Mental Health Day

Jeremy's boss decided he needed a mental health day on Friday, but it really turned out to be one for me. And not just because I had had 2 kids home for spring vacation* for 6 days at that point either.

No, I took the opportunity to strong-arm Jeremy into helping me paint the dining room-- an event I've been waiting for for too long. (Note that this post was written one year ago exactly.)

We picked white for the dining room, since all the other rooms have color, and my dishes are all different colors and I didn't want too much clashing. And my cousin pointed out that I don't want to have a "clown house." Unfortunately, all I could say when it was done was, "It's so... white." So we hung up our artwork, and it is better. Now we just need an appropriately sized table.

And lest it seem finished, I have this little reminder until I make it to the hardware store to buy one of those silly plates to cover the chimney flue:
Now I just need to do the laundry room... I've got the paint-- I just need the time.

*During vacation, we went to an artist's workshop and Sebastian's picture was taken for the paper.

I'm ready for February

I know an awful lot of people who were quite happy to shake the dust of last year and jump into this one. I, on the other hand, have not been too pleased with January, which will be going out on the same sour note it has been playing for weeks.

True, it hasn't been all bad. I did get my ring, after all. And my little brother came to visit. But people are getting me down with all their nonsense.

• I really need to get my child development book out and find out whether it is just seven year-olds in general or mine specifically that are such a pain in the ass. Add to that not knowing what to do about him and the nightmare that is the school bus, and parenting does not top my list of fun activities.
• Despite my reassurances to myself, this PTA stuff just really weighs on me. And even though part of me knows that 3 months isn't a very long time, it seems like an eternity until I can get out of this gig.
• A certain person in our family has been unwell for quite a long time, and things are looking particularly grim these days. And because of the nature of the situation, it is a very draining experience.
• Dorian's school has announced that they will be going sledding every Tuesday for the whole month of February, thereby messing up one of only 2 days a week that he goes, because of course they want drivers and chaperones for these little excursions.
• And I get to end the month with Jeremy leaving on a business trip for 4 days to floody California. At least I'm not dealing with poopy 10 month-old twins alone like that brave soul Mr. Listmaker.

You know, I learned from my nature program puppet show that chipmunks are dormant through the winter, lying on a pile of seeds they collected, waking only to take a little nibble here and there and fall back asleep. Doesn't that sound grand?

As the heel turns

I turned my heel yesterday and my gusset is all decreased*, so I'm about 1/3 of the way to a new pair of socks. I also finished my cowl, with which I am very pleased, but have no photo for you.

And if I can get over being the Cowardly Lion and follow through on my resolution number 3 for this year**, I may have some big news for you all soon.

*That's what she said.

** See previous post.

Roller coaster day

Today started with my being very ashamed of myself and feeling like a giant ass and is ending with my being very proud and having kind of a big head. So where are these extreme body parts coming from?

Well, yesterday I found out that one of the girls at Dorian's school has a sibling who was diagnosed with (gasp!) swine flu. So, this morning I was leaving the school after dropping Dorian off and on my way out the door, I ran into the mother of this little girl who has decided that since the little girl is not exhibiting any symptoms that she is going to bring her to school. Because I'm an insensitive moron, I greeted her with a lighthearted "Hey, plague-bringer!" Big surprise, this was not received well and she glared at me and said, "That was NOT okay for you to say!" Of course I apologized immediately and profusely, but she was not having any of it. It was a joke. A bad joke to be sure, but a joke nonetheless. I was not trying to be mean or judgmental. That's apparently how I sounded though, and I felt like shit all day.* I wrote her a very nice apology which she will not receive now until next Tuesday when the kids are back in school, but I have done my best to make amends.

Then, this afternoon I decided to stop by the yarn store to drop off the bowl I made but kept forgetting to bring in for a display. When I got there I asked if the owner had had a chance to review the pattern that I wrote for my striped arm warmers. She asked me to write one up using a new yarn we are carrying, so I finished one arm warmer on Sunday at work and typed up the pattern. And, she told me it was exactly what she wanted, and-- get this!-- someone already bought the yarn and got the pattern. My pattern! Someone is knitting my design.

See-- I'm not all bad.

*I felt like shit until I found out that not only did she bring the kid to school (which is questionable enough under the circumstances) but she also brought a snack that she cooked (pasta) and not something like crackers in a sealed package.

What do accountants get paid?

Whatever it is, it probably isn't enough and is certainly more than the $0 I made after spending 8 hours today dealing with the money from the raffle/Halloween event. My money counting muscles hurt, the numbers stopped making sense around 3:00 and my hands will probably never come clean.

Good times.

Because it actually can get worse... or at least weirder

So, after my rotten day of rottenness, I decided to go to the grocery store alone. Should have been a pretty easy thing to do. So I get to the car and realize I don't have my 2 fold up reusable bags. I go back in the house and get them.

