Politically Annoying

Yesterday I received a large manila envelope addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Potvin" from the elementary "school" here.  I haven't been Mrs. Potvin since 2007.  I'm not going to say that the administration at the school is incompetent, but you would think that they would have looked at that GD paperwork that I just sent in for the FOURTH time due to their mishandling of paperwork outlining all of her family information!  You would think!!!

Today my panties are in a twist because when I opened this manila envelope, expecting yet another copy of that form that I just sent back, a stapled copy of the bullying and student conduct policy fell out accompanied by a confusing and vague form letter.  While happy for the change from redundancy I quickly felt a hot coal of irritation and anger growing in my squishy gut.

The gist of this letter is this (paraphrased of course):

"Your daughter may have been exposed to inappropriate student behavior on Feb 8.  We can't tell you anything about it due to our strict confidentiality policy, but here is a packet of common sense for you to go over with your daughter.  We put both prevention of harrassment and student discipline forms in there so you really just can't figure out which side of the tracks your daughter was on.  Due to that there confidentiality policy we have to try to confuse you to the extent that you might beat your kid just in case they were the bully.  Oh and please have your daughter narc out whoever and whatever happened if you get a chance.  Have a nice day (or not, depends on what you think happened),


PreK-2 Principal"

Wait, what?  This happened a week ago, my daughter never told me anything about it, and I received NO phone call about this incident that was important enough to send me a packet of crap about.  When I see the words "exposed" and "inappropriate behavior" I'm thinking someone showed her their thingy or they made her show them her thingy!!

I asked her this morning about it and she said "OH yeah Mom my friends and I were playing a chase game and Alex (a boy that is a known trouble maker in her class) punched my best friend Hailey in the face.  But it was an accident!  She didn't tell the teacher about it because she didn't want to have to go to the nurse's office."

Apparently the administration spoke to all the students involved as a GROUP.  This means that they treated both bully and victim exactly the same.  Oh, but its being investigated and they will contact me upon resolution.  YEAH RIGHT.  If I do nothing I bet I never hear of it again.

Just yesterday I was telling a friend that my neighbor thinks her 11 year old son does no wrong.  He's been suspended, sent home early, and issued warnings for behavioral matters.  But she says, "He is just with the wrong group of kids.  He didn't do anything wrong they just think he did." Yeah, ok lady.  Keep living in that fantasy world of yours and when you are bailing him out of jail you can tell that to the judge.

Here's what I think of my 7 year old daughter's personality from what I have seen over the years:

• Thinks a snapdragon is an insect and jumps 10 feet in the air when you tell her there is one near her.  Is afraid of most things that move.
• Gives her baby sister a bath and patiently washes her hair even though she's screaming and trying to kick her in the face.
• Cries when someone else is getting hurt.
• Cries when someone says "I hate you" at school even if they weren't directly talking to her.
• Cries for no reason except that she misses her _______________  (dad, aunt, grandparent, blankie, stuffed animal, etc.)
• Still has a blankie that she carries around the house.  I'm not going to take that away from her.
• Protective of her friends even when they tell her they want to kill her. (yes this happened just 2 weeks ago.  didn't get a note home about that one)
• Concerned that same friend who wants to kill her thinks she is half-vampire and doesn't believe in Heaven.  Prays for this friend.
• All the pictures that she draws include hearts, princesses, rainbows, and churches.  Doesn't look like typical serial killer artwork at least.

And here is what her latest parent teacher conference summed up as:
"Your daughter is one of my favorite students.  She is so well behaved, always quiet when she is supposed to be, considerate, cooperative, just an absolute JOY to have in my class" --2nd grade teacher

So you can see why I'm kind of confused here.  Does she have some kind of violent tendency? Am I pulling the wool over my eyes and seeing only innocence when there might be aggression?  I have absolutely NO idea.  That is how vague this letter was.

