The third wheel

As a remnant from my bar/restaurant days, I picked up the habit of shooting pool and actually became quite good at it, when I put my mind to it and focus, I can shoot a mean game.  So on Wednesday nights I leave my crazy house and get to go out in public for something other than the grocery store or other mundane necessary errands and actually have a drink, talk to some friends over some loud music and mainly get away from dirty diapers and runny noses if even for a few hours a week.  When you are a stay at home mom you do not get to go to and from your job, it stays with you 24/7.  From breakfast, until lunch  and on through the night, the job never ends and can be quite exhausting.  At times I wish I could go to a actual job and get a break from being non-stop "Momma!" Then I realize I would be missing out on important stuff like all that I missed with my oldest daughter.  I was always working when she was younger and she became so independent and distant from me and now that she will be 13 and a teenager I am not cool and you don't become close to your mom when you are a teenager because moms are always ruining everything!!  lol 
So the whole point of this post was to relay how much someone in my position as a stay at home mom, going to college, with three children, one with autism, when they go out to hang out with the girls, they just don't fit in.  When someone asks "How are things with you?" and you go off on a tirade about how your son bit the baby on the face or screamed for hours or you can't go outside because the wind is blowing, they really didn't want to hear all that.  They would rather you just so "Things are great!" makes it quite hard to feel as if you have anyone to vent to, because they don't understand.  Feeling like you are troubling people with your problems doesn't do well for your piece of mind and makes you just sit and keep to yourself.....
Also to add to my boring-ness, I drink very little because of the fact that it is illegal to drink and drive and also I am still breastfeeding....GASP!  still breastfeeding my baby and she is 15 months and don't think she would appreciate liquor laced milk.  So I don't have any stupid drunken stories or stay out late, which makes me feel like the third wheel..........

SO relieved that it is November 3rd

Finally an end to the ridiculously absurd finger-pointing, name-calling advertisements on my television and in my mailbox.  I learned NOTHING about what they actually would bring to the office and help improve our current economic crisis from all the campaigning the candidates did except for that I do not like political parties and all their excuses for their non-performance in favor of the people whom the current government should actually be worried about since it it their actual job to serve US, not campaign for most of the year.  I voted for all the unknowns that nobody sees plastered all over the television.  Those rich people on the ballot have absolutely no idea what it is like for the majority of us who are struggling because they live in another world.  How do they know what is like to be out of work for over 99 weeks with no chance of ever getting another job that would replace the job you lost, or how it feels to lose your home you worked so hard for to a bank that you bailed out as a taxpayer and still get foreclosed upon anyway.  They don't have to worry if they will have to choose between buying their prescription drugs or getting groceries this month.  Our country needs a change and I don't think that career politicians or rich folk know how to unselfishly serve the people who elected them and bring the change that our government needs to turn things around for the majority of us in America.

53 days until Christmas

OH MY!  When you see that countdown everywhere you look, you know you should start organizing lists and finding some Christmas cards (do people even send those out anymore?) get some shopping done.  But procrastinators like me, for example, think that if they get prepared for the unnerving and overwhelming holidays ahead of time, then what will we worry about at the last minute?  Actually I have started shopping for the kids and Don and I have talked about putting up some Christmas lights.  No, not just the little Charlie Brown Christmas tree I usually plop on a little tiny table and stack the gifts underneath, in my Scrooge like fashion.  This year he wants to put lights on the outside of the house and festive nonsense like that....the kids will love it and Consumers Energy will love the increase in my light bill.  I'm sorry.  I try not to be so Bah Hum Bug, but to me the holidays are TOO commercialized and the only thing that making such a huge deal about Christmas is spending so much money on gifts and decorations and etc etc etc, when the whole point was to celebrate Jesus' birthday and spend time with the family, not buy them off with some expensive and outrageously priced gifts or stuff them with so much food until they feel ill.  I know my oldest child thinks I am SO boring, by not cramming dozens and dozens of the latest crap under the tree that they advertise on television for us to get poorer by purchasing or what the other kids say is cool.  TRYING and the key word would be trying to please your children and make them happy with material stuff is doing way more harm than good to our kids.  The kids just keep wanting more JUNK they don't need and they don't appreciate it.  They end up losing it, breaking it, giving it away, SELLING it......all the while we are paying for it on the credit card statement for the next year or so. 
Many families cannot afford anything for Christmas, because they lost their home, many lost their jobs and most of us Americans are doing our best to live paycheck to paycheck, so when there is this holiday season that comes along and we as parents are expected to provide for our kids extra stuff because it has come to be expected, many parents feel inadequate because they simply CANNOT afford it. 
Families with spoiled kids and the means to continue to do so this holiday season, would be doing the world a service to teach their children that life and enjoying it is NOT about what you have, but who you have in your life and they should have their children GIVE to other families instead of receive this year.  Clean out their closets and toy boxes and buy for families who wouldn't have a Christmas otherwise.  Giving truly feels better than receiving....