Me: Sweetie, Uncle J is not my husband.  He’s my boyfriend.
Nephew: What do you mean?
Me: Well…I mean that we aren’t married.  We haven’t had a wedding.
Nephew:  But I don’t understand.  Don’t you own two dogs together?
Me: Yes, we do.
Nephew: And you live in the same house together?
Me: Yes, we do.
Nephew: And you are my aunt and you have been since before I was born.
Me: Yes, that’s all true.
Nephew: But you never had a wedding and you aren’t married?  I don’t get it.
Me: I don’t get it either.  Maybe we should ask Uncle J to explain it.

Nephew went off in search of J and came back to me a few minutes later…

Nephew: Aunt Shana, Uncle J didn’t answer me.  He just said he doesn’t know why you aren’t married yet.
Me: Well, sweetie, grown up relationships can be complicated sometimes.
Nephew: Really?  Did he ask you to marry him and you said no?
Me: No, he never asked me.
Nephew: Well…do you love him?
Me: Yes.
Nephew: Does he love you?
Me: Yes.
Nephew: Well…it doesn’t sound so complicated to me.  It’s simple…just get married already.

Nephew went on to tell J that by the next time he sees us he expects us to be married or for J to provide him with an explanation of why we aren’t married yet.  Also…he would like some cousins soon.

Gotta love the kid’s honesty!

First, to my mom…you have been an outstanding role model and have given me a wonderful example to follow.  It’s because of you that I am the woman I am today.  You don’t get nearly enough credit or enough gratitude from any of us for all the things that you do.  Thank you for being such a great mom and a great friend.

And to J’s mom…you are so kind and generous and wonderful to me.  You welcomed me into your family and made me a true part of it for the past 13 years.  I feel so lucky that being with J means I get to have you in my life also.

So…Happy Mother’s Day to the two best moms in the world!

But then something happens…a lunatic walks into a movie theater and opens fire on the crowd or walks into a school and kills babies who haven’t even begun to live or decides to set off bombs during the Boston Marathon, killing or injuring hundreds of people…and I remember.  I remember what a scary and fucked up place the world can be.

When things like this happen, I just want to go home, lock the doors and never come out.  I certainly don’t want to take public transportation and I don’t want to work in New York City.  Hell…I don’t even want to go to the grocery store.  But that’s the point right?  The people who do these things…that’s exactly what they want.  They want to kill us, but they also want to destroy our way of life.  They want to make us afraid.  They want to change us.  And it’s so easy to let that happen.  It’s so easy to let the fear become paralyzing.

But we can’t.  We can’t let evil dictate how we live our lives.  So I won’t go home and hide in the closet.  I will keep taking public transportation and I will keep working in New York City.  I will attend sporting events and concerts.  I will fly on planes.  I will do whatever it is that I want to do…because fuck those people who think they can change us and make us afraid.

Last night, I sat on the couch and I watched the news coverage of the bombings through tears.  When I heard an 8-year-old boy was killed and his 6-year-old sister lost her leg, I just couldn’t take it anymore and I had to turn it off.  But today I’ve read so many amazing stories.  Stories of runners who kept running…all the way to Mass General to donate blood.  Stories of doctors who were running the race and stopped to help the injured.  Stories of Boston residents opening their homes to people who needed help.  Today, those are the stories I want to focus on.  I want to hear about the good that is left in the world instead the evil.

Maybe if we all go out today and do something nice for someone else, we can make the world a better place and we can take one step toward getting rid of the evil.

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Boston.

• Have you ever noticed that when you are on the phone with a customer service rep and they’ve been absolutely not helpful in any way, they still end the conversation with “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”  Anything ELSE???  You didn’t help me with anything at all!  They really need to drop the “else”.  I think I’m going to tell that to the next person who is completely unhelpful to me.
• I think it’s pretty well accepted that while James Patterson used to be awesome, he’s basically just phoning it in these days.  Mostly, he gets other people to write his books and just sticks his name on them and collects the paycheck.  And the ones he does write alone, the Alex Cross series, are really just terrible.  My question is…why do I keep buying them???  Maybe someday I’ll smarten up and stop handing this man my hard-earned money.
• Yesterday on the train, the woman in across from me was putting on her makeup.  She actually used eyeliner to draw a mole on her face.  I’ve never actually seen someone do that…I’m mean, outside of Halloween.  Can anyone explain the point of that?  Does she think she’s fooling anyone?  Because, to me, it looked like she just got a little smudge of something there on her face.  Is this a thing?  Do people actually do this?

