Boxes of Notions

So after giving Eve the chills when trying to take her to Walgreen's for some Vick's and some Coke for me, and after watching her eyes get raw from all the watering, I finally decided to take her to urgent care.  We were about to start day three of a mild fever, and I just didn't see a lot of progress. 
And found out she has the flu.
Today she's better -- less watery eyes, less drippy in general -- but there's a cough on the horizon that is going to be horrible.

I've busted out the Lysol and have begun the fumigation process.  I hate to think about Jesse getting this before tour.  Really hate.  Nevermind me getting it while he's on tour.

Our butts are planted on the couch watching lots of TV and drinking as much fluid as possible.  I've been catching up on stuff I should have done a while ago -- payroll changes, taxes, that kind of stuff.  

Oh!  And the cat, after all her barfing on Monday, and not eating on Tuesday, seems to be eating and not barfing and 100% better.  So glad to be removing that stressor from my list.

I'm home on day 4 of an unexpected 4 day weekend.  It snowed yesterday, but I knew Eve was getting sick, and sick she is.

So is Olive.  She spent last night barfing some foul smelling barf.  Which is unpleasant in and of itself but because she never ever pukes -- we call her Trash Cat -- she freaked herself out with it and spent a couple hours dashing about, making a mess.

ANYWAY, enough of that.

Jesse's gone back to union work.  We are both pretty freaking relieved.  After two years out of it, and never seeming to work a full week, let alone a month, he decided that it was time to suck it up and go back to commercial construction.  It seems like less money, but it means benefits again -- pension and vacation, and unemployment if he gets laid off.  There's also a paltry health plan, but we've decided to keep him on my much better state plan. 
And he's working for a company that seems pretty flexible with his touring.  He's only working a week and a half until he leaves for a month-long tour.  Luckily, we've got half a mortgage saved and other savings, so that won't kick our ass too much.
He started yesterday and at dinner, I asked him how long the job was expected to last, and he said until October.  I pretty much started crying.  The idea that he's got guaranteed work for 6 months is ridiculously relieving.  I know that we've been doing okay -- not dipping into savings, cutting back on things -- but our credit card debt was starting to mushroom.
I'm going to have to figure out how quickly I can pay off the debt starting in April.  But at least I can kick in a plan that won't have us making even more.

I had to take a furlough day as a state worker.  We've been told we won't get raises for probably 3 years.  People are griping, and I guess I understand that.  But my response was the horrible "at least we have jobs" and as cliche as that sounds, it's pretty fucking true.

Confession:  I never got Buffy.  I don't really care about vampires or vampire fighters or the like.

But I LOVED Firefly.  Really loved it.

However, I want someone to tell me when Dollhouse gets better, because I don't know how much more I can endure.  I've only seen two episodes, and while I like parts, I really really do not like Dushku, so perhaps it's something I'll never manage to appreciate.  And I want to!  Because the story is intriguing.  But then, there's Dushku, and so my interest wanes.

So I've been doing the new gig for a week now and I have to say that I love it more than I even thought I would.  Sure I spend 5-6 hours a day stuck in dirty storage rooms full of over-stuffed boxes of very old, dusty, and sometimes boring things and I ache from the shifting around of said boxes, but it is WAY COOL.

I have found:
Notebooks from 1911
Scrapbooks from the 1930s
Photographs of students who were lost in action in World War II
A book in German that was printed in like 1719
Photos of the library when there was a fountain out front and a whole different entrance

I spent an hour today looking through someone's science notes from the 1900s complete with fountain pen line drawings of topography.

I'm hoping the renovations for the old space will begin soon.  My new boss showed me the blue prints for the project today.  I apparently get my own nice built-in workspace with all new furniture.  Whoop!  Of course, it will be a few months and until then, we're languishing in the bowels of the library, back in the space I first had when I started the job almost 9 years ago.

Sometimes I wonder what my 16-year-old self would think of me.  I'm not in show business, so that's a deduction.  But I work with books, really old books now.  And I'm married to an almost rock star.  I think me at 16 would think I was pretty all right. 

 So I start the new gig on February 11th.  Right now I have to sort out all my crap and figure out what I can get rid of and get ready to move it all downstairs to our temporary home.  The entire archives is being re-done so soon I will have a brand new shiny workspace, way better than anywhere else in the library.
I keep having to pinch myself to believe I really got the job.  I beat out a LOT of people, a lot of very experienced and educated people.  I really do know that I'm a lucky son of a bitch.
My co-workers and Aunty Boss are already mourning my going.  Apparently I do a lot of work here?  Which is a mystery considering the existence of hulu.com.

