#managementproblems

The title of this post has become a new buzzword in my house.  I invented it.

I am not, of course, management.  BUT… I have nominal control over my department, and hopefully in time I will at least be the team lead, which would give me at least some semblance of a management position.  I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I'm optimistic.  I make the schedule, other departments (and department heads) come to me with issues, etc.  Anyway, the big news is… drumroll please… last week I went permanent.  I am no longer a temp-to-hire worker employed by a temp agency; I am a full-on staff member at the clinic.  This means I have to remember to clock in and out each morning, afternoon, and at lunch.  The last time I did this was in early 2000, and then it wasn't a big deal because all my coworkers left at the same time I did AND the clock was right by the door where we entered and exited.  Now the clock is way the heck at the end of the clinic, nowhere near where I work (which was particularly fun on Friday when I walked in the door at 7:54 and was greeted with, "SARAH!!!" by three different people who wanted to know the status of a couple of things… clocking in is difficult when you're being greeted by demands), and this afternoon I tried to leave without clocking out.  Thankfully I didn't even make it off the elevator.

I love my team.  Yeah, at some point, especially if I *AM* given the team lead position (again, not a given, not a guarantee, but I'd sure like the gig), I figure they'll start treating me oddly, but they're really really good, nice, driven people.  Honestly I like almost everyone in the clinic.  There will always be a few folks here and there that appeal to me less - that's going to be true no matter where I work - but I love that the drama is kept to a minimum.

I even revel in the fact that while I am not management, I'm being kept busy and given responsibilities.  I cannot even express how much I enjoy those two things.  Boredom and lack of recognition are two things that would drive me crazy anywhere, and those aren't happening.

Hard to believe I only started working in early September.  I feel like I'm at home.

Next post - Christmas!!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Last night Oz and I attended our first parent/teacher conferences in three years.

We went to Boo's first.  We walked in and sat down, and the teacher ran through some sheets that each of Boo's teachers had filled out about her behavior and grades and any other notes that they had, and then we got the preliminary report card with all As (any grade changes that happen between now and when they go out on Monday will be minor).  Boo is a good student.  She's happy.  She's a good helper.  She's smart.  She's a good friend.  Etc.  Nothing we didn't already know or suspect about her.

We had also had a call earlier in the evening saying that Boo was officially accepted into the gifted program, so starting next Wednesday she'll get on a bus with all the other gifted/talented kids and go to a different elementary for a special supplemental course.  She may wind up with homework from the class time that she misses, but it won't be ALL the work she misses and she isn't concerned.  She's just pleased to be recognized for her brain… as she should be.

Then we went to Doodlebug's school.  Oz and I were honestly not sure how this conference would go. We assumed we would just be meeting with one teacher, his homeroom teacher, but instead when we sat down, teachers converged from everywhere and we got to meet with 5 out of 6.  That's a number I can live with.

His teachers like him!  They are all impressed with his intelligence and think of him more or less as a walking dictionary - more than one mentioned that when another student needs something they will occasionally refer the student to Doodlebug to get the answer.  They say he's doing all right socially, although one teacher was surprised to discover that Doodlebug and another boy are good friends since they spend class arguing (this is the same friend that got suspended along with Doodlebug, so that information didn't surprise me too much).  He also has straight As, though if he doesn't pay attention in a couple of classes soon, that won't last.

The biggest surprise actually came before the conferences, when Oz and I stepped into the counselor's office.  We went there to get the password to the school website so we can log in and check on Doodlebug's assignments and grades (something we were supposed to have been given months ago but oh well… clearly it hasn't affected things much).  The counselor looked at us and said, "Oh, hey, I was working on his file today."

Well THAT wasn't alarming at all.  #sarcasm.

Apparently one of the teachers had mentioned something about Doodlebug's 504 plan and how Doodlebug was supposed to have one… which he is… but I guess somehow in the shuffle of everything, the plan never got forwarded.  So while he does have one, it isn't on file.  And when the counselor popped around and asked all the teachers what they thought he needed to have on it and whether they even thought he needed one at all, the teachers all said that they couldn't think of a single intervention he could need.  I was surprised but very, very pleased.  So I'm not even sure we'll worry about it at this point; the counselor said it would be an easy thing to get it forwarded and amended whenever - IF ever - it is needed.

I do miss being at home and homeschooling some days - today was one of them, where I would have given just about anything to be at home with my kids instead of at work while they were at a friend's house for Fall Break - but I'm very proud of how well they're doing and how smoothly the transition has gone.  I couldn't have imagined better.

