The Sleepover Saga: Part 2

Game On!

(Need to catch up on part 1?  Check it out here.)

At this point, we said good night to our beloved teacher and her boys and I reminded my husband about the piñata.

“Oh shoot!” he said, and dashed off to the garage to scrounge up something to hang it on.

In the meantime, I organized the boys in one of my favorite decisions – the sleeping bag sack race.  Man, was I proud of that move!

I had purposely skipped the lawn watering the day before so things would be nice and dry.  Next, I had them all grab their sleeping bags, take off their flip flops and get inside.  I lined them up and they raced across the yard, potato-sack-race-style until they were lying on the ground, exhausted.

{Mwuh ha ha! My plan was working!}

A few boys who had figured out early on in life that they weren’t very competitive, helped me judge who won. Since I hadn’t had time to get a prize, I decided to award the winner of the sack race the next best thing: First dibs at getting to take a crack at the piñata.

Boys Love to Hit Stuff

Ah, piñata time: the timeless tradition of swinging a dangerous weapon around for the sole purpose of crushing something for a sweet candy reward!

Careful, dear!

I know that many parents have moved away from this dangerous birthday activity.  These are also parents who probably don’t allow their kids to turn sticks into swords, and who would also cringe at my son and my husband battling it out with their modified pool-noodle light sabers.   (Another one of my previous birthday party activity-victories that has lasted for two years of continued joy and impromptu whacking battles.)

The crowd of writhing, candy-craving boys lined up in a semi-circle around my husband who had bravely finagled a fallen tree branch, into a torch of piñata-holding destiny.  It also looked like the beginnings of a $10,000-winning “America’s Funniest Home Videos” submission.

Bravely he stood there while the first boy approached the piñata and eagerly grasped the bat.

“Where’s the blindfold?”

Oh shoot.  I had forgotten about that part.  I dashed inside and considered my options.  A dark sock?  No…too short.  A feather boa?  No…to itchy / girly.  Ah HA!  My husband’s old snow beanie!  Perfect!  Perhaps next time I will purchase an actual bandana.

The hitter grabbed the hat and put it on without any fuss, and was spun around 7 times.  Unfortunately, we had no more adults handy (husband was with the piñata and I was armed with my camera), so we enlisted the birthday boy for his help with the spinning, which was more of a casual turning that left no one dizzy or hilariously off balance. (Next time…)

Bashing stuff in the name of CANDY!

As the boys started swinging for the fences, I was reminded of our decision to stop having children after we hit the number two.  I should have made my husband wear a cup, regardless.

Luckily, the piñata was the only thing that the bat made contact with (phew!) and my son got the privilege of cracking that sucker wide open, to the sheer joy of his rowdy partygoers.  Woo hoo!  Candy for all and my husband managed to save the day with is modified piñata stand and man-hood intact.  Now that is an activity that I’d call a success!

It’s Getting Dark

The sun was beginning to set and I was feeling pretty confident with my activity choices.  I decided to break out another online score that I had found: 100 glow sticks.

A few helpful boys and I started activating the glowing goo inside and I distributed them among the crowd.  It was time for a Night Hike!

Now, where we live, a night hike is more like a twilight walk through the cozy neighborhood, but still…we gathered up the boys and made sure they were glowing like Christmas trees and set off to tire them out, I mean, we set off for a nice walk: )

This walk only lasted for about 25 minutes since, as you may remember, most of the boys were wearing flip flops, or casual pull on shoes without socks.  A few mentioned blisters, and were beginning to fall behind at the end.

“Hee-hee-hee”, I thought gleefully to myself.  A perfect time to come back and watch a movie!

As soon as we got back to the house from our birthday night parade, the boys all decided to go get their pajamas on for movie time.  Many of them also chose to brush their teeth.  I was pretty amazed.

Glow-boys all ready for a movie.

We set up all the sleeping bags and popped in one of the two movies my son had picked out from Red Box that afternoon.  I sat back and patted myself on the back as I watched them get drowsy and sucked into the Chipmunk drama on screen.

At this point, my husband was starting to fade.

He had been called in to work nearly 2 hours out of town that day, and had been up before dawn.  He had arrived home about an hour before the crowd of boys had arrived.  He was not going to make it through the long haul.

This is the time where I had wished I had enlisted some additional adult help.  If you are considering a sleepover, I would recommend bribing a good friend, relative or even paying a good babysitter for assistance with the late-night shift.  That’s where things can get ugly.

Before my husband passed out, I made a quick dash to the grocery store for milk.  Sure the mini-cereal boxes for the morning’s quick breakfast idea was a good idea, but I wouldn’t get very far without milk!  Oops!  Luckily we have two grocery stores less than a mile from us and I was back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

My husband was losing steam fast and was starting to nod off on the couch.  No worries.  I was starting to feel pretty confident in my sleepover skills when I realized that it had gotten pretty quiet.  Too quiet.

Oh frick!  I had forgotten to ask the boys to put up their goodie bags which were FILLED with candy before the movie began!  That had been tucked cozily in their sleeping bags eating candy the whole time!  INCOMING!

Sugar Highs and Lows

By the end of the movie, almost all of the boys were bouncing off the walls.  It’s cool…that’s what happens at sleepovers, right?  I’ve got this…

But soon the stereotypical bouncing became late-night bickering, and my son, who normally can’t stay up past 9:00 on his own power and rarely gets candy more than once a week, was having a serious tear-stained melt down on the couch.

“They won’t listen to me! Why did we even have a sleepover anyway?!” he cried/ranted, and stomped off to his room to flop down on his bed.  Next, he realized that a few boys had broken off from the rest of the tribe and had found his collection of Legos and were involved in building a grand assortment of ninjas and Star Wars memorabilia in his bedroom.

I abandoned my post in the living room as the other boys began a game of ‘light tag’ and tried to cheer up my boy.

“Sweetie” I said “This is kind of what happens at a sleepover.  You get lots of people together and it’s hard to listen sometimes.  Please come back out and give it another chance.”

He managed to stick a scowl on his face and tromp back down the hall.  Luckily, when the other boys saw him reappear, clearly unhappy, one of the older ones said, “Hey everybody!  Let’s do what the birthday boy wants to do!” without me having to say anything.

After they tried to play a game of light tag in the house, I thought it would be best to pop in the other movie and attempt to get a little peace back under the roof.  The volume had increased to near sleepover-arrival limits and I had no idea how my husband was able to sleep, fully clothed, on top of the covers, back in our bedroom.

I had been informed by three of the parents, that their boys occasionally had problems with bedwetting, but only when they had late liquids and had been over tired.  Gulp.  Ok…surely that wouldn’t happen at a sleepover, right?

The boys had happily been gulping down water ever since we’d gotten back from our ‘night hike’ and I didn’t blame them, since our house was HOT!  Unfortunately, our A/C unit was located directly next to the smoldering fire pit, drawing in stinky smoky air throughout the house, so we had turned it off.  I finally broke down and cracked the windows, even though the smoke could easily blow in that way too. Of course they were thirsty!

My poor, poor bathroom…it has now seen things it probably only has seen during some of the rowdy college parties it used to see back when our home was rented out by a handful of popular college boys.  Little boys are not the best at aiming when they are focused.  Just think of what they can do when they are carrying around full bladders and jittery sugar highs!  YIKES!

After seeing the line to the bathroom grow, I told the boys to just go outside in the backyard to take care of their business.  This suggestion was met with extreme enthusiasm and I am hoping it got left off the list the next morning when their parents asked them, “What did you guys do at the party?”.

Finally, they were all situated (minus the laid-back Lego construction crew, hard at work in my son’s room) for movie #2.

When the end credits finally started to roll, only a couple boys were left awake and I ushered the Lego crew out of the back and into their sleeping bags.  I told them that they didn’t have to go to sleep, but I was turning off the TV and that it was whisper time.

Mama’s off to bed.

I had set up night lights in the big TV room where they were sleeping as well as along the path down the hall to the bathroom, just in case there were any late-night goers.  Groggily, I followed the lit up runway back to my room.  It was a quarter after 1 and it had been a long time since I had been up that late.  I was beat!

I pulled on some appropriate (a.k.a. “Frumpy / Mom-Like / Too hot to sleep comfortably”) pajamas and got my robe ready by my bed, in case I needed to go out and check on the boys.  I wanted to be sure I was decently dressed, although I was still crazy hot without the A/C being on.  There was no way I’d be able to budge the hubby from his sleep stupor.

Then Comes the Dawn

After a fitful sweaty sleep, I heard a thundering noise and realized that someone was running down the hall toward our room.

It was 5:45 in the morning.

