FACEBOOK CONTEST --- PLEASE HELP!

Another post so soon?

Absolutely.

Normally, I tend to whine and bemoan the unfairness of life over a glass of wine, or a box of chocolates, or while methodically making a SIMS of the person who has earned my ire (and promptly removing the ladder from their swimming pool). My therapist has told me that this isn't healthy for my mind (or my liver), so here I am.

Normally, I wouldn't try and attempt winning a Facebook contest either, but with my ongoing good luck why not?!

Here's what I need you all to do for me.

Post by Stepmom Support.

CLICK THIS SUCKER RIGHT HERE AND CLICK LIKE ON THE PICTURE.

See that? Click it. Like the picture of me and A. That's it. If I can win this contest, A and I get spoiled with some major stepmomma/stepbaby gifts.

GO VOTE ALREADY!

The Perfect Mother is a Myth

This isn't what I wanted for my kids.

I wanted them to have a stay at home mom. The June Cleaver type whose make up was immaculate with freshly baked cookies sitting on the counter. I wanted them to have a mom whose crafty antics made the higher powers at Pinterest jealous. I wanted them to have me as their Cub scout mom, their Girl Scout leader, their room mom, and their mom as President of the PTSA. I was going to fabulous at staying home. I was going to take it to another level. I was going to be the stay at home mom who put all the other stay at home moms to shame.

Then one night my husband (affectionately known as K from here on after) and I sat down and gave our budget a good, hard look. There was just no way. There was no feasible way for me to stay at home and be our children's caretaker and cheerleader without the finances going drier than the Sahara Desert. I'd have to start looking for jobs. Something, ANYTHING, to help get us out of the mess we had inadvertently put ourselves in. I put in applications everywhere I could think of : Fast food joints, restaurants, day care centers, old high school hang outs (I'm looking at you Hot Topic and Wet Seal). And nothing. I wasn't qualified for even the most basic of part time jobs that most sixteen year old kids get without even really trying.

I had never felt so depressed, desperate and unwanted in my entire life.

Silly, isn't it? You'd think that I'd be able to take stock and look at my life as though not being able to get a job wasn't that big of a deal. I had a wonderful marriage, a loving husband, three beautiful children whom I adored with all my being. I had (and continue to have) loyal friendships, incredible relationships with my Church family, and plenty of love and support from my parents. I shouldn't have let my inability to get a minimum wage job affect me so much. And yet it did. After all, if I couldn't even get an interview for the most basic of jobs that didn't even require a High School Diploma, how the heck could I even begin to hope for a job that would cover insurance or (dare I reach too high in this hope) retirement savings? I started giving up. I stopped looking, and made up excuses to K whenever he asked. It was beginning to take a toll on the both of us, and I knew it.

I was being selfish. Despite the looming shadow of going broker than broke, I lived in the world I had wanted my children to have. I continued trying to be the perfect mom. I continued trying to best those who were better at managing their homeschooling, or their Sunday school lessons. But it had lost its allure. Its promise. I was sinking my family in troubles the more and more I ignored it. I knew it. K knew it. I just refused to accept it.

But I was back out in the field, opening myself up for disappointment. MUSC, the Medical University near Hometown, was hiring for housekeeping. Surely being a stay at home mom, I was more than qualified to clean toilets and mop up bodily fluids? After all, that had been my resume for the past three years. I didn't get the job. I didn't even get into housekeeping. Miraculously enough, I was offered something better. Engineering, they promised. I thought they were joking. But that was in September of last year, and here I am: typing out this piece from my office as it looks out over Johnathan Lucas with ambulances whizzing past every three or four minutes.

My children have a working mother now. I don't have the time nor energy to devote my entire existance to them, but I think working has endeared me to them. No longer are they annoyed with my hugs, or my kisses, or my horribly puntastic puns. Instead, they are just as excited to see me as they are to go on adventures. They're just as content to cuddle in my lap as I struggle not to fall asleep as they are with me leading them in a crafting extravaganza.

This isn't what I wanted for my children. But this is what they needed from me, and what kind of mother would I be if I didn't give them what they need?

Random Luck of the Wheel (of Fortune)

Well...so Wheel of Fortune Happened...

Like, no seriously. It did. 

I kid you not. I totally scored the audition.

I've been somewhat obsessed with Wheel of Fortune for a while, about 22 years to be exact. I was the elementary king pin of HANGMAN, and the high connoisseur of all things puzzle related. Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune were my totems, my spirit games, and Pat Sajak, my spirit animal. I never really watched it all that much, as it was so fake...and so....blah....and then something happened. Maybe I got old? Bored? Tired? Desperate for a quick buck? Who knows.

The Wheel-mobile showed up about twenty minutes outside of where I live. My daughter's karate studio posted about it on Facebook, and as a joke: I went. I went to watch the circus that auditions would inevitably become, and to silently judge and mock those truly crazy enough to cast their name in the big metal tub of shame and fifteen seconds of fame. But to be fair, I also threw my hat in with the crowd, scribbled on my application some knitting and crochet jokes (Vanna White does crochet after all, and has her own yarn line). Then I stood back, sipped at my coffee, and watched as old and middle aged alike whooped and hollered and danced towards the temporary stage that had been erected just for this showcase frenzy.

"AND HAILING FROM HOMETOWN, SOUTH CAROLINA, ELIZABETH MURRAY!"

Wait, what? No. That wasn't supposed to happen. I was there to watch in silent judgment, not actually *play*. But what the hell, right? You could win some freebies, get a quick shot of fame (about 300 people came to the Wheel-Mobile event just for the 1:00 show. Only about 50 were chosen to get on stage via random name pulling) So I throw my purse up in the air, dance, jump up and click my heels together, and be an all around nuisance. The Producers LOVE a good reaction, and as a theatre kid, I was performing. It was my duty to give these people a show, right? They had me stand next to a Pat Sajak cut out (let's only hope that the man is taller than the cardboard gave him credit for....they save corrugated cardboard takes off six inches, anyway) While most of my fellow contestants threw an awkward arm around the cutout, trying to look 'natural', I opted for the full frontal cardboard grope with Jokeresque grin. They probably thought I was crazy. Spoiler alert: I probably was.

While we were waiting, the producers came up to us, asking our names, putting a face to the applications.
"And you're Elizabeth Murray, I presume?"

"Oh darling, I'm whatever you wanna call me."

We get on stage, I shamelessly plug Vanna's yarn line and compare my current knitting project to the host (easy on the eyes, totally touchable, and probably easier than it looks) and had the crowd laughing. The audition itself was a Toss Up Round, where you guess one letter and then try and solve the puzzle. I called out 'R' (Ever notice that at the end of every bonus round, the letters given are R S T N L and E? It's not a coincidence, they're the letters most used in every WoF puzzle) I didn't solve the puzzle, but I jumped up and down like a kid at the Chuck E Cheese ticket wind machine as if I had. They promised to email us if we made call backs, but honestly: I was happy with the free T-shirt I scored for making it up on stage.

Then last week, I get the e-mail, asking me to come back for call backs in Downtown. Who knew that trolling real life could be so lucrative?!