I often make deals with myself about things I'm not sure I want to do.  This morning I am going walking with my Weight Watchers group and I'm not totally sure I want to go.  So I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't set my alarm and I would just sleep until I woke up.  If I woke up with plenty of time (because I don't want to rush), I would go walking.

Of course, the fact that I fell asleep by 10:00pm probably didn't help my case any, but I woke up at 7:00am.  I laid there for a long time "being tired and exhausted;" that was the excuse I made to myself.  I even tried to fall back to sleep.

I don't even know why I don't want to go.  I guess I always have trepidation for doing things I've never done (remembering the day I had to go to Seattle to pick up my daughter's Sakura-con ticket).  But I usually end up having a good time. 

I stack up fears about what I'm doing... I don't know where the park is; what if everyone walks faster than me; I should have been walking this week so I won't be left behind. 

But I made that deal with myself and here I am with plenty of time to eat and even blog.  So here I go.  Tomorrow I'll probably be telling you what a good time I had and about all the new people I met. 

I don't get out enough.

A couple days ago I was having an internal war between my technical writer and creative writer over my writers' group's policy document.

So I compromised and decided to reformat the original document to make it more readable and concise.  It took me all day, but I thought I had conquered it.

Yesterday I decided to make sure I had caught all the changes someone had made on the hard copy of the document.  When I started reviewing it, I realized some of the text was missing.

Someone put the document into Publisher instead of Word (it wasn't me, it came to me like that).  Well, Publisher requires a "text box" for text, a "graphic box" for graphics, etc.  Every category of this document had a different text box.  So if the text goes longer than the physical lines of the text box, it just ends and indicates there is more by using "..." 

Guess what?  I was missing a lot of text.  I decided I was going to have to switch it all to a Word document by copying and pasting.  Then I'll probably have to reformat it.  The meeting is today at 1:00pm. 

Like everything and everyone, I have waited until the last minutes to work on this document. 

I'm just proud of myself for tackling it on Wednesday instead of today.  And because I have to get this done before 1:00pm, I can't possibly do the dishes, fold the clothes or make dinner.  Too bad, I just wish I was getting paid for this work, it would look better on my yearly domestic goddess review.  I'll never get a raise now. 

Oh yeah,  they don't pay me to take care of my family.  I can do whatever I want!

The sun is shining right now, but it can't fool me.  If I wait five minutes it's going to be pouring down rain.  The clouds coming behind the sun are black and they are probably moving faster than it looks.

I would like to go for a walk, but I really don't want to walk in the rain, so I will sit here and write and look out my window and think of nicer days ahead (I hope). 

A little torrential rain is nothing compared to tornadoes in the south and east US.  I really shouldn't complain.  My house is still standing.

It seems to be terminal winter, although my garden and lawn don't seem to notice.  I have weeds that are happy to be growing out of control and a lawn that grows an inch every time I walk by.  I would like to go outside and get a little dirty digging in the garden.  But it's cold enough and wet enough to keep me inside.

Maybe I really want to go outside because I have dishes to do, laundry to fold and dinner to plan.  Which I would still have to do if I went outside, but at least I wouldn't see it.

Sigh.  Terminal winter sucks.

I'm recorder for my writers' group.  We have a large group of writers who meet every three months for a general membership meeting.  We take care of the kind of business a non-profit group needs to take care of, then we socialize for 10 minutes, then we have a speaker. 

We also have a board meeting every three months.  I take minutes for both of these business meetings.  Well, the great thing about being a recorder for a writers' group is that the agenda is so complete all I have to do is have it on my laptop during the meeting and record the answers to the questions.  I have even sent the minutes to the board within minutes of the meeting's end. 

Along with having a group like this is you have to follow some government mandated rules and have policies and procedures.  I took on the job of updating the "Protocols and Policies." 

In my previous life, I was a technical writer.  Although it's been 16 years since I was in this job, whenever I am handed a task such as updating protocol and policies (or any kind of paperwork for that matter), the technical writer escapes and runs rampant.

So the bad thing about being a recorder for a writers' group is that the Protocols and Policies are currently written in a prose format like a creative writer tends to do.  The technical writer in me is screaming at this formatting nightmare and has proceeded to change the formatting of the whole thing. 

The technical writer in me wants to take a big red pen and eliminate all the prose wording, because anyone reading protocol and policies will not care about "making reservations for a luncheon in which to engage in social interaction."  Technical writing is nitty-gritty, get down to business, don't confuse the reader sort of writing.  There are no flouncy, descriptive words to engage the reader.  It's dry reading, but the reader should be able to quickly find what they are looking for without wading through a swamp of prose.

Then the multi-tasking mother who doesn't have extra time to waste comes out in me and tells me to just make the changes on the document they gave you and tell them about how it could be in case they reject your idea to reformat and rewrite the whole thing and then you would have wasted your time and do you really want to spend time rewriting the whole thing anyway.

