Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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Welcome To My Week-Long Total Freak Out

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So I had a nervous breakdown or three this past week. Actually, I probably had even more than that. I have been stressed out for a while now, trying to get **WORK** done because I am a **PROFESSIONAL WRITER/ARTIST/STAY-AT-HOME-MOM** who has responsibilities and drop-dead-lines and a career to forge, blah, blah, blah, blah…

The last several months have just hit me like a steam roller, smashing me flat over and over again. It’s partly due to the amount of work that suddenly fell into my lap (four art commissions at once!), plus the extra work that I created for myself (New podcast! Write and record a new story every week! Promote EPIC VA and market your writing career! Make personal appearances at conventions!). And it’s partly the fault of my own anal retentiveness over the state of cleaning in the house (Must do laundry every day! Must mop and dust once a week! Scrub those toilets! Clean that shower! Scour that sink!). Oh, and don’t forget exercise (Swim 20+ laps three times a week! Karate class twice a week! Practice 2-3 times a week! Walk! Stretch! It’s good for you, dammit!).

Jesus Christ Almighty. Who the fuck was I kidding? Not even Wonder Woman could do all that every day. But I sure as hell tried. Have been trying for the last several months. I think it started back in August, when the art commissions came in. About that time I started up the EPIC VA group. And then I started working on the podcast in September. And the housecleaning thing? That particular losing battle got started the month before Sam was born. I can recall being eight months pregnant and having so much energy that I could get up at 4:30 AM **before my alarm went off** and being all excited about doing a couple of hours of housecleaning. Only it didn’t seem like a couple of hours, because I was doing the Fly Lady thing, and which turns housecleaning into 15 minute blocks scattered throughout the day, mixed in with 15 minute blocks of other stuff in between, like work, playtime with the kids, exercise, etc.

Not to knock Fly Lady, because she’s got some really good ideas there, but parceling my life out in 15 minute segments to do all the shit I thought I needed to do was really killing me.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to juggle too many chainsaws at once, and failing at it. On the days that I managed to do all the stuff I told myself I had to do, I felt like I was running one massive long marathon, with no end in sight. I was getting up almost two hours before Michael was (and resenting him for sleeping in) and going to bed an hour before he was. This made it seem like we lived in two separate time zones, even though we were in the same house. I only saw Michael when he was asleep, and many mornings this frequently led to me not getting out of bed at the ungodly hour of **5AM** because if I did, I was giving up quality time with my husband. Yeah, sleeping with my husband was considered quality time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the fun kind of sleeping with my husband.

What was really bad was what all this **WORK I HAD TO DO** was doing to my temper. I was so frantic and so harried and so overscheduled that I had no patience left, especially with the kids. I resented every minute I had to take to herd them along through the day. Five-year-olds and toddlers do not move fast, nor do they live their days parceled out in blocks of 15 minutes. I was yelling at both kids way too often, and then on top of it I was yelling at Michael because his attitude was a bit more slack than mine and he wasn’t doing things **EXACTLY THE WAY I WANTED THEM DONE, ESPECIALLY THE HOUSE CLEANING WHICH WAS DRIVING ME NUTS AND DIDN’T HE UNDERSTAND HOW HARD I WORKED TO TAKE CARE OF THE HOUSE AND THE KIDS AND HOW WOULD HE LIKE TO DO HIS OWN DAMN LAUNDRY BECAUSE I’M TIRED OF PICKING UP AFTER HIM**.

So yeah, this sort of shit has been going on for months now and last week it sort of all came to a head and I have three or four meltdowns in a row and then something miraculous happened.

The car went into the shop.

Huh? Say what? What does your car being in the shop have to do with melt-downs and sanity-salvation, Helen?