So, do I contact the school?  I have a WTF letter written in email and saved in draft that I'm not sure I should bother sending.  Would I be able to make any difference in the machine that is Political Correctness?  Why is the administration so afraid to call kids out for what they are?  Oh dear, the parent might remove their kid and homeschool them or send them to private school.  GOOD!  There are too many kids in that school anyway.  If I still had half my brain and more of an attention span than that of a flea I would try to homeschool.  But I know it would be a disaster.  And private school is upwards of $5000 a year PER kid on top of the insane school tax we already pay for this crappy school.

I just haven't had any good experiences with this school yet outside of my child's parent teacher conferences, which are always good news, but that is such a small part of the school experience.

Ain't That a Pisser, or The Truth About Cats.

See how innocent I am??

I have been home for over a week now. At the end of my time in NC my husband had called me to tell me that the kitten we have had for 2 months now had peed on the counter and the kitchen table, and also the curtain that I had just installed from a nerve-wracking trip to Walmart a week before.

"We have one curtain that is shorter than the other one." he told me when I asked if he had washed it.

Ok, fine. I can deal with that. I can always get a new curtain, right? But when he told me about the table and the counter I had had enough. I really like this kitten as he is quirky and sweet and curls up at my feet wherever I plant my fat butt. Even the bathroom. Ok so you didn't need to know that. ANYWHOOO...

I immediately went online from my sister's house and put him in the paper. I had gotten rid of the cat before him (Fluffy #1) after dealing with him pissing all over my house for the better part of three years, spending tons of money and time and anguish on trying to make it stop. I couldn't believe my bad luck was continuing with this little guy.

When I got home I also listed him on Craigslist and Facebook. I assumed that because of my older male cat that the younger one was getting territorial and that as I had had him tested for UTI's that he would be fine somewhere else, even outSIDE!! Thoughts of how I could remove him from my house intensified when the next day there was pee on my counter that ruined several pieces of mail and narrowly missed Kris' camera (just ruined the strap).

Perhaps you have been in my house (poor you) and know that my counter top is a landing space for anything, everything, and whatever is in between. There are cameras, sunglasses, mail, endless amounts of children's artwork, toys, photos, frames, sculptures, books, Bibles, pens, pencils, ETC I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS.

Well on Monday my Dad came over to visit. He's always giving me a hard time about the counter and associated areas, and I try my best but when no one helps I just give up. I'm not a go-getter when it comes to trying to clean up after everyone else. He wanted to use my nice camera to take a photo of something. It was sitting on the counter (of course) and when I picked it up I noticed something dripping from it.

NO.

My heart stopped briefly. I really couldn't believe it. I was speechless. Well, for a minute.

Then I was not so speechless.

"STUPID EFFING CAT I AM GOING TO KILL HIM OH MY $*&($*% WHY THE EFF WOULD HE DO THAT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH" I said. My Dad ducked.

If that wasn't bad enough I had also chosen that particular piece of counter to set Autumn's precious blankie on while I was feeding her.

I stormed across the street and went into the Show Me The Biscuit store to get some Nature's Miracle. That crap is expensive. I asked the lady if she knew of anything I could do and she just kind of looked at me and went "I-uh-no" and I burst into tears. I paid, and stormed back home. I cleaned my camera as best as I could and it still stank. I soaked Autumn's blankie in a pail with Nature's Miracle and some hot water. Thank GOD that took it out.

But my camera, not so much. On the bottom of this camera is where the battery compartment is located. Also there are several tiny screws and of course the cavernous screw mount with all of its little ridges and gaps to hide the dreaded pee crystals. And there is a bit of rubber that stops up the ports for the coax cables and USB cable. Nothing gets piss out of rubber. Nothing. I cleaned it all several times, and even sat it gently in a tray of baking soda for a couple of hourse.

It still smells. Now every time I hold my camera up to my face I gag.

What about the kitten? Did I make a delicious Chinese Pot Roast that evening for dinner?

WELL LET ME TELL YA SOMETHIN.

