Manic Monday

I ran around town today like crazy doing a lot of stuff that needed to be done. This morning I got X-man to school a bit late, but he was having a hard time waking up and he didn't want any breakfast, but once he got there he "see ya later, Mom"ed me and pushed me out the door. He was apparently his normal self the rest of the day.

From 9:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. I was test driving a RAV-4. We're looking for something roomier without risking too much gas mileage. My 2002 VW Golf gets 24/29. The RAV-4 gets 21/28. Plus, it's got more room to haul around stuff. I'm super excited that next week we could have a new car. One without a tape deck...

Then I came home and had lunch and headed to my weight management meeting. I've lost 79 lbs since February, and am excited that I'm approaching an ideal weight and body fat percentage number. In other words, I'm kicking ass and taking names. I'm also running in the Rattlesnake 5k this Sunday. Are you?

After my meeting, I went home and rounded up Riley and Maya. Maya was going in for her annual check up and vaccinations. Riley was going in to get scrapings done to be retested for ringworm. We're all hoping he comes up negative, so we can stop bathing dogs and cats.

We have a weekly playdate with Roger Rogers and Curious J that X-man loves to go to. He gets very excited when I drop him off from school every Monday knowing that he's going to play with Curious J. So at 4 p.m., we headed over there.

Since 5 p.m. we've had dinner, learned to play X-man's new Bob the Builder computer game, read some fire fighter books 4 zillion times and watched a little Superman.

Tonight I have to study some more for my midterm tomorrow, which sucks because usually after X-man goes to bed, I want to fall asleep too.

Tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday are equally full of fun. Except I'll actually have time to run (in the rain, hooray!).

Anything exciting happen to you guys today?

Blah to 14-hour days on the Go, Go, Go!

I feel like I've been everywhere and done everything today. It was a crazy full day that started at 6:45 a.m. and didn't finish until 9:15 p.m. when X-man and I walked through the door and I could finally have dinner. 

The end of the semester projects and labs are all due. I finished one two weeks in advance the other day, and I'm so happy I did because while everyone else is doing a field trip plan next week, I can continue to work on my 3-D model of an infant room for class. The assignment said to pretend there was no budget. But I kind of think my Dad was onto something when he said to try and do it on the affordable side so that it might inspire someone in a care setting. To emphasize the affordable -- my partner and I are using the leftover recycled materials from my recycled craft assignment that I did in the Turtle Room at Next Generation and with the CARE kids.

After dropping off X-man at school, I worked out to try and meet my goal to burn 2,000 calories this week. It included a 52-minute 3-mile walk with Riley. Then I did my safety assessment of my house for my First Aid class, ran some laundry, did the dishes, drank my meal replacement shakes and headed off to infant and toddler class. I rushed home and ate lunch, did more laundry, talked to MacTroll for 10 minutes, called Quigs to freak out about what he told me (nothing bad, just weird), put away laundry, took a shower and then I tried to get dressed for my award ceremony... and I ran into a good but bad problem.

I've lost 24 lbs in the last 8 weeks. All of my dress pants from teaching at Millikin are too big. So big that they fell to the floor when I put them on, so there was a "woohoo," followed by a "Shit, what am I gonna wear?" I pieced together an OLD pair of Gap black pants and some weird pink shirt I think I've only worn once or twice. I'll be frank. It didn't look good. But all the shirts I have match the skirts and the pants that were huge... and none of them matched any of the smaller clothes I had left over or inherited. 

I rushed off to the Working Women's Expo to receive my recognition. You can check out the pictures over at Quig's place.

From there, I went back across town to pick up X-man from school at 4:45 p.m. Then we returned to Urbana to drive through McDonald's for him. I deposited him safely at the sitters (I hate that he hardly saw me today except for at breakfast and bedtime. It just felt weird.) Then I dashed off to CPR class which went from 6 until 8:30 p.m. tonight.

Anyway, I owe a big thanks to Libbygirl, who ended up having to sort out a gigantic poopy mess tonight while watching my child from 5:30 until 8:45 p.m. while I was in class. 

Apparently X-man went and didn't tell her until after he and Lightning McColin had been playing outside for an hour. When I showed up he was in a spare set of clothes, bathed and his laundry was in the dryer. But the boys had a great time playing together tonight. I took over X-man's tricycle so they could ride around. And they ended up recreating the scene in the movie Cars where Lightning McQueen gets stuck in the cactus and Mater pulls him out. They apparently took turns switching characters, according to X-man.

