If ever there was a weekend that deserved to be one hour shorter, that was it. I'm normally not a fan of Spring Forward (though I like the afternoon light once the jet lag is over with) but this past weekend? Good riddance, extra hour.
Y'all knew it was coming when I played nurse advice line in the comments last Thursday, right? Pride goeth before a whine. Snuggly Girl had a headache when I picked her up at after-school. I paid an outrageous amount for a small bottle of advil (oh, yes, that's why carrying a purse pays off) but ignored my own advice about giving her two pills. Ignored. My. Own. Advice. Because I'm just that optimistic.
It was pretty clear she wasn't going to be up for the rest of the evening's schedule, so we hunkered down in our favorite diner until My Love could pick us up. It still didn't occur to me to slip her a second pill. For the record, when you give half the dose you shoulda used, it can take up to 2 hours to have any effect. Also, the eight year old version of bursting into song? Bouncing off the couch and asking for the Lego she hasn't touched in a year. Still cute, but takes up more floor space.
Friday morning she woke up early with a fever and sore throat and no interest in swallowing pills (more comeupance), but in my blessed procrastination I had never managed to give away that last sealed bottle of liquid advil, thank goodness. Thus followed two days of alternating pain killers, with a brief, stupid break Friday afternoon which of course led to rising fever, a 90 minute nap in my lap in the late afternoon (anti-whine, HP7 in my hands), and failure to fall asleep until late that night. Saturday I was pushing pills like I was profiting from it to avoid making that mistake again.
I spent those two days mostly in my pajamas, feeling like I too would be sicker at any moment. My Love held out until Sunday and then started mumbling about Asprin and expiration dates. Neither of us got as sick as SG, though.
Anti-whines: Her sore throat dissipated and never came back, so virus not strep. And she was well enough on Sunday to go to the Purim carnival. The only thing worse than a sick kid is a sick kid who is Pissed Off that she is missing a fun event.
Your turn! Share your tales of woe, time-change inflicted or not. I'm guess Liz has some good moving whines and also has a bunch of ideas about what more she might have packed in that extra hour.
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Things I could have packed (and so am moving myself this week):
4 Printers. Why 4 you ask? Because one is a color copier, one is a speedy-gonzales laser, one is a photo printer, and one is a fax machine/printer/copier.
Food.
Stereo/TV/PS2/Wiiiiiiiiii!
MM's computer
Pots n pans
Steamer
Coffee maker (sweet, sweet coffee maker, how I love thee)
Our bicycles and MM's scooter
Wall art.
Anti-whine: MM loves the new house.
Anti-whine the second: MM's skating lessons are the cutest thing since he first rode a bicycle.
Sorry So Accurate.
But skating lessons :-) When SG learned, the first 20 minutes was "how to get back up." They had them fall down on purpose and get back up, over and over. Makes the rest of the lessons easier once they have that skill down.
Anti-whine: I met with my new Occupational Therapist today. She is lovely and very smart. She's British and sounds EXACTLY like Mary Poppins. Just sayin... I think I'm going to heart her plenty.
Whine: After an hour with her, she said, "You're not thinking of going back to work full time soon are you?"
"Um, I was thinking about it...." I said.
"Well, you are absolutely NOT ready, dear girl. No way."
Sigh.
She's right. I'm not ready yet. Damn it all anyway.
Good luck with the move Liz.
Sorry about SG Madeleine - that sucks. Sending good health vibes your way.
{Sue} Sorry to hear you aren't in the shape you wish you were in. Thank heavens for a supportive, honest OT, though.
Sue, I will paraphrase Carrie Fisher's character in "When Harry Met Sally"
"She's right, she's right. You know she's right."
