Daily living – Page 11 – My Truant Pen

A jumble of me

I just finished writing a note to a friend from college — a friend I met during Freshman orientation. He’s one of the few people I met at college before I met the man I would marry. We used to take long night walks around Harkness Green and talk about where we had come from, where we thought we were going (we were both wrong) and what a big world it was.

The note, much belated, is really to his daughter. In it I speak for my sons. I don’t think those 18 year olds watching the Hale-Bopp comet on Harkness Green could even conceive of such a thing.

When I picked Thane up from nursery on Sunday, I was greeted with the words “You’re in deep trouble”. He’s not 8 months old yet. He’s pulling up to standing and crawling FAST. Let the childproofing be in earnest!

On Saturday I got to go to a graduation party for two kids I’d taught Sunday School/confirmation/youth group to. It was an awesome party, and a wonderful time to hang out with people I really like, talking about our shared experiences and future hopes. Also, other people played with my sons and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Here are some pictures

We’re starting to use a new technology – Flex – at work. Knowing I learn best when I (duh) concentrate on learning, I scheduled a training class for myself. I asked if anyone wanted to come. The entire technical team — including DBAs — did. So we are having a three day onsite training course starting tomorrow. I keep wondering how I managed to pull this off. But I did. So I will be BUSY in the heart of this week. That’s a polite way of saying, “No I haven’t fallen on the face of the Earth but you probably won’t be hearing from me.” And when next you do, I’ll be a “Flexpert”.

And then I took Friday off. We’re going camping. Yes, in a tent. Yes, overnight. Yes, with Grey and Thane.

I CAN’T WAIT. I love camping.

I think that’s the important stuff!

Twoo wuv

I’ve noticed lately that my life has been a little busy. Just a touch. So I’ve decided to start getting proactive and evaluating where I spend my time to see if there are any places where I can gain efficiency without losing fun. So, for example, I don’t want to “more efficiently” play with my children, but more efficiently obtaining groceries? That I could do.

I have very, very few hobbies left. I game whenever gaming is held at my house. I possibly cook slightly more extensive meals than the minimum standards. I have this illusion that I make cards that I send to people, but in truth I think that I’ve made 4 cards in six months — and I made two last night. And I document what life is like for me with my camera and my blog posts. This latter part is really one of the more satisfying things I do. The writing part is pretty unavailable for efficiencies, but the picture part is. I have been doing pictures in a very 2003 sort of way. I’d upload them from my camera, scroll through them using a free, trimmed down picture viewing software, delete them from the directory (I usually only “show” one in four pictures), resize them (while maintaining the full size ones), write an html file containing all the links to them, including links to the fullsize picture, and then upload them to the website where I might or might not test them. I often (usually?) made a mistake in uploading the videos. My ftp software is really full of fail for massive uploads, and would often crap out before the videos finished uploading, etc.

This is all done at like 11:15 at night on a Thursday, of course.

Then the other day I thought, “Gee, maybe I’ll see if software for handling pictures has improved in the last decade.”

OMG. Why did no one tell me about Picasa before?

First I fell in love with how it managed the pictures on my hard drive. I spent a rapt hour gazing at lost images from the hard drive of my college computer, buried deep in directories called “Brenda Archive” and “Old Files 2002”.

Then I discovered the great, simple, idiot-proof retouching tools. And the way it allows you to easily make simple edits to videos, like start and stop times.

Then I fell in love with the ease of uploading. Lookee ma! No FTP software!

Then I discovered the face recognition software. If I’d had this when Mike died, it would’ve saved me HOURS scanning the archives for good pictures of him.

At this point I wondered if petitioning the Massachusetts state legislature to permit the marriage between a woman and a really great software product was called for.

Did I mention they have a very good system of permissioning?

Then I discovered the one-click integration to various photo-ordering options (you don’t wanna know my process for buying prints). It’s possible I swooned at that point. I came to with Picasa holding me by the shoulders and administering smelling salts. (Ok, not really, but close!)

As a software engineer, I’m deeply humbled. I have never in my life written anything as close to this powerful, intuitive and useful.

As a user, I’m totally wow’d.

As a mom, I’m extremely grateful that a very precious part of my life just got more fun and less tedious.

So with this tremendous buildup, I present to you:

Late Spring 2009

A date – NOT the fruit

My brother (commonly known as Gospel) is living with us this summer while he does his Field Education for Fourth Presbyterian Church in Boston. The deal is this. We give him room, board, laundry facilities and an unlimited supply of sharp cheddar cheese and Dr. Pepper. In exchange, he does the dishes, mows the lawn and provides free babysitting. So far, so good.

