Cold Spaghetti

I had to call in the order to get the discounted Creative Suite ($299, normally priced at $599 with academic discount) and the free Ipod Touch that came with the order (toy for Paul, hooray!) Since those two discounts were only available with the purchase of a new computer, we went new instead of refurb. It’s rare for us to buy anything new, so it felt very odd. And stressful.

But it’s done. We’re about to be proud Apple parents. Phew.

I am beginning to feel that the Universe is conspiring to keep me away from my photographs. This weekend, we took the kids on a spur-of-the-moment getaway to the beach at Gulf Shores… using my parents’ house as a base. On their computer, I was able to see some of the photos from the end of the trip that hadn’t been deleted from one of the memory cards. It was a shock to see how different they looked on a decent monitor (as opposed to my laptop) and I vowed not to touch them until I could view them decently.

Paul was going to let me view and organize this afternoon on his computer, but for some reason the thing is off the home network and I can’t get to the archive. He’s only gone for an hour or so in a meeting, so it was my one window of opportunity. There are still many pictures I haven’t seen yet, myself. I’ll petition him to let me borrow one of his four (yes, four, apparently, developers need an entire wall of monitors to work — genius requires desktop space, I guess) monitors and hook it up to my laptop tonight.

The exciting news is that we’re resigned to (FINALLY) get an Apple (no, it probably won’t be a new-hotness, nor will it be a laptop — my 6 year old $500 workhorse is doing fine). This desktop would be mine to primarily use for photo and video stuff and I’m thrilled. It’s a heck of a big move for us to consider this within the scope of us loosing $5000-$6000 on the shitty tile job and with the expenses hitting us in the next few months, but we’re reaching critical mass and something is going to give if we don’t move forward a bit. I’m excited about the upgrade but dreading moving to another machine, since I’ve used this one for years with no need of re-boot or cleaning. (What can I say? When Paul fixes up a machine, it WORKS.)

Moving on to other conspiracies… Michael Stipe no longer puts our children to sleep on car rides. Granted, they WERE calm and quiet and on the way to sleep when Paul reached back and put his hand on Will’s leg, so there is a chance that this disturbance interfered with the typical results. Last night, 2 of the 2.5 hours drive from Mobile to NOLA was spent with cranky kids driving us crazy.

In the past, re-entering the United States after weeks abroad has not went well for us. When we returned from the first Honduras trip, Paul was hospitalized with some malaria-ish condition (they couldn’t get blood at the right time to confirm diagnosis), I was stung by a yellow jacket and had an allergic reaction which made me cough so hard I popped out a few ribs and was bed ridden for two weeks, and Paul was laid off from his job. When we returned from Peru two years ago, we found that we had been victims of identity theft (an HR employee at Paul’s company — he is now in federal prison) and our car was dead.

Not withstanding the fact that Spirit Airlines SUCKS, we managed to get back in one piece yesterday — with ALL our luggage and ALL our delicate ceramics unbroken. We enjoyed a wonderful homecoming with the kids, who we picked up from school on the way back from the airport. Then we got home. And the shoe dropped.

The tile was laid in our bathroom while we were gone… we decided to hire someone on great recommendation rather than have Paul and I try to do this when we got back. We were sure his workman ship would live up to our expectations.

It didn’t. We are very disappointed.

The bottom line is that substantial portions will need to be redone.

We’re working on figuring out the next steps there. We’re also working on 800 other things, including getting settled back into our still-disaster-construction-zone house, planning how to spend the weekend re-connecting with our kids, processing the 4000+ photographs taken on the trip, and trying to adjust back to our actual jobs. Thankfully, I planned to NOT start interviews for my study until week after next… it will take that long to get organized.

Details on the trip and pictures posted soon.

We’re having a bad day.

The stress of everything is wearing us down… we’re making mistakes and starting to crack around the edges. We’re hoping that things will calm down after the end of this week, but it’s likely that we have another 2-3 weeks of this.

We’re working hard to keep up the house momentum. It’s so close to drywall… just a few more big pushes and we’re there. We got a tub (it’s sitting in the middle of the front room) which comes along with a wonderful story. The day we got the tub (Friday) was a wonderful, bright, sunny, and life-affirming day… and it must’ve used up all our karma, ’cause we’re in a rough spot now.

I took the kids out of town all weekend (through Monday night) so that Paul was free to turn off the household water supply and work on the plumbing. He estimates that he spent at least 20 hours under the house over those days… in a space too high to lay on your back to work and too low to be on your knees. Working with a blowtorch. And sewer lines. And electricity. Still, he figures that he made off better. Watching the kids at my parents’ house is a challenge and then coming home to a house with no food or provisions is awful.

The weekend is when I work my third (or is it fourth? or maybe fifth?) job: that of housewife. It’s a role I pretty much hate; it’s under-appreciated, I have to work nights and weekends almost exclusively, and it’s much more of a challenge in a house with no washer and dryer (have I mentioned we have had no laundry for almost 2 months?) On the weekends, I try to stock up the fridge for lunches and make ahead meals for the week to minimize how much housewife stuff interferes with my professional work. I care about doing the best for my family, but I’m not a robot… I have to think and plan meals ahead, on the weekends, when I can think about it. Experience has shown us that when this does not happen, we eat crap all week. Which is exactly what is playing out for us now. And probably why we are all cranky. The tofu dish I tried to make last week bombed majorly and I can’t get back into a cooking grove. Moreover, I can’t think enough to decide what to make, what to buy to make, or how to be creative with what we have (that last category can be described as “milk, 1/2 celery stalk, and a few cans of beans”). Paul usually helps me balance these home-maintenance tasks, but is pretty much either working on the house or working his jobs. (If you think he sleeps or eats between these working hours, he doesn’t.)

I’m not exactly sure where we are going to break here, but we will break.

While petunias have been a favorite for years, this year brings a new obsession… this shade of pink.

Now that our “bathroom” and “laundry” are located all over the house while we renovate, the kids are finding all sorts of new play toys.

Will likes bottles of shampoo and cleaning supplies.

Kate likes toothbrushes. Actually, she LOVES toothbrushes.

But it’s the scale that has really captured their imaginations. They could play with it for hours. It’s a complicated model in that you have to put slight weight on it and quickly remove the weight for the scale to take a few seconds to calibrate… THEN you can put your full-self on to get your weight. The two-step system takes a bit of time to get used to, but finally Will has figured out that he doesn’t weigh “E” and that he has to wait until he sees “0.0” before stepping on and getting an accurate read. Kate, on the other hand, is thrilled with whatever the scale displays. Mostly because she is standing on it just to copy whatever Will just did. The squeals of delight, gleeful dancing, and general happiness produced by this on-the-scale, off-the-scale game are mind boggling.

The side benefit is that we have good weights on the kids.

Will is 38.4 pounds. “Thirty-eight FOUR?!?” he says, as if those last four tenths of a pound amount to the weight of twelve kids. I’ve decided to try his strategy and must say that I like focusing on the tenths column much more than the rest. Score one for Little Man!

Kate, who officially turned 22 months on the 9th, is solidly 22 pounds. With a sweater, turtleneck, jeans, and shoes we can eek that weight up to 22.7 pounds, which is pretty respectable for a child who Goes To Eleven. It is nice when we can get the scale to read 22.7 for Kate, because Will reads it as “TWO TWO SEVEN!?!?” — with my brain finishing “is the place to be, with Marla Gibbs and her fam-i-ly” as if on perfect cue. I had such a soft spot for Florence.

The threat of not having indoor plumbing during Paul’s renovation work this weekend drove me to Mobile to stay with the parents Saturday night. It was a desperate situation; my Dad was on death’s door (literally, he didn’t go to work Thursday or Friday — we called in a priest to perform last rites) but I felt that we had no choice. Plus, I had to retrieve the kids’ old summer clothes from the attic if I were going to sell them back to the CCEX this week.

Right before we left, Will complained of being cold. Then sneezed. Uh-ho.

Then we got to Mobile, where my Mom was getting sick, too. I spent the weekend caring for my parents and Will… with a perfectly healthy Kate driving us all crazy. Sunday night, we sped home… I was terrified that the kids would bring the end to my dear parents, who were both sick and exhausted or that both Kate and I would succumb.

Monday morning, Will seemed better. We had assumed he would be home from school, but Will insisted he was okay and was running around with enough energy that we decided to try it out.

It was a mistake. He did fine all day, but when we had him home that night, my Mommy instinct kicked in. No real reason in particular, but Ana’s strep, combined with the fact that he seemed to have stalled in the getting better department made me think he needed to be seen. He stayed home today (despite being incredibly annoying before school this morning — he clogged the front toilet, which started overflowing and didn’t tell anyone until Paul noticed two inches of pee water pouring out of the bathroom door — annoying and bad behavior was another clue that he was probably less healthy than he was appearing). We traded childcare all day between meetings until his doctor’s appointment late this afternoon.

He’s got strep. Now Paul is saying his throat hurts. Kate came home with goopy eyes and has sneezed a few times. The jury is out on those two, but Will is definitely home one more day.

It took a ginger ale tonic and 30 minute of intense work, but we managed to get Will to get the classic pink stuff down. 19 more doses over the next 10 days to go. I’m dreading each and every one.

My Dad’s company does a lot of business in New Orleans and rents an apartment here for business use — thankfully, it’s not being used for the next few days, so the kids and I are using it. It’s letting us do laundry (still no washer and dryer) which is a great thing considering we had three huge bags of wet stinky towels from the morning’s exploding toilet. Tonight and tomorrow night are going to be in the 30s, so the kids and I staying here will hopefully help keep them warm and healthy — when the wind blows, the back rooms are freezing. Paul is home, using every minute of in-house-with-no-kids to put in extra hours at work and on the house. He’s closed off the back rooms and is sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front of the house.

Paul is hoping to work nonstop on the house this weekend, so we need a healthy house. Germs, be gone!

— The stomach flu hit this weekend. Kate was implicated, having thrown up for a few hours late Wednesday night (she was pretty cool about it… she’d retch in the sink, hold her hand out to run her pacifier under the water, and pop it back in her mouth.) No fever or other symptoms, so we went to school on Thursday and attended the parade on Friday. Friday she started showing signs of feeling unwell (i.e.: she demanded to be held, versus the usual, when she acts like she is being boiled in hot oil when someone tries to hold her). By Saturday, she was warm and even more cuddly. Many many many diaper explosions. My parents came into town Friday for the parade and ended up staying through Sunday morning, because my Mom came down with
something similar Saturday afternoon which kept her violently ill all night. The real fun was that no-one-exists-in-the-world-but-me neighbor partied hearty for most of the night… 6 feet from where my Mom was trying to recover. We are pretty much at wit’s end here, as I am pretty sure the stress from his consistent noise violations is going to give us both ulcers. Fun times.

— But we still have managed good fun. Friday’s parade was awesome, as was the ball (more on that, later.) Saturday, Paul and my Dad installed the door and windows in the back. It is officially closed to the elements. We can walk through the house to the backyard — something we haven’t been able to do in a long, long time. Mom watched cuddly Kate inside while I took Will to a friend’s house for an Iris/Tucks Mardi Gras party and saw parts of both parades. Will was an absolute delight: polite, sharing throws with other kids, so sweetly waving and following “Throw me somethin’ Mister” with “please.”

— Thoth was great. We hosted the parade party/provided the close potty for friends and watched the parade en masse.

— We didn’t attend parades today. Paul worked and I played with the kids (think: long paper art project), took 3 walks, went out to stand in line for our first Randazzo’s king cake (my opinion: good, but a big cinnamon roll, too sweet for me), and stopped by Emmy’s for an impromptu playdate with Ana and Elliot.

— And now, I’m fighting off flu. Typical symptoms. We have a 50% attendance rate going for Fat Tuesday parades and I think that this percentage is going to go down a bit after this year. Which is more than fine here. I’m hoping for a great family day and to feel well enough for some great red beans and rice.

Paul is making a float for Friday’s Krewe of Abeona parade. He used scrap wood we had in the back from the renovation/addition. Wheels came from the hardware store, although Paul isn’t quite happy with them and designed it so that upgrades may be made in the future. While it is made currently to push, he’s going to attach ropes to the front if folks want to pull it instead. (It works sort of like a shopping cart when pushed from the back and is actually pretty agile, all things considered.)

A few key pieces were supplemented from wood we use to cover the front door transoms when we evacuate during Hurricane season. He figured there was something… appropriate… about using Hurricane protection materials for a Mardi Gras float.

Here it is, before trim.

While he finished trim, I primed the top of our ladder. No idea what we’re going to do with this, decor-wise, but I thought it needed paint nonetheless.

Then we worked together to prime the float before going to pick up the kids. (How could we not knock off a few minutes early to enjoy the gorgeous weather? Not that everyday hasn’t been like this lately!)

After dinner, while I got Kate ready for bed, Will and Paul put on the first coat of purple paint.
It’s now almost 11pm. Paul just left to go to the out building to put the second coat of paint on the float. We’re trying to get the big coats of paint on and done so that they have plenty of time to dry and we have plenty of time for blinging out the rest of the contraption!! We should have stocked up on battery powered lights after Christmas…!

The things we do for our kids.

I’m doing the Domestic Goddess thing and preparing make-ahead meals to freeze until needed. I need to do my work more hours in the day and have found that this is possible only when dinner is already made. Paul is ’round the clock with work and house, so I’m picking up a lot more on the second shift (first shift = career; second shift = housewife) — in other words, the grind of all professional Moms.

I did this Brunswick Stew before the holidays and it worked well. Highly recommended for ease, freezes great, and even my Dad (who keeps a very limited meat-and-salad diet and never misses an opportunity to poke fun of something I’ve made or done) liked it.

Any suggestions of other good make-aheads that are easy and kid-approved?

Or, any suggestions of interesting things to do with leftover white rice (that aren’t fried rice?)