Jimmy Coo vs. Air Canada

There is a battle going on that few people know about. The airlines are conspiring against the shoe companies by setting ridiculously low weight allowances on luggage, limiting the number of shoes that women can pack during travel.

This is why I am incredibly grateful for business partners with the same shoe size. I didn't plan it that way. I didn't find shoes clustered around a doorway at an event, peak inside, then recruit those that put the same size as me. Shoe size isn't on any questionnaires my future business partners fill out. It wouldn't matter if it was, because people are foot liars. Men lie up and women lie down. This in one of the many things I learned during my highschool career as a Joggers shoe salesperson.

Sometimes luck is in your favor and you can collect a tribe of fellow size 9ers to travel with. All feeling secure in the knowledge that you are going to be able to bail each other out when the shoes you were planning for a big event while traveling over time zones, morphed into something uncomfortable and hideous.

It's just good shoe math.

A selfie stick IS a business tool

When you are born right after Christmas your birthday loses some excitement. Celebrate it 38+ times and the gratitude for being allowed another is gift enough. This year was different though. When my husband asked what I would like for my birthday. I answered right away. "A selfie stick!".

I watched my darling husband fight an internal battle on how to react. He almost hid his horror and concern as he cautiously answered "really?". I confidently answered "As a business tool".

Now if you have been blessed to be with someone more than half your life, like we have. You know when to ask more questions and when to move on. A selfie stick arrived cheerfully wrapped on my birthday.

I know he doesn't get it. He has an office and co workers he sees every day. When you work from home as an Independent Consultant it's different. We only get together a couple times a year, so it's exciting, fun and fills your cup.

You want to capture that shit. 

No that's not my hero biscuit

I lost my opportunity for the ultimate Mom hero biscuit when I opted in for drugs during the c-section births of my three children, hanging her head in shame. So I'm not sure why medicating myself to get on a plane feels so dirty. I know passenger 12B in the seat beside me doesn't care when I sneak in my tiny pill, but they should. I could introduce them to young airline mechanic that was seated beside me a few years ago on a return flight. I grabbed him so suddenly and tightly during some turbulence that I felt I should write an apology letter to his Mother.

I've read the stats and know that I am technically safer in the air than I am in the car on way to the airport but here's my trouble with flying. I've run into enough people in different fields that are terrible at their job, that it is not a big leap to think that perhaps I might have a bad pilot. Now before you start in on the comments section, I know that planes are largely flown by computers and more than 1 pilot, so it takes a large collection of errors and factors to crash a plane. But it happens and when it does it's all over the media, like a giant beacon of warning to the fair weather flyer's like me.

Ironically I love to travel and take at least 6-8 flights a year. So I have developed a system that you are welcome to borrow.

Step 1- Set alarm, and wake frequently to make sure the hydro has not gone out.
Step 2 - Give up on sleep and have 2 coffees before leaving the house. Pack one for en route.
Step 3 - Arrive at the airport ridiculously early so to ensure enough time to elevate the anxiety levels.
Step 4 - Talk to every member of the airport staff to get a read on whether 'something is up' or not.
Step 5- Start process of bi-hourly peeing. Get another coffee.
Step 6 - Check out each passenger in the waiting area for signs of unstable behaviour.
Step 7 - Listen for boarding call. Contemplate leaving the airport.
Step 8 - Cautiously board plane, being sure to make eye contact with all attendants and peer into the cockpit to watch for shiftiness in the pilots.
Step 9 - Find seat and text a goodbye to all those you love before shutting down your phone.
Step 10- Resign yourself to the fact your life might be over. Repeat, "Let go. Let God", until your plane has levelled off.
Step 11- Land safely. Make mental notes regarding all promises made to your higher power and feel silly about Steps 1 -10.

You're welcome. j

"Tony! Tony! Come around."

"Something's lost and must be found!" I was taught you only call St.Anthony in for the big stuff.

 18 hours before getting on a plane and my car keys were gone. Compound the problem by the fact that we live 2 hours from the airport and I am to drive my business partner as well, and we have a problem.

The first few hours of looking were marked by annoyance and minor barking at the family to assist or get out of the way. I've never seen them move so fast when the school bus arrived.  As each place that the keys "should be" was searched my panic level increased. Six hours in I was a full blown crazy woman. I checked the trees outside. In my mind a squirrel picking up my dropped keys and using the colourful lanyard as nesting made complete sense.