My Kids Are Smartybritches

My kids impress me.  They're both doing well in school.  In fact, they're doing so well that the following things have happened:

1.  Doodlebug's AR goal (the kids read books and take tests on them, which drives me batty but I did sign them up for school so I really can't gripe) will be raised for the next nine weeks.  His goal this nine weeks was something like 28 points, and he claims to currently be somewhere around 50.  So his goal next time will be higher.

2.  Boo will be IQ tested for the gifted program in the next week or two.  

3.  Doodlebug has been accepted onto the FIRST Lego League team for this school year.  One of the coaches is the school psychologist, which makes me insanely happy.  I like that guy.

4.  Boo has come home with certificates for various achievements, particularly in math for knowing her multiplication facts.

Yeah, I'm bragging a bit.  But considering how worried I was about their school performance, especially in Doodlebug's case, I think it's warranted.

I'm just pleased that they seem to be happy, making friends, and fitting in.  This has been a good move for us all.

The Learning Curve

With every change in life comes a learning curve.  Everyone in my house is experiencing one right now, including the animals (the poor guppy puppy has to stay in the garage all day, and when the kids and I get home each day the cats - and dog - swarm us like we've been gone for years).

Boo is having the easiest time of it, in terms of the human equation.  She adores school and is making some good friends.  One friend in particular she wants to invite to go roller skating one day soon.  I'm pleased.  I'm also home each day before she arrives.

Doodlebug is doing surprisingly well.  His room is a pit (and believe me, this has been a problem since he was little, but at this point, Mama is about to completely lose it… I'm going to discuss this little entitlement issue we're having in another post soon), but in school he's supposedly doing okay.  I'm hoping that he's not just blowing smoke up my hind end when he comes home each day and announces that he has very little to no homework.  I guess we'll find out when the grades come out, but while I don't expect a ton of homework, I have expected more than he has.  Fingers crossed.  He does get bored each afternoon and attributes it to being home solo for a little while, which I suspect isn't quite the case as I think he would be bored regardless of whether or not an adult was present (sometimes Oz is home, and he's still bored), and he doesn't really like being up early early early each morning, but he's doing okay.

Oz is adjusting, too.  He's been supportive and helpful, taking kids to appointments and giving me foot rubs on those first few days when walking 8-10 miles a day was particularly hard on my system (don't get me wrong… it still ain't easy, but I'm adjusting).  He hasn't yet realized that me working also means he needs to actually clean something around the house since I'm not here all day to do it, but one step at a time.  He is at least helping with dinner on occasion and will sometimes do a load of laundry if I need him to.

And then there's me.  Going back to work has been good.  The learning curve there has been far steeper than the adjustment period from a home standpoint.  I've gotten quite good already (if I do say so myself) at doing the first job they had me learn, walking patients back to rooms.  At this point the clinicians like and are familiar with me, and I'm starting to memorize the doctors' schedules.  I certainly can tell you their locations in the clinic on any given day!  I can schedule appointments with relative ease, and I'm starting to learn some of the basics.  Now I just need to get up to the front desk for a full few days in a row and really tackle the system.  It'll be tough, especially since I'll be dealing with patients who are either ready to stop standing or ready to be out of the office, but thankfully most patients are patient.  Most.  I'm sure there will always be a few who aren't.  And I'll handle that, too.  I'm definitely ready for something new and for the new to become familiar.

I think we all are.

The First Day

I didn't want to post anything until now.  I was so afraid I might jinx something, especially after all that has happened previously.


I started a job today.  I actually went to work and showed up and they knew I was coming and I AM EMPLOYED.


Last Friday I had two interviews.  One was for a temporary position; the other was a temp-to-hire job.  Even though I wasn't as interested in the temporary position (not only because it was only temporary but also because it was in a field I'm less interested in), I wanted to go to both of the interviews because they were just that - interviews.  A shot at a job, not a guarantee.


Both interviews went well.  They went so well, in fact, that I wound up getting offered both positions. 


Obviously I chose the temp-to-hire one, which is at a local orthopedic clinic.  So today was my first day at work... the first time I've had a full-time gig since 2002. 


I think I did okay.  I tried to pick up as much as I could, which wasn't much but hopefully will be soon, and just kept going... and going... and going.  They hadn't warned me I was going to be spending the day walking, so while I did wear flats, my back is sore now.  My feet are, too, but not as much as my back.  I'll try to take some time to crawl in the tub this evening, but barring that, I'll pop some Aleve and keep going.


It's a little weird getting back into the working world, but so far so good!

