Sigh. Things I'd rather not discuss here. I think you now know what all of them are. Yay e-mail.

In housing-related news, my chimney needs to re-lined, reparged (I had to look that one up), re-pointed, new flue, new damper, new cemeent cap on top. And a partridge in a pear tree, total cost $2,400. Guess we won't have fires in the fireplace this winter -- I won't be able to afford that much until sometime next summer, probably.

And I spent the weekend having the worst menstrual cramps I've had in 15 years. And stomach issues. And today my back is doing its darndest to start spasmining. I'm telling it to knock it off, but it's only sort of listening.

And my ibuprofen is with my car, which is in the shop. Because it's making Bad Noises. Because I drive it 1,000 miles every two weeks. I'm starting to actually recognize what Bad Noises mean which things. HoFS and I hypothesized a bad CV joint this time. That's going to be pricy.

Why is it that I'm the only person on the planet for whom the global economy does -not- mean a slowdown in spending??? Sigh.

And DD has a cold. And she licked me on the nose this morning. Now I'm going to get her cold.

"It was a terrible, horrible, very day day. My mom says sometimes those happen. Even in Australia."

quote:

My mom says sometimes those happen. Even in Australia

And I'm living proof!
Hope things get better...

Things are indeed somewhat better. I don't have DD's cold yet, my back is less painful, the car ended up costing less than I thought it would, and it's a lovely autumn day here.

Now if the chimney guy would only get here to give me the second estimate, all would be well.

I am dealing with a Parenting Coordinator and attorney who put value in being "nice." It is a difficult adjustment to make, particularly when I've spent the last six years learning to stand up for myself.

In the most recent example, the parenting coordinator tried to get me to give up every Saturday morning without any compensation because DD would "just be in Torah School where no one can interact with her." Of course, that's not actually true in DD's Torah School, which is on Saturdays specifically TO get parents to interact with their kids (and oh by the way also go to services) and participate in their kids' Judaism.

I firmly declined, including declining to give up the half hour between transition time and Torah School.

My ex decided to unilaterally do it anyway. Informed me at 9pm Friday night. Transition was supposed to be 9am the next morning.

So rather than ranting at her for breaking agreements, they ranted at ME because I appeared to be putting the power struggle with my ex over DD's best interests.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how my ex yanking DD out of her normal routine, denying me access to her, and creating one hell of a mess is in DD's best interests and saying "oh no you don't" isn't.

As you might imagine, my confidence in their ability to get me through to any kind of rational resolution of conflict is essentially zero at this point.

Oh, and the tentative solution? Transition at 9:15 at the synagogue. My ex and her husband are to back out and not participate in Torah School on days when DD is with me. In return, HoFS and I don't intrude on their worship space unnecessarily. We'll see how that goes. And I'm to continue "being nice."

What was I supposed to do, instead of standing up for the agreement and saying that no, I'm not going to let my ex make unilateral decisions? I am supposed to sit back, let her do whatever it is she wants to do, and then get the Parenting Coordinator and the attorneys involved to "resolve" the issue.

So I asked what exactly they would do to resolve it.

From the attorney: "I would write a letter to ex's attorney."

From the Parenting Coordinator: "Then we take that into account for the next time we try to figure things out. If it doesn't work, then we go back to the drawing board and figure out something that does."

Uhhhh. Right. And how does "nice" help, exactly?

It's been a difficult couple of weeks. I had a lot of extra bleeding with my most recent period. Since I wasn't pregnant, the question becomes why. So they did a sonogram. No fibroids, polyps, or lesions. And then there was something called an endometrial biopsy. From an American Family Physician article about it: "The tenaculum is placed on the anterior lip of the cervix, grabbing enough tissue that the cervix will not lacerate when traction is applied." Apparently the nurse midwife didn't read that part of the article. Luckily, liberal application of sodium nitrate stops bleeding even when, "Jesus, I've hit the aorta through the cervix!" Uhm. Great, thanks. Just what I wanted to hear.

