Genuis

No it's not a typo. It's sort of a one-word oxymoron.

Many years ago, I worked with a guy who, one particularly busy day, placed a hand-written sign on his door that said: Do Not Disturb. Genuis at Work.

It was one of the funniest, most ironic things I've ever seen. And to this day, the word genuis (pronounced jen-you-is) comes to mind when my actions or someone else's warrant it.

Yesterday, I had a genuis moment when I went to retrieve my cell phone from charging and realized that although I had connected the phone to the cord, I never plugged the cord into the wall. Hmmm, not charged up. Genuis.

The day before that, I was driving to the high school to run on the indoor (smelly) track to avoid the cold rain, and for some reason I treated a two-way stop like a four-way stop and nearly caused an accident. Dumb. Genuis.

Fortunately, I rarely have two genuis moments in a row like this. I think I will blame it on sleep deprivation due to watching lots of Olympics and American Idol. Yes, that's it.

My Lack of Parenting Skills

Last night after a particulary ugly incident involving me losing my mind and temper with some of my children, I took a long walk. In less than four miles, I came to a few realizations.
1. I am a horrible parent.
2. All kids deserve a loving, patient mother figure in their lives.
3. I wasn't like this before I got married. I used to be fun and nice and even patient.
4. Chocolate and exercise might not be enough in terms of therapy.
5. I worry too much about the little things, including money. (But how do I stop worrying about stuff that's always been important to me?)
6. There are a lot of apartment complexes in our town that I didn't know existed.
7. I needed to apologize to two kids and one husband (I did one before I left and the others after I got back).
8. I am not a quitter, but I felt defeated.

Unfortunately, I haven't solved my problem yet. But I have given up hope for winning StepMother of the Year Award. Ain't gonna happen. Evah. But I am looking for ways to improve. And since leaving the situation is not an option, nor is sedation, I am compiling a list of ideas.

How to Avoid a Stress/Child-Induced Temper Outburst: (feel free to add your ideas)
1. Walk away and take time out.
2. Count to 10. (I never stop to think to count, so this doesn't work for me.)
3. Learn not to care about whatever it is that is setting you off. (How do I not care?)
4. Ignore the little ankle biters.
5. Put up signs to remind you to be nice. (Mine are up too high. I don't see them enough.)
6. Pretend your kids are actually nieces, nephews or neighbor kids since we seem to treat other kids better than our own. Maybe I could give them different names. That might work.
7. Take up karate or some other discipline that leads to self mastery. Nah. Not my thing.
8. Run/massage for stress relief. (I already do this, it's not enough.)
9. Beg God for help in doing better and thank Him for this opportunity to "re-set" myself. There's a thought.

Save your praise for someone else. I deserve very little. But I am taking suggestions for my list.

PBS Fund-Raising Diet Plan

I'm not that big of a TV watcher, but I like to have something on when I'm doing a little weight training at home. So we flipped through the channels, and (since the Jazz game wasn't on) we landed on PBS and what was listed as America's National Parks. I had heard great things about this series so I started watching.

I soon came to realize that this was the story of the Donner Party--a group of Irish immigrants who moved from Illinois to California in 1846-7 and took a short-cut over the Sierra Nevadas and into 9 blizzards. "What does this have to do with the national parks?" I asked aloud. Jim replied, "They have a park named after them." I kept exercising and watching...

In horror as they gave detailed descriptions of what those poor people went through. The massive and endless blizzards, living in snow caves, the starvation, the madness, the dead bodies in the snow, the cannibalism. The forlorn hope group that went out in search of help. Let me tell you, this show may do wonders as a diet program!

Suddenly, the show stopped mid-stream and a live host in a studio was asking for contributions. "Are you kidding me? This show is way too depressing for people to want to send money. Most watchers are throwing up right now, or they changed the channel after an especially grim detail was shared."

Lying in bed an hour or so later, I realized that Jim was full of crap when he said that there was a national park named after the Donner party. So I called him on it. We laughed. "There's a statue there, they showed it!" Yes, honey, there is a statue. It is probably a state monument. But not a NATIONAL PARK.

Moral 1. Don't believe everything people say, cause half the time they're making it up.
Moral 2. Don't take any short-cuts.

P.S. All of the 5 women in the forlorn hope group survived. Only 2 of the 10 men did.

P.P.S The only family that didn't lose any members was the Reed family--and they were the only ones who never did eat people.