I decided that since my husband had gotten to go to sleep early on, he could cover the morning shift and I grumpily woke him up to deal with the growing roar that was coming from outside our bedroom door.  He must have been walking out there in his sleep because he came back in shortly and there was no change in the decibel level.

I huffed my way out of bed and into my robe and took the hall in two long strides.  “You guys!  It’s not even the morning yet!  Can you keep it down?!”  There were still a few boys managing to sleep on the floor, despite the rest of the boys walking over them and turning on the lights.

“We’re hungry!” the alert ones said.

“I’m sorry.  I’m not serving breakfast until it’s officially ‘the morning’; let’s go put on some cartoons.”

I managed to stay in bed until a little after 7, but I wouldn’t consider what I was doing as anything remotely like ‘sleep’.  More like, tossing and turning and asking God, “Why on earth did I agree to a sleepover, again?”

Have I mentioned how much I abhor waking up early?  My children have been trained to fend for themselves on weekend mornings while mommy attempts to make up for all the sleep she lost during the week.  These boys were not adhering to the House Rule of ‘Just be quiet and leave mommy alone in the mornings and everything will be ok.’

The night before, my husband had been informed that it was his turn to volunteer at church that Sunday morning.

“What?!  You can’t switch with someone else?!  You’re going to leave me alone with them during pick up time?” I pleaded.

But it was no use.  He made me a yummy breakfast, got suited up in his motorcycle gear and was off in a flash.  Unfortunately, my house smelled of campfire, feet and farts, so I had little appetite for my nice plate of eggs and bacon.

Yep.  I fed the sleepover gang cold, sugary cereal and fruit while we adults had hot plates of goodness.  Luckily, they didn’t seem to care, even though I had ushered them all outside to eat, since I knew the track record of boys holding a bowl of cereal versus my floors and couch.  This way, only my grass would end up sticky.  Yes!

After a quick shower so I could look somewhat sane to the pick-up parents, I managed to turn off the TV and told the boys to go outside and play, which was actually what most of them were doing anyway.  I was happy it was such nice weather.

Back in my camp counselor days, I learned that packing kids up went much faster if the counselor took over the ‘rolling up the sleeping bag’ part, since most little kids can drag that activity out for a few hours.  I managed to get all the sleeping bags stuffed and rolled up and lined them up near the entry way.

Ready for pick up time! Please ignore my lame hand-drawn birthday sign in the background. Like I said, this whole ‘working full time and planning a party’ thing is new to me and it’s certainly not my best work,

Next, I picked up all the miscellaneous clothing items and laid them out like a lost and found.  “Is this yours?” I’d ask each of the boys as they walked by.  Finally we got all their backpacks packed and goodie bags collected and put everything by their sleeping bag.  I was beginning to feel like the end was really in sight.

We Made It!

I had set an 11am pick up time, and I think it worked out well.  The boys all had time to play together and get increasingly dirty and sticky, while I had a chance to rein in some of the mess from the night before, so parents didn’t arrive and see the complete devastation that my house had once experienced.

But, there still is a rubber lizard, somehow, stuck to the ceiling and caramel stuck to the window screen.  Not too many parents noticed that, though.

I was very thankful that we didn’t have any bouts of homesickness, and no one had to go home in the middle of the night because of sugar-overload-puking.  The boys seemed to have a great time and already seemed ready for a nap by the time their parents came to whisk them away.

I have a feeling that I will still undertake a sleepover or two in my future, but I doubt I we will invite so many boys.  I will also make sure to have extra help, in case my husband is MIA again.

I really hope it was something that my seven year old will happily remember for a long time to come.

The Sleepover Saga: Part 1

I love throwing parties and events.  I have been known to construct a killer model of the Star Wars “Star Destroyer” from bamboo and tin foil to use as a decoration for my son’s 5^th birthday party.  I don’t really trend toward the ‘custom water bottle label’ or cute food signs, but I do appreciate people who do.  I just rarely have time to go that far and many of our guests are kid-sized, and I’ve learned that they really don’t care.

My son turns 7 this month and requested a sleepover party.  He’s been to a handful of sleepovers at the homes of some close friends, and of course, with grandparents and his aunt and uncle, but we’d never had a full-blown “SLEEPOVER” before.  Here’s how it went down, in case you ever think of throwing one for your little buckaroo:

Note: Since there is a lot of strong feelings about sleepovers for kids, I decided to create an info sheet that I handed out to all parents that listed our contact info, home address and reminded them of the pick up time.  I also asked each parent to fill out an info sheet for us to keep that had similar info and asked about food allergies etc.  Since there were a few parents who we had never really met, this helped everyone feel a little more connected and assured parents that we could be easily reached if we needed to be.  I highly recommend the ‘info sheet’ tactic!

Who to Invite?

My son has a birthday during the last week of school, and right around Memorial Day, so we opted to hold his party a weekend before the actual event, in order to ensure a good turnout.  He is lucky enough to have a small class (9 or 10 boys + 10 girls) and so, to avoid hurting anyone’s feeling, we invited all the boys in the class and two other boys who he rode motorcycles with on the weekends. (Little dirt bikes, not giant actual motorcycles.  That would be weird!)

I had asked his teacher how we should proceed with distributing the invitations (I didn’t have any mailing addresses of the boys) and she suggested sending them to school with my son, and she’d send them home in the weekly homework folder.  Cool!  I automatically felt like that step alone beefed up the ‘street-cred’ of my son’s party.

Unfortunately, my son had a few spare invites and started inviting older kids who were not in his class while hanging out on the playground.

Who are you again? RSVP tracking!

On the invites (thank you, Etsy!) I had listed my cell phone as well as my e-mail address, both of which I can access from my smart phone, which is, embarrassingly, constantly by my side.  This helped me respond quickly to any parent RSVP questions or concerns.

I stated getting voicemails from parents who I did not know, and whose child’s name was unfamiliar to me.  This is how I learned my son had gone on an invite-rampage on his playground.

This made it tricky when it came to goodie bags, since I had ordered quantities based on the number of kids I had thought had been invited, versus the REAL number of kids invited.  I spent the last week crossing my fingers that I would have enough supplies.  It turns out we had only two ‘Sorry, we can’t make it’ RSVPs.

We also had two boys ask to bring their big brother along too.  This brought our grand total of boys (including my son) to 12.

Feeding the Masses

Note to self: Hot dogs change color and get speckled when they are prepared in a crock pot.

I am not an amazing cook but Pinterest has been awesome at giving me some great mealtime ideas.  (Or “recipes” – I guess that’s what normal cook-people call them!)  We were doing a ‘camping’ theme and I wanted to do something simple for dinner (the boys would be showing up around 4pm).  Hot dogs it was!

At first, I planned on roasting them over our mini (and by mini, I mean, smaller than a normal-sized bike tire, MINI) fire pit.  But then I remembered that I had only done that a few times, and a party is no place to be the gallant ‘watch me try out all these new ideas’ girl.  I needed to just keep it simple so I could also try and enjoy myself more than I did seven years prior when I was trying to push out a giant baby.

I opted for the fabulous Stephanie O’Dea’s hot dogs in a crockpot method and simply tossed my Costco purchase of hotdogs in the crock (no water is needed) and turned that baby to ‘Low’ for 2-3 hours.  Mine were actually done a little early and so I turned it to ‘warm’.

I learned that cooking hot dogs by crock pot turns them a very strange and unappetizing color! Maybe it was the brand (Hebrew National) or maybe they really did cook too long.  All I know is that I was so lucky that I was feeding a bunch of hungry boys who could seriously, care less what they looked like!

I also gambled with my bun purchase, and bought fewer buns than dogs, since most kids I knew usually only wanted the dog and skipped the bun.  From an 18 pack of buns, we still have 10 left and only had 7 hotdogs remaining, since the boys scavenged them for seconds around 11:00 that evening.

Games and Activities

I am a big-time planner, but with my new full time job (feel free to catch up on the mommy-goes-back-to-work drama HERE) I really did not have the time or the energy to give this party the ol’ college try.

Still, there were times I got to do a little research online, and thankfully, I had spent two summers as a camp counselor at a sleep away camp, so I tried desperately to think about fun games from my past.  My goal was to keep the little guys busy since there was a high possibility of homesickness with boys so young.

The birthday boy had requested a piñata, and since he loves swinging a bat in little league, I thought, “Sure.  Why not?”  It wasn’t until after I had paid a ridiculous amount for shipping and the festive contraption had arrived, that I remembered that our big tree in the backyard had been cut down over a year before.  Crud.  Where the heck would we hang that thing?  I decided to delegate the issue to my husband and hoped he would be the amazing problem solver that he usually was and moved on to other things.

