Charlie Brown....you ROCK this house!

I U, babe!

Like he's ever going to read this - but I'm sure he'll be relieved to know that I share the goods on him in a very healthy 2+ positives to 1 negative ratio. In other words, he's a good guy, my Charlie Brown.

The occasion, you ask?

Nothing splendiferous on the traditional romance-o-meter. But this working mommy, who, though she will be going to 100% FTE status in January, began adding some of the new duties to her already pressed for time 50% FTE status - without compensation - this week, and is struggling to juggle it all in the midst of annual report deadlines - well, her view of good ole Chuck is lookin' pret-tay damn sexy right now.... as practical as it really is.

Is your head spinning yet? Cuz...mine is.

Lemme see if I can slow it down. Deep breath in - ready??

I work 20 hrs/week right now. And the workload for those hours is pretty decent, largely depending on time of year (during the City's grant season, 20 hrs/wk and the workload is seriously out of balance). Well, crunch season is slowly easing upon me, with annual report deadlines (something like accountability of local gov't to the citizens tends to be important) looming, meeting some of the demand taking a bit longer than anticipated (damned formatting issues will eat a huge chunk out of the time-bank every time!). And, as The Boss and I talked about Monday, part of my new 100% FTE duties will include more community meetings for various projects/collaborations in the works. Which, would be fine....... IN JANUARY! But, I attended 5 hours worth of meetings above and beyond my normal current job duties, which again, were already starting to pile up, and now seem insurmountable.

I was scheduled to be in the baby, versus toddler, nursery tonight at church, had no dinner scheduled (as I have yet to accomplish this week!), and we were in sore need of a trip to the friendly, neighborhood grocers. Oh, and did I mention the !@#$-load of work I have yet to finish? Ha-ha, my mock curseword hyperlinked - that is too funny! In other words....I was panicking. I can't handle another morning of LMNOB screaming at me that she wanted so badly to take ramen noodles (of all things) in her thermos for lunch today, BUT. WE. DON'T. HAVE. ANY!!

What was a girl to do?

Stop by Charlie Brown's place of employment shortly after picking Punkinhead up from daycare and LMNOB from school.

FREAK OUT - well, in red-headed step-child fashion, which entails a very ethereal sense of calmness belying the fact that underneath the facade of laid back Type B Mama is a frenetic frustrated perfectionist, Type A personality.

And he says, seeing thru it all.............................

(this is to be read with that harpy, epiphany sound effect, btw)

Why don't you just stay home then -

get some work done.

And.

I'll take the kids to church

and watch the babies?

To which I practically melted, swooning as I fell in love with my very practical and not-really-in-this-instance-but-sorta-totally white knight all. over. AGAIN! And in my damsel who barely escaped distress fog, I dumbly said, "You'd really do that for me?" like it was completely a foreign and unexplored concept - which, it had been....for me......duh!

Then, the fog cleared and I started to re-enter distress. "But what about dinner?" We've eaten out EVERY night this week! "And we have to get groceries." See above ramen noodle discussion.

Replay that harpy music, folks, b/c he did it again!

Why don't you order something -

I'll pick it up on the way home.

Make a list, and I'll do the shopping too."

Again incredulous, was me: "Really?"

Yes, really.... are you completely oblivious to the fact that I love you and I'm a decent human being?

And folks, he didn't even say that, cuz he's better than decent - he's damn sex-ay. In that really weird, practical way that nowhere near resembles the Hollywood version of sexy. Which is fine by me....b/c in my opinion, the only people who think the Hollywood male sexy is really sexy, in and of itself, are: gay men.

Oh....and the work? Well....it would have gotten done. Had. I. Thought. to ensure spellcheck didn't prevent my e-mail msg from sending. Said msg requested the Boss send me some files - since I didn't have home access to them, and I had been in a mtg all morning. Said msg was never executed, b/c spellcheck didn't recognize "AHC" (short for Affordable Housing Commission) despite my having added it to my dictionary NUMEROUS times, and I didn't catch this until 6:50PM, instead of 3:00PM - when I was running to go pick my children up.

Have. You. Seen. My. Head?? I swear it got chopped off and I've been running around like CRAZY ever since.

But....back to that Charlie Brown...He is amazing, ain't he?