Hello, Weekend.

It’s Friday night, this is where my husband found me, as he played with his new I-phone: the bath tub, with my supplies nearby.

It’s been a long, long week. Work trip. Reports. Truck stops. Beef Jerky. Beaver t-shirts. Hotel Food. Zero sleep. Yuck.

The first week of school has come and gone, we are already well into Algebra, Physics, Football and girls.

Work ran past 5 pm today and will likely spill right on over into the weekend.

I crawled into the bathtub at 9 pm or so and just tried to stay awake and not accidentally slip under, inhale a gallon of water, come up choking, and scar my children for life if someone had to do CPR on their choking mother, straight out of a bath tub.

I’m sure Tyler never intended on his life guard CPR training being used on his mom in the bath tub, tired from a long work week. As if. He’d give it a good 5 minutes before he rescued me from drowning in my bubble bath, and I’m sure my three kids would stand just outside the bathroom door and rock-paper-scissors their way into deciding who went in first. I’d be half dead.

Anyways, there I was, in my bubbles, Cheez Its on hand, Julie Child’s bio nearby. The only thing you can’t see is my glass of wine.

Oh, and I had sunglasses on to hold my hair back because I’ve learned a short hair lesson the hard way: It doesn’t matter if you are Posh Spice, Kate Gosselin, or Queen Victoria-if you go to bed with short hair that’s wet, when you wake up in the morning, it’s not Fashionable, it’s Frankensteinish.

Of course, if you are Kate Gosselin, the back of your head looks like that anyways.

I should stop making fun of her hair I guess, she has enough issues.

Kate, if you read this, ignore me, I’m tired, I’m sure you can relate.

Somehow, I’ve made it to the end of what seemed like a work week that would never end.

But I really like my Bucee Beaver Boxer shorts. I promise, they are much cuter when you are wearing them at home, than when you are in a hotel room and open the door for room service.

At least that’s what my husband tells me. ;)

Hello, weekend, I’m so glad to see you.

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And English is Terribly Boring

I arrived home today from my work trip to Dallas, still feeling some of the mom guilt that crept up on me for missing the first few days of school.

I’m sure the fatigue I was feeling had nothing to do with the 4 hours of beauty rest I got in the hotel, or the truck-stop-diet I started on the inbound trip (bad idea.)

The business meetings wrapped up early and I hightailed it out as quickly as possible for the four hour drive home, feeling tired, and skipping every truck stop (no beef jerky this time, I learned my lesson.)

Ah, what 48 hours can do in terms of how you look at your kids.

I swear they’d grown an inch.

Okay, not really. But I was thrilled to see their smiling, sweaty faces.

They were anxious to tell me about the new school year, and I was ready to hear it.

I heard all about the teachers…..one teacher is supposedly 71 years old, one has less hair than me (hard to believe) and several are (right now) very ‘cool.’

As they crouched at the edge of the bed and tag teamed me with back to school stories, it was like a verbal ping pong match. I just sat and listened, my head bobbing back and forth.

Jordan: “Mom, I have lunch with all my good friends.’

Chase: “Yeah and we actually have the same lunch but we don’t sit together, so don’t ask.”

Jordan: “And I’ve already learned 5 Spanish words” (I’m praying they are not swear words.)

Ping pong, back and forth. Teachers, friends, classes, and of course, ‘I need money.’

Then Jordan said, “But English is terribly boring.”

I almost replied, “and would you like some tea and crumpets for dinner?”

My almost-twelve-year-old has a tendency to sound like  Robin Williams uncensored on HBO, but can, in the next breath, sound just like Prince Charles. He has always done this, and you never know if you are going to get the king or the comedian.

It’s just like him, all smelly and boy like, to say “English is terribly boring” instead of something more tween-ish like “English class sucks.”

Hearing him say that, listening to them voluntarily chat up a storm with me, when I am lucky to get a text messages that say anything more than “IDK”, erased most of the guilt I felt about being gone.

I’m home.

We’ll see what happens though in three weeks when progress reports come out.

It will either be, “that stupid teacher gave me a bad grade” or “I’m terribly happy with my progress this year.”

Or, he’ll be cursing us all out in Spanish.

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I'm Just Saying....

If you're like me, and a working mom, here are a few tips if you happen to be out of town on the first day of school:

1.) Don't stop at a truck stop on your trip and buy beef jerky, praline rolls, AND Diet Cokes to eat on your trip, if you are overcome with guilt about not being there to greet your teenagers when they get off the bus, and you suddenly have a binge junk food spree.

2.) If you do decide to buy any of the above, be sure you buy lots of Pepto because by the time you reach your said work destination, you ain't gonna be in any shape to work. Unless you eat that stuff on a daily basis anyhow, and even then, I'm just saying, it's not fun.

