And then I drove in the carpool lane....

Yesterday was a tough day as we'd just returned from a visit to see MWH's family. Everyone was tired. Three-a was slightly under-the-weather; she was tired and didn't want to eat. Being tired and not wanting to eat was a great improvement from when she was on the plane (two days ago) and thought she was going to throw up. It's good times when your 5 year old just wants to hold the air sickness bag up to her mouth and she's coughing violently. Yes, we were the ones that kept running down the aisle of the plane to the bathroom (holding the air sickness bag). (I'm happy to report that Three-a never threw up.)

For me, yesterday, I was just tired... not under the weather. I didn't even realize how tired I was until I found myself driving in the carpool lane, and I was alone. OOPS. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't get a ticket. I felt bad and it was a complete oversight on my part. I wasn't doing it to be slimey or because I was in a hurry. I just wasn't paying attention because I was tired. 1,000 apologies to the traffic and freeway gods.


So, the trip (Last Friday - this Monday)... It was super fun to see all the relatives. It's not fun because:

1. Grandma's house is not set up for us.

-The girls sleep on the floor and we sleep in a teeny tiny bed in a cold room.

-It's hard to get the girls outside to run around and burn off energy because it rains a lot. It's hard for the girls to burn off energy in the house because the house has a lot of breakable things in it.

-There's no park close to Grandma's house

-Grandpa smokes and though he doesn't smoke in the house, our clothes end up smelling like smoke and my (very sensitive) eyes hurt.

Note to self, if I ever have grandchildren coming to visit, make sure to plan activities and times for the kids to JUST PLAY and just be kids in locations that will work for kids.

2. My relatives don't understand that I don't eat dairy and they don't seem to eat veggies.

-I had to eat cheese. It won't hurt me, too much. It seemed easier to eat the cheese than to have MWH's Mom look like she was going to cry when she realized I don't eat the food she worked hard to plan. I should be awarded lots of daughter-in-law points, but I doubt I'll get them.

-I got to eat many less veggies than I wanted. Next time, we go to the good grocery store and stock up. MWH offered, at the beginning of the trip, but it didn't seem like a good time to go and then it was busy and suddenly it was Monday. I got lots of veggies on Sunday. I'm so happy to be home back with my yummy food and veggies. I'll have to tell you about the new veggie I found last night at the grocery store.

Now, to whine about today.... I'm still feeling crappy / overwhelmed.

This morning, we went to our lawyer about our STOOOOOOOPID neighbor and the fence issue. Note, I will not document it here until it's resolved, but needless to say, the law is on our side, but the STOOOOOOOOOPID neighbor has the advantage. It could potentially cost us a lot of money and be tied up in court for a long time....I could be optimistic, but right now I'm feeling very discouraged.

Then, this afternoon, I find out bestest colleague and I will be going on a work trip for 2-3 days, in November. I'm going to have to stay an extra day. I'm not excited. Now, I have 2 trips scheduled for November. One trip is for OLU and one trip is for work. UGH. I want to do the project for work, and it's going to be a fun and important project, but I really dislike traveling. Maybe, I can talk MWH into going and taking the girls, but I doubt it. It will be easier to "just go by myself" but I hate leaving.


Okay... is that enough whine for everyone???? I'll be back later to tell you about the new vegetable.

Haircuts

We went to get (girls) haircuts, today.... oNe did fine. She should, she's 9 for heaven's sake. twoK (age 7) through a fit because she didn't want her hair trimmed. GOOD GRIEF. I told her that she would have to pay for the hair appointment if she didn't get her hair trimmed. She cooperated, she's motivated by money, but she gathered up teeny bits of her hair from the floor to keep as a remembrance--each chunk was like 1/2 inch long. (Again, I say good grief.)

Three-a (age 5) did just fine. She's pretty much always cheerful and full of sunshine. The contrast between twoK and Three-a is startling.

