Updates, Thoughts, Questions, Feelings, Blah

So it’s been another month come and gone.  Christmas is over, I think I finally got everything put away about a week ago!  Seriously, every year I find something that I ‘forgot’ to put away and it makes me crazy.  This year was 2 big wall hangings.  How I forgot to put the one by the back door away, I don’t know, particularly considering that I could see it every time I left the house, but it never occurred to me that it was Christmas related, I guess.

School is settling into the doldrums.  The ethics class is fascinating and leading to good discussions.  I was really jazzed about the archives class, but it’s turning out to be a total fizzler.  There are more than 20 of us in the class, we’re all supposed to post every week and respond, and on a good week, we’re lucky to pull together 12 comments.  I suppose this should make it easy to get an A, all I have to do is really light up the message boards, but there isn’t much to respond TO and the readings are so dreadfully dull, I feel totally unmotivated.  I spoke with my advisor on the phone a couple of weeks ago and he’s pushing me into an archives track, which is fine and probably which way I will end up, but based on this class, I’m thinking about renegging on the whole thing.  This summer I’m dedicating my time to the research methods class and then will have my core classes done.  In the fall, I will take introduction to digital collections and some other class that I can’t remember off the top of my head.  If I still like it, then I guess next year I’ll start looking around for internship possibilities, even if that means putting my baby in day care!  YIKES!  My mom needs to get off the stick and move north.  I really, really dislike distance learning.  It was so nice to talk on the phone to an actual human being, and coming from someone who HATES talking on the phone, that’s saying something.

In Leah news…  She is actively dismissing becoming “a big girl”.  Today marked the day I finally decided she didn’t need to be in a crib any more, and I took the front of the crib off and converted it to a toddler bed.  She screamed and cried and yelled at me furiously.  “Mommy!  NO BREAK MY BED!”  Tonight when it was time to get into bed, she was still incensed.  We are down to our last pacifier and I am not buying any more.  She’s been biting through them and I am just mortified that she still uses one.  I swore she would NEVER use one from the day she was born and here she is nearly 3 and it’s her thing.  She doesn’t have a favorite stuffed animal or a blanket, but that stupid pacifier is her thing.

I registered her for pre-school earlier in the month.  She is going to go 2 days a week, even though I wanted her to go 3.  That was more selfish on my part.  I think pragmatically it’s best that she ease herself into it.  She really liked the super expensive corporate day care preschools and she hated the preschool I wound up putting her into, but I felt good about the teachers, the atmosphere, and the kids who go there all seemed happy.  They had a good, diverse mix of kids, and it is a Montessori program that we can actually afford.  Her little friends Jilly and Anna will be going there as well, so I’m excited she will have friendly faces to look for.

Consequently, I have to get her potty trained and she flatly refuses to do it.  She knows how, she knows when, she just doesn’t want to.  I’m going to try a couple new things and see if they work.  Thankfully we still have 7 months until the rubber meets the road, but it would be nice not to have to lug diapers everywhere we go. 

She has given up on dance lessons for the time being, much to my dismay, but as I listened to myself talk to my mother about my feelings on that matter, I realized that I am really trying to overcompensate in not having had children for so long by pushing Leah to do and have everything.  I was saying “But I want her to…” a lot and that really has everything to do with me and nothing to do with her.  She is perfectly happy to spend her days at home with me, playing and reading and having fun.  We take little adventures as the weather permits and recent conversations with an expert have led me to realize that Leah’s crazy behavior stems from a desire to have choices and be included in decision making, so many times I let her choose between 2 things and decide what she wants to do for the day.  I also let her choose to get ready.  Today was the first time in FOREVER that I didn’t chase her all over the house to get dressed, and she very calmly and serenely let me put her shirt and pants on her and when I opened the back door, she placidly walked to the car and waited to have the door opened instead of tearing around the backyard, cackling while I try to catch her.  It was a banner day until I “broke her bed”.