I shoved some dinner down my mouth and then took X-man up to bed, where it took him a long, long time to fall asleep. 

Getting Things Done

I have a list of things I'd like to do around the house a mile long. And I know that as I get things finished I'll think of something else I want to do around here. It's a never ending process. Stupid home ownership. 

Anyway, today I took care of some business in my basement. MacTroll purchased a cross-training elliptical machine in 2004, and he used it religiously for 6 months... and then kind of flirted with it. I'm pretty sure since we've moved in here in August 2007 that he hasn't used it once. Part of me just wants to Craigslist the sucker, but instead I pushed it into the basement storage area to get it out of the frequented kidzone. I've been meaning to do it for months, but it haven't been able to get to it until now.

Our basement is also where our 19" TV is. It was our only TV since we moved back to Illinois in 2003. And watching Lord of the Rings on it was amusing, since the horses were like as tall as my pinky finger... and we were watching it from 15 feet across a room.  But it's also where our only DVD player is... and it's the in the playroom. Before we got the new LCD and the Apple TV in the living room last November, if we wanted to watch TV, we went to the basement. But now it sits dormant down there.

The basement truly is a place things go to die, except maybe in the case of a tornado. The next electronic recycling day we decided it's time to say goodbye to the TV, which means we'll have a small entertainment center from Target to donate to Habitat for Humanity. See, more stuff to do...

This morning I went to the basement with a mission: Find all the places Looseyfur, who had kidney failure, and Maya, who had a UTI we missed because we assumed the inappropriate peeing was Looseyfur -- and clean any area I might have missed during prior cleaning sessions. Mainly whomever the culprit was kept to one wall on the east side. But I took a few hours and tried to do a thorough job. However, even with the power of Bissell cleaner and Nature's Miracle, I'm afraid that if I reopen the basement to the cats, they'll still smell it and think it's okay to pee there. I think, down the road, when we put the 4th bedroom into the basement, we'll just cut out that part of the carpeting and padding, wipe down the floor and see if we can get that section of carpet replaced. 

After the carpet was dry, I vacuumed and rearranged the furniture. I moved all the seating area into a mini living room-like section and then brought X-man's Melissa and Doug kitchen center and his Workbench into the basement from the family room. I had been saving some food packaging so he could play grocery store in our basement. So now he has a little house set up on one side, and a store area set up on another side. I'm guessing a lot of "check out" play is in my future. 

Then I started pulling toys out for a CARE meet up I'm having at my house tomorrow on sensory growth. I still have to make the signs to put up in various areas and put away all the "non-sensory" toys. I'm quite excited about tomorrow, particularly since I'll get to make my own batch of non-newtonian liquid. 

If you don't know what that is, it's water and corn starch. When you get the right consistency it becomes both a solid and a liquid. That is, if you put your hand in it and grab some it feels like bread dough, but as you squeeze your hand tighter it slips through your fingers like a water. 

College campuses all over the place make baby pools of this stuff and then run across "water." Science is seriously a good amount of fun.

I'm also having a "what sinks and what floats tub," an area of bubble wrap for kiddos to step on, some flowers to take apart and look at with a magnifying glass, a sensory library, musical instruments and much more. 

It's going to be a fun hour, because at 12:30 p.m. I have to run out the door and pack up a bunch of food to take over to A Woman's Fund from Curves of Savoy. They just finished a month-long food drive with their members and collected over 700 lbs of food that I offered to transport for them. 

Come on March!

As usual February is way too busy. I sprint here. I sprint there. There are birthdays and a holiday and illnesses and weather and school starts to get intense and my kid is BEGGING for it to be his birthday every day. I am also not adding anything to the CARE calendar next month that I am hosting. I have a lot of midterms and papers and observations coming up.

I've been sick, busy with a sick pet and overwhelmed with planned events in the last three weeks. I'm tired. And I've had as many good times as bad, which is a nice balance, but does feel a bit like riding a roller coaster.

This morning I made it back to the gym for the first time in three weeks. And I love going to the gym. I was not alone though. I ran into one of my friends who was having the same come back experience. Her family had been ill for a bit, too.