He spent the rest of the day in the garage (comfortably of course. I'm not an abuser.) and that night I locked him in the basement with a litter box that I had thoroughly cleaned, some food, and some water. Fluffy 2 remained upstairs. The next morning I came downstairs and went towards the bathroom. I got a whiff of cat pee as I walked past the kitchen table but assumed it was from the litterbox which was nearby.

Then Alicia came downstairs. She went to put her bowl down on the table but I wanted to clear the crap off it first. I picked up a book she had just gotten at the book fair and it was soaked. I took one sniff and came to the horrible realization that it was FLUFFY who had been peeing on those surfaces, not the kitten!!!! No way am I getting rid of him!

Can't hate on this face.

I opened the basement door and let him out. Then I decided to take drastic measures: I CLEANED.

I removed everything from the table and all surfaces of the kitchen. I also had cleaned both litter boxes with Nature's Miracle to make them odorless (it really does work on some surfaces just not my camera). We kept one in the basement and leave the door open a bit. I bleached every surface and have been extremely strict about not letting junk accumulate there. So far we have been pee-free for almost a week!!!

So the kitten can stay. See, we have never actually SEEN him pee on anything (or Fluffy for that matter) we just assumed it was him because it had stopped when Fluffy 1 left. I felt bad for a minute because a few people had answered my ads and I had to tell them sorry he was staying but oh well. I hope that they all find a kitten somewhere else. Lord knows the Humane Society has plenty of cats.

IBS--I Be Shreddin'

Need a break? :)

Sick of watching daytime TV as it contains nothing but political ad drivel (today being election day I am reallly looking forward to tomorrow!!!!) Since becoming a stay at home mom (and I ain't susie homemaker so I don't get a lot of "exercise" doing housework) I had given up on getting any real results doing workouts. I have nursed a baby for a full 12 months now and it seemed like everytime I would try to exercise some of my baby flab off it would just make more pounds stick on. Combine that sad fact with the IBS I suddenly developed when I was 29 one day after eating a kiwi at work and am now violently "allergic" to any raw veggies and some fruits and well, I'm pretty out of shape.

An amazing opportunity has presented itself via my online friends at Northeast Mountain Guiding to accompany them on some of their outdoor hiking/mountaineering/rock climbing trips to be their photographer. As a serious amateur photographer who loves being outside and turning over rocks to see what creepy crawlies are under them I am so wanting to do this!!!! BUT the truth is that I am not sureI will be able to keep up with them. That is going to change.

My sweet baby still nurses up to 5 times a day and sometimes as little as 1-2 times. I am going to be visiting my sister in NC next week for an entire 7 days and not bringing ANY kids with me so now is the time to cut her off. I feel HORRIBLE about it on the one hand and excited on the other. I can't believe that stage of her life is really already over. On the other hand it is a step toward getting my own identity back. This entire year and the one before (when I was preggo) I I have had these feelings about myself:

Old

Boring

Fat

Useless beyond being a mother

Frumpy

Lumpy

Unsexy (spellcheck says that's not a word but whatev)

Out of control

This is not the baby's fault of course, and I never have regretted breastfeeding her. She just feeds so MUCH!!!! For the first 8 months it was literally up to 12 times a day and for hours at a time some days. I have lived mostly in sweatpants and 1 pair of jeans. My hip bones still show a bit so I know they are still there, but my thighs seem so wide that I cannot even dream of putting on a skirt or normal jeans. Its hard to feel human when you have to dress like you are going to bed all the time. And dressing like that puts you in the mindset of laying around all day.

The extra weight I am carrying around (about 25 lb from before I was pregnant) has really put a strain on my knees. Apparently my knees are not very good??!! I never had trouble with them before this baby. Now I cannot bend down and stand up again without some pain. And because of the pain there are a lot of exercises I can't do. How can I lose weight if I can't eat healthy (i.e. VEGETABLES which are full of fiber and few calories--I can't even eat a bite of salad!) AND I can't jog, which has always been my go-to quick slimming exercise.

