‘Twas 15 nights before Christmas, when all through the orchard

“snow might fall from the sky,” was the rumor most heard;

“It’s not going to happen as long as I’m there”

Said the party-pooper brainiac without any hair.

The customers all left with knowledge in their heads

While visions of dock icons danced in their heads

And Jaqui with her webmail and I with my bubble wrap

Had just settled down for a quick breaktime nap.

When at the back door there arose such a clatter

I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter

Away to the back door I flew like a flash

Mama D tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

The students were back for their bushel of apples

and I yelled something you’d never say sitting in chapel

“Holy shit,” I said loudly with my eyes all aglow

“What the eff is this crap, is this actually snow?”

The little old driver, so lively and quick

Drove off with their fruit and I ran in real quick

More rapid than eagles my coworkers they came

they said, “Is that dandruff on your shoulder or are you insane?”

“Now Jaqui! Now, Diana! Now Adam and Hector!

I have no scalp condition, get me a lie detector!

I’m out of this place! My children, I must call!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

You know what they say about years hurricanes hit

Who knew you could really believe in that shit?

So out to the parking lot so fast I flew

With my laptop and keys and my iPhone, too.

As I reached the mall exit, that’s when I knew

Emo kids were all jumping around and yelling, “WOO HOO!!”

As I pulled out my iPhone and drew a face on my car

I realized that this was really quite bizarre

I opened the door and jumped in the front seat

I pulled out my phone and posted a tweet!

I backed out of the lot and called the old man

to ask if the snowing at home had began

He did not believe me, I said, “check your twitter”

He said I was crazy. I think he was bitter.

I drove home on the freeway, 10 car lengths behind that Lexus

You know, people can’t drive in snow down in Texas.

Some snow stayed on my car throughout that long trip

So I showed it to Johnny and called him a dip.

The kids jumped for joy, as jolly as elves

And they all wondered if they’d get to see it themselves.

We waited for hours, bedtime drew near

When was the snow going to make it down here?

I spoke not a word while the kids went berserk

and finally at 9, we got quite a perk!

Look mom, here it is! It’s not rain, yes I mean it.

Come out and take a picture of me trying to eat it!

I threw on my slippers and because I’m a giver

I took lots of pictures all in between shivers.

Snow was falling from the sky, it was quite a little flurry

And I was so flippin cold all my pictures were blurry!

Daddy came out and griped, “you will all end up sick!”

I said, “come on now Johnny, quit being a dick.”

The kids settled in for a long winter’s nap

But they wanted snow, not that bedtime crap!

We said it would be there tomorrow if it snowed in the night

Now go to bed before you get grounded, all right?

While visions of iPods danced in their heads,

I tricked silly Johnny and jumped out of bed.

Away to the front yard I flew like a flash

Grabbed my camera and PJs and looked like white trash

Down the sidewalk, snap snap!

to the street, snap snap snap!

Brought my camera to Johnny and said “Look at this crap!”

He finally believed me, but looked at me funny

and asked, “did you check on the kids or were you lying to me, honey?”

Lying’s such a harsh word, I was simply distracted.

I saw lots of white stuff and over reacted.

I heard him exclaim as I uploaded photos to my site,

“Merry Christmas, Shana Rae! Tell your bitches good night!”

Don’t you love when you disagree with someone so strongly that there’s nothing that you can say that wouldn’t end with you getting punched in the face, so you just sit there and smile and nod and listen, and let them spew their ignorance, until they realize how stupid their own voice sounds and they actually apologize for unloading that steaming pile of B.S.? That’s a good feeling, but I’ll never get that hour of my life back. Ever. What a waste. 

Life is good. Actually, life is rockin my socks. The problem is that I’m just so flippin tired.

Blah. That’s how I feel right now. I could clean out the dishwasher so the guy could come fix it, but blah. I could do the freelance work that I should be doing, but blah. I could go gripe at the neighborhood kids (which is usually one of my favorite pastimes), but you guessed it… bla-fucking-ah!

I get up at 5:55 am every day now. No, not 6:00 am, but 5:55. ALWAYS 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. It’s starting to piss me off a little. That’s just not a natural thing, in my opinion, and it really blows my mind. What IS that?? Sometimes I try to close my eyes and get that extra 5 minutes in. I’m such a sleep whore. 

I used to get the kids up and get them to school in a half-conscious state, then come back and sleep for another hour until Courtney woke up. Now I have to be at work at 8 am, so mommy’s nappy-time has gone bye bye. Mommy needs her morning nappy time and they won’t let me sleep at work. Yes, I asked. :o)

I tried some coffee a few weeks ago when we had a special thing at work with free coffee. I poured a lot of white stuff in it so that it wouldn’t taste like anything like what it was supposed to taste like, and I managed to drink almost half of a cup before I couldn’t stand it anymore. A few minutes later, I thought that I was going to have a heart attack! My heart was pounding out of my chest. With the amount of excedrin that I take on a daily basis, I thought that coffee would be no big deal, but I was wrong. That shit is evil. Almost as evil as Cinnabuns. Oh, those are the devil!!