So, I'm going to have a month of March that is all about me (and X-man's birthday, apparently). I will go to the gym. I will enter my zen eating mode rather than the cram and run. I will make sure to take time with my friends. I will get outside with Riley. I will take my family to Indy for a weekend. I will plan a trip south to see Captain Patrick for a day in April. 

Because most of my days this month are 12-hour days of just one thing after another. 

But for right now, I'm running to class. 

Brick hitting

I've been cleaning out my files lately because, well, the top of my desk is a mess, and usually when it's that way I don't notice when a little midget wanders off with my bills or thank you notes, etc.

Plus, hooray, I can start shredding things from more than 7 years ago. (Don't worry, I recycle.) 

In the mess was Looseyfur's vet records. And I pulled them out and thought, come April, the county will send me her rabies renewal and I'll have to fill out that she is deceased. There was also her microchip tag, which I guess I should tell AVID is, for sure, burned into ashes right now, although they haven't been delivered back to Dr. Mary yet. 

But I was holding the manilla folder in my hands thinking that I didn't need her vet records any more. And suddenly I wanted my cat back. It's weird how you can get to a point in your grief where you are able to exist every day and do what you have to do. And then you see something, smell something and it makes you cry.  

My strings get pulled at things like little kids and animals. But I don't know why I can't shred them. I mean I have pictures and movies and memories of her. What difference do her health records make? Why do I want to leave them in my drawer?

I guess it makes me feel like part of her is still here. Like she' still mine. And for a moment I wondered what it would be like to drive up to Dr. Mary's and pick her up, but she's gone. I did this when my grandparents passed away in 1992. A couple months after the funeral, I dialed their phone number. I knew they were dead. But I wanted them to pick up the phone. The phone company had already reassigned the number. Life went on. I still have their address in Florida memorized. The route from the entrance into the graveyard where they are buried is etched into my mind. I know I won't see them again. 

I guess with all the homework, visitors, birthday, house stuff, etc., lately, I got so busy that I just didn't have time to bring it to the front of my mind. Then on Friday we got a card of sympathy from Dr. Mary and her staff. Now today, the vet records. 

I'm going to go read a bit of my psych chapter, so I can take the quiz tonight. We'll see if that gets my mind off of things.

 

Beholden to Money

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I held a full-time job. I worked 10-12 hour days. I dressed in pantyhose and Jones New York suits. I took mass transit to work for as long as I could. I had bosses that I both adored and got annoyed with. All of my friends were my co-workers. We spent more time together than we ever did with our spouses. We enjoyed our work, but at the end of the day we were there not just for job satisfaction, we were there for money and benefits.

Since moving to Illinois I have had several part-time jobs. The ones that fit my life best are the ones that are not only part-time but are also temporary. I worked for a year at the Douglass Branch Library when someone got sent to Iraq with the military. I filled in for a summer doing fundraising work at A Woman's Fund while they did a search for a full-time fundraising person. I taught for 2 years at Millikin in Decatur while a professor did research for her Fellowship. 

I did these things not because I needed to "stay busy." Christ, do I hate it when people use those words. Life is not about staying freaking busy. Life is about living. And boy, am I living.

Periodically, I know a lot of my working friends wish they could stay home with their kids. And periodically, I know a lot of my stay-at-home friends wish they could return to the work force. 

From my perspective, it's going to be really hard for me to go back full-time, unless it's something I completely love and see good in its value to our community. 

What makes it worse is that I love being my own boss at home. Even though I have a tough time as it is dealing with the full-on responsibilities regarding X-man and MacTroll and our pets. I make the schedule. I control the flow. Until life decides to have some fun and slap me around with the stomach flu or an ill pet or weeks of rain.

For a person who is able to make one income work and monitor a tight household budget, money isn't an incentive for employment any more. Would more money be nice? Hell yes. Would it be worth putting up with someone else's crappy, infant-like demands of my precious time taking me away from my family -- not so much. If I had to, to send X-man to school or to put food in his belly or keep our house, would I return? In an instant. 

But Parenthood so jacked me up for the workforce. Because I don't see a "hoorah" in a multi-billion dollar corporation making even more mega bucks because of my hard work. All I see is the "boo" for not being with the people that matter more... but that's because at this point, the household budget is working. If the economy collapses and we're all standing in lines for our cans of beans again and in line at the unemployment office, clearly things will be way different.

But one things if for sure, when I'm dead, I'll have done a lot more than 'stay busy.'