Why does everything have to be so difficult and with drama, twoK? Do you know, when you cry your big FAKE crocodile tears that I am not going to be manipulated???? You may be upset, but a hair trim is NOTHING to cry about. Those big fake crocodile tears only make me angry when you are being ridiculous. They are so contrived. When you are really upset, your tears are different. Trust me, I can tell. twoK, I know you want to grow your hair longer, but 1/2 inch trimmed off every 4-6 months is NOT much. Your hair grows 3-5 inches in that amount of time. Seriously.

I feel bad that I don't have a lot of sympathy for twoK's tears, but I dislike how she tries to manipulate me with them. I also dislike how she feels everyone and everything in life is out to get her. I wish I could change that about her personality. Life would be easier and she would be happier. Alas, I know that you can't change people.

OMG how is it almost JULY???

I think I'll title all of my blog posts that way until it's actually July. I'm in complete and utter shock about how fast this year has gone. Let's review the year, quickly, since that's how it went.

January--VERY BUSY with oNe's birthday and two online workshops for a seminar that I led.

February--celebrated my birthday, planned follow-up for online seminar, and went to Hawaii

March--planned follow-up two for online seminar, wrote survey for online seminar, wrote a report for another project, attended annual meeting of another project and made a presentation, dealt with Norovirus, celebrated MWH's birthday

April--planned follow-up three for online seminar, read through tons of data, organized closing online workshops for seminar, visited my family over spring break, learned C-kitty is dying

May--did hospice for C-kitty, did the two online closing workshops for seminar, made 13 debrief phone calls, collected data and started to organize it, celebrated twoK's birthday

June--online seminar over and even though there's more to do I can't do it because of project rules so I switched gears to write a different report, did dance show, (soon) will go visit MWH's parents, (soon) will do kick-off for new project (next week)

---

Today, before summer completely slipped away, we joined a neighborhood pool. I agonized about doing it because it wasn't cheap, but it's a good investment for summer fun. Now that we've joined, we just have fairly low membership fees, until we sell our membership to someone else.

I hope it's going to be super fun belonging to the pool. The girls love to swim and now we have a place that is about 5 minutes from our house. It's super laid back; they want you to think of the pool as an extension of your backyard and they ask you to be smart, safe, and respectful and that's it. The girls can jump off the diving board (no swimming test--an example of how laid back the pool is) and believe me they jumped MANY times today.* It's got wi-fi! I hope the pool makes summer easier and more carefree.

It's a small neighborhood club, so we'll get to know the other members. They have social events. They have a club house. They let you have parties there. I'm thinking maybe Three-a will have a big swim party for her birthday right after school starts, rather than a Pump it Up Party.

I'm nervous about whether we'll 1) like the other members and 2) want to socialize and 3) get kicked out because we're not super social. I wasn't social today. I tried to smile at people, but no one really smiled back or even looked at me. I wondered if I was invisible because a couple of people almost walked into me. Whatever.

Oh, I should someday record the saga of our fence, but not tonight. I will record that today, I made iced coffee with my free post-Zumba cup of coffee. It was so yummy.






*As soon as we walked in Three-a wanted to jump off the diving board. She's never done that before. She did it well and swam over to the side of the pool. I was worried she was going to be scared. She wasn't scared at all; she's fearless and enthusiastic. Also, she lost a tooth today. One of the top ones. oNe and she were having a pillow fight. It was a very loose tooth. A whack from the pillow knocked it out and Three-a swallowed it. Her other top tooth is also loose. Soon, she'll be singing all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Oh, one last thing, she has a lisp now and it's adorable.

Happy Father's Day

He's still that wonderful!


Today, the girls made pancakes for breakfast for him. They did most of it themselves. oNe has been on a cooking kick, and she has learned to flip them, so it's pretty cool.

All day long, MWH and the girls worked outside. They cleaned the garage, they painted, they power-washed, and did lots of stuff that I don't even know about, yet. MWH had fun teaching them home improvement stuff.

Earlier in the week, I had asked MWH what he wanted to do for Father's Day and he said, home improvement with the girls. Alrighty.... (Yup, he's that wonderful! You can't make this stuff up.) He works a lot at work, so he doesn't get a lot of time to do home improvement, but when he does, he's damn good and the girls got to learn from the finest.

