Gina Bug Writes

Mom?Will you be published?

My 8-year-old asked this morning if I believe I will be published.

YES! Yes I do. When? I don't know. What? I dont know. But I will be. and I will have quite a few published.

Have I mentioned I love how this kid's brain works? I hope he's a writer someday too :-)

I don't like volunteering at school!

***update***

Third grade was MUCH easier than Kindergarten! I actually enjoyed myself. I felt useful and thought I made a difference with the kids in reading lab.

Now on to my earlier rant:

I shouldn't say this online, out in the open, under my true name I suppose. But I guess I am only human and complaining and fear of failure is all that can be expected of me :)

I have to volunteer most of the day tomorrow for my third-grader's class. This will be the first time. Then the next day I will be volunteering for most of the day at my Kindergartener's class. It's my second time there and I am dreading it.

I don't like not knowing in advance what I have to do for the class. You just show up and are directed like puppets all day - and at least in the Kindergarten class you're at the whim of the teacher. There's no set goals.

In theory I am so okay with this. I welcomed a school with mandatory volunteering because I knew what it meant for the school and the kids. But in application, I am not into it.

I watch the other moms and they're happy. They're okay. I'm so not okay there. I've always thought I could go with the flow, but apparently not when I have to volunteer at the school. Our school has mandatory volunteering, so it's not exactly a choice.

More than just the soul crushing fatigue I know I'll have during the day where I hope the teacher won't ask me to go play ball with the kids. It's more than my physical problems. It's that I am so uncomfortable in this position.

Now if I have a published children's book to promote or choose to teach a class, I know I will be on top of my game and do well. But the volunteering just drives me batty! Maybe I'm just too selfish.

When I got home last time I was completely overstimulated the entire day. I kept asking the boys to go into the other room; to please (please!) be quiet. The Kindergarten class is SO NOISY! I thought I was going to have to lock myself in the closet and that's NOT fair to my own lil guys who were just having their normal day and needed my attention.

At the school, the other moms seem to know naturally what they need to do and roll with the punches. I don't. I stand there like an idiot until I'm directed, much to the chagrin of the teacher and other parents I think.

I HATE not knowing ahead of time what I will have to do. I don't enjoy working in a classroom with other people's kids. How is that? I am a children's writer. I'm good to my neighbor's kids. I love love love kids. And yet??? In the classroom I balk. Heck, I don't even enjoy homework at home with my kids at ANY age. I would go so far as to say I HATE it. I have no patience for it. Are the two things connected? Again, maybe I am just selfish.

So there you have it. Chalk it up to yet another failure in the mommy book!

Moving Musing

How crazy is all of this moving stuff?

First we thought we would rent a truck. Then maybe 2 pull behind trailers. Then just one. Now none! It’s going to cost us $325 plus tax, costs for the extra weight and wind resistance on the car, the slower speed of travel possibly costing us another hotel, and the trailer hitch installed onto the car. All told around $500-$700 for one 4x8 uHaul trailer. With the trailer we might take the risk of killing our transmission somewhere during the 4 day/3,000 mile travel. Yikes! $2,000. Also as it is, we might be forced to get two hotel rooms on each stop because 2 parents and 3 kids exceed hotels’ limits.

So last night we decided it wasn’t worth the money and the risk. We’re going to ship our stuff to California and go with just a packed Huyundai Elantra (very small, unfortunately) and Grand Caravan. If we spend less than $500 shipping, then we are saving money. Any suggestions as to which way to ship is cheapest and/or best, please let me know! (USPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS?)

My goal is to get us down to practically nothing! I have done a ton already. We’ve Freecycled (http://www.freecycle.org) hundreds of items and have little left. We have sold or are selling a few items. Some things like all of our kitchenware is going to an adolescent home before we leave.

I’ve taken down all of my picture frames and given them away. The photos are going to be safely tucked in a box for the trip along with a few other special items I do not want to chance losing in the mail. The rest of our stuff will be shipped – what there is of it! We are lucky Media Mail by USPS is cheap compared to what it weighs so we’ll send our must have CDs, DVDs, and books that way.

I thought I would be at least somewhat heartbroken to give away so much, but I am ecstatic! It’s like a whole renovation inside and out. Freedom! I’m practically giddy. We’re just watching everything sort of take flight and we feel good about it. As a second agenda, we need to get rid of anything that leaves clutter out to collect dust. I’m allergic, 1-2 of my kids are, and we found out last fall my husband is REALLY allergic to dust and dust mites. So our new goal is to have everything in it’s place inside closed drawers and shelves. So all of my office paper stackers, living room shelves, etc are all gone.