The School Year

So the school year starts for my kids later this week.  Last week the fun started, of course, when I took the kids shopping for school supplies (Doodlebug will need more next week after his teachers send home lists for individual classes) and when I picked up Doodlebug's schedule from the middle school.


That was fun.


NOT.


As you may or may not recall, I spent quite a bit of time earlier in the year working with the school system to ensure that Doodlebug would have proper classes and interventions in place by the time he set foot into the school this fall.  We had a final meeting the last week of the 2013-2014 school year to finalize everything and to make sure that everyone was on the same page.  I remembered feeling hesitant around the school counselor's level of commitment, but there was little I could do... until I picked up the schedule last week and saw that there was nary a single pre-AP class on it.


Not.  Freaking.  Acceptable.


Thankfully the same counselor was the one who handed me the schedule, and so I very kindly but firmly reminded him of our handy-dandy little meeting, and he asked me to fill out a schedule change request slip and said he'd see what he could do and we could pick up a new schedule on the first day of school.  Not feeling particularly confident, I came home and shot the psychologist an e-mail to give him a heads-up on the situation.  He replied back and said it wasn't usually inside his purview to check into class schedules but he'd see what he could do as well.


It is with great pleasure that I can say that tonight, when we went to meet the teachers (which Doodlebug was walking into without knowing a schedule, which was driving me batty since I know he needs to know where to go BEFORE the first day), a new schedule was waiting.  I've not breathed such a sigh of relief in a long time.  We were able to walk Doodlebug's schedule, meet his teachers and see the classrooms, and get contact information for the teachers so I could send them e-mails about the 504 plan and provide my contact information, just in case.  He also scored a better elective class for him, too, I think - technology instead of art.


Of course, his locker didn't work, but there's always a hitch... and I'd rather the hitch be about a locker than an entire schedule.


We met Boo's teacher tonight, too, and I think her class will be a good one.  This teacher has a master's degree, but this is probably her second year teaching.  So we'll see, but I'm optimistic.  Thankfully Boo is a lot more flexible in how things work.


So school starts soon.  It will be weird having the kids out of the house all day, but I think it will be a good experience all around.

Recovery and Stepping Forward

So Oz is recovering nicely.  He had some residual fever on Saturday evening, but that seems to have subsided thanks to his massive horse-pill antibiotics.  He's got some angry-looking laparoscopy wounds right now, but I think those, too, shall heal.  He's doped up on the good meds and spends a lot of time relaxing on the couch, which is exactly what he needs right now.

This week is starting out nicely.  It may be a Monday, but it sure doesn't feel like it.  I'm not sure what day it feels like.  It's that time of summer when I would have started school but… yeah, that's not happening this year.  The kids are getting bored and antsy, and we're all kind of looking forward to the first day in a few weeks.  I need to take them back-to-school shopping, but I'm delaying the inevitable.  I suspect I'll do it one day next week.

In the meantime, I got a phone call today.  I started putting in online applications for clerical and administrative assistant jobs about two weeks ago and hadn't heard anything.  It wasn't surprising given that my resume has more holes than some kinds of cheese and I haven't worked since 2010, but it was still frustrating.

Today, however, I got a phone call from a local school system.  Their building secretary had a family emergency that caused her to have to quit her job quite suddenly, and they need someone who can start quickly.  So I have an interview tomorrow for that position… and if that goes well, I'll have training on Wednesday.  So fingers crossed!  I haven't worked outside the home since before Doodlebug was born… at least, not in any capacity where I couldn't take the kids.  So this will be a change for everyone, but I'm excited about it.  I'm ready to earn money again, and even if it isn't much, it's something and it indicates a current job history.

Sunnyview School may not exist any more, but there's still plenty of learning happening around here.  I appreciate all you readers who have stuck around.  :)

My Son, the Unique One

We went to see the retinal specialist this morning.  Our appointment was at 7:45, and when we got the paperwork in the mail a couple days ago, I was not encouraged.  For one thing, it said I would need to allow three hours for an initial visit.  For another, it said that Doodlebug would need to bring sunglasses because they dilate eyes on every visit.  Makes sense for an office dedicated to peering deep into the pupils of every patient.