I spent most of the day in the house. I did some organizing in our closet...It looks better, significantly better, even, but it could still use some help. (I should have taken before and after pictures...) I also went through other piles of paper in the bedroom. I made some progress, but I still have a ways to go.

(The big problem is that I work on so many different projects that never quite go away. I have two big stacks from a project I did in spring. I can't toss them, yet because we have a report to write this fall. We can't write the report until then. It's tough. Then there's the class I'm teaching, as I went through papers I made a "potentially use in the class pile." I won't have time to sort through it until July, though. Sigh! OHMYGOODNESS it's almost JULY!!!!)

One other memory, at dinner tonight, MWH told them stories and they kept asking for "one more old story." Super cute!

Remind me to tell you more about socca bread, later. Right now, I must go hang with MWH!

Insane

It's insane where I work. I feel it most when I'm working on a deadline. I have one, now. I'd hoped to be further along, but I will be chugging away this afternoon and tonight, probably tomorrow morning. Sigh. Anyway, I just got these in a "humor" email, this morning. I actually laughed out loud at most of them--perhaps I'm just punchy.

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks . Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
5. In the memo field of all your checks, write For Marijuana.
6. Skip down the hall rather than walk and see how many looks you get.
7. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
8. Specify that your drive-through order is 'to go'.
9. Sing along at the opera.
10. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you have a headache.
11. When the money comes out the ATM, scream 'I won! I won!'
12. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling 'Run for your lives! They're loose!'

I personally plan to adopt #5. What about you?

Of course she waits until bedtime...

At bedtime, Three-a asked me, "How did the first animal get on earth if there wasn't anybody to born it?"

I kissed her because it was the best opener for explaining evolution. I explained how we started as single-celled creatures in the oceans and slowly those cells learned how to join together and do specialized jobs so they could become multi-cellular creatures.

She had quite a puzzled look on her face, so I did a quick web search and showed her this book. We previewed it and read (click to make it bigger):






We talked a little more about evolution and I said, "You're not going to understand it all tonight, but I'll get some books and we'll read them and keep talking. But now it's time for bed.

Despite me telling her it was bedtime, Three-a tried asking more fun questions to stall... they too were good.

Her: Do computers know everything?

Me: No, computers keep track of the information we humans have put in to them. We can find information on the computer, read it and then create knowledge and develop an understanding.

Her: But what if we still don't understand it?

Me: Then we look for other sites to explain it and we talk to people who can help us understand. Asking questions is the best way to learn... BUT NO MORE QUESTIONS as it's 10:15. Go to sleep.


Heh..... Recently, someone told me about this book. I may need it!

(I think I may have to give Three-a an award for asking the most insightful questions for a 5 year old! See previous example.)

babysitters

Wowza... We had a new babysitter today. Remind me to tell our existing babysitter how much I appreciate her. The new one was super sweet, but she wasn't real, "in charge." The girls were totally out of control until I came out and reminded them of appropriate behavior.

I'm writing a report for work. The panic of the deadline is finally setting in. Last week, I did a little, but I think I've managed to do as much today as I did all of last week. (Maybe not, but I did a LOT, and I still have more to do, tonight.) In the meantime, I must take little girls who have been cooped up all day to the park.

Trying new things

Tonight, I'm trying to make socca bread. For the socca, I used the 1.5 cups flour, 1.5 cups water, 1 teaspoon of salt and 4 tablespoons of oil (1 of olive, 3 of canola). It's in the oven in my really big cast iron pan. I have it at 450 and I'm hoping it's done in 30 minutes. We're starving over here!

I'm also trying a new black bean soup recipe that I sort of made up. I based it loosely on this. When I say loosely, I mean loosely! I used:

5 cans of black beans
garlic (2-3 cloves)
salt
cumin (lots...2-3 tablespoons)
jar of pureed tomatoes
puree of two red peppers (thanks to my vita mix blender)
1 large onion
1 carrot finely chopped (again thanks to my vita mix!)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups of vegetable broth (from a box)
oregano (about 1 teaspoon)
canola oil (1-2 tablespoons, I didn't measure)

I'll let you know how it all comes out.

