I promise to come back from the dark side soon...

I'm headed out of town on a quick business trip but I promise to come back from the dark side when I return.

Thanks for hanging in there (those of you who have anyways...)

Moving...

I'm mid-move and my world consists of piles and piles of boxes right now, one of which contains my computer. I'll be back soon!

My mysterious disappearance...

The other day at work I was talking to a client on the phone. They asked how I was doing and I responded with "been better, been worse, but getting by." After I got off the phone with them I starting thinking that, while I am getting by, I've probably never been worse. I'm definitely in a funk, which is why I haven't been writing much. I know I said I was going to open up and share some of what's been going on in my life but it turns out that I'm not quite ready. It's hard to see through the fog when your surrounded by it, if you know what I mean. I will get through what's been going on with me, and my life will be better for going through it, but I'm too enveloped in it right now to talk about it. I will share all of this chaos one day. I am moving soon (to a place I really like), and I did get a new car (which I love...a 2008 Honda CRV!), and work is actually going pretty well so there are some things that are looking up. But in the meantime, I present to you cupcakes!

A few weeks ago, Shannon from Misguided Mommy started asking me if I was going to be in town last week. I said yes, I would be around. When I asked why, she said "No reason". Of course, I didn't believe her. So I pried and pried and finally she told me she was sending me a surprise. Of course, I pried and pried to try and find out what it was. Surprises and me have a love-hate relationship. I love receiving them. I hate waiting for them. So for the next week or so, Shannon taunted me with the arrival of my surprise every chance she got. Saying 'Oh your surprise has been delayed, I am so pissed." or "are you gonna be in your office today?" and then nothing would show up.

Last Wednesday I had a morning meeting with a potential client. At about 8:30am, on my way to the meeting, I get a text message saying 'What's up' from Shannon. Hmmm...she normally doesn't send me messages. Since I was driving, and had my boss as a passenger, I actually didn't get this message, or the 3 others asking me where I was, why I wasn't answering and WTF, until I got to the potential client's office at about 9. I write back saying I was meeting with someone and then I get a message saying 'too late, surprise delayed. Can you hear my jaw dropping? For weeks I had been taunted with the arrival of my surprise, and now it was delayed!!!

I respond with 'NO, I'll be back in my office by 11'. I get this back 'Too bad, surprise delayed'. I wanted to reach through my phone and slap her. She tells me to text her when I am back at my office. So I immediately assume I will get my surprise when I get back to the office. So I meet with the potential client, drive back to the office, exchanging a few more text messages with Shannon. I finally get back to my office and send her a message saying I am there. Then I got about avoiding getting to work. I shuffle some papers on my desk, then decide I should bring the coffee cup on my desk into the break room. As I walk down the hallway to my break room, I see this box sitting on the table visable from the hallway (obviously it was unopened):


A little background, I work in a business where people ship us stuff, many times in coolers. So (thinking to myself that I wouldn't be receiving my surprise until later that day because, you know, I was told that it was delayed...) I say out loud to myself (or whoever happened to be listening) as I walk down the hallway "who shipped us something perishable in a bright pink box?" Obviously clueless to the fact that my surprise already arrived! The second I open my mouth and the remainder of my office realizes I'm even back from my meeting, they rush from the far corners of my office and surround me and pound me with questions: "Why did you order cupcakes?" "You ordered cupcakes? Can we have some?" "We thought about opening it but it had your name on it so we decided not to open it....". At the same time, one of the girls in my office has gone to find scissors. All this is happening while I am CLUELESSLY saying to myself "I didn't order cupcakes. I mean I know I have been ordering a lot of marketing supplies...did one of those companies send me something as a thank you. Did I accidentally order something I shouldn't have? I didn't order cupcakes...these can't really be cupcakes...not, the address label definitely says cupcakes and has my name on it." COMPLETELY CLUELESS I TELL YOU. Then it hits me...MY FUCKING SURPRISE FROM SHANNON! All this while one of the girls from my office is trying to tear into the box with her finger nails (I kid you not! the girls in my office are food-whores). I was surround by half a dozen people at this point. And it wasn't like they were just hanging out in the break room, they were like peering over my shoulders trying to tear into the box...the box that had cupcakes on the outside:

And this was no small bright pink box. The box is probably 8" high by 12" by 18" long. So I finally open it and me (and the food-whores drooling over my shoulders) see this:

Hmmmm...a cute little handwritten note thanking me for helping with her kids and with her generally craziness lately from Shannon. I slip off the checkerboard sleeve and open the box to find this:

A dozen, individual labeled, unique cupcakes. They were shipped frozen with ice packs with instructions to defrost for 4 hours at room temp and enjoy within 2-3 days or to refreeze them and enjoy for up to a month! The cupcakes were fucking awesome. I suspected they would be all fluff but they were made with dense flavorful moist cake and the most intense sugary frosting I've every had! And I'm pretty sure there was more icing than there was cupcake. There were flavors like Smore's with a marshmallow in the middle of the cupcake and graham cracker buttercream frosting, and raspberry chocolate and triple chocolate and oreo cream and red velvet and OMG, too many flavors to keep track of. MMMMM, they were awesome and definitely put a smile on my face for the day and the following days and I enjoyed my cupcakes (I did share a few with my co-workers because if I hadn't, it's possibly I would be hospitalized with a sugar induced coma!). These cupcakes were from SAS (Sweet and Sassy) Cupcakes. Thank you Shannon!

Who woulda though?

I was driving back to work today from my lunch break and a SaraLee truck turns in front of me while I am stopped at a light. As a sidenote, I've never seen a SaraLee delivery truck before. Anywho, I digress...I read the logo because I am bored... "Nobody Doesn't Like SaraLee". Hmmm, who woulda thought? Since the beginning of time, I always thought their motto was "Nobody Does It Like SaraLee". Seriously, who would have known?

2 out of 3 ain't bad...

On Friday I got an email from Misguided Mommy. Among other things, it said this "you said that you could maybe watch the boys some time i was wondering if tonight around 7 for like two hours you could watch em at my moms house. i want to take my parents to dinner to thank em for everything they have done for me. if not its coolio i'll figure it out!" Anyone who knows Misguided Mommy know's that she had never let anyone watch her kids except: her parents, her nanny/housekeeper (sorry I have no idea what she really is), and Brandon's teacher. Leaving her kids with anyone else is almost unheard of. I know, and yet I have always said that if she ever wanted, I could watch the kids while her and her hubby went out, or so she could take a nap or whatever. I never actually expected her to take me up on the offer (which is why I almost fell out of my chair at work when I read this...I actually had to read the email like 3 times before I realized that she actually wanted me to watch her kids).


I left work at 6:15 (I swear!) but because of traffic was running late (I swear!). (I'm always late but this time it actually wasn't my fault). I got to Shannon's mom's house and learned I would be watching the kids but also had to keep an eye on Shannon's cousin, who, well, let's say, isn't the most well behaved teenager out there. They kept saying: SHE WASN'T' ALLOWED ON THE PHONE...SHE'S A SNEAKY ONE SO KEEP AN EYE ON HER!. Ok, got it! Mind you, I signed up for babysitting, not teenager-sitting. Those are 2 entirely different things and babysitting, no matter how whiny or annoying they are, is SOOOO much easier than teenager-sitting. But I went with it...


Things went well, most of the night. Brandon and I got into a 20 minute long pillow fight while Shannon's cousin kept an eye on Codi. Codi and I watched the Food Network while Brandon played on his computer. Shannon's cousin stayed close and hung out with us until about 8:15 when she asked if she could go to bed. Ahhhh, you wouldn't that would be such a hard question to answer would you? But it was, so I sent Shannon a text message asking if it was ok...and I'm glad I did, because no, in fact it was not ok. So I told her they were on their way home and wanted her to stay up, they were bringing ice cream home and were gonna play video games when they got there. She said fine and changed into her pj's and laid on her bed in her room with the tv on. Brandon promptly joined her because (apparently) cartoons are WAY more entertaining to a 3 year old than the Food Network. Who knew? So around 8:30 I get a message from Shannon saying they are gonna stop at the grocery store and then will be home.