And then there's this part, "Intraoperative and postoperative cramping frequently accompany instrumentation of the uterine cavity."



It was not a good morning.

That was Thursday. I'm still waiting for the test results.

Today, three of my colleagues got the news that they've been laid off. Three doesn't seem like many. But all three were on my team and that hurts.

I've met lots of people at this agency. I like them. And it's my favorite of all the federal agencies, one of the few I'm happy to pay taxes to support. My team members have made our support possible and real, and they've worked really hard, without always getting much acknowledgment, for the extraordinary efforts they've made.

So does everyone else at my company. It's a small company. Three people out of, hmm, 50? Something like that.

It's hard to accept, even as I realize that in the larger context of the entire company, it made sense.

Tomorrow I take two new team members to meet the client teams they'll be working with. And I talk to a third colleague about her new assignment. We'll do those introductions on Friday or Monday.

Hard stuff.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Just J_SYMC,

Oh. And I forgot to mention that my car died. Or was killed, depending on how you look at it. Suffice it to say that it needed $2,400 in repairs to fix the damage the garage did when they did a $400 job for me.

They said that if I didn't have it all repaired, there was a real risk that one of my tires would snap and fall off.

I drive at 72 miles per hour on the PA Turnpike. A tire coming off at that speed would be the death of me.

I'd had way too many problems with this car already -- and having a dealership and a garage screaming about each other to me was really a deal-breaker.

So now I am feeling much, much poorer. There wasn't the money anywhere in the budget for it. But that's what the emergency fund is for, I guess.

And I have a 2009 Honda Civic that has a warranty. And side-curtain airbags, and rear airbags. And I feel much, much safer on the PA turnpike.

My goodness. What a week. Weeks like that who needs.... er.... years?
All the best with it JustJ! Yikes...

quote:

Originally posted by mags:
My goodness. What a week. Weeks like that who needs.... er.... years?
All the best with it JustJ! Yikes...

LOL! Weeks? I told J last night that with all the wedding planning, car electrical problems, etc., this stuff has been going on since at least May!

HoFS

Sheesh!

I think one of two things has happened. Either I've gotten used to being this freaking busy and having this many odd and unusual things happen....

Or I'm so darned tired that I no longer notice.

Just at the moment, I'm leaning toward tired, but then again it's been a long day. Here's a summary of how an average day looks:

6:50 alarm goes off. DD wants to cuddle, I know we need to get up and get our day going.

7:30 DD is downstairs eating breakfast and I'm heading for a shower.

8:10 Out the door to the bus stop.

8:30 Back to the house. Call a client about the new team members, talk for ten minutes. Call a colleague about her new assignment. E-mail two colleagues about a challenging assignment. Update the corporate stock records to reflect this year's stock bonuses. File 50 or 60 e-mails so I can see what's left to do.

9:25 Bathroom break.

9:30 Conference call with two clients regarding an executive level retreat that they want me to facilitate. Sidetrack into a data analysis and discover that one of them has a tool that will vastly improve the analysis and make it much less time-intensive. Get back on track and start planning the retreat in detail, complete with disagreements on content, number of people involved, and focus. I end up with all the assignments out of the meeting; that's what consultants are for, you know. Sweep the floor while I'm on the phone, try not to send e-mails.

10:25: Off the phone. Collect snacks for later this afternoon, answer several more e-mails.

10:45: Head for campus, walking. My exercise for the day.

11:00: Arrive for my meeting, but discover that the client has been delayed by a late-running staff meeting. While waiting, another person comes by and claims that it's impossible to implement a system in which they have adequate supplies to mitigate emergencies within the time frames that they're required to perform under. I introduce the concepts of supply requirements analysis, long lead time supplies, and basic inventory and stockage levels. He's never heard of any of it. I suggest he talk to the supply contractor they've just hired. One of their employees happens to walk by. He calls her in. I explain what we're talking about. She looks at him like he has three heads. "Uh, yeah. That's what we're doing." And then she proceeds to explain how the work she's done in the last few weeks is exactly what I'm telling him he needs. Problem solved.

