Am I a fraud?

After a few days of creative block I start to believe that I am a fraud. I can't make gray go with black, too many things align, and this design looks like the last 10 layouts of 1993. I surfed the web for inspiration. Inspiration? Thats such a fuzzy concept. Also known as stealing others brilliancy...navigation structure, textured background...my God I am a fraud. An Andy Warhol. A Google ganker...

My head was stuffy, so I took a walk during lunch. Up and down Marshall Street, crossing the road here and there and then turning around and retracing my steps. The mechanic working on the Saturn VUE asked me if I was lost. "No not lost, just going nowhere."

Who is going to clean up all that trash on Marshall Street? Trash blown out of the garbage truck, dumpsters carelessly losing their cargo, vile filth, broken Barbie dolls with knotty hair, greasy pizza boxes, stray walmart bags. All this trash collecting against the temporary walls of Goshen and Gilmer Street. And these plastic bottles...when will those degrade?

My brother's wife had their third child last week. His name is Isequeal...I don't know how to spell that, I like the name, it rhymes with MySQL. After the baby was born my brother bought a motorcycle and today he took his 5 year old daughter fishing.

Back in the office I had a leak of ideas. Just a leak mind you, no waterfall. {consequently did you hear about the $15million waterfall feature some danish artist built in Manhatten?} The leak was enough to get underway with a design...my design. A design I designed. Now tomorrow I'll need to get in early to get ahead of that design...

Tonight I cooked a pound of scallops. I picked two warm cucumbers from Chris's garden and chopped them with some fresh basil and oregano. I marinated them in balsamic vinegar. Then I ate the whole pound of scallops with a glass of red wine.

Tomorrow I will organize the pieces of my world, I will get them all in the designated cubbies. But for tonight I have enough energy to read 1 bedtime story to the girls and fall asleep with my makeup on.

Last Tuesday at SOE

Today is my last Tuesday at my current job. A random Tuesday would appear insignificant but then I think about the number of Tuesdays over the last 3 years that I was late to work because I spent 30 minutes looking for a parking spot near my building, and I get a little sad knowing that next Tuesday I'll be circling around another block a half a mile away.

All that nostalgia aside, I am so darned stoked that today is my last Tuesday in the School of Education. The thing is, I am kinda scared. I am not just switching jobs, I am changing careers totally. Luckily I am only 31, but unfortunately I am 31. 31 with a mortgage, 2 car payments, 2 children, and an (out of control) equity line. So this job has to work...it has to be my ticket to the big cash pot at the end of the suburban rainbow.

Boy, did I eat out this past weekend!.

Friday lunch my office took Karen to Maggianos in Short Pump. I nearly cashed out my children's college fund to pay for a luke warm plate of eggplant parmesean and a bitter piece of dry bread. Total bill = $32.

Friday night I hung out at Stool Pigeons with, my latest favorite person, Dana. She ordered some gross animal remains (also known as hamburgers) and I ordered a totally untasty plate of nachos. Total with beer = $25.

Saturday morning I was cleaning the house for mother in laws visit. Breakfast was a bagel and latte from Starbucks. Total = $8. Kids and hubby ate donuts (yuck!).

Saturday lunch was sushi at Wasabi. Total = $12. Kids and hubby ate Burger King (yuck!).

Saturday Dinner was pizza from Papa Johns. Omg, I ordered the 6 cheese pizza and I nearly fainted, it was so tasty. Total = $32.

Sunday morning Payton and I woke early and took pictures in Shockoe Bottom. Quick Starbucks munchies and latte = $13.

Sunday lunch with Chris's Dad and future wife at Buffalo Wild Wings = $75.

Okay I need a break. I can't believe the money I spend on eating out. And the calories!!

There was also CiCi's Pizza on Thursday and Little Mexico yesterday for lunch with Maggie. (Love ya Magster!). Oh and the latte with Karen yesterday afternoon at Crossroads.

I'm starting to think I have issues. That is only 4 1/2 days!

No wonder my equity line is out of control.

Yikes.

Sunday Quiet

Right now the children are snuggled under layers of freshly laundered quilts. Chris is watching a TV show about Frito Lay's assembly line. Therefore, I am blessed with a quiet handful of me-time hours.

My first task was to look through the dozens of picture I snapped this evening. Boy did it rain tonight! Our skinny ditch quickly turned into a wadding pond. When the rain slowed, the air filled with a beautiful ethereal light. A green freshness mirrored from tree to tree and then across the street pavement casting a lovely brightness against the dark clouds. A bit of sun helped form gentle shadows of dripping trees down onto the wet grass.

What a sight! So I grabbed my camera and started shooting...the sky, the trees, the water droplets on the deck...I wanted to capture that light. But I quickly realized that unless I master aperture and f stops, I'll only produce black and blurry photos.

Rather then reference the seventeen books that I own with names like "How-To-Use-Your-$1000-Camera", I used my misplaced sense of expertise to determine that a tripod would cure all my photography woes. So Chris and I searched the house For something that would hold the camera steady. We settled on a ladder, which would have been ideal, however one rung was too high, producing pointless pictures of tree branches in the sky; and the next rung was too low, producing what you see below:



Now, this picture isn't going to win me any awards, I posted it mainly because I took 62 pictures and, dammit, I was going to post at least one of them!

Oh I also have to post this picture:





I have to post this picture because of this conversation:

ME: Look honey we've got marijuana growing in our yard!
HUBBY: That isn't marijuana, its a weed.
ME: Baby that isn't just any weed, it's THE weed, mary jane, the good stuff
HUBBY: No it's a weed...now you are going to blog about how we have weed growing in our yard
ME: Of course I am! It's right there!

