The Plague

I blame the flu shots (which are mandatory for state employment thankyouverymuch). Thursday I had to drive to our state headquarters, and by the time I got there I was noticing the tell-tale tickle in the back of my throat. I muscled through and thought that I'd make it through without casualties. By Friday afternoon I was sniffing loudly in the back of the conference room and no one was making eye contact with me.

Friday afternoon Syd spiked a fever and passed out on the couch. She and I were out all day Saturday while C ran point with Eli and Averson. I day-napped, went through a box of Kleenex, and binge-watched Shameless.

Saturday, C woke up feeling very sorry that he'd slept in the same room with Syd and I. Because I have my priorities straight, I drugged him up and made him rally to get our Christmas card pictures done before my photographer moved out of state. Averson fell asleep on the way there. At 9:00 in the morning. (collective "Fuck") I literally told everyone, "Just half an hour. Then we can all go home and die."

So we did. So far Eli seems to be clear, but the rest of us are a gross, snotty, emotional, semi-conscious mess. I Prime Now'd soup last night and today I stumbled to the kitchen to throw together peanut butter sandwiches and ice waters. I called out of work tomorrow partly because I want people to know that they should stay the fuck home if they're sick, but also because even if I do feel better, C is going to be a mess and we have no food or clean laundry.

So con: We're all disgusting and emotionally fragile
Pro: Shameless is an awesome show and I've lost two pounds.

Poor booger trying to fake it. And Avery too. 

Glorious weekend and introspection

I just looked on my phone for pictures to blog, and I have almost NOTHING since the last time I wrote. I think that's indicative of 1) how much I've been working and 2) how much I'm not working whenever I get a free moment. I've just about overdosed on technology I think. Except for the binge watching of American Horror Story: Hotel I've been doing on my laptop due to the solidly not-kid-friendly nature of the genre.

This is literally all I've got. I took Friday off originally to chaperone a field trip, but that got canceled so I crammed my art docent obligations in instead. I got to pack all my supplies in my awesome African basket that I bought from a corner bodega in San Francisco (the cool factor goes up with ever detail of that sentence.) So of course C and Averson had to play with it. This is why I hide my nice things.

The weekend was cold and rainy and wonderful and all of our plans got canceled except for Syd's soccer game. There are no words to explain how wonderful that was. I watched two movies! The kids and I went to see Ghostbusters (which I loved!) and then C and I rented The Martian since we'd both read the book. We liked the book better. I finished reading End of Watch and started a new book. The church carnival got canceled so they served pancakes and bacon instead. I watched four episodes of AHS. Syd and I made grilled cheese sandwiches and rice krispy treats. It was really the best weekend ever. 

And then it was back to work. I have been in non-stop meetings all day Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday afternoon I couldn't figure out why my stomach hurt on my out. I pulled in my driveway and realized that I hadn't eaten or peed all day. That busy. Which leads me to...

I decided that I am going to ride out this temporary assignment but I'm not going to apply for the position. It sort of came to a head today when I heard that they'd begun accepting applications and I may have missed the deadline (I didn't.) I wasn't all that upset, and actually I was a bit relieved. I will be great at this job, someday. What I'm realizing though is that I miss what I was doing, and I think it's in my best interests to keep doing that for awhile. I'm not having much fun, even though I'm learning a lot and it's super busy and I've got a lot going on. I'm not naive, and I know that not every day can be great, but I still solidly fall in the camp of if I'm going to spend 40+ hours here, I better have some fun. It's freeing to have decided that. Now I just do the best I can, without worrying about it being a prolonged interview. 

International Day of the Girl

In honor of International Day of the Girl, I thought I'd share some pictures from our weekend. We had Girl Scout-mania this weekend. I don't love parts of the kids being in scouts (it sort of triggers all my introvert twitchiness and performance anxiety) but I do love that both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts seem to promote independence and decent human beingness.

On Saturday, Syd and I went to a STEAM expo that was put on by the regional council. SO COOL. There were all kinds of groups there, from wildlife conservationists showing the girls how to collect data on waterfowl to civil engineers talking about water reclamation. There was a robotics team consisting entirely of cool middle-school girls and Intel was there with a 3D printer. Syd loved it, and was only disappointed that she wasn't allowed to use the power tools in the woodworking station.

