Make Up Your Mind

You want to be treated like a grown up. “I’m not a kid anymore”.

You want to be respected as a person in your own right – “I’m not a kid anymore”.

You want freedom to come and go as you please – “I’m not a kid anymore”.

You mess up and want forgiveness – “What do you expect? I’m just a kid”.

How am I supposed to keep track of when you are an adult and when you are a kid??

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Swearwords

Why does it feel so good to let loose a stream of filthy dirty language when we stub a toe? Why, when we are angry, do we express ourselves better when we punctuate with f-bombs?

I try very hard not to swear / cuss. I don’t want my kids using foul language, and really, it isn’t necessary for me.

On the odd occasion where I do let a nasty word slip (hey, I am human and I stub my toes a lot!) the KoD always seems so taken aback. He says I am so ladylike and feminine – and it shocks him when I curse like a sailor.

In my defense, I generally only swear when angry or hurt. I don’t plant f-bombs and s-words, or other expletives, in every day conversation the way some people do.

But I do wonder why it feels so good to swear? Anyone?

(Post inspired by new book called Go the F*** to Sleep…..)

Full Time Hours

I started a discussion on my Facebook wall and decided to move it here. I was recently chatting with a friend who also works full time from home. I asked her her definition of full time. She said 50-60 hours a week. My understanding of full time is 40 hours a week. (In the interests of full disclosure I work full time, at home, and usually put in upwards of 50 per week but that’s because I need to have things finished before I log off for the evening, not because it’s expected of me.)

Do people think that because you work from home you can put in more hours? Do you think advantage is taken of your availability?

What do you consider full-time?

If you work full-time at home, do you have a policy of no work calls or emails between certain hours? Is this a policy you stick to quietly, or is it something that your co-workers are aware of so that they don’t contact you at this time?

I try to have a policy of closing down my work email for the night between 7pm and 8 pm. When the kids are in school then from 4.30pm till 7pm is THEIR time – and I try to be around and not working. I will check email if I need to, but they come first. Having an office at home is good, because if I physically leave the office, I have made a separation between work and home.

So – weigh in!

Wednesday’s Wacky Signs

Curfew

So, as the newest recipient of the Strictest Mommy Award (all the other parents are so chilled out, Ima)  I wanted to poll you, my readers, about curfews etc.

Does your teen have a curfew?

Does it change according to circumstance?

Are they allowed out on school nights?

Are curfews earlier during the school year?

If they have a summer job, do you enforce a curfew?

How do you calculate what curfew to give your teen?

Do you think it makes a difference if the teen is male or female?

Anything else you want to add?

Looking forward to reading your responses.

Embarrassing Moment

A while ago a dear friend was having tech trouble of gargantuan proportions that stumped even the most savviest of tech support geeks. I will not say what or where or how or who, but it ended up being a simple fix. I figured I would share a moment of my own.

Many years ago, I was newly married, living in Montreal. We took delivery of a washer and drier in our new apartment, and the electricians and plumbers did their thing and hooked everything up.

It took a while to generate enough laundry for one load. I was quite the newbie at household machinery so I made sure to study the manual before pulling and pushing knobs on my brand new washing machine.

Finally, I knew what to do, and turned the knob to where it needed to be, and pulled it out. Nothing. Pushed it in, pulled it out again. Nope. No water started filling the drum. I went back to the manual. Yep. I was doing it right. I must have tried to do it a hundred times.

I finally gave in and called the then-husband. He gave me the number of the dudes who had set up the machinery for us. I called, told them they set it up, but it doesn’t work and I need to wash clothes and can you please come and fix it because otherwise I may cry….

An hour later, the guy was in my kitchen with his flashlight peering behind my washer. Aha, says he, I found the problem. He straightens up with the power cord in his hand. It had not been plugged in. Yup. I paid $60 for a guy to plug my washing machine in to the electricity socket on the wall.

