Like, whoa.  I’m seriously behind in blogging.  In my defense, I think it’s safe to say that the past 2-3 weeks have been some of the top most stressful weeks of my work life.  They definitely make the Top 10 list.  I was explaining to a friend today about the combination that conspired to bring me to my knees.  Take 2/3 cup of the economy (and wait until the sales drop, not rise) and mix with CPSIA legislation until the mixture becomes clogged and gluey.  Add legal fees for a buy/sell agreement and combine that with an annual tax return bill until the mixture turns green and begins to burp and bubble excessively.  Finally, add threatening, bullying letters from the fine legal folks representing Gerber Childrenswear LLC with ridiculous 10 day deadlines to change your entire work flow, and you will get finely prepared Crap Cake with Nervous Breakdown Fondant.  It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions and stress.

After I wrote about the first letter we got from Gerber’s attorneys, I settled down.  I talked to the fabulous Rick Whittington at Rick Whittington Consulting (who has bailed us out more times than I care to recount).  He told me to step back from the ledge and breathe, and made a bunch of logical, practical comments about how we would accomplish what Gerber wanted without putting ourselves out of business.  He said he’d handle it.  I made a bunch of calls to my lapsed corporate attorney sister, who dissected LawyerBoy’s letter with a scalpel and managed to write snarky yet professional responses to him.  She may not have a license to practice law anymore, but she should.  Jennifer asked a great IP attorney she knows for some advice (read: free advice), and of course, he gave it.  His responses made me feel validated and most importantly, RIGHT, but it didn’t change the facts. 

With all of this going on, I decided that everything was going to be okay after all.  The site would be redirected, we wouldn’t lose much traffic, and although it was going to be an enormous pain in the ass, it could be done. Not in 10 days, of course, but it could be done.

In the meantime, Mike had to try a case near Abingdon, Virginia.  Even though it’s in the same state, it feels like it’s in another universe.  It’s Southwest Virginia, almost in Tennessee.  When we stopped for gas in Wytheville, people literally turned and stared at us, mouths open, especially Mike. Apparently slicked-back hair, pinstriped suits and glossy black shoes are not the standard fare.  In fact, there was a true cowboy there who bore a striking resemblance to Buffalo Bill, wearing the standard Wytheville uniform of either hunting overalls or skin tight blue jeans with denim shirts and cowboy hats.  His shirt was unbuttoned to the top of his jeans, and I got to stare at his hairy, emaciated chest the whole time we ate lunch.  In my head, I kept hearing him say “It places the lotion in the basket, else it gets the hose again.”  Eyaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

Mom and dad agreed to stay with the girls for the night, so I roadtripped with Mike. The only reason I go is that in Abingdon, there is a fabulous old hotel called The Martha Washington Inn.  I’ve been there once before with Mike, and it’s a really fun place to go. It’s in the mountains, there’s a beautiful, uncrowded and heated salt water pool, the rooms are swanky and the town reminds me of Blowing Rock, one of my all-time favorite places to visit.  It couldn’t have come at a better time. I was fairly relaxed about all the legal stuff, so we left on Thursday morning early.  Mike tried his case and we got to the Martha around 3.30. 

I immediately went online to research local restaurants.  Although the hotel has a great place to eat, we wanted to try something else.  We ended up at Withers Hardware Restaurant, which is an eatery inside a renovated hardware store dating way back to the 1800s.  The food was decent, even though the waiter committed my personal pet peeve of kneeling on the floor to talk with us.  It’s better than sitting next to us in the booth, which has happened to Jennifer and I multiple times. 

After, we hit the pool and the new hot tub.  I told Mike he’d better start saving so we can build our own rock, 2-level hot tub with a flowing stream coming into it.  He said he’d get right on that. 

We slept in a bit on Friday (8 AM), hit the breakfast in the hotel, and got on the road back to Richmond.  It was a short get away, but I was feel as relaxed as a noodle.  Around Roanoke, my iPhone’s data signal began working again and I received letter #2 from LawyerBoy.  It frustrated me to no end.  Even though I had explicitly told him we were going to comply with the Big Bad Onesie’s request, he was still saying it needed to be done in 10 days and was pretending to be obtuse about the common usage of the word onesie (i.e., most people don’t even know there is another word for it - when is the last time you searched for “creepers” online???).  It was really upsetting.  A flurry of phone calls followed - to Jennifer, to Rick, to my sister.  Then I got the worst email of all - a quick one from Rick, saying that there was no way for us to redirect the site according to the tech people at Yahoo, and I was going to have to rebuild, yes, rebuild the entire site from scratch.  That might not sound bad to you, but when you have 500 products that must all be set up individually, you start to see the length of time needed to do this, all the while losing search engine rankings and traffic.  I nearly lost it then. 