[Time passing.... it's now after dinner]

It was all good. twoK and Three-a loved it all. I was worried there would be too many vengetables for twoK's taste in the soup, but she didn't complain. She picked out some onions, but she did better than I've ever seen her with something new. oNe ate some of the soup but she was in a very GRUMPY mood. The mood came on for no apparent reason. I'm guessing she was low blood sugary, but she still hasn't snapped out of it. (Just to note, I'm NOT LOOKING FORWARD to puberty with its mood swings.)

Back to the soup, MWH just wondered if we should puree some black beans to thicken the soup--I think we should. The bread is interesting. It's very garbanzo-y and very savory. We'll add these two recipes to the favorite recipe tag. Woo! I love finding new recipes for the family.

The dance show...

It's over! Yippeee!!! It went well! Again, Yippeeeee!!!!!!!!

oNe and Three-a were in it and I'm so glad it went well for them. I wanted them to learn what it was like to be in a show. To work all year on learning something, and then to demonstrate their new knowledge to an audience in an authentic environment. They learned a little about the backstage life, the lights, the curtains, and what it's like to be on stage. I'm thrilled for them. They were nervous and I was nervous for them.

They did great! They learned a lot! I can't wait to see the video of their dances.

I got to help them with costume changes and watch from backstage. The first half ended and then it was my turn. I was in a two-minute dance. I was in FRONT. I had a lousy dress rehearsal and I was thrilled that I made it through the dance without any major mess-ups. I slightly messed up on one step, but it was when we were moving around so it probably wasn't that obvious. We also had a series of turns in the dance and I can't wait to see our turns on the video. Were we together? I want to see it!

I learned a lot, too. It had been 5 years since I've danced on stage in front of an audience. The last time, I was way in the back. This time I was front, not quite center, but right up there. I had no one between me and the audience. I did it. It was fun doing a show with the girls. <3!

A few things ...

I actually managed to get in a few posts on FOOD, my newest interest. I am thrilled the girls are out of school. The first few days of summer have been busy and good. Here's a list :

We're preparing for our dance show (2 of the 3 girls are in it and me!). We have been at the studio a lot this week. (We were there for 3 hours, almost, one night.)

I learned I need to exfoliate more... We have to wear makeup for the show (duh), and all the makeup got caked in my dry skin the other night. NOT ATTRACTIVE.

We have silkworms... I got some great shots of the babies! I'll post eventually. The pictures were taken with my "real" camera, not the iPhone, and that involves a cord and time to download.

We have silkmoths and they are mating... RIGHT NOW as I type. Lots of biology discussion.

We went swimming at my friend PS's house! SUPER FUN... THANK YOU! Can't wait for more!

We went to a birthday dinner for a friend, last night.

I'm going to try to start doing a few more Zumba classes a week. Not with my favorite instructor who takes Zumba to a whole new level and KICKS MY @SS every time, but with a different instructor who is fun. My new thought is, it's still cardio, and it's helping me build up without being wiped out.

I am slowly learning that I should probably work less so I can enjoy the girls and life a bit more. I am still torn because I love my work, but I laugh more when I'm with the girls. I will continue to work, but I will go "hourly" when the time comes. I will re-read this so I don't stress out. I don't know exactly when "the time will come" but it will involve 1) being out of vacation and 2) needing to take on lots of little projects to maintain my sold time.

I need to go shower and finish cleaning up for the cleaners... I finally decided to keep them, let them clean the girls' rooms, change their sheets, clean the kitchen, living room, dining room, and the guest bathroom. MWH and I will take care of our room. They are using our rags and our vacuum. I think, for the moment, I am happy. I reserve the right to become dissatisfied at some point in the future though.

Instant Smoothies

For some reason, recently, MWH got interested in making smoothies from mixes. We've been trying different brands. So far, my favorite is the one I show in the picture.*


I tried it today and it was perfect with just soy milk and ice blended in it. I've had others where I need to add peanut butter to make them taste better. But this one was great as is. I am excited! I wanted to have an option when I travel and can't eat as many greens / good foods as I do at home. I think this will help. We're going on a trip, soon. I'll report back.


