I am starting a 5 day break today at 5pm, and anytime I have a lot of time off I am reminded of my attempt at housewifery, and why I will always have a job.
When I got out of the military, I had 4 weeks off - paid by using some of the leave I had saved up during my 4 years - before I started my new job. I didn't have a whole lot of money, seeing as I was relocating from Del Rio, TX to Washington, DC and adjusting to the cost of living, renting a house, buying work clothes, etc. So travel was not an option, otherwise I would have been long gone, at the very least, visiting family. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to 4 weeks off to do as I pleased, relax and all in all be peaceful. Well, that didn't work out as planned. This is the 4 weeks off at home, as I remember the experience.
Week 1: Wake up at 0730. Get paper. Drink a glass of water. Walk dogs on a nice, long walk through the neighborhood, stopping to chit chat with friendly neighbors. Come home, read paper, drink coffee. Shower. Eat light lunch. Go to store/organize house/clean/do yardwork. Begin baking something - either muffins, cookies, cake or bread. Finish baking. Start dinner for husband. Husband comes home, eat dinner together. Hang out with husband, go to bed.
Week 2: Wake up at 0900. Slurp coffee. Walk dogs on abbreviated walk, waving at friendly neighbors. Eat sandwich, peruse paper. Shower. Either go to store, organize house, clean or yardwork. Watch TV for awhile. Start dinner. Husband comes home, eat dinner together, drink some wine. Hang out with husband, drinking more wine. Go to bed.
Week 3: Wake up at 1000. Drink coffee. Let dogs out in backyard. Read paper while eating chips and salsa for breakfast/lunch and dripping on paper. Shower. Watch TV. Do laundry or something to not look like a complete good-for-nothing. Make something quick for dinner while drinking. Leave plate out for husband for when he comes home. Drink wine while he eats. Watch more TV. Go to bed.
Week 4: Wake up whenever. Let dogs out in yard. Watch TV and drink coffee. Screw the paper, no need for the new neighbors to see me in this state. Eat tortilla because it's there and requires no effort. Watch more TV. Shower. Tell husband he can make himself a sandwich, I'm too tired and who does he think I am anyway - a maid/personal chef? Drink wine. Stumble to bed/sleep on couch.
Cheers to those who can be productive and happy without the structure of work. I will never be able to be one of you. And if I ever decide to be a housewife, my husband said he'd leave me.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Cubicle, Oh Cubicle
I work in a cubicle farm. Lots of workers pounding away at their keyboards, efficiently working like little wind up toys. Or so the theory goes.
I sit next to the loudest woman in the world. This LWITW talks on the phone like she is yelling across the room, even when it is a normal conversation and she is actually not trying to yell at the person (although she does actually yell at people quite often). It's pretty hard to concentrate with her yelling and all, but what really takes the cake is her mispronunciation and misuse of words and common phrases. Twice I have heard her tell someone that what they were doing 'would not pass the mustard'. I am fairly certain she meant 'would not pass muster'...but now I have started saying it because I secretly make fun of it in my head so much. Someone told LWITW a joke a few weeks ago that included the phrase 'y'all', but she misunderstood and thought that they had said 'mule' so now she refers to our organization as 'the mule' - thinking it is an insider term that she now has in her vocabulary. I am such an easily influenced person when it comes to pronunciation that I fear for my own words...it's like LWITW is taking them all away from me!
One final gripe...I hate, hate, hate loud chewers/open mouth chewers. And as such, it is my lot in life to be surrounded by them wherever I go...so either a) there are a lot of loud/open mouth chewers or b) I still have really bad karma for that cat I hit 10 years ago and then buried and cried over. It's the only bad thing I have ever done (yeah...right...but it's probably one of the worst, and I still feel bad to this day for it)
Anyway, LWITW not only talks loudly, she also chews with her mouth open, smacking her food around. And she is contantly eating 'squishy' things like oranges and 'crunchy' things like apples and cookies and sucking on suckers. Who sucks on suckers - besides kids, 20 something chicks trying to be sexy, and ex-smokers? LWITW, that's who. It makes my skin crawl, I imagine that on the other side of the partition is a woman sucking the internal organs out of a chipmunk...because that is exactly what it sounds like to me.