Last night, we availed ourselves of his services.

We’ve gradually been trying out some of the local restaurants in our new home town, but with one (and then two) kids, anything with a cloth tablecloth has been past our reach. A night out is hard enough for us when we have to line up a babysitter. We do that like once a quarter. But with the babysitter problem temporarily solved… we decided to check out one of the local hot spots.

I must say that to date we’ve been underwhelmed by the local fare. The Indian Bistro (Rang) is pretty good and we’ve found a great pizza place, but Stoneham specializes in Roast Beef and Seafood shops, and mediocre Italian. Our expectations were not exceedingly high.

We went to Melissa’s Main Street Bistro. It was AWESOME. We timed it so we’d get seated about 15 minutes after curtain time at the local theater, so when we arrived we had the place nearly to ourselves (it filled back up as our meal went on). Their menu rocked. The entire thing was interesting and appealing – from drinks to dessert. The kitchen was open so you could watch them work, if you weren’t too busy staring into the eyes of your beloved. The food was really excellent — some of the best I’ve had recently. And I’d even had the foresight to bring along some conversation starter topics so we wouldn’t waste a romantic dinner talking about scheduling swimming lessons for Grey. It was a wonderful, romantic, delightful dinner. We will definitely be going back.

It was incredibly restful and relaxing to spend an enjoyable evening with the man I love. We’ve been married nearly nine years, together for almost thirteen, and he keeps getting handsomer.

Ikea

This weekend we had two adventures. On Saturday, we went hiking in the Fells. I love hiking in the Fells with my boys, but other than a really interesting orchid that kept popping up every five feet, it wasn’t much different from other times hiking in the Fells.

Sunday, after church, we went to Ikea. I had two stated goals for our trip and one unstated goal. First, I was in desperate need of more meatball-makings. (Ikea meatballs are one of my go-to meals for when I need to get a dinner on the table in 20 minutes that Grey will eat and the rest of us like too.) Second, Grey’s dresser is broken and he needed a new one. Thus for the stated. The unstated? I wanted a new armchair for Thane’s room. The rocker I’d purchased for Grey’s nursery had aged badly and was yucky.

It took us forever to get out of Burlington. It always takes us forever to get out of church, because we’re always happily chatting with our friends. Then we went to the Macaroni Grill, where we once again lamented the lack of dessert ravioli. (WOE!) Then we went to Starbucks because I am an addict. Then we needed gas. Then we got stuck on horrible, terrible, no good traffic on 93 just south of the big dig.

Finally we landed at Ikea and met up with Unka Matt. Thrillingly, Grey is now tall enough and potty trained enough to go to the Ikea childcare. He had a ball in the ballpit and other than getting decked in the eye very much enjoyed himself. The lady doing the check-in, however, never managed to process that Unka Matt and I are NOT MARRIED. It’s an understandable but obnoxious mistake when we go out places together.

Our first goal location was the dressers. Frankly, we didn’t really find one that was perfect. We wanted one low enough that Grey could access the drawers himself, in natural wood, that would grow with him through to college. The one we ended up getting (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10034189) was much wider than I was planning on, but has this lovely top that seems destined to be a window seat or a bookcase or a playspace or something. It will certainly be large enough — it might actually have some toy storage or paper storage space. He has a lot of clothes but not even he has THAT many.

Next up was my stealth-goal. When I’d come to Ikea in December, I’d nursed Thane in this chair and it had been so comfy that I was resolved to return. Actually, I’d love to have one for each bedroom. I think a comfy reading chair in the bedrooms is a good idea if you’re trying to raise readers. But first things first. It was even on sale! How could I resist!

And here it is in its natural habitat:

The new chair looks better and takes up far less room than the old rocker

And we ate meatballs and bought meatballs and somehow managed to get it in the car and stayed up too late that night assembling it the end.

Also, I put the blanket on the chair because the cats LOVE to sleep there. My housekeeper put the dragon on the back of the chair and I like it. It’s sort of a 21st century, baby-themed take on the tiger-skin rug.

I haven’t gotten the dresser set up yet. I’ll let you know. Because I know that what you want in your life is more pictures of Ikea furniture in action. Don’t worry — I aim to please!

Planning for the worst

In the last few weeks I’ve tackled a few of those unpleasant tasks that seem infinitely postponable. The first task was to update our wills. We actually had created wills after Grey was born, in a similar fit. But since then, my husband’s father (who was mentioned in the will) had died and Thane was born. While I’m sure those left behind would’ve figured our will out if neither one of us was around to explain it, I thought we might as well spell it out. That, and my MIL had asked for a new copy of our wills to keep in a safe deposit box down by her so there wouldn’t be any delay in her ability to take custody of our kids should something unthinkable happen.

