author blogs” (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other “microblogging” systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Still with me?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  It lost me at “portmanteau”.

Ok, she’s not blogging. She’s watching Mr Rogers. Close enough?

Blogging is much like raising a child.  You put so much love and time into it.  It doesn’t pay much, and sometimes it’s just downright mean to you.  However, the personal rewards can be fabulous!  Incidentally, WordPress told me yesterday that it was my three year anniversary.  Really?  It was that long ago that I tried to put my words into writing and failed miserably?

After two attempts that I never shared publicly, back in June I was going through a lot of icky personal stuff (Ahem, going insane and losing my job due to downsizing).  I was hearing time and time again that I really should start a blog.  So I finally took to the keyboard and really did it.  Those people are probably reeeeeally regretting that they said anything now!  It’s been a few months and over 500 followers later.  I say that because I don’t know how many people follow me on more than one network, and I don’t want to do the detective work to find out.  In other words, I think some people could be the same people.  Does that make sense?  I could say that it’s a personal success.

I’ve blogged about everything from poop to the periodic table.  I’ve been featured the Sunday Sip, on Aiming Low, and Bloggers.com.  I just did my first guest post on Menopausal Mother, which I’m told by many was my best post ever (that figures!)  I’m in a contest for funny moms that everyone else on the internet is in too.  I’ve been awarded multiple awards that are really just things to get more readers to your blog (like I care).  I’ve had two blog posts that my HUSBAND EVEN LIKED.  I’ve also met some of the best most supportive people in the world.  The blogging community is its own little awesome niche in one corner of the internet.

I was even crowned queen at one point. Not of blogging. I will say there were ulterior motives for this…

The person that really made me want to start blogging, Amber Dusick of Parenting, Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, has her own shop.  I think Crappy Boy having his own little card shop on Etsy really inspired her.  It’s called the Crappy Shop.  She has some of her little sayings and stuff from her blog printed on various items.  After letting people know that they could buy me a present from it, I started thinking what would happen if someday I had enough fans to open my own store?  What little nuggets of wisdom could I print on a t-shirt, mug, towel, napkin?

“I am one of the least interesting people I know.”

“My life resembles Craft Fail more than Pinterest.”

“Idea Diarrhea:  When you just can’t stop the crap that comes out of your head.”

“The recessive gene-go forth and make a song out of anything.”

“My husband took Quantum Physics and all I got was this blog that I don’t even pay for.”

Ok, so the last one is a bit of a stretch.  Everything would be purple or tie-dyed.  Or even tie-dyed purple.  It would be AWESOME!  So if you have the dough, let me know and we’ll get started.  I’m sure we’d sell at least two things.  While you’re at it, could you lend me the $100 or so it takes to make my WordPress site my very own?

Each week I am amazed that people keep reading.  I always wonder WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I RUN OUT OF IDEAS?  I try not to think about that, but somehow that creeps back into the dark corner of my mind.

So I set some goals.  Not really anything too exciting.  Attain 300 followers on Facebook and Twitter by Valentine’s Day.  Get my webpage finished-it’s taking way too much time.  To be published on BlogHer.  To get some more stuff written for Aiming Low, the one website that actually seems to give a crap about the stuff I write.  Find some way to bring in some sort of income before they take my internet away.  Figure out some sort of actual schedule for my day.  Then the kicker happened that kind of threw everything off-I took a temp job.  More about that tomorrow…

The cat has determined that I will blog no more for the day…

Speaking of goals, if you like this, and you maybe even like me, help me out by taking ten seconds of your time and voting for me on the Funny Moms contest.  Or take 30 seconds and vote for everyone you like.  I’d like to think I could make it into the top 100 by the end of the contest.

Hey guess what?  Theme Thursday is open to anyone who wants to be a follower, I mean impart their wisdom on the subject of the week to the rest of the world.  Next week’s theme is Valentine’s Day.  I hope you get with the program and I’ll see you there!

(Sort of) Wordless Wednesday: Caffeination

Never ever underestimate the power of a $1.07 32 ounce Coca-Cola (yes you saw that right, NOT diet) with ice, paid for with change I found around the house.  You can have your Starbucks, I’m sticking with Kum & Go.  Ahhhhh….

Happy Wednesday!  Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Theme Thursday, where you might or might not find out what the word “portmanteau” means.  Don’t worry, there will be absolutely no science or any academics involved, I promise!

