Bullets

That was not the post that I meant to keep at the top, just busy busy busy!  Due to the busy, you get bullets:

• Our life is really starting to show signs that we're moving soon.  My in-laws are here this week for the boys' birthdays.  When they leave on Saturday they will be bringing 6 very large suitcases back to England with them.  The closet in the master bedroom is completely bare and quite a few peices of the big furniture has been sold on Craigslist.  Our cars need to be parked outside now because the garage is filling up with the stuff we hope to sell at our yard sale the weekend of the 8th.
• We've even had two people call just seconds after listing my husbands car tonight - it's a 1995 Honda Accord Wagon that we paid $1,800 for 3 years ago.  I figured we'd be lucky to get $1,000 for it.  My husband loves this car, so he listed it for $2,000.  We have someone coming by to look at it shortly - fingers crossed they bite! * UPDATED * While I was writing this post, my husband got a text from the prospective buyer saying he just bought another car.  BUMMER!  Hopefully the second person will come by tomorrow to look at it.
• I have 13 days of work left, but I'm taking the 8th off so it's really only 12 days.  I hope I can get all that I need to get done so my co-workers aren't overly pissed at me.  Oh well, not much I can do about it now.
• The kids and I came down with a pretty bad tummy bug last week.  There was vomiting.  Lots of vomiting.  The good part was that the vomiting only lasted about 6 hours.  I'm just glad my husband and his parents didn't catch it too.  It was bad enough for me to have to recover while there were guests in the house, forget about the guests having to recover too.  And, it took me a while to recover too.  The boys bounced back pretty quick, but it took me about 5 days to get my appetite back.  Now that I've started eating again though, it seems I'm trying to make up for lost time.
• Have I mentioned that I only have 12 days of work left?  I can't wait!

Losing my readers in 3, 2, ...

I've been trying to stay away from this topic because I'm not a very political person.  I believe that everyone has their own beliefs and will live their lives the best way that they can - or, at least, that's what I hope.

But everytime I see a news story about the comments made by Hilary Rosen I get upset all over again.

I get upset, not because I'm offended by what she said.  Quite the opposite.  I understand what compelled her to make that comment.

I'm a mother raising two children.  Which, according to the news stories, is one of the hardest jobs around.  Yes, raising children is hard.  But, do you know what's harder?  Raising children and having a full-time career.

There.  I said it.  I believe working mothers work harder than stay at home moms (SAHM)*. 

And now I'm glad I only have a handful of readers - if that - because I'm pretty sure I just lost them.

I'm not saying I don't think it's hard being a SAHM.  It most certainly is.  However, SAHM aren't out of the house for a minimum of 10 hours a day - I am.  After this 10 hour hiatus from my house, I come home to do all the work that didn't get done during the day.  This includes: cooking, laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc.  Let's add to this squeezing in helping the kids complete their homework during the 2 hours that they are home before they have to go to bed.  My weekends aren't filled with fun trips to the park or soccer games.  No, because I'm away from the house for 50+ hours a week, the weekends are filled errands and grocery shopping. 

We tried to do soccer for Lucas, but with the two weekday evening practices and the weekend games it was just too much stress.  Stress for us as well as Lucas.  Lucas was stressed because we would get home from work/daycare, wolf down dinner, run to practice, and then come home to do homework.  For a kid who has to wake up at 5:30, that's a lot of stuff to do with no downtime, so something had to give and it was soccer.

Let's not forget that in all of this, I have to find time to schedule doctor appointments for routine visits.  Once a month me and the kids all go to the chiropractor.  Lucas and my husband have to go for allergy shots every 2 weeks.  Today, Lucas has a follow-up for his ADHD, and both kids have an eye-doctor appointment.  And, hoo boy, can you imagine if one of the kids gets sick?  Not only do I have to take off from work (using sick-time I don't have), but now I'm behind on my commitments in the office.  When I return to work I have to work that much harder to get back on track.  There were so many instances of this between 2008 and 2010 that my performance suffered and I almost lost my job.

