Hell Week, Or Why Having a Positive Attitude Is a Crock Of Shit

Seriously, people! I have accepted that my default setting is tired. What more do you want? I’m trying hard to be upbeat and positive.

Just put your head down and plow on through. Stop bitching and just do what needs to be done. You can do it! You’re Super Woman!

OMG! Shut up! This week has been insane.

Sunday night I was typing out some blog posts when my computer went all wonky. I have no idea what happened, what I might have touched, what poltergeist might have hijacked my Mac. None! But even my kid couldn’t figure it out so I don’t feel so dumb. He told me to just shut the computer off and restart it, which I did. Only when I did that I could no longer open up the document that contains all of my posts. Hooray! This document is over 600 pages long! That was the excitement for Sunday night.

Monday was President’s Day. Working at a bank you’d think I would have that day off. You would be wrong. I work at one of the only banks in the city, possibly the state or even country, that remains open on most of the federal holidays. Naturally, since I didn’t have to take a kid to school I remained at my first job until about 7:30 instead of leaving at 7. I think that might have been an okay day. The only low key day of the week, in fact. But I’m so tired and have been run so ragged I don’t remember!

Tuesday I text my sister-in-law to see if she’ll be home and if I can come over to do some laundry. The washing machine is not draining so I can’t wash clothes. I also call the Apple store to try to make an appointment while I’m at work to figure out the issue with my document that won’t open and to get some help with synching my iPod since it will no longer download music. They need a serial number for my computer. I’m at work and my computer is at home so… no serial number. After work I stop at the grocery store and pick up a few items for dinner. I head home, pick up my daughter and then run her to work. She’s working 6-10. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue because I don’t usually work on Wednesdays because we don’t usually have a truck. But, as I mentioned earlier this week, we got an additional truck in and I ended up coming in, which means that after I pick her up at 10 that night I need to get to bed because I have to get up at 3:20 and go to work. Regardless, I drop her off, come back home and call the Apple store to make an appointment.

I don’t know if any of you have ever been in one of these stores and perhaps it varies from store to store, but at this one if you don’t have an appointment no one can help you because they are booked up with other appointment making customers. I didn’t want to drive out to the mall just to make an appointment so I figured this would save some time.

As you might have guessed I figured wrong. I ended up on the phone with two different people for almost 2 hours! Granted, my issues did get fixed without a trip to the store and I was grateful for that; however, I needed to do laundry desperately! It was almost 8:30 by the time I got done and I had to go pick up a child at 10. Long story short: no laundry. I then proceeded to “rest my eyes” for “just a minute” which resulted in me waking up at 9:55 and shooting out the door to pick up my daughter from work. Naturally, they didn’t get out until more like 10:15 which meant we didn’t get home until almost 10:30. Also, because I had fallen asleep in the chair before I picked her up I hadn’t taken  shower and I really didn’t want to have to get up any earlier. So, once we got home I hopped in the shower and then blew my hair dry before heading off to bed. If I go to sleep with it wet I wake up with it sticking out all over every which way. Fortunately it only takes about 5 minutes to blow it dry.

Wednesday comes and I am up again at 3:20. Our additional truck was HUGE and we got slammed. Additionally, they’ve had me bowling lately, which is when you take the pallets out of the back and pull them to the correct departments and then put all the boxes in the correct aisles. And THEN I go and help in soft lines. I think I might have actually been in soft lines all the time that day but I’d like to add this on to my list of complaints in Hell Week. Thank you! I will say though, in the spirit of trying to keep a positive attitude, that soft lines has made me rather soft so bowling allows me to once again work those biceps and develop some decent looking guns. There. Happy?

I get home and have to fill out the rest of the paperwork so that my daughter can participate in track, plus write out a check for the school’s mandatory additional insurance coverage.

Yep, Rock Star is trying track. I tried to get her to try it the last two years at her previous high school but she declined, even with various friends asking her. This time around a few of her cheer friends, including one of her best friends on the cheer team, talked her into it. So far, so good. The coach seems very impressed with her and asked her if she was sure she had never run track before. He told her he knew talent when he saw it and that obviously she was a natural athlete. All things that make Rock Star happy. Hooray!