When the little rabble rousers arrived, they were all super excited and spent at least the first 90 minutes bouncing around at the loudest possible level that they could.  All Nerf guns were utilized and my back door was slammed so many times I’m wondering how it’s still on its hinges.  Certainly, no activities were needed.

Then we gathered them up for some hot dogs before they turned even a weirder shade of gray/brown.

After a festive dinner of hot dogs, grapes and little bags of chips, I noticed that all the boys happened to be in one place at the same time, so we ended up diving into the present-opening session.

These kids will be getting the most generic thank you cards since they formed an impenetrable circle around my birthday boy, making my mom-task of writing down who got him what, nearly impossible.

We put the gifts aside and few guests decided that they’d like to open them and play with them, before I swooped in and rescued a few.  I didn’t think that my son’s new Lego sets would be the best thing to open and construct at a sleepover with 12 boys hyped up on crazy boy-fuel. (A.K.A. Boys being 7) so I moved what I could to our bedroom for safe keeping.

Outside, Everybody, Outside!

We had decided to do s’mores instead of a birthday cake, and although my son agreed to this, we totally forgot to do the whole ‘put a candle in it and sing Happy Birthday’ part.  Things were just moving along too fast and too loud for normal brain functions to occur.  He hasn’t noticed that we skipped that part yet.

My son’s amazing first grade teacher stopped by the party and made a celebrity appearance.  She brought her two adorable baby boys and assisted with the s’more making.  At first she and I tried to roast a bunch of marshmallows and construct the s’mores without the boys, since they all seemed to be having a great time running around.  We also figured this would keep the number of burn injuries down.

But the boys sensed the fire and came running over to see what was going on.  I had purchased some pretty cool roasting forks online and so we loaded them up with marshmallows and let them have at it.

No one suffered any burns or injuries, which was pretty miraculous, since they were all crowded in around the little metal fire pit in shorts and flip-flops.  Not to mention that they were still nearly shuddering with excitement and constantly moving and/or shouting.

Soon the boys discovered that the marshmallows could catch on fire and dissolve, and quickly we burned our way through an entire bag of mallows.  I think only 3 boys actually ATE a s’more, and I had about a dozen that we had lovingly stacked and sandwiched left on the tray even the next morning.

Lesson learned: Boys would rather burn stuff than eat stuff.  At least s’mores are cheaper than a birthday cake!

Ready for Part 2?

Shine On

Testing, testing, 1-2-3…

If you’ve ever read one of my blog posts before, it’s no secret that I L-O-V-E me some limelight! I am usually at my happiest when I am at the center of attention or somehow connected to whoever is at that moment.

I believe that this ‘Look at me!’ mentality is one of the reasons behind my passion for my own birthday, a love that I’ve had for myself, ever since I could remember.

In cheerleading, I loved being at the top of the builds. (I cheered in the nineties, people. We were too cool to do ‘pyramids’; they were BUILDS, dang it!) Although falling from them hurt, no matter what they were called.

I loved seeing my name in print and my big cheesy grin dominating my year book and I would count how many mentions I received from my small high school’s almanac. Although…there was that one year that a rather embarrassing photo of me in mid-toe-touch jump made it to print; I could have lived without that attention!

When it comes to my attention addiction, I’ve never been one for the ‘any attention is good attention’ mantra. Nope. I usually went for the silly, funny-girl, ‘Oh, doesn’t she look cool/pretty/fly?’ brand of attention. Again, I went to school in the nineties, so being told I looked “fly” while strutting around in my LA Gear jacket would have been the highlight of my day! That also, absolutely, NEVER happened, as the nineties also cloaked me in a terminal awkward phase.

But here’s the deal: Loving attention can be a really tricky thing to love.

I grew up in a private Christian school and we’d sing songs in chapel like “Humble thyselves in the sight of the Lord…”. That dang song had the ability to turn a room full of chipper, joyful kids into a solemn group of chanting monks. It was a slow (and to me) depressing song. I still hate it.

Then there was the song that came out a bit later where we’d croon, “It’s all about you…all about you, Jesus…I’m sorry Lord for the thing I made it…” That one always seemed to bite me too.

Now, please don’t think that I’m suggesting that we remove all the verses in the ol’ Good Book about being humble. No, no, no…that would be weird / heretical. Again, not the attention I’m going for.

A long time back, I just decided that my inner appreciation for attention must be that scary ‘human’ side of me that I needed to constantly battle and keep at bay to truly earn my spot on God’s “Good Girls” list, which, by the way, I heard recently that He doesn’t even have anymore. Pshh. What a jip! I was planning on nailing that #1 spot! Whatevs…

But lately I’ve been getting to hear a few really cool things from some chicks who are kinda in the know about these types of things. Ok, so I don’t know what that really means, but these ladies are smart and when they open their mouths to speak, Truth just kinds shoots out and if you are in ear shot of them, look out! You may just get your world rocked.

Example:

Casual Observers:

What the WHAT!? Did I just hear you say {insert kick-ass TRUTH here}

Crazy Chicks Who Speak Truth Like They’re Part Owl or Old Turtle Wearing a Graduation Cap:

Yup. You did. You’re welcome.

You know that whole ‘Who am I? What is my purpose?’ things that we sometimes do? Often it’s a transition in our lives that gets us feeling a little wonky and triggers the whole ‘Oh crap! Why am I here again?’ feelings. I guess you could say me trading my cozy home office and constant kid-cuddle time for a new full time office job and whole bouquet of bad office lighting catapulted me into that freak-out territory. Yep, it’s pretty fair to say that.

So whenever I thought about all those BIG questions about who I was and what I could be used for, I always seemed to come up with answers that seemed just a touch on the dramatic side. I quickly squashed them out and figured that my lack of Bible reading probably caused me to be so selfish, and decided to try to cram in some of God’s Word. (Because that’s how God loves to speak to people, right? By CRAMMING it in our heads. Um, no.)

Then I’d move along and kind of forget about trying to figure out my purpose, because, honestly, it’s kind of an overwhelming thing and it’s much easier to focus on groceries, daycare pick-ups and middle of the night ‘Mom, can I use your bathroom?’ situations.

But back to those smart ladies who I compared to cartoon owls wearing graduation caps: I was talking to a few of them and they asked me, “What if liking the spotlight is part of who you were made to be?”

WHAT?! But I thought I was supposed to be humble!

“True, but God doesn’t make us with dreams and desires only to have us work forever to try and bury them and try to cover them up.”

Whoa. Really?

Now I’m not saying that there isn’t room in the ‘I love the spotlight’ personality type for failure. Oh man. One of my biggest fears is being prideful or ignoring others, or to be seen as being self-centered. (Regardless of how much I joke about my own self-love, if anyone actually felt that I was self-centered, I would be crushed.)

I find this fear comes out a lot when I’m disciplining my kids. If they do something self-centered (um, hello…they’re 5 and soon to be 7…that’s all they know how to do!) I jump on them faster than a free pair of shoes.

“Must.Curb.Self-Centeredness!” I hear internally.

If I don’t discipline them and ‘bend their will’ to be more loving, than I would be raising some awful human beings with no love in their hearts for the people around them. And God would probably be pretty pissed at me for screwing them up!

Yikes…I know. I’m working on it. I cannot claim 100% responsibility for the character that my children will develop. Sure, I know we parents have a part in molding and shaping it, but I have to let go of the feeling that if I drop the ball, they are doomed for a life of sucky-human-being-ism. Or hell. That would suck.

So anyway, I’m going to be exploring this little nugget of “Maybe it’s ok to love the spotlight and still be an asset to the God-Squad” truth.

What are your thoughts on the spotlight? Do you also tend to glow in the light of it, or do you prefer the shady coolness of the background shadows?

¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”^[c] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life.

That ‘shine among them like stars’ part is my favorite : )

My Mommy-Track Adventure: Part 2

The economic times that had helped decimate our little menu business were still on the rampage, and soon led to leadership changes at the casino.  I quickly learned that loyalty to the wrong faction in a tribal political atmosphere was enough to cause you to lose your job.

I was stunned!  I had been the first manager who was awarded the Employee of the Month honor and had gotten 2 merit-based raises within the 18 months I had worked there.  I was kinda doing awesome, but in a political atmosphere, your success within the group who had been black-balled only paints a larger target on you.

My husband had been working part time (did I mention that jobs requiring a Fine Arts degree in our town were apparently hard to come by?) and staying home with the kids.

I found work in town with a local advertising agency, but had to take a $20,000 pay cut for the privilege of driving only 5 minutes and getting to work inside an old Victorian-style house turned office.  It is still the most beautiful place I have ever worked.  I had seven windows and my own private bathroom.  I could also go home at lunch and squeeze my babies, who, by now, had started part time daycare.