I get to the store. I toss them, along with my purse, in the cart. I shop. I get everything on the list. So far so good. I put everything on the conveyor belt.

But where are my bags? They are not in the cart. They are not in my purse. They are not mixed in with my groceries.

Okay, I think, it has been a rough day, maybe I just think I put them in the cart but they are sitting on the seat of my car. Stranger things have happened.

Stranger things have happened. Somebody stole my store brand reusable bags! They were not in the car. I wasn't crazy after all.

My wallet full of cash and credit cards with absurd lines of credit? Nope.
The boys' awesome space hat? Nah.
The keys to my car and house? Not so much.
But my banged up reusable bags? Score!

Metal or bamboo?

The knitting needles may have to become a weapon now that I have found out that a certain insane person in charge of a certain crazy event thinks I'm not doing anything even though I have wasted both of my free mornings this week doing shit for her. And I already have an hour tomorrow to look forward to as well as Monday morning. She's lucky I don't know the first thing about how to fire bomb a house.

The knitting is the only thing keeping me sane

I think the only way to make my life more hectic right now would be moving. So thank goodness I'm not doing that, even if there is a cardboard box in the background of the picture.

No, I'm just busy regretting ever joining the PTA or a cooperative preschool. And having wonderful, interesting children who feel the need to do things to make their lives more wonderful and interesting, like soccer and spelling team and such. Doesn't the world know I just want to wear my slippers and eat chocolate? Ha!

But I digress... I have gotten as far as I can get with my mystery sock until the next clue arrives on Thursday. Here is the cuff, with a background of sweet peas from Christine who brought a little Spring back to my life this early Fall:

The colors are 10x more intense than that, but I couldn't get them to photograph better. Think peacock. And I tried to photograph the (3rd) start of my top down raglan sweater, but it is not so impressive at this point, being gray and 3 inches long. (Insert joke here.)

Longest day

Today I:

• got up and helped hustle the boys out the door.
• wasted the hour and a half I had to myself doing laundry so Sebastian wouldn't have to go to school pantsless tomorrow.
• went to work.
• had Dorian dropped off at work where I somehow managed to keep him occupied and do my job for 4 hours.
• was hit on by a drunk man who also asked me if I sold anything alcoholic at a yarn store.
• came home for 5 minutes to find 2 messages from the school about how Sebastian thought Christine was picking him up at school instead of the bus stop like I told him 20 times and could I call them to let them know whether to put him on the bus. (No, I can't because now it is 4:50pm.)
• found out he was with Christine and had taken the bus like he was supposed to.
• went to the last of a series of parenting classes I've been attending where I could at least sit down and eat a pizza I didn't have to cook myself and have someone else watch the kids.
• brought the smelly boys home for a bath while I folded the laundry.
• read aloud another chapter in Ralph S. Mouse, a book that just isn't doing it for me but is almost done, thank god.
• put those kids to bed. (Fingers crossed that Sebastian actually sleeps after a cup of caffeinated root beer-- thank you very much, babysitters.)
• collapsed on the couch.

Good night.

After today, I should never have to do PTA again. Ever.

But y'all know I will, so let's not pretend. Basically, though, I went in for a tangentially related PTA experience from 9-9:30am and then went back to the school where I was in 3 consecutive meetings from 5:30-8:45pm. That is not an exaggeration, and I barely had time for the one pee break I took.

Overall, our first public meeting went well. We only went over by about 5 minutes and the attendees were positive and interested. So that was good.

The only dicey part came when one member of our board decided to not only accuse us all of not appreciating her enough, but also decided to imply that I personally would not be doing enough for the school if I chose not to help her with her fundraiser.

That's when I finally got to tell her what's what (in a mostly respectful way) and totally shut her down. My dear friend who is also the secretary told me I "toed the line" a little bit in the way I handled the situation, but whatever. She's just lucky I left my knitting needles at home.

Another school year begins...

And it is abundantly clear that I learned absolutely nothing last year. In the space of a half hour "Meet and Greet" I have embroiled myself in doing the healthy snack again and upping my puppet show quotient from 4 to 8. That is on top of the treasurer duties which keep piling up and doesn't include whatever chore I will be assigned by Dorian's cooperative preschool. And I decided to take a job in addition to this?!

Argh.

About 3 minutes after arriving at the lake on Monday, a certain friend of mine announced to the entire world that she was "not a patient mama today!" And despite her announcement, she totally was, but sometimes you just have to let everybody know how things stand.

Well, you know what? I am not a patient mama today. I'm not. I have screamed at the children several times for being, variously: rude, whiny, obnoxious, holier-than-thou, tiresome... you know, all the things I have been accused of being my whole life.

