TWERKs / DDOTs

[covergirl82]

Because it's Thursday and I have a DDOT.

[covergirl82]

DDOT:  MIL's birthday was Monday and DH and I both completely forgot. I feel bad about it, and asked DH if he would want me to ask her over for a lunch or dinner this weekend and he said no. I have Friday (tomorrow) off and I could ask her out to lunch, but I'm sure she'd like to see her son and grandkids, and DH will be at work and the kids will be at school. I don't want to get in a fight with DH, but I feel like it's the right thing to do something with her this weekend...

[rere]

I had kids write down "Things you would like me to know Thursday" on post it notes. One kid wrote I hate this class. Nice. How many years until retirement?

My SIL has seen some of the crazy txt and post from mom about Christmas. Trying to schedule dinners 2 months in advance, thinking the kids are going to do a pageant. She asked if she should be scared. I said yes. She then said they may stay a couple of nights with me.

[k3am]

DDOT: Work is sucking. More things are broken than are working, and it is not sustainable. I don't even know how to go about fixing things. Some of them will never be fixed since it's priority for no one.

That is one of the (very few) things I miss from my old company. Old company had an "anonymous" (who knows how anonymous) submission form that you could escalate problems through - and they took it very seriously. Things from processes and procedures to a bathroom being too cold in the winter. Every single item was read publicly and addressed. So if someone were to complain - our credit card program sucks, our process for XYZ is failing consistently, whatever - someone would dig into it to determine if there really was a problem and how they could fix it. Here, it's just a "well, that's the way things are, so that's the way they'll continue to be" mentality.

[mommyatty]

Our industry is in chaos, and the frustrating thing is it’s for no good reason. We are all making tons of money, but apparently it’s not enough. Our major competitor just announced next year they will lay off 30% of their exempt staff. AFTER having already laid off a bunch this year. So our company is now holding its breath, wondering if we are going to follow suit. I applied for a job today at an industry organization that’s not for my industry but is adjacent to my industry.

I don’t want to leave my company. I love it and my job. But I’m exhausted from years of always wondering if I’m going to be out of work soon.

Also I started reading a new self help book today, The Miracle Morning. The fact that the book is making my anxiety shoot through the roof is probably indicative that the book is not right for me, right? So I should stop reading it? It’s full of shit-nuggets like “Every single decision you make impacts every single existing moment for the rest of your life! If you hit snooze in the morning, it means you have just trained yourself to never do anything you set out to do, ever! And you will be an abject failure forever!” Okay, that’s not an exact quote, but I kid you not, it’s really close.

[waverly]

mommyatty yes definitely drop that book. That kind of mentality is not helpful at all and not accurate anyway.

[mommyatty]

Thanks, waverly. I needed someone to tell me he was full of it. What’s sad is I kind of liked what he described for the approach. If he ever would have gotten to actually describing the program instead of the long diatribes about why you should do the plan, I probably would have stuck with it long enough to try.

Oh, and he said you should ditch everyone in your life who doesn’t make more money than you do. Or at least greatly limit your time with them so that the 5 people you spend the most time with are people more financially successful than you. Which struck me as bordering on evil.

[2chatter]

One of the six doctor appointments for the kids this week was a scoliosis check for DD. School nurse and outside examiner saw signs. Pediatrician did not at her well check. Pediatrician rechecked her, and she has mild signs and requires recheck in a year at her well check. Endocrinology booked until January, which is now when I have to wait find out about her cholesterol because health insurance in America sucks so the pediatrician cannot run it any more.

Add that to DS being the unusual not healing six year old with his broken arm and DD having issues because she wasn’t actually taking her meds (she just forgot...like every night). I mean, it would be nice to have one medically easy kid. Ugh.

DH went to his psych and spent the entire time talking about how frustrated he is with SS the addict. I asked if that was a good use of his time as he doesn’t actually see SS and he has legit marriage issues and his response was his therapist is better at that and he sees her in three weeks. That got a big WTF from me since he is recommended to go at least twice a week.

I ran the numbers and even on solely my income the kids won’t get grants or subsidized loans for college. That sucks. But it gives my marriage a reprieve as there’s no $$ upside to divorce this time....and I guess I am pretty motivated by money. Lucky DH.