My kids actually loved daycare.  When my son started, at 2 ½, he was saying only the minimum amount of words for his age group.  But just a few weeks into his new daycare routine, his speech exploded and he finally started telling us all about the world in his own words.

Fast forward through another advertising agency gig and another bad-economic-times job loss (this time it was called a “layoff”, though) and I was now at home with a 4 year old and a 2 year old.  Needless to say, I was in over my head.

I felt extremely unqualified to be a stay at home mom.  I didn’t know many other moms with kids the same age as mine who also stayed at home.  Park time was overwhelming and took me so long to simply pack everything up.  By the time we got there, my visions of happy frolicking in the sandbox quickly turned into screaming fits of rage because I had managed to foolishly schedule our park time during naptime.

To help keep myself from feeling too worthless, and to also help add to my household income, I ended up helping to start a new event planning company with my former casino boss and friend.  With that new project, I got to learn the art of juggling naptimes, Thomas the Train and graphic design and event planning from home.  It was lots of fun, but still barely covered our expenses.

My husband was working multiple part time jobs, barely painting, and trying to figure out what to do next.  By this point he had fully adopted the ‘Why the heck did I get an art degree?’ mantra.

My husband eventually went back to being a full time electrician, which is what he was doing when I met him as a fresh-faced, naïve 19 year old.  Occasionally he gets to do some design work for a friend or a painting, just because, but very rarely.

I had gotten laid off in the beginning of 2009 and now it was early 2012.

In that time I had been able to start volunteering at my son’s school on a weekly basis, drive kids to swim lessons or ballet (thank you, grandma and grandpa!) and shop for groceries only on week days.  Work from home could be done in my pajamas, if I wished, and my daughter became very proficient in the Nick Jr. TV schedule for the day.

Yes, working from home was such a treat, but it also wasn’t perfect.  Many times the kids took turns coming in the office to tell me about how bored they were and ask me why I couldn’t go play a board game with them.  When I did a moment to spare from the computer, I was doing laundry, trying to straighten up or cooking dinner.

I had a major fear that if I didn’t have the house tidied up and hot food waiting for my husband by the time he came home, he would think that I was lazy and just got to loll around and read a book all day.  I felt like I couldn’t get caught taking a nap or else I’d just prove that I was lazy.  I was afraid he would think that I was worthless and make me go back to work sooner than I wanted to actually ‘pull my weight’ for the family.

This actually was a big lie that only I was living in.  My husband was glad that I was getting to spend some time at home with the kids and appreciated that his full time work was covering the bills, the meals were prepped, laundry was done and the house was kept (somewhat) clean.

Funny thing is, these chores I was doing were things I did while working away from home, too, so it was hard for me to really accept that it was ok to be “just” at home.

Eventually we started talking about me going back to work, now that our baby girl was about to become a kindergartener.  I immediately started to panic.  I felt like I just gotten the hang of the whole ‘mom at home’ thing and NOW I had to go back to the outside workforce?  This was going to suck.

But…it would be nice to get some more adult conversations in my life, besides the phone calls from the school nurse telling me that my son, once again, has knocked his head on some inadament object and to ‘keep an eye’ on him .

I would love to be able to see our household finances have room for things like ‘name brand trash bags that don’t tear so easily and slip down the inside of my garbage can’ or maybe even a vacation.  Hmmm…this could be a good thing.

Plus, a full-time job away from the home would help me finally dodge those fussy feelings of inadequacy I’ve been lugging around with me since being a work-from-home-mom.  (Because running away from your issues and not owning your crap has always been a good idea, right?)

My event work was flexible, rewarding and I had invested a part of me to help start the company.  But it still wasn’t at the point where I could work there exclusively and help cover the expenses I needed to.

So here I was, in my thirties and out of the ‘real-world’ job force for nearly three years, and I was looking for work.  Back then there was no such thing as LinkedIn.  Employers didn’t scan the internet for juicy background details or Spring Break photos of you before an interview.  (Not that I had that much rebellion in my past, unless you consider listening to Adam Sandler comedy tapes – yes, TAPES, in high school counts as being rebellious.)

I managed to land another job, but not after the HR rep told me that there were no other qualified candidates.  So they decided to settle?  I’ll take it!

Getting paid to write (albeit, for a software company) has been a whole new experience.  No one talks much and most employees communicate through instant message, even if they are in the next door cubicle.  That’s weird.

I am, once again, at the pay level that I was 10 years ago when I first graduated college.  I know economic times have changed and that I’ve been home for the last three years with the kids, but it still kind of stinks that I will probably never make the type of money I did in my career ‘hey-day’.

I am thankful that I got to spend that time with my kiddos but my heart breaks that they have to go to daycare 5 days a week.  I know they do activities and getting more exercise than if we were all back home and they were just plunked down in front of the TV while mommy worked in the office, but it’s been a rough transition.

My son was excited to get to go to after school care.  My daughter was not pleased with the idea of Monday – Friday, 8am – 5:30 daycare.  She still tells me, “I liked things better when I was three.”

It’s been almost three months since our transition and she still cries and chases after me when I drop her off.  Even though she is now five, she whines and wants to be carried around like a baby.  Part of me likes that she needs me, yet part of me fears that I broke her, somehow, and I’m nervous for the transition into kindergarten.

I am not 100% sold on this ‘work away from my kids’ season.  I dread the ‘How’s the new job?’ question that so many people ask and have considered avoiding social situations because I wasn’t feeling like I could put my normal verbal spin on my answer.

True, being chosen for a job after going through the interview process and the waiting period is a rush, but then realizing that you are starting at the bottom and will now be playing the role as a nameless-faceless peon is more than humbling.

But I am trying to remind myself that I can choose my attitude and that nothing happens by accident.  There is a plan and a purpose for my crazy life, as well as plans and purposes for my husband and kiddos.

I have no idea where this mommy-track will take me next, but as long as I chill out and let the author and perfector of my faith be the leader, I know that it will be the path that I am meant for.

So if things get a little crazy, it’s on Him, right?

Hanging on for dear life,

Jenny

Twitter: @jennyhfuller

Go, Fight, Win! – Part 2: A look back at my cheerleading heritage

Cheering = Love

Go here, in case you missed Part 1 : )

Ah. Look at those fresh (albeit, sweaty) faces! Here we are posing for a quick shot at one of the season's first JV football games in 1993. And no, cheering with acrylic nails was not the safest choice. But dang...I looked cool, right? I mean, I had the braces...the French braid...the gangly legs...

I loved cheerleading.  I loved getting to paint signs and surprise football players the night before the homecoming game with posters in their yard or decorated pillow cases that we conspired with their parents to place strategically in their rooms.

The excitement of seeing your team win a game they fought hard for was great.  Riding home on the bus after a tough loss where every player was told they weren’t allowed to talk as a consequence for losing (or playing poorly) was not.

We cheerleaders, of course, still managed to hold a lively conversation all the way home, packed with girly squeals and giggles, to the sheer annoyance of every player and coach around us.  Then I would get a lecture from my boyfriend about how much I embarrassed him.  That was probably very accurate, as we really didn’t seem to care that everyone around us was glum and pouty, but it was still a hard thing to hear when you’re sixteen and just trying to have fun with your friends.

Another hard thing about cheerleading is that the activity comes with a lot of built in stereotypes and prejudices.  The majority of the girls I cheered with weren’t dumb or ditzy.  They were honor-students who studied all the time and were able to juggle practice all throughout the summer, daily practice after school and then weekly, if not bi-weekly, games (4 games a week during basketball, as we cheered for both the girls and guys’ teams).  We juggled practices and tests and participated in our activity longer than any of the sports teams.

I’m not trying to say that we worked harder at conditioning or had a more challenging physical role than any sports players.  No way.  Those kids worked their tails off.  I’m just saying that scheduling-wise, if you were a cheerleader, it was a year-long commitment and a dominate part of your life.

Cheering for football meant Saturday mornings and afternoons were spent on the field.  If it was a home game, then we would all go to the pizza place and watch a video of the entire game.  Basically we watched the game two times in a row.  By 5pm, football time was over and you could go enjoy what was left of your weekend and homework, depending on whether or not the team was cranky from a loss or cheerful after a win.

Girls vs. Girls

Cheering for the girls’ volleyball games or girls’ basketball team was always tricky.  Oftentimes your pals were the ones playing and it was nice to cheer them on, but most of the time, you couldn’t ignore the overwhelming feeling that most of the Lady Eagles didn’t want you there cheering at all.

We often didn’t know all the rules of volleyball, and so we’d cheer at the wrong time, and usually we’d sit down and cheer from the stands versus standing up for a guy’s sport.  I have no idea when the sit-down trend started, but it wasn’t anything new when we got around to cheering.  We were simply following the old standard (or at least what we perceived as the old way of doing things).

