Noel, The Elf You Love to Hate

I'm soooo not one of "those" moms. I don't plan meals and rarely cook. When I do it's not good (refer to blog name). I find the school note about Silly Hat Day a week late. I can't even keep up with the 30 days of November facebook posts about what I'm thankful for. I start off with my family and my friends, skip a week in the middle and then the last day of the month I'm thankful for indoor plumbing and on-demand Elmo.

And yet, here I am . . . with my Elf on the Shelf. I have many over achieving Elf mom's. I laughed my butt off when I read this post on the blog People I Want To Punch In The Throat. Last year our Elf did a few fun things and other times he just found a spot he liked and stayed there for a few days. Did anyone else notice those were the days we had soccer practice or mom was cranky and not cooking?? Anyone?

The best is when he was hidden so well that it took her a day or two to find him. I actually started to see where I could hide him just to stretch it out. I think I crossed a line into passive aggressive Elf hate when I put him in my sock drawer for three days. Oops! I guess Noel is at the North Pole telling Santa how you shoved a kid at school and then came home and drew with sharpie on my kitchen table.

So, I'm doing it again this year. I have an 8 year old and a 2 year old. If all the stars align and God sees favor with me, this will be my last year of Santa White Lies to my 8 year old. But then she's got to be in on the act for the 2 year old . . .so at least I'll have a partner in crime. That is, until it's July and she's mad at him for be-heading her Barbie and then she'll have some major ammunition to leverage.

Here's what Noel is up to tonight:

Hopefully she won't wake up at 2am and have to go to the potty. That could really cause some wear and tear on both her nerves and the carpet. 

And here is Noel in his hiding spot:

The single most brilliant story line for the dude that wrote up this crazy story is that the kids can't touch the Elf. If they do, he loses his magic and he can't go back to the North Pole to tell Santa about how they sat around like slugs and watched TV for four hours and STILL managed to destroy an entire living room. How do they do that???

Squirrel. So Noel is here for this month. We'll see how this goes. No promises. And I'm not ruling out the sock drawer again.

Women Who Curse

I work in a department that is made up of four women and two men. We are a fun loving and rowdy group that knows when to turn up the radio and take a three minute FOOTLOOSE dance break and when to put in the headphones and crank stuff out.

But in our office we would say crank shit out. Because we cuss.

Now, we're all church going folks who serve in various capacities of our churches and even know a few verses. We're all believers in do-unto-others, paying for the occasional coffee of the car behind us and praying over friends who are sick or going through rough times. We believe in helping others and being kind.  And we also cuss.

And not just in the stepped-on-a-leggo-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind of cuss (but that kind too). We cuss when we're excited and happy! We cuss when we talk our way through last night's Gray's Anatomy or The Voice. We cuss when we are pissed. Why? Dunno. Never thought about it much until one of the guys said he'd never seen anyone throw down the f-bombs quite like this group, never mind that we are all chicks.

Does it mean something different when a woman cusses than when a man does it?
Does it mean anything significant to cuss or not to cuss?
Does it ever feel good to just . . . .say the f word???
I think sometimes it does. But never in front of my mother.



The above image is from Zazzle.com. This is not an endorsement for their company or their product. I did not receive any compensation for using that photo. I just liked it. My opinions on cursing are my own and in no way reflect the cursing opinions of the folks at Zazzle.