See, it was like this. The steering column in the SUV was making this horrendous squeaking noise every time I turned the wheel. I ignored it for a while, because I really, really didn’t want to spend several hours chasing Sam through the Saturn dealership while someone fixed my car. I had too much shit to do, see? And besides, I’ve been in that dealership often enough in the past few months that I’m sick of it. The people who work there are really nice and they’re very patient with Sam, but they make crap coffee. Anyway, the squeaking noise in the steering column got so bad that last week I finally couldn’t ignore it anymore so I finally broke down and made an appointment to have the car repaired on Friday. Only when I made it, I decided to drop the car off **the night before**. That meant I would be stuck at home all day Friday, unable to go to the gym or anyplace else, but hey, it beat being stuck at the dealership with the crap coffee with nothing to do but chase a screaming toddler.

So Thursday evening came. Everybody in the family had a raging cold that day. I had spent the previous several days killing myself to finish up a commission, which still needed a lot of work, and I was dead on my feet. When I picked Cassie up from preschool, I decided I was simply too fried to make dinner, so I called in an order for Chinese. Michael picked it up, brought it home, and we ate a really delicious but very-bad-for-us meal. Then we all piled into the cars and took the SUV to the Saturn place and left it there. When we got home, I sat down at my computer and went back to work on the bloody art commission that had become the bane of my existence. And I worked on it until 2AM.

Crazy, neh? Typical overworked stay-at-home mom shit. But then Friday came and this is where the miracle really started. Because I had been up until 2AM, **I decided to sleep late**. That’s right. I shut off all three of my alarms (because I’ve been so damned tired I actually needed **three alarms** to get my ass out of bed) and I slept in. I let Michael get Cassie up and ready for school. Somehow, they got themselves breakfast and made it out the door. I don’t know how. I slept through it all. And then around 9AM (oh my gawd, did I really sleep until 9AM?!), I woke up feeling pretty decent and got out of bed. And I made breakfast – Captain Crunch for me and yogurt for Sam – and I brought it upstairs to the master bathroom, and then I got Sam up and we both got undressed and we took a bath while we ate breakfast. And that worked out pretty well. And since I was feeling lazy and I’d been up so late and I didn’t have a car anyway so I couldn’t go to the Y, I decided to say, “Fuck it!” and didn’t bother to do any exercise. I did fold some laundry, but that was really more an excuse to listen to some podcasts. And I let Sam watch two hours of TV, which I watched with her while I worked on the bloody art commission. And while I did this, all I could think of was, Jeeze! When was the last time I watched TV? When was the last time I just goofed off?

The rest of the day went pretty much like that. We had a simple lunch with Michael (holy cow, we were both awake and talking!) and afterwards I took Sam out for a walk. While she ran around in the field behind our house, I followed along taking pictures of whatever caught my interest, and it was nice. The weather was warm, flowers were blooming, Sam played in the dirt and I had absolutely nowhere I had to be because hey, my car was in the shop.

Sam went down for a nap after that, and I kept working on the bloody art commission, which was now actually turning out to be kind of fun because by this point I had decided it was the only thing I was going to work on that day so now I could actually take some time to play around with it. And it came out sooooooooo nice. Mary’s seen it and she likes it so I know it’s good. And when it was done, I sent it off to the client and he likes it too, which means he’ll pay for it now and that makes **me** happy. Then around 5PM, Michael came home to get me and Sam and we all went to get Cassie at preschool and then we picked up the car and I took the girls home and make leftovers for dinner – Chinese with mashed potatoes and green beans. Yum!

And then we all watched some TV and I tinkered around with the art commission a bit more and bedtime came and the girls went down fairly easy and no one was shouting, especially me, and I stayed up too late after that but I didn’t care and I still got a good night of sleep because I slept through the alarm the next morning but I was only a little cranky about that because we still got to Cassie’s karate class on time and I was able to do the writing work I had meant to do at **bloody 5AM** while sitting in the dojo watching my girl do her Okinawa thing and then the rest of the day I just sort of relaxed and went along with the flow because I was wearing my favorite Hawaiian shirt with my favorite pirate socks and the weather was sooooooo nice again so I took the girls out for a photo safari and we took pictures of tree bark and tiny flowers and a little bumble bee and all the spring-is-in-the air stuff inspired me to write the coolest story for my podcast and then Mary and Shawn came over for dinner and karate and we all had a good time even though the pork chops I cooked turned out kind of lame.