I have a new obsession. This is scary for me to admit, but I have to put it out on the table. First let me say I rebel against Vera Bradley purses, I mean seriously? Those are totally frumpy. This, too was the way I felt about Yankee candles, but more because the store's smell sent me into mini convulsions. However, I learned that Cracker Barrel (Geez thats another place I swore I'd never visit or be seen visiting) sells Yankee Candles, and on a whim I purchased one. And I burned it for 4 days straight. Thats almost 100 hours! And I fell madly in love with the comforting smell of my house. In fact I fell in love with my house again, because of that $25 candle. Today I am on my 3rd Yankee Candle. This one is called Dune Grass:





Oh it's yummy. yummy. yummy.

Here are two more pictures I retouched tonight of my restful buddha bookends:









Now I am contemplating bed. I am reading "100 Years of Solitude" and I'm at the point where 10 people are name Jose Arcadio Buendia. I'm confused who is the great-great-grandfather and who is he shagging. You know, because it's the parts with the shagging that really hold my attention.

Tomorrow I get to tell my boss I found another job and I QUIT!

Ah, just another day. What a blessed life I have.

I kinda like it but I kinda hate it

Early this morning, I wrote a well thought-out blog on racism in America. I let it live for an hour on myspace, then I deleted it. I decided that this space, my blog space, should not be a place of heavy left-ism thought. While indeed I am a liberal gal, there is no need shoving my agenda in anyone’s face when they’d rather read about how many times I hear the toilet flush from the crapper adjacent to my office. Anyhow, I’d rather consider the implication of having an office so close to the bathroom, than wage heavy political battles amongst my friends.

My how far I’ve come from those feminist days in college. I’ve traded Wollstonecraft for Austen. In my defense, didn’t Wollstonecraft try to drown herself in oven gas?

Here in this school of education, our firecracker Dean hired 2 somewhat questionable Assistant Deans. Wait, make that 3 questionable {This part was edited out, c’mon guys I don’t wanna lose the paycheck}

And the third. The "absent minded professor". How this ditzy woman made it through college we will never know. Although I am convinced she uses her stupidity as an excuse for breaking the rules. "Oh, I can’t take my family out to eat on VCU money? I didn’t realize that. Well, just see what you can do to fix it."

She just poked her head into my office and said in her light airy voice (which is a long description for totally fake) "There are donuts in the Dean’s Office. Krispy Kreme." I believe she was expecting me to jump up, grab her, kiss her flat on the lips, cry a bit, and dash for the donut box. She was rather disapointed in my reaction which was simply "No thanks." She frooze, gave me a weasel stare, then click-clacked off to the crapper.

Meanwhile my coworker, freshly returned from a root canal, is flying high off pain medicine. She is literally dancing in the hallways. She is a child of the hippy generation and I am slightly worried she may strip and run naked down the hall.

I want what she is having.

I went out to eat with Angelica a couple of days ago. She says "Oh you got your haircut. I like it, but I kinda hate it too." Bothered by this, I say to hubby, "do you like my haircut?" He says "Yeah, it’s okay." I said, "Angelica said she kind of hates it." He says "Well, I liked it better long." So I ask my coworker Heather, "Was my hair better before?" She says "Noway, it’s a change, change is good." I say, "Yeah but I don’t get hit on anymore." She says "That’s precicely why I cut my hair. I was tired of the Bubbas hitting on me." I say, "Yeah, thats true it was always the Bubbas when I had all that hair." She concludes, "Long hair makes the Bubbas think you are young, silly, and impressionable. Men can get in the pants of the long-haired girls." So I am left wondering, at almost 31, do I really care if I am the type of girl men want to get in the pants of? I mean shouldn’t that ego-stroking end at some point in a womans life when they decide to get serious about being a person and not just a piece of meat? Uh oh, I’m philiospohizing on a liberal platform again. But let me say one last thing, most women over 30 love short hair, and I get it. It’s easy to do. professional. and confident. Just like me...with the exception of easy to do, I mean seriously...

My coworker, Dana (the-hot-one-men-drool-over-that-also-sits-beside-the-crapper), is in Vegas right now loving life. I was supposed to be in Vegas next week. But I couldn’t pull it together. So instead I will be at home watching 1970 Oscar films. Honestly they should have shut Hollywood down during that decade.

So now just 2 more fake and bake hours left of this state-employee’s day. And then I’m off to pay my state-employee-fine (aka parking), then to the shrink, then to a dirty kitchen and two children who are bubbly no matter if the kitchen is clean or not.

Parking Paranoia

I'm late (everyday) and I decide to make 1 loop around Cary Street looking for free parking. Usually I give in and park in the $5/day deck. (Don't you just love paying to come to work!)

This morning as I was circling the block guess what! a car backed out of a spot RIGHT in front of the building. So I pulled in carefully. Put the car in park. And spent the next 5 minutes walking up and down the street looking for "No Parking" signs. No parking on Thursday...okay it's Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? I think it's Tuesday. What are those cones a quarter mile up the road? Could those have blown down the street? Was this spot supposed to be coned off for sewer line mantainance? Are there any of those flimsy street cleaning signs that may have blown over? Am I far enough from the crosswalk? The fire hydrant? Could I be towed or booted? Do I have any outstanding parking tickets? Hmmm, I think I'm okay. But am I? Am I sure? Let me turn around and look one more time. Could it be possible that I was able to score this good of a parking spot?

God, I hope my car is here when I come out of work this afternoon.