Tales from the mom side.

Things that made me smile recently:

-Yesterday at work, I was sitting at a block of tables in the center of the scrapbooking department, doing some prep work for a class I was going to teach. A little old lady customer trundled her cart by. If a customer happens by, I usually will look up and offer a smile, "How are you?", etc. She smiled back, said fine. Stopped. Took a second look. Said "Well aren't you a pretty young lady!" Well, um, uh...SURE! Yep, okay, I'll accept that! A little ego stroking out of the blue is always welcome.

-Tonight, I took the kiddos over to the police headquarters to deliver Girl Scout cookies. (My dad is a police detective, and we sell cookies at headquarters and the Records Room.) Dad walked the kiddos and I out to my van when we were done. As we were saying goodbye, he took a closer look at me, and pronounced, "You look pretty tonight." Again? Cool! This is clearly the result of the gorgeous new lipstick I picked up at Lazarus-Macy's last week, and had to fight Kev tooth and nail to be allowed to buy. (Clinique Tenderheart) So, so worth it.

-I taught a scrapping class at a local middle school today after work. The school offers an afternoon program for lower income young girls who are considered "at-risk", and had called my workplace asking someone to come teach scrapbooking at one of their programs. The owner referred them to me, and off I went. I really enjoyed myself, and hit it off nicely with the girls, who were a really sweet bunch. They seemed pretty interested in learning more about the hobby, and I felt like maybe this had made a little difference for them. The director of the program has asked me to do a three hour workshop with a group of her older girls, in a few months, so apparently she liked me too.

-The Nashville trip is in two weeks. [dances with anticipation]

-My 1 month subscription to "Well Dressed Sims". Six bucks for a month of unlimited downloads of nifty objects, skins, and clothing for my Sims 2 game. Money can't buy happiness, but that $6 just bought me a lot of fun.

Things I have to do tomorrow. That are pretty much guaranteed to make me NOT smile.

-Call the company that has our homeowners insurance and have a big fight with them. They still haven't fixed the damage to our home from December. They've offered up some obscenely low amount of things they'll pay for, when they have to know it's unacceptable. I'm sure at one point, the convo will involve my threatening to move our insurance elsewhere. As Kev pointed out, I'm much better at this kind of thing than he is, but that doesn't mean that I'm not cringing in anticipation of it. I HATE that stuff.

-Call our health insurance provider. Explain to them in the shortest sentences, and simplest words possible that NO, four year old Alexander did not receive his injury in the workplace, NO, he does not have workman's comp, so will you PLEASE just pay the frigging claim already.

-Sweep and mop the kitchen floor. I'm not going to feed the kids meals anymore, I'm just going to start slopping them in the backyard.

Tales from the mom side.