All posts by ihatehardware.

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!

OFIF!

It really bugs me when people go around cheerily exclaiming “TGIF!”  Really, you’re THAT happy that it’s Friday?  My mantra on Fridays is OFIF – “Oh f*ck, it’s Friday.”  Next time I hear, “TGIF!”, I think I’ll respond with a cheery “OFIF!” of my own.

I used to love Fridays.  I may have even said TGIF myself a few times back in the day.  There are probably people out there who still hate me for it.  In my late teens, Fridays meant cruising Main Street, going parking, and getting some 18YO seniors to buy us Boone’s Farm (sorry Mom).  In my 20’s, Friday nights were for going out in search of fun and romance.  Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays were for the same purpose, but on Fridays we knew we could sleep until 2 pm the next day (remember those days, Sherry?).  In my 30’s, Fridays meant that I had a couple of days to catch up, with no new emails or to-do list items being added to the pile.  I could start Monday fresh as a daisy.  I think the last time I was fresh as a daisy was in early 2001.

Up until sometime last year, Friday night was “my night.”  After a long hard week (meaning, every week), Ben would and the kids would pile into our king-sized bed to watch a movie, and end up falling asleep.  I would clean up the house, drink wine alone on the couch, and sleep in the guest room.  Ahhh…the good old days.

So how did I get from TGIF to OFIF?  Well, I’ve lost my taste for Boone’s Farm, if I get caught cruising Main Street in my company ride after a few wine coolers I could end up car-less, searching for fun and romance has lost its luster now that I’m old and married, and nobody can agree on a movie so the movie night tradition has been abandoned.  It would take so long to clean the house that I would pass out before I got the wine uncorked, and to top it all off, there’s one thing that I HATE the most about Fridays…finding the f-ing soccer uniforms.

Some of you are reading this and thinking, “What’s so hard about finding soccer uniforms?”  I hate you.  Ok – I don’t hate you…just your ability to keep your house and your family’s belongings clean and organized.  I try, I swear – I try so hard.  But the soccer uniforms consist of 6 socks, 6 shin guards (some of those f*ckers are two pieces!), 6 cleats, 3 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts, 3 water bottles, and a ball.  28 pieces!  We also need 2 chairs, a blanket, snacks, jackets, coffee, sunscreen, bug spray, and sometimes umbrellas.  And – directions to Aliya’s away games.  And – sometimes the oranges for the team half-time snack.  And my camera, with a charged battery and an empty SD card.

Then there’s the little problem of scheduling.  We now have 3 kids in 3 different age groups for the first time.  Tomorrow, Norah has practice and a game from 9-10:30.  Aliya and Adlani both have games at 10:30 and need to be at two different fields by 10:10.  Thank God we finagled Norah’s way onto a team with several friends who can help us out.  We have game conflicts every single week.

Tonight we spent at least 40 minutes looking for the 28 pieces, and we are still missing a pair of socks.  It would be one thing if I wasn’t a planner, but I am.  Last week I sent Ben to the sports store with a written list – a #3 ball for Norah (he came home with a #4 and a #5), 2 pairs of cleats (Norah didn’t have any and Aliya’s were so disgustingly smelly that the skunk moved out from under our porch), and AN EXTRA PAIR OF NAVY BLUE (VERY DARK BLUE) SOCKS FOR EACH KID.  Ben got an extra pair for Aliya only – the kid least likely to lose her friggin socks.  He is to blame for my despair.  OFIF!

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In other news, Norah started kindergarten this week and LOVES it.  Her biggest concern on Day 1 was that Ben didn’t know how to get to the school or would forget to pick her up.

And to make my life complete, Adlani said to me this morning, “Mom, how come you never have any time for us?”  HUH?  EXCUSE ME?!  Adlani:  “Why does Dad always pick us up from the bus?”  Me (in my mind only):  “Well Adlani, that’s because I live through the Morning Hell, and Daddy tries to survive the Afternoon Hell.  If one of us tried to manage both, we’d surely burst a blood vessel and expire.”  And for you – yeah you right there – the one who’s judging me right now – I hate you.  No seriously, I really do.

Temporary (Self-Imposed) Blindness

“It’s always something” has become the metaphor for my life, although in my mind it’s more like “It’s always f-ing something.”  I wonder if the cemetery would let me put that on my tombstone.  The problem is, I don’t have any wiggle-room in my schedule for the next “something,” so when something happens, I don’t have a lot of patience.  Ok – I have NO patience.

