Fall/Winter

The boring... I had a couple of migraines.... Beginning of October and November... (I keep track of them here on this blog. Why? Because back when I used to blog a lot, I started recording them here. Now, it's where the history is.) Moving on... oNe passed her driving test! We have some independence. She's been enjoying the freedom to do some solo driving for Christmas shopping. She also has new friends and a new activity that she likes to do and this will really help us. Our nanny is almost ready to start a new job. She's done with school and searching. She thinks she'll be with us at least until mid January. I'm not ready to give her up. When she leaves us, I'm going to have to get someone to help us. We've had a few weeks where she's not been here for her usual schedule because of school commitments, and MWH and I have felt the stress! We won't get a "nanny" but we'll need someone to help with driving, cooking, errands. I love to cook, but right now I'm so overloaded at work that I don't have time. Another thought about the driving... when the girls were first old enough to stay by themselves, it was incredibly freeing... Now that oNe can drive herself places, it's also incredibly freeing! Someday, I'll have to talk about the college process. Right now, it involves a lot of oNe looking very angry when I try to talk to her about it... or crying. She's done super well in school and on tests, so she'll get in somewhere, but she's so worried. twoK... Still dancing. This year has been stressful, but she's done amazingly well with all that they've thrown at her: a horrible role, then changes, then more changes, then weird things happening, a decent role, and now other kids who are super stressed. Many tears, many discussions... Good learning, but learning is hard sometimes. Three-a... I'm not sure I ever talked about twoK's math experience last year here. It was awful. It was the teacher. This year, Three-a has the teacher and we're having another hard year. Not quite as bad as last year, but stupidly stressful. Sorry to be vague, I'll tell you more later. It's almost Christmas. Looking forward to 2 weeks OFF!!! SO EXCITED.

Bless the teenager...

Bless the teenager who doesn't turn on the light downstairs so she won't wake you up (note bedroom doors shut and walls to keep light out) but uses the pencil sharpener (very noisy). When you go downstairs and ask why the lights were off she says because I didn't want to wake you. When you asked what the very weird scraping noise was she says, "the pencil sharpener." When you point out that the lights wouldn't bother anyone, but that the pencil sharpener was loud, she gets a little testy. She has the PSAT this morning. She asks, what was I supposed to do? I needed the pencils. You don't point out that she could have prepared them the night before but you do suggest that she could have taken the pencil sharpener to the garage--she gets a little more annoyed. When you explain that you've used the blender in the garage early in the morning so as to not wake people she looks super annoyed. Ah, parents... (I don't think that's what she thought.) And then you drive her to the PSAT. She glares at you most of the way. (In my memory, I enjoyed taking the PSAT and SAT... Seriously. I don't share this with her.) You drop her off and you go home. As soon as you sit down she texts that she forgot her ID. You ask where it is, drop everything and run it back to her. Yup. She does say thank you. She is still stressed. You smile and wish her luck. You know she's working hard to learn and do it all. She got herself up, got ready, packed snacks, and did it all (almost) herself. You wish you hadn't have said anything about the pencil sharpener, but you did. You're proud of her. She glares a lot. She is sullen. (I didn't know what sullen looked like until this last year. Now it's the perfect word.) You tell yourself, "developmentally appropriate behavior." You are happy for her. You put up your teen angst shield that deflects all annoyances and cold shoulders. It's the only way. You feel a little sad, but you know it's what she needs to do. You wish you could do it for her, and you wish she wasn't so stressed about everything, but that's who she is. Oh, oNe, I love you! You are an incredible girl. You are super smart and funny. You are growing up.

was Summertime ... now fall...

... when the living is easy?

Eh.  I'm not going to complain, but document.  It's been a little crazy.  New work place is good, but I used to work 1/2 time and now I work more -- not full time, but 30% more (if you do math you can figure out the total).  I am lucky that I can be less than full time but it's still more than I want to work.  Right now, I work on a new project with new people and insane schedules.  Plus I work on 4 other projects.  I should add that I don't feel like I am doing anything well.  Alas, it will get better.  I have been in this situation before and it got better.

Okay, enough about me.  In a few days, I'll have three teenage girls.  They are super good girls--I love them and I love all that they teach me.  Seriously.  I hate it when people hear that I have three teenage girls and look at me with sympathy.  If you have a daughter, at any age, I totally recommend this book, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood.

One of my favorite things in the book is when she says, if you don't dread the teenage years, they won't be as bad.  (I think I'm paraphrasing, not quoting. If I'm quoting, I'm giving her full credit.) What she says is a general truism, though.  If you don't dread something, it won't be that bad. Anyway, I digress.