So far today I have had to put up with

• being woken up by Dorian screaming about all the miseries of life.
• finding out that during his sleepover, Sebastian and a girl friend of his were kissing in bed. (But it's okay because they are "in love").
• listening to complaints about what kind of sandwiches I had to offer for lunch and how Sebastian would not suffer the indignity of eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich.
• taking the kids to the pool for an hour (even though I was already pissed about their behavior) because we had made plans to meet someone else there.
• allowing the kids to have ice cream mainly because they had been promised it as part of the whole pool excursion, only to have them end the experience by screaming at each other about whether or not a tagger should continue to tag after tagging someone.
• listening to Dorian shriek about how he needed to hold a CD case that he had just handed to me of his own volition.

I almost left them on the side of the road. It was only my slight fear of police intervention and my greater fear of the vicious gossip mills in this town that prevented me. And to think that when someone asked me if I was looking forward to the start of school I said "no".

The waster

Well, we now have a diagnosis for Mr. Sickly McLieAbout-- Lyme disease.

When I took him to the doctor on Monday, I had to hold him down forcibly to have his blood drawn for a variety of tests. It was not one of the most pleasant parenting moments I've had, I assure you. Even when he was announcing to the 2 nurses and the lab technician that he was "postponing this! This is postponed!" and everyone was trying to stifle the snickers, it was not pleasant. Only with the promise of seeing the lab and the microscope, and the opportunity to run his own urinalysis, did he relent and allow a couple small vials to be filled.

The initial test indicated that his blood count was normal, so that was good-- no cancer. The inflammation test was high, but was a non-specific test so it couldn't explain the inflammation, only announce its presence. There was also a Lyme test being done, but only because it is summer, and not because he was really presenting with Lyme symptoms other than the exhaustion.

I received a call yesterday saying that if the Lyme test came back negative they might want to do a chest x-ray to rule out juvenile onset rheumatoid arthritis. Ugh! And then this morning we came home from soccer camp (Hey, he still wants to go every day. I'm not a terrible mother.) to a message from the doctor saying the Lyme results were "interesting".

Apparently, "interesting" means "positive" and now Sebastian will be taking 3 weeks of antibiotics. The weird thing is that I never saw his bulls eye rash until today after the diagnosis. Being the 6 and a half year old that he is, I no longer dress him, or wipe his butt, or spend a lot of time around his nakedness. But today I happened to come around the corner when he was seated on the toilet to see a round mark on his hip.

So now I guess I'll go read some frightening information on the Internet so I can feel less relieved that I at least know what the problem is.

A little perspective

You know how the farther away something is, the smaller it looks? Well, today I learned that goes for distances as well as objects. That raft I wanted to swim to, it sure didn't look like it was too far past the last set of ropes that cordon off the swimming area.

And then I decided to swim out there today. And it was totally one of those scenarios where you start to believe that the thing you are trying to reach is actually moving farther away even though it hasn't moved an inch. Couple that with my narrow escape from a panic attack and I was quite out of breath when I finally pulled myself up the ladder and flopped onto the raft.

You see, my water terror all started about 10 years ago. My brother's girlfriend at the time was working at a small aquarium on Chincoteague island (home of the wild ponies). Now, the Atlantic Ocean is pretty murky in those parts, but having swum there my whole life, it never occurred to me to be concerned. Not until I went into that aquarium which was stocked entirely with animals caught close to shore. Animals like seahorses (not scary) and rays (creepy) and sharks (small ones but scary anyway) among other things. I started that trip with the visit to the aquarium and ended it without going into the ocean past my waist for fear of being eaten alive or paralyzed or whisked off to some slimy, oxygen-free lair.

And then a couple of years later, Jeremy and I moved to Vermont, just down the road from a popular swimming hole at a disused quarry. Swimming there did not bother me, even though the water was pitch black and, as far as I knew, bottomless. It didn't bother me until the day that Jeremy and I began joking about releasing a fresh water giant squid* into the quarry. And despite the fact that this was a completely stupid idea that was a joke, when I got in and was pretty much smack dab in the middle of the water, I completely panicked and might have died. I couldn't touch anywhere (bottomless pit) and swam for the wrong side which was a slimy rock wall, impossible to climb without suction cup feet. I kept trying to tell myself that there was no squid, but became tortured by a story my brother told me about the northern pike, a fish he claimed to have seen swallow a duck whole. That story is probably a lie, but if it were true, a pike could certainly make short work of one of my feet, and that possibility was absolutely horrifying. Obviously, I lived to tell the tale and still have both of my feet, but things were pretty dicey there for a while.