11:30: The person we're supposed to meet with arrives. We update her on what we're doing for her. She's pleased. We suggest other things that need to be done. She agrees. She excuses my (young) colleague and asks me about some difficult personnel situations in her office, after asking me about my personal situation and why I go to Ohio so often.

12:20: Finish discussion. Head off to find some lunch. Talk to HoFS for 10 minutes on the way.

12:40: Finally have food in hand and a quiet place to sit. Busy cafeteria.

12:50: Off to my next meeting. Bathroom stop, ran into someone I've worked with who has been an ally and good colleague. She said we should do lunch. I agreed. Off I went to the next meeting.

1:00pm: Introductions of our new team members, discussion of how the project will go, schedule discussion, then into the work. My colleagues are true professionals and it was a pleasure to sit back and watch them work.

2:00: Left the meeting feeling reassured that all will go well there. Walked back home, the rest of my exercise for the day.

2:20: Back at the computer, checking e-mail and answering questions from colleagues. Talk to two colleagues on the phone to go over specific questions they have.

2:50: Change out of work clothes and bathroom break.

2:58: Drive to DD's school.

3:05: Pick up DD, hand her a snack, chat about her day a bit.

3:20: Pick up DD's friend from his after-care program. Bathroom break for both of them, then back into the car. Break out the snacks for them, discover neither of them wants the snacks I've brought. Manage to instigate a milk-drinking contest before we arrive at...

3:50: The aquatics center. Get DD changed for swimming and into her class, on time for the first time in three weeks and early for the first time ever.

4:10: Swimming class begins. DD's friend and I go upstairs. He makes paperclip chains and has more snacks while I talk to HoFS, watch DD, and interact with her friend.

4:40: Time for DD's shower, crying about being cold, drying off, getting dressed, drying hair, and going back outside.

5:05: Venus is utterly beautiful.

5:10: The pizza guys say they won't be able to deliver our pizza for more than an hour. I decide to pick it up.

6:05: Arrive at home with pizza. DD's friend's mom is waiting for us there. I should have let them deliver it. The kids are incoherent with hunger.

6:08: We are eating dinner.

6:30: Dinner's heading toward done. I'm cleaning up and getting out the ice cream for dessert.

6:55: DD's friend heads home with his mom.

7:10: We're headed upstairs to bed. Coffee is made. Breakfast is ready to go. Lunches are made.

7:30: Teeth brushed, pajamas on, talked to Mommy, picked out clothes for tomorrow, read stories, cuddled into bed.

8:00: I wake up and climb out of DD's bed.

8:15: Garbage cans are back at the house. Leaf blower and HoFS' computer, which I forgot to put in his van, are in my car ready to go back to Ohio.

8:30: Computer is on and HoFS is in my ear. Not much talking. I answer work e-mails, try to think of the next things to schedule.

9:00: HoFS asks what bedtime is, I say soon. He works on getting his kids' evening routines done. I read a NE Journal of Medicine article on the difficulties of advancing basic, translational, and clinical biomedical research. And a blog about citation frequencies in the sciences before and after open access came into being.

9:30: HoFS asks if it's soon yet. I mumble. He finishes getting his kids going and does his own computer stuff. I read AR 710-2, the Army's regulation on supply functions. I also read NY Times article on the bond market and SYMC postings about infidelity past, present, and future. I review the Dow Jones Industrial Average charts for the last 100 years.

10:30: "You're not going to bed soon, are you." Oh dear.

10:49: Time to turn off the computer. Good night, everyone. The race starts again at 6:50 tomorrow morning.

And I still need to pack to go to HoFS' tomorrow. And there was something about a winter storm warning...

Whew, I'm tired just reading all that JustJ.