Luckily I think I finally hit rock bottom. This sounds bad but that is what I have to do: hit the bottom so I can start to go back up. I do this a lot in life. I'm hoping my kids are not like this because let me tell you it is not the easy way by far. This morning I got up, took a SHOWER (OMG!!!) and got dressed. Instead of laying in bed and nursing baby for 40 min I picked her up, got her dressed, and brought her straight downstairs. I gave her breakfast, some water, and got the kids ready for school and off we went. Coffee with my morning buddy and then when I got home baby nursed for 5 min and went straight off to dreamland. I spent about an hour doing the mending (LOL) which involved sewing buttons back on 3 sweaters, a poncho, and fixing a hole on a cute shirt Alicia has. Why don't they put buttons on better??? Why is it that I buy a damn sweater with buttons and they pop off one at a time within hours of wearing them????

After I fixed all that crap I decided I would stop slacking and put the 30 Minute Shred in with Jillian Michaels. I used to do it every morning when my BFF Becca lived next door but when she moved 8 minutes away well, it was just too much work to get r done LOL

And so, I shredded. It really wasn't all that bad and my knees didn't hurt at all. The lovely twisty part of my lower spine that has developed over the past 10 years kind of made me wince a few times but it just needs to obey. I'm hoping that I can keep it up all the rest of the week, and then when we are down south I can use the gym facilities at the hotel to at least do some cardio every day. Then I can transition into actually USING MY GYM MEMBERSHIP and get through the next few months with that, snowshoeing, X-Country skiing, and hopefully HIKING.

That reminds me...I need to do some laundry now and make my husband think that I actually have this place under control...

The Quest for Truth

Sorry for the lapse in posting...haven't really had much to write about since school started!!

As our family has expanded to a size of five we have been crammed into a sedan for the past year and its gotten a little hard to deal with. With the help of family we were able to purchase a 2005 Nissan Quest from Freedom Nissan in South Burlington. The last car I bought was a Saturn Ion and it was directly from Saturn (they aren't slimy, just tell you the price and you buy it or you don't) and it was brand new. Since Saturn is gone now and since I feel that Nissan is a brand that I have liked and trusted in the past I figured they would be safe to deal with.

Now, I am not going to get into bashing them or their sales techniques. I will just say that I had to bite my lip a few times because it did feel like they think we are stupid or unaware of what goes on in car dealerships. And maybe up to a point we are naive, too trusting. But come on, really? You sell us a car at what you make out to be a substantial discount and then take an entire week to fix what is an 8 hour job (according to them), then lie to my face that you ordered the part, it came in the wrong box but it was the right part, you called allll over to Nissan dealerships to find out if they had the part (the only one was 3 hrs away in NH apparently), then your technician who "has been with us for 20 years" fixes it but "it just doesn't feel quite right" and "the wrong part being in the right box really threw him off"....WTF????? Seriously????? Its ready Friday, no wait, Monday, no...no TUESDAY.

Yes I got it on Tuesday, exactly 1 week after shaking their hands. They hand us the keys and even though they are Nissan sales people and its a Nissan van the guy can't tell me diddly about how anything works.

What I am really pissed about is very small. Its the size of a credit card. Its called a Remote Keyless Entry fob. Its essential for, gee, I don't know...EVERYTHING?? Well it happened to not be present on this key set. What was present was the remote car starter, which yes I appreciate the fact that this van has one, but I would rather not have one and have a freaking REMOTE KEYLESS ENTRY!!!! The van does not lock when you start driving. It does not unlock automatically when you go into Park. If my car alarm was to go off I would have no way of resetting it. That could get ugly.

Well we called the Nissan dealership and their response was "Well because we gave you a deal and because of the cost of repairs the key is what comes with it."

DIRTY.

No they should say "Oh I'm sure we have one in stock you could have." or even "Well, we can give you a refurbished one for $X.XX"

Not impressed. I would not recommend dealing with them unless you have a firm resolve and are not afraid of confrontation or passive aggressive behavior. Now the baby is awake and this is why I don't blog very often!!!