Tomorrow, we're having Eve's fourth birthday party.  How could she be four?  Her actual birthday is Monday and for that we are venturing to Build-a-Bear.  She doesn't know of its existence yet, which pleases me.  Sure, she knows about Hannah Montana thanks to her classmates, but at least I get to introduce her to the really cool stuff.
We're having a princess party which is kind of sickeningly sweet and yet I'm all into it.  I was telling sharkycharming all about how I'd gotten plastic martini glasses that I'm going to rim in pink sugar and serve juice in.  Because I am THAT mom, the one who goes a little overboard all the time because it was the kind of thing I wish my own mother had done when I was a kid.  Oh, sometimes she did,  but not very often.  I remember she made up one fun Valentine's Day thing and always served cherry pie on Washington's birthday but other than that, she didn't really ever get silly.  My mom is NOT silly.  I am the silliest.

Eve is getting the Leapster for her birthday.  She'd be just as happy with a giant pack of bubble gum.  God, I love the simple pleasures of four.  I'm going to be devestated when she won't tell me every little thing she's thinking or when she demands a dumb ass toy because all her friends have it.  Then again, I remember the allure of Hello Kitty, so maybe I'll be more of a pushover than I want to be.

I'm very tired.  I stayed up too late and Eve was up before 6 crying about needing to read her Powerpuff girls book.  Jesse said he'd heard her even earlier, crying for her mermaid puzzle book.  I wonder if she actually slept.  We're going to have to really tone down the excitement dial tonight and hope she gets any sleep at all.

Eve and I survived each other while Jesse was gone.

Jesse survived being gone.  His father came down with some kind of digestive upset -- at first they thought it was a bug, but then they decided it was something he ate since no one else came down with it.  My father-in-law likes seafood a lot and seems to get sick from it a lot. 
I don't think camping in a rustic cabin with no running water is a good time for abdominal distress.

Money thing:
I belong to a frugal board and one woman there came up with the best idea ever.  I like the idea of allowances, but I suck at it because cash is really inconvenient for me and the kind of buying I do.  She suggested opening an ING checking account just for an allowance.  So that's what I did!  I'll get my little debit card and every paycheck, a set amount of money will automatically transfer over.  So smart!  Plus, it earns interest.

Things Eve is obsessed with:

Cinderella
Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip
Tinkerbell
The machines on "How It's Made"
Barrettes
Her Airwalk boots
Sparkly skirts
Fingernail polish
Joe Flacco
Quinn
Bagel bites
"Chuggee" Cheese
Bubble baths
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Lipstick
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Skeletons
Anakin Skywalker

I'm writing because midwinter told me to.

I did this dumb thing today where I sat and figured out when I can take time off -- like added up how many hours I'd accrue by a certain time, juggled the personal, holidays and annual time.  It was sort of depressing.  I used to be able to just take time off whenever I wanted because I had bucket loads.  But then I had a kid and I didn't have the heart to take her to the babysitter's or school every single day and suddenly I have no time.  I was running negative there for a bit this summer.  It sucks.

Jesse is right now packing for his long weekend away with his dad and friends backpacking.  They're going to southern Virginia to a cabin in the woods.  I'm preparing by lining up entertainment for Eve for four days.  Friday I've bribed Jesse's niece to come babysit for a couple hours while I go drift around B&N with my $25 gift card.  I bribed her with making her a home cooked meal.  She lives at home, but what with her mother's belly dancing and her stepfather's marathons, there's either nothing worthwhile to eat in the house or no one to show her how to make it.

Other things -- I didn't get that job AGAIN.  Seriously, kick me now.  

I wrote a book and sent it off to be judged by some people in Texas for a contest.  It won't get far, but I finished it, and that felt good.  I'm going to have to cough up $500 soon so I can attend a conference in July.

In the meantime, I have to plan a "pretty pink princess party" for Eve's fourth which is happening in 23 days.  For her actual birthday I'm using my furlough day and taking the day off so we can eat lunch somewhere kid friendly and go to Build-a-Bear. 

I am the mother I always wanted.

I have to go upstairs now.  Eve is demanding a drink of water.  Yes, she is big enough to get out of bed and go get it herself, even tall enough to turn lights on and off, but apparently she's incapable.  Blargh.

 Jesse spent most of the last week working about two hours away.  He drove home a couple nights, but also spent a couple nights at a hotel nearby.

Eve and I had reached our limit with each other by Wednesday night.  

Tour is going to suck.

Anyway, I was waiting for him to come home so I could start reading Watchmen.  I like Alan Moore, but he honestly scares the bejesus out of me.  I don't understand it, either, but just accept it as truth.

So Jesse came home last night and I started reading it and at one point, there are a slew of drawings of Nixon.

Which would explain why I had a dream that Obama wasn't really our President-elect, that there was a recount and we were now facing a re-emergence of Nixon as President.  I kept trying to tell myself that the man is dead, but it wasn't working.  I started figuring out what I had in the house so we could make a bunker in the basement.  

I'm telling you, Moore is bad for my brains.

The funniest part of having a toilet-trained child is that she has like no filter regarding how one behaves in a public restroom.

She's constantly quizzing me about the stalls and what other people are doing.  And then when she goes, she announces it to the room.  "I'm POOPING!"  As if no one could tell.

We spend a lot of time in public bathrooms now.  If we're at a store, we have to visit the bathrooms at least twice.  Last week, it was during a Bed, Bath, and Beyond run, and I had to keep stashing my basket of stuff in the aisle and then racing with her to the restroom.

Oh!  And she's been eating playdough.  I know because I make her playdough using this highly concentrated food coloring gel.  And her poop is like electric green.

The good thing about my job:
When it's cold outside -- like it is today, complete with rain and wind -- I can sit tucked up with books and the internets and drink hot Starbucks drinks all day long.

The bad thing about my job:
Crazy committees for everything that take way too long to decide anything -- hiring, redesigning,etc.  Hell, we even have a CALENDAR committee, and a committee to back-up any of the other committees!

Also, excel spreadsheets.  Wah!  

I am currently working on a spreadsheet with three worksheets, and I'm trying to trace all the journals and how they link to each other -- ones that overtake others and the ones overtaken and our coverage of all those things.  Ultimately, it means we get to weed our collection. Right now it just means too much information with highlighting and bolding.

We went to a Halloween wedding Saturday night, which was actually a lot more fun than it sounds like it would be.  Everyone was in the spirit -- no pun intended -- and any wedding that starts off with a song from Corpse Bride is pretty all right in my book.

While we were enjoying ourselves, Eve was at home with Jesse's nephew Ashton. And let me tell you, I think the closer we get to four, the worse she gets.  I'd gotten her this little Cinderella doll set, and she spent most of the day yelling at us about Cinderella's shoes.  "No!  I need to put her shoes on FIRST."  Complete with emphatic head movements.

So poor Ashton.  She apparently was mad at him for trying to urge her to eat her dinner, and so she picked up one of our defunct cell phones that we let her play with, and said to him, "I'm going to call my Mommy and Daddy and TELL ON YOU because YOU are NOT LISTENING."

Sunday morning she discovered the joy of leaving her room to come wake us up.  Our alarm clock had automatically set itself an hour behind because according to it, it was time for Daylight Savings to end.  So we thought it was 7ish, but it was instead 8ish, which made me feel a little less awful for some reason.

I went grocery shopping, including a big stock-up at Giant for things I can't get at BJs, which means dried beans and noodles mostly.  Every single time I do this the cashier asks me if I'm making soup.  Because I guess that's the only thing people do with dried beans?  I told Jesse that pinto beans do not make soup to me.  And I got great northern beans to make homemade baked beans for Halloween.  I'm making mummy dogs, too.  Mmm, I can't wait!

I've been reading a lot of financial news, trying to figure out what all the crap going on will ultimately mean to us in the long run.  It's hard to gauge because, of course, there are the people on one end of the spectrum FUH-REAKING out and then the others who are so blase about it.

However, I have learned I'm glad about some things.

I'm glad when we re-financed the house three years ago that we only took what we needed to pay off the cars and the big debt.  So our mortgage isn't more than our house worth.

I'm glad that we're pretty content to stay where we are.  It helps that Harford Rd. is having an awesome restaurant resurgence.  (That last,  by the way, is owned by the lady who did our wedding cake.  If you were lucky enough to have any, I BET you'll want to try out her other stuff!)

I'm glad that I bought Mortimer this spring -- if I'd waited, I might not have been able to get the financing for him.  My credit is pretty stellar, but in this market, things are so wacky.  And I didn't have that much to put down, even with a trade-in.  I'm pretty glad I listened to my intuition to buy sooner rather than wait any longer.

I'm sort of glad that we have the money we'd need to pay off our credit card debt right now.  I'm not so thrilled that we have the debt in the first place, but at least it's minor.

I'm glad that I have to really wrestle with the idea of a $4 splurge for afternoon coffee -- it suggests that I'm not quite the material-driven person I fear I am when I think about how far we've come in the 3 years since that re-financing.  And I'm also glad that I don't seem to have spoiled my kid as she doesn't really have a "Gimme" personality.

And lastly, I'm really glad that I know how to cook and that we like rice and beans.  Because, hey, if things really go belly up, we've got a ton of dried beans that will last us a while.

Things that have happened in the month since I last wrote:

1) Eve is now diaper-free!

Okay, that really is the only thing that counts, in the big picture.  And it ultimately took a lot of drama to get us to this point -- including the threat of being kicked out of her new class if she didn't get it together.  But after a week, I can say that she's definitely a toilet trained kid.  And the benefit to her doing it so late is that she's also got the night-time stuff down, too. 
It was SO NICE to go to the store this weekend and not buy diapers.  We'll be tossing out the diaper pail and changing mat and broken supply cart next.

In other news, I've written over half of a book that I want to enter in a contest in a month.  That sounds scary, but I think I'm more like three-quarters done and will be able to really get it together with the editing and whatnot.  I also have back-up plans for what happens if it gets rejected.  But we won't think about that until April when they announce the finalists.

This month has suddenly jammed up with activity, and I don't have time for that!  I need to write!  And then it will be time for the holidays.  Good golly.

I'm going to stop now, because my computer keeps hanging and it's pissing me off.

Swiped from chinook_wind 

Color Perception Test

I am INVINCIBLE!  I got a zero, which is the best you can get. 

Also, the whole thing made me feel a little nauseous. 

( Mulling )

Tour is almost over -- tonight Jesse plays his last show in Atlanta at DragonCon. 

Eve and I had a terrible day yesterday.  She was overly tired and I was overly ready to run away from home.

Today is better.  We've been doing puzzles and soon I'll let her paint while I do the dishes.  I bet when I'm done, she'll be ready to "do the dishes" which will help her clean up whatever mess she made from painting.  Our plans are pretty loose, which means non-existent.  Might meet a friend for a playdate.  Might go to Target.  Might stay home and be lazy.

I recorded Ella Enchanted for a movie night tonight.  God love princess movies.

My mom came over for dinner last night and brought a bottle of wine, which was nice.  I'd rather she'd said, "Go, I'll take care of her for an hour or two."  But alas, not in the cards.  I did try and foist Eve off on the play area people at Ikea yesterday, but they didn't want her because she's not potty-trained.  Try explaining THAT to a 3 year old.  She thought all she had to do was go to the bathroom and she'd be allowed in.  Horrible.

You must all think I'm a horrible parent.

The other day I asked her if she missed Jesse.  She told me we shouldn't.  "We have GIRLS time!" she shouted and gave me a big hug.

So I guess I'm not really an ogre.

Wow.  I just called the woman who cleans my house for me every week and asked her to skip me this week because I can't even get up the energy to wash the dishes.

I haven't slept well in a week.  Somehow I still managed to oversleep and almost screwed up my incredibly tight timeframe

• Up at 6:15
• out the door with a fully dressed kid by 6:45 -- including having packed two lunches and dealt with "potty time"
• drop the kid at school by 7:10 -- she was the second one there for the morning
• on the light rail by 7:25
• 8:15 -- downtown, coffee in hand, at the juror's entrance

And there I sat for the next 8 hours.

When I got out, it was back to the races.  Back to Eve's school and then off to ballet/tap classes.  After that, we stopped to get dinner via drivethrough, only to get home and find my father-in-law waiting with his usual Family Night Pizza.  I felt terrible because he forgot and spent a bunch of money when it was just he, Eve and me.  And we had dinner!  God.

He left 45 minutes later at 8.  And then it was time to get Eve into bed and she's still talking to the walls or whatever.  I managed to get the trash out, and then I called Lisa and practically wept "Uncle!" and she said she was glad because she had an extra job that she wasn't sure how to cover, so she was just as happy.  I'm so glad I trusted my instincts and called.

I had something else to say, but I've forgotten what.  My brain is melted cheese.

Why is my mom so super NUTS?

Tonight she messaged me asking if I was watching the roll call at the Democratic Convention.

Oh, sure.  Eve and I are totally all snuggled together watching precisely that.

(True answer -- we were watching Enchanted and eating nachos.)

Then she signed off, admonishing me to not miss Biden's speech.  I plan to be watching the Shear Genius episode from last week, thanks. 

It's like she forgets that I have a life and range of interests outside hers.  And tonight, my interests include two bottles of Corona and limes and crap tv and an early bedtime.  (Thanks, Baltimore City, for scheduling my yearly jury duty service for the week Jesse goes on tour.  You're aces.)

I should be straightening the house.  Nuts to that, says me.