In other non-Leah news, today I got a letter in the mail that I did. not. want. to. open.  It was from Manhattan and was the dates for my 15 year college reunion.  Jeepers, has it really been that long!?  This led me to indulge in my once-a-year-or-less Google binge of people who have been and gone in my life.  There are 2 men in particular who I always think of and Googling one brings up nothing and Googling the other brings up almost too much.  They were both people I thought would be in my life forever, both people I could talk to and laugh with about anything.  I suppose in thinking about them now, it’s not with a sense of “What If?”, but a different kind of nostalgia.  I have looked for other friends and reconnected with some who responded and some who didn’t, and I think, “Why?  What makes the difference?”  Anyway, I’m not going to my reunion and I only Google for my own nosiness, not out of any general sense that I would make different choices.  I look over the grand arch of my life and I think I’ve done pretty well.  There are few things, if any, I would change and I think my choices have stood the test of time.  So I’m not going to the reunion.  Every time I get together with Joe, it’s like a mini college experience—my husband and his partner are kind enough to look the other way while we play dorky drinking games and giggle over the same stupid crap that made us laugh 17 years ago and makes us laugh today.  I’m in touch with my good roommate on Facebook, and Joe’s housemate Todd, and everyone else would be able to find me with a quick Google search, so I just let it lie.  But I’m happy to hear from anyone :)  Just in case, you know, you ever Google me.

I’ve thought of many of my friends in the past months, wondering, “If it wasn’t for Factor X, would we still be friends?”  For instance, if we didn’t have Leah, would we still be friends?  I don’t know, I have a sense that some people just hang around because Leah’s so cute.  Mike and I were talking at dinner about some neighbors who suddenly seem to be giving us the cold shoulder and our confusion as to why that is exactly.  It is hard to get out and around any more—when Leah was a baby, it was easy.  No resistance, she was like, “Yeah, I’ll go eat lunch at thus and such, I’ll just sit in my carrier and eat my fist", but now requires entertainments.  Still, now that I’m cutting back on other commitments, I will make an effort to be a better friend.

The big news is that I dropped out of my book club.  It wasn’t going in any direction that made sense to me and I found myself getting increasingly frustrated and upset about the whole thing.  During the last meeting, I just sat there with no one saying anything and thought, “This is such a waste of my time”.  I had been thinking it over for a year and finally just decided to pull my own plug on the matter.  I also gave up on AFS and being a liaison.  Right after I got back from my dad’s house, I spent all day Saturday running up to an AFS interviewing event.  I interviewed 3 kids and hung out a bit with a couple members of the area team who were pretty open about how things have been going and I don’t think there are too many kids left in the original homes they came to this year.  When I got home, we had a big email about all the things we were supposed to be doing as liaisons that weren’t getting done, and I just decided I really couldn’t handle it all on top of the classwork and being a mom and a wife, so I drafted up a resignation and sent it out.  It was an immense relief, although a bit of a disappointment in myself not to follow through on my commitment to the girls.  But it was a bigger challenge not to follow through on my commitments at home.  SO I chose the lesser of two evils.  I have offered and they have accepted that I can take them out once more before they depart.  Given that it’s February and I already have no free weekends until May, I’m not sure when that will be, but we’ll work it out.

Leah’s 3rd birthday is upcoming.  Her big present is that we are going to see the Fresh Beat Band in concert in DC.  She has no idea, but I got her the CD the other day and she goes CRAZY when it’s on, dancing all over the place.  If you haven’t seen her video on Facebook, you are missing out.  Friend me. :)  We are having her party on March 31 since her birthday falls on Easter Sunday this year.  My mom is coming up for Easter and my sisters-in-law are coming for the party, so I’m excited about that.  It’ll be nice to have both families around to celebrate. 

Mike and I are leaving on April 14th to go to Myrtle Beach for a week. Dad and Linda are coming to babysit Leah for us here at home while we relax and celebrate TEN YEARS OF MARRIAGE. And they said it’d never last.  Pfff.  Well, actually I don’t know if anyone did say that, but if they did, they were wrong.  Hard to believe it’s been that long and how much has happened in those 10 years!  New homes, new states, new kids, new friends, new lives!  Jeepers.  (That’s my new word as I am really, really working on not cussing now that Leah’s favorite word when something goes wrong is, “Damnit!”  Although, come to think of it, I don’t say that, so I don’t know where she gets it).  I’m hoping to enjoy a couple of tours and different attractions in SC.  We’ve been to Myrtle Beach so many times that it seems like home, but it’s really one of my favorite places ever.  Still, it’d be nice to see what’s in the area besides what we already know.