UPDATE: Kris went in and talked to the Sales Manager who was a lot more reasonable than the first guy. I know these people are all trying to do their jobs I just wish there was a little more REAL honesty involved. We should have our Keyless Remote tomorrow morning (I hope)...

Well...duh.

Me, now

Pre-third kid

For the last few months I have been kind of not caring about my baby weight, yet at the same time beating myself up inside every time I stepped on the scale. As some of my long term friends may remember I used to be very thin and in fairly good tone. A sedentary job, a miscarriage at 11 weeks, and then a successful pregnancy later I am not what I used to be either mentally or physically. This is good in some ways, but also sad in others. I'm OK with not being a size 2 anymore. But I'm not OK with only losing 15 of the 50 lb left to lose after the baby was born EIGHT MONTHS AGO. I expected to hold on to maybe 10 or 15 lb but not 35.

Today I got onto the scale. Ugh. I try to only do it once every couple of weeks so I don't get too depressed...ignorance being bliss in this case. Again my weight has not budged since March. I take my measurements once a month also because I am insane. Oh and my body fat percentage too. Did I mention I used to work in a gym? Yeah I got a little obsessive. I'm only slightly obsessive now. Plus way lazier.

I decided to stop blindly eating whatever I want and take stock in what I am doing to myself. I got out the measuring cups, the scale (the food scale, not the meanie scale) and went to the Daily Plate to find out exactly why I am not losing any weight despite breastfeeding like mad (500+ calories burned daily supposedly) and walking 3-4 days a week for an hour at a time.

This is where the "Well, duh" comes in.

My breakfast has for many years consisted of Maypo (if you haven't tried it...you are really missing out) which is high in vitamins, iron, and both kinds of fiber. A serving of Maypo has 180 calories. Not bad for a breakfast food. BUT in true Betsy fashion I can't just eat it plain. Even though its Maple flavored I still need more. SO I dump in chocolate chips. I used to use a 1/3 cup to measure. Hell I used to use my fists to measure but I figured I should tone down. After Autumn was born I started to cut down even more and used a 1/4 cup measure (heaping of course). Chocolate chips have 70 calories in 30 pieces. That's about 2-ish calories each. A 1/4 cup has about 164 calories. I know this because I counted them out individually and did MATH EEEEEEEW!!!! I also add about 1/4 cup of whatever percentage milk we have in the fridge to cool it down and make it extra yummy. So my breakfast is about 400 calories. Not great but its filling and I am not usually hungry until noon.

BUT I am also a daily cup a day coffee addict. And no, I don't drink that black. I like my coffee like I like my Maypo: Full of SUGAR!!! I just blindly dump in flavored creamer (Dulce de Leche mmmmmm) until it reaches the danger spill over zone. 1 tablespoon=35 calories. I figure that I must be dumping in what, 3 tablespoons? WRONG. I measured (using water) how much I am actually using. By my calculations (I wrote it out on paper and proved my work!) I am adding 220 calories to my 4 calorie coffee!! SIX tablespoons!!! SOOOO my breakfast in total is over 600 calories. How many of you out there take creamer with YOUR coffee? I'm going to keep my tablespoon measure next to the coffee pot from now on.

Just this small bit of measuring really opened my eyes to what is wrong with my diet and how my perception of serving size is way off. I really think that they should teach more in school about things like what a tablespoon, a cup, a gram, and an ounce look like. Obesity is now epidemic in several parts of the world, and I think we need Food Education just as badly as we need Sex Education. And also, just as we as parents should be talking to our kids about the birds and the bees we should be talking to them (and demonstrating) about the chips and the fries.

OK Did Someone Tell This Virus I Don't Have Insurance??

OMGoodness I am sooooooooo sick of this I keep getting the same cold over and over. Its becoming like an old friend. I am gonna buy stock in Puffs Plus Lotion!! I buy it in bulk now about every 3 days!!! The edges of my nostrils have grown plate armor and I have decided it makes more sense to just shove the tissue up there and leave it. My baby looks at me like I have three heads (or just one really freaky looking one) but she never seems to get sick. Why is it soooo cute when they puff that lower lip out?