She lifted me off the ground and now keeps telling people that "I lifted ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!" Yep :) (BTW, that's not me, obvs. That's the sweet lady that works at the camp)

Testing out her catapult

Patterns and angles! I also took advantage of the opportunity to tell her how awesome miters were.

On Sunday we took the troop on a field trip to a pumpkin patch. We went on a "hay ride" and then had a contest to find the ugliest pumpking. After that we went to the corn maze. Somehow I ended up alone with seven girls. I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that I didn't lose any of them (or come out with any extras!)

I love her face! She found a rotted pumpkin in the field and diligently planted many seeds. 

Sunday night the boys went to WWE and the girls and I made vegetable soup. Averson had been talking about her recipe for two days and would not stop until we made it. I vetoed the egg and the strawberries, but other than that it was all her. It didn't come out too bad! Both girls really loved chopping and stirring and picking out ingredients. If I were a better mom, I'd totally cook and bake with them all the time. 

And then in true Girls Night fashion we did makeovers. I took these pictures because the girls did my make-up and I looked ridiculous. But then I posted them on Facebook and everyone was like, "Cute!" "Beautiful!" "You look great!" All very great comments and very affirming, so now I'm thinking that blue glittery eyeliner in the crease of my eye and hot pink lipstick with a generous line may be my look. 

 So that's my ode to the International Day of the Girl. I am deliberately choosing to focus on these amazing girls that are going to change the world, rather than on "locker room talk" b.s. If I think about all that too long it gets pretty ugly.

Everyday I'm hustling

And just like that, it's been almost a month between posts (not counting the one where I was showing off my purse). Ugh. I'm still in the chief position, and though it's still crazy busy I at least am starting to feel a little bit more like I've found my sea legs. I may even, just a little bit, not even, but maybe kind of am starting to enjoy it. (Don't tell anyone.) I was getting really overwhelmed there for a minute. I was having lots of swimming dreams and a particularly subtle one where my work cell kept getting bigger and bigger, then someone broke the screen and no one would believe I hadn't dropped it. Takes an astute dream interpreter, right?

I wear suits! (sometimes, not always)
 (also, WTF with my face? I think its getting crookeder)

I'm not sure if it's a common experience, but when I get busy and I'm trying to learn something new, I get very engaged and hyper-aware. I feel like I've been running on all six cylinders a lot more lately (and then crashing like the dead every night.) Even my home stuff feels more energized, or at least I'm cramming a lot more into it. There's a psychology grad school game where you debate which symptoms you'd prefer to have if you had to pick and I've always picked hypomania. I've always liked energy, and caffeine.  I would have loved meth I think. At least until the skin picking, teeth rotting part. Then maybe notsomuch. Anyhoo. So I'm pretty busy and a teensy bit manic.

And this is what happens when I "run in real quick" after work

Retail Therapy

I have SO many pictures to catch up on. We've been doing soccer and preschool and Girl Scouts and silly dinner pictures and lipstick selfies. But I'm a little overwhelmed by it, considering how long it's been since I blogged. I'm still alive and I went shopping today. Behold!

I've been wanting to get a new work bag to replace my four year old Vera Bradley tote that was starting to fray and was regularly mistaken for a diaper bag. The problem is that I never want to spend too much on work stuff because prison is gross. Today my house was a cess pool of pissiness so I retreated to TJ Maxx where I found this lovely bag/tote/satchel thingy. It's so pretty and clean and perfect. It's big enough for my (new!) coffee mug and water bottle, but small enough to carry long distances. The open top is ideal for the bag search when I walk in (it makes getting through security a lot easier than a lot of little pockets.) While I was there, I picked up a fancy new notebook to replace my nearly full spiral notebook and a pair of Sam Edelman boots for under $50! 

This is the first weekend that's been under 90 degrees, so I celebrated by buying boots, a flannel, and jeans for the whole family. I'm making stew tomorrow. I don't even care that this is what we used to consider summer in Colorado. 