And all this happened because the car was in the shop all day Friday.

I took a break. I had no choice – the damn car was in the shop. And afterwards I felt better than I had in months. So good that it makes me cry thinking about how damn hard I’ve been flogging myself to make things happen. So I’m rethinking some things this week. I’m going to keep wearing my Hawaiian shirts and just work on one thing at a time and I’m going to slooooooooooow down because honest to god, nothing I do has to happen except for taking care of the kids, my husband, and myself. I have been so stressed out over all this other shit that I told myself I had to do to succeed as a writer-artist-mom, that I felt like I was working back at Langley AFB again. And everyone who knows me knows how bad that job was. When I quit that place I swore I would never work under those conditions again. And yet somehow I recreated all that right in my own home. Well not anymore.

I’m goofing off today. I’m gonna listen to some podcasts while I fold a little laundry. I’ve got an article to start for ERWA. Maybe I’ll write a little flash fiction I’ve had in my head and send that in to the writer’s group. But I’m only doing those things because I want to, not because I have to. And none of it has to get done today. As for the other stuff that’s on my list? Well, all that shit can wait its turn, can’t it? I mean, it’ll still be there when I’m ready for it. I’m pretty certain of that.

So that’s all for now. Chill, dudes.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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What I Learned On My 39th Birthday

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I learned that…

If you agree to let your five-year-old help you bake her birthday cake and yours, you will end up waiting until the last minute to do it because of scheduling conflicts.

If you wait until the last minute to bake the cakes, you will have to kill yourself to get them done in time for the party. And you will still have to let the five-year-old help.

If you agree to let your husband go to VIRTUS training at the church instead of staying home to help with the party, you’re not going to have enough adults on hand to handle the upcoming disaster… er, party.

If you get the cakes backed, but then you leave the cake in the pan too long or too little, one layer will split right across the middle when you try to get it out. And your five-year-old will have a heart attack over this.

If you call often enough and frantically enough, and if you leave a really big note on the door, your husband will get home from VIRTUS training in time to fix that stupid cake.

If you look like you’re still pulling your hair out, your best friend will come to the rescue by picking up the sodas, chips, and dips that you forgot to get for the party. Never underestimate the miracle of a best friend.

If you put all thirty-nine candles on your birthday cake and light them, you will set off the fire alarm.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Now We Are Thirty-Nine

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The past two weeks have hit me like a steam roller. First, everyone had the stomach flu. Then Michael left town on business for a week — more work at Johnson Space Center. Then we had Cassie’s fifth birthday (the day Michael left) and of course I had to plan a party. I am one of those moms that refuses to do a huge party where Cassie can invite all of her little classmates from preschool. I don’t have the time or energy to invest in that sort of 3-ring circus, and quite frankly, I hate those sorts of parties anyway. I don’t know any of the other moms of Cassie’s classmates. I live in an entirely different world from these people. I’ve been to a couple of the parties they’ve thrown for their kids and quite frankly, I’ve either felt like a complete outsider (a feeling I should be used to, but still don’t enjoy) or else I feel overwhelmingly disgusted by the sheer excess of a party thrown for a four- or five-year-old that involves an inflatable moonwalk, an over-priced magician, some clown doing balloon animals, face painting, a five-tiered cake, pony rides, and a visit from Spiderman/Sponge Bob/Dora the Explorer. Cassie would love to have a party like that, but you know what? I can’t afford it, time or money-wise, and I think that kind of excess for a kid’s party is just a really bad idea. Birthday parties should be spent with family and close friends. They should be a celebration of life, not a gift grab. My girl got presents all week long anyway, and I swear her grandmother knows no limits on sending presents. On her birthday, Cassie received more Barbie dolls in one day than I ever owned in my entire life. Yep, she got five Barbies… IN JUST ONE DAY. A bit much, neh?

But we did have a party, and though it was a small affair, it was just big enough to nearly kill me. Since my birthday was Saturday, the same day as Cassie’s party, I decided to do two cakes. Cassie wanted this princess cake from one of her kids’ cook books, and I thought that would have been too small to feed all the guests (but in hindsight it probably would have been just right). So I decided to do a cake for me as well. The only problem was, I had almost no time to do it in. Cassie wanted to help make both cakes, and while I am not huge on over-indulgent parties, I am big on mommy-daughter bonding activities, and cooking is one of them. So I set up a schedule that a) allowed Cassie to participate in the making, baking, and decorating of both cakes, and b) nearly insured that we had no cakes at all in time for the party. See, she could only help me when she was awake, and given our hectic schedule the previous week (remember, Michael was away), my free time during her waking hours was just about nil. I actually got up at 5AM on Saturday morning, the day OF the party, to bake my own cake. Then Cassie got up around 7:30, and by 9:30 we were all dressed and ready to make her cake. Unfortunately, we needed to leave the house at 10:30 to meet people at the Virginia Living Museum for a pre-party play date, and one hour just ain’t enough time to bake and frost a cake.

We did get the cake baked, but then when I tried to remove the layers from the pans before racing out the door to the museum, the bottom layer split, in half, horizontally. Imagine the swearing that accompanied that event. Then double it, because by that point, I was ready to tear out my hair and someone else’s.

Fortunately, Michael was home by then, although he had to go to VIRTUS training for the Catholic church. Boy, was I swearing about that too. Of all the mornings to not be available to help, that was a baaaaaad one to pick. I let him know that later. What made it worse was the fact that he did not get home from his business trip until almost midnight the night before, so I only got to see him for five minutes the next morning before he headed out for the church. But he did get home before the party started and he did manage to fix and frost Cassie’s birthday cake, and he ordered all the pizzas, so we did manage to pull off the party, and Cassie enjoyed it even if we didn’t hire Ringling Brothers to provide the entertainment.

My biggest disappointment over all this is the fact that all I can remember of the weekend is all the swearing and shouting I was doing, and the momentous struggle I felt like I was going through to make things happen. The same damned thing happened over Christmas — illness, business trips, too much work, not enough sleep — and the holidays were gone like that. I didn’t get to enjoy Christmas, and to be honest, I didn’t get to enjoy my birthday either. I had a brief period where I got to enjoy Cassie’s birthday, but that was only after all the screaming and ranting were over and we were in the middle of the party. The whole mother-daughter bonding while baking thing just added to the stress, so I didn’t even enjoy that like I thought I should have.

So what to do? Obviously, things are out of control here at la casa de Madden. I’ve got too much work, not enough time, not enough sleep, and Michael will be heading out on even more business trips in the upcoming months. It’s killing me, and I need to find a way to slow things down. But it’s going to take some effort.
The first step will be to clear some of this work off my desk. I’m proofing one book, writing another, putting together three art commissions, putting together articles for ERWA and doing the podcast. Plus I need to work on promoting my writing, and I’ve got EPIC VA events to coordinate. That’s a lot of work. I need to winnow it down, and then I need to not take on anything else for a while.

I wonder if it will ever really slow down though. I’ve already been approached to do some artwork for a major website, and I’ve got some conventions coming up that I’ll be participating in. And I don’t want to turn away paying work or promotion opportunities. I’m going to have to make a decision soon on how to handle all this. Cassie is going to be home this summer before starting kindergarten, and I don’t want the entire summer to steam roll over us the way our birthdays did.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Just When I Thought It Was Safe – Blergh!

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After Sam and I had our bouts with the stomach flu, Michael came home early on Friday and announced he was setting up office in the bathroom. I thought he was just joking. I mean, I knew he meant **he** now had the stomach flu, and therefore would be spending a lot of time in the bathroom, but I didn’t realize he was actually going to be **working** in there at the same time.