So take the advice she's giving you!
madeleine -- glad SG is better! hope you and your love are as well.
liz, you amazing woman -- i wouldn't even be coherent so soon after a move, but here you are, tying up the loose ends! wonderful about MM's skating, and love of the new house.
sue -- sounds like you are getting just the right spoonful of advice. ;)
on to the whines: i am going to shoot my computer [or i would if i believed in firearms], but it is probably going to kill me first. besides which, we cannot have the final showdown until i've saved all my special stuff, of which there is too much to fit on disks.
we have issues in this relationship, and i primarily blame vista, although it is certainly possible that my failure to be a computer genius has some role. i also hate my anti-virus, which scans constantly, stopping other work, and then just stops scanning but keeps spinning, and then it admonishes me several times a day that a full scan has not been completed in some time. no shit. and etc. my backup drive is completely full, and i can't make the computer delete full backups from, say, 2007 to make space. we are at war.
i spent 3 hours hand-selecting document folders and files to save, because of too many documents to do in one fell swoop; that ended up being 2 sooper disks. photos? ha. they cannot fit on one disk and i now need to go find some more reasonable storage method before the final showdown with my idiot computer.
in antiwhines, son is now working 4 days a week! daughter is doing better! my GS cookies arrived!
W/AW combo: i think i'm edging toward my dream of menopause! but dudes, the other night, i got night sweats four [4] times, every 1.5 hours all night, leading me to toss blankets and cats all over the place.
Mullet award nominee: kathy a. for "...leading me to toss blankets and cats all over the place."
Makes me giggle...
And that's definitely worth something!!
--Neighbor Lady
In over 3 years at my company, I have never once been expected to wear anything other than jeans to work. Tomorrow? Dress pants - no jeans allowed - only because some exec is coming to visit. 99% chance I will never even see him. But the only dress pants I own didn't even fit pre-pregnancy (though oddly now I can zip them when I couldn't before - they are still way.too.tight).
I think I have a pair of maternity dress pants that might work if I wear a shirt long enough to cover the top. The baby is one year old, but I am desperate and I refuse to buy a pair of pants to wear for one day.
JenR: have you got any nice (ie: not stained with baby fluids) black yoga pants? If you wear a black boot underneath and a dressy shirt to cover the waist band, you'll look perfect.
Ask me how I know. Go on, ask me.
dresses are more forgiving than pants, if you have any handy -- even a sundress can be presentable with a sweater/jacket and tights. [i like tights. nobody can tell if you shaved.] YMMV.
but the maternity pants sound handy and workable with something long over. sending virtual safety pins as needed.
Kathy a - been there, done that, including the tossing of the cats. But it is nice once it's all done. I very rarely have the sweats anymore and I haven't menstruated in almost two years!!!
JenR - I would go with the long top and yoga pants (minus spit-up if possible, if not, meh - whatever).
Thanks all you supportive pixies. I know that my OT (Mary Poppins) gave me a spoon full of good advice. Now if she could just convince the insurance company....they are the only ones putting any pressure on me at this point. Well, and me. I'm putting a good bit of pressure on myself because the one year point is coming up. I'm not sure why that matters, but it does.
Anti-whine: MAJOR Anti-whine: We bought a NEW CAR!!! today. We've been driving a 94 rusted out mini-van for so long I thought I would be buried with it, but last week we just came across a deal that was too good to turn down.
The best part - hubby can transfer in and out of it so much easier than he could with the van. I no longer have to lift him into the passenger seat - he will be able to do that himself. Yay independence!!!
The best part - it's blue. "Moonlight Blue" to be exact. Blue. ***claps hands together***
Warning: Whine of Great Length. After vomiting all day long, Wren had her first ER visit last Wednesday night. After I couldn't rouse her for love or nursing all day Thursday, she had her second. Then they admitted her. "Meningitis" and "Intussusception" were mentioned, and a lumbar was puctured. Turned out to be Rotavirus. She and I spent a few days getting reacquainted with TV and learning to fear anyone in scrubs (well, that last was just her), and came home Sunday. It's damn near impossible to get her to take in all the fluids she needs, but at least the diarrhea seems to have slowed down today.
Antiwhine: Robin seems to have ducked this one with just a fever and a rash.
Whine: I started throwing up this morning.
