Marmabug at My Life as “Momma” and Flea tagged me for a meme. Obviously they are very patient women since I have become very forgetful about all these obligations sitting in my drafts.

Eight Things For Which I Have A Passion For: (in no particular order)
1. Justin
2. my kids
3. my family
4. being a very useful engine…yes, I like to be busy and useful at work, makes the time go quicker
5. reading, though you’d never tell since I barely have time to read anymore
6. blogging, though maybe it should really say “commenting” because I’m much better at that
7. watching TV, sad but true
8. good wine

Eight Things I’d Like to do Before I Die:
1. go to Europe with Justin and stay in the nicest prettiest areas, drinking local wines
2. see my kids get married to wonderful people
3. rock my grandbabies to sleep
4. see my kids graduate college and get good, fulfilling jobs
5. meet Queen Elizabeth…and hopefully Prince William (joking honey!…sorta)
6. breed and raise Boston Terriers
7. learn to play cello
8. move back to either Chicago or Indy

Eight Things I Say a Lot:
1. dude! (I even say it to my baby)
2. whattup?!
3. whoa!
4. are you kidding?!?
5. No, thank-you
6. do you need to go in time-out?
7. freakin’ idiot
8. go potty, please!

Eight Books I Have Read Recently:
1. Useful Idiots by Mona Charen
2. Thunder from Jerusalem by Bodie & Brock Thoene
3. Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain’s Queen by Sarah Bradford
4. British Kings & Queens: The complete biographical encyclopedia of the kings & queens of Great Britain by Mike Ashley
5. George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage by Christopher Andersen
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
7. What’s So Great About America by Dinesh D’Souza (okay, so I listened to this one…)
8. 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken Is #37) by Bernard Goldberg

Eight Movies I Have Seen (at least) Eight Times: (I didn’t think it was fair to list kids movies…)
1. Star Wars (episode 4)
2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
3. Oscar
4. Spaceballs
5. Goonies
6. Young Frankenstein
7. Return to Me
8. Dogma

Eight People Who Should, but are in no way obligated, Do This Meme:
1. Karen
2. Caramama
3. Madame Queen
4. Tranny Head
5. Burgh Baby’s Mom
6. AFF
7. Ummmhello
8. and uh, I’m out of ideas…

And anyone else but me think there should be eight categories?…you know, since today’s meme was brought to you by the number 8…

Last week, once the Puke ended and before Justin came home from Alaska, the kids and I would get home from work/school and I’d pour a bowl of Cheerios start dinner, feed Cooper, then Gavin and I would eat.  Meanwhile, I’d have the radio turned onto 94.7 The Globe…it has a nice range of music styles on it and good for bopping around the kitchen.  Keeps the kids entertained and not focused on their hunger, and I can pretend to be the best semi-sober singer/dancer in the world.  If Gavin’s being a particularly pillish stinker, he’ll holler things like "no zing-ing!  no daaaan-sing!"  I usually ignore him and keep doing what I’m doing until he flips his lid (we’ve already established that I feed my kids junk food and pump them full of TV; purposely irritating shouldn’t be a surprise).

Well, this particular night, The Donnas song, Dancing With Myself was playing and I was singing along and doing my best British faux-punk dance while setting dinner on the table.  As usual, Gavin got annoyed with me.

• G:  Mommy, ‘top daaan-sing!
• M:  Come on, Buddy…don’t you want to dance with me? (singing) oh-oh-oh-oh
• G:  Noooooo!
• M:  Fine…I’m okay with that (singing and dancing again) cuz I’m-a-just-a dancin’ wi’ my-sel-lf oh-oh-oh-oh!

Gavin takes one look at me and starts laughing.  And I start laughing because I literally saw the lightbulb turn on over his head when he realized what I was singing at him was the words to the song playing on the radio.  I think he was also laughing at my ridiculous dancing skillz. 

And to think, that’s how I ensnared trapped attracted his father in the first place. 