I've heard the platitudes that if I really wanted to, I would find a way to stay home.  But the truth of the matter is, I am the breadwinner.  Yes, my husband works.  But I make twice as much as he does.  We've tried having him stay home when we only had one child, but I didn't make enough to support us all and there was no where else to trim the fat, so to speak.  So my husband got a job, as soon as he finished his degree, and he's been working ever since. 

Now he works over an hour away from home, which makes things even harder for me.  I have to wake up at 5am to get myself ready for work so I then have time to get my kids ready for school/daycare - we are in the car by 7am.  Then it's up to me to pick them up and take them to whatever appointments we have that day.  Time for exercise doesn't exist. 

So, yes, I look at SAHM and think they have it easy - I even get jealous!  It is definitely hard to stay home and raise your children.  But it's even harder to have a career and raise your children.  Prove me wrong.

* This discussion does not include the term work at home mom (WAHM) - those are a whole other breed.  Nor does it include the SAHM that choose to homeschool - how you do that without tearing your hair out, I do not know.

Innocence Lost

I turn 35 in a little under one month.  The funny thing is, I don't feel at all like an adult.  I've heard tons of other people my age say the same thing, but in my case I think it's because I lost my innocence at a very early age and have always felt the way I do now.

It probably started when I was 5 years old when my parents thought I was old enough to understand what being adopted meant.  What they said: some other woman carried me in her tummy, but then they rushed to find me as soon as I was born.  What I heard: wah, wah, wah - kind of like Charlie Brown in school. 

My mother (the one that I grew up with) continued with this type of talk for many years after this - going so far as to say I was so cruel to leave her as a fetus (!) only to have to have her fly all the way to Kansas to get me back.  What kind of parent talks about adoption in this way?  Not any other adoptive parent I've ever met.

My brother, three and half years older than me, was told about his adoption at the same time.  Not because we were adopted as brother and sister, but because it was time to tell him about his adoption and I guess while they were at it, my parents figured they may as well get mine over with too.  Gotta love multi-tasking the difficult parenting topics. 

I guess my brother must have figured out at some point in the next couple of years that this meant that I wasn't really his blood relative.  This spelled nothing but trouble for me.

It appeared as if, in his mind, not being a blood relative was an open invitation to start molesting me.

I don't really remember how it started, probably something along the lines of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours".  You know, normal stuff.  I was probably around 7 or 8 years old.  But, somehow, it turned into something so awful.  It got to the point where he got our best friend (a girl) involved and he was molesting us both.  I'm pretty sure I didn't lose my virginity to him, but I did lose my chance at a fairly normal childhood.

This went on until I was 13 years old.  Not once did I tell my parents, they never believed me when I said anything anyway.  They always took my brother's side.  So, why would this be any different - that's what I thought at the time anyway.  Also, I guess in some weird way, I thought all brother-sister relationships were like this since I didn't know any different.

At some point during the 8th grade, I must have told another friend a small amount of what was happening (it was either that or, she figured it out on her own).  I'm pretty sure that if I did tell her I would have begged her to keep it a secret, since at that age I knew it was wrong.  At that point I didn't want my parents finding out because my brother was also violent, and I knew he would have made my life even more miserable if they were to find out and confront him with anything.  Unfortunately, my friend told her mother who told someone at school.  When the school called my parents in to talk to them about it, their response to them was that I was lying.  They even took me to a shrink to find out why I would lie about such a thing.  I didn't say a word to the shrink.  Why bother, was my opinion.  To my knowledge, my parents never asked my brother about it, probably because they were so convinced of my lie that they didn't want to upset him with it.

A few months after I got married, I got the courage up to tell my new husband all about what went on between me and my brother.  He was furious!  A few years later he brought it up to my mother, and again my mother said I was lying.  She said that my brother had admitted to doing it with our best friend, but swore up and down he had never done anything to me.  As far as I know, my mother went to her grave believing him and not me.

