Her own drummer

My baby girl is an absolute original. She has her own way and style about her. Those who try to force her peg into a differently shaped whole usually end in defeat.

We had a rough year last year. While I try my best to respect her hodgepodge creative space, we clash sometimes. Unfortunately, as a teacher she had someone who only saw kids in very specific, certain terms (Is the Breakfast Club running through your head?). The year was spent with EPIC battles over in brushed hair, messy desks, dropped book bags, and mismatched socks, all battles I'd chosen as futile long ago. It was a looooong year.

Today, I thought about how much more relaxed she is this year, and during this ruminating, I happened to look down at Brownie's feet, and her mismatched socks.

Vive la difference!

I'm RICH!

Yep, you heard that right, I'm apparently RICH!  Well, our household is, at least according to a columnist in the Chicago Tribune last week.  Discussing taxes and tax filing, one Jim Gallagher noted that "Tax preparation filing might be the only area where it's better to be a working stiff than to be rich.  For most working folks, tax preparation is cheap or free. . . if your income is under $57,000. . . "

Uh-huh.  $57,000 indicates a "working stiff" so by extension, since the comparison was to being "rich" I'm assuming Gallagher thinks those who make $57,001 and up are "rich" indeed.  My questions, if Jim Gallagher were sitting in front of me are as follows:

1. Did you take a vow of POVERTY, man?! In Chicago, $57,000 can barely sustain one person!
2. Are you eating Ramen noodles and baloney every night to do that sustaining?
3. Is this a trick by mainstream media to make those who make $57,000 feel flush?
4. This isn't so much a question as a thanks for giving me an all-out chortle this morning.

I'm sure there are many of you out there who are amazed by this new knowledge, so go out there and live it up!  Celebrate YOUR new status as nouveau riche!

People are crazy

8yo Brownie comes home today all jazzed up that one of her friends is SO lucky. Why? Because she got to go to a friend's birthday party in. a. limo.

Take the time to reread that. A limo. For a 9th birthday party. I have now crossed into the zone where I have a desire to smack people I don't even know.