You can still vote… I was #107 as of this morning.  Yee-haw!

The Periodic Table: It Really Has Nothing To Do With Your Period

Saturday I posted this picture:

She was so stinking proud of herself, except that she didn’t know what exactly it was.  She kept changing her story.  It was flowers, it was an alien, it was a thing.  The one thing she was sure of was that it was for me, because she lodes me.

Then Evil Genius came home, took one look at it and said “Hey, she made a molecule!”  It figures that this would come from my husband, the man who took quantum physics FOR FUN.

This piqued The Professor’s interest.  He piped up “What’s a molecule?”  Thus began a scientific journey.   They talked about atoms, and protons and neutrons and isotopes.  At some point the big giant Chemistry 101 book came out.  They spent a good chunk of the evening discussing chemistry, including poring over the periodic table and discussing what the different letters were for.

So now my son is trying to memorize the periodic table.  Yeah, you saw that right, THE PERIODIC TABLE!  He’s eight, and he is absolutely obsessed with it.  Of course me being me, I made the mistake of having Evil Genius pull up the periodic table song on YouTube.  Now he wants to listen to it over and over, because he wants to learn ALL of the words.  For those of you who have never heard it, it’s all of the elements on the periodic table set to the tune of “Modern Major General” from The Pirates of Penzance.  And yes, I included the link:

Interestingly enough, although I have seen the Pirates of Penzance, I know the “Modern Major General” song with different lyrics.  My sister and I were obsessed with The Pirate Movie,  which is a spoof of the Pirates of Penzance, when we were kids.  I know that the original song doesn’t have the lyrics “Maaaaaan, I’m older than the Beatles, but I’m younger than the Rolling Stones…” in it, but every time I hear that tune THAT’S what I think of…

The geek part of me is thrilled, the not so geeky part of me is having some pretty bad flashbacks.  I almost flunked Chemistry.  I barely understood it, and it didn’t help that we moved in the middle of the year from Florida to Iowa.  Fortunately I had a wonderful, very understanding teacher who spent a lot of time with me and helped me pull a C in the end.  Don’t ask me to tell you anything about it because I really didn’t retain anything from the class.  I do remember that we watched “Connections” with James Burke a lot.  I didn’t actually remember his name, but I just looked up “Connections” on YouTube to look really smart.  Turns out they have every stinking episode.  The only thing I remember about it was that he always wore the same clothes.  Feel free to browse YouTube for it.  Come on, you know you want to.

What I took away from Chemistry is this-“Entropy” is the measure of randomness or disorder of a system.  This is probably the single most useless piece of information I have retained from school.  However, I liked that I remembered that definition so much that the following year I wrote a poem about it in English class.  Yes, I wrote a poem about something from Chemistry. You know, now that I think about it, I could write a song about it.

Entropy
(To the tune of Yesterday)

Entropy
it’s not really what it used to be
Randomness for us all to see
Oh I believe in entropy

(Ok, I’ll quit while I’m ahead…)

I took the definition a bit differently than it was actually used.  At the time I thought it described my life, my room, my car.  My life had high amounts of entropy.  Nowadays I’d like to think that it is an accurate way to describe my brain.  So I really don’t understand it, I’d like to pretend for a minute that I know a scientific principle besides the states of matter-solid, liquid, gas, wasn’t there one other???  There is a reason why I took the route that I did in college-no more science classes with lots of formulas!  Which is really too bad, because I am such a sci-fi geek.

Anyway, back to my children.  I hope that people don’t think that we’re like Rick Moranis’s character on Parenthood-that we sit around with flashcards of physics equations and foreign languages trying to cram every bit of information we can into their brains.  Nooooo, they are just naturally weird like we are.  They ask good questions, and we try to be good parents and answer them.  Usually the family scientific discussions revolve around some kind of physics or engineering.  These discussions start with a question about such things and my brilliant reply is “Ask the engineer.”  Believe me there are a lot of these questions, because nobody cares about the things that I know about like music and writing.   Now we’re adding chemistry into the mix.  Before long he’ll be mixing up concoctions and using a bunsen burner in the basement.  When he blows the house up, I’ll blame his dad.  Or I can blame his sister for making that molecule.

I love this picture, that’s why I’m using it again!

