Anywhoo, Ramona and Beezus was NOT in 3-D.  Amazing.  You know why?  Every movie in the world now is offered in 3-D.  As we watched the previews, EVERY SINGLE PREVIEW said “in digital 3-D.”  So what.  Yes, 3-D can be cool.  We say Toy Story 3 in 3-D.  Why?  Because that movie was a big deal.  My kids had been waiting for over a year to see it.  Figured it was a nice extra treat to have that extra dimension.  But it really ISN’T necessary for most movies.  It’s sucking up theater space (you need one to show the 2-D and one for 3-D) and the cost is insane!!!!  I’m boycotting all 3-D movies.

Phew.  OK.  I feel better now.  Thanks for listening.

/rant

Heather

Tomorrow is the last day of school.  Here’s a list of things I’m ready for:

• SLEEPING IN!
• Heading to the matinee
• Lazy mornings in PJ’s
• Trips for ice cream
• The kids splashing in the pool
• The drive in
• Riding bikes on the trail
• Carnivals

Things I’m not looking forward to:

• “I’m bored!”
• “She hit me!”
• “I’m hot!”
• Keeping their brains working

So, I guess I AM looking forward to summer.  But I also get excited about them going back to school.  Seeing that back to school is 76 days away, I’m just going to enjoy the Summer stuff first.  Then I can get excited about new pencils, glue sticks, teachers and outfits.  I’ve decided that I’m going to take some time to ACT LIKE A KID this summer.  I may even put my bathing suit on once or twice.  Why?  Because this is the last summer that I am IN MY THIRTIES!  I’m going to be carefree (I hope), fun and silly.  I will eat popsicles.  I will draw with chalk.  I will jump rope.  I will teach my kids to do a cartwheel.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m not going to be a boring, strict 40 year old.  But I think I’ll suck up the last bit of my thirties, and then get back to ‘the grind’ once I turn 40 and school starts again.

ENJOY THE START OF SUMMER!!!!!

At 5:00 am.

Really.

So, I got myself ready and headed out to Target.  I got to the parking lot around 4:50.  There wasn’t a spot to be had in Target’s lot, so I parked in the lot next door.  I got in line to enter the store.

The end of the line was around the building at the loading docks.

Really.

I got inside and there weren’t any carts left.

Really.

I dragged my but back to a very large air hockey table that was on sale for fifty bucks.  (This was the gift I told my folks that the kids would like – and they will).  I grabbed the table, and, without a cart, dragged it through the store.  I offered one guy ten bucks for his cart.

Really.

I still didn’t get it…he had something large to get.

So, I propped up my air hockey table and headed to the front of the store to stalk people for a cart.  I finally got one.  I tried to do some more shopping.  I had the best of intentions.  I was going to get all the shopping done.

HA!

I waited in line at the electronics counter (because I needed an iPod Touch) for over an hour to pay for all of my crap.  I did save ten percent because I opened a Target charge, and got 25 bucks in gift cards back.

I left the house at 4:30 and got back at 7:45.  And I just went to one store.

Really.

Have a great day!

I mean, they’re coming for me.  I’m assuming that they’re coming for every other person (or at least every other mother) in the world, too.

It’s that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It’s one month of slightly controlled chaos, enormous amounts of pressure and lots of extra calories.

I don’t mean to sound like a Scrooge, but I’ve NEVER been big on Christmas.  I take that back.  I was never really big on Christmas once I had to be the grown up (even before I had kids).  I don’t like deadlines, I stress about whether or not I bought something for all the people on ‘the list,’ should I have joined that cookie exchange and did I send cards out to everybody that I got a card from?

Ugh.

So, because Thanksgiving is not until next week, I’m sticking with the whole “Let’s make a better Heather” theme.  Smoking habit?  Kicked. (Don’t get me wrong…I still want to smoke.  A lot.  But I won’t).  Exercise?  Check – five times a week at the gym.  Weight?  Working on it with the exercise and some bland tasting, low calorie foods.  Except for the bag of Heath bars I bought that were on sale after Halloween.  But they’re very small  I’m doing all the crap my doctor wants me to do.  I just need a check up at the dentist, AND I need to get my hair done.

So, tomorrow I’m going to get my hair cut and colored.  Let’s see…I’m going to look back at some old posts…The last time I got my hair cut and colored would be August 13th.  More than three months.  Which explains the roots that are over an inch long.  And the greys.

Oh, the greys.

So, tomorrow will be it for a while.  The last thing I do for me until after Christmas.  Then I’ll be officially diving in.  Present buying, cookie making, wrapping, cards, decorating, attending concerts, making treat bags for school…the list will go on forever.  I’m gonna slap a smile on my face and enjoy it, damn it!  Really, I am.