Maybe you noticed in the past couple weeks I’ve been a real crab. Or depending on your tolerance, a whiny bitch. Whatever. I’m comfortable with myself enough to embrace my pity-parties and recognize what a pain in the tush I can be. Besides my husband who’s legally obligated to put up with me, none of you fine folks need to. But you do. And you have been this whole time that I’ve been moaning and groaning and I appreciate that a whole heckuva lot. I try not to air all my dirty laundry because my parents read this, possibly a few of my co-workers (because I’m stupid bold enough to have vanity plates), and some other friends (um, would it kill any of you to leave a comment once in a while? dang lurkers…don’t make me chase down your IPs now!). Not that I’m saying anything bad about any of them, but there are some things in your life, in your head, in your heart, that you generally need to keep to yourself. Unless you know that no one who sees you on a constant basis is going to read these deepest darkest thoughts and feelings…ah, the anonymity of the Interwebs….

Well, to make a long story short (“too late!”), while you have seen some whiny crap pouring forth, that’s actually just the more superficial stuff bugging me. But all the support, love, humor, and responses back to me (comments/emails) has really meant a LOT to me because it’s helped me deal with the stuff on the surface so that I have more strength to deal with the other deeper things. I don’t feel so spread-out, so overwhelmed, or so helpless. I truly appreciate all of you and your words of encouragement. I don’t know that I could ever put into words what it really means to me…so I’ll stick with the words I know: Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart.

Speaking of bottoms:

Who’da thunk my baby could have a bigger butt and thighs than my nearly four-year old???

(photo courtesy of Justin)

For some reason, I feel the need to confess that I am zoning out watching “Tommy Tiernan:  Something Mental” on Comedy Central.  I cannot stop laughing.  I don’t know if it’s just because he’s Irish, because he’s actually funny, or maybe my little Zoloft pill is mixing weird with my wine?  I’ll let you decide. 

Although hopefully you don’t decide that my last sentence made me sound like Karen Walker from “Will and Grace”.

Okay, I did some confessing in the past few weeks (i.e. poor parenting skills, poor drinking skills, poor belly control), it must be the time of year…feel the need to get things off my chest. But these are different. At least in my own head…and I spend an awful lot of time in my head lately, where a lot of things sound different, or good, or just plain fan-freakin’-tastic, ala JD on Scrubs. But I digress (my husband did say I should’ve named my site “Sidetracked” instead of “Wine Please”…but whatever, it’s totally my site and I love wine and, oh. Heh). Here is my list of confessions, or maybe they’re really just little facts about me. hmmm… okay, really, here’s the list:

1. I drink, nay, I CRAVE cheap cheap wine, like Livingston Cellars Rhine Wine in the double-sized bottle…for $7.99. I also can appreciate and enjoy more expensive and complex wines, but when the crap hits the fan, I need something I can chug down without hearing my wallet scream. BTW, it is way more fun to not only drink it, but make my wine-snob-I’m-way-into-Reserves-only-husband buy it for me…hee hee! I also usually drink it in a standard rocks glass (or medium juice glass for all you teetotalers). Yeah, that’s how I roll.
2. If we could financially handle it, I think I would really enjoy working in the infant room at my sons’ daycare. I LOVE babies, and since Justin is very against having any more of our own, this might pacify my baby obsession a little. And it has the added benefit of reduced tuition for my kids, I send the babies home with their parents at the end of the day (they aren’t interfering with my sleeping), and no nursing!
3. I despise unions. Sorry to any of you card-carrying members of a union…I just cannot stand them. When I was in high school, I worked at Osco in Indiana and was essentially required to join the union, regardless of the fact that the store automatically gave me a discount (my only benefit as a part-time worker). It pissed me off to no end that I had $4-something a week taken out of my paycheck…since I made slightly over minimum wage at that time, that was about 1 hour’s pay…to the union, who didn’t do a dang thing for me…talk about taxation with out representation! In college, I worked at a non-union Osco and was so friggin’ happy to have my money back. Then, after working several years in a union environment (though not in a unionized position) at a previous job, I have had more than had my fill of those fat cats “working” for the people. They’re damn socialists is what they are, and they turn completely decent employees into lying, scheming, lazy morons, and create a hostile environment of “us versus them” regardless of how much management works to keep the peace. And they rob companies dry with their ridulous contracts…hello, if the company wasn’t goaded into paying for 100% health/dental/vision benefits for union employees and up to FOUR of their dependents, the company might not have to do these friggin’ RIFs all the time.
4. I wish I could be more creative. I mean, I’ll have spits and spurts, but never anything consistent. I think if I had a little more time, I could be creative (i.e. I have knitted some nice blankets and even a sweater for other people’s babies…but am only about 1/8 of the way through Cooper’s blanket…and haven’t even started on one for Gavin). So I guess wishing to be more creative isn’t really a confession…I guess the confession is that I am not consistently creative.
5. I work in telecom, specifically supporting and managing part of the fiber optic TV product provided by a major telecom company. Prior to that, I did reporting, researching, and analysis (among a million other things) for a call center. The part that is usually interesting to most folks is that I have a degree in Religious Studies and a minor in Humanities. The most technical class I ever took in college was my Religious Studies Research Theories class, and that’s only because it required me to use a computer for gathering stats and creating tables.
6. Really, while we’re confessing here, I went through several declared major while in college. Most of my friends never changed theirs, or only modified it slightly (i.e. went from Pre-K Ed to Secondary Ed). But I started off as a Music Education major (think band director), realized I was too lazy to practice as much as required and switched to General Studies (because nothing else seemed appropriate). Thought that was a lame major and tried Secondary Education (think Middle and High school), but after a few classes, didn’t feel that was my true calling and considered Pre-Pharmacy (think head pharmacist in a drug store, or a research pharmacist). I actually held onto this major pretty long…until I couldn’t figure out how to pass Anatomy (yeah, body parts kicked my butt…Ball State has a surprisingly tough nursing/pre-pharm/pre-med program). Then I realized I always enjoyed my humanities classes and really was interested in world religions…so there comes my major and minor. I wanted to be a professor and teach at a college or university, but I haven’t gotten my Masters yet. So maybe someday I’ll actually be able to put my education to good use. In the meantime, it works out well for me that I alone laugh hysterically at religious jokes, because I really get them, and can answer the occassional question about some of the major faiths in the world.
7. I have an obsession with Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. When I was pregnant, I would eat an ENTIRE sleeve of cookies (with milk, you know, to make it healthy). In like 5 minutes. Really.
8. I am turning into my mother. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing (I love you, Mom!), but when you spend so much of your life trying to find yourself and be your own person, it’s a little disturbing when you find yourself doing and saying the same things that your mother does. Like when Gavin is driving me bonkers with crying and whining and I hear myself say, “STOP the whining! I can’t stand the whining! I can’t understand you when you whine!” or “STOP the crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” I guess it’s a good thing, then, that Justin gets along with and likes my mom, huh?
9. I like snow. I like it a LOT. I like watching it fall, I like playing in it, I even don’t mind shoveling it. I don’t mind it when I’m driving, I just mind when I’m stuck driving in it with the knuckleheads in this area that were somehow issued drivers licenses.
10. I was born and raised in the southern suburbs of Chicago…though that’s not really a confession. What might be a confession is my lame attempts at trying to hide my nasally Chicago accent, particularly in words that contain the “short O”, “aww” or “ahh” sounds, like coffee, sconce, or ma. I do alright unless I’m tired or drinking…and then Justin starts giggling at me when I talk because I’m all “sangwich” and “braaaaahhhhtwurst” and “da Bears”. Think the Bears fans from the SNL skits.

So what little confessions to all of you have???

Oh, and I’m totally resting on my husband’s laurels again…go see it for yourself (he’s a much more entertaining writer than me) or just look below for the REAL nitty gritty: