Monthly Archives for November 2011

Better

As I mentioned in my last post, I took the week before last off, which actually meant that I worked about 4-6 hours per day instead of the usual.  The week of reduced pressure followed by Thanksgiving week which is typically not very busy at work, really helped me catch up on a few things and catch my breath.  There’s something about having the “out of office”  message on that makes me feel less harried.  When I get an email I can picture the person on the other end of the internet staring at their screen waiting for me.  Maybe I should keep my out-of-office on all the time.

I didn’t clean and purge as much as I had hoped, but I did organize the year’s photos and start working on the annual photo book.  The 50% off coupon ends on November 30th, so that’s a must-do.  I also sent a thousand old photos to ScanMyPhotos.com because I had a Groupon that was expiring.  I even took a 2-hour photography class last Sunday.  I’ve still got a lot to learn, but we spent the whole class in manual mode so that was empowering.

I got one giant pain out of the way, which was taking the kids to Portrait Simple for the annual photo shoot.  Oy, that is my own little version of hell.  The clothes, the hair, the accessories, the whining, the fake smiles, the grimaces…at least now I know why the school pictures always look so bad.  By the way, if you were planning to use the black fabric background for your family photos, you can blame my kids for pulling it down.  Sorry about that.

In the two-week period I went out to lunch 3 times with people who are important to me.  We also had a great Thanksgiving with the Pearce Crew, Ben’s sister, and 3 of Ben’s coworkers who are here from the Costa Rica office for a few months.  Good food, great company, and just enough wine to give me that warm, happy feeling and no hangover.  While I was in Happyland, Norah used Aliya’s glitter squirt bottle to decorate the entire second floor, so if you see any glitter on me, don’t bother mentioning it.  I will likely have glitter somewhere on my body for the rest of my life.

I am back in my 3x/week Zumba routine now that soccer is over.  I also went to the chiropractor twice, the acupuncturist twice, and had a cupping treatment.  If you aren’t familiar with cupping, it’s a bunch of little suction cups stuck onto whatever ails you (my upper back).  The suction releases the tension and is supposed to also release toxins.  It’s pretty intense but I always feel better afterward, even though my back is covered with big hickeys.  I also got my mammogram out of the way, made an appointment for Adlani to see if he really does have ADHD, and did some research on ways that we can help him be more focused in the classroom.

We had visits from 3/5 of the Libby family, as well as Poppi…all had their fill of soccer at the last games of the season, along with a trip with the Libby’s to the MFA where I got to see all of the hardware I specified in action, and a great dinner at Scampo.  Speaking of soccer, Ben’s team won the final game to become the Over the Hill League champs in their division.

I started working on Christmas, including finalizing the plans for our trip to a secret location, finishing some gifts, a little shopping, and getting organized for the Pathways Family Shelter holiday gift drive.  We have over 50 kids to shop for this year, and luckily I have scores of generous friends, family members, and coworkers who all pitch in to make it happen.

I even read most of a book – Discovery of Witches, and watched some trashy TV while crocheting.  I worked on the drama club website and helped at rehearsal without guilt.  I’m sure there were other things, but that’s all I can think of.  I’m starting to understand why I’m a nutcase all the time.  Now the question is, how to fix it.  How do I do all that I want to do, and also take care of the world’s hardware needs and keep food on the table?  I’ll have to continue working on that in 2012.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Everything’s fine.

That’s exactly what the school nurse says when she calls…”Everything’s fine.”  What she really means is that nobody’s dead, nobody has lost a limb, and nobody’s under arrest.  Someone may have projectile vomited in the cafeteria, be suffering temporary blindness from a bug in the eye, or have developed a nasty case of lice, but “Everything’s fine.”

That’s what it means when I say it too.  Everyone is alive and still has all of their limbs, and nobody has been incarcerated or institutionalized (yet).  I’m sorry that my blog-neglect has resulted in worried people emailing to ask if I’m OK.  I’m OK.  A lot has been happening and I’ve totally lost control of my life, leaving no time to write on my blog.  I actually took this week off from work to catch up on a few things, but so far I can’t get out from under my email long enough to do any catching up.

The last 2 months in a nutshell…

School is going well for all, although the school suggested that Adlani may have ADHD so we’re now in the process of investigating that.  I’m not convinced.  Norah is loving kindergarten, and is in a class of 12 kids with 2 teachers.  She read her first book to me (in Spanish) this weekend!  Aliya is doing very well and loves her teachers.  She has become a good helper to them (and the teacher’s pet – not sure where she gets that).

The fall soccer season just ended, and all of the teams did well.  Norah went from crying because nobody was giving her the ball, to getting in there and scrapping it up with the rest of the beehive.  Adlani says that he doesn’t want to play soccer next season, but we’ll see.  Aliya has one more season on the Flash, and will then move up to U-12.  The teams changed from red uniforms to navy, and we collected over 100 uniforms that were delivered to Rwanda and an island off of Haiti.  Ben’s team is in the finals for their league, and he has cut way back on the red and yellow cards this season.

Next up, ice skating for all 3 kids (all at the same time – yay!).  Adlani is in the Cub Scouts, Aliya is playing the role of Duchess in the Aristocats in the elementary school drama club and has also started violin lessons and the recorder club.  Norah is being tutored in Spanish so hopefully she can enter first grade next year after completing private kindergarten.  September birthdays are tough!  Speaking of birthdays – Norah turned 5, and Aliya turned 10 – photos to follow.

Annie (the dog) was bit by a pit bull while she was in our fenced yard, which resulted in a $600 trip to the vet.  She’s fine now but it was so gross!  She was a trooper though.

We had visits from Grammy, Uncle Josh, Auntie Rachael, Duende, Grandma Ginny, and Sherry, Devin, and Hannah within the last month or two.  Lots of fun for us, although we mostly dragged them around from one soccer game to another.  We went to the MFA with the Libbys and I took Mom and Rachael to St*tch and B*tch at Iron Horse Fibre Arts but it was hard to squeeze in much more.

We spent a weekend in Truro on the Cape for the beach wedding of Uncle Jeff and Auntie Liz, which was a lot of fun.  We loved Truro and spent some time in P-Town, which included several lessons on non-traditional ways of making babies.  :  The wedding was very low-key and the kids had a great time running around on the beach and jumping off the pier.

And me…I’ve been extremely busy with work, especially teaching 3 new classes last month.  I went to New York City for our annual conference and had a great time but came home exhausted.  My job and life have become unmanageable…something has to change.  I don’t know what or how, but it has to happen or I may crack.  I have been doing more crocheting lately and I realized why I enjoy it so much.  It is the ONE part of my life that’s orderly, and that I have control over.  Nobody touches it, and it’s soothing to my mind.  Plus it results in something pretty – bonus!

One of my projects for this week is to get our photos organized so I will be posting some photos of recent events soon.  I’m sure there’s a lot that I forgot to include in the summary, so stay tuned!