I can barely keep track of what day it is

OMG. I've been so busy and it's been so long, that I literally had to go through my photos to figure out how many bloggable events have happened since the last time I wrote. The work thing is still good, but so, so busy. It's the kind of busy where your brain never shuts off and you're hyperaware of everything and it all seems like it requires 110% of your attention. I hope that dies down soon. The co-chief decided she didn't want to co anymore, so now it's all me. I also started a new term teaching group therapy, which I find to be one of the more exhausting courses to get through because of all of the role playing. AND some dumbass decided to start a girl scout troop, which also requires time and energy. And the kids have SO MANY PRACTICES. And and and. I just stressed myself out writing all that. So let's do some cute pictures!

Avery started preschool (a week ago, SMH) and she couldn't be more excited. I think she, more than any of the other kids, was so ready to be among kids her own size. She was desperate to start school. I had a bit of a working mom breakdown after we dropped her off because the teacher wouldn't let me in the classroom (gah with the patronizing, "Sorry Mommy! I promise she'll be fine!") because I realized that I probably won't see her in the classroom for several months, but it was short lived. Her class is awesome, patronizing mommy comments aside, and she's loving it. They do yoga and they have pet rats in the room. The first week we realized that there were two Avery's when her papers were coming home labeled as "Avery M." I e-mailed the teacher to let her know that she goes by Averson too, and so now she's Averson and I'm researching how to legit change her name.

We went out to my folk's house for Labor Day and we had so much fun. We played tourist this time and tried a bunch of new things. C was blown away with my dad's new VR goggles. It was like watching people on acid.

 My dad wanted to try this place that had a glass bottomed boat. The actual boat was underwhelming (like a fish tank, but with waves) but we saw a bunch of sea otters and sea lions. And the kids were thrilled and ran amok. My kids were "those kids" on the boat.

Averson met a pirate and she's STILL talking about it

 We also went to a waterpark! I wasn't sure how it was going to go, since my kids are not really "adventurous" and I thought it might be a really expensive trip to the kiddie pool. But we were pleasantly surprised. Syd went on every single ride that C and I did! Several times she looked around and said, "Mom? I think I'm the only kid up here?" Yep Kiddo. That's because you're a badass.

 Eli tried one big slide, and then he was D.O.N.E. He spent the rest of his time happily in the wave pool and the lazy river. He's my cautious one, Logic-Boy.

This damn picture took so many takes. We're heathens.

I so wish this was a video so you could hear him screaming. It was EPIC. MOTY.

Overly Ambitious

I should be grading papers. Or plowing through e-mails. Or finishing Finders Keepers (not nearly as engaging as Mr. Mercedes.) Or sleeping. Or not debating between Joe Joes and chips and guacamole.
*Edited to add that I chose the guacamole.

I've spent the week at a conference for the chiefs from all the institutions. It's been really inspiring and informative and interesting, but I also keep getting the mental picture of a six year old trying to drive a huge truck (I'm the six year old, for clarity). One of the main reasons I agreed to take this on (temporarily, for now) is because my institution could really use a bit of a culture change. It's been enlightening to see how other institutions are run and perceived. Anyway, shop talk shop talk shop talk.

So that's been long days. The conference is in the city, which has solidified my commitment to reduce commuting at all costs. I've been driving there, conferencing ALL DAY, then driving home to check my work e-mail and catch up with all that is coming in from the new job, and also trying to remotely manage my own program. It's also finals week and I have a new class starting next week that I should be prepping for. AND it's the first week of school! OMG. I just realized that I completely forgot to blog that! The kids are doing great and their teachers are amazing. C is convinced that Eli's teacher is going to be a game changer, and I think he might be right. The first night of homework was assigned with a time limit. Today he came home with no homework. This is a big change for his program and if it continues is going to make my life SO MUCH easier. Eli won't stop talking about him and is totally energized. Syd's teacher is very sweet and Syd is excited about school. She seems excited that none of her friends are in her class, which I'm going to interpret as being about making new friends. And Averson starts preschool next week. She's most looking forward to packing her Paw Patrol lunch bag.

FIRST. TAKE. Seriously.

Birthday/First Day of School donuts!

I'm generally pretty optimistic about my ability to handle lots of plates in the air all at once, especially when they're all good plates that I want to keep, but I'm thinking that this level of commitment isn't going to fly. I know what I need to wean out, but I'm not looking forward to it and I'm still hoping it will all work out without having to actually choose. It could happen, right?