Archive for the ‘Random thoughts’ Category

• Go to Costco on a Sunday. I know better, I really do, but…what was I thinking? Insane with a huge helping of OMGREALLY?
• Play two church services the morning of the Spring Forward! side of Daylight Savings. At the tail end of a cold. The day after a St. Patrick’s Day party, where we toasted the party with ohmyGodfreakinghuge shots of Irish Cream. And I happily partook of the fermented grape juice because we walked there. When it’s gloomy and cloudy. Hell’s bells, I want a nap.
• Blind myself with the early morning sun (truly, it was BRIGHT this morning, then quickly went south) as I’m turning out of my subdivision. And realize I had to getthehelloverQUICKLY, for there was a runner on the shoulder, much too close for my comfort and blinking the sun blindness out of my eyes as I drove wasn’t an option. Yeah, no ordinary runner, that. Just the current Olympic gold-medalist in women’s marathon. Woke me right up.
• Agree to both boys attending a birthday part together, where they’ll jump like maniacs in a warehouse of trampolines, then get fed pizza and cake and ice cream and then come home and crash from exhaustion and Spring Forward! and sugar crash. No…wait…scratch that. As God as my witness, they can do that every weekend!

Ruled in our favor. 7-0. Never expected a unanimous vote. Ever.

Because it’s apparent that the school is a go, and I’m anticipating that I’ll be heavily involved (and perhaps serve on the Board of Directors), this will be the last I’ll write about the charter school. I can’t risk anything interfering with the success of this school, so I’m done with it here.

My poor husband may be getting the brunt of it all now.

7-0. Stunning.

This calls for wine.

Well, the time has come. Tomorrow the state board of education rules on our charter school. Either they vote in our favor and it goes back to the district for (pleaseGodohplease) approval, or it ends tomorrow afternoon. Guess which scenario I prefer? As the latter involves me and gainful employment so I can pay for private school, you’d be totally correct in thinking the former is my preference. Eighteen hours from now I’ll have a better idea of what the next three months might look like. I hope.

Tomorrow is also the IEP renewal meeting for J’s speech therapy. Oh? I don’t mention his speech therapy much here? You’re right, I don’t. Might have something to do with the fact that Older Brother is a much squeakier wheel, and J’s therapy is easy and paid for by the district. He’s been in official speech therapy for four years now (yes, he’s just short of six, I’ve done the math and I try not to dwell on the fact that it’s over half his life). J has made great improvements in his speech, but he still lags behind in a few sounds. Lags behind nearly 3 years with those sounds, but because it’s not affecting his educational performance, it’s likely his IEP won’t be renewed. I know I could fight it tomorrow (and I suspect I wouldn’t need to fight terribly hard, either), but I’m just playing it by ear. I hate for him to lose ground (I don’t think he will), but I hate to not fight for the IEP and then need it later. We’ll see. It’s hard to fight for services when he’s reading (minimum)  four years above grade level.

Oh, and I have my first cold in three years. I’ve been a laugh riot the last few days. I took my NyQuil nightcap about 45 minutes ago, and now I’m playing “How Long Can I Stay Lucid” roulette. I give myself until I finish this post before my head slaps down on the keyboard.

I pray I return with good news about the school. I have no idea how I’ll swing working with the boys.

and then turns right around when it realized it was being shipped to my house.

Princess’s reign of terror is over. As of 5:30 MST today, she has been replaced. The shiny new toy will be here by the weekend.

Now, to think of an appropriate name for it…

Still here, haven’t been dragged off for shooting Princess the PMSing Laptop in a momentary lapse of judgment (note: not only do I not have access to a firearm, I’ve never fired one). She’s still not working worth crap, and I made the executive decision this morning that I’m giving her up for Lent. Yes, I’m fully aware that today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent and already I’ve fallen off the Lent Wagon, but since she’s moving so slow I suppose I will too. Bitch ain’t gonna see Easter, that’s for sure.

It is all kinds of February around here, and it’s not just me. Tom made a comment at lunch about “back in February,” and I had the sad task of reminding him that it is still that horrid month, and we have 13 days to go before we see any relief. The days rush by so fast I can’t catch my breath; I climb into bed every night wondering where the day went. AND YET the month is dragging on. Sad state of affairs, that. This morning someone greeted me with the standard, “How ya doing?” and all I could do was look at him and reply, “It’s February.” When you start the day off by convincing your test-phobic twice-exceptional 3rd grader that state testing isn’t going to kill him (yes, CSAPs started today whheeeeee), it’s pretty much just downhill from there.