It’s not fun imaging a world where you leave your kids orphaned. (There’s really no difference between our will and what would’ve happened if we died intestate if only one of us dies. Ok. I’m really just looking for excuses to use the word intestate. Intestate intestate intestate.) And by the time you get down to the final levels of planning, “And if we both die and she dies and all these other people die, THEN blah blah blah.” I feel glad that we tackled it.

Any interpretation of this post as a hint that you might want to do likewise, especially if I’ve bugged you to do so before and am executor of your estate, is likely accurate.

The other bit of worst-case planning wasn’t so bad. It started out with the world’s most boring shopping. In retrospect, I suspect that the folks who redid our attic for habitation didn’t get all the permits they needed. There is a bedroom in our house which is basically a fourth floor bedroom. If you can’t get out the door, it is four stories out the window. If you can get out the door but not down the staircase, it’s three stories. The attic has no built-in fire escape. So basically, if you get trapped in that room in a fire, you’re screwed.

My brother, who is living with us for the summer, is living in that fourth floor room.

So I bought a pair of these: http://www.amazon.com/Kidde-468094-25-Foot-Three-Story-Anti-Slip/dp/B000H5S96A — one for each room in the attic. This is quite possibly the most boring $120 I’ve ever spent on anything in my life. They’re bulky. They have to be high access to be useful. They’re single use. I consider it an investment in anti-regret insurance. It’s actually not quite long enough to get to the ground for that fourth floor, but I reckon it will get you close enough that the fall might result in a sprained ankle, but not death. I’m willing to take that.

(We also have one on the second floor, but there are more possible egresses from that floor. Also, a fall is in the “break a leg” instead of “lose your life” range from the second story windows.)

Having equipped the house, we staged a fire drill yesterday. This was a little for the grownups, but mostly for Grey. We trained him that if he hears a fire alarm, he’s to get down the stairs from his bedroom and get out the front door right away. I’m glad we did it. He had some questions that could’ve been trouble in a fire. “Do I need to put on my shoes?” “Do I need to wait for you to open the door?” We practiced it three times. Now, if the fire alarm goes off, he can get himself out of the house without help. I’m happy with that outcome. I also practiced crawling (with my eyes closed) to the baby’s room to get him out. I’ve heard that in real house fires you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and that it’s important to have muscle memory. Since I’m not leaving a burning house unless I know Thane is safe, this also worked well.

With a three year old, it’s not possible to go through all the permutations. (For example, I think it’s too much confusion to check for a hot door, etc.) But this seems like the best default option for if he hears the fire alarm.

With both of these things, it wasn’t pleasant confronting first our mortality and then our peril from fire. But I feel better having done so. We all have a better chance of getting out safely now if there’s a fire in our house. And if we don’t, well, at least our families will know what to do.

What have you been putting off doing because it’s no fun to think about? Rebalancing your portfolio? Updating your will? What would make you tackle those projects?

Back in the cubicle again

We’re back from Atlanta! We had a lovely week with my mother-in-law. Here are the points of greatest interest:

Thane started crawling! Real-o, trul-o stereotypical baby crawling! Right now he’s only going a tentative foot or two for a desired toy. I suspect it will transform into zippy baby very quickly. The only downside to this was the plane ride home. Babies who have just discovered how to crawl do not want to sit quietly in your arms for 2.5 hours.
Thane turned 7 months old. We’ve made it to 7 months nursing. Celebrate each victory, I say! With a coworker who just got back from maternity leave, we’re now up to a quarter of the programmers in my office being nursing moms. Heh.
Grey went to his first movie theater movie! We saw “Monsters vs Aliens” in 3-d. I think the 3-d was a bit too much for him to handle, but I thought it was awesome. He’s since insisted on being “the green guy who hits” and refuses to accept that the guy’s name is Link. Anyway, he was beautifully behaved and sat very nicely and quietly through the whole movie, so we can do that again.
Swimming with Cousin Alec in the pool. ’nuff said.

My stunning discovery for the week was that, amazingly, two young children are a lot of work even (especially?) when you are on vacation. Even the addition of another dedicated adult (grandma) it was still not quite the week of reading a novel a day that vacations used to be. I can’t wait until the boys can read.

This was also Michael’s interment. It was a very small gathering of family who were present. We buried him (ok, watched him be buried) in the National Cemetery in Georgia. It was a beautiful spot. While we were at it, we interred his mother-in-law Mildred right next to him.

Goodbye Michael and Millie — Goodbye Mike and Millie

Bridge out

I work in Lawrence, Massachusetts right next to the Merrimack River. In fact, I can see the water from where I am sitting right now (although my view is now obscured by foliage). In this stretch of Lawrence, there are four bridges over the river. There’s the freeway bridge that 495 uses. There’s the “Duck Bridge”, a green metal 19th century construct which is right next to us. Then up river there are two more bridges, the nearest of which is currently under construction.

For the last two weeks, the Duck Bridge has been out of commission while they do some utility work on it, which has involved digging up the approaches and making lots of holes in the road. This has impacted me greatly. You see, daycare is on the other side of that bridge, almost exactly a mile away. I have had to drive around the bridge, but due to construction and traffic and lights etc. the bridge outage has added nearly 10 minutes to my “in Lawrence” commute. I usually go see the boys during lunch, but it has been taking prohibitively long to drive there so I’ve started walking. This has actually been lovely — to get out and get exercise. My only concerns are that it takes longer than I usually schedule, and I’m really not walking through the nicest parts of town. In particular there’s what can only be described as flop house that I pass. I’m careful to stay alert and not carry anything of value. But the exercise has been nice.

Another effect has been that there’s construction right outside my window. I could live without the jackhammers, but it’s been fascinating to watch them work. Construction workers are amazing with their big machines. The other day I watched this guy with a digger use it to pick up two construction cones and move them. I can’t believe the dexterity with which they use their machines, as though they’re extensions of their bodies. It’s very interesting.

The bridge is supposed to reopen this weekend, for now. But I’m informed that next year they’re going to totally rebuild the bridge. It certainly needs it. But it will be out for THREE YEARS at that point. I’m going to be severely impacted.

Ah well. Maybe it will result in me getting more exercise!

The ever-fascinating weekend review

One of the challenges of blogging is coming up with new content regularly (my goal is five new posts a week) without falling into a “Then after I ate my Honey-Nut Cheerios, Grey said something funny” detail about what’s been going on. No one wants to read that. And really? I don’t want to write that day in and day out. But mixed in with “I want to write about _____ but it’s a big topic and will take me a while to get right” and suddenly you notice a week has gone by without an update.

As one of my friends sometimes says when we get whiny about such dilemmas, “First world problems.”

Mommy forgot her real camera and had to use her phone

So here, in concise summary, are the important things about my weekend.

1) It was a bad week in the life of elder statespeoples in my world. My Godfather had a serious heart attack. He deserves a longer post with more explanation. He also deserves a nice long letter from me. (I called him last night, but he’s rather hard of hearing, so while I learned plenty about how HE’S doing, he didn’t learn much about how I’M doing.) He is a very important contributor to me becoming who I am, and I hope that he has several years. Hopefully I’ll manage to write more about this, but in case I don’t, this much is important.

Also, the wife of my growing-up pastor currently has no knee and an infection post surgery. Neither of those things is good or enjoyable. I hope they both get resolved.

2) Saturday was a lazy-day. We had meant to go hiking, but instead we just hung out. In an awesome turn of events, we ended up spending most of the evening with our neighbors, eating their burgers and drinking their beer. It’s really nice to spend time with people you like, while you watch your kids play together. It’s also very interesting to see how your house looks from your neighbors house. In extra-bonusage, one of our neighbors is an architect and he thinks our roof has 3 – 5 years. I’m happy with any amount of time that is not “Dear God you must replace this thing RIGHT NOW!” I think I am glad I am not an architect who always looks at the world and sees it falling down.

3) Mother’s Day festivities fell into two parts. Part the first was my loot. Specifically, I got a digital photo frame. I’m really happy with it. I’ve truly gotten better at taking pictures, but no better at ordering prints or updating my flip book at work. (I think the most recent pictures I have of Grey, he’s about the age Thane is now.) Since so much of my photographia is digital, a digital photo frame looks more likely to get updates. Also, my kids are cute.

Part the second was going to the Lilac Festival at the Arnold Arboretum. Lilacs are my favorite flowers. There were also Morris Dancers there, which flashed me back to Make We Joy — happy memories! I kept expecting to see Danny Spurr pop up. And I drank my fill of fragrant lilac-scents and watched Grey learn the joys of rolling down a grassy hill. On the downside, we needed to bring a hat for Thane and we didn’t, and we needed to get sunscreen on him earlier than we did. He didn’t get burned — at least nothing that was still burned this morning — but he did get more sun that we should have let him get.

