How Well You Know Me

There are a few stores with which I have mild obsessions. Potterybarn. Crate & Barrel. Pier 1. The Container Store. It's not really healthy. I have a collection of Potterybarn catalogs that I should really throw out since they're several months old, but I keep them around as though they are back issues of Better Homes and Gardens. Practically every decorative item in my house came from either Potterybarn, Crate & Barrel, or Pier 1.

And then there's The Container Store. Oh how I love buying containers. Boxes, bins, hooks, totes, bags. So delightful. And then I bring them all home and put all my stuff in them and line them all up on the shelves and for ten minutes, my life is totally organized. (Then of course my kid or my husband or I take something off of the shelf and don't put it back and the whole thing spirals into chaos, but that's another story.)

I get regular emails from The Container Store telling me of products that I might like. Here is part of the last email I got.

My first thought when I saw it.... Dude! I own every item on that top row. I have about three under shelf baskets, five of those teardrop soap dispensers, definitely have a Lifehammer (I don't want to drown while trapped in my car, you know), and an accordian drying rack in my utility room.

So does this mean that The Container Store knows me very well? After all, they did recommend four Great Choice items that I clearly would love. Or does it mean that they are totally not paying attention? Because I did buy every one of those items at their store! I mean, come one! I don't need those items, I already have them. Or maybe this is TCS's clever way of saying, look, we know what you like, so look at the rest of this ad for other stuff you can't stop yourself from buying.

Well, if that's the plan, TCS, you're gonna' have to try again. Because I really do not need a container to hold an open stick of butter. A) I do not cook. ANYTHING. And B) the fold-the-paper-over-the-open-end method has been working for me just fine. I like organization and all, but that's a little nuts.

But it does make me think.... I could use some new containers for the Lego kits I just bought for the kid. I should probably take a trip to The Container Store.

This Week in Tweets: Three Times as Nice

This week, I've added a couple "special features" to the usual line up. Hope you enjoy.

This Week in Tweets: From I Hate You to Google +

My personal eight favorite tweets from this past week.

Why only eight instead of the usual ten? Well, two reasons: One, it really was a light week this week due to my need to spend more time off of Twitter than on it. But two, it also allows me to add this one time feature: The Lobbyists. I got two tweets this week related to this post, both of which made me laugh, so they had to be featured. Just a note though: this will never work again. I mean it. Behave.

This Week in Tweets: The Lobbyists

Finally, because for me, this has been crazy narcissism week, I can't possibly not feature myself on my own post of funny tweets. 'Cuz people, I'm funny, too. (Or hadn't you heard.)

This Week in Tweets: Rubyspikes Edition

This week in tweets made possible by: @MommyMonologues @scotthajer @daydreaminfool @roxisbrilliant @Brain_Wash @JimGaffigan @TheBloggess @MrsPickle_ @smonkyou & of course @rubyspikes

Now go... follow the funny.

(FollowtheFunny is a Twitter list of the tweeps that have recently appeared on my This Week in Tweets.)

Why Does McDonald's Hate Me

I eat McDonald's a bit more than your average human being. Actually, let's just say that the definition of the word "bit" is open for debate. So last summer when I was crazy pregnant (the babe was born in late September), I was all over the Arctic Orange shakes. Never heard of them? Well, that's because they came out around the same time as the fruit smoothies, and McDonald's was gangbusters for promoting the smoothies. Turns out they didn't really need to promote them that much because McDonald's customers were gangbusters into buying the smoothies. So that worked out nicely for everyone. Well, except me. Because I tried the smoothies and was like, "Eeah." They were fine. Whatever. But I had also tried the Arctic Orange shake. Man that sucker was delicious! Basically it was an orange Dreamsicle in shake form. They were a little too sweet, so that after about 3/4, you almost couldn't eat another sip. But you could totally go back for another 3/4 of Arctic Orange goodness in a few days. (Some people waited a few days, I'm sure. I was 8 months pregnant in August. I thought a 24 hour waiting period between shakes was plenty sufficient.)