For dinner tonight I plan to make a Tomato Beef Alphabet Stew. I am kind of taking a different recipe that my good friend Astrid posted on her blog and adding a few things of my own! I am doing the alphabet noodles because my picky middle child LOVES that PBS show "Martha Speaks" about a dog who can talk because she eats Alphabet Soup so I'm hoping that appeals to her. We'll see if she can look past the tomatoes and spices!

I have spent most of the day on my netbook (not unusual) chatting with friends and trying to promote myself. I joined Twitter (follow me...I don't really know what else to do!) and created a Fan page on Facebook for my little business that I renamed Moonshine Designs & Photography. I have high hopes that I will be able to get back into jewelry making soon. My friend Maggie is inspiring me left and right and I'm starting to get the itch again!! Its kind of exciting!

Laundry Stats:

Clean Laundry: 5 baskets
Folded Laundry: 1 basket
Dirty Laundry: 2 baskets

I think the laundry's winning. Oy vey.

I Know I Said I Wanted To Go Hiking.....

...but this is ridiculous!!!

Laundry to do

Can't this crap fold itself???

Seems like everything is happening in mountains today. Mountains of laundry, mountains of dishes, mountains of kleenex on the floor from my damn recurring headcold. Luckily I have this cute baby who keeps smiling at me non-stop and makes it all go away:

Yeah, I gotta Muffin Top. What's it to ya?

I've had it with wearing sweatpants. From about the 7th month of my pregnancy (around mid July 2009) I became too large to comfortably wear jeans. Jeans were my secret obsession up until this baby. I literally owned close to 50 pairs all size 2 up to a size 9 (Juniors. HA HA yeah like that will happen ever again). See, before I got remarried in 2007 I was an average of 120 pounds at 5'7". Yeah, I was skinny. And I loved every minute of it.

Marriage plopped about 10 lb onto me. See, I have this ridiculously skinny husband who is one of those freaks of nature that can eat an entire pizza and lose 5 lb from the effort. At first, I was hoping I was also a freak of nature. Turns out I'm just a freak.

Next, I got pregnant. I tried to keep up my walking and was doing the Shred with my neighbor every single morning at 6:00am (walking was at 5:30am on those days). I managed to make it to 7 months pregnant with this exercise. Then my neighbor moved from right next door to about 5 miles away. Way inconvenient. I vowed to keep getting my sorry butt up at 5:30 to walk since it was summertime, but I was working full time and slowly all dissolved into laziness. I enjoyed sleeping an extra 1.5 hrs and then in the evenings I was so exhausted from being pregnant all day that I just sat on the couch and watched TV and then went to bed. Three months of that and I hit 186 lb by the time I gave birth. Oy.

When you are large and awkwardly shaped, sweatpants are about the only thing that fit you. And yoga pants, which are essentially snobby sweatpants with a convenient panel at the top that skinny people roll over to hold them up and fat (or pregnant) people can use to pull up over their belly to disguise embarrassing things that may hang out from under their shirts!

I am now 14 weeks postpartum, and let me tell you I am sick of my biggest clothing decision being "The black sweatpants today or the brown?"

Luckily I had a pair of Daisy Fuentes size 10 women's jeans that I had bought at Goodwill for this very occasion. I am not really a size 10 yet, more like a 12 or maybe a 14 I really have no clue. All I know is that I have only lost 10 lb since coming home from the hospital at 169 lb.

I dug through the Jean Graveyard in the back of my closet (essentially a large wicker hamper that houses my dreams and fantasies) and found my Fuentes. What I love about Daisy Fuentes is she is a curvy Hispanic (or is it Latina? Eh, whatev.) and she makes her jeans so that if at first you don't succeed getting them on, wiggle, jiggle, and try again! Eventually they will fit!