[twinmomma]

DDOT: We have a crew of families from daycare/school that all hang out. The moms all do nights out together every couple months. We get together as families pretty frequently. We were all going to go trick or treating together. One family bailed last minute. Come to find out, it's because the mom felt awkward that STBXH and I would be there together and she didn't want to be around that. I'm pissed. It's amicable as far as public perception and our kids are concerned. We have never once argued or let on anything in front of anyone. And you can't catch divorce! I don't know if it's because she's fairly religious compared to the rest of us or if it's because she just doesn't know divorced people or what. But I'm offended that my family is too "awkward" for her to be around. And now we're supposed to have a mom's night this weekend that was scheduled months ago and I'm feeling all cranky and awkward about having to hang out with her.

[waverly]

mommyatty and everyone else-

I am a librarian so I hereby give everyone permission to drop books. You don’t have to struggle to finish a book. If you want to see it through and it’s a bit slow go ahead. But if the book sucks, you aren’t feeling it, your blood pressure is going up yada yada yada drop it! Life is too short to spend on a bad book or a boring book or one you aren’t interested in. It takes work to find good ones, but it is worth it!

I don’t feel like I have any twerks or dots this week. Hmmm... Micromanager still feels she did nothing wrong and it was all in the greater interest. And she doesn’t see that she did anything wrong. So her behavior has changed but her attitude sucks.

Halloween was fun. Looking forward to a pretty chill weekend.

[HeartofCheese]

twinmomma, I've found that I am treated like the plague by married moms. Nothing so blatant as your "friend," though! I can't imagine you're close with her because that seems like such an out-of-touch thing to do, but I'd say something that it was out of line for her to treat you like a pariah and you hope it doesn't continue. Or you could tell another friend who you're closer to how much it hurt and hope someone says something to her.

No real updates here. The last date with the new boyf resulted in him taking his profile off the dating site we met on, so I'm taking that as a good sign...but is it bad that I'm not ready to take mine down yet for really no good reason?

[twinmomma]

HeartofCheese, It's so strange to me. Whether or not someone is married has never really crossed my mind to question when it comes to school parents. What difference does it make?
I found out about this one because of our mutual friends who did come hang out this week. They told me why she bailed and that they told her she was being completely ridiculous. So I think at this point, it is what it is. I'm not going to call her out, but it does make me want to not hang out with her this weekend. You're right, we're definitely not close. She and I don't have kids in the same class, but we both overlap with other families in this crew that I'm closer to.

[2chatter]

twinmomma - I place bets on her not going this weekend. When I got divorced the phenomenon was husbands freaking out about GNO because now obviously I was picking up men. Which meant their wives would also be chatting up guys and what, cheating on them? I dug in with a couple people I thought were friends “It’s hard, Mark just thinks this means guys are going to buy us drinks and it’s just not the right environment for a married woman.” Really? The same fish restaurant in town we went to last year? It was a weird retro southern conservative backlash I didn’t expect.

Also, watch out for the next phase - predatory husbands. Acquaintance level guys a couple times totally came on to me at parties, etc. Once, at a party to which I had taken a date. Because you know, divorced women are also whores, apparently. Line stolen from my date, who said it to a gathered group after I told him.

[waverly]

2chatter twinmomma, ugh on the predatory husbands and the weird retro backlash.

[traveltheworld]

Nov 1, 2018 21:06:25 GMT -5 mommyatty said:

Thanks, waverly . I needed someone to tell me he was full of it. What’s sad is I kind of liked what he described for the approach. If he ever would have gotten to actually describing the program instead of the long diatribes about why you should do the plan, I probably would have stuck with it long enough to try.

Oh, and he said you should ditch everyone in your life who doesn’t make more money than you do. Or at least greatly limit your time with them so that the 5 people you spend the most time with are people more financially successful than you. Which struck me as bordering on evil.

mommyatty, I've also heard the drop the people that make less money than you advice before.  It makes me angry.  I'm already always stressed out at work, I do not need to always be "on" during my social life to climb the social/career ladder.  And besides, I make 3 times what DH makes - should I drop him too?  But, before I get too far up my high horse, we bought in an expensive neighbourhood to ensure that our kids' public school is like a private school.  A newsletter just came out saying that the spring break trip this year for the Grade 6's is a 7 day trip to NYC, Washington and Boston....for "only" $4,000!  It's not mandatory, but still....

[k3am]

I guess I need to start inquiring about salaries before making friends with people...