Last week was my first week back at work after the summer craziness.  I have been working all summer of course, but also trying to juggle everything else while working from home every day.  Last week I started training a new person on my team, and had to be in the office to work with him.  Monday I had all 3 kids at home waiting for 2 of them to start school on Tuesday, so I had taken the day off.  Tuesday actually went fairly smoothly, at least in my definition of “smoothly.”  Wednesday we had a problem finding child care for Norah (she starts school this Wednesday), so I ended up taking her to work with me for 3 hours (the productivity took a hit and by now the trainee has probably formed an impression of me that I don’t really want to think about).  Thursday I was at the office when I got a call from the school nurse to tell me that a bug flew into Adlani’s eye IN THE CLASSROOM, and he was hysterical.  I had to leave work early and go get him.

According to the ophthalmologist, Adlani has sensitive corneas which get scratched easily.  He also has PTSS from the time Norah poked him in the eye with a pencil at point-blank range.  When that happened he kept both eyes closed for 48 hours and I was amazed.  A bug in the eye is a little less serious than a direct hit from a pencil, so I didn’t think the self-imposed blindness would last as long.  Again and again, I am proven wrong.

Friday I worked from home while Adlani laid in bed ALL DAY.  He didn’t even ask to get up, just laid there with his eyes closed.  Friday’s “something” was that Henry (the cat) escaped again and had several hours of freedom while I roamed the backyard and under neighbors’ porches looking for him.

Saturday morning we had to drive to Londonderry NH for Aliya’s soccer tournament.  Adlani still wouldn’t open his eyes, and sat in a chair on the sidelines all day.  He missed out on swimming in the hotel pool and playing with the younger siblings of Aliya’s team-mates.  He didn’t watch TV or play with his new Nintendo 3DS.  We tried everything from bribery to threats of violence – no dice.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Still blind.  By this time I was pissed at Ben for totally enabling him (see below).  Why would the kid ever open his friggin eyes if he was being led around and hand-fed all of his meals?  It’s pretty amazing though that closing his eyes could make him calm enough to sit still for entire days.  Kind of like the towel over the bird cage.  Maybe I could invent some sort of calming glasses for extremely active kids.  I certainly have enough test subjects at my disposal.

Day 2 of the tournament – still blind.  All day.  That night we had dinner with our neighbors, and my very wise friend and next-door neighbor Nancy gave me the idea of using a placebo to convince him that his eye was all better (the threats of developing gangrene hadn’t worked).  I came back from Walgreens with the “special medicine” called in by Dr. Whitman (not), which was guaranteed to work in 5 minutes.  Too bad it wasn’t a money-back guarantee because I could get my 10 bucks back.  So, blind through dinner, and off to bed.  The “something” from that event was when Norah gave our neighbors “the finger.”  Seri0usly, I don’t know where she’s getting this stuff, and why she thinks anything goes.  She did it again this morning, and she’s also in big trouble because after adjusting the temperature of the refrigerator and freezer many times (and getting in escalating levels of trouble each time), today she turned them completely off.  It’s always f-ing something.

Anyway, back to the blind boy.  Today is Day 5, and tomorrow it’s back to school and work.  I woke up with renewed determination and there was no way in hell that this was going to continue for another day.  After bribing him with a doughnut, and an egg and cheese bagel from Cafe Fresh Bagel, he finally opened them.  It took about a half hour but his sight has now been miraculously restored.

What’s next?

Here are a few shots from Aliya’s tournament.  The Flash won 2, lost 1, and tied 1.  They played really well, especially for a team that has only had a couple of practices together.  We’re looking forward to a great season.

My 4th Baby

One of the big reasons that I haven’t had as much time as I used to for this blog, is because of my 4th baby – my work blog.  I started it 2 1/2 years ago, and I’ve been posting on it at least 3 times per week ever since.  It has been very successful in reaching our customers and creating real relationships with them.  This review of my blog that was posted on a building product marketing blog pretty much says it all.

Last week I found out that I won the IRST President’s Award in the Leadership category for my work blog.  What’s most exciting about this is that the company is starting to see the value of social media and blogging.  For a big, conservative company like ours, that’s progress.

I made a video of the announcement of the award on the president’s global webinar so I can keep it on the mantle and force the kids to watch it periodically.  🙂

Both of the presidents actually talked about my blog on the call, so here are both clips for posterity.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8FPCgjINq4?rel=0]

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219q2CpJUcw?rel=0]

Good Hair Day

Tomorrow is the first day of school and coincidentally the end of Ramadan, so Ben and I are happy for two completely different reasons.  I am so looking forward to getting back into a routine, and Ben is looking forward to eating and drinking.  The only problem is that the kids usually stay home from school on L’Eid, and there’s now way Aliya’s going to stay home on the first day of school.  Adlani jumped at the chance, but I’m assuming that they repeat the first-day instructions for second graders.

The kids all got new hair-dos for back to school, thanks to our neighbor Gina who cuts their hair at her house and simultaneously allows whoever’s not in the chair to work out in her home gym.  Not my idea of a good time but she tolerates it well. 

Aliya had enough hair to donate it to Locks of Love, so she was excited about that.  Here they are, before and after: