Stir crazy

The last two weeks have been totally crazy. I was in the office for only 1 out of the 10 working days, and the boys' school was closed for 8.5 of those 10 days due to snow and ice. That's a LOT of time to be cooped up. And you know it's bad when then kids groan about yet another school closure because they just want to see their friends (and get away from their mean old mom who won't let them eat snacks every minute of every day), even if it means going to school!

Our first "winter weather event" happened on Monday, February 16. I was already home with Lorelai for President's day (daycare teacher workday) so it was no big deal when school got out early. We ended up with more sleet than snow, so many secondary roads were skating rinks. With more snow on Wednesday, school was out all.freaking.week because it was just too bitterly cold to melt the ice/snow. I guess I didn't really get how bad some roads were until we picked Aidan up after a sleepover on Saturday morning. 5 days later, and his friend's road was still solid ice.



We thought we were in the clear last week. Monday was a normal day at school and work. And then everyone was completely surprised when we woke up to more snow coming down on Tuesday. Some buses had already left to get students by the time the school delay call came in at 6:30am. By 7:45, it was very clear the roads were too bad to go to school, so we were at cancellation number 5. I think we ended up with 2-3 inches before it stopped. The kids loved it though--real snow, better than the ice last week.


Adam ventured out to work every day, making me a nervous wreck (I'm paranoid) when every single time, he forgot to text me that he got there safe.


The biggest punch in the gut from good old Mother Nature came at 1am on Thursday when our power went out due to the heavy, wet snow taking down trees and power lines. It sure was gorgeous though!


We don't even own a snow shovel--we had to borrow the neighbor's.


We keep our downstairs thermostat really low at night so it didn't take long without heat to drop down into the 50s. We tried to warm the house with our first fire in the fireplace in I don't know how many years. Since before Logan was born maybe. It became very clear that the poor Duraflame log was not cutting it. Those things are not made to give off much heat.



My work laptop was completely dead, and with no indication that our power would be back on soon, I couldn't run my cell phone battery down by calling in to my work meetings. Worst use of a vacation day, ugh. With no power and no coffee and most importantly no heat (I was SO cold even with multiple layers under blankets!!), we packed up and headed to Adam's work down the road. Thankfully the main roads weren't too dicey because some plows had made it through. We happily mooched off their power, wi-fi and coffee until our power came back on that afternoon. And then my mom happily mooched off our power until hers came back on that evening. :)


This is the clubhouse of one of the apartment complexes Adam manages. Cinnamon roll keurig coffee and a huge media room for the win.


Of course (because we're in the south) the secondary roads still weren't safe for buses by Friday, so that was cancellation numero ocho. Ouch. And now the boys have officially lost the first week of their 3-week intersession at the end of this month. At least there's no Saturday school for us, so that's an up side?

The snuggles were also a big up side. :)



This has been the first "normal" week in a long time, and now we're looking at another wintry mix on the way tonight that could possibly delay or cancel school tomorrow. While I actually didn't mind going into full hibernation mode--no makeup/yoga pants/curled up under a blanket at the table in front of my computer and only stepping outside to take a couple of quick pics of the kids, I was happy to be back in the office this week. I will echo the sentiment of pretty much everyone when I say I'm SO DONE with winter. Hurry up, Spring!

Vehicles are a huge freakin' money pit

In the two months that Adam's been without a job, we've spent more money on our cars than we have in the at least the past two years. First we had to replace all the tires on the Odyssey because they were bald--to the tune of almost $600. Then a rock cracked the windshield of the Civic. Another $100 gone. And yesterday the Civic's check engine light came on. Did you know that replacing an O2 sensor costs almost $600? Well we sure know now. :(  Maybe Adam needs to switch careers or take up a car repair hobby in his spare time because OMG.

And of course this all happens right before Christmas. Seriously?!

Dear Santa...

Full of stress

Ok, so...um? Yeah. I got nothin' but a bunch of complaints. Here goes. And I'm sorry.

I've never been so consistently busy at work where I don't feel like there's enough time in the day to get everything done. For pretty much the past week, I've been in the office for 9 hours working all the way through lunch, and then logging back in at night when I get home to check emails and pull reports.

But at least i still have a job. There were layoffs at my company this week and a really great guy got let go, which was very unsettling for a lot of us. That night, I had a dream that I was the one laid off, yikes. Which leads me to...

Dude. I'm exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well because there's too much on my brain--work and otherwise. Can't shut it off to fall asleep. In fact, I started writing this on my phone at 11:15 at night to get these thoughts out of my head so I can sleep! It only sort of worked.

We're supposed to go to the beach this weekend and I can't even get my brain to comprehend all that we need to pack. And I'm worried I'll get stuck at work on Friday and not have time to actually do any packing.

Aidan and Lorelai have birthdays coming up with very few presents bought and no real parties planned. Well, Aidan will have his "party" at the beach, but with what presents? I DON'T KNOW! And I guess we'll have family over for dinner for Lorelai's birthday, but I DON'T KNOW! Lame.

And to top it all off, Adam had to travel for work this week, and now his flight is delayed and won't be home until after 11.

Whew. There's more, but that's plenty of negativity for one post.

****

So now I'll just leave you with this funny clip of Lorelai "reading" to me in the tub. I can usually understand almost everything she says, so I can assure you she was speaking legit gibberish for half of this. I hope that's not what she hears when I read to her. ;) I definitely heard something about a spider and a frog, and then advice on how to put your face in the water. "Yep! You did it." "Oh. Wrong page." Silly girl.
 

And now, with a smile on my face courtesy of my funny girl, I'm going to attempt to go to sleep. Wish me luck!

A school issue and a second opinion

Aidan's big 3rd grade project for this quarter was a report on a famous African-American inventor. He chose Lonnie Johnson, and using the template provided by his teacher, he created a mock Facebook page with lots of information, after lots of research on Aidan's part. He spent a lot of time googling and reading and then (with some guidance and prompting from me, but not a ton) came up with various pieces of information to put into the template. It's actually a really cool project idea, although at first glance it seemed a little advanced for 3rd grade--what happened to a simple poster?! Here's what he came up with.







I was really proud of the work he did--summarizing what he read, paraphrasing, figuring out what he could put where, choosing images all on his own, doing the vast majority of cutting/pasting/re-sizing/formatting (he's now well-versed in the right-click/copy/paste special, ctrl-c, ctrl-v and ctrl-z!). I did help with some of the more complicated formatting issues and I helped some by typing the words he dictated to me. But in large, the work is his.

Maybe I'm biased (ok, I am, but still...), maybe I'm out of touch with expectations of freaking 3rd graders, but I'm PISSED that he got a 75 on this project. Please, someone give me a second opinion.


"...but little information on Lonnie himself" What?!?!?

Does this project look like it:

• Shows very few details about the inventor or his/her discovery. Does not go beyond basic information. (2 out of 4 on the rubric)
• Shows little organization. Very little time was spent on the project. Very few details are mentioned. Some difficulty interpreting information. (also 2 out of 4)

He also got a 1 out of 4 on his Oral presentation. I don't know otherwise because I wasn't there, but the criteria for a 1 on the rubric says "No understanding of written information. Unable to hear or understand information."

Aidan prepared notecards and practiced several times over the weekend before his presentation so I have a hard time swallowing that 1. Maybe he did mumble or read a bit too much from his slides, but I know he had a good grasp on who Lonnie Johnson is and what he's famous for. He did way too much research for that not to show at all. For this one, I'm mostly just sad that none of the practice Aidan did at home translated to his actual presentation. Maybe he got nervous, I don't know. He thought he did well, but his teacher said he couldn't answer many of the questions she asked without looking at his presentation. Is it really realistic to expect an 8-year-old to recite an entire presentation of facts from memory? That's a real question. Are most 3rd graders capable of that?

My momma bear instinct is raging right now, and I cried along with him when he came home today with this grade. Granted, I'm an overachiever by nature and rarely got bad grades myself (nerd alert!) so I cringe when I see grades like this. But if I thought Aidan truly did subpar work and deserved this grade, I wouldn't be nearly as worked up. Well I would, but for a different reason. I'd be more disappointed in myself that I didn't provide enough oversight or guidance to make sure he did well. But I did this time. And he really tried. And learned. And it looks good, damnit!