I discovered when we got there that they run an interesting ship.  It's an efficient ship, I'll give them that.  They open at 7:30, for one thing, which is the earliest I've ever seen any doctor's office open.  We got called back around 8, and they took us to the first room, which was the basic vision check room.  It was a tiny, narrow space, and Boo wound up wedged in the front corner on the floor.  They don't often get kids in there, or parents with kids in tow.  I was the youngest in the waiting room by some 30 years, and Doodlebug... well, the looks he got when the tech called his name and not mine were rather interesting.  The tech took some vitals and checked Doodlebug's vision (an easy 20/20, just like it always is, with the exception of not being able to see some of the letters with his left eye due to the 'line' that we were there for in the first place).  Then she put the drops in his eyes and we waited for them to dilate before we moved to room #2, where she took some photos of his retina and checked pressure.  Then we moved to room #3, where we actually saw the doctor.  He came in and did even more checking. 


In the end, he sat back in his chair, looked at me, and said, "If you're looking for a diagnosis, I don't think I can give you one.  His eyes look perfect."  The retinal scan was perfectly normal, the pressure scans showed that the fluid seemed to be in the right place and have the right pressure, the fluid itself looked clear, etc.  The best he can figure is it's just a weird manifestation of Doodlebug's amblyopia that he's had since his strabismus correction when he was 2.  He dictated a letter to our referring physician [Side note: After he got off the phone, he told me what he'd done, which I had listened to and knew what he'd said and made my own assessments based on the technical version he gave the ophthalmologist. I told him I knew what he'd been doing because I had previously done medical transcription, and he laughed and apologized and said that he always felt sorry for those folks because of how fast and badly he figured he talked.  Of course, I'd had no problems understanding him and thought he'd have been an easy doctor to work for!  I told him that, and he said it made him feel better.  It's always nice to give someone their daily odd compliment.], and we were out of there, potentially never to return.


All this is, I suppose, good.  We don't have to go back, and there's nothing special we have to do (though I think it would be good for Doodlebug's long-term eye health if I made him use that eye once in a while... he's so right-eye dominant that I fear his left eye may just, like, quit if he doesn't ever use it).  The down side is that there's no way to 'fix' it, either.  Not a big deal but rather frustrating.  I'm a 'fix-it' sort of person.


This boy... he blows my mind.  I've never met his equal when it comes to having benign abnormalities.  When he was born with his 12 fingers and 12 toes, it wasn't a health hazard, but it had to be corrected.  When he was 2 and had his strabismus, same deal.  Then he had his tonsils and adenoids out not because they were infected (though apparently the backs of his tonsils were grossly cryptic and did need to come out, anyway) but because they were so large they were causing him to have sleep issues and snore.  He's seen an endodontist because of his missing/small teeth; I didn't even know what an endodontist was until we had to see that one.  Now a retinal specialist.  Oh, and we did genetic testing recently, too, to rule out a couple of issues (the panel came back clear... we're still supposed to go get an echocardiogram, just to be on the extra-safe side, but I'm of two minds about it... and that would be yet another specialist). 


I'm extremely grateful that none of his issues will cause him any long-term problems, I really am.  I know there are so many families out there who may only have to see one or two doctors but have to see them all the time and their children have to live with certain issues and even disabilities for a lifetime (I'm ignoring Doodlebug's ADHD and autism spectrum issues for the moment, because those don't really count in the grand scheme of things, if he can learn to function well enough).  I just hate that every time I think we're done with specialists and doctor visits, something new crops up. 


Ah, well.  He's outside with his sister now, planting the herbs and other stuff they got yesterday.  He wants to create his own garden space this fall so he can plant his own actual garden next spring.  And I'm glad that he can plan for that and not have to worry about things like vision.  I'm lucky I have such healthy kids.

Muddling Onward

I should be writing our Homemade History blog post for the week, but I'm not.  I'll try to get to it sometime in the next day or so.  We're taking this week off of school because of Doodlebug's birthday, and after we get back from the break I'm going to revamp the way we do things a little bit, at the kids' requests.  Doodlebug does not want to go to public school in January and has stated that in no uncertain terms, and for now, at least, he seems determined to work toward that goal.  For my part, I asked the kids what they liked and what they didn't about our school day, and I got some excellent feedback.  So while most of the history stuff will be the same, the way in which we implement it will be somewhat different.  Fingers crossed that it makes things more interesting for all of us; we all hate ruts.  I'll also be changing up the way we do science a little bit, and I'm totally overhauling Boo's language arts program.  It'll mean a bit more work for me, but if she's happier and I don't have the occasional meltdowns that I do right now, then it'll be worth it.  Doodlebug is desperately bored with his math curriculum (Math-U-See), but I've promised him if he can get through Zeta (he's on lesson 13), then for prealgebra we'll swap to the Art of Problem Solving books.  Other than that, he's 10.99 years old and thinks school is school, no matter what form it takes.