By this time Codi was getting a little fussy because he was getting hungry and Shannon hadn't left me with a bottle, because, well, Codi won't take a bottle (unless, as a side note, it's water which he promptly spills all over himself and splashes around in). The only thing that keeps Codi from a mini-meltdown is walking around the house with him so I start doing laps from the door of Shannon's cousin's room to check on her and Brandon, around the living room and back to their door, I would peek in and do another lap. And on one or two occasions I may have stopped to watch a few seconds of the Food Network. So I do a few more laps, checking in on them each time. On one of my laps, I turn the corner just in time to see Shannon's cousin headed to the bathroom. So I do another lap, and see her walking from the bathroom to her room (right across the hallway). So I do another lap, peek my head in the door and she's gone. Yup, you read that right, she's gone. For a split second I give her the benefit of the doubt and think she maybe went into another room to grab something, or to the kitchen and I totally missed her. But nope, she wasn't in any of the rooms. So I ask Brandon which way she went and he points down the hallway towards the garage. Again, for a split second I give her the benefit of the doubt and think maybe she's letting the dogs out. So I scream outside for her... (cricket's churping). So I go back inside and text Shannon "Your cousin is MIA". She writes me immediately then calls before I have a chance to read the message, whispering into the phone she's like "is she in my parents room? Is she in the garage? Are you kidding me? Seriously?" Then I hear her mom asking what's going on in the background and her having to tell her parents that her cousin is MIA. "We'll be home in a second". And she hangs up.

So they get home, Codi gets to eat and is all smiles. Brandon is still plastered in front of the cartoons. Shannon's parents come inside just long enough to give me a hard time about losing one of them on my first night of being able to babysit and then take off to find her. I'm not sure of the whole story, but they ended up finding her, and the house of one of her 32 year old male "friends" (did I mention she's 15?), drunk with no money.

And I will never live it down because I am now the babysitter who 'lost one of them'? But to defend myself here:

• I was asked to babysit the boys (you read her email...copied word for word). Not teenager sit.
• I was never technically told I had to watch her ever second they were gone because SHE MIGHT RUN AWAY!
• As far as I'm concerned, 2 out of 3 isn't bad.
• Especially if the 2 that made it out alive (and unharmed) were Shannon's actual kids!
• And as another important point, I am going to be a terrible mother when my kids become teenagers. I am WAY too trusting!
• Again, just to state the important part of my argument, SHANNON'S KIDS MADE IT OUT ALIVE AND UNHARMED.

Apparently Shannon's cousin had actually been planning on running away for a few days and knew that was probably her best shot because Shannon's parents were gonna be home any second, so she risked it, because really, what could I do? I had 2 small kids to watch after..I couldn't exactly chase her down the street even if I had seen/heard her leaving. And apparently she had even told her birth mother she planned on running away. And her birth mother declined to tell Shannon's parents this slightly important piece of information.

And again, SHANNON'S KID'S MADE IT OUT ALIVE AND UNHARMED.

Can I just say...

...that I feel like the clumsiest person in the world right now! In the past 2 weeks I have committed the following acts of (accidental) self-mutilation:

• Cutting my left hand middle finger with a J.K. Henkel (very nicely sharpened) knife while trying to mince garlic.
• Slammed my ring finger on my right hand between my sliding glass door and something that was apparently very sharp, quickly puncturing my fingertip and bruising my nail bed.
• Hurting my ankle in an accident that I still can't pin-point, it is swollen and hurts like a bitch.
• Stubbing my pinky tow on my left food so badly that i now have a blood blister underneath my nail bed.
• Scraping my big toe on my right foot while trying to dust (see!!!! this is what I get for trying to clean!!!).
• And...possibly the worst (or at least most painful), I just got a paper cut on one of my fingers!

Seriously, I need to take a vacation from work...and life...and just live in my big squishy bed where nothing can hurt me!

The good, the bad and the ugly...

I know I've probably lost a lot of my loyal readers out there (even Misguided Mommy has stopped harassing me about my lack of writing). When I first started this blog, I noticed I was generally writing about happy stuff, or funny stuff, or maybe just plain old boring stuff, but I rarely wrote about the bad stuff. The ugly stuff. Which should answer your question about why I haven't been writing much lately. Now trust when I say that I KNOW, in comparison to many peoples lives, the bad stuff that's been going on in mine is minor and will be a minor slice in the whole pie that will become my life when it's all said and done, but none the less, my life has been pretty sucky lately.

I've never been one to dwell on the less desirable parts of my life so I find it hard to talk about them, I always have (ask any of my friends...I don't talk, I silently contemplate and then cry myself to sleep). But I am going to start talking about the things, all of them, that have been going on lately. I'll probably bore you to tears, and you'll probably think I'm a self-loathing egomaniac who doesn't have anything better to think about but oh well, it's my life and maybe, something will ring true with one of my readers and maybe help them through a similar situation. Because trust me, some of this stuff, friend problems, money problems, and well, just life in general happens to everyone and hopefully by writing about it will I not only help myself through all of it, I might help someone else to.