I really do welcome any and all opinions. If my mom-bias has clouded my judgement, please let me know. I want to go into the conference with his teacher next week with a clear head and realistic expectations.

Ice cold

Even if the weather hasn't made up its mind--going from light snow on a Friday to sunny and almost 60* the next Monday, and back down to below freezing and an ice storm a few days later--I've made up mine. I hate the cold. I'm done with winter.



I've lived in NC my whole life (granted, it doesn't get that cold here for very long) but I'm starting to think I might be a Floridian at heart. Sometimes it takes every ounce of me to resist the urge to hibernate, huddled under a blanket on the couch with my little loves.

I'm feeling mostly uninspired, unmotivated, and physically tense. I carry all of my stress in my shoulders, so when I'm cold and shivering, the knots in my back get out of control. "Angry," as one masseuse put it.



The winter storm on Friday meant the kids got out of school early. I drove home from work as snow started falling, and while part of me was loving the magical winter wonderland aspect of it all, the other part of me was dreading the thought of taking the kids out in the cold to play. Then I felt guilty for wanting to deny them a rare chance to play in the snow that we maybe get once or twice a year.

Fortunately for me, the snow quickly turned to a mix of sleet and freezing rain, which was significantly more unappealing to them. Instead, we watched from the warmth our house as the icicles magically formed on Adam's car and the trees outside.



The kids did kind of gypped in the snow department so far this year--first a lame dusting and then ice--so if we did have one real snow, I supposed I'd suck it up wouldn't complain too much. :)



But all this back and forth with the weather is just teasing me. I mean seriously, it's supposed to be 74 here on Wednesday! Who knows, maybe the hint of spring is enough to get me out of this funk. Hopefully I (and my poor daffodil bulbs) can survive until winter is officially over. Can't wait.


my poor, confused daffodils...

PS: I admit that this is pretty much how we spend our weekends when it's too cold or wet to play outside. So yeah, for the sake of their brain cells, it needs to warm up ASAP.


Lorelai does get a lot of exercise bouncing around on that ball though!

Blah and ugh with a side of seriously?!

This basically sums up how I feel right now.



Work is craaaazy this week. I've got a cold that won't go away, so I just feel exhausted, run down, blah, and ugh. And to top it all of, I got freakin' pink eye again. Just me, not the kids. Seriously?!? (On the positive side, I had a refill on my drops from the last time I had it, so I didn't have to go to the doctor.)

I'm just ready for this week to be over. Hold me. Or "hold you" as Lorelai would say.

Fall freakout

So, I had a minor freakout the other day about the fact that it's almost fall. I had promised the boys I'd take them to the pool last weekend, and then Saturday turned out to be slightly chilly and rainy, and I started thinking we completely wasted our time this summer not going to the pool enough, and now it was too late.

I know we did other fun summer stuff, but for some reason, this whole pool thing got me really upset. Especially since the last time we went, Logan finally got up the courage to jump into the deep end and swim back to the side on his own, which was a big step for him. We totally dropped the ball by not keeping up his swimming motivation and momentum (if that's even a thing).

But then it was all good because on Sunday, it ended up being 80+ and sunny, so I took the boys to the pool while Lorelai napped at home with Adam.

Of course the water has already gotten cold again, which sucks, but it ended up being perfectly fine because I could relax on the lounge chair while the boys had a blast, blue lips and all.

I'm still not quite ready for fall, because it means putting away Lorelai's and my cute summer clothes, dealing with jackets, no more pool, and I'm worried it's going to be chilly at the end of September when we're planning to go back to the beach. Plus, I never ended up getting a tan. What's a summer without a tan?! :)

But on the other hand, Starbucks had pumpkin spice latte samples which started to get me excited about fall, and the thought of boots isn't so bad (if only Lorelai would wear hers, but she's "scared" of them!). If I can get a couple more pool weekends with the boys, I'll probably be ready to let summer go and embrace fall (and hope some of Lorelai's cute clothes still fit next year!).

