#Shortgirlproblems

I’m short. Really short. Semi-debilitatingly short. Like 4 inches away from legal midget-ism short. Usually I don’t have much of problem with this. In fact it even seems to help me makes friends (tall ones who can reach things) from time to time and I never have a problem being too tall while wearing heals. 

However, my new big-kid house has caused me to be more aware of my vertically-challenged ways. For instance, I can’t reach about 3/4 of my kitchen--enter my BFFs the kitchen stools. 

Photo proof: 

And I have this issue where I can’t stack things on my high closet shelf so I end up chucking sheets, towels, and seldom used coats on top of one another with a big heave-ho. Although my heave-ho-ing is about as challenged as my ability to grow, which results in the leaning tower of sheet (pun intended) in my closet. 

Photo proof:

Sigh, #shortgirlproblems. 

It’s Gettin’ Real

Guys. The Real World is getting real. And by the Real World I mostly mean my work world. One of my bosses/coworkers (I really have no idea if she has any authority over me or not) is pregnant and about to pop. She’s currently still harboring the fetus in her belly, but she’s officially on maternity leave, which means more work for me. Starting next week I shall be almost kinda mostly full time. Real official sounding, right? I’ll be working four out of five days of the week, two of which I’ll be there 9am to 5pm-ish. I’m aware that in actuality that’s not full time, but it’s better than what I’m rockin’ right now. So hooray for more work! Betcha never thought that declaration would be made, huh? 

Random side kid story from work today: 

I was sitting on the Circle Time rug when a little three year old came up to me very sweetly, wrapped her arms around my neck, and asked, “Do I need to go to the baaathrooooom?” I looked right back at her and said “I don’t know, you tell me!” I then proceeded to tell her to go to the bathroom and try because I didn’t want to deal with finding new pants for her while she contemplated the answer and wet herself.

Something New

So I really suck at updating this blog, as you can probably tell. I initially started it as a coping method for my unemployed life. Now that I’m partially employed I seem to have lost interest. But no worries, I have a plan to change. As of right now, I’m starting something new.

Back in June 2010, my roommate Wendy began a little something called a 365 album on Facebook. Wendy took a picture every single day for a year and posted it to FB. It was a great way to recount the year once it was all said and done, plus it was fun when 11:48pm rolled around and Wendy had to scramble to find something picture-worthy on the occasional night of panic. With that idea in mind and much encouragement from Wendy herself, I’ve decided to take on this same project and make it my own. My personal twist is that each week I will select one photo from the album, post it in my blog, and explain more of the story behind that photo. This way I can incorporate my dying blog in hopes of an epic revival. I can’t promise I’ll remember to take a photo every single day, and I can’t promise I’ll stick to my new writing routine, but I can promise to take a stab at it all. So here’s to something new! 

This first photo is the mark of a new, long road. I haven't a clue what the next year has in store for me, but I'm excited to find out and I'm also excited to document it photo by photo & day by day. 

Sick of Being Sick!

When I took my job at the daycare I knew I ran the risk of picking up every bug the little rugrats came in with, but I never anticipated it would be this bad. My parents joked with me that by the time I have kids of my own I’ll have absolute immunity to all illnesses, but at this point I don’t know if I’ll make it that far. I used to never get sick. Throughout my entire college career I only missed two morning classes due to a fever of 102, and even then my fever broke by noon and I was decidedly healthy enough to go to my third class of the day to give a presentation. Now it seems like I get sick every other week. I’ve already had to call in sick three times in the 3 1/2 short months I’ve worked at the daycare. 

This last week was the worst. On Monday, I heard talk of kids being out for a stomach flu and parents mentioning incidents of vomiting over the weekend. By Tuesday night I was praying to the porcelain gods with the same illness. I got sick every 20 to 50 minutes between the hours of 9pm and 3:00am...and once more at 6:00am. Needless to say I called in sick on Wednesday. As if that night of vomiting terror wasn’t enough, I spent the next two days completely wiped out in bed and on the couch. So not only am I getting sick more often, but my recovery abilities are weakening as well. I swear this job is knocking me down one illness-wielding kid at a time. At least the kids are still as cute as ever, now if only I could get them to stop sneezing on me. 

A Long Line of Good People

I’ve recently realized that I come from a long line of good people. Rather than telling you about the awesomeness that is each individual relative of mine, I’d like to share a Charlie-ism. For those of you who don’t know, Charlie is my grandfather on my dad’s side, aka the one I got my red hair and flair from. If you’d bare with me, I’d like to tell a story of his: 

Thursday morning my dad and I sat around the small circular table in my grandfather Charlie’s nook of a dining room. 

“Hey, I got a story for ya,” Charlie called from the kitchen while preparing perfectly square multigrain waffles for our breakfast.

My dad and I sipped on our Irish coffees and awaited a famous Charlie-ism that was bound to take place. 

“Have you ever heard of the wee people?” Charlie continued. 

Considering Charlie’s an 87 year old man who still refers to people from Asia as Orientals, I figured he was incorrectly referring to little people, but I didn’t stop him.

“Well when I was a boy I went to Aunt Marge’s house. Now she’s your great, great, great, great aunt.” She’s not. She’s only my great great aunt, but once again I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the Charlie-ism. 

