Boobapalooza!

This is NOT an entry with pictures of a bunch of naked breasts! So if you were surfing for porn and found this, you may be disappointed. However, you should read on and see how you can make a difference and possibly save some boobs (er, breasts) in the future.

After careful consideration, I've decided to skip my 20th high school reunion in order to participate in the Atlanta Two-Day Breast Cancer Walk. Most of you remember or have read about when I shaved my head 2 years ago in support of my Aunt Mary who was beginning chemotherapy for Stage 4 Breast Cancer (see recently added scary photo). Aunt Mary's continued fight has inspired me to help raise funds for more breast cancer research.

Now to understand how big a deal this is, you have to know that I REALLY want to go to my reunion. Like most people (I think), there's a certain thrill in going to that reunion and looking fabulous and showing your friends how successful you turned out. Well, that's not my motivation. We all know that not only do I NOT look fabulous, I am almost never even recognized when I run into people from that era. While that has been painful at times, I'm pretty much over it now (being bald changes how you look at life).

And as far as success goes, I guess that all depends on your definition of success. If it's about having a happy marriage, I have that...now. But I had a 10 year marriage fail despite my determination to hold it together. My 3 children from that marriage have in been permanently affected by this particular failure, and I get to live with that every day.

Let's see, other worldly measures of success...oh, my JOB. Well, according to my son's 3rd grade teacher, staying home to take care of children isn't really "a job", so I guess I've failed there too. Unless you consider what CNN's MONEY said today. Experts did REAL research and put a monetary value on the occupation of a stay-at-home mom (http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/pf/mothers_work/index.htm?eref=yahoo). There was even a quiz that allowed me to break down the hours I spend a week as chef, chauffeur, laundress, psychistrist, janitor, housekeeper, CEO, etc. According to my location in the United States, my PERSONAL salary SHOULD be in excess of $125,000 per year. WOO HOO! Let's party! When do I get my first check? Do I get a signing bonus??? My signing bonus came in the form of an episiotomy and every paycheck I've received has been paid in hugs and kisses. (Not too shabby really, but is it "success" as my friends would measure it?)

For the record, I went to obtain employment recently. I was looking for part-time work to contribute a little to the bottom line of our household. I figured I had a lot to offer: I have a Georgia Tech education. As a senior I was chosen for a position in a Management Training Program with a high-profile bank while most of my classmates had been rejected. I have 7+ years work experience in Human Resources, Marketing, and Technical Support for a large company, and an additional 3 years as a manager of several different retail stores. So I went through the interview process, going into great detail about how flexible I could be so that the fact that I had five children wouldn't be a negative consideration on the part of my potential employer. Finally after the results of the drug screen came back, I received the job offer. For $8.50 an hour. WHAT? I pay my babysitter $10 an hour to take care of 2 children. Of course she does laundry while she's there, but COME ON! Surely, I'm worth more than that. "Let me talk to my regional manager (district manager, someone)...OK, I can do $9 an hour, but don't tell anyone I did that for you". HUH? I almost choked. Instead I said I'd think about it.

Ummmm, tell you what. I'LL stay home and do my own laundry, save money on the gas and clothes I 'd have to get to wear to work, pay my older kids $0/hour to watch the babies, and I'll just sit and write my blog. You can spend money to train an unreliable teenager to do the job you interviewed me for, and fire him next month when he no-shows for a shift...for the 3rd time. Then you can hire his best friend the next week, go to the expense AGAIN to train a NEW unreliable teenager until you catch him sneaking sips of Robitussin under the counter when no one's looking (except the security cameras!) By then you will have spent what would have been an acceptable hourly rate for me like a million times over. Oh well. Your loss.

How did I get here? Oh yes, my reunion. So while I don't have much to show off, I feel like I have the world. I have five of the sweetest, most annoying, smart, whiny, adorable little brats on the planet. I have a husband who cooks, cleans, moans, complains, and occassionally yells to be heard above the din. But he comes home every day, even after his call to gauge the overall mood of the house, and he changes clothes and digs in to help. My husband doesn't just love me, he's crazy about me. And while he drives me crazy a lot of the time, there is no one else I want to see before I fall asleep and again when I wake up. When all my little babes are gone, I can't wait to spend all my boring, empty days just looking at him. In a very quiet house. Or if he has his way, we'll be in a big RV parked in one of our kids' driveways.