I think I will be using up all of my sick days on this one illness.
oh my fireplacing holy heck -- uccellina, you did not yet whine nearly long enough! this is definitely prize-worthy, and i wish i had anything to send you besides HUGE hugs and admiration and very very good wishes that this all clears up now. xoxoxo
Oh Uccellina, that's just awful! I'm so sorry that all of you had to go through that. Sending large buckets of get well vibes.
Uccellina, that is just heinous. I hope you all get better, stat.
Whine: Two Day Meeting with Really Big Vote. Exhausting. And Big Vote ended in a tie, quite disappointing. And then Hubby had to go to his own two day meeting, which means All Mama, All the Time. Whew.
Whine: And we're waiting on pins and needles for the possible moving information. I'm tired of pins and needles, just tell us one way or the other. Liz has my deepest sympathies.
I'm feeling quite whiny, which is largely due to tiredness, I think. So did I go to bed early last night, when Hubby was gone and the Sweet Baboo went to sleep at 6:30 pm? Nope, stayed up and read a trashy novel. Which was fulfilling in its own way, but didn't help in the tired department.
Aah. I feel better now.
Serious Whine Here.
Bloglines just switched my subscription to the icanhascheezeburger feed of Lolcats. First to "cheeseburger network" which was both loldogs and lolcats, and then to "Ihasahotdog.com" which is only loldogs.
I do not find loldogs nearly as funny as lolcats. For some reason, dog people don't caption pictures as cutely. Or maybe its that dogs aren't as flexible and don't bend into as many hilarious positions. Whatever it is, I am deeply disappointed to find the feed to Icanhascheezeburger nonfunctional!
See? IMPORTANT VITAL STUFF!!
Oh, Sara. Poor dear. Moment of silence for the lolcats.
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esperanza, so sorry about teh tired. And how can a Really Big Vote end in a tie? Couldn't they bring in Joe Biden to cast the deciding vote?
Uccellina, so sorry you and Wren went through the Roto-ick. We've got a sick-kiddo trend going. I hope no one else gets sucked into the vortex. (At your house, of course, but the rest of the pixies too!)
Sue, thank you for Doing Your Part for the Economy. Also, hooray for independent transfers for your hubby. That's great!
JenR, I bet your New Mom glow was so strong that no one noticed what you were wearing. We can dream, right?
kathy a., external hard drives are pretty cheap these days. Can you run out and buy a chunk of relief storage? Costco near me has them, if you are a devotee or know someone who is.
Whine: I'm on zero sleep today with a metric butt load of work to do. Insurance people are on my back about my "stalled" gradual return to work. You know how some days you just want to say fireplace it and walk away....??? Well, today feels like one of those days.
Le Wah.
Sue, sorry this morning feels so wrong. Can you get a letter from your new OT for the insurance jerks?
I've left a few messages with the insurance jerks. So far, no one has called me back. I'll be okay. It's just a rough morning. Still..bleh.
sara, that's just hideous!
esperanza, best with the all-mama parenting, and crossing fingers about the pins and needles.
sue, congrats on the lovely BLUE car, featuring easy transfers and NO disappearing rust chunks! sorry about the bad start to the morning. can you get something in writing from OT and fax it to the insurance folks?
madeleine, i scooted out yesterday and got the cutest most efficient and elegant and portable external drive! so, if there is a wildfire or earthquake, or i have to throw my stupid desktop and its fireplacing vista off a cliff, i can just tuck this baby into my purse and rest easy.
kathy a., that is most excellent. I hope you and your new external drive have a long and lovely friendship. And yes, throw Vista off a cliff. Go Mac and you'll never go back.
I am all about throwing Vista off a cliff. Shall we make it a party?
Flu. 'Nuff said.
Uccellina, I'm so sorry about poor Wren's illness and glad it's by-passed Robin.
Take good care of yourself.
