Sunday, December 31, 2006

More funny

Yet another funny story out of my house:

My Honey got a weight bench and weight set for Christmas. He got it set up the day after Christmas. I was cooking lunch (healthy macaroni & cheese) and Bubba asked if he could put in the cheese. I lifted him onto the counter so he could put it in. He says to me "Mom, have you been using the weights cuz you're strong." This was two days after the weights had been set up. What a crazy kid. Gotta love him.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Favorites


My favorite Christmas stories


My favorite Bubba Christmas story from this year:

We are on our way to Church on Christmas Eve. I reach into the back seat to grab a few tissues and Bubba asks "Why are you getting Kleenex mom?" So I tell him "because Christmas carols always make me cry." He pauses a moment and then says "Mom, listen to this ... " and then says in a sing-song voice "Christmas carol, Christmas carol, Christmas carol. Does that make you cry Mom?" Whose kid is that by the side of the road anyway?? Just kidding. My Honey was so proud.


My favorite Punkin Head story from this year:

Her favorite gift was a box of clothes. Auntie A bought her several pair of pants and shirts and wrapped them all together. She had the time of her life "trying them on" (see pix). It was so cute.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Fresh

I had a few extra minutes at the end of my day today so I re-read my December posts. What a downer I am lately. I will try to switch that up.

I decided to apply for the supervisor position. It can't hurt. Someone told my mom to tell me that you should always apply for promotions when they are available. It doesn't mean you have to take the job, but you should apply. Come to think of it, I should have talked to that someone about this whole deal, too late. Hind sight right?

And, really Christmas wasn't that bad for us. It was just everyone else's weight I was/am carrying around. I shoveled snow (we got 5 new inches today to go with the 6 from Saturday) and I feel a little better. I wish I could always remember how much better life is after a good hard work out. Especially one in the fresh air. Well its in writing now, maybe that will help me remember.

Christmas blues

It was a long weekend. Scratch that, it was a long 5 days into Christmas. I really didn't have much opportunity to re-charge this week and then it was Christmas Eve and then it was Christmas and now its the day after and WHEW. I am toast. I feel like I could sleep a week, I have not taken a shower, don't care if I ever do again, cant even muster the energy to get the Christmas presents put away. I did take the tree down tho, got that taken down before noon today. It looked so trashed I couldn't stand it another day. I had hidden a large box behind it and when I got the box out Christmas morning it tipped the whole thing, thankfully there wasn't much on the tree to begin with but it just looked so bad I had to take it down.

Its been a long time since I actually felt depressed after a family weekend. UGH. This Christmas just didn't go the way I had planned and it left me feeling pretty crabby today. Its after 3 and I still have not taken a shower. Pretty sad.

I think some of it was work. It was a sad weekend all over town, lots of people fighting with each other, going to jail, leaving their kids behind to figure Christmas out for themselves. We had 3 successful suicides, and an attempt. Not to mention all the people who shoveled the snow and then keeled over from heart attacks. Must have had 10 fatal incidents since Friday. Just left me feeling sad for the families left behind. Thankful I have mine, but still I couldn't shake that sadness.

The kids were great tho for all we put them through. Christmas Eve church at 10 am, breakfast at the C's. Then home so I could go to work. Bubba went to Chelan withe the C's. He had fun but was out late. Didn't get home until 10 pm. I worked until 3am then home for a nap until it was time to open presents. That wake up call came at around 7. We did our family stuff, then I went back to bed for a few hours. Went to the in-laws for 1:00 fondue, opened presents, went to my moms for 5:00 lasagna and then home by 8. It was too much for one day. Way to damn much. And no breaks. Thankfully the in-laws have a crib set up (they watch the kids while we work) but still, we went from one place to the next, no down time.

Punkin Head's favorite gift was a box of new clothes. She played with them for hours. Just taking them out of the box, holding them up, putting them on her head. It was cute. Today she got into a diaper bag and took out her new shoes and tried to put them on, when she couldn't get them on she "asked" for help "maaaaaaaaa, ahhhhh!" so I put them on her and now she is happy as a clam. How did I get a girly-girl? Already she likes clothes, shoes and jewelry.

Bubba's favorite gift was all of them. His dad taught him to say "thank you for the _____ its the best gift ever, I always wanted one of those!" with enthusiasm. It was very cute. His favorite gift actually appears to be a jack-in-the-box that Punkin Head got from someone at my Mom's house. All the gifts came fast and furious so I lost track of who gave what. It ought to make thank yous really easy ....

Oh well, its all good. I am not that bad off. Regular life resumes tomorrow. Back to work, that ought to shake my funk.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Change is in the air

Change is in the air. Without going into too much detail, I just need to talk this out.

For me work is changing. There is an opportunity to apply for two new jobs that I keep mulling over. One is a supervisor position, a job I have been doing a good portion of without the title for the past two years. The second is an operations director. A job I am qualified for on paper but I don’t think I would necessarily be good at right now in my life.

As of last Wednesday I had decided not to apply for either position. Since then My Honey and I have talked some about the supervisor job and I am unsure. His big question is this: If the job was going to be handed to you, you would have taken it right? Then why won’t you apply for it? What’s the difference? Even when I thought I would be promoted into the supervisor position I wasn’t sure I would take it. My big questions are; (1) Would I want to work as a supervisor under the potential operations candidates? Of the 3 I know have applied, my answer is no. Pretty much I am a chicken shit. I don’t want to be the beta group under a new management structure, a new management style (the 4th in 2 years) and all that goes with that. I must also consider can I work as a supervisor under these candidates and not lose my job because I don’t meet their expectations? (2) Can I work as a pee-on and not be a part of the problem? This could be my biggest challenge, almost as big as working as a supervisor. But as a pee-on I would no longer be privy to the admin stuff and maybe it would make it easier. I don’t know.

So how egotistical does this sound, lamenting about a job I haven’t even applied for, as if I would get it? And how much is that part of why I am considering not applying? What if I didn’t get it? Considering the competition, I doubt that would happen. (More ego I know, but I have been doing the job for 2 years and other candidates have not.)

So as I work this out, My Honey has acquired a new department at work. This new departmental responsibility just started yesterday but it has already resulted in several extra phone calls and working late yesterday (his first day). So as I consider this opportunity at my workplace, I also consider the effect of our jobs on the kids. What happens to them as we both get busy? What kind of pressure will I feel to be at work more, how resentful will I feel about that? How will the kids feel about that? How can I support My Honey in his new endeavor if I am too busy to even know what he is doing?

Pretty much I am not going to apply. But the deadline is the 31st if anyone has any suggestions.

Friday, December 15, 2006

What is the address of your emergency?

"9-1-1 What is the address of your emergency?"
"um, I am in L** and the power is out, do you know why?"
"Well sir/ma'am, the PUD has been working on that for a couple hours, we don't know when it will be restored."
"Okay, but do you know why the power went out?"
"No sir/ma'am, it may have to do with the weather. All that wet heavy snow has actually downed trees onto poles causing a lot of problems."
"Oh, okay." Click

This was my life for 10 hours yesterday. There has been some major weather come through my area, a ton of heavy wet snow and then rain, then freezing temperatures, then more snow and rain, now the wind. What a mess. This was the most typical 911 call of the day. We handled hundreds of them. We logged over 360 of them and I don't know how many hundreds more we just dealt with.

Good job us!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Sick sick sick

12/11/06 So what should I expect when Punkin Head throws up at 11 pm? A little help. Which is exactly what I got. A LITTLE help after the specific instructions “go ahead and strip the bed”. Which My Honey did.

Not that I needed any more laundry. Apparently I’m not even caught up from last week, I just folded a sweatshirt that Bubba got for his birthday last Monday. Sheesh!

As if it couldn’t get any worse, Bubba woke up at 4am with cramps in his legs…. I was sincerely hoping and praying that these days of sleeplessness would be over around her first birthday. So far we’re a month behind. I think this bout of sick is due to her immunizations last week, I remember Bubba having the same kind of thing.

12/12/06 For what ever reason I cannot get onto the blogger website tonight?? Does that mean I should just call it a day and go to bed like the rest of the household? Or should I give it a few more minutes and do another load of laundry, fold the stuff I got done today and stay up a bit later – it is only 9:00. That’s 4 hours earlier than I ever even think of going to bed.

It was Bubbas birthday today. I really wanted to make it a special day but I think I failed miserably. Well, not that bad, but it wasn’t his best day ever. I was too crabby, didn’t take the time to sit and play with him every time he wanted me to, I just felt like crap. I did do the school thing though. I went and stayed all day in his class and did his “works” with him. I am amazed at what he can actually do without me. I should give him more responsibility.

They have some neat things “works” they do at his school. Stuff that I wouldn’t think would interest kids, that they totally dig. One of the things he did today was a water work. He got a tray (everything is on a tray and you do it in your area of the table) that had a small rag, a turkey baster (you know, the thing you suck the juice out of the pan with when you cook a turkey) a piece of indented plastic, one looked like a pond, and a water pitcher with a spout. The “work” was to suck the water and then squirt it into the pitcher. Interestingly, I didn’t even wonder if the kids ever squirted each other until this very moment.

Another one was a counting thing to learn odd and even numbers. There were tiles numbered 1-10 and counting pieces about the size of a dime. The kids lay out the tiles and then count the pieces to match the number. So the 1 tile has 1 piece, the 2 tile has 2 pieces under it. BUT they have to place the pieces with a buddy, this is how they learn odd an even – the even numbers all have a buddy. Bubba is having trouble with this one, he wants to set the pieces up to look like dice instead of with buddies.

So at the end of class we did a snack for his birthday. His teacher had told me that there are a gluten and peanut allergy in his class so I was trying to think of something everyone could eat…. They got Jell-o jigglers (finger Jell-o) on cute animal plates. Am I the coolest Mom or what? Well I tried at least. Then we went to Dad’s work and shared the left-overs.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Cranky pants

Well, I am on my third day of my 4-day weekend. You'd think I would be relaxed and feeling great. Unfortunately I have not slept more than 4 hours at a stretch since I don't know when - Including this weekend. Punkin Head keeps waking - she got some molars. And if she didn't wake, Bubba had growing pains that woke him in the night. Its been a miserable week and a half. I feel like I need a caffine IV just to function. I am in a bad place right now.

But in good news, we had Bubba's 5th b-day party at McDonalds Saturday. It was great. If you ask him what was the best part he says "EVERYTHING!!" Apparently he really enjoyed it. Tonight we are having his family party at the Mexican restaurant he likes. He loves it when they sing. One year he chose Red Robin because he wanted them to sing to him. Funny kid.

Well, I thought I had a lot to say, but sitting by the fire reading sounds better to me.