If you still believe I’m a funny person, please vote for me in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms Contest!  You can vote once every 24 hours, and vote for everyone you want to.  I’m hoping to be included on the Top Blogs page by the time this posts, probably waaaaay down at the bottom.  That’s what happens when you run with the big dogs…

Ok, ok, I know you want to see what I’m talking about-here just for you is the clip from The Pirate movie that we loved as kids.  Now you’ll get an idea of where all of this insanity comes from.  New followers, be very, very scared...

I Broke Into a Building With Milo Ventimiglia

This guy helped me break into a building. Not for real, of course. How weird and random.

Happy Monday morning!  It’s been awhile since I’ve had a really bizarre “where the heck did that come from” dream.  A couple of nights ago I had one.  It was weird.  Really weird.  And I wasn’t even sitting on a toilet this time.  For your Monday morning displeasure, I thought I’d share.

The place where I taught preschool when my son was little is considering adding a teacher if their enrollment goes up.  So it’s been on my mind.

In my dream I had agreed to work afternoons for them.  From 2-5 or something.  Where were my children?  I’m not sure.  On this particular day in my dream I had to go do this for the first time.  Then for some reason I couldn’t make it.  But I had their van.  Why did I have their van?  So I couldn’t make it to work, but I could go return their van.  Makes sense, right?

For some reason it was nighttime the entire dream.  All day long.

So I set out to take their van back. When I worked for this daycare we would take the kiddos out on field trips in these great big vans.  Putting in and taking out all the car seats was a nightmare, pun intended.  But why would I take the van home?  I must have been thinking of my LAST job.  Since I was expected to go all over the world to teach these classes, in order to not use my own gas I had to take one of their huge gas guzzling vehicles.  This makes so much sense for an organization that is one the brink of financial disaster.  ANYHOO-sometimes if I was teaching a class three hours away I would swap my vehicle with theirs the night before since I lived out of town.  Then I could get at 5 am and hop in and drive.

It was enormous inside (the van in my dream, not the one in real life).  There was a tv, and a refrigerator, and furniture.  Before I could go take the van back to the daycare center, first I had to go get a key from some business downtown.  Only I didn’t have a key to this building that I had to get the key out of.  So naturally I had to break in.

This is where Milo Ventimiglia comes in.  I love the last name, try saying it three times fast.  If you are a Gilmore Girls fan, you know him as Jess, the bad boy nephew that Rory dumps Dean for.  Or you may also know him as the guy who usurped other people’s powers on Heroes.  Or if you saw That’s My Boy he was the brother who was sleeping with his sister because “good-looking people” are just supposed to do that…  I’m not like a huge fan or anything, it was quite a random person.  If I had chosen a break in buddy, surely Robert Downey Jr would have helped me.  After all, he does have an Iron Man suit.

Not really Iron Man…

So anyway, regardless of what show he was in or why he was in this dream he helped me break into this building.  And we got the key.  But we didn’t leave.  We stayed and ate snacks and watched tv.  This is because isn’t that what you always do after you break and enter into a building, you eat snacks?  Later on I eventually got the van back to the school.  No one was there except for the weird janitor guy who vacuums in the dark.  That part is true-when I worked there we really did have a guy that vacuumed in the dark!  Then my alarm went off.  I got up thinking “huh?”  I was relieved it was just a dream, because I really hate missing or being late to work, and breaking and entering too (I figured I’d better clarify that).

It’s certainly not one of the weirdest dreams I’ve had.  I’m happy that I kept my clothes on throughout the whole dream.  Usually there’s nakedness on my part that I have to hide in strange ways.  I’ve said before that anyone who analyzes dreams would have quite a heyday talking to me about the weird stuff I dream about.

Have you ever had one of those weird dreams that make you go huh?

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to vote for me in the 25 Top Funny Mom Blogs at Circle of Moms… You can vote once every 24 hours until February 13th when the whole thing ends.  I think I’m still pending this morning, but later today will be under the Top Blogs tab, probably way at the bottom!  Vote Here:  Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms

Just Another Week in January Review

We visited a friend on Friday and played and created.  The Princess’s resulting latest art-we’ve decided it’s a molecule.