The creative writer in me has nothing to say; she's busy sitting on the technical writer.

Yesterday I really did just kick back and relax.  After Weight Watchers I read a book, took a nap and just made a quick and easy dinner.  We didn't even eat at the table. 

Then I was lounging in my bedroom and it happened.  I heard my oldest daughter use the intercom to call her father in from the shop.  She was having a problem with our small, hand-held vacuum cleaner. 

What's the big deal you ask?  She didn't tell me first; that is a HUGE deal.  Usually, even if the kids know I can't do anything about a problem, like a mechanical problem, they tell me first.  Then I have to tell them to tell their dad. 

Not only did my daughter not tell me, she used the intercom to call him in from the shop; she didn't ask me where he was or what to do.... she skipped me altogether.

When my husband came in, I was afraid to make a peep and call attention to myself.  I really had no idea up to that point what the problem was.  I was just sitting there in disbelief that I wasn't involved.

Once I did finally ask, because my husband was sighing and grumbling so loud I gave in, he didn't disappoint.  He made it my problem by asking me what he should do with it as there seemed to be a dry bearing in the motor.  I told him to throw it away.  But he can't stand to do that, so he googled and then proceeded to follow me around telling me all the options.  I told him to throw it away; after all, the burning motor smell and the loud squealing noise said all I needed to know. 

I don't know what he finally decided; it's still sitting on my kitchen table in pieces. 

I should've kept quiet.

There is no noise left in my head.  I have nothing pressing to get done today and nothing pressing in the near future. 

My in-laws and their friend arrived an hour early and my husband was still plumbing the sink, not to mention the old sink was sitting the in front yard like a white-trash, redneck lawn ornament, but it was all okay. 

Within the 1/2 hour the sink was usable.  We were too early for mass and had to wait for the crowd from the last mass to leave, but we got primo seats and our guests were pleased with the service.  My in-laws and their friend aren't Catholic, but they came to our Easter service because their church wasn't doing anything special.  But, hey, we're Catholic!  Big Christian events like the resurrection and birth of Christ are ALWAYS special in a Catholic church; that's why everyone who doesn't come to church normally goes to church on Easter and Advent.

Dinner was awesome; I grilled salmon and roasted red potatoes and asparagus and ended the meal with strawberry shortcake.  Simple, easy, but delicious. 

The priest goes on a two-week vacation after Lent; he was getting a little drummy during the noon mass, which was the last mass of the weekend. He talked about renewing our baptism with a fire hose instead of sprinkling us all with the wand he dips and wished us luck in figuring out how to receive communion with the huge crowd.  It was his last obligation for Holy week; I'm sure he was exhausted. 

I'm exhausted too after all the 16th birthday parties, Living Stations presentations with 27 kids, and Easter dinner and company (glad I didn't have to plumb the bathroom sink).   So today, I'm not going to do anything for anyone else but me.  I'm going to Weight Watchers, I'll make dinner out of leftover Easter dinner, and then I'm going to either sit and read a book or watch something on Netflix and crochet. 

Or maybe I'll just sit in front of the fireplace and enjoy listening to the silence in my head.  It probably won't last long; it never does.

There will be nine people here tomorrow for Easter dinner.  I've been feeling very organized and together since yesterday.  I did my grocery shopping for Easter, the Good Friday Youth Stations performance and cleanup went off perfectly, and I got my youngest daughter all ready to go to her anime convention.  I even had breathing time last night.

So what do I decide to do this morning?  Remodel the bathroom, of course.  It's just the way I roll!  Always, always grab the opportunities to update when I have my husband's attention. 

My husband and I have gone to Home Depot four or five times looking at different options for this bathroom.  It's the kids' bathroom, in the hallway and it's very small.  Actually, both our bathrooms are very small.  I've updated both of them once in the nineteen years we've lived here.  But today's target has lived with small children, guests, pets and other creatures that are tough on small bathrooms. 

The biggest hassle in this bathroom is finding a sink small enough to fit.  The biggest challenge is finding something that will go with the pink tile in the bathtub (it was popular in the 60's).  We found a sink with a dark cabinet, but the top is a gold/black/white marble with kind of pink undertones.  I thought it wouldn't work and I'd have to paint the walls which are white with spatters of green and red that match the linoleum.  But when we got it home, we took it out of the box and oddly enough, it blends in quite well.  Hmm. Go figure. 

Anyway, can't you all hear my husband's sigh of relief?  All he needs to do is slip it in and redo the plumbing.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Although I was kicking and screaming up until I finally accepted my fate of going downtown yesterday, it was a good afternoon.

I got the chance to learn several new things: I found out exactly where the Sound transit center is,  I figured out all the convenient stops it makes to the different great places in Seattle,  I got to know one of my daughter's friend's mom a lot better, I realized it was all easier than I thought, and perhaps staying home a lot makes me paranoid.