And lastly…a burning question from the bedroom…

• Do you use a top sheet on your bed?  This has been an ongoing debate between J and I for the last 12 years.  I do not like a top sheet on the bed and usually don’t put one on.  I have a habit, stemming back from my childhood when I was convinced that the monsters under the bed were going to eat my feet, of completely wrapping myself in the comforter like a burrito.  I no longer believe in monsters under the bed, but I still like having my feet wrapped in the comforter.  Having a top sheet on the bed and tucked in at the bottom prevents me from doing this.  J, on the other hand, likes a top sheet and finds it “weird” and “strange” that I have this aversion.  So, as I do with most of our debates, I leave it to you all to tell me if I’m a total freak or if you agree that a top sheet on the bed is just unnecessary.

That’s it for me.  Hopefully, I’ll be back next week.  Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Over the weekend, I was reading something and it inspired me to make a new list.  A list of things to remember and tell myself everyday.  I think remembering these things will help me to stick to my rules. 

I wanted to share it because I think these things are important for everyone to remember…

I can do this…I got overwhelmed with something at work recently and I started to panic.  I wanted to just throw my hands up and be done with it, but that wasn’t an option.  So I kept telling myself “I can do this” and eventually I figured it out.  Now I remind myself ever day that I can do this…whatever “this” happens to be.

I am going to make this work…Lately, the universe has seen fit to throw me a few curve balls.  It’s been a little overwhelming, but I’m determined to make things work out no matter what the universe throws my way.

I have to be patient and satisfied with one small step and trust the process…This one is hard for me.  I’m not really the patient type.  The other day, I was doing something and J walked in and saw what I was doing.  He said to me “Whoa…slow down…you are trying too hard.  You can’t force it.  Just slow down and go one step at a time.”  He was right.  I was about to force something and break it (and I’d already cut myself) because it was taking far too long for my liking.  I have to remind myself that I can’t always have the instant gratification I want.  Sometimes I have to follow the steps one at a time and trust the process. 

What other people think of me is none of my business…I don’t like people to hold a bad opinion of me or be mad at me…even people I don’t really care for or am mad at.  I know it’s stupid.  There is a little bit of drama going on at the moment and someone I know is angry at me.  I was relating the story to J, who said “Yeah…I wouldn’t really lose any sleep over that.  Why do you care what she thinks?”  And it’s true…I shouldn’t lose sleep over it.  This person is going to think what she wants to think, no matter what I do.  So I’m no longer going to worry about it.  It’s her business…not mine. 

I like myself just the way I am…This has been a long time coming.  I’ve always wanted to change certain things about myself and I’ve often tried to be a different person to please the people around me.  But I’m over it.  I am who I am and, for the most part, I think I’m a good person.  I’m done changing to please others.  I like who I am. 

Life is unfolding exactly the way it’s supposed to…I always say “everything happens for a reason”, but I don’t always like to accept that.  When bad things happen, I often fight against them.  But I really do believe that everything happens for a reason and that there is a plan for all of us.  We just have to believe that everything will be ok and somehow, it will. 

Everything gets better with practice…When I’m not good at something the first time, I tend to not want to do it again.  Because I’m impatient and a control freak, I like to do things well or not at all.  I don’t want to keep practicing and try to get better.  So I keep reminding myself of the turkey.  When J and I first met, I made the world’s worst turkey.  It was dry and had no flavor.  But J really likes turkey, so I’ve been practicing for 12 years and now I make the best turkey.  It’s juicy and tender and I’ve even perfected making gravy from the drippings.  With a little practice, anything is possible.

