Monday, March 17, 2008

My Love List*

Why not take the love list challenge .


I love Post-it's, I love puppies, I love baby feet, I love Red Robin, I love country music, I love Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, I love watching the Charlie Brown holiday specials (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween & Easter), I love Oreo cookie blizzard's from Dairy Queen, I love a clean desk, I love the movie "The American President", I love ice skating, I love driving fast, I love big, absorbent bath towels, I love the internet, I love hot fudge, I love electric blankets, I love reading books and magazines, I love smart customers, I love pizza, I love Dale Earnhardt Jr., I love homemade chocolate chip cookies, I love baby clothes, I love taking pictures, I love Yocco's hot dogs, I love Coke, I love presents, I love the movie "Shag", I love Italian hoagies, I love air conditioning, I love electronic things: computers, Ipod's, great big TV's etc, I love DCI drum corp, I love organizing things, I love Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream (the white kind, not the green kind), I love Dry Tortugas National Park, I love cheesy romance novels, I love my digital camera, I love to watch TV, I love hot buttered movie popcorn, I love going swimming, I love horses, I love a clean house, I love the original "Posiden Adventure" movie, I love riding the Perkasie carousel, I love broasted chicken and cheeseburgers from Speck's, I love sunflowers, daffodils, gerber daisy's, and ladies of the village (I mean Lillies of the Valley), I love cookie crisp cereal - eaten dry, I love organizing shows on TV, I love chocolate pudding (from scratch), I love shopping for house stuff and clothes and scrapbooking supplies, I love having lots of friends, I love Yellowstone National Park, I love chocolate cake, I love Lake Placid, I love softie pants, I love armor exhibits at museums, I love Rice Krispy treats, I love baby animals especially lambs, calves, hippos and elephants



*The rules, according to The Love List Challenge: You can't include a single person you know on your list. No "I love the way my husband laughs" or "I love hearing my little girl call for me." It'll be tough, I know. But this particular little exercise is about stripping away everyone who defines you and figuring out what you (not his partner; not their mother/daughter/sister/friend) love.

Friday, March 14, 2008

10 Reasons You're Not Getting Your Work Done...

From an article by Tag Goulet at fabjob.com with my two cents added in...

1) You have too many distractions - like our loud mouth HR girl/owners daughter talking to our loud mouth receptionist. Or the both of them yelling back and forth to either my boss, in the office to my left or to our sales manager in the office to my right. Don't get me started on the QC guy or the lathe department guy who come up here to talk when they don't have anything better to do.
2) You don't have the resources you need - we are moving our company in two months and we are in need of a new computer system (software) because our current system is no longer supported. The owner earmarked $5000, but the new phone system we're getting took $3,000 of that so now we're down to $2,000. I guess he's not familiar with the "you get what you pay for" mantra...
3) You don't know what you're doing - not a problem, I know everything.
4) You have too much work - somedays
5) You have poor time-management skills - okay so I like to socialize
6) You're Procrastinating - yeah, there is definately stuff I don't like doing - so I wait...and wait....and wait...and hope it goes away.
7) You Feel Undervalued - yeah...though being the only sales person left I could make some crazy demands and likely get what I want. It's hard to keep a company building things when there is no one here to take calls from customers.
8) You're Company's priorites keep changing - Nah, we're all about making money - and screwing the other guy - that never changes.
9) You're burned out - yeah that's true - it's been ten years after all of talking to some of the stupidest smart people on earth
10) Your "reward" for completing the job will be more work - that's true enough. Though there are only 17 of us - even the incompetant people got more work.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

We're Not Fighting the Good Fight - We're Fighting Eachother...


I'll admit it...I am a mother to an 8 month old and I work outside the home. Turns out there are A LOT of people out there who hate me for that and they don't even know me. They hate Adrian Stark of TLC's "Secret Life of a Soccer Mom" because she chose to be a fashion designer again instead of continuing to be a stay at home mom (SAHM).

Is it wrong that I don't care? Why do I care if a random woman works instead of staying home with her kids? Before having an actual baby I was convinced I would stay home if I ever had kids. I found it hard to reconcile having children and then giving them to someone else to "raise" while I worked. Well 8 months into it I still am trying to reconcile that fundamental question. I just do it from behind a desk now.

I leave the house at 7:00am and return at 5:30pm. For those nine and a half hours a day EJ is with either my mom or my husband's parents. Is it ideal for anyone? The grandparents would say yes, they love the time they have with EJ. EJ herself would say no because she doesn't like being woken up at 5:30am. I say it's okay (except for the geting up at 5:15am part) because I am contributing to our household and I get to interact with adults during the day. Even though sometimes I want to kill some of them. My husband would say it's okay because I'm bringing in a mighty nice salary which helps with our goals of saving for college and retirement. It also allows us luxuries like vacations and new clothes for EJ. Could we make it without my salary? Yes, just barely...but neither I or my husband like the idea of "just barely".

In reviewing my list of friends there are 13 that currently work outside the home and 6 that currently stay home full time. I say "currently" in both situations because some of those that work full time stayed home early on, while some worked part time at some point, while some have their own businesses and work from home. All of those that currently stay home had careers before making the choices that they did.

I think most SAHM's have a chip because there are still ignorant people out there who think they don't do anything all day. I challenge anyone who thinks that to spend nine and half hours alone with my daughter on one of her "bad" days. I'll see you when I get home from work and you can tell me how much you got done and when you'll be back.

There is a larger issue here - greater then the fundamental "why have children only to have someone else raise them?" But no one wants to talk about that issue - we just want to make the other side out to be bitches. Well - if your children are well cared for and your family is thriving it doesn't matter to me what you do to make that happen.