Introduction & Random Thoughts

I'm always going about my life with all these random thoughts popping into my head. Like today at the gym... I'm pumping away on the elliptical machine, level 4, aerobics mode, about 10 minutes into my 1/2 hour morning session and I'm sweating. Not just a light glisten... nope, sweating for real. As I grab my baby blue hand towel to wipe my forehead I notice that no one else is sweating. Not the girl on the treadmill in front of me, not the woman on the elliptical next to me, not the guy lifting weights in the distance (at least he didn't look like he was from far away). How is it that these people can get through a workout without breaking a sweat? I wonder, is it a faux pas to actually sweat at the gym? As I finish up my workout and walk the long walk to the door I feel like everyone is staring at me sweating and I walk faster to get out of the place. I'll do it all over again tomorrow and I'll wonder if there will ever be a day that I can get through 1/2 hour on the elliptical machine without sweating.

It's not like I'm a gym rat or anything. In fact, I've had this membership for over a year now and I'm really just starting to go regularly. Yep, I went to the gym 3 times last week and this week I've already been twice and it's only Tuesday. I managed to get The Man to join last week and he's been twice now so I'm hoping that will motivate me to keep going.

It's only recently that The Man and I have been able to actually get out of the house together during the day since our youngest is now in Montessori school. I'll pause here to explain why I call The Man "The Man" and not "my husband" or "DH" or "my boyfriend" or any of those other conventional descriptions for the male counterpart of a heterosexual committed relationship. We are not married and probably won't be getting married any time soon. I have been married before and found that the formality of marriage does not equal commitment. Though I feel it would sometimes be easier to be able to call him my husband just for social purposes - we just don't feel that marriage is something we should enter into for terminology purposes.

We've been together for six years now and have three children aged four, six, and seven. How does that work?? Obviously, my older two children are not biologically The Man's children. However, he is the only dad they've ever known and that's good enough for us. We have entirely too much responsibility and history for me to call him my boyfriend and he's most definitely wearing the pants in the family so I've found it best to call him "The Man" since he is indeed The Man.

I made the mistake of giving my first two children my ex-husband's last name even though I never changed my own and our youngest has The Man's last name which makes for confusing forms filled out for schools and insurance purposes. The kids' teachers and doctors and coaches constantly call me by my ex's last name which is truly annoying but even more annoying to have to correct them all the time. I'm thinking of changing their last names to mine or The Man's but it's quite a dilemma since I sort of want all three of them to have the same last name but The Man's is sort of an unfortunate last name. I also need to wonder if The Man and I ever do get married will I have to change their names AGAIN. It's all a big conundrum.

But I digress...

I'm naming this blog "Slacker Mom" because I truly am the perfect example of a slacker mom. I'm insanely busy all the time but this is actually a direct result of my procrastination problem. In fact, I'm currently procrastinating by typing this blog instead of shipping out the billions of packages I need to get working on. I am a full time eBay seller of women's clothing and I love my job. It's great to get to make my own hours and work in my pajamas and I get to shop and all that... but it's not great to be a procrastinator and make your own paycheck. :) The Man and I run this business together and he constantly has to be on me to get my work done. If it weren't for him we'd be living in a cardboard box.

Our seven year old, who will from now on be known as "Bug" recently joined the Cub Scouts and we have our first meeting tonight. Which reminds me I need to drive him over to the Boy Scout store to buy his belt and I need to throw his Cub Scout tee shirt in the wash before his meeting. Always something to be done... another reason I shouldn't be typing this. Because we took the plunge and signed Bug up for Cub Scouts our six year old girl, Munchkin, decided she wanted to be a Brownie. So last night I drove her over to the school for the Girl Scout recruitment meeting.

Now, a couple of weeks ago at the Boy Scout recruitment meeting I was overwhelmed with the response... the school's cafeteria was FULL with parents and boys and siblings and leaders and it was just overwhelming! Last night the Girl Scout meeting had about six prospective girls there. It was sad. What was even sadder was that the head of the organization for our area was there and she explained that due to the lack of leaders they actually wouldn't have our girls placed in a troop until some more leaders sign up.

So I'm considering it. And let me just tell you that I am not the type of person to do this... but it really made me sad that they were so short handed and Munchkin wouldn't even have a real troop yet and I guess my own Girl Scout nostalgia started kicking in and I started imagining all the fun activities I could do with my Brownie troop and I really think I want to take the plunge.

But first I would seriously need to get my act together! We're really changing the way we work our business lately and I would need to make sure I had that all together first. I'd also need to get our house together! I mean, as a Girl Scout leader it's just inevitable that people would be stopping by for things. Seriously, I just can't let anyone actually see it in it's current condition. eBay has completely taken over - there are literally about 100 plastic bins full of inventory scattered throughout the house wherever we can mange to live around them. We plan to start storing them in the garage but first we'd have to clean it out and it's truly a nightmare in there. So bad that we can't actually get the lawnmower out so the lawn has suffered terribly. Luckily our house is set back enough that our neighbors can't actually SEE it... but it really needs to be cleaned up. Now that summer is over and our South Florida weather will start to cool off we really need to get in that garage and clean it out. I truly think it's the heart of our domestic problem. That and I keep procrastinating. :)

So for now it's time to stop procrastinating and start shipping. Angry customers are never a good thing.