I can see how the girls probably felt a little jipped by our lack of effort, but the rivalry (often unspoken to our faces, but every now and then you’d catch a snippy remark) made for some tense moments.

If you were feeling cranky and wanted to start something, all a cheerleader needed to do was wear a shirt that announced “Cheerleading is a Sport!” or “Cheerleaders are so awesome cause we do this exhaustive list of rad things!” and you’d be pissing off players in no time.

What’s a bummer is that often times, we never even got a say in what t-shirt was going to be purchased.  I think the most offensive ones were picked out by our coaches.

Yes.  As a private school cheerleader, we were, pretty much, ALL boy-crazy girls who really wanted to be sure we looked cute with our curly pony tails and bouncy skirts.  But we were also very driven to be supportive and encouraging.  I remember girls crying after a loss of a close game.  Yelling out genuine encouragement may seem easy to fake, but it wasn’t.  We really did care for the players and we took our role as encouragers very seriously.

Remember when Bernie got to play in the basketball game against Mammoth?  (Sorry.  I realize many of you were not there, but stay with me.) Bernie was the brightest kid in our class and could sport a lean pair of khaki pants and a tucked in polo shirt like no one else I’ve ever known.  He relished a good chemistry debate and although he wasn’t very tall or what you would call a “natural athlete”, he was on the JV boys’ basketball team – usually their bench, to be exact.

But Bernie got to play in an away game that was 8 hours away (by slow bus or loaded up cheer-van) in Mammoth and made a great runaway 2-point lay-up.  The crowd went WILD! (Not a very large crowd, but still a WILD one!)  It was enough excitement to encourage one enthusiastic fan to carve “Bernie Scored in Mammoth” into a desk back at the school chemistry lab, although I think the meaning got twisted up a little ; )

To this day, I still love cheering people on.  At my kids’ little league games, I am often cheering on both my kid’s team, as well as their opponent.  At least now, they are all little and it doesn’t matter, but we’ll see if I garner any dirty looks as they get older.

In my dreams, I am often getting ready for cheer tryouts and I’m worried because I don’t know the routine yet, or I’m in my uniform and getting ready to start the half-time cheers.  But then again, in my dreams I am pretty much stuck in my high school years, so it’s only natural that cheering would factor into that too.  For all you psychology majors out there, feel free to psycho-analyze that dream pattern for me, will ya?

I hope that my love of cheering and an encouraging spirit (S-P-I-R-I-T!) stick with me for a long time, despite all the negative connotations that may come with the sassiness, the outfits, or the assumed shallowness of your typical cheerleader.

I Thessalonians 5:11 (one of my favorites):

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up,

just as in fact you are doing.

Go, Fight, Win! – Part 1: A look back at my cheerleading heritage

Oh, ho ho!  I can’t wait to write this post!  I was so sure I had written it already, but after carefully scanning all nineteen, count them, NINETEEN of my previous blog posts, I could not find any trace of this post.  Weird!

Well, just in case I missed it in my research, sorry for any duplicate info. You could always just skip this post and go spend some more time on Pinterest.  That’s cool.

Side note: If you are a friend who reads my blog, please mention that to me within the earlier parts of a conversation we are having.  I feel strange when people ask me, “How’s it going?” and then I tell them, and then they reply, “Oh yeah, I saw that on Facebook.” Or “I saw you wrote a blog on that.” Sometimes, I feel like I am already telling you something you already read about, and feel like an idiot who is repeating myself.  Moving on…

Wow! Thanks, guys! It's just what I've always wanted! (Side note: Doesn't Aaron look so jazzed about this gift idea?)

My closet is a wonderful treasure trove of memories and items that will seem really strange to my kids when I am long gone and they are divvying up my stuff.  Remember, kids, those old journals are for Auntie Emma.  I have already clued in your dad, but he (or anyone, really) is free to read through them before she claims them.

Some of the fascinating gems in my closet from the past are:

- Both of my positive pregnancy tests from learning about Baby 1 and Baby 2.  I tossed the dozens and dozens of torturous negative tests that I had earned over the previous baby years.  Stupid bummer tests.  No one likes you!

-   A photo-button I received as a joint birthday gift from my friends, Brad and Aaron.  I can proudly say that I never actually wore it, although my obsession with those two probably could have convinced me that sacrificing fashion in order to show my appreciation for their gift was actually a good-friend thing to do.

- A box of 3.5’’ floppy disks of old college reports

- My senior year pom-poms from cheerleading (Awwwwhhhh yeah!)

These closet items have been with me for a while and are a blast to sort through and inspire all sorts of memories.  Last night I also came across my autographed spatula from Weird Al and all my creative writing assignments for sophomore year, including the epic “Time Traveler” script.

But today I’m going to focus on some old cheerleading history, so if I lose a few of you, don’t worry, I won’t dwell on this for too long.  Well, this will probably end up being a two-parter, but I’ve got a pretty long history on the topic so, hang in there!

Ready?  OK!                                                                                                                

I started my 9 year relationship with cheerleading when I was 8 and got signed up to cheer for a Pop Warner football team, the Bengals.  My awesome cheerleading skirt was the perfect default Halloween costume with its bright orange and black pleats.

At first they required the oh-so-supportive white Keds as the uniform shoe of choice, but then they changed their minds and told me I needed black.  Have no fear!  I’m not sure which parent convinced me that returning the shoes was a hassle.  Why not just color the canvas beauties black with a magic marker?  Sounds good to me!  I was the only girl on the squad with ugly, stripy-grey shoes.

I was not well-liked by my fellow Bengal-girls, even though I could do a full-split during the “D-O-W-N and that’s the way to get DOWN!” cheer.  I was the youngest on the squad and still liked telling people that my real dad was PeeWee Herman.  (A joke my dad told me that I latched onto, since PeeWee’s Playhouse was my all-time favorite show to watch before Saturday morning gymnastics.)

After Pop Warner cheering, I made my way to the school-circuit and joined a new program called “Junior Eagles” which was comprised of 1^st graders – 6^th graders.  Our skirts were handmade but there was a private school dress code to follow.

The majesty of a cheerleading skirt has always had a strange sort of hold on me.  I love the pleats, the strange fabric and the striped trim.  Fly-away skirts (like the ones they wear on Glee) hadn’t been invented yet, and I never wore my cheerleading uniform to school 5 days a week like they do on that show.  Only on game days, ladies!  Now get back to focusing on Will Shuster, please.  If it hadn’t been for cheerleading, I probably would have stumbled toward tennis.  I would do anything to get myself into a cute outfit.

My mom labored over those tricky blue and yellow pleats for my Junior Eagles skirt for a long time, and then when I showed up to my first game, I realized that I was the only kid who’s mom had actually paid attention to the darn dress code and had a skirt no higher than 2 inches above my knees.  All the other little girls looked way more adorable and cheerleader-like in their shorty-short skirts.  I took a mental note for later…

Back in the golden days of BCHS, we had a huge (Meaning: Not 8-man team like when I was in high school) football team who got to play night games across the street from our school at the local community college.  Shout out to AV College!  That poor college got such a bad rap as being the school for the losers because if you went there, you were simply going to school across the street from your old high school versus leaving town for a university like “normal” people!  (Yes.  We were all just a tad bit stuck up, even as children.)  There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to AVC.  Carry on.

When I was a Junior Eagle, our number one job was to perform the half-time show for the crowd.  I think the varsity squad that cheered during the game, led us or at least told us where to go and where to stand.  We were stinkin’ adorable!  “Hot-Hot-Hot!  We give it all we got!”  We would practice during the week and get to be little cheerleaders for about 5 minutes.  It was heavenly!

7^th grade brought the opportunity to be on a real squad with tryouts and everything!  There was a general consensus that we hated our uniforms, our ugly Asics cheer shoes and we all kinda freaked out when Melanie cut off her beautiful long hair in favor of an adorable pixie cut.  How could she wear the required uniform hair-bow now?  Argh!  The tragedies of 11 year old cheering…

Being Cut Sucks

8^th grade brought out the dark side of cheering at my school, which ended up making an impression on the way tryouts were handled, at least until we all graduated.  The general feeling among us girls was that if you were on the squad the previous year, you’d be an automatic-in for the next year.  But that was not the case.  I was cut from the 8^th grade squad, although lots of new girls, who had never cheered before, made it.

Me?  Cut?  Even after all my years (ha ha!) of cheerleading experience?  It was pretty embarrassing and really hard for a 12 year old to understand that she had been good enough the year before, but now that she had experience and knew all the cheers, there were other girls who knew absolutely zero cheers and nothing about  how to properly shout without losing your voice and where to stand so you don’t get in the referee’s way, who were suddenly better than you.