When deciding when to have children of my own, I always had this nagging fear that I never told my husband about.  When I was pregnant with my first, I was sad to find out that it was a boy.  I was so afraid that if I had then gone on to have another baby that turned out to be a girl, that the same thing would happen to her.  It terrified me. 

It terrified me so much that when I finally did get pregnant with my second child I did not want to find out what I was having before it was born.  In my mind, if I didn't know beforehand I wouldn't have to worry about it until the kid was born.  Shockingly, this way of thinking only kind of worked.  However, I was so relieved when the baby was born and turned out to be a boy.  Now, I know that doesn't mean nothing can ever happen to him - I'm not that naive.  But, I do hope that it means it will be far less likely than if I had had a girl.

Now, whenever people ask me whether I'm going to try for a girl, I always joke and refer to the snip.  But, deep down I think to myself "No way!  I don't want that girl to go through what I went through."

I haven't spoken to my brother since I was 13.  And, as you can imagine, I don't really ever talk about him.  But, I said something yesterday at dinner about my brother - even though it was just yesterday, I can't remember what it was about - but it prompted my oldest son to say "I didn't know you have a brother".  Oops.  I guess I either should've told him sooner or kept my mouth shut.  I managed to brush it off and told him and my other son that my brother was not a very nice person and that they would never meet him. 

But this leads to an even bigger question - what do I tell him (and eventually his brother) about why I my brother isn't a very nice person?  And, when will he be old enough to understand adoption so I can tell him that I have three half-sisters I only met when I was 30?  I hate that I have this past I can't really be open about with my kids.  It feels like a secret I never wanted to have to keep.

Changes

See, look, I told you it would happen again. 

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I suppose an update is in order.

Last time I posted I was still waiting for my official CPA License.  That finally came some time in the middle of January.  Also, the last time I posted, I had been in the middle of potentially getting a new job.  You might be interested to know that I still have the same job I've always had.  The job with the Major Corporation just didn't work out.  They didn't really make me an official offer, but what they did do was give me a very stringent ballpark.  A ballpark I didn't even need to think about to refuse. 

You see, while the amount of money they were offering was more than I was making now, it did not make up for what I would be losing.  It didn't account for the fact that I would have to move to Denver where the cost of living is higher than where I am now.  It didn't account for the fact that I would be cutting my annual leave allotment in half.  It didn't account for the fact that I would be working many more hours a week than I currently do.  And finally, it didn't account for the fact that my health insurance would be considered sub-par to what I'm getting now - which apparently is the Cadillac of health insurance.

So, I turned it down before I put any more time into the vetting process.  And, to be honest, I haven't regretted it for one minute - aside from the fact that I was looking forward to a change.

Now, what wasn't happening the last time I posted.

We have decided to go ahead with the move to the UK. 

Did you read that?  WE ARE GOING AHEAD WITH OUR MOVE TO THE UK!

We are very excited about this.

The last time we were considering this, it was only if we had jobs to go to first.  This time, that isn't even close to being the case.  This time, we have already purchased our one way tickets to the UK and we're not even looking for jobs.  We're currently pinching as many pennies as we can so we have enough to live on for a little bit once we get there.  This will give us the opportunity to be a little more picky about the jobs we look for and accept.

Something else we've decided to do is a cross-country roadtrip for a few weeks before our flight.  We'll start here in Colorado, head out to Southern California, and then make our way back east for our final destination of Boston, MA.  Our flight leaves July 27th.

We're very excited, but have a lot to do.  To chronicle it all, my husband has started a blog for the family.  Nothing has been posted to it yet, so I'll wait until then to share the URL - if I share it at all.  I may just keep it private for now since personal information will be included there.  We'll see.  Right now I'm leaning towards sharing since I'm tired of the secrecy.  I'll let you know what I decide.

