My Non-Shrinking Violet

Violet has always been my 'shrinking violet'. She is shy, easily intimidated and sensitive beyond belief. Early on in her school days, she was dubbed the 'crybaby' because she cries at the drop of a hat (seriously, she even cries at weddings...what kid do you know that does that? Violet, that's who). I knew that we would have bullying problems because kids can be evil and they will spot your faults and use them against you for shits and giggles, because they are assholes like that.

Not surprisingly, Violet had a few problems at school with some 'mean girls.' Sixth grade is BRUTAL people, and sixth grade girls, lo, they are bitches. At the time, I tried my very best to turn each incident into a learning experience for Violet, when I really wanted to march into that school and smack those girls in their bitch faces give those girls a piece of my mind. Alas, trying to explain to a pre-teen girl that it's not the end of the world to have people make fun of you at school was like trying to get Lily, my younger daughter, to let me brush her hair so she didn't look like she styled it with a fork every day. That is to say, my attempts were futile and I knew we were in for a long haul with middle school.

Nonetheless, I stayed the course every single time and encouraged Violet to stay above the fray. My instructions were simple: try to be friends with everyone and if somebody says something about you, starts a rumor, or just acts like an asshat in general, IGNORE IT because they are looking for a reaction from you. If you don't react, they will get bored and go away. And, if you hear someone talking about someone else behind their back, you should be a friend and stick up for the person getting trashed because you know how that feels.

I could never be sure if my message was getting across until several months later when Violet mentioned that some kids were laughing at one of her friends in the cafeteria that day because she has cancer and has no hair, and it was making her friend cry (I told you, bitches, right??). When I asked Violet what happened after her friend started crying she said "I remembered what you said, Mom. So I went over to those girls and told them that she can't help that she has no hair and that she is way prettier than they are because they're making themselves look ugly by making fun of someone who is sick."

When I recovered from the shock of my Violet asserting herself, she went on. "Then I told them that if they want to make fun of someone, make fun of me instead, because I don't care what they say about me and I can take it. And other than that they should keep their mouths shut and quit being rude to everybody because they just look stupid."

When I asked how the mean girls responded, she said "They didn't say anything else after that, I think they knew I was serious. And my friend felt better after someone stuck up for her, so you were right, Mom. I'm glad I stood up for my friend."

That, my friends, was a proud parenting moment. She's not such a shrinking violet after all.

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As A Matter of Fact, I Won't Be Your Neighbor

In a previous post, I mentioned the fact that we moved in the fairly recent past. What I failed to mention is that we moved from a regular neighborhood to a gated community. For the last few years, I coveted this community. In my head, I had pretty much likened it to a suburban utopia. Look! Big two story houses! Pretty lampposts! Award winning landscaping! A dog park called "Barkley Park," how clever! And look at the resort style community pool complete with a winding waterslide and kids splash zone! Surely this community had to be heaven right here on earth, right? Right.

Shortly after moving in, however, I discovered something about myself. An important something. I am not really a 'gated community' type of person. Apparently, there are a few key rules to follow in order to flourish here in Utopia and I lack these skills because I just don't give enough of a crap about other people's business. Read on though, to discover how you too can become a maven of Gated Community Society. I'm told it's a very prestigious post.

1) You must be nosy and care who's having an affair with who, who got drunk at the Valentine's Day 'Sweetheart Social' (and you should actually want to attend crap called the 'Sweetheart Social') and who hasn't paid their association dues in two years. I don't care about any of that and I also don't care who keeps their garbage cans out at the street for more than 24 hours after trash pick up (scandalous!) or who saw police cars on their street two nights ago (there goes the neighborhood!). Mind your own business, people. Nobody cares. Or maybe that's just me. Whatever.

2) Another responsibility of any good gated community citizen is to guard the front gate with your life. If someone tries to tailgate you in the gate, you should automatically brake check said individual, roll down your car window and accuse them of trying to get in the gate without a code. Even if the person behind you clearly has a resident sticker that opens the damn gate, just like YOU do. This might have happened to me and I might have jumped out of my car in the middle of the street and told the jackass in the Prius to mind his own damn business (although I might have replaced the 'damn' with another word that might begin with the letter F) because as a matter of fact, I do live here, asshole. But, I digress. Never mind the fact that the back gate is open ALL DAY and anyone can get in that gate WHENEVER they want...you should guard the front gate like Fort Knox. The security of the community depends on you!