Anyway, one day I pulled up to my local McDonald's, ordered my Arctic Orange addiction and heard the drive-thru-order-guy say to someone else, "Do we still have any orange shakes left?" At first, I just thought that they had  had a run on the orange dreamy goodness, but when I pulled up and he gave me my shake, he mentioned that this was the last day they'd have them. WHAT???? Yes, this was a summertime promotional item. Other McDonald's might have some stock left, but when it ran out, that was the end of the Arctic Orange shake. WTH, McDonald's? This thing was delicious. Maybe if you had promoted them a bit then people would have known of their deliciousness.

So I mourned the loss of the best shake that McDonald's has EVER had and hoped that maybe they would treat it like that God-awful shamrock shake that tastes atrocious but that they continue to bring out year after year. Maybe it would become a summertime staple. But it's July now. No Arctic Orange shakes in sight. Bummer.

Oh well, I've been consoling myself with a different McDonald's frozen delicacy: the McFlurry. I've never been a huge fan of the McFlurry since they are A) entirely too big and B) no one who works at McDonald's can ever be bothered to mix those things longer than 2.1 seconds, which might as well be 0.2 seconds because they're never mixed and you get a whole huge cup with a little ice cream and a ton of Oreo at the top and then you get through the mound of Oreo and are left with half a cup of so-so ice cream and NO Oreo left AT ALL. Ugh. Sorry. It's just that, really? You can't just mix the thing the way you're supposed to so that I don't get a cup of ice cream with Oreo sprinkled on top?

But McDonald's has done two things that has made me a new fan of the McFlurry. No, they have not begun training their staff on proper mixing. That, I'm afraid, is too much to hope for. Awesome thing #1: They have started offering the snack sized McFlurry. That, my friends, is awesomeness. It is a much more appropriate size (for me anyway). Awesome thing #2: They have introduced the Rolo McFlurry. OMG! Ice cream and chocolate and caramel. Oh it is heavenly delicious (if the staff would kindly mix the silly thing). Actually, even if they don't mix it, it is still delicious. Nom nom nom. So good.

Then the other day, as I was in the drive thru getting a large Diet Coke (and not a McFlurry, thank you), I actually noticed the McFlurry sign in the corner of the menu board. Here it was:

Well, from that picture, you can't see much of anything. How about this:

What? You still can't read that tiny little print? OK, fine. Here's the image that appears on the McDonald's site:

Now can you read it? Yes, that's right. It says "limited time."

Why, McDonald's? Why do you hate me so much that you keep introducing fabulous, delicious products that I can fall in love with just in time for you to take them away?

To you, McDonalds, I say: What. Ever.

Twitter Friends

If you are on Twitter, then chances are that you already know about Friend or Follow. If you do, bear with me while I talk a little about that, but a little bit more about my new love: Twitter. Even though I just hit 5,000 tweets last week, I'm still claiming the Twitter newbie title while I can. There is just still so much that is new. Aside from the general coolness of Friend or Follow, here's the new thing I learned this week: I could totally be the crazy facebook tattoo girl of Twitter. Well, not really, in that I'm totally not a tattoo girl, pain girl, needles girl, or anything too permanent girl. But other than I could totally be the crazy facebook tattoo girl of Twitter.

In case you don't know about the crazy facebook tattoo lady, all you need to know is that some lady was reported to have tattooed the faces of her 152 facebook friends onto her arm. Turns out, it was just a hoax. But the point is, that when I saw the story for the first time, I thought: Really? (Re-read that with the voice of Seth Meyers if you will.) Really? Your whole arm? I'll bet you hide most of those "friends" from your fb news feed, too.