Comcast just called me asking if I knew about the virus protection they offer. I just laughed. Silly Comcast, I have a Mac. 

EGADS! Now it’s the doorbell again! Flippin kids!! “She’ll be out when she’s finished with her homework! Pass it down!! Go away!!!”

They should make smoke detectors sound like doorbells. I slept through the smoke alarm once, but that doorbell scares the beegeezus out of me every time I hear it. Now I’m awake. Yay.   

I just got yelled at over the telephone by a woman who couldn’t figure out how to email a file to me. My coworker called me at home, basically told me that she was nuts and he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, so I called her back. She was screaming at me from the moment I told her my name, telling me that she was trying to attach a file to our website, naming off 3 different website addresses that weren’t even our website address… so I told her, “go to your email.” She kept telling me how she was on our website. I said, “go to your email.” I was so calm… you’d be so proud of me. I gave her the address to type in and what do you know… it’s here.

…and it’s a G-d Dammed Microsoft Publisher file!

Why do people who don’t understand computers get so mad at me when I can’t understand what the hell they’re talking about?? And why are they so attracted to our company? And why do they insist on designing their own layouts?? And why do I start so many sentences with AND?

I’m FORWARDING this one to a guy in Houston to do it for me! I wash my hands of it! I’m not even going to try to open it on Nikki’s computer.

BE GONE, Publisher file! BE GONE!

KRISTEN’S JAGUAR PROJECT:

I asked her how she did and she said that everyone LOVED her project. Her teacher asked her if she did it all by herself and she said, “No, my mommy and my daddy helped me.”

DOH!

Really - I only cut rectangles out of felt because she couldn’t get it to the right size. Really. (Oh, and suggested that she use the stuff I bought rather than tissue paper, beads, and tampons)

NIKKI’S SOFTBALL GAME:

They actually WON the one that I went to! Woo hoo! They’ve only practiced one time in a month, so I thought that was pretty impressive.

Nikki hit the ball right between pitcher and first base, and she was SAFE! Barely! Whew! Then she stole her way to third. She kept leading off of third base to try to steal home, but would run back when the catcher got control of the ball (their pitcher threw some pretty wild balls).

After she went back to third base the second or third time, THAT momma had something to say. Her husband was third base coach and she yelled at him, “***! You KNOW we need a run, don’t you??” and then she laughed. Coach *** looked at her and laughed and then looked down the bleachers to see me rolling my eyes at his retarted wife. I am such a calm, cool and collected person. (har *snort* har)

My baby stole home when it was the RIGHT time, not when she would have been tagged out. She knows that her coaches are on the FIELD and not in the STANDS.

My friend at work said that I should have jumped up clapping and screamed, “We GOT the run! We GOT the run!” LMAO

HAIR:

My hair still looks retarted, even after going at it with the straightening iron. Now it looks kind of like Pat Benatar.

RETARTED CUSTOMERS:

I spent 15 minutes on the phone and 30 minutes writing an email to the customer that I was griping about the other day, trying to explain to her why she can’t just get a couple of printouts from the PRESS of her THREE COLOR job. A press is not like a copier… you have to put the ink on, run a color through, let it dry, clean it, put another plate and ink color on, run it through, let it dry, etc. I’m sure you guys get the gist of it from that one sentence, right? Or you at least understand that it is not easy to just print a couple of copies, right? And if I told you that your red and blue would look exactly like the ones that you picked out of a swatch book when it comes off of the press, you would believe me, right? And if you didn’t really believe me, you’d probably take my word for it and make me reprint it if it came out differently after I said it wouldn’t, right?

Well if you agree with me, you’re just living in fantasy land, missy! Cause it’s got to be more complicated and costly than THAT! She’s also still questioning why I have to redo parts of her artwork that won’t color seperate. I don’t EVEN want to go into that with her, so I just charged it under misc instead of to her.

(BTW, we do press proofs sometimes like she’s suggesting, but it’s for customers who are running thousands of copies, not for a card that she wants 50-100 printouts of.)

Never trust your printer. I’m sure you know more than them about the printing process.

HALLOWEEN:

If you haven’t seen extremepumpkins.com, go check it out! Some of them are hilarious! So are his “candy traps.” I want to make the puking pumpkin.

I have a funny idea for a halloween costume for me. I don’t know if I can pull it off, though. Don’t ask… I’ll never tell!!

QUESTION:

If you’ve actually read this far, I’m so so sorry. :oP

But I have a question…

Seriously, what is so WRONG about a kid having a cell phone? Perhaps they might CALL someone? Oh my GAWD, perish the thought!!

Does it suggest that they have a drug deal going down or something? I’m just wondering, because I never understood the big controversy. My kid has a cell phone because I want her to be able to call me whenever she wants to when she’s away from me.

(It’s also good when you are in a mass evacuation and your husband forgets to charge his phone.)

So really, what is so taboo about it? I really want to know.

OK, I think that’s really it for now.