Well, I’m rambling, so I’m going to close here and go to bed.  My Lenten “thing” is to go to bed early and to meditate for 15 minutes a day in an effort to relieve some of the stress I feel.  I haven’t managed to meditate once, but I have been going to bed earlier, so there’s always that.  Until tonight when I suddenly felt ramble-y.  So good night and I’ll be back with more another day!  :)  And don’t forget to get in touch if you’re a long lost friend!

Time Flies!

Wow, November 11.  Go figure.  I got a little note from Merry Mom asking how I’d been and realized I hadn’t posted in TWO MONTHS.  YIKES.  I guess I’m due for an update!

All is well here.  BUSY.  Like, crazy busy.  As usual.

So, the big news is I survived my organization of information class.  I really had a VERY hard time with it.  I felt stupid the whole semester and was so glad it was my only class.  I somehow managed to get an A, and when I tell you it was a miracle and in no small part due to my partners in the small group project, I am not lying.  Not even a little bit.  I had a lot of help from our local friends too, who attempted to teach me XML and database building, and thanks to my husband who took lots of time off so I could get caught up and get homework done and whatnot.

I am registered for 2 classes this semester:  Ethics for Library and Information Professionals and Introduction to Archives.  I’m excited about it, neither class seems too hard core and both seem interesting, more importantly.  Classes start Wednesday.  I’ve gotten a volunteer job at a local archives, so I should get some hands on learning, which should help with a paper I have to write for the archives class!  I hope the archives class and volunteer experience helps me decide once and for all if that’s the direction I want to go in.

AFS kept me busy.  There were some problems with Kristin and her new family and their other student, so I wound up doing an intervention, which is not really what I think I’m good at, but I did it and got the family to stay together for a little so I was proud of that accomplishment.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.  We did the Turkey Trot in the morning—my goal was to do it in less than an hour and I accomplished that goal, which made me happy.  My dad was here and made the turkey, but we were all tired from walking and running so I can’t say as we did very much.  We had a little birthday party for my niece that weekend, and I really can’t believe she turned 3.  The time is just flying by!

December was a whirlwind!  Emily and I went to see Diane Keaton in November and decided to go back and see Michael Ian Black on December 1.  He was HILARIOUS—we were at 6th and I Synagogue and he started a joke that mentioned Anne Frank (it wasn’t a joke about Anne Frank) and he looked up at the stained glass window waiting for lightning to strike and said, “Well, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen now!” and everyone was just laughing hysterically.  It’s the second time I’ve seen him, the first time doing a solo act, and he was really great.

We took Kristin and fellow student Ilaria to Wolf Trap for the annual holiday sing-a-long and for pizza afterwards.  They had a lot of fun and I enjoyed having them along for the tradition.  The following weekend we spent some time at my sister’s and then went to our friends Paul and Kris’s house and church for their annual Christmas pageant and dinner.  It was really lovely, and wouldn’t seem like Christmas if we didn’t go.

Unfortunately, I was in a minor car accident the following week, and my car was in the shop until after Christmas.  I was driving to meet some friends for dinner and a kitten ran in the road.  I stopped and the person coming towards me stopped, but the guy behind me didn’t stop and hit me.  At first glance, it didn’t look so bad, but ultimately cost Allstate somewhere in the neighborhood of $6000 when all was said and done.  They did give me a rental, and I was pleased about that since I put almost 800 miles on it in just over a week’s time.

The following weekend was my Christmas concert.  This is my second year with the Stafford Regional Choral Society and in November I was elected to the board of directors.  I really thought that this Christmas concert would be the best concert I’d ever sung in, and I dare say I was correct.  I did a lot of rehearsing at home with the on line tracks, and managed to sing without my music, which made me happy since I didn’t have to lug a bunch of books around!  The choir chairman was nice enough to give me rides to rehearsals and the concert since my car was out of commission and I hadn’t gotten my rental yet.

The following day, Monday, my dad and his girlfriend decided to make a big turkey pre-Christmas dinner, and since I was still eating turkey from Thanksgiving, I decided to go ahead and invite some people over.  We had about 15 people who came to eat turkey and still had plenty of leftovers!  Leah had a ball.  Our neighbors came and brought her gifts and some other friends came and brought us fresh eggs from their chickens.  It was great!