Enough about her and how amazing she is. I went to one branch, clocked in, and then was asked to go to another branch. That wasn’t such a big deal. But then about two hours later I get a phone call telling me they’re going to need me to stay until 7:15. On my lunch hour I had to cancel dinner plans with my cousin and her friends (no worries- I don’t have sex with my cousins) and arrange for my daughter to be picked up after track practice.

I get home from work around 7:30, greeted by the sounds of my teenage daughter informing me that “there is nothing here to eat!” and that she needs to eat if she’s going to go to track practice every day after school. We head out the door at 7:30 so that I can buy a few items for lunch and buy a new red t-shirt. I was supposed to go over to my sister-in-law’s to try to do laundry one more time but with the later work schedule I couldn’t. This meant I had no more shirts to wear to work. I had already worn most of them twice by this time. I prefer not to stink when I go to work.

We get home from our little trip to Target around 8:30. I put away groceries and go to bed so that I can get up again at 3:20.

Thursday I work my two jobs. I come home from Job #1 and need to write out another check, this time for cheerleading. Something about t-shirts and a Senior Dinner. Realize sometime during the day that parent-teacher conferences are that evening. Shit!

So this was my evening (and keep in mind I haven’t had much time to sit back and decompress this entire week): I pick Rock Star up from practice. On my way home I stop at my sister-in-law’s house and start a load of laundry. Rocky decides to stay and hang out with Queen B so I head home and grab Picasso to head out for parent-teacher conferences. I attend conferences where I hear predominantly that he is a very smart boy but he’s not applying himself and tends to want to read or draw instead of listening to the teacher. I head home, grab another basket of laundry, run to my sister-in-law’s (she’s about 10 minutes away from me), pop in another load of laundry. She has switched over my first load. God bless her! I run back home so that I can shampoo the downstairs carpets where the dogs have their accidents. Rock Star was planning on having a friend spend the night Friday after school. She had cleaned up the house but I was left with the carpets and let’s face it, they needed it anyway. I shampoo that entire section with a Little Green Machine and then around 9 head back over to my sister-in-law’s. She has folded my first load; the second load is still in the dryer. I leave around 9:30, 10:00, go home, take a shower and hop in bed sometime between 10:30 and 11.

Friday I slept in until almost 3:30. I, of course, ended up bowling before doing soft lines. Worked my full-time job, headed home for a brief spell and then headed out to the final home basketball game to cheer on my little cheerleader. We got home around 10:00 and off to bed I went so that I could get up on Saturday morning.

Finally, the week is almost over! I went to work from 4-9. I try to stay later on Saturdays since it’s the only day I can work past 7 am. They have track practice on Saturdays so I took Rock Star to track practice, came home and tried to taker a nap before I had to return to fetch her and her friend, who didn’t spend the night on Friday but did come over Saturday. I laid down again once I got back from picking them up because my sweet J was taking me out for my birthday and I didn’t want to be yawning through the entire experience. She came by around 2 and we headed off to lunch, then out to the mall to walk around. What ended up happening is that we looked around on the shoe clearance rack and I finally found a pair of shoes I had been looking for and then I spotted these super cute dresses that reminded me of 1950s style dresses so I had to try one on. Then J got overheated so we left and went for ice cream instead of walking around the mall. She dropped me back off at home around 6 and I was nodding off in a chair by 8.

Today I am debating whether I want to take it easy, watch some TV, and maybe create a menu for the week and possibly do a little grocery shopping so I have everything, or if I want to head over to my sister-in-law’s and knock out some more laundry. I also need to clean up the downstairs, clean the bedroom,and  go through tons of mail. I keep telling myself that if I push myself and just work work work!!! that everything will be done and then I can relax and enjoy myself. We will see.

Here’s to hoping that this week will be a little more laid back. Although, come to think of it I do have two morning meetings which means I’m going to have to take my work clothes with me to Target and change in the bathroom so that I can be on time. One is a breakfast so I can’t complain. I never complain when people feed me!

Until next time here’s a reminder to…