But then this week my husband was reading my tweets, as he is wont to do. (He's not on Twitter, he just reads my tweets. So it's kinda like having a stalker, but he's my husband, so it's kinda sweet.) Someone had suggested in a tweet I go to friendorfollow.com for some reason or another. I was probably either apologizing for my poor follow-back skills or whining about how Twitter just randomly unfollows people "for" you and how would I even know if Twitter had unfollowed someone I really liked following? So as my husband was reading my recent tweets, he says to me, "You haven't been to Friend or Follow? It's kinda cool." So when your non-tweeting husband is in the know about a twitter-tool website and you're not, you of course, have to stop what you're doing and go directly to that site. And OMG! I love this site. It's super simple, but so cool!

So what does all that have to do with me becoming the crazy tattoo girl of Twitter. Well, I'm getting there. Geez. Patience, people.

For those of you who don't know what Friend or Follow does, it basically just breaks your Twitter peeps into three groups, which I will show you.

Following: These are the people whom you follow, but who don't follow you. These are mine.

There's really nothing too shocking here. Except, of course, that @AlecBaldwin hasn't followed me back yet. That's a little weird.

Then there are your fans: people who follow you, but you don't follow them. Again, these are mine:

I could't believe this when I saw it. I know I am rather horrible about checking out (and hence following back) new followers. I usually just wait until they talk to me first. Then I follow back. But this was a large number. 116 to be exact. I decided I'll visit here regularly and choose some interesting looking avatars to investigate for potential follow back.(But if you actually want me to follow you, it's really best if you just talk to me.)

And finally, there are your friends: people whom you follow and who follow you back. These are my Twitter friends:

Now if you don't follow me on Twitter, this is just a group of 235 random avatars. If you do follow me, you probably recognize some of these faces.  But when I saw this group of pictures, I just smiled. Really smiled. These really are my Twitter friends. I sent out my very first tweet on February 26, 2011. Since then, not only have I acquired this many Twitter friends, but I look at those faces (and cartoon faces and even some pictures of just random stuff **ahem shoes**), and I see the faces of the people who keep me company, make me laugh, share their lives, ask me about my day, send me eHugs after a crummy day, and just all around make me love Twitter. It's not Twitter that I love though, it's you.

So at the risk of sounding like a drunk college kid, I love you, man!

But no, I am not tattooing your faces on my arm.

On the Brink

Disclaimer: This post does not contain a lot of funny. Consider yourself warned.

Today has been a tough day. Really tough.Nothing truly significant or catastrophic happened, but I've realized I'm getting terribly close to my personal breaking point. Wanna hear about it? Nah, probably not. It's boring, typical, "that's life" sorta' stuff. But I'm going to tell you about it anyway because I'm hoping it'll free up some space in my brain. (I'm pretty sure my brain works just like my computer. When it starts to feel full, I can just move some of that "stuff" to my blog to get some of that space back.)

Work has been tough. The project I've been working on for the last six months was just about to wrap up when a related project appeared with this crazy deadline that seems practically impossible to hit. Everyone is going to have to bend over backwards to make it happen. And I, as the project manager, am going to have to be the person begging lots of people to stop the really important stuff they're working on at the moment to do my really, really important stuff instead. Add to that I'm managing the project, but currently have no one to actually give the work assignments to, so I'm ending up attempting to do most of it myself. This isn't working out so well since there are only so many hours in the day and so much that one person can accomplish. But I'm not the kind of person who likes to see things get missed, so it's really stressing me out that it looks like if we continue the way we're going, lots of stuff could get missed.

Today was the first day back after a three-day weekend. I had plans to accomplish three high priority tasks today. I got a call 5 minutes after arriving at my desk that de-railed those plans. I spent the rest of the day working on fixing stuff that was supposed to be fixed last week. None of my three things got done. The thing from last week still isn't fixed. I also added four more things to my "things that have to get done NOW" list.

