A cute what?

Whew. I'm home. It feels like I've been away from my family and my beloved blogs forever.

That's because at this meeting, the tech support people stole my laptop, and didn't give it back to me until late Thursday, and by then I was so tired I could barely remember how to open it, let alone write anything that made sense.

A good time was had by at least a dozen at this meeting. I got my Corporate Cliche tank filled up again, that's always super cool. One of the guys doing lots of the talking likes to say "from that perspective." A lot. Like in every sentence. I'll try it here.

I'm glad to be home, from that perspective. My kids missed me from that perspective. I missed them, from my perspective. Where do we stand today? Well, from my perspective I think we're on the right path, as long as we keep focused on what our primary goals are, from that perspective.

See? It's awesome.

The real highlight of the meeting came on Wednesday afternoon. Our company's executive committee, entirely from Europe, came to address the group. Each member told a story, shared a laugh, and answered some canned questions. English isn't their first language (they range from Eyetalian to Fronch to Belgian and I think we had a German up there, too).

Our Head Guy, CEO type guy, is Belgian. He shared his vision for the company, and then during the Q&A portion got super personal. Here's a little snippet of what he said:

I vas a surjeekahl veterinarienne by trade, so zer are a lot of aneemals at me house, yes? My fazzer had canserre, and zees causes mee to take a special interest in medeecinz. Alzo my fazzer died of acute, acute vazeena...

You know what? I didn't know a man could die of a cute vagina! I had no idea. Poor guy. Must be a Belgian disease.

Then I flew home. Yay. Good to be back among the insanity, although it was good to sleep for four straight nights, too.

- H

The good news is I had pants on.

I've been a little tired lately. First, there was the new puppy in the house who cried at night and peed every five minutes. So every five minutes I was standing in the front yard with her, telling her to go potty. She did. She's well on her way to being potty trained, except for the part where she doesn't go potty in the house. That part is confusing to her.

Then there are the two children who live in this house with me. For a while there, the Small Boy was waking up in the night and crying for me. I'd bring him up to bed, he'd thrash around and make a lot of noise, kick, complain about stuff, and end up back in his crib happy as a clambake. I, on the other hand, was left wide awake, or at the very least only able to sleep another hour before the older one would come stumbling into my room to climb over me and hog the middle of the bed.

This went on for some time. Weeks.

This very week has been a bit challenging. Repeat of Small Boy's nighttime waking, which then served to wake puppy (who had actually been sleeping through the night for the past week or two, thank you very much), which then brought about a midnight stand in the front yard while she pottied, and then tromping back up to bed, and then bringing complaining Small Boy back down to his crib at 4:00, then another front yard stand while Ruby pottied because if I'm up, why can't she be up and after all there were voices in the house so she deserved to get up again.

Fridays are typically an office day for me. Which means I don't have to get dressed up, I just work from home and sit on conference calls most of the day. I put on my sweater knit lounge pants and a t-shirt. Then Cecilia, my cleaning lady who talks a lot, showed up, so I left the house for a while because it drives me nuts to be here while she's here and she comes on Fridays (yes, I need to revisit that idea).

I went where I always go when I need to get out of the house. Target. I shopped, stocked my cart full o' goodies, and came home. I was sitting at my desk, drafting a contract when I looked down.

My pants were on inside out.

Seams exposed.

Tag hanging out the back.

No wonder the girl behind me in line at Target looked at me funny.

- H

Happy Mother's Day

This is the best day of the year. The day that dawns brighter than any other. The day that makes me giddy with happiness and feel instantly lighter.

My mom comes home today.

My parents are snowbirds. They live in Florida in the winter and here in St. Louis the rest of the year. They moved here five years ago, just in time for me to get married and have my first baby. I was nervous when they first told us they were coming. In hindsight, that must have been a little bit of temporary insanity because having them here is the Most Wonderful Thing in the World. Just ask my sons, who were fake crying in the car tonight because they said they wanted Grandma. Putting Griffin down to bed this week has been a breeze. I just tell him he needs to rest up because Grandma's coming home, and he settles down instantly.

They leave shortly after New Year's every year and come back right about now. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.

Happy Mother's Day to me!

- H

*sigh* More disappointment...*sigh* (are you feeling bad enough to vote yet?)

My french terry JJ top made it into the second day for voting at Spring Top Week! Yay!!! You could stop by over there (by clicking on that clicky link I just highlighted) and vote for a top you like, if you like.

I would be more excited but I'm freakishly tired. Griffin was up crying at 12:30 so I brought him into bed with us, then Ruby wanted to go out because she heard all the excitement. Then she wanted to go out at 3:30 again, then both boys started hogging the bed bad and Griffin whimpered a lot in his sleep, then I was up at 6:30 taking the puppy out again because my hubs was perfecting his beauty routine in the shower.

And my favorite hairbrush has gone missing.

So it's a gonna be a long day, friends.

- H

Well, crapbag.

OK, I think I can admit defeat. There are two tops that are winning by a landslide in the first day's voting, and mine isn't one of them. (Here's the link to the page in case you haven't seen it. You have to vote to see the tally.)

Which totally doesn't surprise me because I really was shocked to have made it into the pool. Really. Not fake shock, but real shock, not like Academy Awards nominees who say "I am really just honored to have been nominated," but they'd claw their own mother's eyes out to win.

No, not like that. I like my mom too much for that. Plus, she's the one to blame for everything who taught me how to sew, so I can't do that to her.

I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that my taste just isn't the mainstream. Because the two tops that are in a dead neck-and-neck heat to win weren't at all on my top list from this grouping. I'll give you a little hinty hint. I liked the burgundy one with the aqua buttons, and I liked Hokidoki's cute peplum top, those two are probably my favorites.

*sigh*

Kinda makes me want to go eat another piece of cardboard-disguised-as-pizza from the airport Sbarro. No, now that I think of that it makes me want to puke and puking plus flying just isn't a great idea either. I think I'll weep silently as I stand in the A boarding line at my Southwest gate. Lots of people do that.

- H