We attempted to form a small band of excommunicated cheerleaders into the ragtag ‘Bethel Dance Squad’.  This may have looked good on paper and was the only option to keep me in a polyester pleated skirt, but then again, we went to a private school and we weren’t allowed to dance, so….yeah….that about sums up that chapter in my unfortunate cheerleading history.

When we all tried out again after 8^th grade and had a much more intense training process.  We had closed-gym tryouts in front of a panel of judges (who were much kinder than Sue Sylvester) and then we had to do a group performance in front of the whole school in the gym at lunch.

No one was cut this go-round, but basically, if you were the cream of the crop, you made it to the varsity squad; if you were ok (or worse!) you were put on the JV squad.

I made the JV squad.

This bummed me out for obvious reasons, but two of my dearest friends, Jaime and Monica, had made the varsity squad and I felt very left behind.  But at least being on the JV squad, I was able to cheer for my classmates (who am I kidding, I simply cared about cheering about my obsess-crush), versus some scary upper-classmen who I shied away from.

Back then, we also tried juggling cheer competitions, which was basically good at teaching us all humility.  I also learned that I still had not conquered my life-long bout with motion sickness and threw up in my coach’s van (that he had borrowed?) onto Becky’s pillow, only 2 minutes from my house.  I’m still very sorry about that whole deal, guys.

High School = More Cheering, a Guy Likes Me Back, and Better Uniforms

Sophomore year and junior year brought me up to varsity cheering (a lot of girls had graduated by then or left for different high schools) and I even made co-captain in 11^th grade.  At this point I was cheering for my new boyfriend and things were pretty stellar.

By my junior year, I had mastered the skirt height trick.  You see, even though our normal school dress code stated that if you wore a skirt or dress, it could be no shorter than 2’’ above your knees, if you were a cheerleader, your skirt could be shorter.  They’d have us stand up straight with our arms down by our side.  Then they would measure how long it was from our waist to the tips of our fingers.

The skirt height trick was when the coach went down to measure to the tips of your fingers; you’d shrug up your shoulders a little bit, and therefore, earn a much less dowdy uniform.  See?  I told you I had taken notes from 3^rd grade!

In my mind, shorter cheer skirts = way cute.  I would probably agree with that statement now, and I am still opposed to the bloomers with logos or the words “Go Bulldogs!” printed on the booty.  That’s just crass.  I do have some standards!

For our senior year, they got wise and outlawed the ‘wear your cheer skirt to school on game days’ law.  Now we had to wear these band-like pants with our cheerleading shells, which is what we called the top part of the uniform, even though you could not hear the ocean when you pulled it on over your head.

These pants were actually crazy-comfy, and made from the same polyester that the skirts were.  We were also much warmer on those 20 degree mornings!  Brr!

Wearing your cheerleading uniform to school was helpful when it came to not worrying about what you were going to wear twice a week (basketball season) but made it tricky for our planet, since we were doing laundry constantly.

Sometimes you’d forget to throw it in the wash Wednesday night after wearing it all day on Tuesday, and then on Thursday, you’d simply try to hair-dryer iron the pleats or body spray your way out of the stinky sweat smell issue.  It wasn’t pretty.

My senior year gave me the opportunity to be the varsity cheer captain, which actually, was a good fit for me, since I was (am) naturally very bossy.  I got to make up moves for cheer dances, help teach new cheers (I still know the moves to the 7^th grade piece I did for “Be Aggressive”) and it was my God-given right / duty to yell “Eagles, Ready?” before a cheer, and “Hit It!” before a chant.  And yes, there is a difference that I will not bore you with today.

Come on back for more cheer history in Part 2!

The Blog Where I Talk About Clothes

Hooray for the return of the sun!  I love the warmer weather that Chico’s been enjoying  this week, despite the extra sniffles and doses of allergy medicine that inevitably come with the new spring season.

Along with warm, sunny days, I love clothes.  I love shoes. I love a good handbag.  I love accessories and putting it all together.  But I am also ridiculously cheap and have a small mama-clothing budget.  Nine times out of ten, I will choose quantity over quality of clothing.  I want a closet PACKED with goodies, even if they end up dissolving in the wash or are only good for one occasion.  (That disco roller skating party I went to was the only time that crazy sequined top will ever see the outside of my closet.)

But I also have a great appreciation for good quality fashion.  I have splurged on brands that I knew made a great product and that I would have for years and did not regret my decision.  (Although I am still waiting for my 3 pairs of miscellaneous Doc Martin’s to either come back in style, carry me off on a mountainous hike or to a 90’s party.  I just can’t seem to part with them.)

I get a lot of my favorites from eBay and have had only a few misses with items not fitting right.  eBay packages in my mailbox or waiting for me by my door make my heart sing a happy tune!

My latest eBay score was a pair of skinny jeans by Joe’s Jeans.  I love their dark color and even though they are still not quite broken in and feel more like a corset for my lady-zone than a pair of pants, I am looking forward to melding them into my new favorite pair of jeans.  Last night I wore them into a bounce house.  Good times…

In addition to eBay’s goodness to me, I am also a savvy deal-finder for other online clothing deals.  My Pinterest board called ‘Fashion for Me’ holds many of my online finds.

It’s funny when you look back over a board that you’ve created and realize you definitely have fashion preferences.  Mine apparently is the color navy – most noticeably, any navy dress.  In my closet, I have three navy blue dresses, 2 casual ones and one fancy schmancy J. Crew party dress that I adore.  At a recent clothing swap, I let go of 2 other long-time navy dress favorites.  I still kind of miss them!  I probably don’t need any more navy-ness in my closet, but it’s always fun to dream on Pinterest, right?

Marvelous Mint

One trend that I’ve seen a lot of this spring is the incredible awesomeness of the color Mint which, when I last checked, was an annoying herb that took over 30% of my garden boxes, yet smelled awesome when I’d weed-whack the crap out of it.  The color mint, actually doesn’t resemble the deep green of the real thing, and is more of a lighter green with just a dash of baby blue.  Illogical color descriptions aside, I actually, really like it, since blue and I are kinda like this {fingers crossed for an inspiring visual} and mint is a close cousins with blue.

But I’m wondering how Mr. Mint seemed to seep into the fashion scene this year.  The last time I checked the Pantone colors for 2012 (and yes, I seriously do look at that type of thing) mint was nowhere to be seen.  The only thing close to the delicate hue is Pantone 14-0016, a.k.a. Margarita.

You’ve probably seen a lot of Pantone’s biggest star of 2012 Tangerine Tango.

Tangerine Tango - not my thing.

Sigh…yes, orange isn’t a new color to the fashion world and many of my friends can pull it off in stunning ways, yet I am not one of them.

I am continuing my support of 2010’s color of the year Turquoise.

Turquoise - still my friend

2011’s pinky Honeysuckle is more up my mom’s alley, she being a long-time supporter of the feminine shade.

Honeysuckle + My Mom = Friends Forever

I know people say to add variety to your closet and get away from a single color palette, but I think, what’s wrong with sticking to a favorite color scheme?  Since when is being able to match pretty much any item in your closet to each other, a bad thing?  Whatevs… {I can’t decide if I hate that word or enjoy how it saves me time while talking/ writing.}

What are your favorite fashion pieces?  Do you find yourself leaning towards a certain color palette, or is your closet more of a wonderful clothes rainbow?

Long live dark jeans, anything ivory and sassy heels,

Jenny

A Mid-April Update (with Bonus Wish List!)

If you’ve been riding along with me on the Crazy ‘Mommy-Works-Two-Jobs’ Express, then you may know that I recently hit a pretty big milestone in my part time event job.  CHOO- CHOO!

This past weekend, I helped put on the 2^nd Sportsman Expo that we had been planning for over a year.  Not many of my friends give a rat’s pa-toot about anything related to hunting or fishing, so the majority of people I know simply stared at me with blank polite faces whenever I started jabbering about the Expo that I lovingly helped cultivate from bleak nothingness back in 2010, to the juggernaut event (ok, that may be a mild exaggeration) that it is today.  But it’s ok.  I know where I live and the demo that my pals fall into, and if I wasn’t getting paid to be there, I probably wouldn’t have gone to check it out either.

When I took my full time job at the local software company, I was in no position to simply walk away from Event Land.  I loved my event work and still do today, but because we needed to start beefing up our income and my husband and I were really looking forward to having some benefits for ourselves, I took the full time work.

So, from 8ish to 5ish, I’d be at a computer screen all day and then in the evenings after the kiddos were in bed, I’d be playing catch up on all my event work.  It hasn’t been a fun 8 weeks.  Any normal home life routine would have been turned upside down by a ‘mommy’s-going-back-to-work-full-time’ transition, but add to that craziness that she will also be working evenings and weekends, and you now have a whole crap-load of insanity that’s been surrounding my home life!