Here it is Sunday again.  We have freezing rain, isn’t that lovely?  Fortunately, everything here is pretty much iced in, so we have a good excuse for NOT going anywhere today.  That means my husband is hiding in the bedroom playing Skyrim, and I am tortured with kids’ television while I try to catch up on some REALLY important work.  Wait a minute, I stay home every day…

Many of my blogger friends are participating in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms 2013.  I got as far as staring at the registration form, but can’t bring myself to do it.  I’m not a big self promoter, but I am curious how far I could go in it.  Included in the running is Menopausal Mother, the blog I guest posted on this week, as well as many other blogs.  Guess what? I found out you can vote for as many people as you want!  If I change my mind  about doing it, I guess you’ll see my blog up there with the rest of them.  UPDATE:  Oh hell, I did it, as you can see by the sidebar… so I’m “pending” if you would like to cast your vote.

Here’s all the fun stuff I did this week:

Monday  Mr Coffee/Superhero/Robot Make Me Some Coffee!  The perils of owning an automatic coffeemaker, in that its not as automatic as we would like it to be…

Tuesday  How Mr Ed Could Interview for a Retail Job  The group interview where I think they would have taken anyone.  ANYONE!

Wednesday  I took a mental health day.  It didn’t help, I’m still insane.

Thursday  Theme Thursday: Breastfeeding Gave Me Super Powers Really, I wouldn’t lie to you about that.

Friday The Sadder But Wiser Girl Visits the Menopausal Mother  My first guest post-Twitter in Biblical times, with horrible reenactments by Barbies.  Go check it out, and read her hilarious blog while you’re there.

Saturday  REBLOG:  Where Have All the Humans Gone?  I voice my disdain for automated menus, and fantasize about having an automated mom menu.  It could totally happen.

I was also one of the featured blogs on Bloggers.com on Friday, I thought that was pretty cool!  If I can ever find an icon bigger than an eyelash, I’ll add it to my sidebar.  Why are they so teeny?  I don’t get it!

Posts By Others That I Loved This Week:
First, a confession.  I am terribly behind on my reading all of my beloved blogs, due to my pain in my neck.  Yes, it’s still there, not as bad as it was but it’s still somewhat bothersome.  I vacillate between thinking it’s just muscle strain and thinking that I’m dying of one of seven different dread diseases.  But enough about that, I’m hoping to get caught up for the week today, perhaps while sitting on the exercise ball or doing stretches.

However, there were a few great posts I DID read this week:

Chewed Gum and Other Treasures–Ninja Mom  Because it’s happening at my house, right now.

The Dangers of Watching TV With Kids–Funny is Family  Watching grown up TV with kids can be scary.  I find it disturbing that my kids hear the word “trans vaginal mesh” and want to know what “mesothelioma” is…

Cats are Aliens and Bed Real Estate–Parenting, Illustrated With Crappy Pictures  This explained so much to me…
(By the way, if you ever want to buy me a present she has her own “Crappy Shop” now!)

Best Search Engine Terms of the Week:

Troll farting glitter-No, I distinctly said unicorns fart glitter, not trolls.

Toilet girl tube-Hmmmm… I know how they found my blog but what the heck were they looking for?

Homemade fart-I thought all farts were homemade.

Fast cheese puns-Sorry, we only have slow cheese puns here.

Cats in cars-All I can think of is “All cats in cars, ALL THE TIME!”

Herpes must suck-No idea.

That’s all I’ve got.  Have a great rest of your weekend, and let’s be careful out there!  I mean that literally…

Maybe I just need to use the cat as a pillow?

REBLOG: Where Have All The Humans Gone?

Trimmed a little bit and now being reblogged. Another one of my personal favorites-I really would like to have that “Automated Mom Menu!”

The Sadder But Wiser Girl

All I really wanted to do was talk to a real live human being.  I just had questions.

Does anyone actually like the automated menus that most companies have gone to that supposedly help improve the customer experience?  I find that whenever I call one of these places, I never need any of the choices they have on their menu.  We have our mortgage through a major lender, and I have only had to call for things that the menu lady doesn’t recognize, so called “normal stuff”.  For example, I never need to check my balance when I call, because I have the internet to do that.  The last couple of times I have called, it has been about an overpayment.