This, too, shall pass…It always does.  No matter how bad things are, they always get better.  I really believe that’s true. 

Let it be…The control freak in me has trouble with this one.  But with age has come the acceptance that I can’t fix everything for everyone.  I can’t always make things better.  Sometimes the best thing is to just let it be.  It will work itself out eventually.  Also…Let It Be is, by far, the best Beatles song.

I have always prided myself on the fact that during my 16 year career, I have cried at work exactly three times…and it was always when someone had died.  I do not cry about work.  EVER.  It’s unprofessional and unnecessary and I simply won’t do it.

Except yesterday sucked.  I was working on something that really isn’t my job and I didn’t quite understand what I was doing.  I was so confused and frustrated that I actually asked for help…and let me tell you, that’s no small thing.  I ask for help almost as much as I cry at work.  So it was really awesome when my boss’s response was that he didn’t “understand what was so hard about his request”.

I’m sorry to say that I was on the verge of tears.  I managed to lock down the tears and I ate some chocolate to make myself feel better.  But I did spend the rest of the day completely stressed out.  I could practically feel my blood pressure rising.

On the way home, I read an article entitled “The Ten Things You Should Stop Stressing About” and I realized that my job is not worth getting myself all worked up over (no pun intended).  It’s just not that important.  So I’ve made my own list of the top 10 things I’m no longer going to stress over.

1. Work.  I am an accountant.  I am not saving lives or curing cancer or educating kids.  I’m babysitting money, basically.  No one is going to die if I mess something up or make a mistake or don’t get to finish something.  So I’m going to do the best I can and I’m not going to worry about it.  No one dies in accounting…that’s my motto.
2. Train delays.  Lately, the trains stink.  There are often delays and we get to the city at least five minutes late every morning.  I don’t stress about five minutes, but when we are sitting still for ten or fifteen minutes I start to get antsy.  It’s completely crazy…because there is not one damn thing I can do about it.  From now on, I’m going to embrace those delays and enjoy a few extra minutes of reading time.
3. Dinner.  J can never decide what he wants to eat for dinner and I stress about it and try to read his mind to figure out what he wants.  That ends today.  If he refuses to offer up a suggestion for dinner, I’ll get what I want and he’ll have to live with it.
4. Keeping the house clean.  I have two black dogs who shed a lot.  No matter how many times I sweep and vacuum, there is always dog hair on the floor.  It’s inevitable.  It made me crazy for a long time, but now I just don’t care.  I keep up with is as much as I can, but dog hair in the corners is just going to be a way of life.
5. Writing blog posts.  Life is busy and while I’d love to sit down and write for an hour or two every night, sometimes that’s just not possible.  When I’ve been gone for a while, I start to stress about making time to write…which is stupid because this is supposed to be fun, not stressful.  And the reality is that I’d still write even if no one was reading, so I shouldn’t be stressing over losing readers.  Maybe if I take the pressure off myself, I’ll actually write more.
6. Reading Chick Lit.  My best friends are both all brainy and they read things like Russian classics and autobiographies of Condaleeza Rice.  Sometimes I stress out about the fact that I’m not reading these things and I’m wasting my time reading fluffly nosense or romance novels.  But the thought of reading Condi’s memiors is a better sleep aid than Ambien and those fluffy nonsense books make my train ride so much more enjoyable.  So…keep your classics and your history.  I no longer feel bad about not reading them.
7. Getting scratches on my car.  When I first got my car last year, I was fanatical about keeping it clean and parking it away from everyone so it wouldn’t get sratches or dings.  Then a branch fell on it at the train station and dinged the door.  And someone smashed the window.  And I put the laundry basked on the top of the trunk and ended up scratching all the paint.  I have learned to accept that it’s a car.  It lives outstide in the world with weather and people and other cars.  It’s going to get scratched and dinged and maybe even hit.  But it can get fixed and even if it doesn’t, it’s not that big of a deal.
8. My 101 list.  I recently realized that I only have a handful of weeks to get my 101 list completed and there are a lot of items still left on there.  Because of time and money constraints, it looks like I might not get to do every single thing and I was stressing about that.  But the great thing I also realized is that #101 on my list is to write a new list.  Which means I can transfer the things I don’t get done.  I’m a little disappointed that I’m not going to be starting from scratch with a new list, but a trip to Disney during tax season and laying out $800 for a hot air balloon ride is just not in the cards right now.
9. Time.  There are never enough hours in the day and I stress about getting everything done.  But I have to keep reminding myself that there is always tomorrow.  And while I understand that tomorrow is not guaranteed, if I plan well and I concentrate on doing things that make me happy, everything will fall into place eventually and everything will get done.
10. Having a baby.  I’m 37, which is a fact that people really seem to enjoy pointing out to me along with the risks associated with having a baby at my age.  Trust me…I’m well aware.  I understand that time is running out for me and I have to do something about it soon if I want a baby, which I do.  But worrying about it constantly isn’t going to get J ready any faster and it’s not going help me get pregnant any easier when the time comes.  So I’m going to stop worry and just trust that the universe will send me a baby when the time is right.