3.) If you get to your hotel, and, out of sheer guilt that you are not home on a day you kids are certain to never remember, but your tired brain tells you the opposite, and you for some stupid reason follow up the truck stop beef jerky with room service, don't order anything with french fries to chase down the truck stop food. If you do, refer to tip #2, and double the amount you purchase.

4.) If the truck stop you were dumb enough stop at happens to sell really cute themed boxers and t-shirts, and you decide to have a shopping spree to go with your beef jerky, praline roll, and sodas, don't put your new digs on until AFTER the room service arrives. Bus boys give you really strange looks if they show up with dinner and you are all alone dressed in Bucee Beaver themed clothes from head to toe, regardless of how cute Bucee is.

5.) Last tip, most important. Once you get to the hotel, under no circumstances should you listen to your Ipod if it has any Harry Chapin on it, especially that awful, terrible working mom song: Cat's in the Cradle. Once you hear the verse about 'the new jobs a hassle and the kids have the flu, it's been sure nice talking to you dad,' you should hope your room is on the first floor so you aren't tempted to end the working mom guilt with a leap.

One extra: if you manage to get photos of your kids on the first day of school, before you leave for your work trip, and are dumb enough do all of the above, by all means, share them.

They are, after all, probably the reason you are working to begin with.

I don't know anything about all that stuff.

I'm just sayin....

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ISTology

I had my weekly IST visit this week.

Not the pedicurIST or the acupuncturIST, although I clearly saw a hair stylIST if you’ve seen my head.

If you’re new to my blog, I’m referring to the therapIST (I hate to use that word, since I’m so private and all, so I refer to her as the IST) I recently started visiting, as a way to get a third party opinion on how to find my life again, without using drugs, too much alcohol, or a straight jacket.

After this week’s visit, I believe she might have just dropped some sort of listening device into my purse last week when I wasn’t looking.

Get this: the woman has me pegged after speaking to me, well, you know, more like letting me speak mostly, for less than two hours total, half of which was spent with her contorting her chart to accommodate my lengthy lineage.

But, somehow, she’s very quickly figured me out. It’s a little creepy. I’m thinking someone I know surely found her contact information and e-mailed her the Wiki report on Shannon.

I’m actually kinda surprised she didn’t see my cuckoo haircut and immediately write me some sort of anti-anxiety prescription.

Now that I think about it though, that hair cut probably went right along with the personality she had sitting in front of her gabbing away: ‘where did she get that hair, never mind, it makes total sense’ is I am sure what she was writing in my chart.

Crazy hair or not, she already has me thinking about things in a different light.

Working mom, at home mom, single mom, 39.9999999999 year old mom-I’m not sure the titles matter that much, at least not to me.

If she can help me find the recipe for some work life balance, throw in a dash of higher cause type fulfillment, sprinkle in a way to have a healthier lifestyle while working 80 hours a week and raising teenagers, and ensure I don’t go broke or get divorced in the process (that’s a joke, honey, if you’re reading this), I will go in there with my head shaved.

Well, maybe not.

Oh, who knows, my head is half way there already.

And no, I’m not posting a photo.

The IST might not think that’s good for me.

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A Happy Tune

Today didn’t start off much better than yesterday.

I managed to get the coffee and breakfast in, but from the second the alarm went off, I could feel the stress.

I had three training sessions to do before lunch and anytime I have trainings, I’m stressed.

Not because I have to talk in front of groups of people for 4 hours straight. No issues for me with talking in front of people or even to brick walls. I can talk, that’s not a problem. No one even needs to be listening.

Training stresses me out because regardless of how much my Type AAA personality prepares the night before: projector, training materials, books, supplies…I always feel like I am going to forget something, be late, leave the power cord to the projector at home.

I made it to the car with all the supplies, plugged in the I-Pod to give my morning ritual one more chance.

No Amy Winehouse this morning telling me to go to Rehab.

No Britney reminding me that life is a Circus. I know that already.

What do I hear but Alan Jackson’s amazing voice singing ‘How Great Thou Art,’ a song I added to my I-Pod for my grandmothers funeral earlier this year.

I listened to the song not once but three times.

I instantly felt relief and made it to the training, power cord and all.

Short mom blog today, as tonight I am working with my co-workers (and taking my 16 year old son) cooking dinner for the residents at the Houston Ronald McDonald House.

Sure, I’m tired, and it’s been a long week.

But I’m thankful to have the opportunity to show Tyler how fortunate he is, how fortunate we are.

As long as they don’t ask me to cook, we’re good.

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