The man actually took a phone in there and his laptop, set them on the edge of the tub, and listened in on a teleconference while he puked his guts up in the toilet. Of course, he kept the phone on mute except for when he needed to answer a question, but my god. Working AND puking at the same time? I was so sick on Valentine’s Day I couldn’t roll over in bed without puking, so I put Sam (my work) in her crib for two hours just so she would stop climbing on me and I wouldn’t end up puking on her. She cried the whole time, but hey, she didn’t need **my** lunch all in **her** hair. And I didn’t get out of bed until late the next morning. But Michael was actually doing this teleconference, answering questions and everything. That’s commitment for you. Commitment to an asylum!

Cassie came down with the stomach flu the next day, just as Michael was recovering. Actually, she ran into our bedroom at 3AM saying, “Mommy, my tummy hurts! Blergh!” I got her to a bathroom just in time. She spent the rest of the night vomiting and tossing and turning. I had to put her in our room on an air mattress and keep a bucket on hand. Every fifteen minutes, I had to hold it for her so she could heave into it. She seemed much better later that day, and waaaaaaay better on Sunday (yesterday). So much better that Michael fed her a cheese sandwich and grapes and all sorts of goodies.

All of which she promptly projectile vomited across the dining room at dinner last night.

I swear, it looked like someone turned on a fire hose inside that kid. She covered the entire table. We had to take everything off and wash it. Michael made the mistake of thinking the silverware in the dishwasher was actually clean and put it back in the silverware drawer, only to find out that no, that was stuff I had just taken off the table and it had some puke on it. So we had to wash ALL the silverware. And we had to throw out everyone’s dinner. Not that it was the greatest dinner I’ve ever made (new recipe didn’t quite work out as I had hoped) but we’ve all been sick so we’re all starving right now. Ah, throwing out the egg rolls was the worst part. I didn’t even get to finish mine.

So now Cassie is in bed again today, on a very strict, very simple diet. Her 5th birthday is tomorrow, and I do not want her to get sick again. I’ve got party planning and shopping to do and Michael leaves town tomorrow, so her being sick another day would a) be a sucky way to celebrate her birthday, and b) really screw up the party preparation. Plus it would kill yet another work day for me, and I’ve lost a week already to this damned flu.

Here’s hoping everyone keeps their dinner down tonight, because last night was the scariest vomit I’ve ever seen and I don’t want to see it again anytime soon!

Blergh!

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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I Love Socks!

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In the course of revamping my wardrobe, I have developed a thing for socks. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I never had cool socks growing up. Yes, I know, I was badly deprived as a child. So anyway, I found a couple of websites that sell really cool socks, including Sock Dreams and The Joy Of Socks. So far, I’ve got sushi socks, cappuccino socks, mermaid socks, dragon socks, koi fish socks, red and white stripy socks, and a pair of really neat red knee highs with a skull and cross bones print that almost looks like an argyle pattern.

I also got some very nice sneakers from Onmyodo Online. White creeper style with a Japanese rising sun and pink cherry blossom stitched onto them. Too cool!

Yeah, I know. Aren’t there more important things I should be talking about, besides my footwear?

Well, I am on a quest for new undies…

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Yea Verily, I Have Been Puked Upon

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Sam came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday. I had no idea she was sick until we pulled into the preschool parking lot to pick up Cassie. Before I could get her out of the car seat, Sam started vomiting. That kid ate a lot of grapes for lunch.

So Sam puked all over the car seat and herself. Took me fifteen minutes to clean her up enough to go into the preschool and get Cassie. Thankfully, I had a change of clothes and a lot of wipes in the diaper bag. When we got home, she puked again, right outside the front door. She got herself, the sidewalk, and me. I kept dancing around as she puked going, “Not on mommy’s suede shoes, please!” After that, it was puke off and on all evening. I spent most of the evening on the couch wearing a bath towel so Sam could lean over and puke on me as needed. Once we got past the first three pukes, she quit bringing up sour milk and grapes and just brought up a lot of spit and bile. Poor kid.