I was sitting in traffic this morning and stressing about being late for work…and then I thought about this list and remembered that I shouldn’t be stressing.  I took a deep breath and calmed down.  Maybe this no stress thing will work after all.

So tell me…what do you stress about that you shouldn’t?

• It is possible to eat too much chocolate.  I never thought it would happen, but after eating my own weight in chocolate…one bite sized sample at a time…I didn’t even want to look at chocolate.  Cupcakes, yes…chocolate no.  In fact, I just opened one of the bags of kisses I bought last night.  Kisses have never lasted in my house for so long. (The ones I bought for J are long gone.  Lucky for me, he doesn’t like coconut, so my coconut cream kisses are safe.)
• Thomas Jefferson was kind of an asshole.  One of our many stops on this trip was Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s former estate.  The setting is amazing…at the top of a hill overlooking a good part of the state.  And the house itself was pretty interesting.  But Jefferson was a total hippocrite…declaring all men to be equal in the constitution while he owned slaves.  He would often do things like sell off the children of slaves that made him angry and upon his death, he only set five slaves free though he owned dozens.  Also…Jefferson might have been an innovator when it came to architecture, but the man couldn’t even manage to design a decent staircase.  I’m afraid of heights and I barely made it down the ridiculously steep and narrow stairs without having a panic attack.
• Milton Hershey was a magnificent person.  In stark contrast to the jerk that Jefferson was, Milton Hershey couldn’t do enough for people.  He bounced back from the verge of his third bankruptcy to become one of the most successful businessmen ever.  He shared his wealth with his employees, making sure they were able to purchase their own homes and wanting them to be happy in their jobs (imagine that!).  When the Depression hit, he used some of his money to build a hotel and other buildings in order to create jobs for people and make sure they were able to keep working.  He also started a school for underprivileged children that still exists today.  He died broke because he gave all his money away to make other people’s lives better.  And a portion of the money you spend on Hershey products to this day goes to continue Mr. Hershey’s legacy.  Hearing his life story made me a Hershey customer for life.
• Even when the wind chill is 10 degrees, visiting a place called Foamhenge is worth it.  I love cheesy roadside attractions.  You may remember the 34 foot tall statue of Mary I visited on my last trip.  Well, Foamhenge was awesome in it’s cheesiness.  We threw both of our cars out of alignment driving up the pothole filled dirt road to get there and we froze while we were there.  But I can now say I’ve seen it and here’s a photo to prove it.
• If you spend enough time feeding a baby, he will eventually sneeze with his mouth full and you will wear his dinner all over you.  But he will look at you and laugh and it will all be worth it.  E cried every time I looked at him on my last visit.  This time we were BFF.  And he thought I looked hilarious wearing his chicken and spinach.
• Aborigines are not, in fact, “those really white people from Africa with the bones through their noses”…despite what your best friend might say.  Allyson tried to convince me of this for at least 10 minutes, but after a google search, she realized she was confusing Aborigines and albinos…which aren’t the same thing at all.  Of course, I tried to convince her that President Eisenhower was a cross dresser…so we were totally even.
• When you ignore your friend’s advice to get gas at the Wawa down the block from her house before you get on the road, you will definitely hit empty while in the middle of nowhere and you will end up at a gas station straight out of a cheesy horror movie.  And the gas will be over $4/gallon.

