A reluctant volunteer

I signed on to post tonight in lieu of doing productive household things, you know, cleaning the bathroom, laundry, anything, really. The garbage desperately needs to go out, too - it's been in the house so long that I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly stood up and took itself out, glaring at me with disgust as it went. And I would say, "What? I can't get up right now because I'm busy sending shamrocks back to people on Facebook. I was going to take you out eventually!"

Today was a busy day. This week has been a busy week. Bubba has spent his time cutting canine teeth, being miserable and sleeping as little as possible, and when baby don't sleep, well....guess who else hasn't been getting her beauty sleep. My under-eye circles are so dark that someone actually thought I had a black eye.

The weekend isn't offering any relief, either. There was a miscommunication between myself and my beloved cookie mom, and I found out today I am expected at a cookie booth sale at 3:15 tomorrow. This promises to be somewhat difficult, logistically, since I don't get off work until 4:00. I did manage to shift some things around (with the aid of some helpful relatives- love ya, Jen!) and I'll be able to accommodate the booth sale.

I have to admit that I really, really didn't want to take the high road with this issue. I had e-mailed cookie mom weeks ago and told her that I could probably, with notice, rearrange my schedule to make one of the two Friday booth sales she had scheduled, if she let me know which one she wanted me to work. I saw her at church on Ash Wednesday and verified that she had, in fact, received my e-mail, and she said that she had and would be replying shortly, and then never did. I had no idea that she had penciled me in. When she said she would see me tomorrow I just sort of blankly said, "Wha?" (because I have a way with words, you know) and she said she had me on the schedule for tomorrow. I wanted to stomp my feet and whine, "But you said said you would e-mail me and let me know where I was needed and you never did that and I am busy and I don't want to do it and I'm not gonna!". But I didn't, I just sort of gulped it all down and said fine, I would be there.

We are selling at the naval commissary, though, which is hard to get to without a military ID. If the gate guys search my car I will die of embarrassment, because it is dirty. That has happened to me before - after 9/11, there was a huge (and understandable) increase in security measures to board any military property in the area. Everyone was subject to search, and one day, going onto NAS to visit the museum with Bella when she was but a wee little lass, I was selected for a more extensive search. The guard had to open all my doors, and stuff fell out every time he did it. And when I opened my trunk for the man he literally laughed out loud, because it was chock full of random stuff. I felt horribly embarrassed and asked him if he wanted me to take the stuff out so he could look around, and he said no, he didn't think we had that kind of time. You would think I would have learned a lesson from that, but no. I spend a lot of time in my car, ferrying children around, going to and from work, whatever else you can think of, and my car looks like what it is: a roving storage unit/office/pantry/insert anything else you can imagine here,because it's probably in my car. I'm working on it. Just like I'm cleaning the bathroom right now.

Bella was invited to stay the night at a friend's house tomorrow night, too. My co-leader has two daughters, one a year older than Bella and one a year younger, so she can play with either or both, and they invited her to stay over. They have a fabulously huge piece of property, with lots of land. They have a horse, they have a chicken coop, they have a heated pool and they have a hot tub. Heck, I would spend the night there. Bella eagerly agreed, which is fine, but they live waaaay out in the country, so the drive to their house is a long one. And I'll have to pick her up before work Saturday, slicing an hour from my time that morning. But that's OK, I'm sure Bella will enjoy herself, and that makes it worth it.

Tomorrow is going to be a even busier day than today, so I probably need to clean the house before the garbage does come to life. It would probably form an alliance with the dishwasher and attempt to mount some sort of household coup, so I must vanquish them both before they have the opportunity. To the kitchen!