This was on my desk when I came in this morning! No clue who left it there!, originally uploaded by twodolla.

One day, at least two years ago, I was sitting in my CEO’s office chatting away, sharing concerns, developing some strategy, getting re-motivated – all those normal things you do when you talk to your CEO behind closed doors. (Just kidding. I don’t know what’s normal with your CEO, but I would imagine not the interactions I have with mine.) As I was leaving, I noticed she had an autographed basketball, so I picked it up and looked at it. Kevin Love had scribbled on it. I think the only thing I said was, “Wow, that’s cool!” and she told me to take it. I argued I didn’t want to take it, she argued back and since her name is on the building, I gave up. So, I took it and it’s been sitting on my desk ever since. And that was the last conversation she and I ever had about Kevin Love.

Flash forward to this morning, when I noticed, after being at my desk for 30 minutes, that there’s an 11×14 autographed picture of Kevin Love sitting on top of my pen holder. I asked my first co-worker that came in this morning. She said she didn’t know anything about it, but then instant messaged me to say my new supervisor had given it to me. I asked him about it. He said my CEO had it in her office and told him that I really liked Kevin Love.

Little things like that make working for a small company – this small company – the greatest thing ever. Managers, supervisors, leads, whatever, take note: If you want your employee to truthfully feel awesome about working for you, convince them that you care about them as an individual. Yes, awesome insurance or five thousand weeks of vacation are great, but I forget about all of that when I see that the owner of my company has remembered something so trivial after years have gone by.

We’re down to single digits when it comes to how many days until we get the keys to our new house. The new landlord is giving us the keys on the 15th (!!) and you can be damn sure we’re not hesitating when it comes to unpacking. Considering it’s only 0.7 miles from our current house, there’s no reason not to haul a load or two every night. We’re really hoping to get all of the boxes and smallish furniture that we can live without on over there, so when we beg/plead/grovel to our friends to help us out on the first weekend of March, it won’t be that big of a deal. It’ll just be, well, the heavy furniture. Two pieces of good news about moving/the new place: the 300+ pound TV is no longer here and a 14 year old can lift the equivalent of a full grown man.

Here’s my list of OMG-This-Stuff-Is-Motivating-Me-To-Pack-And-Clean:

• Working oven at the new place.
• Our bedroom is upstairs; The Kid’s is in the basement. The times I have to say “Can you please turn that down?” will likely come few and far between.
• Room for my puzzle table!!!!!! (As long as The Damn Cat leaves it along…)
• Backyard with grass!
• Big garage with room for building things, which The Kid and I already have plans to do.
• PAID HEAT.

I need to quit wasting time here. I have some emails from Craigslist to return from people that want to pay legit cash money for my two boxes of Beanie Babies, because I’M NOT MOVING THEM THIS TIME.

I have a feeling that Facebook/Twitter and my blog would never be friends.

Facebook/Twitter (which I totally want to call Face-itter – yeah, go ahead and say that one out loud) are like the head cheerleader and the football captain and the student body president. It’s so super cool and everybody loves it in small doses, until the next year when someone else is the new latest and greatest. two dolla’s like that kid in school that has decent grades, plays JV basketball, works at Taco Bell, and plays the baritone in marching band. (Things just got real here.) It’s consistent. You know it’s always there. You’ve been friends with it forever. Those other folks are just flashes in the pan. See my analogy there?

I don’t know how many times I open up WordPress only to realize that my blog post might be about 200 characters, which I could totally shorten down to 140 if I tried hard enough. And if I can’t shorten it down 140 characters, then I can definitely squeeze it into a Facebook status and my great aunts (one who lives in Colorado and one who lives in Missouri) will totally “like” it. And if I’m lucky and it’s a really good status update, so will my high school guidance counselor and my 5th grade Sunday School teacher.

In other words, social media is ruining my blog and it’s starting to make me a little sad. But social media is also ruining my desire to read blogs, too. I’ve been able to deplete my RSS reader to so few blogs I read that it’s often empty. I figure if you have something important to say, you’ll do it somewhere else. I miss when blogging was the cool thing to do!

It’s taken me a couple of days to feel like I have my arms around the situation enough to actually say anything about it. More than anything, it’s made me feel unbelievably sad because I’ve devoted seven years to raising money and awareness for the Susan G Komen and it hurts to walk away from something I’ve given so much – physically, mentally and financially – to over most of my adult life. But unless things take a drastic change, I’m washing my hands of the organization as a whole and will find another way to help fight for a cure for cancer.

I know you’re going to ask why, so here you go:

1. SGK pulled their grants from Planned Parenthood stating the reason they’re doing it is because Planned Parenthood is under federal investigation. I understand that and wasn’t ready to walk away just yet. And then I read today that they’re funding a cancer research center at Penn State to the tune of $7.5 million. Penn State is currently under federal investigation. See how that doesn’t match up?

2. They pulled funding for stem cell research, another move that screams pro-life, pro-political and forgets everything about it being a non-profit aimed at helping find a cure for cancer.