The menu lady doesn’t understand that word, and there really wasn’t anything on the menu that really matched what I needed.  Anything about payments just was her reciting my…

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The Sadder But Wiser Girl Goes To Visit The Menopausal Mother

The Sadder But Wiser Girl is not here, please leave a message after the beep…

What’s going on?  I’m guest posting today!  This is my first ever guest post and I am VERY excited about it.  Please come on over to Menopausal Mother and check it out!  What’s it about?  I can’t tell you exactly, but it involves horrible reenactments by our resident Barbie doll family…

Remember Grandpa Snake? He’s doing his very first acting job over at the Menopausal Mother today…

CLICK HERE and you will taken to a faraway blog known as The Menopausal Mother…

Theme Thursday: Breastfeeding Gave Me Super Powers

Oh I still have this super power.

Today’s Theme Thursday topic is breast feeding.  I told Jenn that I gave this one two boobs up. 

When I breastfed, I had super powers.   Yes you saw that right-breastfeeding my kids gave me a couple of special powers.

Always sleeping he was…

Breastfeeding Super Power #1:  Super Sleep Inducer.  Ability to make infants fall asleep upon contact.

I breastfed my son with no complications for me other than sore boobs.  The thing about this kid is that he SLEPT ALL THE TIME.  Literally.  People would come to visit and he would sleep.  We couldn’t even get him to wake up long enough to give them a “Hey what’s up?”  We would try to give him tummy time on the floor and he would fall asleep.  I would try to breastfeed him and he would FALL ASLEEP.  Immediately.  I really stressed out about this, because since he slept all the time he wouldn’t get a whole lot to eat.  I had directions to do all kinds of things to get him to wake back up.  Tickle his feet, undress him, and so on.  Nothing really worked.  In the end he must have got enough, the doctor didn’t seem all that worried about it.  I wish I could say that power carried over to the second one, but alas it did not.  While my son slept all the time my daughter rarely slept for very long, and she always wanted to sleep with me.

When The Princess was this teeny thing I was a champion staircrawler, that’s because it’s the only way I could get up there. Damn pelvis.

Breastfeeding Super Power #2:  Dislocation.  Surely useful for something.

Breastfeeding my daughter was an interesting experience because as great as the health benefits were for both of us, it was actually making some things worse for me.  When I had her something weird happened with my body.  I was at the doctor’s office just a few weeks after having her with neck and body problems.  My neck hurt so bad I couldn’t move it, I couldn’t sit up, I couldn’t even lay down without it killing me.  I also couldn’t walk up the stairs.  My legs and lower back hurt so badly I could barely get out of bed to get her when she was screaming her head off.

My doctor handed me a neck brace and then told me to crawl over to the physical therapist and have them take a look-see.  The diagnosis?  My neck muscles were clenched so tight that there were literal knots in the muscle.  And why I couldn’t walk?  My pelvis was out of alignment.  I was an inch higher on one side than the other.  What would help?  Months of physical therapy.  Oh, and if I’d stop breastfeeding, that would help too.  Apparently your body releases something called relaxin when you are pregnant so that all the joints loosen up to let that baby come on out easier.  Some people like me just had body parts just waiting to pop right out of place, and it keeps going until you stop breastfeeding.

I didn’t stop-I kept on breastfeeding as long as I could.  The physical therapy plus the exercises I had to do at home really helped.  However, for months afterward I would literally have part of my pelvis pop out of alignment walking down the hallway at work. I’d have to go into my classroom while the kids were out of the room, lie down on the floor, and do the exercises to bring everything back to semi-ok.  I’m sure anyone walking by the window of the classroom wondered what the heck was going on.

I can’t say that I ever used this superpower, or even what it would be useful for.  Maybe it was in case my daughter got stuck somewhere and I had to go in and get her?  With her that was entirely possible, considering she was mobile pretty early on because she hated to stay in one place.

To this day I have issues with my neck and back.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-she is literally a pain in my neck.  I’m having some breastfeeding body flashbacks at the moment.  I have barely been able to move my neck for weeks now.  (If you’re a blogger that I’ve been commenting on tons and wondering why I’m not visiting your blog like I used to, well, sitting around aggravates it even more, so I’m doing what I can…)

I was lucky to be able to breastfeed both kids for the first seven months of their lives.  Yup, then they kicked my boobs to the curb.  That was it, they wanted no more.  None of that having to worry about weaning, they just did it themselves.  I applaud people that are able to do it for the full year, but for me it was probably better this way.  Of course no breast feeding=no more superpowers.  😦

Thanks for the mammaries…HA HA. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist!  Be sure to read all of the Theme Thursday posts over at Something Clever 2.0

How Mr Ed Could Interview for a Retail Job

It really has nothing to do with this post, but it made me smile.