Par-Tee! Par-Tee! i hate vista with a burning passion. my sister the computer engineer has advocated mac for years, and i'm about there, once i can afford it and can be sure my trusty wordperfect files can make the transition. [i don't hate word as much as i hate vista, especially since word got rid of the paperclip guy, but it's not wordperfect... and a lot of my stuff is WP.]
oh, liz. flu? the same week as moving? holy cow. at least we had the advil/tylenol discussion last week. hope you are feeling better! xoxo
Ugh - stopping in to mention that the exec is question never even came. So we are all here dressed up for no reason at all. But that turns out to be a small whine in comparison to the fountain of water in my basement last night after the valve for our sump pump failed - so when the pump ran the water shot into the basement instead of out of the house. Ick.
Antiwhine... procrastination left us with a rolled-up area rug blocking off the main part of our basement. Turns out an old area rug makes a good dam - so most of the basement stayed dry.
Sorry about the flu Liz - during moving time makes it double ick.
Whine: computer at home has nasty virus and needs to go to computer hospital. I'm on my home to see if my trusty laptop needs help too. I think it's okay, but while the tech guy is there, I'll get him to check it out, vista and all.
JenR -- basement flood??? omg. and the rolled up old rug doing its duty in time of crisis is absolutely prize-worthy, in my opinion.
sue, please let me know if guru knows a way to kill vista and substitute something else.
neighbor lady -- i was too worked up yesterday to thank you for your kindness. what's up with the neighbor family?
Really Big Vote was by Secret Ballot, so the chair voted at that time. 181-181, 1 abstention, 3 disqualified ballots (we had been warned repeatedly that anything else on the ballots would disqualifty them).
Teh tired is better today. Inexplicable crying fits (by the Sweet Baboo, subsequently me) have escalated. Teeth? Sudden dislike of all food products? Need for more sleep? What???
Sorry for all of the computer woes. I hate computer woes. Stupid thing should work.
hugs to all with sick kids, lack of sleep, misbehaving computers, etc.
Whine: too early start to daylight savings = dark mornings, and it's not really warm enough to enjoy the light evenings.
esperanza, grr! i think everyone needs to be free to vote their conscience -- and to have a forum to air complaints even if the vote involves holding one's nose for the better good. but how frustrating, with a close vote, to have it left in limbo with one abstention and 3 disqualified.... what does a tie mean? go back and start over? wait another year or 2?
elizabeth, here's hoping daylight hits you sooner, and late afternoon becomes warmer!
According to the Robert's Rules Gurus, a tie is the same as voting it down. It required a simple majority to pass (half plus one). Other regional bodies have been and will be voting on the same Big Deal Item. To be enacted, it has to receive a 2/3 majority of all of those bodies. Ours will go down as a "no" vote. Rats.
Kathy a.--thanks! Neighbor Family is doing well (knock wood!!) but very busy. Am preparing to teach science enrichment to kindergartners tomorrow, and so my oven is full of a volcano made out of dough. Because nothing proves science is fun like a volcano explosion in the classroom!
antiwhine: have a job for the summer as science coordinator at an arts & science camp in the area that my daughter loved last year.
whine: Am the science coordinator and whole science teaching team, too, meaning that I am totally in my own head planning the curriculum. Yikes!
Hugs to all who need it!
And on the computer topic: gotta love a Mac!!!!!
:) neighbor lady
woot! neighbor lady brings the volcano! excellent news about science fun, and the summer job, too. :)
esperanza -- drat.
Go, Neighbor Lady! We kindergarten "professionals" totally LOVE people who come up with hands-on experiments for the classroom! When the kids have a visual experience, they tend to remember it, more than us just droning on endlessly at them. Keep at it!
My whine for this week is of the "I Worked Myself Into A Probable Ulcer For *THAT*?!?" variety. I whined last week that I had an Unbloggable that happened to my friend, and I was all in distress over it. I can't relate much more, but there were meetings about it all, and hurtful things said; people who quit; friendships broken; head honchos who descended on us; and many other various and sundry bad bits to go with all of that. We've all been dragged into the situation, and while no one wants to be personally involved; it seems like we're expected to pick a camp, and that's hell on us that want to Switzerland it and stay neutral.
Suffice it to say that I was so worked up at the thought of this past Tuesday's regular monthly meeting and the fireworks that might possibly ensue that I worked myself into a state over it.