So that's school.

Boo has been much improved since we implemented the Respect Jar and Put-Up Plan.  I didn't figure it would take much to get her back to baseline.

Doodlebug is still fighting us every inch of the way, and I am in desperate need of a good counselor for both him and me.  He was up again last night.  At 4 a.m. when I got up to use the bathroom, I heard the toilet upstairs flush, too, and went up to check and make sure everyone was okay.  He was lying on his bed, wide awake.  He had swiped his sister's iPod Touch, logged in, and was watching - wait for it, I'm sure you'll be shocked - Minecraft videos.  One of the things on his birthday/Christmas list is an iOS device.  There's not a chance this side of Hades he'll get once, since he can't even be responsible with one that isn't his.  I'm trying to work with him, but it's like trying to corral the ocean; it's just going to do what it wants and to hell with the consequences for everyone else.  I know he's a good kid deep down, but I wish I saw that more often in daily life.  Where are all the manual labor jobs for kids when you need them?  It's actions like these that really make me wonder if he'll ever be able to live successfully on his own.

I'm not giving up.  I know I'm not a bad parent, despite the occasional feeling of being overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising this particular child.  But I'm still stuck.

Onward into the fray!

Blog List Update

Just wanted to take a quick moment to point out that I've added a lot more blogs to the list on the right (keep scrolling... keep scrolling... it's there).  It only shows the 10 that have been updated most recently, but feel free to check out these other sites.  Most are homeschoolers, some aren't.  Most are about moms/kids/parenting, but a few aren't.

And if you have a blog and want to share, or if you have a suggestion for one I might like to read, let me know!  I'm kind of on a new-blog binge right now.

Birthdays and Easter and Classes - Oh, My!

We're still on Spring Break here in our little corner of the world.  All the public schools are back in session this week, so we do have to get out of our comfort zone and go to swimming and violin lessons as usual, but we're still not up in the school room much unless you count M2, who can't go 24 hours without doing a project or craft of some sort.

Last week was largely spent preparing for and executing plans for M2's 8th birthday.  She had a slumber party with a few of her friends, and it went beautifully.  M1 had a difficult time understanding why he wasn't allowed to participate in (read: take over) the girls' plans, but Oz and I distracted him with a flight simulator and time on his Kindle Fire, so I don't think he missed too much.  This week my grandmother turns 89, and we're going to go up and visit her.  She wants to have a birthday party at her retirement home, complete with cookies and root beer floats.  I sincerely hope that when I turn 89, I'm able to have cookies and root beer floats!  How fun is that?

Easter is on Sunday.  Usually I have candy bought and stashed by now.  This year I've bought candy, but for reasons that have to remain secret because Oz is still in the dark (some of you know what we did with the candy and have seen photos, but SHHH!), the kids know the candy exists and they know that I'm probably going to use it to stuff eggs.  It seems rather to defeat the purpose if they already know what will be IN the eggs, so I may have to have Oz pick each of them up a chocolate rabbit just so they have a little surprise.  We'll see.  Last year the Easter Bunny stopped by.  I suspect a repeat performance may be in the cards this year.

I started the beginner digital photography class last night.  It's the first class I've taken in years, and it's lovely.  I'm very glad Oz pushed me into signing up.  Apparently the classes are usually quite full  - 18-20 people - but our class only had nine people enroll, of which only seven showed up last night.  The instructor seems knowledgeable and kind, and he's been doing this long enough that he knows more or less what to expect.  It's a four-week course, and we're covering the basics - metering, aperture control, shutter speed, ISO settings, and white balance.  It's just what I had been hoping it would be, and I'm already starting to think about the 'final,' which is a photographic scavenger hunt.

Finally, I finished a 9-week exercise program yesterday.  I used EA Sports Active 2 for the Wii, and it wasn't easy.  The program asks you to work out four times a week for those nine weeks, and I can see a difference in my body shape.  I have more of a waist now than I think I've had since before M1 was born.  I weigh about the same as I did then as well.  It's a massive accomplishment, something I've been wanting since M2 came along, and I'm finally there.  I'm not done, though.  I have Jillian Michaels' No More Trouble Zones workout DVD, and I'm going to use that through April, then go back to the Sports Active 2 program and see what the 'hard' setting is like.  It'll probably kill me.  If it doesn't... well, you know the saying.

Hope things are starting to warm up where you are; I'm so very ready for spring!!

Babies and February

'Tis the season for babies, you know.  Thankfully the only babies around here are of the non-human variety.  I don't even want to think about what my life would be like with an infant.  I barely have time to breathe as it is; fitting a baby into the schedule (and the house, if I'm honest) is a horror story I'm not even going to consider.

