What Struck Me

It rained overnight, then pretty much stopped by 9am. The winds were pretty strong, but not too bad. Nevertheless, the powers that be in charge of rec soccer and hockey cancelled everything, so Tim & Nick have been home all day.

Andy got himself on a new bowling team, I think a much better situation. Yay.

And the plumbers came and finished installing the bathroom fixtures!!!!!!!! We have a toilet! And a sink! And a shower head! Pat still needs to install the bar for the shower head, and the shower doors, but by Monday we should be in bidness. Guess I should go get the shelves, towel bars, tp holder, and new fluffy towels. I’ll post the pics, don’t worry. Can you believe it? We finally have two bathrooms again after 10 months!

I’ve been so busy but it’s been very cool to be so busy. Yesterday I didn’t stop until after midnight. Much of it was for other people- scout stuff, pto stuff, getting the kids to and fro and getting their lives properly scheduled. I was emailing and on the phone when I wasn’t in the car. Thankfully I did have a nice lunch with my loving husband, that broke up the day nicely. But then last night I installed MS Office, not realizing the installation of Outlook would completely wipe out Outlook Express and all my settings for my gazillion email accounts (yes, I’ve been consolidating but I’m not there yet!) Of course I was able to import all my saved stuff, but I had to set up all my accounts again, and a few didn’t want to send outgoing mail, and I had to finagle that a bit to get it working. Ended up sitting here much later than I should have, especially considering I’ve been feeling physically icky for a week or so. And since I was up so late I couldn’t take advantage of Jon Stewart (oooh) who typically lulls me to sleep just as the timer shuts the TV off. So I slept lousy again last night.
(more…)

being a mom = being clueless. Even when I’m pretty sure I have more clues than some other moms. But damn I wish someone would write a user manual covering all age groups including only the absolutely correct answer to every potential question, big, small, and those that appear small but turn out to be big.

It was supposed to be an early start to the school year. All three were due to start before Labor Day.

11 days later they’re finally all gone!

Too bad I have so much I need to do and no time to just sit back and eat them bonbons :roll:.

Tomorrow, of course, is September 11th. While there remains controversy* on how the day should properly be spent, our plans are as follows:

• 9am - drop Andy off at the bowling alley for the first day of his bowling league
• 11am - drop Nick off at the local deli where he’ll be stationed selling popcorn with his Boy Scout troop
• 11am - go to hockey rink with Tim for pre-season meeting of his roller hockey team
• 11am - 1pm - Pat goes to Rec Day activity to man a table with Cub Scout information and invite people to the Cub Scout picnic
• 12noon - 4pm - Annie goes to Cub Scout Picnic with Tim to help provide information to new families
• somewhere between 11:30-12:30 Pat picks up Andy at the bowling alley, brings him home
• around 1pm Pat picks up Nick at the deli, and then both Pat and Nick come to Cub Scout picnic
• 5pm - attend birthday party for the son of our friends, who decided he deserved a happy day on his birthday despite the fact that it’s also a day to remember a tragedy

The weather should be as glorious tomorrow as it was 3 years ago…

* this is taking place in my hometown. I understand the mother of another victim from this town has taken out a full page ad in the local paper wishing everyone a wonderful Ramsey Day.

:neutral: I guess I’m stressed. I mean, I know I am, but for some reason I’m surprised by this. Everything seems to be going along just fine (except for The Teen That Would Not Leave still not back at school.) The younger’uns are happy at school, the husband is happy at work, I’ve got work to do on three different fronts besides the home one (all volunteer, of course…)

Maybe that’s it? Maybe it’s that part of me feels like I really should start bringing in a paycheck, even though we don’t really need the money (and yes, I realize how fortunate we are and have always been.) I’ve been happily bopping along here as a SAHM for a decade and a half, and it’s been absolutely wonderful, for all of us (even the kids who complain that our house doesn’t have an elevator like that other family and other kids have way more stuff because they have two of everything, one at mom’s house and one at dad’s house :blink:.) I know that if I go back to work now the bottom line will improve, but I also know that the chaos will increase. And my life is all about decreasing the chaos. I absolutely want to be here when the youngest kidlet gets off the bus, so that means I have to be home by 3:45. I’ve talked about substitute teaching before, and I’m still considering it, but something is holding me back from taking the next step. Maybe it’s just that in my heart I like being a SAHM, and I’m not ready to switch careers just yet.

Well, whatever it is that’s stressing me out, my body is objecting. I’ve got a bunch of small yet annoying symptoms. I won’t go into them here, no need to make this a TMI blog entry (not today, anyway), but trust me, annoying is the word. And my energy level is hovering near, oh, 2 on a scale of 1 - 10. I didn’t have any major plans for today anyway, but I’m not even doing the little things. I mean, I’m really good at avoiding housework, but this isn’t that. I’m just pooped.

Maybe I just have a viral thing and I should let myself be mopey and blah for a day and it will pass. I think I’ll try that and let you know how it goes.

Andy still isn’t back to school. Originally he was supposed to go back last week like his brothers, but they’re doing construction on the school and couldn’t open on time. We were told school would begin Sept. 8th. Then a week ago we were told school should begin on the 8th, but call the school the day before just to be sure. Finally just before 8pm last night word came down, no school. The electrical inspector wouldn’t give the go ahead. Now they’re supposed to go back tomorrow. Or maybe Friday.

Andy thinks I just want him out of the house. And he’s right. But not for the reasons he thinks. He’ll get it someday…