Good intentions, roads, paved, something something

Apparently I should never make promises.  How long has it been since my last post?  I don't even know and I'm too lazy (or, ashamed) to look.  So, no excuses from me, just the promise that it will likely happen again.

So, on to my life:

A lot has been going on.  I finally took, and passed, the Ethics Exam required to become a CPA and submitted my application for licensure.  However, it seems to be taking an extra long time for the folks at NASBA to approve my application.  I submitted my application at the beginning of this month and I still haven't heard anything.  Oh well, I'll be a CPA sometime in the near future.

In September, I applied for a job at a Major Corporation in Denver.  Sometime towards the end of October I started the interview process with them.  It started with a phone interview, where we discussed the possibility of two different positions with that company.  A few days later I had to take two computer assessments - one that was a shortened version of the SAT's, and the other testing my knowledge about computers and social networking.  Evidently, I did well enough on both of those because a few weeks later I was contacted to schedule a face-to-face interview. 

Now, the scheduling of the interview was a major screw-up!

First, they wanted me to schedule the interview that week.  I couldn't do that because I was traveling for work and wouldn't be back in town until the next week - which was Thanksgiving week.  So, I told the recruiter that I was available Thanksgiving week or the next.  After that I received an email from her scheduling me for an interview the Monday AFTER Thanksgiving.

Well, the Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving I got home from work to a message from the recruiter asking me where I was, was I ok, they had been expecting me that morning!

Oh shit, I thought.  I must've screwed it up.  But, I looked at the original email and it turned out I hadn't screwed anything up, they had.  So, I called the recruiter and left a message telling her that the information I had showed that the interview wasn't until next week.  I also forwarded her the original email.  A couple of days later I received another email from the recruiter saying that there must have been a mix-up on her end (no apology) and asked if I could be there on December 5th, instead of November 28th since one of interviewers wasn't going to be there that week.  I agreed.

December 5th came, and I arrive at the location on time only to wait half an hour to see the recruiter before being taken up to the interviewer.

The interview was to take place in two parts.  I was supposed to meet with the manager of the department and then the VP.  Each meeting was to take an hour.

I met with the manager, and the interview went pretty well.  Then she was taking me to the VP's office.  The VP HAD NO IDEA I WAS COMING! And, to make matters worse, he said "isn't this the same person that stood us up a few weeks ago?"  Ack!  The recruiter had never told them that it was her fault!  As it turned out, since the VP didn't know I was coming, he had no room in his schedule to meet with me and sent me on my way.

I felt dejected, and was supremely pissed.  I had to take a day off of work for this!

A couple of days later I received a call from the manager I had met with asking if I was still interested in working for the company - you know, since they are so disorganized.

I decided to give them another chance.  She said that since everything had been so majorly screwed up, would I be willing to meet them in a location between where I live and their office.  She wanted to meet for dinner and drinks with me, the VP, and another manager.

To say I was petrified is an understatement.  But I did agree to the meeting.

Dinner, drinks, and the rest of the interview went very well and now I'm waiting for paperwork to be completed and reviewed before an offer is made. 

I'm still not sure if I'm going to accept it.  I've done some research on what it's like to work for this company, and based on what I'm finding, the offer has to be something spectacular for me to accept it. 

So, for now, I'm in a holding pattern.  I feel like I've been here all year and it's beginning to get really old.  I just want to know what my near future is going to look like.  Will we be moving?  Will we have to find another daycare, school, doctor?  I'm sick of the uncertainty.  I'm gainfully employed now, but my job has gotten mundane and boring so I'm trying to keep my options open.

Hopefully I know soon, one way or the other.

Crappy Day Present Personality Profile

I was about to sign-up on the registry for Doing My Best's Crappy Day Present Registry and decided it was probably too much information for a comment.  So, I'll leave my answers to the prompts here.

Here goes:

• What is your favorite color?
• That depends. It used to be any color green, but my mother in law has overused this knowledge for the last 17 years and I think I'm over green.  Now, it's a toss-up between cobalt blue or maroon.