“Aunt Marge pulled me aside and warned me about these wee people,” Charlie began as he meticulously placed a single blueberry in each waffle square. “She said ‘Charlie, you better watch out for these wee people. They come out in the early morning and at night looking for pots of gold at the end of rainbows, and if you’re not careful they’ll snatch you up.’ Now I knew there was something fishy about this story of Aunt Marge’s, so when I got a bit older I mustered up the nerve to ask Aunt Marge if she really believed in wee people. She looked me square in the eye and said ‘Oh heavens Charlie, I don’t believe in wee people! But they do exist.’” Charlie concluded with a howl of a laugh before diving into his whipped cream covered waffle. 

I can only hope that one day I’ll be telling my grandchildren ludicrous stories sprinkled with out of date (and occasionally politically incorrect) terminology. Of course, by that time I’ll be telling stories in holograph form via my hovercraft. 

New Hobbies with Old Friends

Last Friday night, in the riveting town of Independence, three 22 year olds got rowdy. By three friends I mean two of my roommates and myself and by rowdy I mean we knitted. That’s right ladies and…more ladies (I’m fairly certain only females read my blog) I am proud to announce that I can knit. This was not a declaration I could have made at the beginning of that eventful Friday night.

My Pinterest-savvy roommates Alison & Wendy were busy crafting the day away and knitting their own headbands when I joined them in the living room. I sat staring at the TV twiddling my craft-inept fingers when future teacher Wendy asked if she could teach me how to knit. At first I thought, “Psh, yeah right, good luck with that!” but then I remembered it was only about 6pm on a Friday night and we had no other plans, so challenge accepted. My second challenge of the night came when my sister called and, after telling her my plans of learning how to knit, told me I should live-tweet my first knitting experience. The rest of the night went like this:

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

2 things I never do that shall occur tonight: knitting & frequent tweeting. Let the knitting live feed commence!

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

This is what my intense knitting face looks like: 

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Rows 1-3 down. Looks like a cat mangled some yarn. I hear it doesn't get better until row 4.

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

So, I think I forgot how to knit between rows 3 and 4. Sucks.

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

Somewhere around this point in the night I had to call on the knitting master herself. Celebrity knit from WB:

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Oh dear, I began with 18 stitches in my knitting and now I'm at 25. I've managed to make an already difficult task 1.39 times harder.

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

I've taken to beating myself with knitting needles.

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Holy knit this is hard! Realization: learning to knit may not be a one-night dealio.

9 Dec Favorite Reply Delete

After all that tweeting and tangling of yarn I ended up with this beauty:

I decided to call that good and cast off (check me out using real knitting terms). I knit a canoe. Or a banana holder. Or a bracelet. It's a very versatile piece of handiwork. 

Despite my lack of knitting skills during that initial endeavor, I stuck with knitting and went on to buy more yarn in order start a trendy headband of my own the next night. That's right, not only did we stay in and knit on a Friday night, but we made it a double header and did it on Saturday night too. And the best part is our party multiplied (Shout out to Avery!):  

In case you were curious, I've gotten a lot better in the last five days: 

(Completed project one in purple and new project in progress in sage) 

Truthfully I should have just taken it from Pheobe and known knitting was "Too hard! Too hard!"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrWQO4SwGfw

Only in a Daycare

Here’s a little installment I like to call “Things That Would Only Happen at My Job”:

1.       Topless Tuesday and Naked Thursday (Ok this one might happen at other forms of employment, but only at my job can it happen and be purely innocent). Sometimes we eat really messy things for lunch, things like spaghetti with a red sauce, pudding, or any kind of juice. Since those items are a hazard to clothes and kids can’t seem to figure out utensils, the solution is to take their shirts off during lunchtime. But once the shirt is off and lunchtime is over the kids only manage to lose more clothing. So by the time their parents come to pick them up, they’re either down to their skivvies or running wild with their bare bums out. For a kid, everything’s just more fun in the nude.

2.       Public making out. The kids are at an age where they’re learning how to express love. The only thing they know on the matter is that their parents kiss them in order to show familial affection. So when they want to show their friends at daycare that they love them, how else would they do it besides kissing them? The only problem is that the kissing is unhindered. They all kiss each other: girls kiss boys, boys kiss girls, girls kiss girls, boys kiss boys. That’s not so bad, but they do it all the freakin’ time and for extended periods of time. They’ll just sit there with lips pressed to one another and eyes open and checking things out for the duration of Circle Time. My boss is like a broken record throughout the day teaching, “Please don’t kiss your friends. Kissing spreads germs. You can hug your friends or show them gentle pats, but please stop kissing each other.” 

3.        Poop Show & Tell. Typically in any other job people would go to extreme lengths to keep what goes on in the bathroom as private as possible. Not at my job. We routinely clap and cheer when a youngster makes wee wee or poops in the potty, which is weird enough at a place of employment, but the other day things got even weirder. A little girl called for assistance in the bathroom and I found her sitting on the regular-sized toilet. She exclaimed, “I pooped in the potty!” To which I responded with lots of encouragement and then handed her a piece of toilet paper and told her to wipe her bum. She took the TP, wiped her freshly poop-free bottom, and then handed the TP wad back to me and said, “here you go.” There’s no way I was touching that. I told her TP goes in the potty and she was big enough to do that herself.

Next time you’re in your place of employment, I encourage you to take a good look at your coworkers and supervisors and think about what it would be like if they partook in Naked Thursday, Public Making Out, or Poop Show & Tell.