Life With Frenchie

Do you believe in signs? I certainly do. And I have appeared to have received 2 in the past two days.

Right now, we’re falling victim to this crappy economy (we’re not in a recession…yeah, right! *eyes severely rolling*) and are having to tighten our budget. I’ve been forbidden from eating out (ouch! that hurts!). We cancelled our Las Vegas trip (waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! It was going to be my first time!). We’re missing my nephew’s high school graduation (that sucks!). And the worst blow is that I had to cancel my participation in the AVON Breast Cancer Walk. I decided to walk in the AVON walk this year because the local 3-Day starts on Halloween. I didn’t want to give up Halloween with my family, so I chose to join some friends and go to New York for the AVON walk. Well, with the state of things, it’s just an extra expense I can’t afford. But, even so, the decision didn’t sit well with me.

Anyways, back to the signs….

The first one was not so clear - EP & I were watching Part 6 of 7 of the John Adams series on HBO last night and at the end, it showed a preview to Part 7. In the preview, they showed his daughter being diagnosed with Breast Cancer. It was one of those moments where you kind of go “Hm. Weird.” It made me think about what it must have been like to have received that news during that era. Not that it’s any better to find out today, but things were not understood so well back then and just it was different somehow. But, like I said, not a very clear sign.

The second one pretty much screamed at me - I just received an e-mail from our office manager that a former partner in our firm has been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She left the firm in the last year to pursue another career but she is still very much a part of our family. She also had a 2nd child recently. I am still pretty much in shock over it, but I am also just guilt-ridden that I’m backing out of the walk this year. But, I think I am very close to deciding to walk the 3-Day here again this year. I will just come home that Friday night to spend Halloween with MM (just what I need - walking around trick-or-treating after walking 20 miles!!!). I am going to talk with EP about it more and then see how I can come up with the registration fee, but I just can’t ignore the signs.

I will be honest and admit that, before this morning, I had never heard of Randy Pausch. I still don’t know much about him. I have learned that he is a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. On September 18, 2007, Pausch delivered his ‘last lecture’. In his lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own goals. Not only is the lecture now available online for millions to view, but there is also an ABC special with Diane Sawyer that will air this Wednesday, April 9, at 10 PM (Eastern) and the book was released today. I have not yet had a chance to view his lecture (stoopid work firewall!) but I am going to go ahead and post it for everyone else to enjoy.

Right now, Chick-fil-A has a promotion on Fridays for free chicken biscuits during breakfast hours. I lurv me some Chick-fil-A breakfast, so I stopped in this morning and order a biscuit and lemonade. “That will be $3.69.” Say huh? I was in drive through so I waited until I pulled forward to ask, but there was no need because there was a big sign next to the window saying “Free chicken biscuits!!” Still, the guy repeats, “That will be $3.69.”

“Ummm, I thought they were free today.”

“Oh! You want the free one?”

 That’s what minimum wage gets you!

He just called me to say he was at Publix and asked if I needed him to pick up anything for my party! As I was thinking, he started suggesting things and then finally said “I’ve got it all handled.”

I LOVE HIM!

So, I’ve mentioned that I’m a Girl Scout leader and I’ve made mention of some of the various activities that I have participated in with MM and the troop, but I’ve yet to really talk about my Girl Scout experience. To be honest, I’ve been avoiding it. That means that this post is going to be a Girl Scout potluck of sorts. It’s just going to have random stuff in it to try and catch y’all up and, once again, get you inside my head.

I’ve been MM’s Girl Scout leader for the past 3+ years. I started when we were in CT and she was in first grade. It was somewhat by default because I had been trying to get MM into Girl Scouts since she was old enough to be a Daisy but there was always a lack of leaders and then we moved a couple of times. Finally, in CT, I was put in touch with a very wonderful woman who’d been a part of Girl Scouting for years and she helped me get started as a leader. Really, she was the leader of the Brownie troop, but she was only doing it because the original leader had left and she already had two older troops of her own. Together with another mother, I helped take over the troop. I really enjoyed being a leader and working with the girls. I did run into a slight bump when my co-leader did not fully understand what it meant for me to take actuarial exams and that studying took a lot of time! Shortly after that, MM and I moved to Florida and I was actually looking forward to not being a leader because of how much time it took. Being a single mom and taking actuarial exams, I had little free time as it was. Well, all my plans that I made for all the free time I was going to have went right out the window as soon as I realized there were not an abundance of leaders in the Sunshine state. I was somewhat reluctant to take on the responsibility of having a troop again and even more reluctant of co-leading for fear of having another co-leader who did not understand my other responsibilities. I was extremely lucky to find a co-leader who was just as busy as was and was extremely understanding about my career and what went along with it. We started our first year in the middle of the Girl Scouting year and only had 5 girls. At the beginning of the next year, when MM was going into 3rd grade, we lost one girl and two others were only part-time because of other activities. But, as the year progressed, we began to grow.

Going into this year, I was so excited to get going again. We were going to lose another girl, but we had picked up others along the way and had prospects of more girls joining. Our girls were growing right before our eyes and we were finally getting the hang of this leader “thing”! As the year has progressed, I am sad to say, my excitement has quickly faded. We have 11 10-year-old girls in our troop! OY! Yes, I am crazy! This must be some of the most difficult years for girls and we have 11 of them! I have had to deal with attitude, disrespect, Queen B’s, you name it! And, honestly, I’m just not up to it at this point. I have already told my two co-leaders (our awesome cookie mom signed up to help us co-lead) that this year will be my last year as an official leader. I will stick around to help out as a volunteer parent, but I can not stay on and be disrespected in the way I have been by the girls this year. I understand that this has a lot to do with the age that they are and the point they’re at in their lives, but that doesn’t mean I am any more capable of putting up with it. Who knows what will happen in a year or two. Maybe I will be ready to come back, but as of now, my life is overflowing with things, and this is going to be the first to go. Some of you may be thinking “Man, what a cold-hearted wench.” So be it. But I no longer look forward to going to the meetings. I actually dread it. And until I get back to the point where I can honestly say  I want to be at the meetings, I think it’s time for me to take a break - for the sake of my sanity and health, and for the sake of the girls. They deserve to have a leader that is fully involved and if I can only half-heartedly participate, it’s best I don’t participate at all.

That being said, I still have half a year to go and the next thing we have coming up is something I still look forward to - GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! I’m actually excited about this because MM has very lofty goals for her sales this year. She wants to sell 1700 boxes of cookies so she can earn a week at Girl Scout camp. Yeah, crazy, I know…but whoever said I was sane?!?

Oh, poochie wants out….I’ll have to finish this later.

Okay, this has got to be one of the most hilarious things I’ve read lately. I will only post the link here because there is language on this site that is definitely Not Safe For Work (NSFW). However, it is just too good to pass up.

This link alone has also prompted me to create a new category - “Patently Offensive”. I mean, what humor surrounding the Bible is not going to offend someone?? If you are offended, I am sorry. But, don’t say I’m not warning you.

The intro to the list says it all:

If the Bible had been written by King Leonidas and the rest of the Spartans from 300, it would probably read pretty much the same as it does now. It turns out, the Bible is already chock full of ass kicking.

So, open your mind, make sure no bosses or children are looking over your shoulder, be sure your mouth is free of all liquids, and make sure you have a soft landing spot for when you fall out of your chair laughing.