The kids are doing ok, and since we’ve also added Little League for both kids to the mix (not my brightest decision, but hey – I was a bit distracted when I made the choice) they have been able to enjoy some excitement to their routines too.  We are all still waiting to sit down and watch a movie as a family that I bought for the kids for Easter (maybe this weekend?) and we find ourselves accidentally skipping baths and forgetting to remind them to brush their teeth like we used to, but so far, we haven’t incurred any lice or cavities.  (Knock on wood!  I don’t have much time off accrued to actually take them to see a doc or dentist if they needed to go!)

Dave and I have gotten to go out a few times, but an elementary school fundraiser really can’t be counted as a good solid date.   I’m hoping we get to change that soon.  He’s been working extra hours too and adding side jobs and such to his routines, so even if we managed to go out, we’d probably both be falling asleep around 9:30.  Woah, baby…let the good times roll!

The next three weekends are already booked with visits and activities, but I’m hoping they can be refreshing too.  One of those weekends is booked for  the church’s Women’s Retreat, so hopefully, with a word like “RETREAT” in the name, it will actually be a pretty nice time, versus one more thing to do and scratch off my list.  I’ll have to get back to you on that one, though.

Sprinkle in the double-time little league life and I think my friends may still be wondering where the heck I went to, even though my event work will be slowing down dramatically.

But I am thankful for a little time that I get to write and hopefully if a few of my long lost pals are reading this, they’ll know that I have missed our chats and hang out times and that I am really looking forward to life settling down soon so I can incorporate more relaxing and fun times into my days!

Here’s my current wish list.  What’s on yours?

• Get my hair cut and colored and not stress on how long the appointment will take.
• Bake some cookies.
• Take a walk (and in my dreams, this walk would be mosquito-free and warm!)
• Not have my kids tell me “I didn’t get enough time with you/hugs from you/why don’t we play board games anymore?” at bedtime.
• Splurge and get a carwash where I am forced to sit and wait while they scrub, vacuum and wipe away all the kid cooties while I do something fanciful like, read a book.
• Get back to reading books.  I miss that one a lot.
• Resume my Mario Kart lessons from my 6 year old.
• Throw a kick-ass birthday slumber party for my soon to be 7 year old.
• Get caught up on Mad Men with Dave.
• Get caught up on lots of other DVR fodder such as SMASH, CSI, Awake, etc…
• Get lots of date night time with Dave.
• Not have my Bible-reading reminders tell me how many days I’ve been hitting snooze on my daily reading plan, but simply reminding me to read, then giving me the ‘Success!’ message after I actually get to read the 10 minute blurb.

And more!

Fast Food Flashbacks

Some of you may, or may not, know about a divorce-saving compromise that my husband and I made back in 2004 when I was pregnant with our son.  I won’t bore you with the details of our compromise, but it involves me giving up a lifelong love of fast food.

Back in 2000, when my husband agreed to be stuck with me for his entire life, we were both young, eager ‘I’ll have a steak, please’ diners.  We’d share McDonald’s while we painted our new one-room home and barbecue juicy hamburgers, chicken and steaks in the summertime.  But then, just after 2 years of wedded bliss, my husband decided that he was going to take a break from red meat  Then chicken.  Then everything else with a beating heart.

At the time I thought that would be for a month or two, but he hasn’t touched the stuff in 10 years.  In 2007, he decided to let seafood back into his diet, so the official term for my husband’s food lifestyle is pescatarian.  (I mispronounced this title up until a couple of years ago, calling him “apiscatarian” – as in, “Who, Dave?  He’s an apiscaratian.”  I’m sorry for everyone who had to stifle their inner-laughter.  Don’t worry.  I get the term now.)

Although we have both influenced major decisions, style-preferences and even clothing choices of each other, I have never been able to embrace the fish-only lifestyle, because frankly, fish is gross.  Shellfish, seaweed, salmon…it’s all just nasty.  To me : )

So, when the rare occasions come and I get to enjoy a free pass of fast food delight, it is truly a happy day!  My free pass still comes with qualifiers, though.  We have both agreed to avoid our compromised vices 100% Fuller-kid free, so freebies must be enjoyed when I am not around Kid 1 and Kid 2.  This is actually quite tricky!  I have racked up at least 10 freebies (that I know of) but it will most likely take me 4 years to be able to cash them in!

Usually, my fast food splurges take me to McDonalds, the vilest of all un-fresh dining places.  The place that my son points to as we drive by saying “Look, mom!  FAT food!”  He fervently admonished his sister the other day when she mentioned that she would like to eat there and play on the slide.  “That food is full of fat!  It is very bad for you!” my son lectured.  My sweet four-year old just took his advice and nodded, while inside, a small part of me was sad.

I often combat my son’s opinionated Mickey D’s bashing with something like, “Just because someone chooses to eat there, that doesn’t make them bad.” or “It’s not nice to yell in the backseat, son.”  I mean, come on…I know that place is bad for you.  No, I haven’t watched the movie about the guy who eats only McDonald’s, and no, I haven’t watched all the other ‘Fast-Food is Ruining Our World’ documentaries either.  And this is why: so many happy moments of my life are connected to those darn places!

Here is just a sampling of the many memories I have with McDonald’s. 

(I am leaving out the legendary story that my father tells about a McDonald’s French Fry being my first solid food and that I was known as a kid who could be given just one fry, which I would recycle and reuse as I slurped ketchup off of it.  Yuck.)

- Vinny (a classmate from 1st grade through 12th grade) had his 6th or 7th birthday party at McDonald’s.  We all got Happy Meals and got to have ice cream sundaes (my parents never bought those, although occasionally, I’d see my dad sneak one of those pocket-sized apple pies.) We played a Velcro ball toss-game at a McDonald’s themed felt board and had a great time!

Loved this guy...

- The playground on the Avenue I McDonald’s was awesome!  (Pronounced “Avenue Eye” for all you non-Lancasterans)   By the time I moved away from Lancaster, there were 4 McD’s less than a mile from my house, but the one on Avenue I (the farthest one from my house, at the time, had the coolest playground when I was younger.  Remember the McDonaldland characters?  This playground had the Officer Big Mac climb-in jail equipment that let you climb up inside his head and look out through the bars of his teeth.  It also had the Fry Kids rocking bouncy riders and a ball pit.  Simply awesome.

- 2 for $2 Sausage McMuffin with Egg breakfast meal deal.  This meal deal was in existence throughout most of my senior year, and either Mr. Lihme or Mr. Zietlow would let a couple of us sneak off campus (down the street) and go grab some of these for class, or we’d attempt to zoom there and back on our 15 minute morning break.  They are still one of my favorite breakfast treats!

- Boot-shaped chicken nuggets!  They were always my favorite shape and tasted the best to me.  I rejoiced if I got a 6-pack with ALL boots!  Very rare…

But McDonald’s was not the only influential treat that I got to have growing up.  My family loved to eat pretty much anywhere, except In-n-Out, which was also on Avenue I, which cracks me up, since this is the only fast food-like place that we Fullers, eat at now : )

Tales of when my first-time home buyer parents would drive up from Redondo Beach to check out the construction on their new home always include the detail that they would eat at the Avenue K Weinerschnitzel.

It was our many trips to Wendy’s that I am convinced, partially led to my appreciation for vintage newspaper advertising.  (Remember those black and white tables they used to have with all the ads?  So cool!)  I also was convinced I had invented the whole ‘dipping my fry into the frosty’ trick.  It was (and still is) so yummy!

Bringing it Back Around

Recently the kids were in bed, and I decided it was a good time to cash in one of my fast food freebies.  (Pretty risky, huh?  They could come out to the living room and catch me at any moment!)  It was after ten at night and I decided to venture to another old fast food stand by that also, just happens to be the closest fast food to my house, Carls’ Jr.

Wow…do I have a history with that place!  A cheeseburger, small fry and a 6-pack of Happy Star shaped chicken nuggets was my ‘usual’ dinner there throughout high school.  Oh, and I’d always enjoy it with a Sprite w/ added lemon (because I was super-classy).  I’m lucky I didn’t have to have bypass surgery when I was 16!  Wow…that was a lot of food!  But oh, so delicious!

But Carl’s Jr. and I had a different relationship at lunch time.  During our Junior year, our baseball and softball team sold fundraising cards that had these little peel-off stickers for 2-for-1 deals at Carl’s Jr.  They passed out a TON of them and told us to sell them, but then never asked us for the remaining cards.  I don’t think I sold any of them, so we often went off-campus to CJ’s (not to be confused with my high school boyfriend, who also had the same initials) and split a 2-for-1 deal.  Becky and I would always get the Western Bacon Cheeseburger (I’d remove the nasty onion ring) and that is exactly what I wanted to eat the other night.