As my boss said to me in an e-mail today..."Jumping Jehosaphat!" I always wondered how to speall Jehosaphat....and now I wonder where that phrase came from. I think it came from schedules like yours.

BTW - I reviewed the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. today too...although I only went back to 1970. Yikes, eh?

Gee J..

I think my day goes something like this.

7:15: wake up and do things
8:30: be at work and do things
12:00: go to lunch and eat things
12:30: run office errands
1:00: get back to office and do things
5:00: go home and do lots and lots and lots of things
11:30: fall into bed and hopefully asleep by 12:00

Now when I had 3 little girls and all of them in different schools plus commuting an hr each way to schools, work and home.. now that was another story. I don't miss those days..not one itty bitty bit.



Loui

No news on the medical tests, which I was told to take as good news. Confirmation (sorry guys, this may be TMI) through the fact that this period was entirely normal. As I told them at the time, "It's the hormones, not some structural problem!" So now we wait until the next time I have troubles and then they'll try to figure it out again. I'm also going to try to stick to my hormone regimen like glue. I'm sometimes more lazy with it than I should be, I think.

In the meantime, we had Thanksgiving. I've been working tremendously long hours and did not feel particularly prepared, but did manage to do the grocery shopping on Monday night. Everything else waited until Thursday. Which is unfortunate, because HoFS, his middle son, and I all got dreadfully sick at about the same time. They had stomach stuff and fever, I got the cough. My stomach was briefly off (but not -nearly- so bad as them) and HoFS started coughing. Wednesday night he was driving with a fever and I was cleaning with one, too.

Thursday morning, he got up with DD and let me sleep for three hours. I think that's why I got healthy faster and he stayed sick. There was coughing and coughing and coughing -- and there is still way the heck too much coughing. The wheeze part is particularly unpleasant. Crud in the lungs, that. But we are both improving, though I suspect HoFS has fever again tonight. His energy has dropped through the floor since about 3pm.

The rest of the weekend was similar. I slept anywhere I could get myself propped up enough to not cough. Friday morning DD got me up at 5:45. She danced and twirled and chatted for a while, and finally at 6:30 I agreed to go downstairs. I fell asleep on the couch while she watched TV. I think that's the first time that's ever happened. At least HoFS got to sleep for three or four more hours, though he wasn't sleeping well.

Saturday night I ended up on the couch at midnight and DD climbed in with me at 4:40. At least that time we both went back to sleep.

We did manage to do a few things. Saw DD's great-aunt and various cousins, which was nice. DD hadn't met the cousins before. And we got the tree and the lawn mower. Those were things I really needed an additional adult to help with. Oh, and the boys and DD were -really- helpful getting most of the leaves out to the street before they picked them up. I'd never seen the leaf-collection guys out on a Saturday, and had thought they'd come on Monday. We got a LOT of leaves down to the street in 15 minutes of hard work.

The turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and all the fixings were, of course, awesome. HoFS and his boys are excellent cooks. (Yes, I did like the sausage stuffing. Don't tell my arteries, please!)

Sunday afternoon DD went off to my ex's family and HoFS and the boys went back to Ohio. They had one of the -worst- drives. Rain combined with heavy traffic. I think they were driving for 8.5 hours, which is just torture when you're the only one driving.

I'd planned to work some after everyone left, but was still too sick to really be able to concentrate. I've been paying for that "slacking" this week, though. I worked until after midnight last night, and tonight I just finished writing notes from a meeting last week, and still have several things I ought to do. I think I better give it up at this point, though. I started working again at 7:30 this morning, worked until I picked DD up at 3 (even lunch was a meeting!), and then have been working for something close to 2 hours tonight.

DD and I have been managing to decorate the tree in the afternoons after she gets home, though. It's amazing how much more help she is now compared to a year ago. Then again, she was still taking afternoon naps a year ago, so I worked then rather than after she was in bed at night.