Really? I was supposed to have checked it was plugged in? It didn’t specify THAT in the manual. Of course my (then) husband had a huge laugh at my expense – totally well deserved. I didn’t think I would ever be able to laugh about it – but here I am, 17 years later chortling my head off.

So, any of you have any similar embarrassing moments?

It’s “Work” No Matter Where You Do It

Oy, I am so fed up with people thinking that because I work out of the house I can just drop everything on a moment’s notice. Is it that people don’t see working at home as a real job because I don’t get dressed up in a suit, commute, and share office space with a bunch of other drones?

Yes being a WAHM has so many advantages – I can make my own hours most of the time, but I have meetings too. They do count even if they are on the phone or over Skype. I do have deadlines. I do have WORK that I am being paid to do. And I am juggling the house and kids and everything else. I still go to work when I am sick. I still work when the kids are off from school. I juggle it all at home.

“Oh come on, no one will know if you take the afternoon off” – um, it’s not a question of anyone knowing. It’s a question of, if I take the afternoon off I will have to work longer hours tomorrow. If I blow off work today, tomorrow I have to work twice as hard. Because no one is going to pick up my slack.

I can be flexible – which is good. I can get up from my desk for a break, throw in a load of laundry, put some dough to rise, and vacuum, and sit back down and feel more productive. Yes, I can run to the store and do my groceries at my convenience. But every minute away from my desk during my work day is measured.

So I cannot just blow off work for the heck of it. I take my job seriously. I love what I do. I live and breathe it. I am being paid to do what I love – that’s not something I want to ever mess with.

I answer to myself, and when I say I cannot take time off work to hang out just because you have a free day, then that is what it means. I am dedicated. Not a stick in the mud. And there is a huge difference.

(If I wasn’t dedicated I wouldn’t still be working in my home-office at 9 o’clock at night, let me tell you that).

So have some respect for us work at home people. Our jobs are just as important as anyone else’s.

Pass the grumpitol.

She just wanted towels

You guys have to read this (some fowl* language so be warned). Any of you married people out there can totally relate!

And that’s why you should learn to pick your battles!

*I know, it’s “foul”. Read that article and it will all become clear, grasshopper.

Half Shabbos

So this article is going viral in the Jewish World – Half Shabbos is a Way of Life – and to sum up, it talks about Orthodox teens keeping the laws of Shabbat except they are unable to stop texting with their friends. So they have called it half Shabbos – they are keeping most of the holy day but not all of it.

I asked my eldest if he had heard of it – he said he had heard of the idea but knows no one in his yeshiva who practices it.

Look, we all know I am stuck to technology all day long. I email, text, call, FB, blog, tweet and everything else in between. But only 24/6. I look forward to switching off from all modes of technology over Shabbat, and rediscovering relationships in the real world.

How can they justify this? Even Orthodox smokers go without their addictive cancer sticks over Shabbat – and I would think as addictions go, nicotine is a much stronger substance than a cell phone.

How has this become “accepted” in certain Modern Orthodox circles? The author of the article says that this phenomenon is so widespread that half of all MO teens text. Really?

How do we deal with this? How do we get the teens to stop texting on Shabbat without pushing them further away from Judaism? What do you think about this new phenomenon?

Freedom of Speech in Jeopardy?

A buddy of mine writes a blog to help people in the midst of contentious divorces, and picking up the pieces after. He’s embroiled in a particular nasty custody battle, and the judge in his case has ordered him to shut down the blog that he runs.

Please go over here and read about this and do what you can to help.

His words: We are asking for help in this defense because it is an issue that faces any parent that is divorced. Imagine a judge telling you that you cannot talk about your children on “any public media” – which would include things like Facebook updates, Twitter, or your personal blog – or you will lose custody.  Imagine the far-reaching consequences for bloggers everywhere if orders such as this one are left unchallenged?  There goes your online support group.  There goes your Facebook and Twitter updates.  Your website, personal OR commercial – ordered gone under threat of incarceration and having your beloved children removed from your custody.  This order flies in the face of our civil rights, and your civil rights, too!

Please do what you can.