Tuesday, for their first Christmas present, I took Dad and Linda to see ICE! at the Gaylord National Resort.  Mike’s and my theme for Christmas this year was cherishing old memories and making new ones.  To that end, we made a conscious decision not to buy “stuff” that people wouldn’t want or wear, and instead to either make things or make memories.  A few years ago, we bought tickets for the whole family to go see ICE! but couldn’t afford it this year, so I just took Dad and Linda (Leah got in free).  We had lunch with my sister beforehand and then went to the show, which was really lovely—it had a Madagascar theme, which didn’t mean much to the rest of us, but I enjoyed it anyway.  It was a really nice afternoon.  Midway through, I got a text from my mom that she was coming up early, so I prepared myself for her arrival as well!

Wednesday, Mom came and Mike and I went down to Richmond to pick up Penny’s brother Mickey at the airport.  He is in boarding school out in Kentucky (Or Cuh-cucky as Leah calls it) and needed a place to go when the school closed for 2 weeks for Christmas.  He took one look at us when he saw us at the gate and kept on walking and when I stopped him to ask if he was Mickey, he said he had to get his bags and took off to the baggage claim.  That was essentially the high point of his visit.  He was a rude little bugger. 

Thursday, Mom came back to our house to stay for a week plus.  She and my sister started arguing and at this point I can’t say who’s wrong or who’s right, I just really wish it hadn’t happened.  My goal for this Christmas was for everyone to get along, no fighting, and to have a peaceful and calm time.  It didn’t happen.  By Christmas Day, I had a nervous breakdown.  There were SO MANY people and SO MUCH was going on, it was crazy!!!  Friday, my buddy Joe arrived and Saturday we went to my sister’s for Christmas Eve. 

Christmas Day was here, my sister brought a stray with her, so if you’re keeping count, there were 13 people here.  Judy’s stray wanted to make wassail for everyone and the crockpot wouldn’t hold it all, so we had to do it on the stove, which he fretted over literally all day.  The present situation, even though we all scaled back, was again totally crazy out of control—even if you only buy each person 1 thing, that’s 13 presents for 13 people (for a total of 169), and you know that no one bought ONLY one thing for each of the kids.  So it was pandemonium.

For our part, Mike and I made each family member (Mom, Dad, Judy, Lucas, and Joe) a scrapbook of memories of our times together.  It was a special moment for everyone and there were a lot of tears flowing as everyone looked through their pictures and swapped books and traded stories.  We also made a photo collage of all of us making funny faces (mostly unintentionally).

And framed them. Everyone got one of those.  So it helped lighten the mood a bit from all the other crying.

Dinner was the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  Mickey announced the first night he was here that he wasn’t eating a thing I cooked, all he wanted to eat was beef ramen noodles, despite the fact that he doesn’t eat beef.  He informed me that the noodles are only beef flavored.  I asked him where the beef flavoring came from and he couldn’t tell me.  I read the package and sure enough they contain beef, but I didn’t give a damn and didn’t tell him.  And I also let him eat Yorkshire pudding, despite it having beef “flavoring” in it. :-)

Dad and I did our traditional trip to Richmond to see the Ginter Gardens Festival of Lights, which was beautiful, as was the weather!  It wasn’t warm, but it was far warmer than usual when I had to stand by the bonfire for an hour mid-way through.  They expanded their repertoire slightly so we got to see some new lights and of course, we got crapped on at our favorite awful Burger King, where we ALWAYS get lousy service.  It was a fun night!

Post-Christmas was similarly busy.  Our “memory” present to Mom was a trip to the Melting Pot, so I took her out one night for that.  Joe decided I needed to start watching Ghost Adventures and Ancient Aliens, and we invented a drinking game to correspond with those (every time someone yelled “DUDE!” in Ghost Adventures or said “Aliens” or “extra terrestrials” or some variant there of in Ancient Aliens, we took a drink).  By the time we were done, (and let me be clear here, we were drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonades, this was not serious alcohol!  But I haven’t had a drink in probably 5 or 6 years and Joe is a real lightweight when it comes to alcohol so this was never going to end well), I was sitting on the floor convinced I could understand every word some German guy was saying, and Joe was moaning about a headache, which took him most of the next day to get rid of. 

We spent one day with Andy and Melissa bowling and taking Mickey to Coldstone Creamery, since he wanted ice cream.  Mike took the whole week off, which was nice for me to have a break! 

I took Mickey on my famous nighttime tour of DC in an effort to get him to spend some portion of the day either not watching TV or playing around on the computer and to interact with some member of our family.  I think he enjoyed it once we left, although he put up a bit of a fight about going.  I was excited to see the new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, which I hadn’t seen yet and somehow almost drove past.  You can’t believe how big that thing is.  The pictures I’ve seen of it do it no justice at all.  It is literally massive.

We essentially did nothing to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  We forced Mickey away from the computer 10 seconds before the ball dropped on Times Square so at least he could say he saw it, although he wasn’t much impressed.  Mike went back to work on the 3rd, so I tried to come up with things to do with Mickey every day.  We went and saw a 3D movie—my first one ever, The Adventures of TinTin, which was OK, went to the mall, and had lots of Thai food, which is in short supply in rural KY.  Friday we started getting ready for our 3 Kings party, which was seriously scaled back this year—half what it was last year.  I didn’t want to have a huge crowd and be exhausted, so I decided just to have a few people and call it a night.  Mickey announced the beef stroganoff smelled terrible and that he was going to sit in the kitchen so he could leave, and then after watching me cook, clean, and set up for 2 days, just as we were ready to sit down, he asked if he could make ramen noodles.  I should have told him what he could do with his ramen noodles, but held my temper and told him no as politely as I could.  When I sat down to dinner on the other end of the table, my friend asked me what was wrong, that I looked like I was ready to commit murder.  Haha.

We dropped him at the airport yesterday and spent the rest of the day tidying up.  I had a nice evening last night, preparing English tea and watching the Downton Abbey premiere on PBS.

So that brings us to January.  Leah is in dance lessons—has been doing it for over a month now and LOVES it.  She is particularly fond of tap dancing and although she is the tiniest and youngest girl in her class, she is doing just great and learning a lot.  We have started back to Toddlin’ Time on Tuesdays and now are on the hunt for pre-school.  I am touring one place tomorrow which is probably the one that is farthest from my house and at the far end of where I am willing to go.  I start school on Wednesday.  We are going to my dad’s for a week next week, but Mike is staying home again to have some peace and quiet. 

Otherwise, I am watching lots of Quantum Leap on NetFlix, trying to keep up with housework (a losing battle), and trying to make good on my New Year’s resolution of cutting back and doing less while making it mean more.  I would like to get back into Weight Watchers, but every time I say that, I go for 3 weeks and quit again.  I need to find the motivation I had in 2008.

So I’ll probably write again in another 2 months when Merry says “WAKE UP!” :) 

2AM!

Yup, it’s almost 2AM and here I sit, wide awake.  *SIGH!*  We had a crazy day yesterday starting when Leah woke up at 4AM.  I never quite got it right thereafter.  I tried going back to sleep around 9AM only to have company arrive 20 minutes later.  I tried going to sleep around 1:30, only to have the contractor show up and start banging like hell and running an air compressor!.  He left and I finally feel asleep around 2 and slept for 3 solid hours.  So of course, now I CAN’T sleep and I’m due to leave for Woodbridge in 6 hours.  AUGH!  On the plus side, Leah will be with Melissa tomorrow, so I can sleep and get lots of other things done.

I have continued weeding things out around here.  I managed to eliminate an entire cabinet of DVD’s—placing the ones I was keeping on 2 shelves of the cabinet the TV now sits on, and the few (like 5) others I’m not keeping are going to Goodwill.  We are conflicted about what to do with the cabinet.  We’ve owned it since we first moved in together.  We bought it so I would have something in which to store my clothes and it has also been used to store pantry items and DVD’s in its history.  I am reluctant to part with it, so part of tomorrow’s task will be to empty the crawlspace and see if we can find a spot and a use for it in there.  I had another cabinet downstairs with glass doors that Leah was forever trying to break into, and I decided I should get rid of that.  Tonight while I was watching the documentary Winnebago Man (highly recommend it, by the way!), I cleared it off and moved it out, but felt the space left behind was too empty.  So I took the glass doors off it and filled it with Leah’s toys.  I like it better than having something of a pile by the rear door, and hopefully it will inspire both her and me to keep her toys picked up.

I started Christmas shopping this weekend.  Compared to last year, I have a very small list—we really went overboard last year and I don’t want to do that this year.  We are hosting Christmas and hopefully my sister will host Christmas Eve, so some of the pressure will be off a little bit.  As I think I said before, Penny’s brother will be with us for the holidays and I’m trying to consider what I can do to keep him entertained.  I’m sure it’ll be an entirely different experience having a boy around.  But I wonder if he’ll be anything like Penny!  I am considering a day trip to Philadelphia, but it would be easier with a second driver, and also depends on if Mike is planning to work or not during the week before Christmas and New Year’s.  He often does.