Sam is mostly recovered today, except for the occasional messy diaper (yick!). But wouldn’t you know it, I spent most of yesterday in bed with… you guessed it, the stomach flu. The first signs hit me around 5AM when I got up to do some work on the podcast. Then I had some more tummy rumblings around 8AM. Decided to forgo the exercise and went shopping instead for Valentine’s Day gifts. By noon, I was home puking in the bucket. So much for Valentine’s Day.

I swear that’s like the fourth holiday in a row that I’ve spend sick in bed. I hope I don’t come down with anything really nasty for my birthday next week.

Blergh!

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Childhood Milestones

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As of this date, Cassie can:

Tie her shoes.
Read simple words.
Swim half the length of the YMCA pool.

As of this date, Sam can:

Swear.
Rip the cover off one of my favorite books.
Poop on the carpet.

Which child do you think is most like Michael? Which child do you think is most like me?

Don’t tell me your answers. I know where you live.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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You Beast!

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There’s domestic trouble in the Madden household. Sam got into her sister’s Disney Princess Barbie dolls with disturbing results. I found Belle and Prince Eric in the master bathroom together, naked. I was wondering who kept humming “Be My Guest.” The Beast is going to be so pissed off when he finds out about this.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Freaky Fruits and Swimming Suits!

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Ha ha! Look at that title. I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it!

Ah hmm. Seriously though, we’ve had an interesting week. Michael left Tuesday for a training course in Houston, abandoning– er, I mean leaving me with the kids. My knee is doing much better, so I was mostly able to keep up, but after a week on my own with those demon spawn, I am wiped out.

First thing we did after Michael left was hit the grocery store. Michael does all the grocery shopping, so I always use his trips as an excuse to buy the stuff **I** want. I didn’t get much, just some fruit and side dishes that I knew he’d never in a million years pick up (curried veggies, anyone?). Cassie saw a star fruit in the produce section and immediately decided she had to have one. It just looked so freaky, but not nearly as freaky as the horned melon. If you’ve never seen either of these fruits, the star fruit looks like a banana sort of thingie with a star cross-section (in other words, if you slice it into pieces, you get lots of star shaped slices), while the horned melon looks like something Jacques Cousteau picked up off the bottom of a coral reef. It’s a sort of neon orange see-slug thing. Or maybe it’s a sea cucumber. Or are sea cucumbers actually a sort of sea slug? Who knows? It was orange, spiny, oblong and freaky and Cassie had to have it, and since **I’ve** never had one either, we got it.

I served the star fruit that night. It tasted… odd. Not really sweet, and not really tart. Sort of like weak kiwi flavored gelatin. The star fruit is yellow on the outside and yellowish on the inside. Cassie spent all of dinner telling me how much she just **loved** star fruit after only taking one bite of it. And that was the only bite she took. I had to finish the rest of the damned thing off. Blech.

The horned melon was very different though. It was freaky inside and out. On the inside, it’s neon yellow-green, with sections like a pomegranate. Little round fleshy pods wrapped around a tiny seed. It tasted pretty good, definitely more like kiwi, but with a big juicy squish every time I bit into it. Both Cassie and Sam ate a couple of piece once they got over the color.

Ah, color. I never get enough of it in my life, and here’s where we now talk about swimming suits. Since screwing up my knee the other week, I’ve gone back to swimming. In fact, I’ve decided just to forget about running and swim as much as I can. I’ll be in the pool four days a week it looks like, but until yesterday, I only had one swim suit. So I ordered two more from Swimoutlet.com. I went with their grab bag option. Grab bag swim suits are $26 a piece instead of the usual $40. The only catch is THEY get to pick the color. You pick the size and the style, but THEY pick the color. The grab bag suits are all the colors that didn’t sell the previous year, and now that I’ve got my two new suits, I can kind of see why. One of those suits isn’t bad – it’s a hot fluorescent pink and orange print that sort of looks like a 1960’s acid trip. But the other suit… oh man, the other suit is a reversible suit. One side is Grape Ape purple and the other side is **lime green**. Both colors are eye-blinding.

But hey, for $26, it’s not a bad suit.

Right?

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.