While others are gobbling down turkey . . .

. . . I am eating a Hot Pocket, sorting coupons, and watching the British version of "Biggest Loser". This makes me chuckle inside. Sometimes I like to conform; I can be a regular Emily Post in certain situations. Other times I like to go my own way. I don't do it to call attention to myself. I just don't like feeling like a sheep following the herd all the time.

In this case, I don't like to see the pressure that so many women around me have put on themselves to make a big dinner. Thanksgiving is more about the trappings than reflecting on the blessings in our lives, and I want to change that. By not spending all day in the kitchen, ABM and I were able to talk about Christmas and how we plan to celebrate with the kids without spending tons of money.

I like the trend I've seen in the blogosphere of extending your holidays a bit. For instance, many bloggers seem to celebrate a birthday week. That way they aren't hurt if no one has time to hang out with them on the specific day. I like doing the same thing with Thanksgiving. We get tons of offers to eat at different tables on Thanksgiving Thursday. Why not save my ham and collard greens for Friday or Saturday? It's almost like having your cake and eating it, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I truly have lots to be thankful for this year. I have a great husband, children who are obedient most of the time, and a roof over my head. While being a working mom is stressful, I am thankful that I have a job after 9 months of unemployment. I even got paid for my first 3 weeks yesterday -- yippee!

As for my plans today, it is going to be a day of rest. ABM and the kids are going over to eat with his family while I enjoy the peace and quiet of an empty house. He usually brings back a lot of leftover side dishes because the aunties cook too much, so I will bake a ham tomorrow for a laid-back Thanksgiving meal at home.

I hope that all of you have a great Thanksgiving day and that you get to spend it the way you want.

Got my heart broken again

We got a call from M's Spanish teacher this evening. She hasn't been turning in her homework. The teacher says that M is well-behaved and participates in class but rarely turns in her work. At this point she has only turned in 11 of the last 36 homework assignments.

This has been a recurring theme since 5th grade. No matter what we say to M, it doesn't sink in. She doesn't care enough to do the work or when she does the work, she doesn't remember to turn it in. ABM is furious at her for lying to us yet again, but I am ready to wash my hands of the whole thing. I know that is a bad attitude for a parent, but I feel more like a mistreated girlfriend in this situation. I keep trusting M and even defending her to her father, and she keeps letting me down. Just this week I was trying to talk ABM into getting her a new mobile phone because she has been so responsible with the castoff one we have been letting her use. Now I feel foolish for pleading her case.

The sad part is that I see so much of myself in M that I don't even feel qualified to lecture her. I remember being her age and just trying to get from one day to the next. I had dreams of what my future would look like but no real ambition or drive when it came to achieving that future. I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that she inherited her lousy work ethic from me. Knowing that and seeing how I turned out, I feel like there is nothing left to do but turn my attention to the other three kids and hope for the best.

Ending one week, beginning another

One week down, and another 1300 weeks or so to look forward to. That's roughly how many weeks I have until I reach retirement age. Perhaps marking them off on the calendar will make me feel better :-).

Seriously, though, my first week back in the working world was fairly mediocre. I can't say that I hate the job, but I'm not excited about it. Usually, I have at least a little curiosity about a new job and the company I am working for in the beginning. This time around, I just want to get on with it. I want to hurry past the training period so I can settle into doing the work and counting down the days. I don't want to get to know people and share lame jokes. I want to do my job and collect my paycheck.

I know it sounds like I am starting this job with a bad attitude, but it is actually necessary. I have found that if I start having fun with my coworkers on lunches and breaks, it only reminds me how much I dislike the actual work and would rather be at home. My work is always better at the beginning of a job when I don't know anyone and I eat lunch alone every day. It's strange, but it allows me to focus on the work and makes me more efficient. I need this job to last because I can't face job-hunting again. If that means being a hermit at work, then so be it.

My clumsy gene becomes dominant once again

I'm only 3 days into my new job, and I've already shown my supervisor and my coworkers how clumsy I am. I was walking out the side door and forgot that there is a little drop down from the doorway to the sidewalk. I lost my footing, my left knee buckled, and I hit the concrete hard. This isn't the first time this has happened to me. I have a long history of taking a dive in very public places :-p.

I took the fall at the end of the workday so there weren't too many people still there, but my supervisor and my office mate both came running. I kept trying to shoo them away but they wouldn't hear of it. See, I wasn't getting up right away so they must have thought that I hurt myself pretty bad. The thing is that I can't get up immediately after a fall, even it is fairly minor. It always takes a few minutes for my legs to get the message that they still work :-). This delayed reaction causes me a lot more embarrassment now that I am 100 pounds overweight. I feel as though people think my inability to get up has to do with my size. So, in this case, I pushed myself off the ground a little soon than I should have and tried not to look like I was in pain as I walked out to the car.

ABM, my ever-sensitive husband (NOT!), joked about buying me a walker. He's a laugh riot, that one :-p. He is also the cause of my second trip of the evening. As I was hobbling around with pain shooting through my ankles and calves, I tripped over the DVD player that my dear husband left in the middle of the bedroom floor. Yeowch!

It is now 5 hours later and my legs and ankles still hurt. Of course, I can't go to the doctor because my health insurance doesn't kick in until the first of the year. I don't want to take a sick day because I just started this job. So here's hoping that a good night's rest will keep me from limping in to work tomorrow.

