Archive for the ‘Family Life’ Category
Hello again
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
Boy, it’s been awhile since my last post. I apologize to my dedicated audience (all 2 of you!).
The first week I didn’t post was one where hubby was away on a trip. You would think that would give me more time to post, but I got sucked up in the world of Lost again.
The next week I didn’t post was school’s spring break week. This is a week where my schedule is thrown off by the fact that there is still someone sleeping at 8:30 am – and it’s me!! I do love school vacation time since I don’t have to get up to get The Boy up and off to school. Last time he had vacation, I honestly could not remember what time I had to get up for the next school day (6:30 is the drop dead wake up time).
I also was waylaid by a monster headache. I developed it on Tuesday night, had it most of Wednesday, parts of Thursday, and it has tried to come back every day since. The thing that seemed to help the most was Wednesday night Hubby & I took a bath together. We soaked for about 20 or 30 minutes in a bath with salts for relaxation/stress release and muscle relaxation. Hubby rubbed my feet and give me unprofessional reflexology. Now, I say unprofessional as in he does not do this for a living, and is not learning how to do it. It did have the awesome effect of getting rid of my headache for the night and for the most of the next day. It was simply amazing to be soaking in the warm tub, having my feet not just rubbed, but worked on to relieve all the stress in my body that my headache had been causing.
So anyway, I am looking to get back in the habit of posting – so keeping checking in!
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You know what they say…
Monday, April 7th, 2008
Anna Scott: You know what they say about men with big feet.
William: No, I don’t, actually. What’s that?
Anna Scott: Big feet… large shoes.
Notting Hill – one of the best movies ever!
Hubby’s feet – best Hubby’s feet ever!
Posted in Family Life, TV/Movie | Comments Off on You know what they say…
Scanning My Life Away
Friday, April 4th, 2008
I am a hoarder. I come from a long line of hoarders. Well, maybe hoarder is a strong word for it. We’re Yankees, thrifty, savers, re-users, recyclers, frugal, cheap, packrats. Yup, I am a packrat. Although I am a semi-reformed pack rat. I CAN get rid of things – give them away, have a tag sale, donate them, etc. This is totally the influence of the Hubby.
But one area I have difficultly letting go in is PAPER. I have tax returns from 1990. I have paystubs from when we lived in CA (1990 – 1992). I have paperwork from Hubby’s job in 1993 (anyone need a memo on the new guy?). I have grocery store receipts from 10 years ago. I have invoices from Hubby’s salesman job in 1993- 2001. I have boxes and boxes of PAPER.
Part of my issue is fear. I am afraid I will need this information sometime, so I keep it. But I also need SPACE in my basement. So I have found the perfect solution. I convinced my bosses I needed the ScanSnap550.
This thing is awesome!! It scans to pdf – in color, double or single sided, and has an option for OCR (so I can search it for keywords later – so when I want to find the receipts for Walmart, I just type in “walmart” as the search word and viola! there it is!).
So, I have gone through the 14 boxes of old paperwork, culling out the crap, recovering the binder clips and rediscovering how stupid we used to be. It was amazing to look at what we paid for things, the interest rates we paid, and how long it took to pay things off. I found the appraisal for the heart pendent and earrings Hubby bought for me for our 6th Wedding Anniversary. I found the paperwork for when we bought our dog Chewie ($600 cost – financed for $900). I have pulled out the important stuff to scan and have about 15 boxes of pure crap that needs to be shredded.
I found a company that will come to the house, shred all the boxes in front of me (15 to 25 minutes to complete the job) and then be on it’s way. I have easily met the minimum amount of boxes.
So now, i need to scan all the “important” stuff that I normally would feel like I need to hold onto. Then they can go into the shred pile. So I tackled the bank statements the other night.
I scanned 3 INCHES of bank statements in 45 minutes (black – not color; double sided; not using the OCR option). All that – years of information – now digitally stored and searchable (after I change the files to OCR’d files). AWESOME!!
Posted in Family Life, Technology | Comments Off on Scanning My Life Away
Ever have a day…
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
That isn’t horrible, not necessarily bad, but things just don’t go the way you want them to?
Yesterday was a day like that. I think most of my problems stemmed from the fact that at lunchtime I went to the grocery store and when I came home, I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat lunch. Everything was mostly ok – no big issues or problems – until I had to go to the city to pick up The Boy from school. Normally he goes home on the bus, but he had a play to watch and wasn’t done until 5 pm, so no bus for him.
I hate driving in the city.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour and then not be able to find parking near the school.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour and then not be able to find parking near the school and then when I do find parking, it is next to impossible to get OUT of the parking space to get The Boy when he calls to say he is ready.
And I’m hungry.
Let me tell you a story about me being hungry. This is when Hubby and I were first together – not yet married. He got a promotion and had to move from CT to CA. This was a temporary job for 3 months, until the company and he were both sure he was a right fit for the job. They put him up in a hotel, paid his expenses, all was grand. They were even generous enough to pay for my ticket to visit him for 2 weeks. So, I went out to visit him. I had absolutely NOTHING to do every day for two weeks during the day. I went for walks, looked around the local area (I didn’t have a car, I think), watched tv, played cards, etc. Hubby was busy all day working hard to turn around the plant into a well run machine (as opposed to the hell hole it was) and was tired when he got “home” to the hotel room. We would usually go somewhere close and quick for dinner.
One night, either he was late or I hadn’t eaten much, but he got home and just wanted to chill out and relax – he was in no hurry to go dinner. Well, I was hungry and bored and cranky… I practically was in tears (and probably did cry) waiting for him to get ready to go for dinner. Poor guy – he had no idea how bad and horrible I felt inside until I pretty much exploded into tears and sobbing. He was so good to me, said he was sorry, said I should have told him that I really needed to go eat, etc., etc. (He is a very good Hubby that way).
So now we have a family joke that if I say “I’m hungry” in a certain tone of voice, we drop everything to go get something to eat.
Well, I should have paid attention and gotten something to eat before I left to pick up The Boy. Driving was a nightmare, parking was a nightmare and it was all worse since I was hungry.
The Boy and I stopped at a Dunkin‘ Donuts – one of the worst selections and service I’ve had in a while, but it was something to eat.
I got home, Hubby was already home, and we just relaxed in the bedroom. We needed to get dinner going, so I listed off the choices. One of the choices was sloppy joes. It turns out I did not have seasoning packet for it, so I jumped on the trusty web and looked for a recipe. I found one that looked good, that I had the ingredient for, and had gotten positive reviews.
Let’s just say it didn’t go over well. Cereal came out as the backup dinner.
So much for the trusty internet!
Posted in Family Life, The Boy, The Hubby | Comments Off on Ever have a day…
Time Flies
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
It’s been a week exactly since my last post – and it doesn’t feel like it! Time is funny stuff, as Hap says in Always.
Hubby was away for a week – not just a work week but 7 days in a row, including weekend time. He did a bit of business in TX and then drove with his dad from TX to Reno, NV. So “real” time was suspended while he was away… and because it was such a long time, it feels difficult to get back into “real” time. I feel like sleeping in every morning – but there is a boy to get off to school, groceries to buy, dogs to walk, laundry to do, tai chi to practice and work to get paid for. But I would be just as happy to dream about it as to do it.
I have also been lost in Lost. I have about 2/3 of the first season complete. I like the character focused writing – although there is action, you get to see the story behind the behavior. It’s one of the things I like about soap operas too – you get to see the whole person, not just the front they put on for the people that pass in and out of their lives. Everyone has more inside them than what is shown on the inside.
I remember as a kid wondering what it would be like to be this person or that person – what they did when they were my age and how different or similar it might have been. Empathic, I guess you could call it. As an adult, sometimes (most times) I forget to think about how another person might be perceiving a situation, based on their past experiences. But when I do, I find myself more open, more forgiving, more patient.
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Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Back Some Other Day
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Back Some Other Day
It’s Raining Men
It’s raining cats and dogs
I’m Singing In the Rain, Just Singing in the Rain, What a glorious feeling, I’m Happy Again
Don’t Rain On my Parade
I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Rain, I’ve Seen Sunny Days I thought Would Never End
I Hear Laughter in the Rain, walking hand and hand with the one I love
Oh, It’s Raining Again, my Love’s at an end
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain
Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain, telling me what a fool I been
But I never liked the rain until I walked through it with you
She’s my kind of rain, like love from a drunken sky
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
Sittin on the Porch Swing, Listening to the light rain, Beatin on the tin roof, Baby just me and you, rocking with the rhythm of the rain
Come on let it rain, let it rain down on me
Still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain?
Kentucky rain keeps pouring down
Rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, the Old Man is Snoring
I sure can smell the rain
Itzy Bitzy Spider, crawled up the water spout, down came the rain and washed the spider out
It has rained all day. It rained all last night. It will rain again tonight. It might even rain tomorrow.
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A Full Night’s Sleep
Friday, March 7th, 2008
I’ve finally had a full night’s sleep. After 3 or 4 weeks of getting up anywhere between 3:30 and 4:30, I finally had a night where I was able to sleep through the night uninterrupted.
The usual source of my sleep disruption is my dog. We have two of them – Chewie and Pansy. Chewie is really Hubby’s dog; Pansy is mine. Chewie is about 8 years old now – an Australian Cattle Dog. He’s very protective and fierce and scary looking to anyone who hasn’t seen a silver haired dog! He’s not particularly big like a lab, but he has muscle and will run like anything, especially after squirrels and rabbits.