I’ll skip the ensuing three hours.  I managed not to kill anyone or scream outloud.  I purposely went over to my neighbor’s house and let the kids play like maniacs with her kids.  I went out to dinner with Mike and the girls.  And when I got home, I called Yahoo myself.  Finally, I got lucky. I got a tech support person named Jasper (I kept imagining he looked like Jackson Rathbone from Twilight) who had worked for Yahoo for eons.  In less than an hour, he had handheld me through the process of redirecting the domain name, changing email addresses, and generally solving all of my problems. 

I spent Saturday night badgering my very pregnant friend and no-longer-designer-but-super-talented-organizer Sara so she would do a new logo for me.  She did.  She’s not happy with it, but she can tweak it later.  It’s up on the site, and everything at least on the visual side is done.  I’ve still got some minor changes to make, but I’m about 80% of the way there.  And I feel 100% better. 

There is still a small part of me that is angry I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fight.  There’s no money in winning the rights to use the term “onesie” in court.  It would cost lots to take on a big company like Gerber, and knowing that I’m right, and probably could win, bugs me endlessly.  However, when you have a credit line to pay and even just that is challenging, you have to let go.  So I’m letting go. 

Below are pictures from Abingdon.  There is a random one in there of Lily on picture day at her school.  Arden’s picture day isn’t until April, so that’s why there are no pictures of her in the exact same dress.  Please tell me they will want to stop dressing like each other very, very soon. 

You ever have one of those days where you feel so hideous you don’t want to leave the house?  Where you are concerned your butt won’t fit through the car door?  Those days when even the thought of the gym scares you, with all the coiffed and flower-scented barbies?  Those days that make you want to crawl back into bed before you’ve left it? 

One of those days when you know you must, absolutely must, go to the gym, and do your class, and pretend that everyone around you isn’t prettier or better or thinner or more flower-scented than you.  One of those days when you really honestly could sleep all day and then all night and wake up the next morning and decide, yeah, you really could use another day of sleep. 

One of those rare days when you indulge in second and third helpings of self-pity and self-loathing, knowing realistically that “this too shall pass” but hating it while it’s here anyway.  Days when you think you’d better double your prescribed mgs of Zoloft or call a friend for lunch, but realize you don’t have any friends available for lunch, dinner, OR coffee because everyone you know and love works.  Days when you hate the previous sentence you wrote because it is so entirely lame and pitiable and if you read it on someone else’s blog, you’d say, “Dude, you really need to get a grip.”

I’m having one of those days. 

Lily inherited my old iPod . . .and you’d think we gave her a castle made of marshmallows, a pony, and a prince.  She loves it!  She only got one, in all fairness, because her new bed came with a docking station, and since I got an iPhone with a lot of space on it for music, she got my hand-me-down.  She especially loves this song:

She and Arden also both love Nirvana’s “Lake of Fire”.  Rock on chickies.

Her cute little dockin’ station:

The weekend was alternately good and bad.  I had two different people freak out on me, which was a bummer - but thankfully they both live far away and I don’t have to deal with them much.  I have to say, since I left Maya’sMom.com and the site eventually closed, my life has been so peaceful and drama-free. I don’t know what it is about large groups of women hiding behind their keyboards, but I really didn’t need or want that kind of stuff in my life.  Unfortunately, some of them are now on Facebook and within literally minutes of them joining my own network, it was the same old crap again.  Partially I’m so incensed because I spend far too much time thinking about what other people think and feel, and trying to ensure no one feels icky, left out, or bad - and inevitably, I end up causing them to feel icky, left out and bad.  So I wonder, why bother even trying???  Apparently I could have avoided all of this if I had just invited you, internet and Facebook, to all come stay with me this weekend because by NOT inviting the universe and the web of world-wideness, I’ve excluded someone who is now very unhappy with me.  I didn’t realize that Richmond in January was such a fabulous place to be, but note taken.  (Seriously, the entire internet is NOT invited to my house this weekend - 5 internet friends is enough, unless Amanda and Kristin change their minds). 

I’ve spent years being a personal punching bag for people who drop their own insecurities on me.  I must be an easy target, and that needs to change in 2009.  It started on Friday with a pushy lady at Starbucks who felt I wasn’t moving fast enough with my 4 year old for her liking, and shouted in my ear, “ARE YOU ON LINE?”  I had no idea what she meant - did she mean, like, did I have internet access?  No, apparently she meant “in line”, and I hadn’t paid fast enough and she was telling me to get out of her way. I let her cut in front of me and then ended up paying for my drink about 5 minutes later. The people behind the counter baristas were cracking up - they couldn’t believe this woman.  Right before this, someone jumped two lines, two different times, to cut in front of me and Arden.  I can understand why some people just snap.  I’m feeling pretty mean right now, so that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Kimi’s baby took a turn for the worse today, and there are other issues in my family right now, and I am a big ball of stress and worry.  I’m not a religious person - at all - but I do believe in the power of positive thinking. So if you feel like sending positive vibes out toward Kimi and Baby Carter way over in Hawa’ii, I’m sure that side of my family won’t turn it down.  For those not in the know, Kimi is my brother’s wife’s daughter.  She had her baby earlier last week and he ended up aspirating a TON of meconium, and suffered pneumonia and a collapsed lung and has been in critical condition since.  We thought he was doing better - and hopefully he WILL get better soon - but today was not a good day. 