I hope you pass the mustard today.
I sit next to the loudest woman in the world. This LWITW talks on the phone like she is yelling across the room, even when it is a normal conversation and she is actually not trying to yell at the person (although she does actually yell at people quite often). It's pretty hard to concentrate with her yelling and all, but what really takes the cake is her mispronunciation and misuse of words and common phrases. Twice I have heard her tell someone that what they were doing 'would not pass the mustard'. I am fairly certain she meant 'would not pass muster'...but now I have started saying it because I secretly make fun of it in my head so much. Someone told LWITW a joke a few weeks ago that included the phrase 'y'all', but she misunderstood and thought that they had said 'mule' so now she refers to our organization as 'the mule' - thinking it is an insider term that she now has in her vocabulary. I am such an easily influenced person when it comes to pronunciation that I fear for my own words...it's like LWITW is taking them all away from me!
One final gripe...I hate, hate, hate loud chewers/open mouth chewers. And as such, it is my lot in life to be surrounded by them wherever I go...so either a) there are a lot of loud/open mouth chewers or b) I still have really bad karma for that cat I hit 10 years ago and then buried and cried over. It's the only bad thing I have ever done (yeah...right...but it's probably one of the worst, and I still feel bad to this day for it)
Anyway, LWITW not only talks loudly, she also chews with her mouth open, smacking her food around. And she is contantly eating 'squishy' things like oranges and 'crunchy' things like apples and cookies and sucking on suckers. Who sucks on suckers - besides kids, 20 something chicks trying to be sexy, and ex-smokers? LWITW, that's who. It makes my skin crawl, I imagine that on the other side of the partition is a woman sucking the internal organs out of a chipmunk...because that is exactly what it sounds like to me.
I hope you pass the mustard today.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Holiday Mish-Mash
We went to Handel's Messiah on Saturday night at the Kennedy Center. The music was amazing, however we left at intermission...3 hours of music in a warm theater with old people passing gas was just a little too much for us...
I'm having a holiday party on Friday (maybe you've heard, it's the must-attend party of the season...) and I'll try to bring the camera out. I'm getting a trim on my unruly hair on Wednesday (took the day off, yay for a 2 day work week!) because at this point my hair and I are disagreeing on everything. It wants to flip out, I want it to flip under, so apparently we compromised and one side flips outward and the other sits right and flips under. Did that even make sense?
We exchanged gifts early this year, the husband is working through the morning of the 26th. I got J a fish tank that now weighs approximately 300 lbs and has 10 goldfish in it as test subjects for the water quality. J was like, you know - people treat fish differently than other pets. No one would buy 10 kittens to see if they all survived. I would, but that's another story for another day that involves Texas puppy and kitten hunting. I feel badly about the fish though, and if they survive I would like to bring them back to the store so they can find a new home. I don't expect a refund - they were 10/$1.00 anyway, poor things are basically food for other fish. But from what the super cool fish store guy told me, keeping them is not an option, they will make the tank dirty. Yuck.
My wedding anniversary was yesterday. 4 years! Only 6 more until we go through crisis and start having affairs with college students. Happy Anniversary sweetie, if you read this!
Happy Holidays all!
I'm having a holiday party on Friday (maybe you've heard, it's the must-attend party of the season...) and I'll try to bring the camera out. I'm getting a trim on my unruly hair on Wednesday (took the day off, yay for a 2 day work week!) because at this point my hair and I are disagreeing on everything. It wants to flip out, I want it to flip under, so apparently we compromised and one side flips outward and the other sits right and flips under. Did that even make sense?