Made it through my first day

Well, I survived the first-day-on-the-job jitters without throwing up or having a panic attack. Yay, me! My biggest fear was that I would have trouble finding my way around my workplace because there are several buildings. So I used my lunch break to figure out the quickest route to the important stuff: the bathroom, the snack machine, and the coffee pot :-). That made me feel much calmer.

I packed a self-heating cup of coffee and an oatmeal snack along with my lunch. I wanted to be ready just in case I felt too panicky to find the break room or they didn't provide coffee. Despite my preparation, I didn't even get to drink any coffee! We went from one activity to another and there never was a good time to take a break. Do you know how hard it was for me to concentrate on my benefits package with no caffeine to clear my head?

The work itself seems more complicated than I first thought, but that may just be the way my trainer is explaining it. My last two jobs had full-time training departments, and I am afraid they spoiled me. It's been a while since I've been trained in a casual manner by the person who last held the job. I've been on the other end of such a training situation, and I know that I tend to give the new person way too much information up front. That is what my current trainer is doing to me. Add to that her obvious assumption that I've never touched a computer before ("When the field is greyed out, that means you can't enter anything." Gah!), and I missed that coffee a lot. Still, the trainer is a nice woman and I know that she is trying to make sure I am well-versed in the ways of the job I've taken on.

More than the last several jobs I've had, this one gives me a comfortable feeling. From the moment I finished the interview, I knew that this was my job. It feels right. I don't sense the stress that was thick in the air at my last two jobs. Of course, I could be deluding myself. I could end up hating this job as much as I hated the other ones. However, I am choosing to have a good attitude right now. There's plenty of time for hating my job later :-).

Finally time to think about holiday shopping

This post is brought to you by your friends at Shopping.com.

Now that Halloween is over, we can start directing our attention to Christmas. If I had my way, we would start buying Christmas presents in August. There is something calming for me about having all the shopping done by the end of November. Unfortunately, ABM doesn't see it that way. He would rather wait until after Thanksgiving.

In a way, he is right. Even though stores start putting out Christmas decorations earlier and earlier every year, they don't start the good sales until November. This is especially true if you are buying gifts for kids. Some companies don't even release their hotly anticipated items until right before Christmas.

However, I still would prefer to shop early. Not only that, I would prefer to shop online. For people like me, Shopping.com is a good idea. It is a site where you can compare prices for a certain item from the comfort of your living room. For instance, I looked up the Nintendo Wii. I got a list of stores that are selling it, the prices, reviews of the stores, and reviews of the product itself. The list also tells you if the item is in stock, which is important with a hard-to-find item like the Wii. A service like this helps you find an unadvertised good price without fighting the crowds. It's just something else to have in your shopping arsenal.

She read my mind!

Katrina, the author of the Callapidder Days blog, has expressed my thoughts about blogging better than I could in her post about the birth of her blog. Her stop/start experience with writing is similar to my own.

There are days when I am dying to write down the thoughts that are running through my mind. Once I get the pen in my hand or sit down at the keyboard, I start to think that my fascinating post is no longer worth writing. There would be twice as many posts on this blog if I didn't talk myself out of writing them. Still, I don't give up on blogging totally. I keep coming back because I need to express myself and I like the idea that there is at least one person out there reading my words. So I am plugging away at this thing, hoping that one day I will be able to break down the wall that has trapped the true writer inside me.

A lady of leisure no longer

Remember last week's bout of interview flu? Well, it has morphed into a case of new job nerves. Yes, folks, they offered me the job for which I interviewed last week. I had a good feeling after that interview; the workplace felt like the health department where I worked before I had the twins. At the health department, everybody worked together until the work was finished, period. I excel in that kind of environment.

So if I think I will fit in at my new job, why am I having trouble breathing? I'm afraid of getting on that treadmill again. God knows we need both incomes to keep this family afloat, but I am not a good mother or wife when I work. I snap at ABM and the kids and I let the housework slide. I could tell myself right now that it would be different this time, but I doubt that it will be. For someone with my strong introverted tendencies, it takes a lot of physical and emotional energy to do simple things like make small talk with my coworkers. By the end of a work day, I don't want to cook dinner, check homework, or talk to my family at all. I'm horrid to live with, and I don't want to be that way again.

Oh my gosh, I just realized something! I was in such shock when my new supervisor called me that I didn't ask anything about their lunch facilities or if they have a coffee pot. What if I am in an office where no one drinks coffee? You'll have to talk me off a ledge!

OK, enough of this. I am going to feed my kids, fold some more laundry, and try not to burst into tears. Pray for me, ya'll.

My Pumpkin Patch

From left to right, there is Hungry Pumpkin (C1), Peacenik Pumpkin (C2), Teenage Cool Pumpkin (M), and Vampire Pumpkin (DJ). I finished the last hat with a couple hours to spare and the kids added their own touches, such as orange and black fingernails.

The kids scored at least 5 pounds of candy apiece and had a great time walking around the neighborhood with their friends. Many of the neighbors got into the spirit by playing weird music or dressing up to give out candy. The church on the corner did a "trunk or treat" in the parking lot and had a table where the kids stuck their hands into pots of gross stuff for prizes. The whole night was like a Disney Halloween -- nothing too scary, just lots of fun with friends.