I got these bad boys up to the tops of my thighs and almost shed a tear in exhaustion. Then when I was about to give up a little voice in my head said, "Pull a little harder and wiggle to the right". POP! Up they went over my generous backside and WOO HOO I got them buttoned! I did the usual squat and contort that all us girls do when we are trying to "break in" a pair of stretch jeans. The moves that loosen them up in all the right places so that when we sit down we don't immediately SPROING back up again from the tension.

I wore them all day. I felt like a human being again. My husband started looking at me like he used to pre-pregnancy. I'm scared. :)

How Do You Make Ends Meet When What You Have is a Jumbled Mess?

As rewarding as doing housework is (cue laughter from the audience) it doesn't generate a paycheck! That part really sucks!!!!

Things I need to do today:

Clean both the 29 gallon fish tank and the 10 gallon fish tank
Clean all three toilets (whoever installed 3 toilets in a 2 level house didn't explore all the ramifications...)
Make something for dinner (possibly pizza tonight...I got nothin')
Fold 4 loads of laundry
Sweep and Mop the Kitchen floor
Empty dishwasher and fill it up again

That's going to take me like all day and its 12:30, the kids come home at 3:45, I need to go get my afternoon adult conversation fix at my friends house at 2, and ballet lessons for Fluffy #4 are at 5:00pm until 6.

LUCKILY I clean best under pressure!!! I just need to figure out how to put this baby down...

I am also trying to get my Etsy store up and running so I can try to generate a way to pay for some of my smaller monthly bills. I make jewelry (or, used to when I had time and less kids) and I also am an avid photographer. Since photography is a little easier for me to do and I have a ton of great photos stored on my various flash and hard drives I decided to concentrate on that.

I decided to charge $12 for each 8x10 print, and $5 for shipping/processing. Originally I said that each one will come matted in your choice of black or white. Yeah well little did I know that a mat costs on average $3.50!!!! The print itself costs about $3, and the packaging costs $3. Postage costs around $3 also. Lets do the math: Charging $17, costing $12.50. So I make only $4.50 and that does not count the driving time to pick up the photos or the postage for having them printed and sent to my house!!! I have sold a total of 6, but only charged for 2 mats out of those because I didn't think properly. Thinking properly is one of those things they don't teach you in school.

So this lesson in "Thinking for Dimwits" is: find out how much things cost such as materials, postage, packaging, etc. BEFORE you price any item that you may list. I know this sounds like common sense stuff, but this blog is for people like me who learn from their mistakes, or from reading crap on the internet!!! :) I usually learn things the hard way also.

Etsy.com is a great way to get your handmade items out there but its a game to play just like anything else, and it is HARD work for sure. It doesn't just happen. There are a lot of really talented people out there who are just like you and me, trying to make a living with what we have.

Another great place to make some money is Seed.com I heard about it on one of the national morning news shows (I know I know they are like gossip rags now) and I checked it out. If you are a writer or a photographer you can definitely make some money. Take a look!

Will I Ever Get to Be a Happy Housewife?

Image Source cause I don't like skankin'

I find myself at 30 years old on my second marriage with 2 white cats named Fluffy (#1 and #2 respective to their adoptions), 2 school age kids, a newborn, and unfortunately the better paying job. How many ladies out there have a similar situation? My first marriage was to someone who had a decent enough job so that I only had to work part time for the first 2 years of my eldest child's life, and I chose to go back to work after my 2nd child was born since we had to upgrade to a bigger house than a 2 bedroom flat. After a work related divorce (ironic eh?) 2 years later, a quickie marriage to my current husband, and 4 1/2 years after #2 was born I became pregnant. I lost the baby at 11 weeks, and even though it was horrible timing and had been unplanned, I felt desperate to regain the child I had lost and became pregnant again 8 weeks later, due October 15th.

My husband was a grad student at the University and was set to complete his Master's in June of this year. Then it got pushed to August, then September, and finally October 1. We had hypothesized that he would have been done in June, and would have had plenty of time to get a real job that paid enough for me to stay home and care for our growing brood (I even wouldn't mind adding a 4th at sometime in the not too near future...) and that we would have plenty of time to figure out ourselves by October 15th for sure.