Add to that, I've been really struggling mentally with being back at work full-time. I had been working part-time for the previous two years, but the extra 2.5 days is adding much more stress than I had anticipated. I actually have an amazing job. Flexible hours, flexible location, and decent pay. Plus, I'm pretty good at what I do. I also have a nanny who watches my kids and I am able to work many hours from home. As I type this, I know that there are so many moms who would kill for that kind of arrangement, and I am very thankful for what I've got. But nothing's perfect. Every hour that I work from home with my kids in the next room feels like an opportunity missed; like I am choosing work over them. They will be all grown up in the blink of an eye and I will have spent so much time in the very next room, but with the door closed tight. Every time I hear the nanny reprimanding my four-year-old, I wonder if he'd be acting up if it were me out there. I wonder if I would have handled the situation differently. I wonder if he's acting up more because I'm in the other room instead of at the office. I am actually very productive when I work from home, often much more productive than when I'm in the office, but I often pay for this increase in productivity with a feeling that I'm failing at my more important job of being a mother.

Add to that, today was my 4 year old's first day of swimming lessons. He hasn't spent much time in a pool. Kiddie pools and splash pads and sprinklers, sure, but actual pools, not so much. My husband and I really want him to learn to swim this summer and he was SO excited about starting swimming lessons today. I actually left work a little early today so that I could take him on his first day. He was giddy. We got there early and he was so excited while we were waiting by the pool. When it came time to sit by the pool and put his feet in, he sat right down. But when it came time to hold the side of the pool and get in the water, he was absolutely terrified. The instructors put him in the water and when he turned his face toward me, I could see that he was bawling. He pulled himself 90% out of the water and was gripping the side of the pool like his life depended on it. I wasn't sure what the official rules were regarding parent involvement, but I didn't really care. I walked over to the side of the pool where he was. He was so scared, but I got him to breathe and to calm down. I explained that he didn't have to get back in the water if he didn't have to, but that we would stay there by the water in case he changed his mind. For the next forty minutes he sat on the edge of the pool with his feet barely in the water. I watched the eight other kids in his 4- and 5-year-olds class get carried through the water by the instructors. One other child looked terrified as they did this, but they continued to go through the motions. They continued to ask my son if he'd like to try and again and again he said no. I didn't leave his side the rest of the time and could see the fear in his eyes rise every time an instructor would come near. I know that the he would be fine if I let him go. I know that they would not drop him. I know that he would learn that even though it was scary at first, he was safe. And I know that eventually he would learn to swim. But I also know that there is a way to teach a child to swim that doesn't involve them becoming absolutely terrified. I will find another swimming instructor.

So after a work-day filled with stress, incomplete tasks, and de-railed plans, I spent forty minutes with my son holding on to me in terror. As we were driving home, while waiting at a stoplight, he says to me from the back seat, "Mommy, you see that man in the pickup truck?"

"Yes," I say.

"I was waving to him. Wasn't that nice of me?"

"Yes, sweetie. That's very nice."

"I was waving to him because he is a good guy. I could tell he's a good guy because he was smiling and waved at me."

Hearing him say this was when I hit my wall. I wanted so much to take the opportunity to tell him (again) not to talk to strangers, or take things from strangers, or go anywhere with strangers. But having just spent forty minutes watching him terrified, it was all I could do to just not speak and hope I could hold it together while the fear of my child not knowing that a smiling man is not necessarily a good guy threatened to tear me apart. When I got home, I promptly handed him off to Daddy, who had a very thorough conversation (again) about what we do and do not do with strangers. (Waving at strangers from our car = OK. Everything else = NOT)

Just a tough day. Tomorrow I will wake up and continue to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. I will put one foot in front of the other. But today, today was tough.

Snark Therapy

I've been in a particularly crummy mood the last few days. (Probably the last few weeks if you asked my husband, but you didn't and he's not available at the moment.) I've got a ton on my plate at work, I haven't been sleeping much, and when I do, I've not been sleeping well. And when I am tired, I get cranky. Really cranky. To be honest, I've kinda felt bad for the people who live with me these days. I try to be less cranky, less snarky, I really do. But it's like asking a hungry person to stop being hungry. Tired me = snarky me. It's just a fact of life that my poor, poor husband has to deal with.