I want to go to my reunion, but I'm walking in this walk to benefit a cause that I believe in. But I can't believe I'm not going see all the people I have such fond memories of from that incredibly weird and foolish part of my life. I can't believe I'm not going to see the people I have BAD memories of just to show them that my life turned out great even though they didn't like me when I REALLY wanted them to. But life goes on. The party will go on whether I'm there or not. But if I walk in this walk, maybe I can make a difference in some small way. Or MAYBE, I can find a way to walk 20 miles in one day, dress up and go to my reunion, and walk another 10 miles in the morning. What do you think?

The team I started is called Boobapalooza.
To support me in my efforts to raise $$$ for the cure, click the link below:

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=140092&supId=80862095

My birthday and the real world

So, I had taken a break from posting for a bit. No, the bleeding dryer didn't send me over the edge into an institution. While I had wished death upon that dryer many times, thinking I'd have a semi-permanent break from laundry; it continues to toss and turn and blow hot air giving me the opportunity to serve my family by folding yet another burp cloth, hanging multi-colored teeny tiny teenage bras, my husbands pants for work and wadding up the enormous granny panties with holes that now occupy MY underwear drawer. But I digress...

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 38. I thought that when I turned 36, I was officially on the wrong side of 40 slipping further and further away from 30. However, having turned 38, I've decided that THIS is worse. The "mid-thirties" has passed me by and I'm now supposed to be exhibiting signs of maturity and wisdom that I don't feel. My body has morphed into something resembling a large pineapple, complete with hair that doesn't look right long or short (or bald) and skin covered in the speckled spots of sun damage from beautiful suntans long forgotten. And oh, my bladder. Thank God for Poise Pads. Enough said.

But my brain, my fabulous brain. That wonderful gray matter that makes it all happen. Where all my dreams began and my imagination ran wild as a teenager. The thing that keeps me up at night worrying about my kids' futures. The organ that allows us the opportunity to experience a sunset, to smell a fresh pot of coffee in the morning, to feel the sand in my toes on the beach, to instinctively know when something isn't right with my oldest daughter, to balance a checkbook...that thing that allows me to have an ORGASM! What an amazing piece of God's work. But I guess, as all things do, my brain is getting older, and it isn't quite the same. You know what I'm talking about. Walking into a room and not remembering why you went in there? Your husband asking where his dry-cleaning is that you were supposed to pick up yesterday so he'd have his favorite shirt for a meeting? A child shaking you awake at the crack of dawn needing a ride to school early for a makeup test...citing "I told you last week!"? And unlike the lovable Dorie from Finding Nemo, it's not JUST the short-term is it? It's remembering the name of your 3rd grade boyfriend, recalling what it felt like to go to your first prom...it may even be a few details of your wedding.

Well, I say, no matter. Here is just a smidge of that wisdom...it just came to me while I was writing. This is what I know about MY REAL WORLD:

1) Not everyone remembers birthdays...especially ME...but SOME of the people who matter most remembered and called to encourage me. What a blessing. Some people have no one to remember.

2) My underwear may be huge, but that is because my HEART is so big, and gravity has pulled it down into my butt. Therefore, I NEED bigger underwear.

3) My children are the greatest gift God ever gave me. These days when they are young and learning and expanding THEIR brains and building THEIR dreams; that is what I want to remember. If I lose my brain (or my mind) entirely, I KNOW that they will help me remember.

4) My husband is my walking miracle. He loves me when I'm totally disgusting. He laughs even when he's mad. He will be with me putting the puzzle pieces of my life together until the very end. When we met, he didn't believe in God or true love. Now, he and my son will be baptized together at our church on Easter Sunday. He is a walking testimony to the healing power of God. And he not only believes in true love, he epitomizes it, lives it and teaches our children to wait for it.

5) The laundry will never go away. I will never be able to afford to hire someone to do all my laundry all the time. And that's ok. Those burp cloths and those white socks that have to be matched for 7 different people... that is my REAL WORLD. And if nothing else, it TEACHES me to SERVE. It REMINDS me that people NEED me. It allows me to experience true love in a very REAL way. Without TRUE LOVE in my life, my brain would have no purpose. So, Thank God for LAUNDRY. And for the invention of the dryer.