MWH and I just bought these blender ball cups (see picture). You can stick the smoothie mix in them with your favorite liquid and shake and it mixes well. You can add ice, but of course, you can't get a blender smoothie, frosty texture. It's nice that it blends the powder well, though.






The girls are enjoying this mix. I take a couple of scoops, soy milk, a banana and ice and mix it up. For Three-a and oNe, I add in a little chocolate sauce. After I pour theirs out of the blender I add in some PB and more ice and re-blend for twoK. They still have to eat their veggies, but this has to be helping a little. The girls all know they are drinking "veggies" and they like it. I asked twoK if she'd let me blend up some real veggies and she said, "NO!" I asked, "But what if it tastes good?" She said, "It won't." Heh....little does she know. I'll keep working on her.






*I had one that was I didn't like at all. I tossed it. (It was the Vega Chocolate one. It gets some high reviews on Amazon, but I didn't like it at all. Fortunately, I only bought the sample envelope, so I wasn't stuck with a whole container of it!)

Green smoothies

I've been meaning to post a picture... I mentioned them here and a lot of other places on the blog. My green smoothies are usually full of the following:

Kale (About a packed cup and 1/2--remember, I use the frozen kind and it's already chopped up, so it's packed in the cup pretty well.)

1/2 a banana
1/3 - 2/3s a cup of blueberries
soy milk (8-12 ounces depending on how I pour)
Flax seeds (2 Tablespoons)
Chia Seeds (2 Tablespoons)

Sometimes a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon with a little stevia (not always).
Sometimes I stick in spinach--another 1/2 cup to cup, but I was out of it the day I made this particular one.

If it's too thick I'll add water. If it's not slushy enough, I'll add ice cubes (if the banana is frozen, it often doesn't need ice).

I'm excited that it's been nicer weather so far this week. That means I'll be drinking even MORE of these! I love them, but I tend to not drink them too often in the winter. I get too cold!

In other news, the girls are out for summer vacation! Woo!

The cup that saved (at least) 1,000 cups

I got this cup probably 2006 - 2007, I didn't blog about it when I bought it. However, in June of 2009, I blogged about it and estimated it had saved about 1,000 cups. I also said I wanted to post a picture of it. Here's the picture, finally. I hope you weren't holding your breath! I'm going to guess it's saved about 1200 cups, now. I don't use it as often as I used to. Now, I use it for green smoothies when I'm heading out of the house. [NOTE TO SELF: I need to post a picture of my green smoothies to this blog. NOTE TO READERS: Don't hold your breath as it may take a while.]

I love this cup for iced coffee, but I don't tend to drink that much any more. I do not like this cup for hot drinks. I don't know why. It's stainless steel, but I prefer my porcelain cup for hot. I'm drinking plain, hot coffee with a little soymilk, usually--sometimes just plain, black, hot coffee. Here's my pretty new to-go cup for hot drinks.

I'm posting this to hopefully inspire others to use re-useable cups. How many throw-away cups has your cup saved?

Last Day!

Our last day of school is tomorrow!!! I am so excited. I dislike getting the girls up and taking them to school. We get a three week break from rushing around in the morning with our part-time nannies. Then, we start in on camps and that will suck, but at least they don't give tardy slips at camp. The negative is that we'll have to leave the house a little earlier for the camps than if they were at school. But mostly I'm just excited!

I'm hopeful that we can finally get rid of coughs and get healthy over the summer. Three-a is coughing a lot right now. It doesn't sound like a sick cough, but WHO KNOWS! Did I mention that MWH got the cough a couple of weekends ago? He had the goopy eye and all. He's sounding better, now. I want us to get well. Maybe with less germ exposure for a while we can get back to normal. (What's normal, though?)

After tomorrow, I will have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader and a 1st grader! They keep getting bigger, smarter, and more fun. I can't believe I don't have any babies, and I can't believe I won't have a kindergartner after tomorrow!

Green egg hash*

*Green eggs and hash would be a more fun title.