Well, life happens, as my wise boss says. First, my darling newborn decided to wait to be born 12 days late. Despite getting the medieval torture method of stripping the membranes 3 separate times. Yes, that DOES hurt by the way. A lot. Anyway, I tried to continue working up to the bitter end, but my third grader apparently picked his nose at the wrong time and came down with the dreaded Swine Flu when I was 41 weeks pregnant. I began to exhibit symptoms so I called and got on Tamiflu immediately in hopes to stave off the dreaded deadly preggo killer. I walked away from the battle with a nasty sinus inflammation and a bad headache but never had a fever or any coughing/pneumonia symptoms.

I even got vaccinated for H1N1 (or Influenza A as they are keen to call it this week) the day before she was born so its at the bottom of my Stress List. I was one of the "lucky" ones to get the liquid gold. Of course, I felt like a governmental guinea pig and every fiber of my being said not to get it as it hasn't been thoroughly tested and if I'm only supposed to take Claritin sparingly while pregnant and can't even take Advil why would I submit to injecting myself with something that could cause who knows what harm. BUT everyone and their mother are storming the castle trying to get a dose so I felt compelled and left it up to God.

I went into labor at 1:00 AM on Oct 27th and delivered my beautiful perfect little girl baby at 6:37 AM.
"Any special requests?" my doctor asked.
"Epidural now please." I replied.
And after 4ish hours of drugged bliss they gave the A-OK to begin pushing. And, I swear, turned off the drugs. That's a new one for me.

I pushed her out in 5 minutes as it was horribly uncomfortable to feel a baby head lodged in my nether regions and I wasn't keen on letting her hang out there for very long. She had the cord wrapped around her neck 1 time and was a little Smurf-like, but once they unwrapped it and sucked out the goo she pinked right up and was a fine little turkey.

"What is her name?" my doctor asked.
"Fluffy #3" I said. I couldn't decide on a real name at that moment! I was just so happy to finally be able to sit up without feeling like Gumby!

My husband is still lacking in the job department, although to his defense he only graduated a month ago, but it is a frightening thought that after 6 weeks of being my children's mother again that I will have to go back to working all day every day to support our household. My husband gets a little bit for continuing to work for the college for the next couple of months, but he came to the marriage with baggage as many people do, and has his own bills to pay on top of contributing to our combined ones.

What do I do, quit and go on Welfare? It is tempting to say the least. I don't know if I want to work anymore. Not because I am lazy, or because I don't like my job, but because I'm sick of reading about all the troubled children who are committing crimes at younger and younger ages with their parents being totally blindsided because they had no idea what their kids were up to. Why? Because they were both full time at work, sometimes working 2 jobs each!! And why does this country only allow for 12 weeks of maternity leave, when day care costs so much you have to work 2 jobs to pay for it additionally? How can Europeans get away with a year of PAID leave and here we are lucky to get 6 weeks of it paid? I want to actually raise my children, not just pop them out and leave it up to them!

I'm starting to think Women's Lib is backfiring on those of us who want our husbands to take care of us. I think that part of the reason that the divorce rate has skyrocketed is because we wives don't have the respect we used to for our husbands. We can do it all ourselves, so if they piss us off we can just shed them and move on looking for the next unfulfilling relationship.

There isn't that sense of the unbreakable bond of family that there used to be. Dad is no longer the "Head of Household" by default, and Mom is no longer "always there for you".

I know there are some success stories of Supermoms who can juggle it all and have their kids turn out just fine. But I don't feel like I'm Supermom material. I'm mostly regular Mom material. I think I would have a nervous breakdown trying to make everyone happy and hold it all together. I just want to put on a polka dot dress with an apron, learn how to cook beyond Peanut Butter and Fluff sandwiches, and wear high heels and pearls while vacuuming. Is that too much to ask?

Fluffy #1

Fluffy #2

Fluffy #3