Can you tell I'm all done having kids??  No regrets here.

Still, it's fun to see all the babies hatching and growing right now.

The mommy mollie has had two babies so far... that have survived.  They're both swimming happily around the tank with their friends...

... the baby guppies.  This is one of two infants, but we have three 'adolescent' guppy babies as well.  Two of those are male, and one is female.  We don't know which gender the infants are yet.  I'm kind of excited to find out.

My plants are, by and large, growing rapidly as well.  I'm going to have to spend some time this weekend cleaning out the garden patches and getting them ready, as these guys should be ready to thin and transfer to bigger containers sometime in the next week or two, and they'll be ready to put in the garden in about a month, I think, if the weather stays warm like it has been and I can get them hardened off properly.  That's always the part I struggle with the most.

When I was outside the other day, I took my camera with me.  It's too early for tadpoles yet, but I wanted a few pictures of the creek, just for fun.  After all, if we have another summer like the last two years, seeing water in it may be a rarity.

Also... I like birch trees.  They're fun.

Who can believe it's February already?  Anyone else wondering what on earth to do for Valentine's Day?

Whew!

I haven't posted in more than a week.  I apologize for that.  We've been a little busy.

M1:  He lost his glasses, and we can't find them anywhere.  I suspect he left them at the swim school and someone pitched them, because they aren't in the lost & found, and usually the staff are good at keeping tabs on those sorts of things.  He's got a sassy mouth, which drives me nuts, and he's taken to huffing around the house indignantly almost 24/7.  Tween attitude much?  We've been having a lot of talks about respect and the Golden Rule.  I've been attempting positive reinforcement, but it only goes so far.  Still, he and his sister got up last weekend and made me homemade biscotti with a recipe out of one of his cookbooks, so I can't be too mad at him.

He's been busy with swim, too.  Usually he swims three days a week - team practices twice a week and stroke development once - but his team has been participating in a meet, so we've had a fourth day of swim for the past two weeks.  It was so nice not to have to drive to one this week!  Still, M1 got a second-place ribbon at his meet two weeks ago, for breaststroke.  He's been so proud, and he's finally putting in some real effort at practice in an effort to get that first-place blue.  His swim coach's last day was last Thursday, so they've been in a transition for a while as well.  There's a new coach who has been preparing and training with the team for a while, so it won't be a major thing, but it's still a change.  I'm excited to see what direction the new coach will take.

M2:  Manic, manic, manic.  She's been constantly on the move lately, constantly talking or angry or making projects or whatever.  She had a violin solo festival that she attended last Saturday, and she got all 1s, which is a top score.  They were running a fairly relaxed festival, so she got to pick the color of ribbon that she could take home.  Guess what color she picked?  That's right - pink!

Oz:  Oz has been working, trying to get a ton of work projects finished up before the end of the year.  He's been magnificent and worked out how to hang lights on our house since he can't climb up on the roof like he's always done; we'll probably try to get some hung this coming weekend and finish it up on the 1st.

Me:  I'm just trying to keep up with it all.  Thanksgiving is Thursday, and I always try to have most of my Christmas shopping done before Black Friday.  I haven't gotten *all* of it done this year, but I've gotten probably 3/4 of it completed.  I need to run a couple of errands by myself at some point, but if I get desperate, I can do these things on the Internet - I'd just rather pick these things out in person.  I also have to work out what to do for some extended family members; I have a couple of ideas but nothing firm, and it's getting closer.  *sigh* I really wish gifts weren't 'mandatory.'

Oz and I aren't getting one another gifts this year because we decided to get new bedroom furniture instead.  When we got married, we bought the cheapest bedroom suite we could find because it was all our budget could afford at the time.  It worked - and still works - just fine, but it's not anything I care for.  Now that we have a bigger bedroom, we're moving up to a king-size bed and furniture to go with it.  I'm pretty excited.  It's being delivered tomorrow.  That means, of course, that I won't have anything to open or for Oz to open on Christmas Day, but we're okay with that.  Sacrifices have to be made, and Oz does have a birthday in late January! ;)

School has been plugging along.  M2 is an amazing writer, and M1 continues to astound me with his scientific knowledge and intuition.  Next week will be our halfway point in the school year; hard to believe it's already that far along!

For those of you in the USA, I hope you have a lovely, happy, peaceful Thanksgiving, and I'll be back when I resurface again!

Sign of the Times

Even the cat is tired of waiting.

The move, obviously, is still on.  We haven't run into any major snags yet.  We've done the inspections on the house we're buying, and we've had inspections (and repairs) done here.  Today I got an e-mail from our realtor that said we're ready to schedule closing, which is both scary and really, really exciting.

We're two weeks out now.  The end is in sight... and now that it's actually happening, it can't happen fast enough!

Updates!

I finally managed to update the curriculum links on the left as well as the curriculum page here on the site!  After a long weekend where I don't feel like I accomplished much, this feels a lot like progress!

In the words of a famous (pseudo-)homemaker, "It's a good thing."

Home, Sweet... Oh, Wait

On June 21 (my darling Oz looked it up because I thought it was July - his memory is far better than mine for these details), he and I had officially lived in this house for 10 years.  When we moved in, I was 6 months pregnant with M1.  I thought it was miserable when we moved because it was 90-something and humid outside.

I'm very glad I'm not pregnant this time.  Not sure my system would take the strain under 100+ degree heat.

Anyway, we've been totally content in this house for the last decade.  It's met our needs well, and it's been a beautiful home in which to live.  We took out some gardens and put in others.  We added fences and subtracted trees.  We remodeled the bathroom entirely and updated the master bedroom, the hall, and the dining rooms.  The children have been happy here and we've created some fantastic memories.

Now, however, it is time to go.  We got an offer on our house last week.  It was lower than we wanted, but our realtor suggested that we counter-offer anyway.  We did, haggled back and forth a little, and finally settled on a mutually (mostly) acceptable price.  We will no longer own this house by the end of August.

As soon as we had our offer, our realtor told us that we would be "joined at the hip" until we found a place that WE wanted.  We checked out half a dozen homes over two days, found several that looked gorgeous in photos but weren't maintained at all, found two that we liked, and picked one.  We made an offer yesterday.  Haggle, haggle, haggle... we sign the final contract tomorrow.  We will own that home by the end of July or very early August, giving us several weeks to get in and settled.  (It does also mean that we'll have one month of paying two mortgage payments, which makes me slightly nauseous, but there are worse things in life, I suppose).

Our new house, assuming all goes well, will be twice the size of our current house.  Right now we have the following rooms:  Laundry room (doubles as an office), kitchen, dining room, living room (doubles as a school room), hall, three bedrooms, and the bathroom.  Our new house, again assuming all goes well because I really, really don't want to jinx anything here, will have a laundry room, an office, a kitchen with a casual dining area, a living area, a formal dining room, three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a school room which is actually a fourth bedroom but I need a school room more than a spare bedroom, and a game room.  I can't wait to take pictures.

The kids are of mixed minds about moving.  On the one hand, they're thrilled about all the new spaces and amenities that the new place will have; on the other, they're really going to miss this one.  I will, too.  We're going to talk about it a lot, take a lot of 'final' photos, and make sure they're part of the process every step of the way.

It's a big move.  Bittersweet.  But it's time.  Time for a new home, sweet home!

Plodding Onward

I haven't posted anything in a few days, and unless something significant happens (it's supposed to rain tomorrow... around here, that may count as significant), I probably won't be posting much anytime soon.  It's not that I'm avoiding my blog or anything; I just don't have much worth posting.  Ever feel like your life is incredibly boring and is really only useful as a giant time-suck in which all good things go to die?

Yeah.  I'm there.

The chickens are... chickens.  The mice that have invaded their coop have multiplied to the point of truly gross.  I suspect they're gathering forces and plotting a coup and eventually I'll be raising mice instead of birds.  I'm going to get in there this weekend, muck everything out, and set some sticky traps underneath the coop itself.  I may pull the food out entirely and feed the birds in the yard every few hours.  Of course, I'll have to remember to do that, and I'll have to make sure that Speed Bump, the Dog Who Eats Everything, is in the house when I feed, but if it gets rid of the mice, then so be it.

The cats are good.  The Old Man Cat's giant cyst has pretty well disappeared.  You can see where it was, of course, but it isn't completely disgusting any more.  Now he's decided to scratch all the fur off his neck (I gave him flea meds, so I know it's not that).  He may be due for another trip back to the vet here soon.  The rest of the cats are fine.  Insane, but fine.  Demanding, but fine.

M1 is doing well.  He has problems focusing, but they're intermittent.  Wednesdays and Fridays are the worst, but I think I've worked out why: He gets worn out swimming on Tuesdays and Thursdays but refuses to go to sleep when he goes to bed, so then he's tired and sore the next day.  It makes for some long school days.  He's done really well this week, and it's been nice.

