This just ain’t fair!

This morning, after having put in three hours between 5:30 and 9:30 (with one hour out to run children to school) doing minor tweaks to several tables, stored procedures, loading a new data wave and checking the validation reports, I logged into my time manager and discovered that I have worked 35 hours thus far this week.

Thursday, 9:00 a.m. And I’m within five hours of quittin’ time for the week. With a long day of face-time scheduled tomorrow.

Being that I am salaried, my choices are:

Go ahead and work overtime without pay on the theory that I will be thanked by my boss (who does notice such things) and perhaps it will be noted in a more fiscally-meaningful way in my bonus check at the end of the year.

Or, I can blow off the rest of today on the theory that I’m already going to be ending up with considerable overtime by the time the dust settles tomorrow and take care of some Den business that has been languishing around waiting for me to ‘have a minute’. Which I have not had because I have worked, on average, roughly twelve hours per day for the last three weeks in a scrambling attempt to get back on professional track after being sick for so long.

I’m going with Option 2. In fact, I’m going with Option 2 Prime, which is combining Den business (bank, swimming suits and new shoes for Denizens, ironing, meat market) with Mama Gets Treated Nicely (MGTN). Nails done, lunch out with a book (NOT work-related!), I might even spring for a pedicure (although that would be pushing the MGTN budget) (however, given current workload and everything that is about to get dog-piled onto me tomorrow while I’m at the office, I might be able to borrow against MGTN for the rest of the month at this point…).

In other words, I’m going Out today. Out! Into the world! Wearing a frilly shirt! And earrings! A belt that (mostly) goes with my (only slightly ancient) sandals which tie in (kinda) with my (rescued from underneath the laundry basket) purse which is holding my Treo (instead of having it give my belt a Batman Utility Belt look)!

In short – I sally forth this day from my Den with femininity!

And…with un-awesome hair. Because today, my hair has reverted to its normal state. Flat, frizzy, and in a ponytail because honestly – there is nothing else to be done with it. It scoffs at my curling iron. It sneers at the hairspray. It was straighter than a yardstick before I even got in the van for kid-taxiing.

It just ain’t fair, I tell you. Why, oh why, did I have awesome hair yesterday? When I spent fourteen hours pounding the keyboard at home. In my tiny little cave of an office. In the back of the house. Where nobody – NOBODY! – could see me. Where even I didn't notice how marvelous it looked until 3-o-effin'-clock in the afternoon?!

An entire precious day of Perfect Hair™! WASTED!!!!

You know what really adds insult to injury? By the time I had gone out, picked up the children, brought them home, fixed their dinner and all like that?

My hair had un-fabuloused itself. It had, in fact, been thoroughly rearranged by Captain Adventure, who comforts himself through all crises by stroking, petting, pulling, and chewing on my hair. It had also been steamed by the macaroni and cheese water, and then ‘styled’ by my six year old, who attempted to braid it. (She used tape. TAPE! Bright blue sticky tape! **sigh**)

Then and only then did my husband come home. Since my children, bless their little brainwashed hearts, always think I’m beautiful and have beautiful hair (it gets prettier when there are cookies in the house, too), their assertions that it really had looked awesome received nothing more than a cheerful, “Well of course it did! Mommy’s hair is always beautiful…oooooh, did you make cookies?!”

It.
Just.
Ain't.
Fair.

{pout...}