There are so many things I’m forgetting.  We packed our five days with as many things as we could and we had a blast.  The Millers are only going to be living in driving distance for 66 more days.  I’m hoping to sneak in one more quick trip down.  I’m just not sure tax season is going to cooperate with me.

I’m a lazy person by nature.  I like to do lazy kinds of things…like watch television and play Candy Crush (damn you Candy Crush!).  I have a tendency to put off doing anything I’m not going to enjoy (like cleaning the house) in favor or watching a Duck Dynasty marathon or Pitch Perfect (yes, again).  But lately, I’m putting off EVERYTHING.  I haven’t written on this blog or read a magazine or gotten a pedicure or made an appointment for the spa day J got me for Christmas.  I got my hair colored this weekend, but only because my roots were so gray that I got depressed every time I looked in the mirror.  These are usually things I love and I just don’t feel like doing anything.  My general level of laziness has risen to new heights. 

Work has been a nightmare lately.  The director who started a year and a half ago and who we all loved decided to leave in January and no one has been hired yet to take his place.  It means that a ton more work that I wouldn’t normally be responsible for is getting dumped on me.  But it’s also been a huge blow to morale.  He was a good guy…he made a challenging situation fun and his absence is being felt in more than just an increased work load.  We are all just generally bummed.

It pretty much takes every ounce of my willpower to get myself to work in the morning and then every ounce of my energy to make it through the day.  When I get home, I’m so wiped out that all I can do is stare at the TV until it’s time to go to bed.  And the worst part is that I’m watching things like Paul Blart: Mall Cop on TBS.  Not good.  Part of me is saying that it’s time for a new job, but the other part of me doesn’t want to lose my seniority and my flexibility.  Also…the devil you know is usually better than the devil you don’t.  But something has got to give. 

So as of today, the procrastination and laziness end.  As of today, I’m getting up the morning with a purpose.  I’m going to work with a good attitude.  I’m going to do my best while I’m there and I’m going to stop stressing about what I’m not able to do.  I’m going to come home and do things that make me happy.  I’m going to write and listen to music and read and I am going to get a damn pedicure.  I’m going to finish organizing my craft room and I’m actually going to use it.  I’m going to watch the Netflix movies that I’ve now had for three weeks (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter…I’m looking at you).  I’m going to get my car washed because it’s filthy.  I’m going to go to the grocery store so we have some food in the house and I’m going to cook occasionally so we can stop eating so much takeout. 

I am in a rut, but I’m determined to break out of it.  I will not let my job ruin my happiness, dammit!  I made a new morning playlist to get me happy and dancing while I was in the shower.  I thought it would be a good way to start the day and it was.  Now I just have to keep that momentum going.  Wish me luck and hopefully I’ll be back here tomorrow to tell you about all the things I learned on my recent trip to Virginia. 

All last week, the forecasters were predicting a snow storm.  But not just any snowstorm.  This was to be a SNOWSTORM!!!  It was predicted to be epic and historic and biblical…and some other ridiculous phrases that I can’t remember.  By Thursday we were expecting somewhere between 2 and 30 inches of snow and people were panicking.  I actually wrote half a post about it for Friday, but then I got sucked into watching the news and I never finished.  Instead, I went to the grocery store with every other lunatic in my area and while they stocked up on milk, bread and eggs, I bought the essentials…Diet Coke, beer and Valentine’s candy.  Oh…and strawberry ice cream.  I know how to get us through a storm.

On Friday, I left work really early, packed up the car and headed to CT.  I settled in and engaged in my favorite storm activity…watching non-stop news coverage of the storm.  Seriously…I have a problem.  Also…I watched General Hospital.  I haven’t watched that show in years and yet, one episode and I’m all caught up.  I love soap operas.