Arden’s eye looks worse so I’m going to pester the surgery center tomorrow morning first thin about getting her in on Tuesday instead of waiting another week. Wish me luck.  I don’t have high hopes but maybe if I break down crying and act like a freak, I’ll get my way. It seems to work for others in my life. 

On a happier note, I got to spend a ton of time with my kids and Mike this weekend, which was lovely.  It’s easy to remember, when spending time with them, that all the rest of this life is sort of just for show and to keep us from getting bored. My resolution for 2009 is to spend more time with my family - especially my extended family - and my true friends.  Life is too short to spend it with people who make you feel like crap.  You’d think I’d have learned that lesson by now, wouldn’t you?

as i type this, my left hand is in a cast.  therefore i will not be capitalizing because it takes too long!

after i picked up arden at preschool, i walked out to my car with her behind me. i looked back to grab her hand as we stepped off the curb into the parking lot, and misjudged how close i was to the edge.  seconds later the pavement rushed to my face and i caught myself at the last moment with my ring and pinkie finger, bending both of them backwards and ripping into my left knee.  as soon as i fell, i dropped a handful of papers, and arden rushed out into the lot to pick them up.  she was almost run over by a guy who’d watched me fall and was drving over to see if i was okay.  after nearly blacking out from hearing my fingers snap, i managed to get myself and arden into the car.  thankfully my neighbor is a nurse and she told me to immediately go to the doctor.

the highlight of my day was trying to get my wedding ring off my finger - tugging and pulling on a finger that had been swelling for a couple of hours.  i nearly passed out from it.  thankfully i got it off without any type of saw.

long story short, i fractured both 4th and fifth fingers near the base.  a quick visit to the orthoped tonight and i now have a fashionable (and festive!) bright red cast that will hopefully come off in two weeks.  typing is, well, interesting, and unfortunately my livelihood is dependent on it.  so i’m going to have to retrain myself to type with 8 fingers.  please excuse the typos in advance.

Wow, it’s been a really crappy day.  It could possibly be influenced by the cold driving rain we’ve had, or my splitting headache, or lack of sleep last night.  Either way, it’s been crap, and I’m seriously ready to throw in the towel and go to bed without feeding anyone dinner.

My morning started with some personal crap with a friend.  It was mostly a misunderstanding but it upset me a bunch.  As my old boss used to say, no good deed goes unpunished. In this case, I thought I was doing something good but it backfired.  We’ve since worked it out and that’s great, but mentally I’m still recovering.

After getting my act together in the parking lot of the Y, I forced myself to go to Elke’s Super Circuit class. Normally I love her screaming in joy auf Deutsch at us, but today all I could see was that I was the fattest person in the class and I was so very, very tired of looking at 5’8” women who weigh 95 pounds in couture sportswear.  The woman working out next to me looked like she was in the Pussycat Dolls or something with her outfit and coiffed hair.  I myself was sporting a pair of ripped workout pants and a t-shirt that’s too tight around the boobs and shows off my back fat.  Awesome.  After 45 minutes of “Eins, Zwei, Drei Girls!!!” I gave up and pretended to take a water break. I slunk into the showers and had a good pity party for myself privately, especially after I realized I’d left my nice expensive shower gel at the Y yesterday and had nothing to soap up with other than my shampoo.

Add to this a bunch of cranky customers, being sold out on nap mats and having nothing to offer due to Hurricane Ike messing with our shipments, and I was ready to tell someone where she could put her nap mat order. 

This afternoon, I had to rouse Arden from her nap before she was ready (as usual).  Let me tell you, dressing a flailing nearly 4-year old in a leotard is not easy.  My splitting headache reached a fever pitch during her screaming fit. After pacifying her with a Twizzler, she was all sweetness and light.

And for those who don’t know, Mike and I have been trying to refinance for a while.  It looked like it was finally going to happen.  Unfortunately, no one told us til today that the closing was tonight, or that we had to magically make $3400 appear either.  So, during Arden’s class, I ran Lily around in the pouring rain getting a cashier’s check.  In the meantime, Mike realized that he hadn’t told the bank to include property taxes and insurance in our payment, and our payment, instead of being $300 less than it currently is, was now going to be $250 more.  His joy turned to anger.  There are very few things that freak him out or cause him to flip - money is one of those few things.  I tried to stay calm and assure him that yes, I will continue to pay myself a little bit from the company and hopefully one day I might actually get a real salary and that I could promise we could make the mortgage.  This conversation happened as I was running through the rain trying to keep Lily from being hit by a car. The conversation finished while Lily threw a rubber ball repeatedly in my face, cackling maniacally the entire time.  Awesome x 2. 

So I’m home.  I looked at the fridge, and I so don’t want to even think about cooking.  Maybe if I hide the kids will feed themselves or food will magically appear, cooked, on the table.  Either way I hope tomorrow is better.