Daily living – Page 4 – My Truant Pen

March Snow

If there is anything a New Englander can learn about March, it is that suffering is finite. Here we are, in the middle of Lent, and the skies opened and dropped 16 inches on us Friday – a far cry from the predicted tally. It was a stark contrast to the “Shut everything down a day in advance” that we experienced with Nemo, though. My son’s school was closed. But Boston schools carried on. We all shrugged and went to work and pulled out our well worn shovels and started shoveling. But not the frantic, precise shoveling of January, where every snowflake promised a near-permanent constraint of movement for the remainder of winter. But a lackadaisical, good-enough attitude far from the typical dour perfectionism of New England.

Not long after the last flake fell, the melt began. No matter how well or poorly you shoveled, the heat of the nearer sun wipes away the sin of a bad job like grace at Easter. The shlump of heavy snow falling persists. My sons wander around in shorts and tshirts to our various engagements, and I let them because it’s downright warm! Like 45 degrees! No matter the high drifts to left and right.

Death, thou shalt die. And snow, thou shalt melt.

In less existential news, I have been following the Four Hour Body diet with near-religious adherence for four and a half weeks. Many days, not so much as a stick of artificially flavored gum has passed my lips. I have waved away carbs and fruit. I got a gym membership, and have worked out with unusual consistency for me. I have eaten eggs and beans for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.

For my pains, I have… not lost any weight. It’s hard to tell, of course. There’s so much signal and noise with weight. Drink a huge glass of water, and you gain almost a pound. Weigh yourself in the morning and you’re down two pounds. But on my “cheat day” I weighed myself and my weight was back where it was when I started. After a full month, I consider this a sign that this diet does not work for me. Any of the modifications to the diet that I might try come back to calorie restriction PLUS food type restriction. In studies, 10+% of compliant participants fail to lose any weight. I suppose I simply have to acknowledge that I am in this minority and change methodologies.

So I have to decide whether I really want to lose weight, and if so what different methodology I should use. I’m thinking pure and simple calorie restriction is probably the best choice.

I’ve been travelling what feels like a lot for work lately. I was in Minnesota for two days last week. I found it particularly moving to watch the snow fall from a 20th story corner room. The city appeared and disappeared as the snow picked up, and the winds moved white drifts between the buildings. I found it hard to turn off the lights, remove my ability to see (contacts) and shut my eyes. It was fun to see the same storm twice.

I’m headed out again for almost three days in another week. I’m hoping that’s it for a while! At least the next trip is training, and in Tampa.

In other news, one son is reading. One son is building beautiful things with magnetic shapes. We have rejiggered our dining room to look like we live here and are not squatting in someone else’s house.

And it is March. Both Easter and Spring will come soon, and wipe the snow and cold away. And we will walk with bright hearts under a hot sun again.

Porch time

It’s the middle of April – exactly – today. It’s a time of year where New Englanders start to believe that maybe there are only one or two good snowstorms between them and the three weeks of beach weather we call summer. Friday was the Sox home opener.

I’m sitting – in short sleeves – on my front steps (glare making it hard to read the screen) watching my eldest playing in a gaggle of kids across the street while listening to the Red Sox (winning!) while Thane sleeps. Ah, bliss!

It’s been such an unseasonably warm winter and spring that the oddness of this near 80 degree weather is masked. I mean, we’ve already had 80 degree days this year… why should it be weird to have one before Patriot’s Day (the Boston Marathon day, tomorrow, a state holiday). But oh it is odd. It is an extreme weather event, this winter and spring heat. It’s a rather lovely one, but a touch ominous for all that. Still, I could lament, or I could enjoy. Enjoying seems like a better plan.

My husband was out of town this weekend at Helgacon. I haven’t heard the report on how the Cthulu game went, but it seems like “A good time was had by all”. I’m sort of bummed I wasn’t there, but my mother-in-law is in town which makes things easier. The nice weather has heralded neighbor time (before they’re all gone for their summer activities), and we had an impromptu bbq last and heading into temperate dark. I followed up with a few board games with a neighbor, and conversations. It’s so lovely to feel the leisure of warm weather.

Yesterday we went to IKEa – a marathon adventure. No life-changing purchases: bookshelves and duvet covers and white tapers and enough meatballs to feed an army.

Mmmmm the lassitude of the afternoon keeps stealing any attempt I might make at a thesis statement. Suffice it to say: life is busy, warmth and friendship are a joy.

High Notes

It’s Holy Week and I am, as usual, late to the music stand with my Easter selections. Every year I go to the same box of music that I’ve had since I was 14. It has a “color printed” word art sheet on the front – done with Lotus Amipro – that says, “Classical Trumpet: It Ain’t No Oxymoron!” This was my way of expressing my individuality and ironically bad grammar as a youth. Shockingly, I was never one of the cool kids…. Anyway, I’ve played Handel or baroque music nearly every Easter for the last five years because: I know it, it sounds great, it goes with the other music nicely, and I own it. I would pretend that I decided this year that my church had been subjected to enough baroque brass music, but in reality I had played through everything I owned that was baroque and not lento and that I could play.

Yes, I did miss my senior prom because it conflicted with my orchestra concert - how did you guess?

I really wish the publishers would come out with a book called, “Really Flashy Awesome Easter Music for Trumpet Players Who Play Twice a Year But Were Good Once”. I would buy that book, and love it forever.

What I settled on were some Sacred Harp tunes – which are not really THAT Eastery, but at least provide some variety from “The Trumpet Shall Sound”.

By the way, you’re all invited to my church this Sunday for our Easter celebration (with pancake breakfast starting at 9!). I’ll have some awesome music! (If I learn it in time and have a good lip day). And your reasons for not coming because you’re heathen/pagan/on another coast/bursting into flame when you enter a church… well, they can stop you if you don’t WANT to come, but we’ll welcome you all the same if you secretly DO want to come.

I didn’t feel like I had quite enough material in my “complaining about Easter repertoire” up there to make it’s own post, plus I’m about 6 posts behind in my head, so I though I’d throw in a picture that – on another day – I might turn into a vast discussion.

In truth, I’m endlessly amused by the stuff Grey draws. It goes from heartwarming (two happy smiling characters, labeled “Rich” and “Poor” cheerfully exchanging a full bag of coins), to funny (like the favorite animal as the hydra one), to extremely nerdy. The other day he came home with this “board game”. He made it at afterschool. The design and drawing are his, and he made clay tokens to represent the players. I took quite an extensive video of him explaining it to his beaming father. In this picture you can see the game board, the three auxiliary cards and the clay figures.

OK, I’m off to go ice my lips!

Changing the rules

In everyone’s life there are periods of lesser and greater stasis. For example, when you are a parent to an infant, nothing stays the same and nothing can be relied upon. The minute you’ve figured out how somethings works and what you’re supposed to be doing, it changes. On the other hand, I just went through a period where things were chaotic within well expected and known bounds. Lots of activity, but little change. I knew what I needed to do, even if I didn’t have enough time to do it all.

Then I switched jobs.

It’s funny, but so far it’s not the job that has me on my toes, it’s the commute. The bad news is that the commute is rather worse than I was hoping for. For those of you in the area, I’m trying to get from Stoneham to just south of the Children’s Museum in South Boston. The best option I’ve found so far is the 354 Express bus. It stops less than a mile from my house, and then goes directly in to State Street. From State Street it’s a mile’s walk through the city to my office. (Almost exactly. The horizontal distance is 9/10 of a mile, and then I climb five flights of stairs.) Walking, it takes me 15 – 20 minutes depending on how I catch the lights. Optimally, this would be a 40 minute commute. However, when the traffic is bad (which it often is, in my narrow survey), it can take me more than 80 minutes to get in to work. Driving, I get caught in the same traffic (although I don’t have the 20 minute walk), with the added disadvantage of not being able to take the carpool lane. The T was my first plan, but here would be all the steps in that: 1) Drive to Malden station (15 min?) 2) Park at parking lot 3) Walk from parking lot to T (5 mins), 4) Take Orange Line to Downtown Crossing? (China Town, NE Medical Center?) 5) Walk from there (.5 of a mile?). That’s a very multi stage commute, and also rather expensive, paying for parking and a T pass.

So, hrm. The good part is that when I spend 40 minutes on the bus, I get to do a lot of reading. It’s also a good napping environment (based on my comrades in bus), because there are no stops. I get off when the bus stops, along with almost everyone else. The bad thing about a bus commute is you live in constant fear of being late. That and the straight up time it takes.

With the actual job bit, I’m still in the “reading documentation” phase. I thought I’d gotten through most of the extant documentation in the company, but someone just showed me the repository where all the previous documents created by my group are kept, so I now have plenty to keep me busy. In my early analysis, however, everything seems like it should work out nicely!

Kindergarten is a bit like starting a new job, with the context switching. You are presented with new problems that your baby days had not prepared you for. For example, my son came home with a pledge form for the “Jumprope for the heart” fundraiser. I actually remember this one from MY days in grade school, back when I rode a brontosaurus to school every morning (uphill both ways barefoot!). They’ve watered it down. When I was a kid, people pledged per jump. So $.02 a jump, and then you jumped as many times as you could and ended up collecting $1.20 before you gave up. There’s no such incentive for hard work in this one, it’s just a straight “Give us money form” (now with convenient web links!). So what do I do? Do we personally just sign up for the t-shirt level? Do I offer this tremendous opportunity to the suckers, uh, I mean, grandparents of said children? Aunts and uncles? Blogosphere? What is the etiquette here… the cross between being a good PTO parent, a good citizen, and not completely obnoxious?

I still haven’t figured this one out, but would be curious what you think.

Pack in that relaxation!

There are down sides and up sides to age and experience. I can now chop an onion with a finesse my 22 year old self would never have dreamed of. I seem to grow extra arms as needed. I know how long the wash cycle on my washing machine takes, and I can get myself to nearly any destination not requiring a visa without being nervous about it. I am, in short, a Woman of Experience.

I have this week off. I am between. I am liminal. I have left Old Job and not yet started New Job. I have been EXPLICITLY INSTRUCTED by my new employer to relax and come in rested and refreshed. But this is a once every few years opportunity! Home, alone, without children, not terribly fiscally constrained and without obligation. This, my friends, is the holy grail. And I KNOW that it will go super duper fast and I will only accomplish a small percentage of what I intend in that time.

So here’s the potential list: (bold means already done or in the works)

Crazy complicated dinner (prime rib!)

Video game (Fable II for XBox)

Clean attic thoroughly and get rid of archaic equipment (see also: desktop computer)

Buy new computer

Centralize entire digital life on new computer

Transfer finances to new digital checkbook

Do all the regular chores so my husband gets a bit of a break too

Read several novels

Install a DROID development environment

Write a DROID application

Blog like I always think I would blog if time wasn’t a problem

Sleep in as much as possible

Read the APIs my new company publishes for the app I’ll be supporting

Watch all the football

Do everything in my email inbox so I can close the email

Practice trumpet

Stamp cards

Learn how to use my new phone and totally customize it

Recycle the old computers, having ensured all valuable information has been removed.

Have tea with a friend

Go out to lunches with my former colleagues (this was my original plan, but now I’m feeling so forward-looking I have mixed feelings on it)

Finish up my knee physical therapy (partially there!)

Goof off in all the amazing free time.

Anyone see a problem with this list? Yeah, that darned experience tells me what it tells you. There’s no way I’m going to get through that list. I get so sick and tired of prioritizing, optimizing and being efficient. I come to loathe the down to the minute scheduling and night after night of making good decisions because I know better. This week, at least, that is relaxed and reduced. I’ve actually made some excellent progress.

The key this week, I think, is balance. I need to make sure I neither work the whole time or goof off the whole time. A mixture of accomplishment, long term investment and leisure is the order of the day. I think I’ve done well so far.

Last week I read several novels, working my way through the canon of Sherwood Smith, so far with “Crown Duel”, “The Trouble With Kings”, “Coronets and Steel” and “Blood Spirits” — thank you Kindle for making it so easy! I have played several hours of Fable II. I have gotten my DROID environment working, read half of a DROID apps book, read the first few chapters in a JAVA 2 book and consolidated all our CDs. I also cleaned out the closet in the attic and have my crazy fancy dinner planned. I bought myself my new central laptop, and am currently in the process of downloading a lifetime of pictures to it, as I simultaneously upload ancient pictures from my old desktop. I have had my final knee dr. appointment and been dismissed. I have three PT appointments scheduled. I found a new chiropractor. The dishes have been done, I’ve been careful not to spend too much time cooking (which is what usually happens when I have free time), and I’m watching Dr. Who while I fold laundry.

So far, not bad. Here’s hoping I finish equally strong, and that I’m completely energetic and ready to go back to work in my new place on Monday!

One final note… I am so a teenager. So I’ve been really careful not to get into the “staying up until 2 am reading” trap that I so easily fall into. My natural schedule is bed at 2 am and waking up around 11. I figured if I was careful with the going to bed, the waking up would come easily. But instead, I’ve had several nights where I’ve gotten 11 to 12 hours sleep. I mean, my sleep debt can’t be THAT bad, and I just had a week off for Christmas where I also caught up. I’m left to conclude that I naturally am quite happy sleeping half the time. And it’s not depression – I’m quite cheerful. I just like bed. This explains a lot.

Not so bad.

Hex heaven and hell

So, here’s a funny story I failed to share with you at the time. As you all know, bated-breath-daily-readers, my son began Kindergarten in our public school this year. What this really means is that we entered the Realm of the PTO Fundraiser. Now, I’m delighted by the Japanese drummers and such that the PTO helps pay for, so I cheerfully forked over my dues. Then there was the big Halloween fundraiser. Every family was expected to sell 12 cash raffle tickets at $5 a piece (or $25 for six). I toyed with offering to swap purchases with our similarly be-Kindergartenered neighbors. But when I jokingly mentioned this “great opportunity” to my mother-in-law, she actually professed a desire to part with money for these tickets and demanded I offer said opportunity to my parents as well. Bemused, I did. And thus I disposed of our 12 obliged tickets, end of story.

Or not. We left the Halloween party prior to the great unveiling of winners, but not being the optimistic sort thought nothing of it. Until the day my mother-in-law arrived home to find a $500 check. She was the grand prize winner!

Now, long time readers of the blog will know that one of my mother-in-law’s favorite hobbies is home renovation. Namely: our home. It started with painting the basement floor the week we moved in. Then we had Thane’s prenatal bedroom renovation (she painted), our bedroom repainting (while I was gone one day), the kitchen repainting, the hallway repainting (she’s a genius with paint), the entry-way transformation early one post-Piemas morning, and the infamous “I’m sure the tile under the carpet is in fine shape” bathroom renovation just this September. All this she has accomplished despite living 1000 miles away and weighing 90 pounds wet. (To be fair, my parents helped demo Thane’s room and repainted the living room 3 years ago this week. But they don’t daydream about our attic the same way Laureen does.) And I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two more minor renovations she instigated or executed. So she decided what she wanted to do with her money was to “update” something in our house – generously leaving the choice of what up to me.

"Before" picture... from before we painted the living room

Watching how hard it was to use the XBox Kinect in our smallish living room as currently configured, I finally decided it was time to pull the trigger and get rid of the ancient CRT media center we had gotten for free because they didn’t want to move it when we moved into our last rented house. So Thursday was planned as a trip to IKEA.

Both boys are now old enough to go to “Smaland” – which was great. It gave us just enough time to scope out the available options, attempt to decide if glass shelves were advantageous or disadvantageous, and put together A Plan. We blessed our larger vehicle with the roof-rack as we vibrated home up I93. Then we had dinner with friends, put the kids to bed, and sat down with massive amounts of cardboard, Swedish instructions, hex wrenches and the Mythbusters. Half an hour past midnight, the pieces were all assembled, but we were too tired to put them in place. So this afternoon, we attached, wired, organized and otherwise prepared for our new configuration.

I confess I’m pleased as punch about just how nice it looks. Here it is in daylight:

I just took this one, so the light’s different but you can see more:

I can hardly express how much BIGGER the room seems!

And as a bonus, here’s my husband hard at work:

Reasons blogs are useful

The doctor asked me, “How long have you had this?” I answered with confidence, “At least since October 14.” “Hmm… that’s quite a while.”

Sure is, doctor.

Last week I was sure I had a sinus infection (when your molars hurt, that’s the hint). I did get a prescription for antibiotics, but an infection I might have had just laughed them off. HAHAHAH!

This week I had a doozy of a week. Monday was a work from home day due to having no power, followed by Halloween. Tuesday, I was at work at 7:15 am and returned home from work at 10:30 pm or so. Wednesday was another all day, intense meeting with no time for even checking my private email. Thursday at work was an attempt to catch up from all that, but when I got home, I couldn’t handle even gaming. I went to bed at 8, right after dinner. I woke up at 7 this morning not much improved.

It seemed like, maybe, it was time to go to the doctor’s. I made an appointment for 2:30.

At 12:45 I got a phone call from my son’s school nurse. He’d bumped his head during recess and needed to be picked up. I made the pffft sound in my head, believing that they were overreacting, and moved even more meetings in order to go pick him up, knowing I’d have to drag him to my appointment.

Sorry kid, I’m not taking you to the doctor because I’m totally more sick than you are injured. He was jealous of my x-rays though. He says he wants x-rays. They are pretty cool, but not as exciting as you might think. I haven’t heard the results yet, but my dr. said that she was pretty sure it was pneumonia and that she would treat it accordingly.

So now I have a note from the doctor saying “Brenda is really sick”, a rescue inhaler (yes, it is that bad), some high power antibiotics, and a weekend to recover.

Here’s hoping that works!

The busiest time of the year

Autumn is my favorite season. The crispness and crackle in the air makes life feel more vibrant and immediate. I love the start of school and the apples and colors on the trees. Autumn is a time of itchy feet and revealed horizons and sparkling skies.

It is also, without a doubt, my busiest time of year. And I have a hunch that this will only get worse as time goes on. The busy season really starts with my birthday on September 23rd, which almost always coincides with Must Watch Baseball. Then in the first week of October, my eldest has his birthday. I get a week’s reprieve in which to go apple picking and make apple butter before my husband’s natal day arrives, followed a week later by my youngest son’s. And two out of seven years, the child’s birthday does not fall on a weekend. This means that I really have to do things on two days that week, because how lame is it to have your birthday and no cake? Almost as lame as having your birthday party and no cake, that’s how lame. So…. two cakes.

Three days after Mr. Thane’s birthday is Halloween, aka my worst holiday. (I am totally a “Let’s go to a store and buy you a costume” kind of Halloweener.) Of course, if the Sox are in the playoffs, my evening schedule also involves finding ways to sneak in the game because (as Sox fans are so keenly aware this year) we don’t make the playoffs every year. (This year the complicating role of baseball has been played instead by knee surgery and twice-weekly physical therapy.) Less than two weeks after Halloween, I host a Thanksgiving type meal for around 30 people – all sitting down to eat simultaneously.

Immediately after Mocksgiving (or preferably prior), it’s time to start with the Christmas cards. I usually do about 80. I almost always write a personal note. It is meaningful and important to me and takes nearly two months.

Did I mention I have a full time (plus) job, and two small children and a house to keep and (now) cookies to bake for the PTO bake sale at the Halloween xtravaganza that happens a week before Halloween, thereby narrowing my window for successful creation of costumes? Also, are any of you dying to buy raffle tickets to the cash raffle at said Halloween party?

Also, the inexorable exhortations of my soul require autumnal reading of ghost stories and preferably a good spooky game of Cthulu.

So if I’m running around like a one-legged mother of a six year old (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!) on a hamster wheel until New Year’s…. well, you know why.

Back to life, back to reality

The vacation is over. The children have returned. The schedule is resumed. The fall planning has begun. The rules have been reapplied.

We’re back to our life. But with some changes. (NOTE: One being that I’ve been picking at this post on and off in 5 minute increments for about 4 days now…)

Last night, after Thane’s bed time, my husband, eldest and I laid on a blanket in the backyard, vainly fighting the full moon and suburban light pollution for a shooting glimpse of majestic fire. We laughed, joked, poked each other, and listened to the symphony of insects performing every summer evening. This was a moment that probably would have been an option in our pre-vacation world, but that we would have been to stressed, blind or busy to see. In the lassitude of people whose emotional needs have been met, though, we had a really joyous hour together.

In other urgently important news, Grey does not have a loose tooth. No he does not. He has TWO loose teeth. His bottom two center teeth are extremely wiggly. One has an imminent departure date. I was sniffling a little at dinner about him losing his teeth. He got very sad and tried to assure me that he’d done his very best to take good care of his teeth – brushing and flossing them! Factual analysis of his actual oral hygiene practices aside, I had to rush to reassure him that losing teeth was perfectly normal and expected – but that I like him the way he is and it’s hard to watch him growing up so fast. He gave me some big hugs, that made me feel better about it. (At least until I consider that I should be banking them against the inevitable teenage hug-drought, but that’s just borrowing trouble.)

And then there’s my knee thing. I believe I’ve agonized at length over here about my KNEE and how I’ll have to actually have surgery. I feel like a total wimp. I’ve always seen myself as a strong stoic person (hey! Stop laughing!) In fact if you’d asked me why I chose to give birth – TWICE – without drugs I’d say something about how it wasn’t actually that hard after you got over the screaming bit, and the toughest part was that your jokes just weren’t that funny between pushes. (Ah, hormones! How easy you make it seem in retrospect.) I begin to suspect, however, that I’m actually a wimp about medical procedures. You see, I have no problem with needles. I’ve given about five gallons of blood. No problem! And I’ve never caviled at the procedures I’ve needed. But, uh, I haven’t needed any. Or at least many. This will be my first time unconscious. Not asleep, but knocked out. I’ve never fainted, blanked out, passed out, gone unconscious or had general anesthesia before. This will also be the first time anyone has ever cut me open in any way. And it will definitely be the first time someone has inserted a cadaver tendon threaded through my knee, after trimming off ragged bits of meniscus.

And the more people I talk to, the more this surgery sounds like a big deal. I mean, weeks and weeks of badness. Probably two weeks of incapacitation, followed by a long period of limping. I don’t do well with incapacitation. I prefer to tough my way through the pain and do stuff anyway. In this case, doing so will be stupid and irresponsible. I have no coping skills for when I’m not allowed to tough it out.

It probably means I will have to (gulp) ask for help. So my husband will be with me the day of the surgery. My MIL (who is a saint) is flying down for that week. But that second week? I’m hoping I will be able to limp to the bathroom and get lunch for myself by that second week. But no way can I take care of my children, do the laundry or dishes or make dinner. And our household generates enough work to keep TWO people busy full time doing it. I’m terrible at asking people for help. I’ve had so many kind friends volunteer, and I don’t know how to graciously and gratefully accept.

I guess this whole surgery thing will teach me many things.

But first! We have a first day of kindergarten approaching. I’m hoping to sneak in a camping trip over Labor Day. I have two neat kids who are a ton of fun. My husband brought home about 20 boardgames from Gencon. We’ve had fun playing them together, and with friends. (And hey! We’ve been married for eleven years now!) And all my counters are completely covered in the bounty of my CSA. (Seriously, two watermelons and two cantaloupes!)

And of course, my usual sporadic once-a-week-a-third-of-what-I-want-to-tell-you postings will now resume. At least that should improve with surgery!

At least it worked

My knee was pretty swollen on Friday, after the aspiration. But I woke up Saturday morning much more able to move. Now the low back is more of an issue than the knee.

My plan is to not bend the knee for more than it takes to walk up the stairs until I get an MRI done. At the time I ate that fateful (tasty tasty) dinner, I could do pretty much anything knee-wise.

It was a catching up weekend. Catching up on laundry, dishes (oh, the dishes), grocery shopping, house cleaning, toy removing, church stuff (including writing a sermon and finishing off the membership wall pictures) and keeping our children from killing each other. Yes, they’re at that phase of brotherhood. The catching up might have been easier if my husband hadn’t had to work a full 8 hour day on Saturday. But now we’re caught up. And we we to our church picnic and had a blast today, and I took a nap, and had a nice walk so I’m feeling cheerful. And I’m mostly all caught up!

Tomorrow is “Library Pizza night” – one of my favorite nights! It’s also farm share day, so wish me luck finding room in our fridge for the abundance. (NOTE: I have long thought of buying a new, larger fridge. However, doing so would require altering a load-bearing wall and completely refinishing the pantry. For SOME reason I haven’t gotten around to it yet.)