Road Trippin'....

Would you rather drive all over town for six hours
with your two kids in the car
or hand feed alligators? 

Yeah, I would have picked the gators too.... 

What's the loss of a digit or two compared
to the slow torture of two bored, squabbling, hungry children? 

Call me a glutton for punishment,
but when your tag team partner is strolling the streets of Geneva, Switzerland
and you need to give your second job some attention,
a girl's got no choice...  

In preparation of getting released from my secretarial gig at HEAT Armor,
I have taken on another job leasing properties... 

Sound familiar? 

Before HEAT, I did have a real 9-5 job in the commercial real estate industry
for about 15 years,
complete with a briefcase, business casual clothing,
nanny and phone extension... 

Although that was only two years ago, it seems like a lot longer...

A friend and former colleague is taking a chance on me
in hopes that I still know a thing or two about leasing shopping centers
and I want to make her proud... 

So, the kids and I hit the streets to check out the inventory
I am tasked to lease... 

Challenge was that the properties were about fifty miles apart,
making the total trip over 100 miles... 

How do you tell your kids that they are going to sit in the car
for about six hours on a nice day? 

Do you threaten them with reruns of Nova for three days
if they misbehave? 

Do you bribe them with candy, toys
and an extra hour of Call of Duty on the Wii? 

A mixture of the two was my prescription
and remedy for the day... 

I packed two separate bags of snacks,
made sure they brought coloring books, the DS, etc.
and I made stops during the day
to Gamestop and Barnes & Noble
to reward them for good behavior... 

Amazingly, they were downright angelic
up until about the final thirty minutes of the journey... 

And who can blame them? 

I was tired and cranky myself... 

For their patient and helpful behavior they were rewarded
with a stop at Oberweiss Creamery... 

Jack is not supposed to have ice cream,
but I let him enjoy himself... 

I may pay for it tomorrow, but oh well... 

He helped me photograph the vacant spaces,
offered insightful observations of the shopping centers
and generally didn't annoy the living daylights out of me... 

He earned that peanut butter sundae....

Could such bliss continue? 

Don't be silly! 

Spring Forward was so much fun today that I wished to Crawl Back into bed....