Leaving work today I ran into an old friend. We did the typical "Omigod! How ARE you?!" and things {thankfully} went smoothly from there! (For those of you who were unaware: I am as socially inept as they come and typically when I run into someone unexpectedly my brain suddenly turns to mush, finds its way to my mouth, and reincarnates itself in the form of verbal diarrhea. I usually wind up walking away with my foot in my mouth or with a big dopey grin on my face and the words "Idiot, Idiot, Idiot..." playing in my head with every step.) I was so proud of myself for being able to carry out a normal human conversation without being too awkward. She mentioned that she loves my blog and follows it obsessively. I was genuinely shocked because I kind of just do this as an attempt to motivate me to get my shit together to keep track of the projects I've done/want to do and possibly inspire people to try new things along the way. I suddenly felt embarrassed for the few meaningless rambling and ranting posts that I have done. (ha! kinda like this one) She told me how creative I am and wanted to know how I get everything done and how I ignore the downers in life and said how lucky my kids are to have such an awesome mama and how I'm living the dream life... and that's when I burst into laughter and almost peed my pants (which is usually reserved for sneezing fits during pregnancy.)
Yes, my blog shows some fun, neat projects that I've done. Yes, some of them are complicated and take practice. Yes, I have three kids and a husband that are amazing. Yes, I do a lot... HOWEVER, I'm not over here whipping up 8 course meals for my children's lunchboxes while ironing hubby's dress slacks and teaching my toddler Mandarin chinese. I thought that the havoc in our household just went without saying?! We don't call it "The Pimental Asylum" for no reason! So, in light of recent events I decided to compile a list-
Five Ways You can Tell I'm Just a Hot Mess That Only Appears To Have It All Together (there's PLENTY more, just chose 5 because it's easy)
In no particular order:
1. I'm a social wreck> I avoid social events like the plague. If I tell you "Maybe." I mean "Maybe*" as in there's sketchy used car salesman's fine print there; an inner dialogue that sneaks in unbeknownst to the inviter. "Maybe I can find a believable excuse to get out of this." or "Maybe I will show up for a few minutes and sneak out and everyone will be too drunk to notice." Sometimes I'll come right out and say that I can't make it to avoid being flaky. I won't lie and say I'm so excited about it if I'm not. If I say I'm excited about it and bring it up, I'm totally into it. If you've invited me out and I haven't gone it's probably because I hate you. Hahahahahaa. Just kiddinggg. You probably just invited me to something super boring and I have better stuff to do that day. No, but seriously... just reread the first paragraph and thank your sweet stars that I didn't show. Besides, you were probably inviting me out of obligation anyway, right?
2. I never know which end is up> Most of the time I walk around not knowing what DAY it is forget knowing the DATE. I'll say "See you Saturday." And get a blank stare back. "Oh yeah... that's tomorrow."
3. And the mother of the year award goes to...> here's a couple of proud, parenting moments I've had the pleasure of living through. "Mommy just let him chew on a soft vibrator and it made his teeth feel better!" -Aislin (age 3 1/2) when asked by my BOSS how her little brother's teeth came in. My boss was beet red. Mortified and trying to do damage control, I said "Oh god... it's a toy, a TOY!!!" to which he replied, "I'm sure it is." Ugh. Caleb's first day of school this year was just a short day meant solely for the parents, teachers, and kiddos to get to know each other. I was chatting with the circle of moms when I noticed that Caleb still had his sweatshirt on. I turned to unzip his hoodie while continuing to chat with the moms and he flinched like I was going to hit him! Of course I laughed because he didn't see me coming and I just popped into his peripheral vision to unzip him and he freaked. When I turned back to the conversation the moms were looking around as if to hint at the child abuse hotline. Gotta love first impressions.
4. June Cleaver I am not> Although I LOVE my house to be very clean and organized, after a long day of working and chasing after kids it's not exactly what's at the top of my to-do list. These days I feel accomplished if the dishes from all three meals from that day aren't still on the dining room table and if I've managed to do a load of laundry, so you can imagine how often I sweep, mop, vacuum, dust & polish. (Polish?!! HAHAHA! That's a good one!) I had no choice but to hire someone. I always considered that cheating... like people who have a nanny. "They hired a nanny?! They have it so easy. Someone else does all the hard stuff. They dress up their dolls and parade them around and put them back on the shelf when it gets boring." (I still kinda feel that way about people having nannies, but only if one of the parents stays at home and they have less than 4 children) Here's something I came to realize. I don't give a shit if hiring a cleaning lady is "the easy way." For the 5 years or so that I did all my own house cleaning on top of working 7 days a week and raising a family I was never nominated for the "Best Housewife Ever" award. In fact, as I recall, no one gave two shits whether my house was clean or not, forget who had cleaned it if it was.
5. I am Murphy's Law> I have pretty much accepted that I will fail on all levels of life and that bad things will happen to me a LOT. It certainly explains why most days I have such an upbeat demeanor. I've just accepted the mess that is my life and usually laugh when bad stuff happens. If there's a one in a million chance of something happening, it'll happen to me. Every preventative measure (aside from abstinence) was taken to prevent my first two kids. My first car was totalled by a drunk driver while parked in my own driveway. I had just put in a brand new alternator and I hadn't even driven it once since it was fixed. I was called for Jury Duty 5 days after my 18th birthday. I started having symptoms of and was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease when I was 20, which can happen anywhere between 20 and 50 years old. Two weeks before our planned roadtrip to Disney, on my way to pick Caleb up from school, the transmission dropped out of my car... at an intersection... with my 9 month old crying in the back... and my husband at work.
Haaaaaa! Life - 15 Jill - 0
So, in closing, I'm pretty sure I'm not living the "dream life." I'm sorry if you feel mislead now that I've given you the facts. If you were hoping to read a blog about a girl with the perfect family and the perfect life, I suggest perusing the interwebs for someone else's... mine is neither of those.
If you like crafting, shiny objects, trying crazy things, made up words, over-use of punctuation (especially parentheses) and odd usage of obscure movie quotes and internet memes and the occasional rambling post and lots of run-on sentences... stick around. You'll feel right at home.