Next to Godliness...

Sometimes creativity falls from the sky... and sometimes it is spawned from an utter desperation to not clean, work, or do otherwise constructive things. So, as I sit here knowing full well that the house is not going to clean itself, I ponder.  How does one become a Stepford Wife? Never known for my Type A personality, I can't fathom how one prioritizes cleanliness over playing with the kids, or even Facebook. 

Behold the Mess!!!

Maia's Room

Living Room

Where the magic happens! Where the heck is Mary Poppins?

Clean laundry waiting to be folded.

I can just imagine Geoff kneeling beside our messy bed. Hands folded, pleading with the powers that be to Disney Imagineer me into a perfectly coiffed Susie Homemaker. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the wife my clothes doth iron."
It ain't gonna happen my OCD Sweetness. For stooping to collect all the little ponies, stuffed animals, and various other crap, KILLS MY EFFING BACK! At which point, little bells go off in Maia's head and she knows opportunities are ripe to be had. "Here Mama, take your medicine..." Three hours later, "What the fuck Maia (Yes, she got the phrase from me.)?  How did you get a Dora sticker on the ceiling?"
Now you are saying to yourself, why not have Maia clean up her own crap?  We do, but rarely find that either one of us has the patience to sit through her dawdling. Any threat to take away toys that aren't cleaned up in X amount of time is met with a resounding, "Okay!" Trash them? She stops dawdling to help throw said toys away.  So I beg of you all, "Please do not pity my child as we attempt to teach Maia to be thankful for what she has." I am reminded of a quote by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, "Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them."
But this is not a post about my inept parenting, rather an obnoxious rant about how I fail to live up to my own expectation of what my husband's (and the outside world's) expectations are of me. Got that? But for now I must depart, failing to have tag the clothes for the consignment sale, sort the Goodwill pile, put away the dishes, fold the laundry, etc to infinity. It is time to pick up Little one. In my 3 hours to myself, I ranted, played Scrabble online, Hangman online, caught a quick phone call with a cool chica, and got photographic evidence of my sloth. Score!!!!

PS: For those of you concerned over my WTF habit around the 4 year old: I did switch for a short time to "Jesus Christ Maia!" But trust me, it is better this way...

Lupine Fever

Despite Dr. House's immortal words, "It's never lupus;" sometimes it is. (Well, I am told those are his immortal words, I have never seen an episode. Don't worry people, its on my to-do list.) Although I am content to continue arguing that I don't have lupus, I must concede that there is something wrong and all the signs are screaming lupus.
Lupus, the catch-all auto-immune disease, seems like an easy out. I wanted something cooler, that just required a mere adjustment and life would be back to normal. Not so much. So today, I embrace my diagnosis and set off to chronicle life as a functional cripple with a few obstacles (cerebral palsy, lupus, depression) but a host of wonderful things going for me.

The elephant in the room.

So, last night I learned that elephants are the only animals with four knees and that my husband is the office whipping boy. And of course, since this is my blog, I am going to turn that statement around and make it about me. I could have sworn the answer was either camel or giraffe.

I totally stole this picture from my friend, Samora's facebook page.

Geoff and I went out for trivia night with a couple of his coworkers last night and lost, mainly because I didn't know Steven Spielberg's first film was Firelight and bet the farm on Jaws. But even more revealing than what was happening 46 years ago in the motion picture industry is what is currently happening at the NRC office. I knew Geoff's boss has dick-like tendencies (there goes my job as MSNBC correspondent) and suffers from mood swings that would make Sybil seem even keeled, but what I didn't realize is that when it rains crazy, Geoff is without an umbrella. Granted there is a chica at the office, who due to what I perceive as incompetence, gets reamed out more. As per the office secretary and another resident, Geoff is in his cross hairs for EVERYTHING else.  Oconee is a high maintenance site. It is old and operated with a management philosophy different than what we are used to (is that polite enough?). Geoff often complains about the plant's foibles and about his boss's PMS, but I thought Bossman was more of an equal-opportunity chewer-outter. Not so... there is a third inspector who comes out relatively unscathed. He said there was no good reason that Geoff be targeted over him.  In fact, he jokingly admitted to coming into work late, just to deflect some of the venom off of Geoff.
Okay, now onto how shitty this makes me feel. Geoff busts his ass at work to come home and bust his ass here. I want so badly to be able to say, "Quit, I'll get a job." I am hamstringed. I wish I could come up with a solution to make it all better.  Geoff insists the problem isn't with Bossman, but rather the plant itself.  That may be, but I can't be passive aggressive with a nuclear power plant, so my ire rests with the asshole. As of right now, Geoff has agreed that should things not improve, he will request a transfer at his 3 year evaluation, but we'll see...