This week will be busy—I have my end of the year book club party Wednesday and meeting up with a classmate and then seeing Diane Keaton Thursday.  I have been busily working on my NaNo book, and it’s coming along nicely.  I decided to erase stuff from the white board when I finish that chapter or section, and it helps me see the progress I am making.  I need to find out when registration opens for the spring semester and get registered for next semester’s classes.  There is one I want to take that is only open once a year, so it’s important I get it in now to try and determine if it’s a direction I want to go in!

Well, I guess I’d best TRY to get some sleep!!!!  Talk to you all later!

Bloggety, Blog, Blog, Blog

The last time I blogged was on 9/11 and little did I know that all hell would continue to break loose around here.  We got our basement fixed up beautifully—I’m happy to say you would never know anything happened.  There is one less couch and there is a lot of extra lighting now, which is awesome, but other than that, life is back to normal downstairs!

In the meantime, the car needed new brakes and I needed glasses, which added up to a lot of money!!!!!  Thankfully we were able to get both done and finish paying off the credit card bills, because things just kept getting crazier!

Unfortunately, just as we were preparing to go to NY for my dad’s 60th, my mom called to say her long time companion Jim had collapsed after having suffered a massive heart attack.  He passed away on September 28th.  Having been a big part of our lives for a number of our years, this was a really sad loss for the family.  I was thus in Florida for almost 3 weeks.  During this time, Kristin from Iceland moved out.  I was disappointed in a way, but I think it was probably for the best and since I am still working with her new family’s other student, I will see her here and there.  I very much doubt we will host next year although I said that this year, so who knows, but I’m excited to say that Penny’s brother Mickey is coming to spend Christmas with us this year, so it’ll be kind of like celebrating with an exchange student anyway and we’ll get 2 weeks of fun before sending him on his way.

Florida was a good time, despite the circumstances.  I found things for Leah to do in and around Vero Beach and we went to the Brevard Zoo, SeaWorld, and Lion Country Safari.  I do believe the kid knows more about animals than any other 2 year old around!  Her particular favorites were the sharks and penguins at SeaWorld.  I also took her to see the movie A Dolphin Tale, which she loved and went around telling everyone she could find that the dolphin broke its tail.  We came home from SeaWorld with a 3 foot long Shamu, and just recently Leah ripped all the stuffing from ‘Mu’s tail and has informed me that Mu has a broken tail like the dolphin.  When I re-stuff Mu, we shall remedy his broken tail with a band-aid!  We also paid some extra money to go pet a rhinoceros, which was a pretty awesome experience that I won’t soon forget!  Leah liked taking a scrub brush to him and tickling him.  Whenever I ask her about the rhino, she says, “BRUSH!” (you can kind of see the rhino behind my mom in the picture above)  So we did a lot of things we might not otherwise have gotten to do and I got to go to the beach (even if it wasn’t Myrtle Beach) and just chill out and help out my mom as needed.  We kind of tossed around the idea of Disney World, I think more because Mom and I wanted to go than we really wanted to take Leah, but cooler heads prevailed—she really is still too young and we want her to remember that first time forever.  Another couple of years!

This class I am taking is really kicking my butt.  For 3 weeks, I basically did nothing, as the professor told me not to worry about it, so I’ve been playing catch up ever since.  We have group projects to do, and I’m happy to say I have great group members who really picked up the slack for me, and so I am now going to work doubly hard to make up for the work I didn’t do on Assignment 2.  Only 36 days till the class is over, THANK GOD, and let us hope I never take a class about organizing data and information EVER AGAIN!  Next semester I hope to take Introduction to Archiving so I can see if I really want to pursue that as a career option like I’ve been thinking I might.

I had fun in October going to the Kennedy Center to see Les Mis with some members of my choir, and then spending that evening answering phones for WAMU at their annual member drive.  We had a recordbreaking night, getting $35,000 in 3 hours, which is pretty incredible.  I love volunteering during The Big Broadcast—the most interesting mix of people volunteer and we had  fun table.  It was nice to unwind and let my hair down after the stress of Jim’s death and the classwork piling up.  The production of Les Mis was spellbinding—literally I wept many times and it was just a great performance. 