What’s more, the house looks fabulous aside from the hot spots of piled boxes and stuff. It’s never been so decluttered. I love all the space and being able to see where floors connect to walls because furniture and STUFF are gone. I want to keep it simple in the new place too.

Interestingly we were also in the paper today. My kids got two photos in the paper, so they’re in heaven. The guy writing a story on Freecycle thought ours was a good one, so he used us as the main family in the story. Were I not a writer, I would find that more amazing, but instead it just seems like another day like any other – but hey, the kids are SO happy, it was worth it.

So after 3.5 hours of work on the house this morning, and then a 2-hour-break, I am looking around at what we still have, ready to dig in and get more done. Every time I go through a box I went through before I find more that I can part with. Christmas went from 6 huge totes down to one box. Halloween is completely gone except for a couple of particular items. The bathroom closet has never been so empty. The boys are down to essential toys only. Office supplies went from 2 medium sized boxes down to one small box. Anything that can be replaced is on its way out the door.

In all this fervor I am going to go get my hair cut again, get a new pair of sneakers, get back to Curves, and enjoy my 25 pound weight loss. I even ditched a thumb ring I’d had for something like 8 years! My husband noticed and I told him, “It’s all a part of the ongoing revitalization of Gina project.”

Gina Bina

You know you’re a "write at home mother" when...

You know you’re a "write at home mother" when you stir your coffee with an old peanut butter and jelly knife, and you just don’t care. You fortify your coffee with chocolate soymilk and Milk Duds for good measure anyway and you’re no longer disgusted by the conflicting tastes of anything else tossed in there. In fact, your life is just that tedious sometimes that you look forward to slurping up soaked crumbs and searching for the hint of PB&J in the coffee that’s gone cold while you got your kids ready for the day.

I wonder just how old I should let my coffee get if it's got milk in it. I mean, is it gross if at the end of the day I haven't emptied the mug in 12 hours but have just been adding more coffee and milk on top? Does the fact that it's soymilk make any difference, or am I still just THAT disgusting?

I'm a Crone. A Hairy, Clumpy, Old Crone.

I found an elephant sized hair this morning on my face, right above the right side of my top lip. It was so long, I didn’t give it time to evaluate the situation; I just grabbed it and yanked. The sucker came off with a snap and I felt a twinge. I freaked! This thing was at least a half-inch long!

Was it really connected to my face? I entertained the thought that it was glued on by my last chocolate therapy session, or maybe even drool. Nighttime drool for a married woman is easier to take than a hair growing out of her face at record speed!

Did I grow this enormous hair overnight? Or maybe it’s been that long since I really looked closely. I’ve completely let myself go, haven’t I? I mean, who really says they don’t care if they drool at night? Who says that unless they’ve given up all hope?

I must have been so severely traumatized last month by finding two tiny blonde hairs had sprouted on what used to be a cute oversized freckle that I hadn’t examined my face closely in that length of time. But how could a hair grow so fast?

And the cute freckle! The little sucker has begun its right of passage into the gnarled ‘beauty mark’ my aunt always flaunted. Anyone who calls it a beauty mark knows what it really is! A clump of pigment that people stare at when your boobs are no longer desirable. You start scaring children, disgusting men, and becoming fodder for younger women to talk about. Holy shit! That’s why everyone’s been staring at my face!

It’s a beauty mark! It’s no longer cute. It’s protruding from my face and will probably double in size within 5 years and grow black hairs. I’ve completely lost my youth and I haven’t even celebrated my thirtieth birthday yet.

I am hairy and clumpy, and I need steel reinforced bras to hold up the old gals. I might as well stop pretending that I am going to find the skin beneath the scales on my heels. I might as well throw away the makeup and just pretend I look better ‘natural.’

How is it that Madonna doesn’t look like me? Why does Joan Lunden look better than I do? These women are in their fifties! I don’t remember seeing hairs all over my mother’s face. I might as well transplant Brook Shield’s eyebrow trimmings to my chin and get it over with.

I’ve gone from maiden to matron to crone in a decade. I’m not fit for the human race.

Whistled at by Phone

This morning a man wolf whistled at me. He used his phone. He literally whipped out his thing and pointed it at me; and the phone whistled! Then he put it away and watched my expression. I did what any sane woman in the Post Office on a Wednesday morning would do – I ignored him.

