New Car

In lovely news, I have a new car. Car insurance paid for about a third of it. My parents paid for the rest. She is a 2014 Ford C-Max Hybrid SEL. My favorite part is that she is Bluetooth compatible so I can play my phone music through the car speakers. I’ve been wanting to be able to do that for a long time. She has fancy things like a push-button ignition and seat warmers and that is all lovely. But really, she gets me where I need to go, plays my music, and isn’t at risk of falling apart on me. So I’m over the moon.

Isn’t she pretty? I haven’t named her yet. I’ve had her for a few weeks at this point, but I immediately got Covid so I have barely driven her. Since she’s a C-Max I almost want to name her Max, but that’s my name and I don’t feel like sharing it.

Hmm. Actually. She’s an SEL. Maybe Selina?

Anyway, the Matrix that died in the accident was old and needed replaced. I wish I too hadn’t almost died in the process. I would have liked to have taken it out back and shot it when I was damn well ready. But it was nice to have insurance money to put towards this one. I got about 2.7k. So silver linings, I guess.

General Update March 2020

I don’t really have anything big and exciting to talk about.

I refuse to spend time discussing the mass hysteria that is Covid 19. Wash your hands. Stay home if sick. Don’t touch your face. Don’t shake hands with others. Minimize the touching of shared spaces. Consider voting blue no matter who since Trump fired the entire pandemic team in 2018. There, it’s discussed. Oh. I will say that so far my household is healthy. And the kids are out of school until at least April 6th. Now it’s discussed.

We’re slowly doing some spring cleaning around the house over the span of March. Hopefully more so now that the kids are home for three weeks.

This past weekend’s project was Sammy and Lucas trading rooms. Lucas had the biggest room in the house, outside of the master bedroom, and utilized about 50% of the provided space. Sammy, meanwhile, who still plays with toys desperately needed storage and thus most of her belongings were on the floor, and really she needed more room in general because even after I bought her storage, there was no place to put it in her room.

So they traded.

That was a lot of work. Two rooms were torn apart and reorganized. Plus, while we were at it, I had them both sort through all their clothes and donate shit that they were just never going to wear, or that didn’t fit. I’ve already hauled 1 load to goodwill and have another load to go since they are still sorting as I wash the 10 loads pulled out of the bottom of various closets. I also hauled a full load of garbage to the dumpsters behind the apartments in our neighborhood. There was just so much stuff beyond saving and it wouldn’t all fit in our bin.

There rooms are back in proper order now, so that has settled. I do have a storage closet in Sammy’s new room that I want to go through. But that can wait. It’s behind a shut door.

My lower back, however, is killing me. Thank goodness for CBD lotion and the tens unit my mom bought me. (School is on lockdown so Thomas and I don’t have access to the weight room. Which is a bummer, but understandable.)

Work is going well. I, unfortunately, missed a full day this past week due to an ear infection. I was put on the proper anti-biotics and by the time I returned to work, they had kicked in and I was feeling much better. Then I missed a few hours Friday because I went into anaphylactic shock. Apparently I’m allergic to seasoned fries from Popeye’s. I probably could have suffered through the rest of the workday, but things were very slow with barely any appointments, so I was encouraged to go home and double the Benadryl dose I’d already taken.

Honestly, I think that’s about it for now.

Have a flower in these troubling days

Travel

I don’t know why but of all the places in the world, I want to visit Greenland and Iceland the most.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to travel Europe and visit all the museums and historically significant places.  It’s a dream.  But if I were to only leave the USA once, I’d want to go to Iceland and Greenland.  They just to me seem to be the most beautiful places in the world.  Plus, they aren’t exactly tourist hot spots so it wouldn’t be so… crowded.

I don’t know.  I really don’t know what it is.

I bet there is a cruise that goes through the region and will stop at different ports of interest.  Or, I’d just take a flight and stay at different motels as I explored each country.  I’d need a few weeks to do it.  Maybe when my kids are grown and I’m done with my schooling I can reward myself with spending a summer doing just that.  I don’t know.

But…

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Random Bits

None of these are long enough for a separate blog post all their own, so they are having a lesson in sharing.

Speaking of sharing, my boys share a room.  And almost every morning they wake up ready to brawl, waking the rest of us with the sound of their fighting.  I say “almost” because once a week they wake up in separate homes.  One with my mom, the other here.  So I’ve decided to take a creative approach.  Mind you, I think so far out of the box that my box doesn’t even exist.  What the hell is a box?  This box you speak of, does it hold candy?  Only then am I interested.  Or, maybe if it were a box of puppies.  I digress.  So I’ve decided that from now on, every morning that they wake up and immediately start fighting, that night they have to share a bed.  My husband finds this twisted.  I argue the horrors of sharing a twin bed might shock them into getting along.  Oh, and we’ll go top bunk since it is much harder to fall out of when your brother tries to shove you to your own side.

Hey!  Speaking of falling out of the top bunk:

The NASA technology is gone, now there is just a brace in its place for the next 1-2 weeks.  But only when he plays.  It’s still healing but he needs to be able to let it move when he isn’t being rough and tumble.

On a different note, Guess who is getting a perfect 100% in the first college class she’s taken in over 5 years?  That’s right, this bitch!  It started easy but once you see it possible, you keep it possible.  If you tell yourself you’ll settle for a pass, you’ll only pass.  When you tell yourself you are an A student and you will pull in A’s you get A’s.  I’m telling myself I am capable of perfection. (I’ll settle for A’s.  What do you think I am, crazy?  Yeah, don’t answer that.)

My husband told me he broke the hair clippers, basically meaning I can’t shave my hair off anymore.  And that’s how I got blood stains on my hands.  Then he told me he fixed them so I brought him back.  Slightly zombified.  Slightly.  Or, it’s possible he only seems like a zombie because he threw out his back?  This paragraph has no real purpose other than OMG I finally can get rid of this hair that is way too long.  I spent a week thinking I could maybe grow out my hair.  HAHAHAHAHAHA.  No.  It’s touching me. (I’m not crazy, I’m eccentric.)

Any job letter of reference that starts out

Jane Doe can rappel down skyscrapers with a single bound.  More importantly, you can trust Jane’s set-up so that you too can rappel down skyscrapers, in a single bound of trust that she can get you safely to the bottom.

is a winner.  You want me to write you a letter of reference.  I’m qualified.

I’m a touch slap happy.  We just survived the 1st of the month in banking with an entire 7 employees for the entire branch.   We’ve been known to consider ourselves short on the 1st with a full 12 employees.  Tired doesn’t cover it.  But I’m flying high because I took on a role of leadership over something we were trying to logic out.  I presented the plan, ran it, and it worked like I knew it would.  Flying.  High.

Hey, speaking of leadership.  I would have had a chance to get a promotion that I turned down.  Again, not crazy.  First, starting school and being promoted within weeks of each other does not lead to perfect scores in school.  Oh, I’d still pass, but at what cost?  Sanity is a fragile thing.  And that box is currently upside down as it is, as “this side up” points to the floor.  Oh hey!  There’s my box!

But also, this promotion had I been given it, would have taken me from my branch.  It isn’t like I won’t ever leave my branch, but we are days away from being down to 2 tellers.  One of which, not me, is pregnant due to pop in less than 2 months.  Full line, FYI, is 6-7.  Me leaving before we hire at least 3 more would cripple the branch.  And I can’t do that to my team.  I can’t.  If I had absolutely nothing left to learn from them, it would maybe be different.  Hell, my boss would push me out the door.  She’d rather that than hold me back.  But I still learn something new there daily.  Plus, we have a new teller supervisor(!!!!!!) starting next week.  I am so excited to work with her.  She will be amazing for our line, branch, team.  She use to be a trainer.  She trained all of our personal bankers in fact.  Moral is high just thinking about her joining our team.  It’s her job I’d be taking at the other branch.  It’s a position I’m after in general.  But I’m excited to learn from her first, and then move on.

Finally, and the boss lady only told me about this after I decided not to apply, the other branch is so slow.  I mean so very, very slow.  There isn’t even anything to clean or organize.  I’d last about 2 weeks before they’d have to lock me away because I tried to put the ceiling tiles in proper order based on how many dots or bumps or specks of dust they have.  Hint: it’s so clean there is no dust.

But what matters is that the boss lady told me about the position because she thought I’d be perfect for it, and confessed she got depressed at the idea of losing me.  And not just because I’m a warm body running a window.  And when she told the other manager to expect my application, and then told me I should email the other manager if I wasn’t going to apply after all, the other manager actually put up some fight.  I don’t know what boss lady told her, but my heart if full of warm and fuzzies.  Perhaps my ego too.

Perhaps my ego needs those warm and fuzzies.

Perhaps my boys will be grateful they have adequate jammies as they spend a few night crammed into a twin sized bed, learning how not to fight.

Perhaps I can pull a perfect 100% in every class straight through my bachelor’s and my MBA.

Perhaps you too can rappel down skyscrapers in a single leap of faith in Jane’s rope work.

Perhaps her name isn’t really Jane Doe.

Perhaps I am even more eccentric than you anticipated.

Perhaps.

I Have A Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was diagnosed with mono and ordered a week of strict bed rest. And it was the best dream ever. Until. My dream self informed the doctor that this simply couldn’t happen because this week is both the 1st and the 3rd of the month and we are severely short-staffed.

I am both proud of and horrified at my dream self.

Also, really tired.

Also last night:

My 5-year-old thought he could fly and jumped/fell off the top bunk and fractured his right wrist in 2 places. Buckle fracture so it is more bowed and bent than actually broken. Still involves 4 to 6 weeks of cast.

And I couldn’t help but think, after I knew he was ok:

As many people who gave me an opinion on medicating my little one… Well they can suck it. I argued from day 1 that he was a danger to himself. We parents who medicate don’t make that decision lightly. By the point he took flight, meds had worn off for the day and he was left with no help.

Baby books are seriously lacking a spot for baby’s first fracture. Also: stitches, black eye, etc.

My kid is really brave. As much pain as he was in, he let them work on him.

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Calling All Readers And Parents of Readers

Mostly parents because it was a long time since we were grade school with our noses in books.  Though if you can remember back that far, by all means chime in!

I’m looking for books that my boys have to read!  I want book ideas for my nearly 10-year-old, whom reads at a 6th grade level, but has a 10-year-old’s interests, to read to himself, or with me.  Assume he’s reading it to himself, I may join in.  I can’t keep up with the rate he consumes though.

I’m looking for books to read to my 5-year-old.  He and I just finished up with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  He wanted to devour it faster than I could keep up with, meaning he isn’t afraid of a long book to have momma read.  I’m not looking for books to teach him to read with.  I’m looking for books I will read to him, and he’ll learn to see the story in his head.  Learn to follow along and understand what is going on.

And, if you have suggestions that will appeal to both and I can read them to both, by all means!

So, what do your kids aged 5-10 read?

What did you read?

I have some ideas on the to-read-list, but there is no such concept as too many books!

(On an unrelated note: Please join me this Tuesday evening at 8PM EST on twitter for my first ever #GeekParty!  If you follow that link it will pull everything with that hash-tag, allowing you to follow along even if you aren’t following all the party goers.  And as an added bonus, you can send tweets from that field and it’ll automatically include the party tag!  Everyone is welcome, invite a friend.  42 metaphysical geek points as a door prize for all!)