I just hope I don’t come out on the other side of Christmas as a smoking, lazy, 50 pound overweight mom with a crushed sense of self and a crushed sense of humor.

But hey, then at least I won’t have a hard time picking out some resolutions for 2010.

Some of my friends have amazing memories and remember lots of details.  Not me.  Not at all.  And it’s not like I have bad stuff to block out from that time in my life.  Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t mind high school all that much.  I sort of gave up on it in my Senior year, but I didn’t really hate it.  There were a few parts that I REALLY enjoyed.  Especially the theater/musical/stage crew stuff.  And those are the people I’ve been reconnecting with.

Here’s the other thing I realized.  I have no regrets.  I’ve always lived this way.  I’ve looked for the silver lining in things.  If there’s something I want to do, I either do it or plan on doing it.  Here’s how I came to this conclusion:

I was meeting with an old friend and his family and an old teacher. (not that they’re OLD, but I’ve known them for a long time…you know what I mean!).  I hope they don’t mind me talking about them   Anyway, my friend said that if he could, he’d love to go back to being a chef.  And my teacher said that if he were to choose another career, he’d either be a chef or a set designer.  Now, we didn’t discuss this in depth, and I can’t speak for whether or not they are planning on doing these things later in their lives.  But there was nothing that I wish I would have done.  I always wanted to try to sell real estate.  In high school, when other girls were reading ‘Seventeen,’  I was grabbing the Harmon Homes magazine at the grocery store and looking at all the homes for sale.  So, I finally did it.  It took me some time, and I had to wait until the right moment in life, but I tried it.  I’m glad I did it.  I’m also glad I don’t sell real estate anymore.  I’m super glad I got in and learned the business.  And I’m super glad I got out of it.  I learned a lot of things that I apply to other areas in my life right now.

This does not mean that there aren’t things that I want to do.  If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know that I’d like to make a living online.  So, I’m working on that.  Sometimes I work on that a lot, and sometimes just a little.  But I’m trying it.

So, what’s the point?

The point is, I don’t think that anybody should be eighty years old and think “I wish I woulda…”  Try stuff.  Take chances.  Do the right thing, treat people well.  Treat yourself well.

I have one thing that I’m really good at.  I’m good at convincing people to do things.  To take a risk.  To have no regrets.  My friend Bill whined about wanting to become a comedian.  I pestered and annoyed him so much that he finally just did it.  Tony always wanted to own a restaurant.  Over the past few years, I basically told him to get off his ass and do it because I was sick of hearing about it.

I now envision all of you getting yourself jazzed about just going out and doing SOMETHING.  Right!?!?!   Right?!?!?!?

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.

I think I’m having the same problem now!  Because I don’t have a regular ‘job’ to go to (I can get all the restaurant stuff done from home), Idon’t have the same routine that I used to.  And the kids don’t really have a routine.  I mean, they get up, they play, they eat…the usual.  I think we’re all getting a little crazy.

I think we need…

A vacation.

We’re not headed anywhere this year.  No trip to the beach, no long road trip.  And we didn’t go anywhere last year (all that ‘brand new restaurant stuff’ really threw us off).  So, I’m opening myself up to suggestions.  I need a three or four day trip.  The kids are four and six. Remember, I live in suburban Pittsburgh.  Please send suggestions.

Here’s what I’ve gone through so far:

Cedar Point?  Chloe’s just a bit too small to get on the good rides.  Plus three or four days is possibly pushing it there.  Water park one day, amusement park the other day…then what?

No place out of the country (read:  Niagra Falls), ‘cuz I think you need a passport now to leave the country, right?  Yeah, we don’t have those.

Virginia Beach?  Thought about that for a few days, but that’s a pretty long ride for just a few days.

I’m just a huge vat of indecision right now.  I don’t know what to blog about, I don’t know what kind of trip to take.  I can’t even decide what grocery store I feel like going to today.  ::sigh::

I think I need a little injection of excitement.  Maybe a girls night out…

Sorry I’m so wishy-washy.  I need to shove some positive attitude up my butt, pull up my big girl pants and appreciate what I have and where I am.

Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll come back all happy and radiant.

Really.

It all started Thursday night.  Thursday, Friday and Saturday I fell back into my old sleeping habits.  You know, fall asleep with the kids around nine or nine thirty, wake up about midnight or 12:30 completely energetic, stay awake until about three in the morning and then head back to bed.  Three nights in a row this happened.  This sleeping pattern makes me crabby for a couple of reasons.  One, obviously, is the lack of solid sleep.  The other is that I never really get my ‘me’ time.  I mean, I get it in the middle of the night, but I’m so crabby because I feel asleep that I don’t really get to enjoy it.

Next was the PMS.  It started on Saturday night.  I noticed that I was snippy, my patience was about nil.  Then I was cool mom and let them have ice cream twice in one night.  Talk about mood swings.

The third (and final) set up for the perfect storm?  No break.  You know from reading this that I love, love, love my chickies.  Sundays I usually get a little bit of a break, though.  Tony is usually off, and he’ll entertain the girls for an hour or two just so I can relax.  Or work.  But working without having to worry about the kids IS relaxing.  Well, this Sunday Tony had to go to the restaurant.  We had a big charity bike run happening, and he really DID have to be there.  But the sleep deprived mother with PMS?  She didn’t get that break, and it showed.

It wasn’t pretty.

There were threats.  There was that one fleeting moment (yes, fleeting and brief!) in Costco when I was ready to just hand them over to any woman who looked like they would be a good mom.  In retrospect, it probably WASN’T a good idea to take them to Costco on a busy Sunday in the middle of the ‘Perfect Storm.’  But you know, sometimes when you’re in the middle of that stuff, you just don’t think straight.

I’m sure many moms have been through this before.  And whether you admit to it or not,  just know that we’re all in the same boat.  And we all get cranky.

All is better today   I’m in a good mood, my children aren’t living some place else, and we’re having family day today.  Oh, and I got to watch another episode of True Blood last night.  Which followed the book a little better, and that made me happy.

Have a great Monday!

Kids Back To School Women’s Light T-Shirt

I have probably mentioned this before.  Probably more than once.  But, I’m feeling a big ol’ rant coming on, and you get to hear it

I basically work at home.  I have about five hours every Monday when I go to the restaurant and work.  Other than that, I’m getting all of the paperwork and such done here.  Plus, I’m working on my online ventures while I’m at home.  We’re exactly one week into summer vacation, and my patience is wearing thin.

If you’ve never tried to work at home with children, count your lucky stars.  If you have (or had) young children, you most likely know that you cannot start ANY project without getting interrupted.  Seems like it happens about once every 2.2 minutes.  Well, imagine trying NEEDING to get something done and then getting interuppted every 2.2 minutes.  Slightly stressful, to say the least.  I’ve been interrupted this morning for lots of reasons.

“Mom, Chloe went out front!”

“Mom, can we have some snacks?”

“Mom! <insert screaming and tears> Becca got water in my dump truck!”

“Mom, Can you put the roll-y thing in the pool?”

“I have to go potty.”

“Can we have some fruit punch?”

And that’s been in the last HOUR.  One stinkin’ hour!  They’ve finally settled down and are playing on the swings. <– As I was typing that, I had to get up and rescue a large pool toy that was blowing away.

So, if you’re experiencing the same problems, please know that you’re not alone.  I am officially starting the countdown to when they will both be in school.  I love them dearly.  And I wish I had the time (and patience) to just play with them all day.  But, I don’t.  I am who I am.

The sun was shining, and I had a new peace. As I was drinking a cup of coffee that morning in my kid-less house (they were at school), my brain started thinking what my life would be like if I had all the money I ever needed. I imagined my bank account just overflowing with cash. You want to know what I figured out? My life really wouldn’t be much different.

Sure, I would buy more stuff, and possibly go more places. But my daily life would be pretty much the same. I would still be getting up in the morning. I would still be getting the kids to school. There would still be toys to clean up, laundry to do, birthday gifts to buy and dinner to make. I would still live in this house, drive my car and drink the same coffee. Yes, if I had a crapload of cash, we may not own the restaurant anymore, but I’m not so sure about that. I mean, it’s like our child right now. Most likely, I would still have that hour or so in the morning to catch up on restaurant work. Yeah, I could hire somebody to do the grunt work. So I might get a couple more hours to myself each day. But what would I do with that time? I’m sure for a month or so, I would just enjoy the fact that I HAD some time. But I would start some project and get involved in something.

And I’d be back to the same place.

So, I’ve reached another plateau of happiness. Acceptance is good. I’m really not a worrier. So, if we’re low on cash one month, I actually handle it pretty well.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t take some cash if it came along.

Mama doesn’t NEED a new pair of shoes, but I sure wouldn’t mind a few. And hardwood floors. Ooooh, and a maid to do the scrubbing. (Yeah, I don’t scrub all that much. So again, money wouldn’t really change my life, but it might make my house more clean!). I think my kids have felt this new calmness. They’ve been great the past couple of days. We’ve had fun, and we haven’t really done anything special.

Yup, it’s all about the attitude