Leah and I have been having a lot of fun getting ready for Halloween.  We’ve been doing little projects now, like baking bread and making pumpkin-shaped jello and pumpkin-shaped crayons from all the crayons she broke to bits.  I went over to the local teacher supply store and bought a few charts for the walls so we are learning our colors and taking little scavenger hunts.  We talk about the weather and count the days on the calendar.  We went to the pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins today.  It’s fun and keeps her engaged.  I am looking forward to getting her into preschool, but am not in any rush.  We are keeping busy with a music class and MOPS and various and sundry other activities and are looking into gymnastics.  She’s a fun kid and able to do so much more.  Even though I miss snuggling with a newborn, I do enjoy these toddler days!  I like being crafty and even little things turn into a lot of fun for her, so I try to come up with something to keep her interested and teach her something new, while allowing me to stretch my creative muscles and keep from getting cranky!

Hopefully our bathroom project will get underway soon.  We finally got our loan approved and got the money to pay the contractor, so we’re ready to go.  We picked a design and that’s that!  It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 months since the Great Flood, and while it had unintended consequences, it’s fun to think of the positives of the situation and how we’re going to come out of it.  We also paid off our car this month, ahead of schedule, which loosens up our budget some to do some other things.  It’s the first time in 6 years we don’t have a car payment.  We nearly got hit today by the local ne’er-do-well on our way out to get pumpkins to carve, and I thought, “Wouldn’t that just be my luck!?” but thankfully he got back on his side of the road with about 6 inches to spare before he hit us.

Joe and I went and saw the MST3K live show, Cinematic Titanic, again on Thursday night.  It’s a fun way for him and I to celebrate our frienshipversary—this year being #17.  It won’t be long now before I’ve known him more than half my life, which I find mindboggling.  We had our traditional Bertucci’s dinner and then walked around DC for a couple of hours before the show started.  Afterwards, we got on line for the signing and I got myself a poster to have signed.  We also discovered Joel was allowing people to take pictures, so of course, we took full advantage.  I like that all of us are modeling sexy eyewear! :-D  My next big celebrity trip will be in November to see Diane Keaton at 6th and I Synagogue, which should be quite interesting.  I enjoy watching her, and she seems like she’d just be a really nice and down to earth person, so I’m looking forward to meeting her!  I wonder if she’s going to wear something crazy or just dress casually.

In general, I’m just feeling quite content with life.  I seem to have made friends with some exceptionally kind and low key people—just last week I was able to go out to dinner with 3 new girlfriends and we all sat around and laughed and chattered until before we knew it, 2+ hours had gone by.  I’ve joined a new book club here in town, which is fun, and my NoVa book club seems to have gotten back on track, surviving the 7 year itch.  I’ve become very friendly with a wonderful couple down the street and their daughter, all of whom think Leah is the best kid in the universe (and of course, I quite agree!). 

I’m keeping busy, busy, busy and keep telling Mike, “I promise, I’m going to calm down…after this week”.  Fortunately he’s been patient with what has been a ridiculous autumn!

There have been a lot of fun little things going on and I always think, “Oh, I should blog about that!” but usually I am too tired!  It’s a shame—Leah says some damned cute stuff that I’d like to remember and we have a lot of fun and do a lot of things, but time just keeps on slipping away…  I really can’t believe tomorrow is Halloween!  Then it’s November, and I do debate doing NaNoWriMo just so I can get this damned whiteboard down from my bulletin board and finish my book!  And then in a few short weeks, it will be Thanksgiving.  Mike and I have been debating what to do in April for our 10th wedding anniversary, and yet it seems like just yesterday we were getting married.  I feel too young to be this old and too old at the same time. 

I’ll close here and who knows when I’ll blog again!  The new Facebook sucks, but it doesn’t seem to keep me from using it, so of course, you can get my updates there if I don’t update here :)  Ta ta!

GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

When I say this summer has been the craziest summer ever, I mean that quite literally.  Not one thing has happened that we planned on, and everything is just going crazy all at once.