M2 is another story.  Two days after our last therapy visit, she flipped.  She'd been doing really well since mid-November, and before that her stint as a complete butt monkey hadn't lasted very long, so I had thought she was making progress and that maybe her moodiness was just a phase and it was all in my mind.  But no... she was just in between cycles.  Or something.  Ironically, since she'd been doing so well, we'd more or less decided to stop going to therapy.  Now?  Well, I can't get her to use the therapy tools she already has, so I still don't see the point in going back, but it's very tempting to make the appointment, dump her in the chair, rant to the therapist, throw my hands up and walk out.  I won't, of course, but the idea has mental merit.  She stomps, screams, refuses to budge, and is otherwise completely obtuse every time something doesn't go her way or messes with her plans.  She's never been the boss of the household in her life, and I'm not about to start letting her have that role now, but good grief.  Last night she managed to dunk her hair into her bowl of soup, so I told her she needed to wash her hair.  Forty-five minutes later, I literally dragged her to the bathroom.  After that, she refused to let me tuck her into bed (fine by me) before bursting into tears and self-imploding about how horrible a person she was.  She's decided she doesn't want Oz to take her to school any more.  She doesn't want to practice violin very often.  She doesn't want to do X, Y or Z, and all the begging and bribery in the world won't make her budge.  I have to admit I hope she can channel this persistence into adulthood, because if she could use it in a positive way it'd be incredibly effective, but for now it's a real pain in the rear.

The gerbil still lives.

The dogs are currently asleep on the floor.

Oz is at work, doing what he does and bringing home the bacon.  His birthday was this last weekend.  I got him the new Zelda game and hope to take him on a trip sometime this year.

And as for me?  Well, I'm just hanging in there, trying to keep it all together, get it all done, and occasionally learn something new in the process.  One day at a time...

The Cat Lives

So I took the cats to the vet.  As predicted, one was pronounced morbidly obese (the tech was overheard saying, "Oh, my gosh... he has such a tiny head, but he's huge!") and the other pronounced malodorous.

The vet pulled Pepe out of his carrier, gave him the once-over, and when introduced to "It" (as I shall now refer to the cyst because I really, really don't want to gross you out more than once a day), he was rather impressed.  The vet took the cat to the back, shaved the long fur around the area in question, cleaned It all out, and brought him back, itching and cranky and with a large, noticeable hole where It had once been.

So it wound up all being good news.  Not cancer, not something that's going to recur, hopefully, and nothing bacterial or fungal.  We're all back home with two weeks' worth of feline amoxicillin.  The sight of the site where It was, though, is now the thing that can induce nausea.  This is better than the smell, but does anyone know if you can use Neosporin and self-adhesive bandages on cats?  Because that'd make me even happier.

I'm Not Cured, But...

I'm in a much better mood than I was yesterday.  For one thing, my head isn't threatening to explode.  For another, I've released myself from the expectation that M1 is going to function.  It's nearly 10 a.m., and he's just begun writing.  He's crouched behind the coffee table, manically twisting his hair, rocking, and going, "SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH. SHH," over... and over... and over.  Oh, wait, we just got an answering squawk to a cat howling at the back door to be let out.  Perhaps I should release the obnoxious cat and see if that red-tailed hawk which has been eyeing the chickens...

Never mind.

At this rate, M1 will get done with school sometime around 3 p.m., which doesn't work when he has a swimming lesson at noon and swim team practice at 2 and I really, really need to try to fit in a couple of errands in between.

I hereby absolve myself of any educational responsibility for the rest of the day.

There.  That feels better.

I got 10.5 hours of sleep last night, more or less, which probably has a lot to do with my New and Improved Mood.  Both kids were conked clean out by 7:30, despite their protestations of "I'm NOT tired!" and "Mom, I can't go to sleep."  I sipped a mug of warm apple cider, read a few chapters of a book, and put myself to bed at 8.  It was glorious.  Poor DH got home around 12:30 a.m. and was out the door by 6:30 a.m., so I missed him both ways, which I hate, but I think the sleep was worth it.  I still have the potential for a major grump-fest lurking in my system, but I don't quite feel like I'm perched on the edge of a cliff waiting for someone to show up so I can shove them off.

This is probably a good thing.

Gratitude

Dear Everyone:

For the kind words of encouragement regarding my educational dilemma with M2...

For reading this blog despite my tendency to be wordy and completely random...

For sharing tidbits about your own lives through your own blogs (leave me a link if I'm not already following you!)...

Signed,

Sarah