T.G.I.T.E.O.T.T.W.W.

Thank God It’s The End Of The Traditional Work Week

(Yes I realize that’s really long and lots of unnecessary wordage but I really tire of old sayings like “T.G.I.F.”.  I was going to put Thank God It’s The End Of The Week, but it’s only Friday and we have still one more day to get to the actual end of the week.  Then I was going to put Thank God It’s The End Of The Work Week, but some people will still work tomorrow, like my husband, so that wouldn’t make sense.  I know, I know, WAY TOO MUCH THOUGHT went into this.)

I’ve been drowning in paperwork here at The Job.  It’s not much better at home where I’m drowning in laundry.  You know, this whole full time employment has it’s benefits, like providing money for the Black Hole that is our debt, but lately I’m beginning to feel like all my efforts are futile. 

At home, I cook dinner and feed the family.  Then I clean up.  The kitchen will be a mess again in less than 12 hours and the children will be hungry again exactly 30 minutes following the meal I’ve just prepared.  Also, one of the girls will spill a drink on my newly washed floor, it’s inevitable.  I do laundry, mounds and mounds of it, wash clothes and towels, fold clothes and towels, only to have nine new piles of laundry to wash and dry the next day.  I clean the bathroom, only to have it a science experiment by the end of the week.  I’ll vacuum, only to have the girls bring in a project they’ve made at summer camp that involves sand (because the workers at summer camp hate parents) and said project will make it’s way into the very fibers of the carpet and thus create an oh, so pleasurable grit that will never ever ever vacuum up. 

At work, I perform my menial secretarial duties with nary a “good job, menial secretary!”.  Instead, only my mistakes are brought to the public eye.  People call to tell me I misspelled a word, or forgot a period.  In the legal world that’s a BIG DEAL, and so then I must amend all those documents, killing more trees and exerting more human effort.  Sigh.

I really can’t complain.  First of all, I’m grateful to even have a job.  How many years did I try to find a job only to be stuck babysitting or working in a church nursery, my own version of hell.  (Yes I just wrote that and I have children, that doesn’t make me evil, I’m just being brutally honest.  Some folks live and breathe to hang out with kids, I am not one of those folks.  Let’s stop talking inside of paranthesis, shall we?)  I have a college degree, but rarely do I use that degree for an actual JOB, one that pays money.  Sure, money isn’t everything and it’s as fleeting as a shadow.  But it takes money to do simple functions like put gas in the car so I can zoom off to important places like Walmart, my favorite place of investment.  Secondly, I signed up for this.  I knew the risk.  I knew how difficult it would be to do, basically, two full time jobs.  Because, being a parent is as full time as you can get.  Can I get a woop, woop, moms?

What I’m battling is finding contentment where I’m at.  To stop saying ‘it’ll be better when so and so happens, when we pay off our debt, when I lose a million pounds, when the kids are older, when we move out of this postage-stamp sized apartment…’.  There’s such a temptation to just SURVIVE and not really LIVE.  And frankly, I’m tired of this kind of thinking.  It’s exhausting.  It’s frustrating.  It’s not good.

SO NO MORE!!   (I’m down with the bolding today!)

One new venture I’m excited about is selling some crafts and things that I’ve made.  My new current exciting craft is making hooded towels that are usable for older kids.  When you have babies, you get a plethora of hooded towels that work for a year, tops, due to the fact that they’re awkardly shaped and your kids grow really fast that first year.  My two girls received some hooded towels from a friend of mine that are just regular towels with a washcloth sewn on as the hooded portion.  They are still using them today.  So that’s one of my new projects.  I’m going to make a whole slew of hooded towels bedecked with buttons, ribbon, patches or anything else I think that would look great on a towel and still wash well.  I’m also going to work on sewing purses and knitting scarves for some craft fairs that are coming up.  I’m excited, because not only does it keep my hands busy and my days grounded in something that could potentially be profittable but it’s also a creative release that weird folks like me crave like crackheads crave crack. 

AND our office is going to start recycling.  We’re just going to work on cans for now, but I’ll tell you, when you think of the hidden resource that is aluminum, you’ll be grabbing all the tin cans you can find and hauling them to your nearest recycling plant.  I know a family that takes their vacations using monies they received from recycling aluminum cans.  In fact, according to a website for our local recycling plant, some people are “mining” landfills for aluminum. 

* Strange aside:  I can get sort of panicky thinking about our world’s trash problems.  I know this is bizarre, but, hello-have you met me?  I am bizarre.  Anyways, there have been nights where I’ve laid awake thinking of all those landfills just brimming over, spilling into our waterways, polluting the environment.  I even came up with a fantastic plan but so far no one agrees it’s fantastic.  My plan is, let’s stop giving criminals a free ride with three square meals, college educations and time to work out and read.  Let’s put them to work in our landfills, sorting trash finding resuable materials.  Give them safety suits, protective gloves, but let’s put them to work!  Well, I don’t care what anyone says, I think it’s a great plan.  And before you start the glazing of the eyes at words like “recycle” and immediately begin to label me as a “tree hugger” or “liberal”, just realize that this is an issue of importance.  Not that I’ve actually begun to recycle at home, but I’m thinking about it, so it counts!

Anyways, Lance thinks he should set me up a website to sell some of my homemade crap crafts and try to do a mail order business.  What do you think?