Meeting day came, and I had laryngitis, so I couldn't speak up had I even wanted to. (Turns out that after hearing most of both sides, I will say that BOTH sides are in the wrong and that *bad* or *no* communication led to this disaster. If all parties had acted like grownups, we wouldn't be where we are now. Both sides are refusing to act conciliatory, and neither plans to apologize for their bad behavior.) Other than the previously mentioned stubbornness, the meeting went smoothly. Very little histrionics, and no fireworks at all.
So, that's a Whine/Anti-Whine Combo Meal.
Happy Birthday wishes go out to one of WW's good friends from the old days -- Crazy Cat Woman. (Today is also my hubby's birthday, so we're on the way out to get Mexican food. Hope it doesn't roil my tummy up any more than it is already.)
Hope SG is better, Madeleine. And happy Purim. I missing living in a highly observant neighborhood and seeing the kids in costume.
And I hope that moving becomes moved for Liz. And all the stuff is found in a new location. Flu? That's just terrible.
I hope the gradual increase to FT is very gradual Sue. And I am a Mary Poppins fan so I like your OT already. And happy car!
Kathy A: I got one of those Costco drives. Love it. And I don't precisely hate Vista, but our affection has waned since my husband decided to put Norton 360 on my laptop. That is an evil program. May all of your backups persist.
Uccellina: rotavirus? Oh no. My 5 year old had that at ~11 months. So terrible.
Esperanza - hugs and decisions soon.
Sara: my 2nd grader daughter's teacher shows them a cheezburger everyday, always cats. She thinks we should be able to just pull that one up when she gets home.
JenR: well, good for the rug saving the basement, I guess. And I hate pants.
Neighbor Lady: ooh volcanos! yay!
KLee: If only the worried about meetings were always so quiet. Hope the Mexican fiesta is yummy.
Whine: The power went out on Sunday in the rain/snow storm. Annoying until my dad points out that the sump pump hole is filling with water rather quickly. My dad, mom and husband form a bucket brigade. I start calling for a generator rental. While I go to pick one up, a neighbor who had never seemed to really like us offered us a plug in to his generator. anti-whine!
Between his plug and my rental, the basement does not get flooded. Anti-Whine!
We bought a generator yesterday. The power went out today again.
In addition, the baby daughter has been running a mild fever off and on since her 6 months shots Monday.
And the 5 year old has some dreadful illness - fever, congestion, a little vomiting. The fevers makes me wonder if they share an illness, but a coincidence seems more likely.
Can the weather just give up on going below, say, 35 degrees until, say, November, please???
esperanza - double drat. Will they try again next year? Or is that it?
KLee - nice combo whine - though I hope soon the Anti parts will outweigh the Whine parts considerably.
Hmmmm...no Costco here, but I like the idea of an external hard-drive. Our Guru found a small mountain of problems but seems to have them (mostly) under control. Yay Guru!!
Floods! Oh my god! You poor folks!
KLee, point me to those in need of cluesticking.
The dishwasher here doesn't work because the motor seal has dried out through lack of use.
I am now officially grateful I do not have a basement, nor a sump pump, whatever that may be. If I don't have it, it can't break, right?
Sue--I imagine we'll be voting on this issue again. This is probably about the 5th or 6th time we've voted on it in the past 15 years, and it's not going away. Someday, we'll pass it. (Imagine the Big Issue on the plate of just about every denomination in the US, and you've got it).
Hugs, drugs, and lots of fluids to all the sickies.
Condolences to all sump pump issues. I hate ours. I think having a hole in the basement floor that water goes into is just asking for the water spirits to get in and wreak havoc, myself.
Antiwhine: Two springs ago our next-door neighbors got water in their basement for the first time since they moved in 7 years before. (Not coincidentally, our sump pump ran every 15 minutes all day. Only time it has ever kicked on in 2.4 years). That summer, they hired a guy and put in a french drain along the property line. Last spring at the thaw the water never got within 6" of the top of our sump hole, and this spring looks to stay even lower. Yay drainage!!
this talk of basements, sump pumps, generators, and french drains is giving me the willies. although, i'll go with sara on the benefits of good drainage!
good heavens, i think the sump pump failure + rolled up rug deserves the frontierswoman award. even if she claims it was procrastination, it doesn't matter - necessity is the mother of invention.
my whines are numerous but brief:
*am parenting solo for the first time 4 years - now! with 5-month-old baby! (husband is back in a few days, thankfully.)