Mid-July I was trolling the “Hosting with AFS” Facebook board and feeling all nostalgic when a post popped up from a mom in New Zealand who was looking for a host family for her daughter.  I spoke with AFS about the possibility of being a welcome family for that girl, and was told she had a placement in the works but that if we wanted to be a welcome family, we should contact our area team.  So we did and were immediately fast tracked to be a welcome family.  It took a couple of weeks and we were initially matched with a girl from Finland but they found her a permanent home, so then it was a whirlwind of who we would choose to take.  It finally came down to Hong Kong and Iceland as the two countries we’d host from and, deciding to take a break from Asia, we chose the girl from Iceland.  We were told she’d be a late arrival since we started everything so late in the summer, but surprise, surprise, it was all approved and we had roughly one week between when we were allowed to contact Kristin and when we had to pick her up.  She arrived on August 12 and starts school on September 6th.  More on her time here to follow.  But first…

In the middle of the matching, interviewing, and applications process for that, I flew to Tucson for 10 days to start my library degree.  It was the most stressful 10 days of school I’ve ever endured, not to mention the two weeks leading up to it, which was a “reading period” that involved reading a couple thousand pages of information and attempting to synthesize it before 8 straight days of classes, group projects, paper research and writing, library tours, and computer projects.  By day 2, I ran from the classroom and hid in the bathroom and cried.  It was hot, I had jetlag, I missed my baby, I was stressed, and I was staying in a dorm I dubbed “The Pit”.  As a bit of a reward for my survival, Mike let me book my last night in a swanky hotel near the airport and a friend gave me a ride so I didn’t have to pay a cab.  The morning I was due to leave, the flight was oversold, and so I offered to give up my seat, which got me a $300 travel voucher for future travel.  Since the AFS host moms from last year are planning on a trip to Las Vegas this fall, I can probably travel basically free, which is a good thing, since…

The day after Kristin arrived, I went to brunch with friends.  I got home to find Mike and our neighbor frantically running up and down the stairs.  The toilet upstairs had overflowed, and Mike and Kristin had been unable to shut it off.  The resulting flood swept into our basement and I called the fire department, not really knowing what else to do, which resulted in giant holes being knocked in the ceiling to drain out the water.  Two days later, the cleaning company and insurance company arrived, and we’ve been ceiling-less ever since.  Our carpet looks practically brand new however!  Work begins tomorrow—an electrician is coming to install some new lights downstairs so it won’t be so dark, and then the contractor will come and do the dry wall, mud, paint, etc. 

Unfortunately, when the cleaning company ripped up the bathroom floor, they discovered black mold!  OF COURSE THEY DID!  So, now we have to get that cleaned up.  They talked about the clean up process and how basically we will need to take out the vanity and get that replaced, as well as the floor.  In looking over our options, we’ve decided to have the bathroom replaced.  Everything in there is kind of basic grade, not very nice stuff, so if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right and not half-ass it. 

So then came the crazy weather phenomena, like the earthquake and then a crazy thunderstorm from hell that knocked over Mike’s radio antenna.  That now has to be either repaired and re-installed or replaced.  Then came Hurricane Irene, which caused our power to go out for about 12 hours.  When it came back on, the air conditioning no longer worked.  Believing it to be an a/c problem, we called the emergency service line of our heating and air contractor, but when they came out, they discovered that a blower inside the furnace had burned out, and in putting in a new one, the entire system was off balance and making all kinds of crazy noise.  The air conditioner itself is just fine and dandy, but because the furnace controls the movement of the air, it has to be dealt with as part of the air conditioning system. 

They came out this morning to quote us the price for repairing and for replacing the furnace, and we are going to go ahead and replace the damned thing.  It’s 11 years old and we would probably be piece-mealing it for the next few years till it reached the end of its natural life cycle, so we might as well just take care of it and be done with it.  They are coming to work on Thursday. 

Just as a reminder, in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve had a 17 year old from Iceland here through this entire venture.

So upon discovering all this, I had myself a 30 minute nervous breakdown, walked around the block, called my dad, tossed a couple of rocks, and now I’m ready to roll.  We’ve been wanting to a lot of these repairs for a while now, and this is kind of the impetus we need and the opportunity to do things that we would have liked to do for some time.  I have decided to turn into an eternal optimist as a result of all this.  My opinion now is “Better the furnace died in August than in December and we freeze half to death!”

I will call the insurance company again tonight and see what’s what.  Hopefully they’ll cover some of it, but I have my doubts.  I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and suggested that he sprinkle holy water between our two plots of land.  He thought I was kidding till he heard about the furnace, but now I’m sure he’s thinking about it. :)