3) If you're over the age of 65 or so, it's important to operate under the notion that you live in a retirement community when actually, you do not. As such, you should scowl, snipe and yell at all the kids in the community whenever possible because clearly, they are up to no good. Selfish kids, for wanting to use the bike paths, sports courts and parks! Isn't it obvious that their mere existence in these areas encroaches on your enjoyment of the community? Apparently the sign out front that calls this a 'family' community wasn't prominent enough when you were looking for a place to live out your golden years, Mr. and Mrs. Retiree. Too bad for you.

As you can see, being a good Gated Community Citizen is a big responsibility. But, if you follow the few simple rules above, you too can be part of this exclusive club. We have big two story houses! Award winning landscaping! Pretty lampposts! And don't forget the cleverly named dog park and resort style pool with waterslide and splash zone! Move right in! You know you want to.

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Let's Try This Again...

In my defense, in one of my last posts I did say that I was going to be a lazy blogger. Yep, that's me. Recently however, I've found myself thinking more and more about writing again. And, you know that when you're equating your day to day happenings with blog posts, it's time to get off your arse and do something about it.

So, here we go again. Mother Chick Part II.

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Life As I Know It

You know how some people love change? They thrive on not knowing what's going to happen next and roll with the punches. Me? I am not one of these people. In the last 8 months, however, I have:

- Quit my job to become business partners with my mother.

- Decided that although I really love my mom, I don't like being her business partner.

- Got a new job, which involved working from home, in our house that we were already busting out of thanks to the fact that it was our 'starter home' that we bought before the real estate market sank, much like the Titanic. So we...

- Listed our house for sale and moved for the first time in seven years. Two weeks before Christmas. Yes, I am that breathtakingly stupid.

- Then I decided that I really hated the new job. It involved way more travel than I initially agreed to and you can only take so much of people that work for you crying at work EVERY. SINGLE. DAY before you want to poke your eye out with a stick. Fundamentally disagreeing with how the company is run by the owners also presents quite a problem. So I...

- Got a new job and quit the sucky one.

That's a very brief synopsis of 8 months that have been one shitstorm after another, gritty details of which I don't care to revisit. Some of it was indeed self-inflicted, but all of it was painful. Things are most definitely looking up and I believe that everything happened exactly how it was supposed to.

We're all settling in to this new version of normal and the scars of the last 8 months have started to turn from fresh bright pink to pearlescent white. Our house? Still for sale. The new(est) job? Pretty awesome, actually. Change is good. I'm going to keep saying that until I believe it. Change is good! Nope, not there yet...

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What I Did On My Summer Vacation

You know how your life goes along and pretty much looks the same for a really long time; like for years at a time? You live in the same place, you have the same job, your routine stays the same, and so on.

Well, I quit my job in June and it's been one big ball of emotional upheaval around here ever since. I'm definitely not saying that I think I made the wrong decision, but I never realized how much I identified who I was with what I did for a living. I'm sure there are some people who would roll their eyes at that and think "It's just a job, get over yourself" at that statement. While it may be true that a job is just a job, I happen to really like working and to like being really good at my job.

I actually quit to partner with my mom in her business and I now realize that that little plan had disaster written all over it from the very beginning. I love my mother, I do...but it turns out that I don't like being her co-worker. One of our first official business partner-y things was a week long business trip to the Northeast. I'm telling you, you haven't lived until you've driven a roller skate of a rental car through Man-freaking-hattan with your mother in the passenger seat doing her best backseat driver impression. Follow that up with a road trip through Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire and she almost didn't make it back from that business trip. It makes my eye twitch thinking about it now.

Since that didn't work out, I've been doing a little consulting work and trying to do my best impression of a stay at home mom (which is not a good one). The thing is, I'm a fairly social creature, so I need interaction with other people to stay sane. With Violet and Lily at school all day, I find myself alone for most of the day. As such, I now chatter incessantly at Mr. Chick as soon as he walks in the door from work . He's been mostly good about it, but his eyes do start to glaze over when I regale him with tales of organizing the hall closet or my fun trips to the grocery store.

I recently accepted a new job, which I'll start in October. The pay is great, the perks are great, the company is great. The only (really small) drawback is that I'll be working from home, because the company is located about two hours from where I live. I'm sure most people would think this is a pretty sweet set up, I've just never preferred the home office set up. It's not a dealbreaker by any stretch of the imagination, but I still won't be getting any in person human interaction on a regular basis.

Oh well, at least when I pounce on Mr. Chick when he walks in the door from work, I can talk about how I forgot the cover sheet on my TPS Report that day. That's way more interesting than groceries, right?

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Well, That Was A Long Break...

Apparently, I have the attention span of a gnat. That is, if you judge by the fact that I haven't even looked at this here blog in what, six months?

That said, a six month break has given me some perspective on what I really want to get out of blogging. I started this blog to have a little corner of the internet where I could publish whatever I wanted, even if it sucked. I didn't intend to care about how many people read it, how many followers I had, etc.

I found myself, however, quickly getting caught up in all of those things - which resulted in my investing what I felt was way too much time and energy on things that were ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of my life. I didn't like looking at all things that were happening to see how I could spin them into a blog post.

So, I've decided to reclaim my little corner of the internet, and use it for that which I originally intended. I'm going to post what I want, when I feel like it, and not worry about comments, followers and the like. Here's to being a casual and lazy blogger.

More posts soon...or maybe not.

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Random Friday Thoughts, Tuesday Edition

Since I missed last week's installment of Random Friday Thoughts, I figure why not have a Tuesday edition? Also, I have a lot going on and as a result, can barely string together two coherent sentences, so Random Friday Thoughts on Tuesday it is. But first, rest assured that I made it through the Sleeping Pill Incident unscathed...I don't think I actually took a double dose. Mr. Chick woke me up every hour all night anyway, to make sure I didn't accidentally die in my sleep. That was a fun time. Now for Random Friday Thoughts:

1 - Violet broke her cell phone again, resulting in our second cell phone insurance claim within 6 months. (Side note: If you have kids with cell phones, get the insurance, it is SO worth it.)Anyway, her phone is dead because she dropped it so many times the charging port came loose and now the battery won't charge. Today I went online to file a claim only to find out that they no longer make her cell phone model. Therefore, they're going to replace it with a "comparable model." The "comparable model" is the phone she's been wanting for months. Just where is the lesson in that, I ask you? I'm making her pay the deductible out of her allowance money, but still...gah.

2 - Speaking of cell phones, Lily has been wanting a cell phone ever since Violet got one when she was ten. Lily is lobbying hard for a phone and I have been resistant because I just feel that eight is too young, and she's not responsible enough yet. Now, in some ways she's more responsible than Violet (see #1 for an example). As another example, Lily saves her money like a champ while Violet spends her cash as soon as it hits her hot little hands. Over the summer, she saved up $200 through a combination of allowance, birthday money and doing odd jobs in order to replace her broken Nintendo DS. I refused to buy her a new one after she thought it was a good idea to play with her old one while in the shower. She saved all summer and not only bought a new one, she bought a better one - a Nintendo DSi. I have no idea why that's better but I know it was double the price of the original. Right now, she's $113 saved up and just as I was typing this, she came and asked if she saved enough, could she please buy a phone. Then she proceeded to show me yearbook pictures of everyone in her class that has a cell phone. Am I being too old fashioned? Eight just seems pretty young to me.

3 - Did you hear that Nasa scientists are saying that the recent Chilean earthquake knocked the earth off it's axis, thus making our days shorter? Granted, it's only a couple of milliseconds but when there already aren't enough hours in the day for me to get things done, every millisecond counts.

4 - I can't wait for summer vacation. This week alone I've had to assist with making an ocean habitat in a shoebox, a book report in the form of a clay sculpture and a painted T-shirt for the P.E. Olympics. I get that parents need to be involved in the education of their children, but I'm tired of homework. I'm also tired of the 8:00 PM "Oh wait Mom, I forgot that I need __________________ for school tomorrow." Like last night, when the _________________ was twenty full size Hershey bars and I had to make a last minute run to the store so Lily's class can learn fractions. How is it that I always seem to end up with homework during the school year?

5 - I am really sick of soccer. The girls have been playing soccer non-stop for over two years now. We go from Fall soccer, to All Star soccer, to 3v3 tournament soccer, to middle school soccer, to Spring soccer, back to 3v3 tournament soccer, back to Fall soccer...you get the idea. Mr. Chick has decided to coach Lily's Spring soccer team, which starts in a few weeks. That means in a few weeks both girls will be on TWO soccer teams apiece, and Mr. Chick will be coaching. Good times. I am not just a soccer mom, I am the soccer mom. Kill me now.

6 - I've been a bad blog friend. Do you ever have something going on in your life that is so big, it takes up all of your time and mental energy? Yeah, that's me right now. It's nothing bad and will all turn out well in the end (at least that's what I'm telling myself) and I promise I'll be a better blogger/comment leaver soon. I have a post coming up tomorrow where I expound on Nazi skinheads and Walt Disney World. You're riveted, I know.

I hope you have enjoyed this Tuesday installment of Random Friday Thoughts.

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