Seen any? We could all use some good news along about now.Husband's gone all week. Son is still looking for a new job, and he bailed on an auntie's offer to take him shopping Sunday. I stupidly engaged after my difficult sister sent a "joke" email. And when, oh when, will I get my work mojo back?
In antiwhines, days of clouds broke into a glorious blue-sky afternoon yesterday, and more expected! Not too hot, not too cold, just right.
What's new with you?
~~~~~~~~~~~
ETA: It is a slow Wednesday, so here is a bonus movie review. Go rent The Great Debaters by Denzel Washington. It is a spirit-restoring antiwhine, based on real facts. If you do not get all smushy and/or inspired during parts of this film, go directly to the ER, because your heart has turned to stone.
24 comments:
Big bummer of a whine: we're back from Disney World and vacation is over. I go back to work on Monday, and Offspring starts school on September 2nd. Boo, hiss! We have to go back to acting like responsible, productive members of society instead of being the slothful reprobates we've been all summer.
However, the anti-whines are canceling out the aforementioned whineage: We just got back from 9 days at Disney World, and it was fabulous. As always. And we even CAME HOME with money, which *never* happens. Which means that we got a special dinner out tonight at our favorite (and expensive) restaurant; we can replace Offspring's glasses; and we may even be able to eke out the purchase of a storage shed that we desperately need for the backyard for the lawnmowers and bicycles and assorted effluvia of our lives. And we still may have about $20 bucks left! Pretty good, no?
One teeny post-script whine: We drove by the Home Repo to check out said storage sheds, and I clonked my head on the too-low doorframs on hte way out. Oochie. Like I really *need* a head injury with a personality like mine....
Oh, and I forgot to add in the "whine" column that when we got home, Offspring and JF microwaved leftover pizza for dinner. Everything worked fine. When *I* went to go microwave something about an hour later, the microwave was dead. JF insists that I didn't kill it, it was just its time to go. So, $64 later, we have a new microwave. Yet another lump of the cast left from the trip gone...
Sad, isn't it? Some weeks, it doesn't pay to gnaw through the straps at the home.
Uh, that should be "CASH left from the trip gone..."
I can't type, either.
Whine: Exhaustion. Need more hours in the day and school hasn't even started yet for my children.
Whine: Who the fireplace came up with the idea that we should have thirty different passwords with different rules that also can't all be the same?
Whine: I have no idea what I used for one of my application passwords and to fix it entailed a ticket to the Big Headquarters because Medium HQ doesn't do that stuff anymore and Small HQ where I work can't be trusted to reset passwords. Really didn't want to come off as the Village Idiot on only day two but, oh well.
Antiwhine: I provided a lot of entertainment to others. And, uh, I didn't cry. Much.
Having any cash left after a trip (especially a Disney trip), KLee, I'm impressed. What a nice AW, but sad about the microwave.
And good luck getting acclimated, Miranda. Good luck getting the passwords fixed. My husband works in information security and he keeps forgetting his ATM PIN number. It always makes me giggle, and then to make me feel not so bad that my passwords are not nearly as rigorous as he'd prefer. Some of the latest research agrees with you--passwords are lousy. But it will probably take years for that to trickle to the office. No help, I know.
My whine/anti-whine is that I am tired of being pregnant, sort of. But I am at that cool "the baby moves all the time" time. And I love that. And I know this is the last pregnancy. Why is it so hard to enjoy the present?
sounds like a great trip, klee! but not so polite of the microwave to die on you.
miranda -- the password thing kills me. the dirty secret in your company is probably that everyone keeps a list of theirs in the top drawer.
((( sarah )))
kathy a.,
top drawer? are you kidding me? they're probably written on post-it notes and stuck all over the monitor. as for me, i keep mine in a word document, locked safely inside my computer.
and hey - no dogging the PIN forgetfulness. last week, i was so certain i was keying in the right PIN only to discover that yes, i was right about the number, but it would have helped if i had put my ATM card in the machine - not my credit card.
it's placenta brain, i swear. i'm not usually that obtuse. usually.
omg, amy -- you're right! i have 2 passwords taped to my monitor, for things i don't use much and for which i didn't get to choose the password!
every time i get to choose, my password is a made-up family word, created 35 years ago by the sister with whom i have difficulty, and broken up by a character. nobody outside the family could guess it [and i think even my kids do not know the word], but i'm up a creek if someone learns the word. c'est la vie. only so much i can hold in the brain.