Never mind that I attract older weirdoes, let’s focus on the phone for a moment. That’s a new one that I must say I have never before witnessed. Instead of saying something, following me out to my car, or just generally trying to make eye contact and share a ‘moment’, he was so bold as to whip out his technological device and whistle at me. In public! In front of a postal worker and several patrons no less!

I heard him speak to someone there, so I know he had a voice box and a tongue with which to form a “Hello, Gorgeous!” or something equally as baleful. Ok, so maybe he wouldn’t just say “nice knockers” or “how about some coffee – in bed?”

But then again maybe he would have if he weren’t so busy trying to impress me with a phone. Do I look like I could be so easily impressed? Do I have a sign on my forehead that says, “Please, all Weirdoes, try to impress me with whatever is in your pants!”

Dear God! Maybe I do! Maybe I have sunk so far; let myself go that much. Did he even LOOK at me? My saddlebags are better than the leather version! I could hold a week’s worth of water in the hump on my back. My hair hasn’t seen the stylist in 8 months, I slapped on some eye shadow to hide the graveyard tan I am working on, and I was wearing a jacket I stole from my mother! Is this village really so small that I am considered a high caliber gal?

I want to go back to that Post Office, find that man, and whip out my own phone. Look! I have my own! I want to know why he thinks it will impress me so much. I want to know what school of romance and social education did he go to that taught him whistling at a woman – by phone or otherwise – is acceptable today. I want to know that he looked at the same person I saw in the mirror this morning.

I wonder if I can get the whistle installed on my phone????

I WIN'D - YOU LOSE'D

A snippet of dialogue from a romp at the cable company with Jack today:

J: I WIN’D – you LOSE’D

G: You won?! I lost?! (insert mommy excitement while still correcting)

J: I WIN’D

G: You won?

J: WIN’D, WON’D (shrug); it’s still me. I WIN’D, WON’D. You still LOSE’D, LOSTED.

I finally found Starbucks today

And it was good. Oh yes, I will be back again.

Attachments to Little Furry Things

It's funny how, the older I get, the more attached I become to the little furry things in life. I love my little Westie... no, I LURRRRVE him! I couldn't imagine life without him, and how heart wrenching is that? Knowing he's already a teenager (or older) in dog years! I spoil him to death, spend time training him, and let him get away with a lot.

Ok, so Rudy's a dog, but perhaps what's more disturbing is my attachment to my son's hamster. We bought him in July 2004 and he's still kickin'. He's been lost, dropped, tossed around, and rolled through the house at a high rate of speed in his ball. He's been stuck in a scorching hot heater until he collapsed, soaked in saliva (?). He's recouperated from having a 2 inch strip of hair and skin ripped off his back (and he now sports a fetching, white racing stripe). He's gone hungry and thirsty for a day or so and rattled his cage to let me know.

He's most adorable, and he doesn't bite. He's cute and cuddly and he eats too much. I buy him treats when we go to the pet shop so much we had to make a conscious effort to stop spoiling the hamster.

I squeal about how cute he is when he's stuffing his cheeks full of food and how effective he is at emptying his cheeks in his secret spot. He closes his eyes when he's eating, like he's savoring every morsel. He's hilrious when I clean his cage because he's ticked off that his bed is gone and everything's displaced, so he stares at me every few seconds. He chews on his cage when he's angry, restless or hungry... and when I took him out of his first cage and into a bigger cage with a better wheel, he stopped trying to escape. He stopped chewing the cage all day and there was peace.

I am the one who cleans the cage so I can make it just right, and I talk to him nearly every day.This is all just so... disturbing.

Great Day! (yesterday)

Well, of course the older two boys were not with us, so that was a pleasant change. We do love the kiddo-s , but sometimes it's nice to get away. When it's just Jack, he's so content and happy. The most we worry about is his wandering to another aisle in a store.

We went to the park to read in the shade, with the wind from the Hudson River to cool us, and watch Jack play. I even started the new book (Carpe Demon) a few minutes before we left. We perused and left Toys R Us with nothing in hand and not one tamtrum or begging fit for anything. We shopped for pre-made foods so we didn't have to cook, and hubby and I played Trivial Pursuit in the evening until we watched Sixteen Candles in bed.

We had a nice, peaceful, perfect day.  The monsters will be home in T-minus 2 hours, and hopefully they will be ready for a nap after being up late and running all day for two days. Then ahhh... 2 more hours of bliss.