Thursday, November 8, 2007

Positive Reinforcements

Positive reinforcements are very important (Child development 101) They also work with pets (Puppy Training at PetCo)

What I just learned is that positive reinforcements work incredibly well with husbands. You see, yesterday my dear husband was home all day. He did laundry, he worked around the house, he cleaned the first floor. For this, he was handsomely rewarded. We’re not talking pat on the back here.

This morning he got up early, made coffee, folded and put away laundry, got the kids dressed and THEN made French toast with bananas and whipped cream. If he keeps this up I’m going to have a stripper pole installed in our bedroom.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Screeeeech!!!!

That, my friends, is the sound of me dragging my feet and trying to stop the calendar's relentless march forward. Yes, my 3 inch heels are digging in here, trying to avoid slamming headfirst into the holidays.

All of a sudden Thanksgiving menu planning is upon me, closely followed by Christmas, New Year's, my pal's wedding, my *gasp* 30th birthday and then our 10th wedding anniversary. Stop the world, I wanna get off.

Right food ahead of me, left foot planted for balance, head and shoulders leaning back, yet time is clutching my hem with it's icky old man hands. And it's my favorite leopard print hem, too. How could this be?!?!?! The Holidays already?? Maybe if I whimper and cry I can get out of it.

It's not that I don't like The Holidays. When you have kids it's almost mandatory. Every year it's as if I stress so much over it that I don't allow myself time to enjoy it. Every year we say this year we won't go overboard with Christmas gifts just because we like to see them stacked 3 deep and 6 high around the tree. Then 3 days later they're broken and scattered around the house and we're asking ourselves, "Why did we do that again?" Although I must admit that Christmas music makes me happy. When I was about twelve I had the New Kids on the Block Christmas album. I love Tchaikovsky. Thanksgiving is overrated. I don't like turkey all that much. For my first Thanksgiving on my own, I ate White Castle and watched basketball. New Year's Eve we spend with the kids and a bottle of sparking grape juice - not exactly party central. Right now I've got no idea what to get my husband for Christmas. I haven't yet figured out what I want to do for my birthday, either.

No - I'm not avoiding it. I'm just surprised that all this came so fast at me. Yes, at me, like it's a personal assault :) Just look at the mish mash of thoughts above and you'll see what thinking about the holidays does to me!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Email Etiquette

Have you ever felt the wave of nausea and panic after hitting "send" on an email that is, shall we say, not nice? Twice in my younger (and less professional) days I accidentally sent an email to the wrong person. Both times, the wrong person was in management. Oops! One was innocuous, I simply stated that the frog I kept in a tank on my desk had died. For that, my boss kindly sent her condolences, and probably wondered why I felt it necessary to share that news. The other time, the manager from a department I'd been promoted out of, sent an email rife with spelling and grammatical errors. I thought I was forwarding that email, with my own snarky comments, to a co-worker and it turned out I hit "reply" instead of "forward" - I took a deep breath and with knocking knees I went to apologize face to face with the woman I'd offended. Luckily, she was very nice about it.
This afternoon I received an email I didn't like very much. I forwarded it to my mom, along with some comments that are just not printable here. As SOON as I hit sent I felt like someone threw ice water on my head - I was that sure I'd just replied to the person who angered me. I'd have been far more diplomatic! I'd have omitted the extraneous use of the F word! I checked the sent file at least 5 times to be sure - absolutely sure - that I sent that email to my mom. It has her name there, it says I forwarded the message .... so why do I still feel like I'm about to get fired?? Never mind the fact that everyone knows you shouldn't write anything in your work email that you wouldn't mind being plastered all over the kitchen. I know this. My reaction to that email was just too fast and strong to remember that.

Panic and pending joblessness aside, Sunday was report card day. Now I don't mean to brag...

Don't you hate it when people say that?? If you didn't mean to brag then you'd just be quiet about it. Not write it all over the place and tell everyone who passes you on the street. So yeah, I do mean to brag - Golden Boy got straight As! Even he was surprised! His face lit up and you could just see how happy he was. I'm so very proud of him. He's worked hard this year and it shows!