Anyway, Friday was uneventful.  There was a lot of snow and a lot of Twitter updates and a lot of praying that the lights stayed on.  When the dogs woke me up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, the lights were still on…but I had to dig a path through several inches of snow that had fallen through the night in order to let the dogs out.  Shoveling snow in my pajamas is not exactly my idea of a good time.  But the dogs loved it and running through the snow tired them out.

I played with the dogs outside for a while and reverted to my childhood by making a snow angel that the dogs immediately walked through and destroyed and building a snowman.  It was all kinds of fun…until I came inside to find that the cable had gone out.  Which meant that I could not watch non-stop news coverage.  Also…I had no internet.  No cable was bad, but no internet was so much worse.

I called the cable company and I was super nice.  Widespread outage due to the weather…that’s what they told me.  They promised it would be fixed in 24 hours and swore I didn’t need an appointment with a technician.  I thanked the representative profusely and went about my day, watching movies and reading a book and looking at all the snow in the driveway from the window while wishing fairies would come and shovel it in the middle of the night.

On Sunday morning, I discovered that the fairies hadn’t cleared the snow and the cable was still out.  I called the cable company again and they assured me just a few more hours.  I killed time by going out and shoveling…and cursing J’s name.  See…he once again had the brilliant idea that he should stay in one house while I went to the other.  He also felt that we didn’t need to hire a snow plowing company because “we could totally handle shoveling the driveway ourselves.”  Which meant that I was alone to shovel a crap ton of snow and I was not happy about it.

I quickly became overwhelmed and at one point there was crying in the garage…because I didn’t think I’d ever get all the snow shoveled.  After an hour a shoveling and barely a dent…I took a break.  I checked in with the cable company and they told me the outage was fixed and if my service was still not working I’d need a technician.  I was frustrated and tired and overwhelmed with snow and bored out of my skull…but I was still pretty nice to the guy on the phone.  I thought I could sweet talk him into sending someone out to me on a Sunday.  He said he was going to try and would call me back in 20 minutes.

An hour later…no call.  So I called again.  I was told that an appointment had been scheduled for me…on Monday…during working hours.  My nice started wearing off then.  I strongly suggested that the guy on the phone get a technician out to my house…TODAY!  It worked too…because someone showed up at 6PM.  Except, he couldn’t fix my problem.  My problem was with a line down the street and that was a different department and they were gone for the day and couldn’t come out until Monday.

The nice was really thin when I called again.  I allowed some of my irritation to come through and I might have even called them liars, accusing them of taking the easy way out and blaming the storm for the trouble instead of just sending a tech out the first time I called.  They once again told me my service would be up and running in 24 hours.  I just rolled my eyes and said “Sure, whatever” and went to bed with no cable.

Monday morning was interesting.  The snow threw the MTA for a loop and train service was super messed up.  It seems like maybe the MTA should be prepared for snowy weather considering this is the northeast and it’s winter and IT SNOWS EVERY FREAKING YEAR!!!  But no…they are never prepared.  So the trains were short cars and they were crazy packed.  It was claustrophobic and unpleasant…and really, really long.  The ride home in the afternoon wasn’t any better and the day at the office in between train rides was busy and annoying.

By the time I got off the train, I was tired, cranky, starving and I wanted to go home and watch some mindless TV.  The cable company called me as I drove from the train station to the house and informed me that I would probably need another tech appointment.  And that is when my nice went out the window.  There was major attitude and yelling.  I was fed up and I demanded an apology for the fact that they didn’t bother to address my problem right away.  I also demanded a credit…not only for the three days I had no service, but for the aggravation that they caused.  I guess I was a little scary because he gave me a $20 credit.  It’s not much, but I’ll take it.  Oh…and the cable was working when I got home.  Yay!

It feels like it’s been at least two weeks since last Friday, but it’s only been three days.  I tried to put on a happy face this morning and I’m hoping the day gets better.  My co-worker brought in cupcakes, so things are already looking up!  And I promise to try to be nice and start smiling again.