• What is your favorite season?
• My favorite season has always been spring.  It used to be because my birthday is in the spring, but now it's for a variety of reasons.  First, I love the way nature looks with the new green coming in.  Second, the smells of all of the flowers coming out.  Finally, both of my kids were born in the spring.  It just represents a new beginning to me.

• What is your favorite treat?
• I'm not sure I really have one.  I'm not much of a sweets person, so if I'm wanting something to eat but not really hungry I go for the savory.  Potato Chips are my absolute favorite snack - especially if I can dip them in my absolute favorite spinach dip (you should get some for yourself, it's sooooo good).

• What is your favorite scent?
• This is an easy one.  My favorite scent, hands down, is Lilac.  Maybe that's why I like spring so much, it's when the Lilac's come out.

• What is your favorite ice cream coping mechanism?
• Sleep.  I can deal with anything if I get enough sleep.  As far as ice cream goes, the only one I really like is Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie.  When it was off the shelves for a while several years ago I was devastated.  I was especially devastated when I was pregnant with my first and couldn't have my favorite flavor.  Did you know the reason why it went off the shelves for a while?  I used to live down the road from the factory in Vermont and I asked them one time.  It was because it used to be called Mint Oreo and Nabisco was pissed they weren't getting any royalties from the use of their name.  So, B&J's had to come up with a new name and a new cookie to make the ice cream.  Apparently, that took them years to accomplish.  I'm soooo glad it's back.

• What do you like to do in your free time moments?
• I don't really have any hobbies.  I like to roam around the internet reading blogs and tweeting.  Aside from that, I'm trying to make photography my hobby.  It used to be, and I was pretty good at it, but then kids and life got in the way and I stopped doing it.  What I really need is to figure out how to use Photoshop, maybe then I'll have more drive to do it.

• What do you not enjoy doing, and why, but have to do anyway?
• I'm not a huge fan of cooking, but I'm really good at it.  Also, if we want to eat something that isn't take out, I have to cook.  My husband is good at boiling water and putting a frozen pizza in the oven - that's about it.  In fact, he tells people he burns salads when they ask him if does any of the cooking.

• If someone gave you money with the instruction that you had to spend it on something frivolous for yourself, what would you buy?
• This is a tough one, it's been so long since I've been able to do this I don't know what it would be.  It would probably be something having to do with a getaway with my friends so I can have some time away from my kids and husband.

• Do you have any decorating themes in your home/office?
• There's lots of blue in my house, but I really think that is a result of the fact that I'm the only girl in the house.  Other than that, I'm not really a decorator.  I'd be happy with nothing but family pictures on the wall.

• Is there something that you REALLY, REALLY like? (Burt's Bees, horses, cats, fairies, unicorns, birds, patriotic stuff, babies, chocolate, Diet Coke, etc....)
• I'm a horse lover.  I started riding when I was 5 and was hooked.  When I started sleepaway camp at the age of 9, I always stayed an extra 2 weeks for the intensive horseback riding camp.  By the time I was 15 I was teaching english riding and jumping.  In fact, I was originally going to be a Veterinarian.  Unfortunately reality set in, and accounting seemed more practical.

• What is the VERY! BEST! present you have ever received and why was it the best?
• A 6 pack of Peppermint Mocha Creamer.  I'm a mint lover and my husband knows this.  He also knows that the Peppermint Mocha Creamer is only available around christmas.  So, he went online and purchased 6 containers of the powdered stuff and gave it to me for christmas one year.  I loved it because it showed that he really knew me and wanted to make me happy all year.

That's about it.  A few other things I think you should know about me:

• I have a tendency to develop really bad acne.  Right now I'm on six different medications due to a horrific flare up while I was studying for the CPA exams.  So, no face creams, ok?
• I have really dry skin (due to the acne medication, and the altitude I live in).  Not only do I have really dry skin, but my elbows are so dry it's almost disgusting.  I've tried everything I can think of for them and nothing has worked.  So, if you have miracle solution I'd love to know about it.
• I'm always cold.  Especially at work, where it seems the air conditioning runs year-round.
• I don't like nuts in my food, but I'll eat them by the handful.