Three wonderful girls, that's where I was.  Marching band, Horses, College, Ballet, High School, Middle School Leadership, Dance, Rock climbing, feeding C-cat, learning to drive, and I didn't get this posted during summer.... it's now fall.  That's how crazy things are...

It's also crazy that I didn't get a post into FB or on my other blog about my Mom's birthday or death day....

I had an aura a while ago that I didn't get documented.

I also didn't document the summer event that was super scary.

I'm still working on too many projects.

I'm posting this now with the hope that I'll be back to do some more real writing before too long.  We'll see.

coming up for air

Did I mention I started a new job in October?

I'm having a lot of fun there, but since the new year, I've done a couple of extra things each month, my work hours increased, and now I'm tired.  I've been tired for a while.  It's a "good tired."  At my old job, things were stressful in an emotionally stressful way, and that was a different kind of tired. Now, it's just pure physical and mental exhaustion.

(Just a note: the emotional stress was not caused by my co-workers. A lot of us went to the new company together.  It's awesome to have co-workers you like.)

I still have to make it through the next couple of months to get to summer.  I keep thinking that it will calm down, but I may end up doing one more big thing (with a deadline of 5/16-ish) on top of all the other stuff (including going to graduation for two of my doctoral students).  The end of school is coming up and there's lots of stuff for the girls--and our dance shows. This year is zooming by as per usual.

The girls are doing super well, but they are stressed, too.  They love all the stuff they do, and don't want to give anything up (story of my life), but we often compare how tight our shoulders are.  Sigh.  Okay... end the tired blog post.

Quarterly report

When we last left off, we weren't in the best place.

Here's the report now:

Christmas tree is down and no feet were broken.  All 5 of us helped put it away.  I love the girls.  They are so helpful and care about the family.  There was much laughter during the process of trying to foist the very heavy tree up on the shelf.  The shelf is about 7 feet high? Maybe higher as it's just out of MWH's reach.  Anyway, much love at that moment.

I changed jobs. I am super happy. The place is super positive. There's a lot of change and growth that has to happen, but we can do it.  (We just had a planning retreat so this is fresh in my mind.) I am so impressed with the CEO. She's a woman. She keeps the troops going and always is positive. I need to write her a thank you note. She is awesome. I met her a long time ago (almost 20 years). I never imagined I'd work for her, but am so glad now.

Today, I'm fighting something.  I got a sore throat a few days ago, but I wasn't very sick. But, today, I am super tired.  I didn't go to workout class.  I lightly danced for a long time yesterday (2 hours).  I got a lot of sleep last night, but am just drained.  Our cat who has cancer seems to feel the same way today.  He and I are in front of the fireplace.  Go oil of oregano and elderberry.  (And his medicine for him.)

oNe is 16! She is now dancing more -- in a company.  So exciting.  I hope she has as many happy memories as I do from when I was a teenager, dancing, and performing a lot.  Now, I don't really want to perform, but our teacher makes us perform at least once a year -- last year and this year it will be 3 times for me.  oNe will do a bit more most likely as the company gets invited to perform at local community events.

twoK is dancing a lot and doing impressive things.  I wish I could share videos, but mostly anonymous so ....   Also, she has super sweet ballet friends.  I know all the moms of the girls and I really like them too.  You know how apples don't fall far from the tree?  Yup.  Her friends are awesome and so are their moms.

Three-a is rock climbing a lot and really likes it.  She's working on one-arm pull ups and practices her regular (two arm) ones all the time.  She is hoping to be on a rock climbing team in the fall.  (We'll figure out how to make it happen in the already crazy schedule.) She (and all the girls) are super strong.  I am so happy they love to work out.

Sidebar: When I met MWH, one of the first things he said to me, well one of the first things he said to me when we were having a "serious talk" -- one of our first serious talks -- you know, you meet someone and fall head over heels quickly and you start having talks about long-term stuff quickly -- okay, so one thing he said to me was that he felt that working out was something he needed to do often to stay in good mental and physical shape.  He felt that it really balanced him. (He didn't use those words exactly,  I can't remember what he said, but those were the sentiments.  I agreed.  I am glad that we both like to work out.  He went to work out class without me today and I'm so happy.)

What else.....Three-a is doing well in her math class -- she's always loved math, but now she is at the age where she can really check her own work make sure things are good. It's exciting to watch all the changes that are happening.  Some people may think teenagers are not that exciting developmentally, but that might be because they don't know that teenage years are full of brain changes.  It's the time in life when the brain changes the most aside from infancy.