February is my “always darkest before dawn” month, where things get worse and darker before things suddenly improve and it’s all fairies and unicorns farting glitter and working computers. Yes, I put a functioning computer in the same category as glitter-farting unicorns–do you blame me? I made an offhand remark on Facebook about wanting to run away and I think there were no fewer than a dozen women who were ready to toss everything and head out with me. I don’t think that’s so much a statement of my coolness as it is the recognition that this month sucks and a little warmth, sun, and unlimited drinks by scantily clad pool boys is precisely the cure for such a predicament. I’m actually considering assembling a little vacay for Suckage Month 2011, women only. I think four days on a cruise ship with no way of being contacted, food and drinks a’flowing, nothing to do but what we wanted to do, would do wonders for our combined mental states. I can dream.

So yet again, a bleh post because February is in cahoots with Princess and sucking my will to live. But soon March will be here, with a functioning computer and unicorns, and life will be good again.

My mojo has gone missing. I’ve been searching all over the house for it, but it’s well hidden. I did find the 2 extremely overdue library books, but no mojo. I’m doing ok without it, I’m just floundering a bit. Things are taking considerably longer to accomplish, I feel a bit out of sorts–like things aren’t getting done, and I find myself cursing uncontrollably lately. Loudly. Repeatedly. Sailors are blushing on my behalf.

And then I figured out why my mojo escaped. Because of this:

That is Princess the PMSing Laptop. Don’t know if I’ve ever posted a picture of Her Highness the Bitch (thank you iPhone, with your reliability and grace). I can’t really explain how her slow demise is making my life miserable, but lemme see if I can try.

• Something inside the machine, under the left hand, has been making a wet (!) gurgling sound. I smacked it last night, rather hard, and it stopped. I can say with a great deal of confidence that the sound will return today.
• Click…1,2,3,4…28,29,30…window opens. And lest you think I’m counting quickly, allow me to remind you that I’m a professionally trained musician and can keep a damned (see, there’s the swearing again) steady beat at 60 bpm. The shortest count is about 4 seconds, the longest well over 30 and then she crashes.
• I’ve been working on updating my resume. Four hours on Tuesday, two and a half of which were just waiting for her to catch up. I tried to continue last night, but got so frustrated I went and started working on our taxes at 9:30 at night. I need to have Le Resume in tomorrow for a volunteer position I dearly want.
• Working on the taxes is taking forever because half of what I need is on this machine and getting it out is like pulling teeth from a rhino…difficult and painful. See the irony? As soon as taxes are in and we have a refund (pleasepleaseohGodplease), she can be replaced. Wait a second…methinks she knows this…hmmm…
• Supposedly I have wicked fast internet now. I have not seen any indication of this, simply because the computer is too slow. Swear to GOD once she is replaced I’m getting fiber-optic internet, just so I can dance like a wood sprite with the joy of it all.
• It’s a good thing I have mad touch-typing skillz. The letters are wearing off the keys one by one. Eh, who needs an “n?” I only have two in my name!
• Have I mentioned the constant crashing?
• I got my inbox down to zero a week ago; right now I have roughly 80 emails to process and/or answer. Same with posts in my reader, except there the number is well into the hundreds. I don’t like the feeling of my large intestine trying to throttle my brain because of the length of time it takes to accomplish a single email, so I’ve been avoiding it.

So, all in all, I’d rather brush my teeth with a rabid porcupine than sit and work in front of this machine. And on top of it all? We have our “Come to Jesus” meeting this afternoon with the school about accommodations for A.

Applying keyboard to forehead in 3…2…1…

I’m back. And, boy, do I have some loose ends here.

First and foremost, I allegedly have super fast, whoosh-my-hair-back internet now. I can’t tell, because Princess the PMSing Laptop has relapsed and is slowly dying. As I type here, I have no cursor, can easily write an entire sentence before I see what has been written, and can click on a window/tab/anything and count to at least five before something happens. So today I offer up this heartfelt prayer:

Dear IRS, after last year’s heart-attack-inducing “We owe HOW MUCH???” incident, we changed our withholdings and are praying for a refund. Please let there be a refund. Any refund will directly carried to the Apple Store and exchanged for a computer that actually works. (Wow. Imagine that, a computer that works. What’s that like?) This will stimulate the economy and I will be regarded as a hero for aforementioned stimulation. You can thank me later. Off to gather tax info for my accountant, Jen.

I poisoned myself went for dim sum last weekend. Thought I was doing so well, avoiding the wheat items and eating the rice items. Uh, no. I managed only to heavily glutenize myself and have been wiped since about Tuesday. Took me the better part of three days to figure out WTF I did to feel so bad. I’m still recovering, as evidenced by the fact that I slept until 9 this morning. That was partly due to a dog with a sudden case of I HAVE TO PEE!!!!! at 4 this morning, and partly because the boys didn’t want me to find out that they had dragged A’s mattress downstairs to watch TV. They are now using it as a trampoline as they watch Garfield. Please pity me.

If you haven’t been participating in the Twitter #gtchat chats, you’re missing out. Yesterday’s topics were Asynchronous Development and Twice Exceptionalities. Because I was still setting up my new modem/router (seriously, can anything concerning computers be easy for me for a change?) I missed the entire 2e chat. Grumble, grumble…but transcripts have been posted. Asynchronous development here and 2e here. Chats are every Friday at noon EST and 7pm EST. Details can be found at Ingeniosus and new topics to be voted on are posted every week.

This post is taking forfreakingever to write. I hate this POS laptop. I type insanely fast and I’m into a half hour here. (edit: it’s five hours later and I’m still working on this, simply because my frustration level keeps shooting through the roof)

Missy, bless her heart, left me not one, but two awards this week. I have to combine the blog list ’cause I will kill my computer if I link back to 22 bloggers.

Along with the award comes . . . R-U-L-E-S.  Here they are:

A. List 10 things that make you happy.
B. Try to do at least one of them today.
C. Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.
D. For those 10 bloggers who get the award, you then link back to my blog and create your own “makes you happy” list.

Ten things that make you happy…ordinarily this wouldn’t be hard, but I still feel like crap from the gluten poisoning and that tends to make me less than happy. Let’s see what I can come up with.

1. Sunshine in February
2. Any temp over 50F in February
3. Coffee with friends
4. Wine and Whine with friends
5. Pandora
6. When the boys genuinely love on each other
7. A hot shower after a hard workout, not that I’ve had the energy for that this week
8. My iPhone…because IT WORKS (hear that, you miserable POS? You can’t miss it, I’M TYPING ON YOU!!!!)
9. When the dog farts and I’m in the other room and don’t have to breathe it in. Never happens, because she’s always under my feet. But I hope.
10. Monday mornings, when I can kick the boys out the door to school.

In the tradition of this award, here are the rules I must oblige by in order to pass it on:

- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.  Check.
- Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.  Check.
- Link the nominees within your post.  Check.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.  Check.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.  Check.

I’m only linking to 6, because, again, my computer would keel over…I’ve been working on this post for too long…I’m tired and want to go lie down.

1. Nancy at Away We Go. I love her sense of humor.
2. cms at Ends with 8741. She has had a hard week.
3. Lynn at For Love or Funny. Again, makes me laugh.
4. Karin at HeartSongs. She has also had a terrible week.
5. The gals at So ‘Over’ Everything. Another blog on intense, 2e kids. Good to find.
6. Dawn at Weldable Cookies. She is a wonderful friend, has talked me off many a ledge, and never fails to surprise.

Frankly, there are too many. Eventually I’ll get my blogroll up in the header where it says “reading list.” Guess how long that’s been in the queue? Yeah, just slightly short of forever. If you made it this far, congratulations, you made it farther than I did. I gave up long ago and the monkeys quit their Shakespeare and finished this for me.

My positive karma account was just depleted when J was accepted into full-day kindergarten, that’s all. I’m kinda hoping it refills here pretty soon, as I’m tired of being in the red with that account.

A is home sick today. Too sick for school, not sick enough to sleep all day. So we’ve been watching the Bill Nye videos we got at the library yesterday, and the Science of Disney Imagineering videos we picked up too. I’m wildly in love with this series, and if they weren’t $50 a pop, I’d buy all five. So far today he’s learned (and taken the DVD quiz to prove he’s retained) about magnetism and Newton’s Three Laws of Physics. Uh-huh, more learning here today coughing on the couch than he would have gotten over the fence.

But still, home sick. Which meant I had to cancel two appointments today, and slowed down long enough to realize I don’t feel so hot. Not exactly sick, just really tired/sleepy/wiped out. This must stop. Now. Today. I have a free weekend with my husband at a five star resort this weekend, my parents flying in to watch the boys, and I’ll be damned if I miss it because my little petri dishes shared their goo with me.

So I’m going to spend my sick/not sick day on the couch with A while he watches videos and plays on my iPhone (yes, I’m that awesome). Have laptop, will work from couch. I’ll be able to read and comment on all the blogs I haven’t had a chance to read. Current reader count: 351. Sigh. It hasn’t been under 200 since before Thanksgiving. Funny thing….people might come here and comment if I go to their site and comment. You’d think I’d remember that. I can finally get to work on my resume, provided I can pull myself away from job hunting sites to actually work on it. That particular horse is looking around and thinking, “Duuuude, I might be low on opposable thumbs and have a brain the size of a pear, but even I know that cart should be behind me.” So, yeah. Update the 10 year old resume first, search second. I might even be able to iron out a few areas of my life. (Imagine a pair of white linen pants that you forgot in the dryer. They now resemble a relief map of the western United States. That is the current state of most everything I’ve touched lately).

I will gather strength for the parent/teacher conferences this afternoon. One will have a teacher telling us everything is faboo, the other will have a teacher telling us everything is not entirely faboo, and we really should meet to discuss the future. Yes, I know, I’ve been saying that for awhile now. Welcome to the party.

But before I begin my sprint towards the rest of the day (and really, when did life become a marathon at a sprint’s pace?), I need a nap. I’m going away this weekend unless there’s projectile vomit involved, but I’d really prefer to enjoy it.

You know, I really don’t care if rock meet hard place, I’m just tired of being caught between the two. I think I’d rather get caught between a mama bear and her cubs some days. In the last week, rock and hard place have squeezed me in A’s education, my career, and today health insurance. Feeling a bit beat up.

So I have little to nothing amusing or witty or fun today. Instead, I get to review our medical expenses for the last year, search for a job, and seek help for my son.

Remember what happens when a rock hits a hard place repeatedly? I’m sure you covered this in scouts as a kid. Sparks. Smoke. Fire. Here’s hoping I don’t spontaneously combust this weekend.

For those of you following along at home, yes, I am slathering myself in sunscreen after the OHMYFREAKINGGOD aging photos I saw at the museum on Saturday. SPF 100, as a matter of fact. Face, neck, and upper chest. I may go broke buying sunscreen year-round, but I won’t be mistaken for a cow’s ass when I’m 70. Oh, hello there, Bessie, I wanted to ask you….AGH! Jen! It’s you! I thought…I think I’d better leave now…

In addition to the OHMYFREAKINGGOD aging photos at the exhibit, there was a cool brain waves thingamabob, similar to this Star Wars one, but for two people. Each person puts on a headband-like thing, and the object is to get the ball in the middle of the lane to the other person’s side using brain waves (look, dude, I don’t get it. There’s obviously science going on there somewhere, it’s in a science museum, but don’t ask me to explain the damned thing). I sat down with A, we got our headbands on, and he frakking smoked me. Three times. The docent came over, laughing, and said she had never seen one person whip another like that before.

And that, my friends, is what I deal with every.single.day. A has a force about him that defies description. Some people call it “strong-willed,” but it’s more nuanced than that. It’s not stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, and it’s not defiant, it’s just…his will is so determined. Again, defies description. We started that brain waves thing, and I didn’t stand a chance. The ball didn’t even hesitate, it just whipped to my side. I was stunned. C’mon, the docent couldn’t believe it, and she stands there and watches people do it! When it’s something he wants, get out of his way. When you’re making him do something he doesn’t want to do, duck. I get nauseous when I think about his upcoming teen years, when I can’t just pick him up and haul him off when he’s out of control.

This is what is worries me about homeschooling. While I know it would probably be best for him, I don’t know if it’s best for me or the family as a whole. I may have found a wonderful private school, but my money tree is dormant right now, and jobs are scarce.  The charter school we want is in the process of appealing the school board’s denial to the state, so we’re in a holding pattern.

The Force is strong in this one. It’ll serve him well as an adult. It’s the remainder of childhood that I’m worried about.