The Greenest I've Ever Been

I posted this on one of the other blogs I used to write on.  It still makes me smile to read it and thought I'd share it here.

With all of this talk lately on what we can do to get "greener", it got me thinking about what I do to makes this world a little easier to live in.

We can't afford to pay the trash company to recycle our recycleables, so we do a few things ourselves.  It's not as much as if we could afford to recycle, but it's better than nothing.

• We recycle all of our paper at the local recycling dropoff (free) located at any one of the five Wal-Marts in our "town".  (Yes, I know, any "town" with five Wal-Marts isn't actually a town, but I just can't bring myself to call it a city - I did grow up in The Big Apple, after all!)
• We get our milk delivered every week.  I know this doesn't sound like doing something for the environment, but the milk company takes back the empty milk containers and reuses them for more milk.  Plus, it's delicious!
• We turn off lights in any room we're not in - and we're normally all in the same room.  Driving down our street at night, you would think no one actually lives in our house, it's pitch black.
• We use fluorescent light bulbs.  Yes, I know they don't last as long if they are used upside down, but it's still better than a regular bulb, right?
• We don't flush the toilet after every single pee - if it's yellow, let it mellow...you get the idea.
• We have our water heater turned way down, and it still produces enough hot water for our family.
• We wash all of our clothes in cold water.

Ok, so most of the things we do are to save us money, but it still helps the environment.

Even though we put in a semi-decent effort now, you should have seen me the summers from 1986 through 1993.

I went to camp.  A camp like no other.  I don't think you would find a place anywhere close to being similar now, unless you were on some sort of commune.  Unfortunately, it's closed now so you can't experience it for yourselves.  Looking back, it was actually kind of gross.  I'm not sure how many people were there, but I think it ranged somewhere between 60 and 100, depending on the year. 

The camp used a well system, and to make sure there was enough water for food preparation, drinking, the animals, and cleaning up after meals, all of the people making up the camps population were limited to 1 shower a week.  That's right folks, just 1 shower a week. 

Let me clarify. 

I guess we were really limited to 1 hot shower a week.  The rest of the time we were entitled to take a colder than the arctic shower in the waterfall anytime we wanted (using bio-degradable soap) if it was running - i.e., it hadn't been stopped by beavers upstream.  Yep, parents knew about this little deal.  And yep, they kept sending their children back year after year.  Now, I get a little grossed out if my kids go three days without a bath - and they hardly do anything to get dirty!

Ok, so you're thinking "what could these children be doing to really warrant more shower time - 1 a week sounds reasonable.  Besides they're probably swimming a ton anyway."  For some, that would be correct.  However, for the select few die-hard horse lovers it was a different story.  I was one of those horse lovers.  I was in the barn every day, either riding or mucking stalls or both.  Yes, I was swimming almost everyday too (my nickname was "the fish"), but do you really think that was enough to get the grime of the barn off?  Hardly.  Let's not forget about the fact that I was sleeping outside for a good chunk of the time that I was there too.  One summer, I got home and took a nice long shower and shaved my legs.  Prior to this, I had thought I was really tan.  However, it turned out that I was just really dirty.  After shaving my legs they were white as ghosts - apparently, along with the hair I had shaved off the dirt too.

The water conservation was not the only environmentally friendly "activity".  We also composted whatever leftover food items we could, and what we couldn't was given to the pigs to eat.  We had a cow on site to give us fresh milk.  We grew some of our own veggies.  We even had a few outhouses (again, saving water).

So yes, this was the greenest time of my life so far.  Unfortunately, it wasn't just the environment we were making greener, it was also the people we dared to tell about the goings on in this little community we called home for 8 weeks every year. 

I guess you're a little greener now too.  You can thank me later.