I just can't swim where the bottom is black or murky or I lose my mind. Also, I am totally out of shape, which becomes quite worrisome when I am entirely out of my depth and the nearest lifeguard is a football field away and probably not paying any attention to me, which only leads to more panic when I realize that if my crazy squid theories are true, I would never be able to out-swim one. But, as we all know, the only thing I need saving from is myself.

*I don't think these exist, and if they do, please don't tell me about it.

I was almost going to whine...

But I won't. We all know you don't want to hear me drone on for the millionth time about too much volunteer work for school when we all know what the definition of the word "volunteer" is. So I promise I won't tell you that I'm in the middle of 8 days of volunteer overload which just had 2 more tasks piled into it. Mum's the word.

Instead, I'll give you the good news. The good news is that today the bill came for the sewer pipe (I know bills are not good news, just be patient) and if the insurance company holds up their end of the bargain, I will be paying about $1000 less than my original prediction. Can I get a "Hallelujah!" over here? It's still more than the $0 I would like to be spending, but it is no longer terrifying me.

If only I had some more flowers to take my mind off of things...

Thanks to the home colonoscopy that the plumber performed today (without drugs, mind you) I now know that our sewer pipe is broken 7 feet below the sidewalk. And, because I love hanging around the house waiting for workmen and having nothing to do but housework that I can't do with no water, I will get to hang around again all day tomorrow (4 days in a row!) while they excavate part of my yard, including taking down part of my beautiful fence (which, somewhat luckily, was not to blame for this problem, as was suspected). All this joy for the low, low price of a few thousand dollars!

Remember how I wished so long and hard that I owned my own home? Well, strangely enough, I'm still happy that I do. But I will be more careful in the future about mentioning how lucky I have been that everything has been less expensive than anticipated. (I am still thankful that it was, though, or we certainly couldn't afford this little disaster. And I'm not sure we can, but we'll have to.)

At least I'll have the shitty PTA meeting to distract me this evening. Nothing like a cat fight over who gets to be president next year to help you forget your blocked up pipes and your hemorrhaging savings...

Some pleasant distractions

Let's pretend for a moment while we look at the pretty flowers that that's all I need to think about, shall we? Rather than focus on the shit in my life, both literal (ie. sewage in the basement) and figurative (ie. paying for the removal of sewage from the basement), I will now try to enjoy the brief bit of 90 degree weather and the blooms that came with it. I suggest you do the same.

Just in case you're wondering...

...why I talked about doing fun stuff with my brother, but then the only picture on the boys' blog was of hanging out on the couch and the only picture on my blog was of me and a daiquiri, then you should go look over here at the pictures he took.

...how our fence looks, check it out:

(Yes, it is going straight through the quince bush.) (And yes, the kids like to climb on it as much as you imagine.)

...who did most of the interior decorating in this house, I have a new theory. Ed Gein. I noticed the affinity for peachy beige some time ago, but the dining room takes the cake. We started stripping the wallpaper, because there is no better time to use a wallpaper steamer than during a heat wave, and under the sallow plaid upper layer were several other layers in varying flesh tones. Your average drugstore make-up department has less skin colors than this place. Witness:

...what is more disgusting than the crusty scab covering Sebastian's nostrils after his week of noseblowing, you'll love this one. I went down cellar to turn on the outside water so the kids could run in the sprinkler, and I made a gruesome discovery. There was approximately 2 inches of water on the floor and it didn't smell good. So I asked Jeremy to flush the toilet so I could see what happened. I almost wish I hadn't. The waste water from the house is draining right into the basement. At least it should be covered by our home warranty.

More monkey wrenches than necessary

For months we have been planning a trip south to visit my grandmothers. Then Listmaker and Youthlarge decided to contribute 2 more people to the world whom I would love to meet, so they were added to our list of stops along the way. Then my brother decided to go to Puerto Rico and was removed from the list, only to be added again last week when he changed his mind. Finally, the itinerary was complete and all I needed to do was pack.

Well, now my mother is proclaiming 3 days of rain, and the children spent the night coughing. I spent the day in total denial, pretending it was just allergies bugging the boys. No such luck. Sebastian is a pale, lethargic bundle and Dorian is a weepy eyed sniffler.* Only tomorrow morning will tell whether we should make the trip and infect newborns and the elderly up and down the east coast.

At least at school today I got to see the awesomest variety show finale ever.

*Do not fret, Listmaker. I will not endanger those little peanuts.

If it's not one thing, it's another... or both

So, my car sits in the driveway waiting to go to the dealership to determine (and hopefully fix) the cause of the moaning and groaning sound it was making on Wednesday. And then last night the computer went all wackadoo and would show our wallpaper but nothing else. No task bar, no icons, no nothing.

Lucky for us, Mr. Flapdoodle came with the rest of the flappers +1 and did his best to fix things. Clearly, I am using it now. But I don't know how long this will last. So if we all mysteriously disappear from the interwebs, you know why.