Then I came home and de-dandylioned the back lawn. This was an epic task, but needed to be done before the first mowing, which desperately needed to be done.

Here’s a difference between a 2.5 year old and a 3.5 year old. With the 3.5 year old, you really can work in the back yard and tell him to entertain himself while you work, and actually get some work done. This can be accomplished for even 30 minutes! (Astonishment!) I’ll take it.

Thus having informed my readership (er, hi mom!) of the important parts of my weekend, I go to optimize my search query! (I think I need a cape at work. That would definitely improve my code. Maybe with a cool logo….)

The Guilt-go-round

So I went to the doctor for me today. About a fortnight ago I got this cough. It’s really kind of a funny cough — it tickles my throat all the time, but I can go for quite a long spell without coughing, especially when I’m not talking much. But when I get a coughing fit, I find myself coughing every 5 minutes for even hours at a time; this barking, irresistible impulse.

I ignored it.

Saturday, I spiked the fever and slept the day out. I felt better on Sunday, so despite the remaining cough I figured I was better! Yay better! You know how coughs are sometimes trailing indicators.

But by the end of the day yesterday, I was so darn wiped out I had to admit: I’m not better.

I hated taking the time to go to the doctor. Yesterday I had Thane’s 6 month checkup. (More later on that — all it well.) Then I had Grey’s open house for preschool. (See also: more later.) I pump twice a day. I visit my sons at lunch almost every day. There have been sick days and paranoid days and doctor’s appointments and dentist appointments. And I just didn’t want to spend any more time on all that. (I’m very fortunate to have plenty of sick time TO take, I just don’t like to bunch it all together, you know?)

Then when I got to the doctor, the eyebrow was raised when I said how long I’d been sick. She looked at my chart, and noticed that I’d completely blown off my prescribed well-grownup cholesterol tests etc. (In my defense I went to take them once, only to discover that they were 12 hour fasting tests. Then I gave up.)

“You need to take CARE of yourself” she said censoriously. If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that, I could pay for all-day preschool. It’s hard to be the mom. There are these stacks of things that need doing. You can only defer laundry so long before you run out of super-hero undies. (Note: I have purchased sufficient super-hero undies that this extremis only arrives after about 16 days if there aren’t an undo number of accidents.) We only have so many sippy cups AND counter space, so the dishes really do have to happen periodically. And people get grumpy if their bills don’t get paid after a week or two. And let’s be clear here — my husband pulls his weight. But even with two oxen in the harness, the furrows just don’t all get plowed before the sun sets. If you push off the chores because it’s a fantastically beautiful Sunday in spring, then you better not pull the “oh and I think I have pneumonia” crap on Thursday. (And by the way, chest x-rays confirm it’s not pneumonia. It’s bronchitis.)

I find myself in this untenable position of trying to do what needs to be done, do those things which make life worth the living, and making the compromises in my own life to permit it to happen. Then I get called on the carpet for my martyr syndrome and told that it is somehow self-indulgent of me to make choices like toughing it out when I’m sick because I’d rather have that sunny Sunday than an afternoon lying in bed drinking tea. There’s this aura of disapproval around how much I try to do.

I have been accused of martyr syndrome. I do admit that sometimes I get caught up in a martyred attitude of “look how selfless I am!” but I think I’ve done that less and less lately. These days it’s a more intentional and aware tradeoff. I have come to realize that at this time of life, it’s just not going to be about me. I’m not going to get to read many books cover to cover. I’m not going to get to stamp cards while listening to baseball every week. There isn’t going to be this big reliable block of time that is all about what I want to do. But this won’t be forever. And there are the moments of grace when suddenly there ARE two hours available for wine-dark seas. Someday, my boys will be readers too and time I now spend wiping bottoms and putting away onesies will be time I can instead spend reading on the couch with my guys.

I don’t resent the choices I’m making (most of the time). We’re having an awesome time together as a family, but because our boys need so much attention, there is more corporate time and less individual time. That’s ok.

I do resent being told that I should feel guilty about not having time for myself. I resent the implication that I’m making up how much there is to do, or doing work that doesn’t really need doing.

Grey and monkey think mommy needs more coffee

Relieve your minds

Just to let you all know that I felt much, much better this morning. Out of an abundance of caution I went nowhere where I could’ve infected anyone, but we did end up going on maybe a 4 mile hike (up and down and up and down — we hadn’t planned on that being so long but we got lost). Then we had ice cream. Then I made an awesome dinner.

It was a good day.