[waverly]

Nov 2, 2018 18:53:57 GMT -5 k3am said:

I guess I need to start inquiring about salaries before making friends with people...

I am pretty sure we make more than most in our friend group which means I would be friendless and lonely. Also I am pretty sure we have way more in student loan debt so ..... Do we only count income or net worth? 🙄😂

[mommyatty]

Let me be blunt here too. I’m a 2%er. With my hubs as a SAHD. In an area of the country that’s not HCOL, so generally people have lower incomes here. So who the F am I hanging out with??? Who ARE these 5 people? Do I put a Craigslist ad up to find them? Because I don’t want to hang out with folks I work with who are higher than me on the food chain, and I don’t know other people who out-earn me.

So glad I erased the book. I already feel better.

[k3am]

Actually come to think of it.. we make pretty good money. But we’re poor for where we live. Or at least feel that way. We drive a Ford and a Nissan in the land of Tesla’s and BMWs. We don’t have any huge options from Apple or Google.

Now I know why I have so few friends. I don’t meet the income requirements.

[twinmomma]

2chatter, You called it. The one I'm closest to in the crew had to cancel. "Divorce is awkward" woman asked if we all wanted to still get together. I responded sure. She ignored the message. Girls night is cancelled. What BS.

[twinmomma]

Also... if I can't hang out with people who make less than me, I'm going to have a really hard time finding friends. All of my current friends are out. What weird advice...

[sandandsea]

DDOT. The Halloween party at school was a hit. The kids loved it and it reinforces why I never switched my major to elementary Ed. God bless the teachers. Holy moly first graders have energy. Now on to planning the Winter party.

Instead of gingerbread house decorating I found this awesome idea to decorate trees - upside down sugar cones with green frosting! So much easier!!!!!

Anyone know of any active but contained games for a group of 7 like musical chairs? Limbo?

[supertrooper1]

sandandsea, duck duck goose? Heads up, 7 up?

[waverly]

Smaller size parachute

Bucket toss
Simon says
Red light green light

[waverly]

Nov 3, 2018 8:54:03 GMT -5 k3am said:

Actually come to think of it.. we make pretty good money. But we’re poor for where we live. Or at least feel that way. We drive a Ford and a Nissan in the land of Tesla’s and BMWs. We don’t have any huge options from Apple or Google.

Now I know why I have so few friends. I don’t meet the income requirements.

I wouldn’t say we are poor for our area but until this year when we had to get new cars we were driving a Pontiac vibe and Toyota Prius bar bones models with 150,000 miles. DH wanted a Tesla but we ended up with much much cheaper cars Outback and CRV. We would have kept the cars except we were putting more money in repairs than the cars were worth.

[supertrooper1]

I find this calculation interesting. I had no idea where we fell for income in our area. I had no idea we would be in the 16% because it seems like there are a lot of wealthy people in our area. But we also have a lot of low income too.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/

[sandandsea]

Nov 3, 2018 13:36:10 GMT -5 waverly said:

Smaller size parachute

Bucket toss
Simon says
Red light green light

I thought about these but their classroom is packed. It’s the most crowded, cluttered first grade room ever. His teacher is amazing, but her classroom is FULL of STUFF. There was barely enough space for musical chairs for 7 kids.

I was going to do a fishing for candy canes and snowball toss game too but may trade that for a table game instead as we probably don’t have space for more than one space taking rotation station.

[sandandsea]

Nov 3, 2018 14:09:20 GMT -5 supertrooper1 said:

I find this calculation interesting. I had no idea where we fell for income in our area. I had no idea we would be in the 16% because it seems like there are a lot of wealthy people in our area. But we also have a lot of low income too.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/

This link confused me. What is it trying to say? It just tells you if you are upper, middle or lower in your area but not where you fall within those three groups?

[mommyatty]

sandandsea, we did two activities last year that were hits. We did snowballs made of yarn that could be tossed on a mat with different point values. Like a bullseye. And we set up red solo cups in a pyramid and rolled a ball to knock them down. You could do little snowballs and see who could toss them into solo cups. That would be an easy tabletop game.

[akafred]

DDOT: Gift ideas for MIL. I was thinking about a subscription box maybe? Is there one catered to octogenarians though? She likes jewelry, no specific hobbies, coffee, maybe chocolate, but IDK. Is there a jewelry box that is fairly nice things, not garbage?