I’ve had a recent uptick in readership, and this is very exciting for me!  I’ve gone from a handful of followers to over 500 in a little over half a year.  It’s wonderful and at the same time a little scary for me.  It just so happens that I have been having a period of a couple of weeks where the ideas just are not flowing like I would like them to be.  I don’t want to disappoint, especially people that are just starting to read my work.  At the same time, I’m trying not to be on the computer so much and focus on my family more.  I am on here a lot between applying for jobs, networking, writing, keeping up with this blog and others, and working on my web page.  You could say it’s a lot of work not having a job!  Ironic, isn’t it?

An explanation to those new to my blog: I’ve been unemployed for going on six months now, with the exception of a few contracted cpr jobs here and there.  It’s not something that I want to get into the details of because, well, I don’t wanna.  Though as you can imagine it weighs a bit on my mind.  Add to that the fact that I’ve been sick for what seems like forever.  And on top of it all, we are having very cold weather with “dangerous” windchills.  When I can’t get outside at all, I get reeeeeeally moody.  Therefore I’m not real inspired, at least not this week.  When I’m writing about my coffeemaker, I’m stretching it a bit.  Ok, a lot.

Anyway, back to the whole not working thing…  For those keeping track, I had a “group interview” two weeks ago for a job at a large discount clothing store opening in our area.   Anyone could walk in and be interviewed in a group. I could have been a talking horse or a plate of jello, but since I went to their website I was immediately invited to do the group thing (as in the interview, not as in that other “group” thing-get your mind out of the gutter!).  I didn’t have high hopes for it, as a matter of fact I almost cancelled, but figured I could use the interview experience and you just never know.  I’m an optimist-there’s some of that “hope” stuff left in me.

As I think back to all of the people that were in the interview and the ones I saw coming through for the next one, I wondered who the heck they would end up hiring (for the record, there were no talking horses present, at least not at the one I went to).  There was the guy who looked almost exactly like Jimmy from Raising Hope but said very little.  There was a girl who reminded me of Luna from Harry Potter. She may not have looked like her, but every time she spoke she sounded and acted freakishly like her. And then there was THIS girl: “OMG, I used to work at Hollister and it really sucked because it was dark and I fell asleep there EVERY freakin day!”  Yet somehow I think that was the girl they ended up hiring.

Obviously I was not one of the ones they hired.  It took them very little time to send that rejection letter.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they had already put it in the mail before I left the parking lot.  I shouldn’t even be remotely surprised.  After all, they did take anyone who applied.  If a talking horse actually had applied and shown up for the interview, we would have probably had equal chances.  Though I thought I had an in, considering the guy conducting the whole thing had been the one who did the last interview I had somewhere else.  Guess it wasn’t them, guess it WAS me.

I’m not really upset because it was a retail job that paid minimum wage.  On the other hand, I would love to find any way to bring in some extra income at the moment, because of the lack of odd jobs and extra things that I’ve always done in the past!  It makes me wonder why I couldn’t at least be considered for that kind of work.  So I’m kind of bummed, and left wondering in that respect.  Although my husband is gainfully employed at a wonderful company, I really need a job or some sort of income (*ahem* paid writing jobs perhaps?) because we are behind on our bills and I’m not so good at this homemaker thing.  I can’t pay a lot of my bills because I don’t have a job.  Since I don’t have a job, I don’t have money.  Since I don’t have money, I DON’T HAVE MONEY!  😉

This reminds me of something, this from the movie Scrooged:

Frank Cross: You’re staying here with me. We’re working late.
Grace: But I have to take my son to the doctor.
Frank Cross: Grace! When I work late, You work late!
Grace: But I made the appointment two months ago!
Frank Cross: I care! We’re indivisible. If I’m working late, you gotta work late! If you can’t work late, I can’t work late! If I can’t work late, I CAN’T WORK LATE!

(It’s much better with the movie clip, but I couldn’t find one!)

If only I could get job offers from my command of movie quotes, I’d be living the high life.