Pansy is a dog we (I) adopted two summers ago. I have no idea what got into me – I am not really a dog person. My theory is you are either a dog person or a cat person – and I was totally convinced I was a cat person. That summer I had some overpowering need to have a dog. I really did not want to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on some dog at a store, so I started going to all the pounds around me. Hubby said I was in charge of the search – he didn’t want to go to shelters and see all the dogs waiting for new homes or death, which ever came first. So I went online to www.petfinders.com and looked and looked and looked. There were several that I called about, but had “just missed”. I saw Pansy listed in a shelter that rescued dogs from the south – where they routinely put dogs down after a few weeks.
The Boy had been interested in getting a dog and put his two cents in for a beagle. Now, all I had heard about beagles was the braying they were famous (or infamous) for. I was not too keen on more noise in the house, so I wasn’t too sure about that. Pansy fit the bill – she was part beagle and part pointer. So we went to see her – me and The Boy. She warmed right up to The Boy and basically ignored me.
As part of the adoption process, everyone in the family had to meet Pansy and get along – that included Chewie. So I had to bring Hubby and Chewie to meet Pansy.
That was an interesting experience. Since we have Chewie trained pretty much as a guard dog, he is very protective and loud. The trainer at the shelter took Chewie by the leach and walked around him, going behind him. The growl that came out of him when she brushed his tail was low and guttural, but he stood still and let her complete her walk around. She said something to the effect of she was impressed that he didn’t bite at her and that we had not put up a fuss about her actions. I was pretty much figuring if she was stupid enough to walk up behind a strange dog, she deserved whatever she got! Anyway, we got the two dogs together in a “neutral” area – somewhere Pansy had not been on the property and obviously Chewie had never been there either. So neither of them “owned” that space. They sniffed each other, with Chewie especially interested in her butt (no surprise there!). Then they went on their separate ways… no biting, no growling, no tension. So all went well and we ended up bringing Pansy home the next day.
As a shelter dog, house training was not her strong suit. The first week was horrible – the whining from the crate, the constant battle to get her out before her bodily fluids got out, and the constant peril our belongings suffered from the threat of being chewed up. We got her settled into a routine, but every now and then she would get in the basement and use the concrete floor as her spot to pee or poop. We had to start closing the door to the basement, and that seemed to clear up.
We kept her in a crate at night until just recently. She never complains about being in the crate… she likes to snuggle up in it. But the crate takes up this huge amount of space – there is just no good place for it. We finally ended up putting it in front of our front door. It is a double door, so we put it in front of the door that does not open. Unfortunately that also puts it in front of our closet door, which we actually do use. So, it was a big inconvenience and a pain in the butt. I finally decided to get her out of the crate at night. The big problem is … she is convinced that she is a lap dog. She jumps on the bed and snuggles with me. I generally don’t have a problem that, but I do enjoy being able to move in my own bed when I am sleeping. So, I took a small leash and attached it to my bedframe. I put her bedding from the crate on the floor and now that is her bed. It works great – no more crate and she still can’t jump on the bed with me.
Unfortunately, I am a very light sleeper. Everytime she gets up I wake up. Then she lets out a little soft whine, just enough for me to hear (and not Hubby). I get up, take her out, and I have to give her credit, she almost always pees and/or poops. Then, back in we go… her to her bed and me to mine. But, alas, I am now awake…. and sleep eludes me. For an hour … for two… until it is just about 6 am – time to get up.
But last night, I heard no whine. For the first time in a very long time, I got 6.5 hours of sleep IN A ROW.
My body was so unaccustomed to it, I think this morning’s headache is a direct result of its’ confusion.
Posted in Animal Life, Family Life | Comments Off on A Full Night’s Sleep
USA Today Article – Babies Can Cause "Momnesia"
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
There I was, innocently reading my morning papers, when I came across this headline from USA Today: Babies Can Cause “Momnesia“. That was too good to pass up (I usually just read the Life Section).
Now, my son is 14 years old (15 this summer, actually!) so it’s not like I am pregnant or have a newborn. Yet, I still feel like I am suffering from Momnesia. The article talks about how the experience and pain of childbirth seems to fade and the knowledge you learn to deal with your baby at particular stages of life “takes over” your brain and other things start to slide… like that milk belongs in a refrigerator, not a cupboard.
I personally have not done that, but I often find myself getting to the car, turning it on, going down the driveway, and then saying to myself – where am I going? I check to see if I have The Boy with me…if I don’t, I am probably on my way to pick him up. If I do, I am probably on my way to take him somewhere. If I am in my pj’s, I am on my way to take him to school. If I have “real” clothes on, I am on my way to karate (or possibly a friend’s house).
I will also walk into a room with a purpose… just not one I remember. I will stand there… looking around, flailing about for a purpose… do I sit on the toilet now? or am I there to take a shower?
Of course, you could just put this down to getting older and more forgetful. Either way I.DO.NOT.LIKE.IT!!
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