*am buried under mountains of grading.
*am behind on email something fierce and just discovered yesterday that i have two (TWO!) emails in my blog email inbox from esperanza. oh noes! apparently i haven't checked it in about two weeks. am feeling bad about that.
*am almost out of girl scout cookies.
antiwhines:
*a gramma helped out tonight by babysitting while i taught
*unlike my husband, i do not have a throat infection
*i said i'm "almost" out of cookies.
lots of hugs to everyone dealing with work-related woes, illnesses, and drainage problems. may they pass quickly and be replaced with winning lottery tickets.
I am almost afraid to participate this week for fear that you will all think a dark cloud follows me everywhere. In reality, it's just ALMOST everywhere.
So today was harsh. REALLY harsh. Friend in my parent group told us he has bladder cancer. This is his second cancer battle as he already survived Hodgkins. I know that is spelled wrong. I'm too tired to bother.
Then, a 19 yo kid in town killed himself. He hung himself in his college dorm. Tonight was his wake. It was beyond gruesome. Open casket, thousands of weeping kids and parents flinging themselves at each other. Just horrid.
Then I find out that Girl's friend's baby who is 8 months old now has just been found to have a heart condition and is again in Children's for testing and a better diagnosis.
And... because things aren't horrid enough, Girl's best friend's boyfriend dumped her today by telling her that he was going off to South Carolina next week to start college there. No word that he was applying or had been accepted. He just showed up to collect his crap to start packing. How harsh is that. Of course Girl had to get over to her BFF's house to comfort her and said it was just awful.
I have had little sleep all week, and I'm exhausted. When I don't sleep the edema comes back and my cankels are really like elephant feet. It's bad.
Usual cat pee issues, lack of money issues, and sick to death of bad weather issues. Nothing new on all those topics. They just all suck.
I still have not hit the grocery store, and now that Purim is over and done with, Passover cleaning is right around the corner. Of course my friend who takes horrible advantage of me over Jewish holidays and Thanksgiving just assumes that not only am I cooking the entire Seder, but I'm also making her Passover birthday cake. She didn't ask, she told me. And being such a jackassy wimp, I of course agreed because her life sucks almost as much as mine does and her horrible husband WILL NOT DIE. We're now in year seven of the death watch. It's getting really old. Plus, he's back on the steroids to curb his seizures and they make him violent and MEAN, so he's a thrill a minute.
Good god, anyone want to change lives with me? PLEASE?
Oh, and I spent over a week fighting with my insurance company to get a prescription approved. One they have willingly filled for years, but all of a sudden requires pre-authorization.
no worries, amy. They're essentially the same whiny email--
i nthought the internet ate the first one. Just whining, no reply needed, really.
((((margalit))))
Love Sue's OT, despise Sue's insurance people. Hope the former can conquer the latter.
Boo boo boo to floods and flu (especially during moving!!), rotavirus and bad meetings. Margalit, can you tell your friend you're sorry, but you've thought about it and realized you simply can't do it? It's plenty of notice.
Late-breaking whine: getting jostled on public transportation and on the streets while wearing neck brace. People! LOOK and watch where you're going! OWWW!
antiwhine: leftover Devonshire cream (baby shower / tea party)
Whine: neck/back injury from last week's fall would be much better if not for all the rehearsing and dancing in Purimspiel (I co-directed with husband so couldn't step back at last minute).
Antiwhine: Purimspiel went much better than expected, got a great response from congregation (many people standing and applauding after, much laughter during)
Whine: this injury is exhausting me (which chiro says is not unusual).
Antiwhine: brief goes out tomorrow, kid activity at crack of fireplacing dawn on Sat., but then I plan to rest and ice the rest of the weekend.
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