Change of plans

So a funny thing happened today when I went to go get my eyeballs sliced: I didn't. Yep, I'm just as nearsighted as I was when I made the hour plus drive to the laser eye center this morning, shaking like a leaf.

Turns out, my eyes are too dry today to ensure a good outcome, so the doctor recommended I wait. He said if it was his wife or sister, he wouldn't do the surgery and strongly recommended against it. Of course, hearing that made me totally agree, despite being in near tears over not being able to get it done as planned. He's not sure why they're so dry all of a sudden, but it could be effects from the pink eye last week, or the drops, or a combo of the drops. Who knows. But basically, all that anxiety and anticipation, not to mention the drive...all for nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. He put plugs in my tear ducts gave me a crap ton of drops that I'm basically supposed to flood my eyes with until next Friday when they were able to reschedule me. I'm hoping to get an pre-op appointment at the office near me next Wednesday so the doctor can re-check my eyes to see how they're doing before mom and I trek all the way back out to the other center. Fingers crossed I'll be good to go by then!

I do have to say that as much as it sucked to walk away today, I totally appreciate that the doctor had my best interests in mind and was willing to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. I'm also so appreciative of my mom who's willing to chauffeur me back and forth and didn't get upset that she has to do it all over again next week.

Dear glasses, I'm so sick of you. XOXO, Becky

PS: To clarify about the whole two different places thing, I'm getting my LASIK done by TLC and had my initial consultation at their office in Raleigh. They have a sister office in Greensboro and the same doctor operates in both locations, the only difference is the lasers they use. The one in Greensboro will work better for my eye, leaving more cornea left over in the event that I need any future enhancements. Hence the drive.

Wise words Wednesday: Sight

“What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.” -Barbara Kingsolver

via

My LASIK appointment is on Friday, and to say that I'm a bit anxious is an understatement. I know that odds are (overwhelmingly) in my favor for a completely successful surgery, but I can't ignore the fact that something could go wrong and I could lose the ability to see these precious faces clearly (or at all) every day.





And if something does go wrong, it'll be all my fault since I selfishly didn't want to deal with glasses or contacts any more.

Also? I got my eyes dilated on Monday to check my retinas before the procedure, and they're STILL not back to normal. I have my near vision back sort of (which was completely gone until Tuesday morning) but I can't focus on anything right up in my face, and my distance vision is somewhat blurry making driving, especially when it's bright, a difficult task. Although I don't know what my current vision is, I imagine I've gotten a taste of having best corrected vision of less than 20/20, and it totally sucks.

I've been reassured again that I'm a good candidate, and that the doctor performing the surgery is very good and very experienced. But prayers and/or positive thoughts would be much appreciated, if you have some to spare!

One of those mornings

This is one of those days where I wish I had just stayed in bed and cuddled with my baby girl all day.

If I had stayed in bed...

...Maybe I wouldn't have had an argument with Adam about helping me get Lorelai dressed (and then subsequently having to change her pants because I didn't like what he picked out, even though there was technically nothing wrong with it).

...Maybe Logan wouldn't have hit me and screamed at me that I'm a mean mommy who hurt his feelings (all over not being able to bring his pillow pet to school for share and tell because it doesn't begin with R, the letter of the week in his class).

...Maybe I wouldn't have heard that Aidan's bus driver accused him of poking holes in the seat on the bus. For the second time. (Can't wait to hear Aidan's side of that story, especially since he doesn't carry anything in his bookbag capable of poking a hole in a bus seat!)

...Maybe I wouldn't be having a bad hair day because of the rain. (To be fair, I'd probably still have a bad hair day, it just wouldn't be because of the rain and I wouldn't care since no one would see me.)

...Maybe I wouldn't be cold and wet because of the rain. (Wait, no maybe about that one...my bed is nice and warm and dry!)

...Maybe I wouldn't get a pounding headache every time I stand up. (That Advil took way too long to kick in!)

That's a lot of maybes for today. Eh...maybe tomorrow will be better.

For the record, Friday mornings should never have the same level of suckitude as Monday mornings.