I have been either bored or frustrated with my job for weeks, which is making it even harder to be away from my baby every day. I can't look for a new job for two reasons... in order to get maternity leave benefits, I had to sign a contract that I wouldn't leave for 6 months after I returned - otherwise I have to pay my leave salary back (so I'm stuck til mid October). Also, I can't imagine any new company would be willing to give me the same 4-day work week where I only have to actually appear in the office two of the days.
Here's my password advice for those who care: Pick a short word, replace the vowels with numbers, then if you need it to be different, add a few letters to the end to help you remember. Add a symbol in between if the rules require it. So if I picked "pixies" as my word, the password would be p1x13s. The password for my email would be p1x13smail or p1x13s@mail. Require a capitol letter? P1x13s@mail. Easy to remember if you are consistent, and not too hard to guess at if you forget one.
Lots of great password advice! Thanks, everypixie.
My whine is familio-blogular in nature. My brother and SIL are abroad this year and they started a blog. I got the email, checked it out, and added it to my bloglines. (The one I use for work and IRL people, separate from my semi-anonymous pixie existence.) After about a week of near-daily posts, I realized I do not WANT to be in touch with my brother this often. I hear his voice in my head with ever post I read and it just isn't a good feeling.
So I should stop reading it, right? But over the weekend when my Mom was visiting, they Skyped us and told us we need to leave comments. And then I realized they can probably see the list of subscribers and will notice if I unsubscribe. So I'm feeling a bit stuck. I can leave it in my feedreader but not read it and feign busyness when it comes up -- my Mom will surely say "Did you see the blog?" every time she calls. But I'd rather unsubscribe. Maybe I will.
In other familial whining, I realized last weekend that 36 hours is about the right amount of time to spend with my Mom before I start to lose it. Unfortunately, the visit was more like 64 hours, and that is unusually short since she usually flies in for a week at at a time.
Anti-whine: My Love understands just how much she makes me crazy so we can bitch about it together afterwards.
jenr -- never say never. you may be stuck with the boring job for a while, but no harm in putting out feelers?
madeleine -- i don't use bloglines, so someone else probably has better advice on that front. but surely there is a generic excuse? "i've realized i don't have time to look at blogs every day," perhaps?
Whine: MM has a fever of unknown origin.
Whine: Thus I missed a lunch date with APL.
Anti-whine: We've rescheduled for Friday.
oh no! hope MM is feeling better! and great you could reschedule.
whine: my husband wanted to watch a lousy movie, so I'm not watching the Olympics.
anti-whine: we got our foster kitties on Monday. One of them is on the floor watching TV with us. Not sure which bed the other one is hiding under.
whine: need a vacation to recover from my vacation.
anti-whine: long-scheduled blogger playdate with Liz is soon approaching.
In order to avoid leaving yet another husband complaint, I went ahead and put the leftovers away tonight after dinner. I asked him if he would do it, and he was non-committal, so I just did it myself to save the cheese from being abandoned like last week's parm. I even made it a point to tell him the change of plans with: "Hey, I put the leftovers away so you don't have to."
"Bonus" moment came ten minutes later when he yells from the kitchen, "I can't find the stuff I'm supposed to put away!"
I don't even know what's a whine and what's an antiwhine anymore.
Well, okay, I know two whines.
1. stretchmarks. 'nuff said.
2. diabeetus diet is slowly driving me crazy, which could account for my obsession with protecting my cheese.
First, let me apologize for abandoning all you pixies last week. I was literally too down in the dumps to even whine. But... things change and I'm back with only one or two big whines and a lot more antiwhines. I know, incredible!
AW: Tonight we seem to have FINALLY solved my daughter's school problems. It only took 3 fireplacing months, but the SpED director called me tonight and we went through everything step-by-step and it appears that we are getting everything that I wanted in the first place. However, let me mention that the state contacted her so she backed down in fear of being sued. Heh.
AW: I GOT A JOB. Oh, not a good job. But it is a fully work-at-home job, which is what I need. And what will I be doing? Are you sitting down? I'll be doing tech support for a company that supports hundreds of por*n sites. Oh yeah. I'll be doing the billing chargebacks and checking on sign-ups for people requesting refunds. It should be VERY interesting. Heh. I was trained tonight and I'll start working the next few days part time, and then next week I'm full time.
