Spooky Halloween Tale

This fine Halloween morning I thought I would share a true story of a woman who was once normal and on Halloween morphed into a scary, crazy, neurotic, OCD individual.

Yes, the woman is me. (No, the woman in the picture is not actually me, but I think it is a pretty accurate portrayal of what I will look like in another 30 years.)

Every morning I make tea while I get ready for work.  The tea water boils, I finish putting my face on, getting dressed, and making the bed, and then run down and pour the boiling water into my travel mug.

I have been doing this for 4 years now.

And yet today, for some reason, 3.5 miles into my drive to work, I decided I simply MUST go home and double check that I had turned the stove off.

Which of course I had.

But I needed to add a little crazy to my life and double check.

Off to wash my hands 47 times,
Granny

What the mothafuck!?

Unfuckingacceptable.

Off to cry,

Bubbie

Help

Ok, so if ya'll recall, I blogged last week about maid service while at conference numbero uno (of 7...) and about how I didn't like to have the maids come daily because I didn't have the cashola to pay them.

(If you do not recall this story, then start reading my blog more often.  I beg of you.)

Well the responses have overwhelmingly been "you tip your maid service!?!?!"

Which got me thinking.

I have ALWAYS tipped the maids growing up.  I remember my dad leaving cash on the TV stand when we would leave for our daily activities when I was a little girl and since then I have been tipping.

But apparently, that shit is not normal.  (The Pinkson clan not normal?  Color me shocked.)

So please, as I have 6 more conferences to attend in the near future, please let me know if I need to be packing cash to tip the maids, or if I am crazy, and maids do not get tipped (which will save me a bundle of money and some stress).

I have an addiction

Help me, mama. 

Someone has made the mistake and invited me to Pinterest.

Slippery.Slope.

Cannot stop pinning.

If you do not hear from me for the next 100 years, it means my addiction has taken over and I am lost in the cyber-world of beauty that is Pinterest.

You can find me Here.  Follow me (because I am insecure and need you to follow me to feel successful).

-Granny

Clean yo' self

I come to you from beautiful, sunny, warm, perfect foggy, overcast Southern California to gripe about something.

I would say I travel a lot.   Not even including this trip, I will have at least 3 night stays in over ten hotels between now and April.

Because I am a neat freak, when I travel I do not leave towels on the floor.  I make my bed, I fold my clothes, I have things neatly put away when I check into my room.  No crap all over the place, everything is where it should be.

And because of this, I do not need my room cleaned daily.  I do not even need the house cleaners to come in every other day.  So I put the little "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door and leave it there generally for the entire 3-5 days I am at the hotel.

I do not have a maid at home, why do I need one when I travel?

Am I on vacation from being the clean, OCD individual that I am?  No.  If you can make your bed at home, keep your towels off the floor, and generally not be a slob while you live at home, why must you behave differently while at a hotel?  Just because there is a maid?

Furthermore, at home, I do not clean my bathroom daily nor do I vacuum my floors daily.  I do not change my sheets daily, or my towels.  Why do I need this all done daily while on vacation?

For the few days I am staying at the hotel, I do not want my space invaded just for the room to be perfectly cleaned.  The garbage can be emptied from my gum wrappers and tissues when I leave, thank you.

But apparently this mentality is absurd.  Regardless of whether I am at a Hilton in Houston, the Marriott in Anaheim, or the Hyatt in Albuquerque, I am constantly asked by the cleaning service if I would like my room cleaned.

Just yesterday (8 hours after I had arrived--how messy could I have allowed my room to get WHILE I SLEPT?!) I had a note under my door (on lovely hotel letterhead) instructing me to call housekeeping if I wanted my room cleaned.  I also had a message on my phone--from house keeping seeing if I wanted my room cleaned.  And lastly, as I ducked out of my room in the middle of the day (I had gone back to freshen up) a cleaning woman saw me and literally dashed down the hall shouting after me "scusa me, ma'am, do you no want me to cleana your room??"  I kindly explained that I did not need the room cleaned, I had just arrived last night, yadda yadda.  "No towels?  You don'ta want new bed?"

I smiled, said no, and went back to my meeting.  But I do not understand why I am constantly asked if I need my room cleaned during my short stay.  Do people really not understand that I keep my room clean and do not need fresh towels daily?!

Or that I never remember to travel with cash and therefore cannot tip the maids? (This may or may not be the real reason I do not have my room cleaned while traveling. Hint: it definitely is.)

Back to work I go,
Bubbie

La La

I am unexpectedly headed to LALA land for work tomorrow.  Southern California weather, I welcome thee.

I am bummed that I will be away, I have a lot of work to do, a man to love, runs to go on, healthy meals to cook, and Friday Night Lights to watch.  I have no desire to be working at 7 am every morning straight through until Sunday.

But my biggest concern is not the work, the fear of flying, the massive amounts I will miss my man.

It is the fact that I am, how shall we say, fashion retarded?

This is LA:

And at any given moment, this is me:

Not quite the tanned, leggy, sexy, blown-out, perfect female specimen that roam the streets of Hollywood.

This trip is going to be great on my self esteem.

Going to pack,

Granny

October

It's raining and will continue to rain for the foreseeable future.  It is also cold.

I have a serious headache.  It has been here for 3 days.

Recovery from this race is taking far longer than I anticipated and I have not gotten any exercise since Sunday.

We are broke (always).

I want a puppy.

Our house is a mess.

I need new snow tires (please see: we are broke).

I have pimples (3!).

I have to do laundry this weekend (at least 4 loads).

But none of this is going to get me angry.

It is near impossible to be upset when this is what I see everywhere I look:

Happy Fall,

Bubbie