Insert on the scene friends and family that called or stopped by to say goodbye before my trip. As my plight became apparent they offered super helpful advice like "Did you check where you usually put them?" "Maybe they are still in the car?" "Wow, I bet those keys are really expensive to replace!". These remarks allowed me to practice my life long goal of holding my sarcastic tongue. Of which I am not always successful.

8 hours into the search and I had to allow myself to think about what the heck we were going to do if they didn't turn up. Clearly they weren't in the garbage, in any nook/cranny of the house and they weren't in the trees. They were gone.

The children cautiously arrived home from school asking if they were found. I'm sure my frazzled and exhausted appearance answered for me. I had just confessed the situation to my travel partner and had answered my husbands 7th text of "Found them yet?" with a resigned "No :( ". I begged the kids to check their backpacks. Which of-course was met with protests that I had made them do it before leaving in the morning. That was until they were located. In the backpack that was checked 8 hours of searching ago...

There's an Elephant in my workspace.

I'm wrestling with a giant elephant who just won't listen to reason. Here's the conversation we have been having for over a week.

Elephant "I want some attention"
Me "I really want to spend some time with you, but I have a lot of work to do before I leave for my conference"
E - "But I am important too"
M - "You can wait. I need to be practical."
E - "What are you doing? Is that Facebook? That can't be work."
M- "Making use of social media is part of my job and it's none of your business anyway."
E -  " Hello...."
M- " Piss off."
E - " How about just a few minutes?"
M - "You know what that will lead to. It will be two hours, the kids will be home and I won't have got my work done."
E - " You suck. Other women balance way better"
M - "That was low. Have some class."
E- "I'd be way classier if you finished painting me. Just sayin."

Ducks in a Row

Someone tell me why it is so important that all the sheets have been changed on the beds before I get on a plane? Does the wall behind the stove need to be scrubbed? Of-course it does. Can you only imagine if people showed up to my grieving families home after my plane crashed to find dust and dirt. Oh the shame.

I have a completely capable family that are able to tidy up after themselves and do not spend much time thinking about the cleanliness of their sheets. However right before I leave for a trip I morph into this obsessive compulsive clean freak.

Plus my colleagues are ridiculously attractive people. Which brings a challenge for someone who's great clothing aspirations include clean Lulus and has the ability to grow Muppet-like eyebrows overnight. In the next three days I will be plucked, coiffed, painted and fitted in my best effort to blend.

I'm acutely aware that I am difficult to be around at the moment. My children are strangely out of sight and my husband looks like he is trying not to make any sudden movements. There is a definite air of 'don't let the door hit you on the way out' in Martinville. It makes me hopeful that the sense of relief, will over ride any missing of Mom.

While writing this I started to wonder if other women suffer from
PreTripGetAllYourDucksInARowandForGoodnessSakedosomethingwithThoseEyebrowsMomisits. I'll save you some time. I googled it. The answer is no. Which means that adding it's entry in urbandictonary.com, just made it to my pre-trip to do list.

Do I need to introduce myself if only my Mother is reading this?

10 000 people start blogs every day. Or is it 17 000? I have no idea. I'm just pulling both numbers out of the air, but it's a lot. Most will post a few times and lose interest. Such is human nature. Personally, I've started 4 blogs and only ever published 1 post. I suppose it's the same reason we join a gym with great expectations of getting fit, go 4 times the first week, 2 times the second week and by the third are finding a new route to work so that we don't have to pass the god-forsaken place.

So I'm wondering if I should bother introducing myself. Since only my Mother will be reading this post and she's knows more about me than a sane person would post about them-self on the internet.

I do feel I should warn you. If you plan to continue reading you need to accept two things. Most of my life is spent trying to find a way to get some work done from home, stay married and not beat the kids. That's about as exciting as it gets. I'm not an undercover spy. I'm not working my way through the worlds most famous french cookbook, one recipe at a time. I'm just rolling along an average sort of life, looking for sunshine and trying to bring some value to the rest of the world. Oh and if grammar is your thing. run. away.

If by chance you are reading this and you aren't my Mom. Go check her out. Let's be honest here, she's way smarter and more interesting than me. www.evscott1.blogspot.ca

In love, learning and sunshine, j