Red Shoes:
Last night I went to our school's back to school social. As a trustee and a chronic volunteer, I had many responsibilities at the event, mostly social things such as finding and meeting our new families and talking about some of the programs our school offers that are helpful to new parents. I got a new dress that was boring and grey. It was a sweatshirt material, only done very nicely and in a tailored dress style. Then, I got these very stylish red leather shoes to go with it. The two looked great together and I was willing to suffer through the heels for the night to look fabulous. I can't tell you how many people talked about my shoes. People loved them. They liked the dress too, but the shoe comments went on and on. I told my husband at least ten people mentioned them. But, did one person even notice my much darkened hair? No one even noticed. Next time, maybe I'll get brown shoes and dye my hair fire engine red.
Toilet Paper Roll Stop:
I run into this every so often and I always silently curse the inventor of this contraption. Do you know those toilet paper roll holders where there is a catch so that the paper roll will only go one rotation before it stops and you have to manually flip the paper around and then unroll again if you need more paper? I understand it's to conserve paper, but if you're going to do that, don't use the see-through, single-ply paper...please?
My Job Title:
I have a new job title. Terms I've used in the past include saying I don't have a "real job", saying I'm a "stay at home mom" or a "home maker". I might also mention I do a lot of "volunteer work". But none of those titles or job descriptions are satisfactory to me. I don't like saying, "I used to do real work, but now I'm at home with the children." Anyone who has children knows it can be more challenging, more frustrating, more tiring and more stressful than many "real jobs". But I still didn't like the names for this very rewarding and exhausting job. I have happened on what I think is the best way to describe everything I do, be it volunteering for the school, being a mom managing our household. Now I just say I'm "not working for income". Sums it all up nicely. It is work. Only no one is paying me to do it.
In The Eyes of a Child:
On the first day of school a few weeks ago, one of the older students in our school ran up to me and gave me a hug. I was excited about school starting, watching my two head off to their new classroom with the older children. But that hug made my day. The student happened to be the daughter of my son's teacher for the last two years, but that's not why she hugged me. She hugged me because we had a special connection from when I substituted during the past year. During that time we found out we both loved Doctor Who. Loved it. So every time we see each other we always talk about what's happened on episode such and such and which doctor is our favorite and how the aliens were so scary, etc. In her eyes, I am cool. And there his nothing nicer than knowing a child thinks you're cool.
The Adult Store Tour:
I was in the car the other day when I drove by a local "adult store" and had a flash back from more than twenty years ago. I was a co-op, working at IBM with many other co-ops from all over the country. I don't remember why, but Jeff Sunquist (I remember his name, how strange) wanted to go to one of the adult stores for something. It might have been to get a joke gift for a friend, but I don't really remember. I said I knew where a store was and they'd just opened and I'd take him there. We got there with a third friend and went in. I'm not particularly shy, so I said hello to the guy behind the counter while my two friends silently and quietly went through the aisles. The guy turned out to be the manager and he was really excited about the layout of his new store. He came out from behind the counter and proceeded to show me around, explaining how the magazines were sorted (current month on the top row, older months on lower shelves). He showed me their leather and bondage section, pointing out the high-quality of their products. He was getting to the next section when my two friends slinked over to stand near me. I don't remember them saying anything the entire time. I don't remember if anyone bought anything. I just remember that manager being so happy about all his merchandise and wanting to talk about it.
The Big Boy Update: Kids think literally. This is one of my favorite literal translations my son has ever done. We were almost home and I asked him if he knew where we were. I told him we were in our neighborhood. He said, "This is our neighborsky. It doesn't have a hood to cover our house. It's everybody's neighborsky." I think I like the word "neighborsky" better than neighborhood so I'm calling it that now.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was pleased she was a member of the clean plate club the other day. I asked her if she'd like more of <something she wanted more of> and put it on her plate. She immediately cried out, "oh no, oh no, I'm not the member of the clean plate club!"
Fitness Update: My neighbor has been at the hospital working all weekend. She called me this morning telling me that while she's only slept one hour, she isn't that tired and would I like to go running. I missed the call because I was making fattening ice cream and didn't hear the phone ring over the machine noise. Her message was in that voice she has when she's exhausted and can't quite come up with the next word in the sentence and therefore has these little minor pauses in her speech. It was my non-medical opinion that sleep would be more beneficial to her than running, and when I called her back I told her so as I left her a message. I'm hoping she was asleep by then.
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