We exchanged gifts early this year, the husband is working through the morning of the 26th. I got J a fish tank that now weighs approximately 300 lbs and has 10 goldfish in it as test subjects for the water quality. J was like, you know - people treat fish differently than other pets. No one would buy 10 kittens to see if they all survived. I would, but that's another story for another day that involves Texas puppy and kitten hunting. I feel badly about the fish though, and if they survive I would like to bring them back to the store so they can find a new home. I don't expect a refund - they were 10/$1.00 anyway, poor things are basically food for other fish. But from what the super cool fish store guy told me, keeping them is not an option, they will make the tank dirty. Yuck.
My wedding anniversary was yesterday. 4 years! Only 6 more until we go through crisis and start having affairs with college students. Happy Anniversary sweetie, if you read this!
Happy Holidays all!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Drifting
Lately I've been drifting...I am drifting away from people, drifting through life, drifting and just going where the world steers me. I don't think this is what I want...and it's certainly not what I had in mind for my future. And it has made me depressed - and I don't have much to look forward to these days. Even the weekends are all the same, boring and unfulfilling - and isn't that the time that is supposed to make the work week seem worthwhile?
So let's make a list of what I can do to regain control:
~Assert independance. I was always a very independant person growing up, I never listened to anyone - and did what I wanted to do, sometimes it was the right choice, and sometimes it most definitely was not. So I need to regain that control in my life. I'm not a 'we' person, and somehow I became one. What the heck happened to me?
~Work out. Yup, it seems like an old-as-time patch to any of life's problems, but I feel that working out really does help me feel stronger inside as well as out. I need to get back into that! Lately I've been putting it off because I have limited time at home with my long work days - but I think I should go to the gym instead sitting at home from 6:00 on and doing nothing.
~Enroll in classes. I need to get working on my degree again. It's true that my job is far from my dream job, and my degree is certainly not my dream degree. But I need something - and then maybe I can go on to do something else. (Like a master's in something I actually want to do...)
~Volunteer. I think I want to start volunteering, preferrably with an organization that I can attach with. I'm thinking the humane society...but I'm undecided and need to do some research.
I think that's enough for now - it's a pretty hefty list and I need to get started on it, and nothing changes over night. I'm tired of drifting and being 'blah' all the time. I need to re-energize, re-charge and become who I want to be instead of just being this boring run of the mill person. I want more...and I need to work for it. And maybe by starting on at least some of these things, opportunities will appear that will help me on my journey. Maybe a service trip, maybe a career in helping people, maybe a life somewhere else. Who knows? Maybe I will not get any of these things - but the life I have now will begin to become more of what I want and less of what I now realize I don't want.
So let's make a list of what I can do to regain control:
~Assert independance. I was always a very independant person growing up, I never listened to anyone - and did what I wanted to do, sometimes it was the right choice, and sometimes it most definitely was not. So I need to regain that control in my life. I'm not a 'we' person, and somehow I became one. What the heck happened to me?
~Work out. Yup, it seems like an old-as-time patch to any of life's problems, but I feel that working out really does help me feel stronger inside as well as out. I need to get back into that! Lately I've been putting it off because I have limited time at home with my long work days - but I think I should go to the gym instead sitting at home from 6:00 on and doing nothing.
~Enroll in classes. I need to get working on my degree again. It's true that my job is far from my dream job, and my degree is certainly not my dream degree. But I need something - and then maybe I can go on to do something else. (Like a master's in something I actually want to do...)
~Volunteer. I think I want to start volunteering, preferrably with an organization that I can attach with. I'm thinking the humane society...but I'm undecided and need to do some research.
I think that's enough for now - it's a pretty hefty list and I need to get started on it, and nothing changes over night. I'm tired of drifting and being 'blah' all the time. I need to re-energize, re-charge and become who I want to be instead of just being this boring run of the mill person. I want more...and I need to work for it. And maybe by starting on at least some of these things, opportunities will appear that will help me on my journey. Maybe a service trip, maybe a career in helping people, maybe a life somewhere else. Who knows? Maybe I will not get any of these things - but the life I have now will begin to become more of what I want and less of what I now realize I don't want.
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