AW: We have the cutest, most loving kitten in the whole world. She is the PERFECT cat. She's getting bigger and braver and gets into everything. The kids LOVE her.
AW: Found out that insane daughter of Insane Dad will NOT be attending out school in the fall. This leaves everyone feeling much happier and safer.
AW: Daughters friend had her baby this morning (she's just 17) and we went to see him. ADORABLE. My ovaries were aching.
WHINE: I think we're going to get evicted. My landlady is so pissed about the rent being pretty much non-existant this month. I only paid $500 because that's all I had and she is FURIOUS. While I don't blame her, I did tell her that I got a job and she was like "I don't care" so this is gonna suck royally. We love where we live. LOVE IT. And we cannot afford to move. Period.
Whine: We can't get subsidized housing.
AntiWhine: We have enough food for this month because a friend of mine went away for a month and cleaned out her fridge and pantry and gave us her food. LOTS of food.
Whine: I'm supposed to be working on a couple of blogs, including Elizabeth's, and I've been SO busy with a bunch of crap like looking for work that I've had no time to do them. But hopefully next week, once I get use to working, I'll be able to get the time.
YAHOO!
Oh, and passwords. There is a program you can download from C/Net called Roboform that will remember all your passwords and automatically fill them in for you.
Antiwhine: Mono seems to be gone, done, over with. It took (slightly) less than 6 months. Yay.
W: Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue flare-up. Pain, fatigue, and brain-fog such that I can't remember the names of complicated things like celery or silverware, or what I'm supposed to be doing. And all I want to do is go back to bed, even if I could remember. No. Energy.
AW: I had a couple of good weeks, and made good progress toward getting the house and yard decluttered organized and ready for a dog. A dog! Hooray! (I won't even tell you how many times I typed the word dog wrong and had to edit.)
W: Overdid it those two weeks, and the weather changed. Enter flare-up.
AW: I'm now looking into actually getting a dog that can be trained to do some service tasks that would be helpful during flare-ups and in preventing (or possibly even warning of) flare-ups.
I'm learning a lot about the amazing tasks dogs can do. Including a few of the tasks that cause me significant pain and fatigue--such as stripping the beds, which pretty much does me in for the day every time I do it.
And, no, we are not looking at getting a puppy, and yes I do have plans for how to make sure the dog is cared for and exercised even on my bad days.
Votes for everyone, hugs to everyone. Extra vote to Liz for most concise whine/antiwhine combo.
I forgot to say that I took the kids for a short walk this evening and had to cut it short because I got too tired, even though they were nowhere near tired.
I kept getting choked up because I was having trouble having the energy and mental clarity to be interactive with them and I kept wondering what their childhood memories are going to be like of a having Mommy who is sick and tired all the time.
Oh, and one more thing: My 6yo has been tiring quickly and complaining of "hurting all over." Both of my sisters and I have now been diagnosed with either FMS, CFS or both. At least 2 of us started having chronic pain or other issues in early childhood.
I do NOT want any of my children to have to deal with this sort of thing.
Oh, PK, this last one is so sad. I hope - for everyone's sake - that it's not the case.
I think your children are older than my daughter (4), so take this with whatever salt your diet allows. When I've been laid particularly low, my daughter seems to respond by developing similar complaints as soon as I appear to be on an upswing. Headaches, backaches, tummy aches, feeling tired. I don't *think* she's actually feeling these things, but she seems sincere. It seems to me more like she is trying to show empathy for me.
I realize this situation is not the same as yours, but I'll maintain some hope for you that it is. It's hard enough to be sick - harder to watch your little ones be sick.
@Margalit: happy to hear the antiwhines - hope the rest works out well.
@KLee: having ANY money leftover after a vacation is reason for celebration, such as buying a new microwave. would it work to pretend that the microwave was a part of your "coming home with money" celebration dinner?
admin,
feel free to delete this comment. i'm trying to figure out my google login, and i've been having trouble.
amy (see comment above)
Late breaking Anti-whine:
I finally got my google account to work. I tried months ago and google hated me, for some reason. Now it works! Huzzah!
Post a Comment