Luckily, I have found a new form of therapy that is proving to be truly helpful. I'm calling it "Snark Therapy." It's based on some basic character "traits" that my husband has helped me identify:

• You really do have an opinion about everything, don't you?
• Do you have to criticize everything?
• Do you really need to share every criticism out loud?  

The answers to those questions are: yes, yes, and yes. (I know! You are totally wishing that you were my husband right now, aren't you?) Funny thing is, most of my criticism is directed at things I'm generally pretty happy with, things I enjoy, things I love. I don't view it as criticism so much as "room for improvement."

But since I know that my constant fault finding with all that is not quite perfect in our home gets really old really quickly, I have decided to turn my snarkiness toward the Internet, specifically Pinterest. (If you don't know what Pinterest is, it's basically a website where you can "pin" pictures from anywhere on the Internet. Pictures of things you love, places you want to go, books you want to read, words that inspire you, stuff you want to buy, etc. You just collect cool pictures, group them into pin "boards", and then look at other people's boards to see what cool stuff they've collected.)

At the peak of my grumpiness the other day, I created a new board: Snark. I haven't gone more than a few hours without pinning something to it since then. And let me tell you, this is working wonders for my mental state. I'm getting all the snark out of my system. I go back and look at the board and (yes this is true) I crack myself up. So then I not only have eliminated some of my snarkiness, but I've also smiled in the process as well.

What kind of things have I been snarking on? Well, here are a couple examples.

This thing is sweeping Pinterest. Really? How do you get into it? How do you get out? And that guy... really? He makes me want to get a really big pair of scissors.

Trust me, this is JUST what your guests want! They WANT to crawl around on the ground in your backyard so that you can prove, once again, that you can kick their ass at Scrabble.

Oh crap, ladies. Really? At this point I'm just going to assume that you WANT the world to hate you. The bodies, yes, we're all jealous. But the pose? We really just want to slap you now.

Now am I supposed to think that this is a great boat for displaying my pillows or that these pillows will look great in my boat?

Do I really need to tell you what the guy across the street thinks about the Hello Kitty townhouse?

Finally! I am so tired of having to keep my extra dryer in the living room!

Well, that's a sample. Gosh. I feel better even now and those aren't even new! Ahhhhhh. Oh this has definitely become my favorite board on Pinterest.Watch out people of Pinterest, the Internet, and the world: you may soon be snarked.

Psst. If you do end up on my snark board, there's a good chance that I really LOVE what's in the picture. For example, if you didn't hang that basket thing above a friggin' body of water, I would love to have it in my backyard... in case anyone is looking for my next Christmas gift. I would totally dig a backyard scrabble game. Those women, yes, I'd like to slap them, but I'd also let you slap me every day for the rest of my life if I could have either of their bodies. There are approximately three things in my house not from PotteryBarn, so if they decided to start selling that boat that they display their pillows in, I'd probably buy it, too. I'm not really sure what's going on with the three washers/dryers, but if I had that kind of money, I think I'd just pay to have my clothes laundered instead.

But the pink house.... yeah, that's just a crappy thing to do to the neighbors.

Anyway. I'm gonna keep on snarking. Feel free to follow along: My Pinterest Snark board.

*****

This Week in Tweets: Mumma in Hiding thru Twitter Takes Out ORD

My personal ten favorite tweets from this past week.

This week in tweets made possible by: @MultitaskMumma, @gonnakillhim, @JimGaffigan, @mommyboots, @smonkyou, @slackmistress, @OakParkGirl, @TheNextMartha

Now go... follow the funny.

(FollowtheFunny is a Twitter list of the tweeps that have recently appeared on my This Week in Tweets.)