I drove up to the drive thru, feeling pretty awesome that I was in my cozy, black, yoga pants and yet, no one would know.  I would NEVER normally wear out of the house unless I was going to work out – so it’s been about 3 years since they’ve seen the outdoors.  (I’m not sure if that is something to brag about…)  Anyway, I pulled up and then stared at the menu board like an idiot.  I was unfamiliar with the format of the board and couldn’t figure out why they were only showing me Value Meals!  In the end, I ordered a Western Bacon Cheeseburger combo with two House Dressings on the side (my preferred dipping sauce) and pulled forward to wait.

After what seemed like an exaggerated waiting time, I sped home to enjoy my treasures.  I figured that now that my taste buds had matured, I’d try eating the burger with the onion rings on.  I got about half-way through, then remembered that although the breaded coating was yummy, the slimy, translucent onion inside was just too much for me to handle, and I set it aside.  The type of French fries were different from the kind I previously remembered from high school.  I decided that I liked the old ones better, but that didn’t stop me from inhaling the entire box.

I had hoped that getting my food at Carl’s would fix the problem of getting a burger and fries that was made hours earlier and then just set out under the heat lamp to wilt and wait for a buyer.  Carl’s Jr’s charbroiler would make sure that my burger was juicy and freshly grilled, right?  Maybe that’s what took so long in the drive thru?  Nope.  When I got home (just around the corner) my meal wasn’t very hot and the sandwich looked as if it had been sat on.  This, of course, did not stop me from eating it – I mean, a girl only gets so many chances to cash in a freebie, right?

Faux-toh Finish (Get it? Like ‘PHOTO’?)

Oh, my dear little personal blog!  How mama’s missed you!  Even though I may have crossed over into software development for my 9 to 5, while still juggling consumer event business until 10p, you have been on my mind!

Today, especially, I had a story that I knew I needed to get posted here before I accidentally burst with enthusiastic, yet, inappropriate, whimsy while writing something about data feeds or eBay policy for work!  You see, it all started with an assignment at work to write a blog post.  (Sweet!  I’ve done that before!)  But within my enlightening blog post I needed to stick to the ‘It’s not about you, dummy’ mantra, except for the 66 word bio and thumbnail photo of you at the bottom.  Excuse me?  A photo?  Oh dear…you’ve awoken the beast!  Look out, everyone!  Little Miss Vanity has stirred from her shallow slumber!  Arghhhh!

It’s true.  I know you’ll be surprised to read it, but I, loyal readers, am actually quite vain.  I know, I know…you never saw that one coming!  But seriously, I have a real problem with photography!  Dave and I joke that we are the least photogenic couple in the world!  If there is a camera around, chances are, once of us is going to ruin the picture with a weird one-eye-is-half-closed grimace or an odd nose-angle thing.  I tried to put today’s blog-photo off, since I really did not want my afternoon-make-up (a.k.a. faded and not really impressive) to be caught on film (or memory card, in this instance).  But then I remembered that I really liked the sweater and top I was wearing today, and that there were such things as Photoshop Healing Brushes that could easily tidy up my embarrassing ‘Why-do-I-still-get-these-things-even-though-I’m-not-14?’ blemishes.  So I got ready to pose.

Now, I’m not ashamed to admit that this gal has had some experience posing, people!  I practically turned my house upside down tonight to try and find my old modeling (although I use the term loosely!)  portfolio that featured a fresh-faced, barely 16 year-old thing in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse.  But it’s managing to stay hidden : (   Now those were some fun pictures!  Ridiculously expensive for my dear parents, who would rather shell out over a thousand bucks for a Beverly Hills photo shoot than be faced with the awkward situation of telling your budding and severely moody teenager, “Um, sweetie…we love you so much, but, well…you really are a lovely girl, but we just don’t think you’re modeling-material.”  Can you imagine?!  I can see them now talking about it in their room, “Are YOU going to tell her?”  “Who, ME?!  No way!  You tell her!”  But no…I ended up getting to playing dress up for a day in Los Angeles with a professional make up artist, a hair stylist and two very feminine guys (I think one was named Claude) who picked out my outfits.  I was scared stiff, and had never modeled (nor would I ever!) but by my third or fourth outfit, I was getting the hang of things!  Look out Star Search!  Your next spokesmodel was on her way to scoring 5 out of 5 stars!  Ha ha ha…not even close.  Not even one little star…

When I look at the photos, I notice that I have the exact same facial expression in all of them: the look of casual seriousness.  When we first got started, I beamed my newly straightened smile at the camera and was told, “Don’t smile.”  Bummer…I was pretty proud of those newly aligned chompers!  Braces were awkward, painful and super-nerdy, but I was still thankful that I got to have them and avoid the harsh reality that thumb sucking until I was 8, was not the best thing for my smile.  Yikes!  But there is not one photo from that shoot that shows even a peep of my pearly whites!

Oooh, look! I got to smile in this one! With teeth and everything!

Zoom in your time machine with me to a time in the not-so distant past – 2010.  My husband, an avid collector of tattoos, always said he wanted to get a pin-up tattoo of me, but he needed a good picture to take into his loyal ink-man.  (Is that a term for tattoo artists?  Makes sense to me…) Anyway, I conspired and snuck around and managed to set up a photo shoot with a friend who is actually, a very talented fashion photographer, so I could surprise Dave for our 10^th wedding anniversary.  So, at night, when it was about 42 degrees outside where we were shooting and we were surrounded by mosquitoes, I posed for some sassy photos of me pretending to be a pin up gal.  It was so much fun, and I especially like the fact that I got to smile in a few : )  Plus, I was old enough to enjoy a cocktail during the whole process, so that surely helped things this time around.

Those mock-modeling instances resulted in photos I was proud of.  Were they realistic?  Of course not!  That’s why they were awesome!  Ha!  Recently, Dave and I have struck gold by finding a local photographer to take some family pics of us that have turned out really well.  If you are in Chico and haven’t been photographed by Crystal at Tres Bebe Photography, you are missing out.  She is a magical being who can capture what you think you look like, and make you actually kind of look like it!  Brilliant!

But today at work, I looked at some of the shots the photographer (a very nice fellow-employee who exudes hipness and youth and therefore, unfortunately, reminds me that I am kind of like the old mom in the room) took of me at my desk.  I was glamorously posed in front of a cubical wall and some random bookshelves.  CHEESE!  When I opened the image files he sent me I nearly choked on my afternoon snack.  What the___?  Darn my squinty-left eye!  Is that really what my hair looks like?!  I had forgotten that I had talked a friend into trimming my bangs over the weekend, and even though they feel great and out of my eyes, and they are exactly what I asked her for, they are VERY short…short enough to make you see me and think, “YIKES!  When did Jenny’s forehead get so huge?”  They will grow, and I’m telling myself not to be overly concerned about it, but wowsers…talk about horrible timing for a photo op!  I was thinking about tracking down one of those ‘bang’ extensions that Katie Holmes wore to the Oscars, but I figured that would only make matters worse.

Oh, look! A photo booth! What's that? Go in with you? Well I've only been in there 15 times already, sure! Why not! In this collection of awesomeness, my dear friend, Corryn, and I experiment with props! I'm especially proud of shot #3. Wow...egads!

I was reminded of a troubling reality: I really am not as good looking as I think I am.  I actually would like to aim some blame for this on my husband, if I may.  He truly thinks he is a super lucky guy to have a stunning catch like me.  Sure, I’ve got a zippy personality; of course I’m a catch, right?  But no, he actually thinks I’m one of the prettiest gals out there.  Insane in the membrane!  Since I’ve been hearing his opinions about my appearance for over 13 years now, I think they started creeping in and little by little, I started to believe him.  But then there was today’s photo disaster and all I could do was laugh at myself for being so out of touch with reality!

So tomorrow will come, and I will still have awkward-length bangs and my squinty eye that got inured by a snowball when I was in 7^th grade.  I’m going to try and tell myself that it can be like a trademark, like Tina Fey’s face-scar.  That will help make things cooler!  There’s not much I can do with my overzealous shnozz that my mother apologized for passing down to me when I was younger.  I need to win the Publisher’s Clearing House to take care of that issue!  I will also work on reminding myself that, honestly, it’s ok to look/feel awkward.  I tell my kids all the time, that it’s your heart that really matters – not what you look like, what you are wearing, or how fast you can swing a lightsaber.  Here’s to hoping I can remember that truth tomorrow when I get in front of that lens and the old familiar ‘Work it, super-star!’ anthem begins to play in my head…