Despite all the money worries, I am very happy to be able to spend so much time with my kids.  They are the reason WHY it’s such a big worry, but they are also the thing that drives me to try to find my niche.  I hope that all of the frustration, all of the rejection, all of the not hearing anything from some of these businesses is all part of my little journey of finding out what I’ve really been put here on this earth to do.  I’ve written about the fact that I feel like it should be coming to the denouement quite soon (the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel-I had GREAT English teachers in high school which is why I know what this is).  If My Life Were A Movie I’d Hire Better Writers.  But like any good story, there are additional twists and turns in the plot that have to totally throw me off.  Like a mystery, except I’m not a big fan of mysteries…

It’s a mystery. I don’t like mysteries.

For other funny but disturbing stories about my job search, you can check these out:
What I Think Potential Employers Are REALLY Saying About Me
The Job Search:  How It’s Kind of Like Dating

Mr Coffee/Superhero/Robot Make Me Some Coffee!

That’s my old coffee maker there. That’s not my cat.

Over the Christmas holiday, Evil Genius and I decided that we were worthy of spoiling.  He works hard, right? And me?  Well,  I keep the kids alive.  We deserve something special.

We both have been dreaming of coffee in the mornings.  The smell of coffee wafting up the stairs and giving us a reason to get out of bed.  Yes, coffee ready and waiting for us.  Just like on the commercials on tv.

We have in our possession a cheap coffeemaker, bought on clearance at Wal-Mart for $14.97.  Through the years it’s seen better days.  In addition to the springy thingy that broke off of it quite some time ago, any time we turn it on the whole house smells like burnt coffee.  I have scrubbed and scrubbed this thing and it still stinks.

After much debate we went out shopping and splurged, on a $35 automatic coffeemaker, our one Christmas present to ourselves.  A Mr Coffee, even.  It’s pretty and shiny.  I even bought one of those reusable coffee filter thingies.  And it was very nice to have our coffee in the mornings again without the house smelling like Starbucks on fire, at least during Christmas break when we were all home.

The Princess keeps an eye on the coffeemaker.

Once my husband went back to work, the reality of owning an automatic coffeemaker began to hit home.  This is because the coffeemaker does not get up, fill itself with coffee and water, then brew itself.  Nor does it bring it up the stairs to us and hold it under our noses to bring us to consciousness.  I can’t remember to fill the darn thing half the time.  My husband forgets too and doesn’t have time to make coffee on the way out the door.  So there it sits, some days it’s used, some days it’s not.  This is the life of a coffeemaker in a house full of ADD people.

It also doesn’t bring the coffee to you, nor does it yell at you to come get your coffee.  It has a two hour time frame to stay on, then it shuts off.  I haven’t figured out how to bypass this yet.  On the days we actually remember to set everything up the night before, a few minutes after I get up with the kids the coffeemaker shuts off and then the coffee gets cold.  Sometimes I remember to turn it back on, sometimes I don’t.

Maybe I need a barista to come stay at my house. Or a superhero who also happens to make coffee.

That’s nice, I know you’re Iron Man.  Now make me some coffee!

Or better yet a coffee robot!  This one will do nicely…

This is really something someone built! You can find it here http://www.instructables.com/id/R2D2-Dark-Roast-Edition/

We’ve been talking about getting a coffee grinder sometime when we have a little extra cash.  This is so we can grind some of those awesome coffee beans they sell at the organic grocery store I shop at.  While this is a good idea, it also makes me laugh.  Really?  Are we really going to take the time to grind our own?  Maybe if the robot will do it?

That’s almost as funny as us swearing that we are going to drink tea.  We own at least one tea ball.  We have tea-both hot and cold.  We only drink hot tea when we are sick.  Each summer Evil Genius decides to make sun tea.  So he and the kids make it up in the jar and set it outside to brew.  And then once it’s brewed it sits in the refrigerator and never gets touched.  We’re strange folks, yes we are.

Whatever the method of ingestion it comes right down to that we obviously depend on some sort of caffeine each day.  I unfortunately consume too much pop, both the cans of Diet Sunkist Lemonade and Coke Zero with a little bit of Coke in it when I visit the gas station, big old mug in hand.  Evil Genius is good about drinking his coffee when it’s ready, and loves his diet pop as well as energy drinks.

Do you need coffee to get you through the mornings?  I need something, but I tend to reach for the pop instead… because my coffee isn’t ready.

Mondays are like this.