I <3 greens! I love them with beans, eggs, or tofu + salsa. There's always got to be salsa. Or peanut sauce. Or Miso. I would eat them here or there or anywhere! I would eat them with a fox! In a box. Out of a box. Heh.

Greens are so good for you. Note, you can use spinach if you don't like the heartier greens like collard, mustard, or kale. I' m proud to report that oNe (age 9) will eat some of this with me. (I'm also proud that twoK and Three-a will take sips of my very green smoothies.)

The photos below show me cooking this in my scanpan. I love my scanpan. We've had it since October and it's as good as it was when we first got it. (Note, we never would THINK of sticking it in the dishwasher.)

Still down

Down = Good

I like working but I am trying to take a little down time, this week. I finished up a project a few days ago. It was a hard and fast deadline so the project is OVER. It feels odd because I devoted a lot of time to that project since last fall--then BAM, it's over.

I have another project that I need to spend some time on, but it's a writing task and those always take a little time for me to start. Anyway, the point of this (short and lame) post is not to discuss work, but just to document what today was like. It was slow and it was good in that "this is my life" sort of way.

Took the older two girls to school

Did dance with the first graders (Did I ever tell you about me teaching dance in the girls' classrooms? If I didn't, I meant to. I've done it since oNe was in first grade. You can probably imagine that it's super fun and SUPER CUTE! You are right.)

Changed clothes

Watched 1/2 the school talent show--Three-a was in the kindergarten number. She was good!

Went to look at a floor that the guy we want to hire to put in our new floor did

Picked up sash for twoK for Brownies! (She's going to become a Brownie tomorrow night!)

Ran home and made a Kale smoothie for lunch (with rice protein powder, kale, soy milk, flax, chia seed, 1/2 a banana, and blueberries; note to self, I don't think the rice protein powder works in this smoothie stick it in oatmeal with almond butter, but not this smoothie!)

Went back to school to watch the second 1/2 of the talent show (However, I misjudged and saw the whole thing again....)

Went home did a teeny bit of work

The girls came home

Showed them video from the talent show

Ironed on stuff for Daisy vest and Brownie sash (I HATE THIS)

Couldn't get the iron-on patches to stick so I ended up burning the Daisy vest a little (D'oh!). At least, tomorrow is the last day twoK wears it!

Went to a Dailey Method Class

Cooked dinner

Ate dinner with MWH and refereed sister fighting (also with MWH)

Listened to oNe read to her sisters (super cute)

Played in Blogosphere

Now, I hope to go watch some Hulu with MWH.

Nitey-nite.

Today

Today a project ended and the next one could kind of has started, but I'm pretending it hasn't yet. I'm going to take tonight and not stress. I took the girls out to dinner (with a Mom friend) and now I'm letting them shower. Then we'll watch a little bit of a movie.

I'm not stressing, but I'm worried that I'm forgetting about something that will make me stressed at some point in the near future. However, right now I'm gonna go with not being stressed and deal with the consequences later.


Sent from my iPhone

Million dollar question

Here's a fun question....

You learn you’ll be fired from your current job. The upside is that your severance is going to be fantastic: $1 million a year for the next 20 years! The catch is that you’re going to have to sign a very broad non-compete agreement. You can’t do the “stuff” of your job, on your own or for any other employer, during those 20 years. Would you take the deal to get the severance package?

Okay, first, I would totally take it, but I do have a couple of questions.

I am a researcher in E_______ ___________. Does this "broad non-compete" mean I can't be a researcher in any field? Can I go back to school and learn about nutrition and then do research in this area?

Or instead of being a researcher in E_________ _____________, can I switch to just teaching at OLU. I teach L_______ T_____ at OLU, not E_______ ___________. Okay, if I can't do that, I'll still take the severance package and I'll start teaching Zumba. How's that? That really shouldn't be covered in the non-compete.

Perhaps a better question would be, to get $1M a year for 20 years, would you stay home and clean your house every day? I'm not sure I could say yes to that.


(Note, I found Laura Vanderkam from my wonderful friend's site. Thanks, KJ!)