Where in the Heck Did I Put My Magnifying Glass?

Did you ever try to clean the smudges from your glasses and realize that they're not dirty? That happened to me today.

Unfortunately, I think my eyes might be in need of a little pick-me-up prescription. That stinks, because the eye doctor told me last year that this prescription would last for many years to come...liar.

Things that make you feel old:

Having a six-year old son
Trying to read the itty-bitty street names on the Thomas Guide

There are more, I just can't remember what they are right now.

The six-year old son has been a huge challenge lately. I just don't seem to be as adept as I used to be. He gets defiant, and I yell. He puts on his ANGRY face and stares at me, arms crossed. I yell. My pithy lines include things like, "Do you want to go to your room?"and , "Do you want me to spank you?". What's he supposed to do, say yes?

I'm acting like the mothers I've talked about most of my life.

This morning, we had another little battle of the wills. I eventually prevailed, but the mental effort was enormous and made me tired.

Geez, I wondered, what's wrong with me? Revelation: I didn't actually participate a lot in my older children's defiant years. As previously posted, I worked a bunch. That means other women dealt with most of this messy, inappropriate, endlessly annoying behavior. Really, this is the first time I've had to put up with it on a daily basis. In retrospect, I don't think I paid them enough.

A little voice in my heart keeps whispering, "You asked for this, remember? You wanted to be a stay at home mom..." Yeah, what's that got to do with anything?

As for the Thomas Guide - that's the big map book we Realtors {insert trademark here} use as our bible (well, those of us who can't afford GPS). You might have seen them, hundreds of pages mysteriously coded and "logically" broken down into bite-sized chunks of the county. They take about a 1/4 mile section at a time and put it on two 8 1/2" x 11 pages all bound together in a nice, spiral book.

The streets look like bits of stray cat hair stuck on the page. The street names are even smaller.

I go out pretty much every weekend with clients, showing between three and five ( my one-day record is eight) homes to each client, each day. They are, of course, spread all over creation.

Now, remember I just moved back to the Seattle area after a twelve year absence. I wasn't all that familiar with King County then, I'm SURE not now.

So, in order to seamlessly guide my clients from one home to the next in an efficient, timely, and logical fashion, I spend hours pouring over the Thomas guide, planning our route.

My sweet clients think I'm super-organized and professional. They don't understand that my mind just isn't as lightning-fast and adaptable as it used to be. It takes a lot of time to look that effortless.

It also takes a magnifying glass.

Status: full of tummy and content
Today's reading: Elizabeth George's A Place of Hiding