3. The new Vice President of Public Policy, Karen Handel, tried to run for Governor for Georgia on a gigantic platform of taking all of the funding away from Planned Parenthood. She’s never made her agenda a secret and, while a lot of the things posted about her may seem libelous, they also hold true to exactly what’s going on. And then I have to see stuff like this:

It all boils down to money. We know that. My money and my time and my heart will no longer go towards Komen. There are plenty of other organizations out there that can help us find a cure. Until they manage to straighten out this political nonsense, I don’t want to be involve. My favorite thing that The 3 Day brought to me was passion. I’ve been so passionate about finding a cure, knowing that surely it’s right around the corner. And now, the organization as a whole just doesn’t seem to have that passion anymore.

If things change, and I sure hope they do, you’ll find me right back on The 3 Day train, but until then, I’m taking a step or two back. It’s not me, Komen folks, it’s definitely you.

Mitt Romney was in Minnesota today and what happens? He gets glitter bombed. We made that prediction this morning before he even got to town.

I’m so over throwing glitter at politicians. Okay, it hilarious when the glitter came out of a cheez it box at Newt Gingrich. We all got our chuckle when anyone with the name Bachmann gets a pile of glitter thrown at them. Although, wouldn’t a bag of wrenches be even more hilarious?

Gay, listen. Can we try something else? The glitter bombing is tired. Do something really annoying. But one stupid piece of glitter on someone’s cheek, so they spend the whole day with it on there and don’t notice it until the end of the day. That right there is embarassing.

I mean, if we’re going to make a stand or prove a point, can we try doing it with something really crazy, like words? Or even signs? I mean, YAY, you dumped your kid’s art project leftovers on Republican candidates for president. But who does that prove a point to? If you’re trying to win over the supporters of those candidates, you’re failing. It’s not funny to them and it just makes gays look like a bunch of immature brats. That’s not going to get us what we want, you know?

Think about it. I’d like a raise at work. I’m not going to bust into my boss’s office throwing confetti in her general direction while there are hundreds of people standing around. That’s not how things get done. Can we try harder, please?

I can’t even explain to you how many times I’ve sat down in front of my computer, opened up WordPress and then just stared at it because I don’t know how to title my post. It’s like I’m trying to title a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, except harder because I’ve already done that (in my head) at least five dozen times.

Things have been busy around this neck of the urban woods. We have 27 days until we go to Vegas and 33 days until we can move into our new house. We’ve already made one trip to Goodwill and have plans for at least one more before we move, because as much as I love my stuff I’ve had for years and have never taken out of a box, I like not having to carry as much boxes even better.

I found a box of various greeting cards that possibly date back until the 1980s. Thanks to a suggestion from Dez (courtesy of Mrs. Dez), I’m totally scanning them and putting them into a hard cover book, so I can just throw the box away. I think it comes from growing up with two grandmas that had the most fantastic photo albums ever, but I just love being able to go back and look at those kinds of things. And, yes, that’s including the note from my fourth grade teacher, who thanked me for taking care of our classroom guinea pig (Chipper) over Christmas break. I also passed several years of swimming lessons with flying colors, in the event that you’re curious. And my letters to Santa? Very well thought out for a six year old.

And the Beanie Babies. Damn those things. I don’t even care about them, but I spent way too much time on Ebay trying to find certain ones to just throw them out… possibly over 15 years ago. Sigh. Who wants some Beanie Babies? Most have the tags!

I think I said this when we moved into this house, but I really mean it moving into this next one. I seriously don’t want to move again for at least two years. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

My favorite 15 year old in Missouri is a huge Drake fan. Or at least was. I can’t keep track of what kids are into these days. It wasn’t until I heard the song Headlines, that I realized I kind of like this Drake kid, too.

I might be too strung out on compliments, overdosed on confidence
Started not to give a fuck and stopped fearing the consequence
Drinking every night because we drink to my accomplishments
Faded way too long, I’m floatin’ in and out of consciousness
And they saying I’m back, I agree with that
I just take my time with all this shit, I still believe in that
I had someone tell me I fell off, ooh I needed that
And they want to see me pick back up, well, where’d I leave it at?
I know I exaggerated things, now I got it like that
Tuck my napkin in my shirt cause I’m just mobbin’ like that
You know good and well that you don’t want a problem like that
You gonna make someone around me catch a body like that
No, don’t do it, please don’t do it
Cause one of us goes in, and we all go through it
And Drizzy got the money, so Drizzy gonna pay it
Those my brothers, I ain’t even gotta say it
That’s just something they know

Here’s the best part. If you go to this link, you can click on the lyrics and find out what they actually mean. I could keep myself entertained all day on a site called RapGenius.

I even found you this video if you’re so inclined to hear the whole song:

Successfully co-parenting a 14 year old boy has helped me learn many, many things, most of which will never grace this blog with its presence, because I don’t want people knowing that much information about my kid. It’s too bad, because I could really use some advice on some of that information, you know? One thing I’ve learned hard and fast? Boys stink. The Kid is REALLY good about applying deodorant and, yes, some AXE body spray, but at least I know I’ll never have the stinky kid in class.

He’s a facts-based kid, though, so if I ever run into needing scientific evidence, this not-his-mom has found this little graphic to share:

Via: Bye Bye Excessive Armpit Sweat

You know, because we needed a new shower curtain and all. Apparently I was in some sort of whimsical mood when picking it out? All I know is that it’s too “loud”, in the words of my grandma (RIP), and I can’t look at it first thing in the morning.