When we got the to Convention Center the other mom and I followed our four giggling, squealing charges up the escalators only to discover at the top that two of them did not have their signed permission slips from their parents.  Can't get your entry badge without signed permission from the parents, which meant that it would be a wasted trip, because they'd have to come back and wait in line on Saturday morning anyway.

I had decided that morning I was going to have my husband meet me at the middle school when I picked up my daughter so he could take her school laptop home.  I didn't want it sitting in my car in a parking lot for several hours.   Then we decided he should take all of the kids' stuff home with him. 

When the lady at the desk told us she couldn't do anything without the kids' permission slips, but told us there was a Kinko's copy center in the building, my mind slipped into it's "under pressure problem solving mode."  One of the girls had left her permission slip in her backpack which was now conveniently in my husband's truck.  The other girl had parents and a fax machine at home. 

So we had her parents fax the permission slip to Kinko's and I had my older daughter scan the permission slip from the other girl's backpack and email it to Kinko's.  For $1.72, we averted near disaster.  The other mom and I were so relieved we about cried.  She was so grateful I was there and I had thought of sending my husband home with all the kids' stuff otherwise it would have been locked in her trunk in a parking lot miles away.  I was so grateful I'm good under pressure. 

So we celebrated with freshly made crepes from an outdoor stand.  It ended up to be a lot of fun and all my stress and mental temper tantrums yesterday were for naught.

Maybe I just spend too much time home alone.  I need to get out more!

Today is my little field trip day to downtown Seattle with my daughter and her friend and her friend's mom.  We are going to pick up the tickets the kids purchased online for the anime convention.  I'm mentally kicking and screaming because I do not want to spend my afternoon this way.  Why couldn't the company mail the tickets like other places who require you buy tickets in advance? 

We are taking Sound Transit so we don't have to fight traffic and parking, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse.  I suppose going into Seattle would be easy because we would be going opposite the traffic.  But coming home would be terrible. 

I have to come to this mental place of acceptance; mentally kicking and screaming all day is wearing and I won't get anything else done if I keep it up. 

I hate days like this when I don't want to be the responsible adult in the family. 

Like many things in my life, I have learned more about wig caps than I ever wanted to know.  And because I had to learn it, I am going to tell you whether you want to know or not.

There are a couple types of wig caps.  One is the type that is only a pad; this type is for chemo patients who have lost their hair and need the padding to protect their skin.  The other type of wig cap is the kind a person uses to hold their hair out of the way.  The lady at the medical  supply place in the hospital (oh yeah, I went there too) told me it was just a nylon stocking that you use to try on shoes.  And since a gal at a beauty supply place told me the only place to find a wig cap was at a wig store and the closest one was in Federal Way, I decided to be cheap and lazy and bought my daughter a couple fifty cent nylon stockings to put over her head.

All the way home I argued with her in my head, because she was actually at school.  In my head I told her I loved her and had already spent many hours and much gas looking for the pieces to her costume and now this wig cap.  In my head I refused to drive 25 miles out of the way to the next city to get this item for her and the nylon stocking was going to have to do. 

Then I came home and put the nylon stocking on my head.  Now my only experience with a nylon stocking on someone’s head was when my grandmother burst into her guest bedroom where my sister and I were sleeping when we were children.  We wouldn’t be quiet and go to sleep and my father was getting angry with us.  So my grandmother put the nylon stocking over her head and burst into the room and scared us. The screams, that quickly turned into hysterical laughter, carried out to my father who came storming down the hallway only to find his mother-in-law standing in the bedroom with a nylon stocking smashing her face into a grotesque shape.  My father just gave up and walked away shaking his head.  So whenever I think of a nylon stocking, I think of my grandmother (I bet my sister does too).

All that went through my brain when I put the nylon stocking on my head.  The next thing I thought was how tight is was.  At that point I knew it wouldn't work because I’m sure it would have given my daughter a headache within an hour of wearing it. 

So I did what every red-blooded American does; I googled “what is a wig cap.”  Oddly enough, there are many references to wig caps and how to use them.  One site mentioned "party/costuming” stores.

Finally, the neurons in my brain clicked together (or imploded) and I realized Party City is also a costuming store.  I gave them a call; they had ten wig caps.  All I could do by then is bang my head against the desk and tell them I’d be there in a few minutes.  It's not in my neighborhood, but it is still in my city.

My daughter told me when we started out three days ago that we should look at Party City.  I told her she was wrong.  To me Party City is where I went to find my little kids' party supplies, not where I went to find a costume.  When I mentioned it to my older daughter she said "why wouldn't they have wig caps, they sell costume wigs." 

It is so hard to admit you're wrong when you're a mom.  But it's harder to admit when your kid is r-r-r-right.