It's really interesting how much DD's days (and mine) have changed since she started kindergarten. Whole days (well, until 3) instead of half days, and her bedtime is two hours earlier. She doesn't get a three hour nap, though she probably could still use some kind of nap. By 6:30pm, she's babbling-incoherent she's so tired. We originally had her school night bedtime set for 8:30, but almost immediately changed it to 7:30. She sometimes wakes up really early even when no one's coughing (the other day she woke up at 5:45 and, when questioned, said that her stuffed animals were making noises and woke her up), but more often she'll sleep until 7 or after.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit -- six hours is not enough sleep for me. So there will be no more work tonight and I'll pick it up again tomorrow morning. Yay, work!

Weekend summary:

HoFS is still very sick. Ten days with fever and a cough is -way- too long. And how the youngest is sick too, dang it.

The septic tank backed up and flooded the basement bathroom with raw sewage.

Phlegm, fever, and poop. For this, I drive 730 miles every other weekend. Yes, I -do- love them. And they do the same for me.

J, at least no one was throwing up.

Today's summary: Jury duty. *sigh* At least it's a change of pace, I guess, but it sure is interesting arranging for child care when you don't know what time you'll get home. I did manage to beg not to be put on the 10-day trial.

Our first Christmas as husband and wife. Merry Christmas. I love you. See you soon.

your HoFS

It was a good visit, love. A little more quiet time for just us, to continue our conversation, would be good. But even with such a busy time, I really enjoyed it.

It's been a good while since I wrote anything on this thread. It's been a busy time in ways that are unremarkable, but still time-consuming. I write reports and do analyses. I spend time with DD, who is having a terrible time right now (sleepless, stressed, and recurrent colds from her little brother). I spend time with HoFS, who is amazingly understanding about all the other demands on my time.

He and I got three whole days together with no one else around over New Year's. It. Was. WONDERFUL.

He had to drive many times over the last month, and I really appreciated it. I almost feel as though I paid for it this last weekend, though, particularly on the way back.

I first heard there were difficulties right before I left the PA turnpike at about 5pm. My brother was a big help getting me information -- he and HoFS looked it all up on the Internet for me. There was a bad accident on I-70 a few miles north of Frederick yesterday. There was a sudden snow squall and 40 vehicles couldn't stop. It was a westbound accident, but they closed the freeway both ways for several hours. Westbound was closed from 12:30pm to 11pm.

Worse than that, though, eastbound was closed for something like 5 hours -- and they closed I-70 at the Maryland-Pennsylvania border for several hours to prevent more people from going into the area. That really limited my options.

I briefly tried I-70 because the toll booth operator where I left the Pennsylvania Turnpike said it was actually open, but made it only about a mile out of Breezewood before coming to an almost complete stop.

I turned around (took a while) and we went back and had supper. I took long enough to get DD nice and calm (it's a good thing I've been through there enough time to know where the quiet restaurants are), had to go to the bathroom, and put her pajamas on. We left there about 7:30 and she fell right to sleep.

And then HoFS and I conferred. I had to figure out how to go around a mountainous area about 70 miles wide and 50 miles long to get from Breezewood to Frederick without using I-70. I ended up, after he talked me through the latest updates he could find, taking US-30 over to US-15 at Gettysburg, which goes down to Frederick. I'd thought about taking I-76 over to Mechanicsburg, but by the time I thought about doing that, there was an accident that closed I-76 as well.

US-30 is a fairly slow road -- it climbs up and over the Blue Ridge and goes through several small towns:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=...+pa&ie=UTF8&t=p&z=10

That spot labeled "Big Mountain" is quite exciting. I'd like to see the view during the day at some point. The trip across that part of PA took close to two hours, and then it was another hour to get from Gettysburg to my house.

All told, the trip took 11 hours. Not something I wanted to do with a 6yo in the car with me, even if she did sleep for 4.5 of those hours.

The weekend itself was just as tiring. See above regarding DD not sleeping. We were up about a hundred times in the last three nights. I was glad to get home. And am glad to be staying home for a few days now.