Scooters and Selfishness

Read ahead for the okay to be a selfish person...

Well, Joel has the kids outside. They have been anxiously awaiting scooter-time all day! Grammy & Papa got them the cutest scooters for Easter. Logan's is a Radio Flyer, Aiden's is Spiderman & Abbi's is Disney Princesses... imagine that!

I love this, because I can watch them out the window, and see their happiness from a distance, but I'm also free to indulge in some Kelly time! It's priceless.

I was talking to someone the other day (they shall remain nameless), and this person mentioned how women can be so self-centered... spoiling themselves with extracurriculars, such as pedicures, nights out with the girls, massages, shopping after work, etc. I kept sitting there thinking, 'that is how I keep myself sane'... but I didn't say it. I just said that we all need some pampering time... some time for us.

The economy being the way it is has put a halt to some of those extracurriculars, but I still think it is so important for we, as women, to find time for ourselves, and to truly enjoy it. I'm not saying that the time we spend with our kids is not truly enjoyable... it is... but the small things we do for ourselves are the primary reasons we have happiness to share... with our kids, our spouses, our friends, etc.

Here is a list of some of the things I do for myself. Selfish or not, I truly believe they make me a more enjoyable person to be around!

1) I have my nails done every 3-4 weeks and my toes done on occasion.

2) I read... a lot. I love to read in bed with a mound of pillows and big, fluffy blankets!

3) I listen to music... a lot! I burn CD's and have music for any kind of mood. Music is one of my outlets.

4) I write. Since starting my book, and my blog, I find it to be amazingly therapeutic and fun! And the fact that people are actually interested enough to read it is a major ego boost! (so don't stop reading, k?) :)

5) I collect Betty Boop and Hello Kitty goodies. Thanks to my friend Anne, my entire desk area at work is decorated with a Betty Boop theme. It makes me happy to walk in to the activity room each day I have to work!

6) I sing. I have a karaoke page on MySpace and it is the primary reason I leave my account open. I absolutely love to sing!

7) I Facebook. It's a great way to keep in contact (or to get back into contact) with friends from school. It's also a fabulous gossip chain, whether subscribers like to admit it or not. :)

8) I enjoy a girls' night out every now & again. Drinks are optional, because we normally act & feel drunk whether we actually are or not.

9) I go on dates with my husband. Just because you get married, you don't have to stop dating ladies!

10) I take a bath when I'm extremely stressed out. A book... candles... the ultimate luxury.

I don't feel guilty (unless money is tight) and I enjoy all of these things so much, I have no desire to give them up. It may make me a little selfish, but I think we should all give ourselves the go-ahead to indulge a bit, and to let ourselves be a little self-centered now and then. Being selfless is a wonderful trait, but what's wrong with being selfless and selfish? Nothing!

Where Do You Rank? (And Do You Really Care?)

Our hours are 'cut' at work right now. I often start to complain, and then stop myself and walk away mid-sentence, trying not to succumb to the downward spiral that is workplace drama. I enjoy drama. I enjoy hearing about it from a distance. I DO NOT enjoy being a part of it.

I realize that I am blessed to have a job. Masses of people are being laid off and let go by their employers, and in my humble opinion, it's due to asinine decision-making. I pray our new president will help us out of this horrific mess. He sure seems to want to bring change and betterment for our country. The transformations that need to take place will take years to perfect. How did we become a nation of chaos, anyway? How did it get so bad?

So, jumping to a completely unrelated topic, yesterday morning, I was sitting at my desk. My head was ready to explode from workplace overload when my boss came in with a pretty, sparkling gadget. She said, "this is for the activity room." I looked at it for a minute, and said, "thank you!" I wasn't sure what it was for, but I was sure I could find a use for it. I then went on to tell her how very pretty it was. She looked at me blankly. Did I sense a slight hint of amusement in her eyes? Um... maybe.

Please understand... my desk looks like it ran into the BettyBoop section of a drug store in 1930 (thanks to my best buddy Anne). Along with old Betty is a boa, many pretty, fluffy pens, pictures in delightful frames and enough adorable post-its and other notepads to furnish every employee, resident and guest to walk in our building, for a year.

So, circling back, I continue to look at my boss holding this shiny, red gizmo. She said, "Kelly, the activity room is on fire. We are having a fire drill." Although I wasn't "street smart" enough to realize what was going on, I'm sure you are, so I won't go on to explain what the pretty, sparkling gadget was my boss was holding onto. In my crazy, fake-fire manic-state, I walked out of the activity room, completely lost. I felt as if my place of work for a year and three months now was a foreign city. Fire alarm. I had seen that someplace. Where did it go?

I finally found it, and managed to make it make a noise. It sounded pretty loud. I apologized to one of the nurses, who continued to do her work, as if nothing was happening. Hello people! There could be a fire!!! Run! Get everyone out!!! Move it!!! No, I wasn't saying these blurbs aloud, I was thinking them... but I was just about to start shouting when our housekeeping supervisor came up to me, looked at me like I was clinically insane, and said, "Kelly, WHAT are you doing?" I snapped back, "we are having a fire alarm! I set off the fire alarm!" "No you didn't!" she replied, and she closed the plastic cover. The noise stopped, and everyone went along their merry way. This pissed me off. How dare everyone just act like everything was peachy keen when there could be a burning bush or desk, or something worse in the activity room? It took me a couple of minutes to convince our housekeeping supervisor that we were, indeed having a fire alarm. At that point, she illustrated the proper way to set off a fire alarm, and I had waking nightmares of this story being twisted into a hundred and twenty different versions by noon.

Thankfully one of my coworkers also had no idea how to properly set off a fire alarm, so I enjoyed her company in my embarrassment all day. Apparently the plastic cover I had pulled up is just a warning device. If someone pulls that open, it will sound in the immediate area, and will not alert the local fire department. I'm sure I learned all of this in orientation, but that's been quite a while ago, and I have simply forgotten. Plus, in this extreme case of an extremely frightening fake fire, it is quite easy to lose your damn mind! Now I know (again) how to work a fire alarm, and I'm not likely to forget (again) any time soon.

So my best work friend had a bad afternoon yesterday, and I was trying to cheer her up. The entire building had been talking about me throughout the day, and it finally hit me...

How awesome is it that we are newsworthy? People care about the things we do, the things we do not know how to do, the people we associate with and the way we look. If we have a bad day and look terrible... who cares? We're surely being analyzed. And if we make a fool of ourselves now and again, and the entire building finds out about it... that's great! We were in the 'in club' that day!

I don't particularly care if I'm part of any group or club, or if people care what I'm up to or who I spend my hours with. I do feel a pang of satisfaction when I think about it as described above, though. No one should ever feel obsessive or paranoid about what people are saying about them. They should be thankful that people are saying anything at all!