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Harstine Island, Washington August 14, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Travel , add a comment

After a rough night, sharing beds with both girls, I slept in until 10:30am PST. Dudes, that’s like sleeping until 1:30 in the afternoon! Wow!

This place is, um… interesting. To be blunt, it’s not our style. This is a nice Island and the house is nice, but the kids are bored out of the gourd unless we are at the pool. There is very little to do in terms of small children. We ended up going to the mainland for dinner and then finding a playground. We got take out and just let the kids be kids for a while.

I sent Jay out for sunset. He wanted to get some photos at some point and the kids and I were watching a nighttime video..

Mt Rainer is beautiful from here.

Maybe when we are older, this will fit us more, but I suspect not. 

August 13, In bullet form August 13, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Dr. Jay, Travel, In A Family Way , 10 comments

Sunrise August 11, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Current Affairs, Travel , add a comment

Soleil woke me up a little bit ago and I can’t fall back asleep.

The sun is rising here and it is beautiful.

Sorry for all of the heavy posts. I am slowly working through everything. I will miss the funeral next week, sigh.

The mono is seriously kicking my butt. My sore throat is better, but sleep is difficult. I spent yesterday sleeping. A bit. My bosses are great about everything and gave me any sick time I needed to take to get better. But I haven’t been writing as much because my spare time is taken up by sleep.

Next week, we travel to the west coast. The first day will be long and tough, as the tickets are frequent flyer tickets and they are never convenient.  Then a ferry ride, a drive, a quick shop for food for the week and finally, we will arrive at our destination, a small island in Puget Sound.

We are going to meet D of No More Work Than One and originally I had hoped to catch up with Mrs. Figby, but given her sudden moving plans, I figure to let her have one less thing to stress about. Besides, she’s moving to this coast and I live near a small airport (if they ever fly to Boston), so there’s always other chances in the future.

I want to give a quick shout of support for WhyMommy. She’s having a rough week with chemo. Given that a simple virus is getting me, I can’t imagine how chemo is getting her fatigued. Go over and say hi for me, give her some encouraging words.

 

 

Friday Rain August 10, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 5 comments

Sixty-one Fahrenheit

cold rain

Grey skies over the dome

The world cries with us

As we all miss him

Never to be heard down the halls again

Quiet steps past his office

Sad words said

But to remember his laugh

and his smile

and his soul

they will never be washed away
 

A little lighter August 8, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Kids, She Blinded me with Science, Home wreckers , 1 comment so far

Sorry it’s been so heavy around here lately. It is hard to deal with Jimmy’s death still and work is funny right now. We are all still in a daze. I am frustrated that I will miss his funeral. It will be next week while we are on vacation.

Right now, I am a bit frazzled between home life, mommy life and work life, even without the complexity of Jimmy.

Home life: We are at it again! We ripped up the carpet in the living room, hallway and stairs. While we are away next week, we have a crew coming in and refinishing the floors. The carpet had been a Wookie orange color. Lovely, eh? And we kept it in place while our children were still learning to walk and fall down, etc. Now we are finally comfortable that they will not kill themselves walking in the living room without a carpet. So bye bye carpet, hello oak floors! There’s been some prep work needed. Sunday we need to move our couch into the kitchen, but it will all be done soon. That just leaves the master bedroom floor to be redone.

I also planned out Soleil’s closet for Elfa shelves. Now I am just waiting for their end of summer sale. The Container Store generally has two sales, one at the end of summer and one after Christmas. We had the Container Store plan out Soleil’s closet and I removed $131 of equipment (all drawers) for now. Once the sale happens, we will go and get what we need and then install when we are ready. Then she’ll be able to reach her own clothes! What a concept!

Mommy life: The 3s suck. I forget this. Luna has been a fricken fruitcake with nuts. Last night, she screamed for ketchup on her mac and cheese. But apparently, I didn’t put it on right, then I took it off, more sobbing, finally the evening ended with her smooshing the mac and cheese all over the table. Sigh….

Note to self: This will pass. It has to. Otherwise I will lock myself into a small room with padded walls and try to play solitaire til dawn with a deck of 51*.

 Work Life: I have been napping at work. My bosses are encouraging it to help heal the mono. That’s good, right? But I am so damn unproductive. I hate that. I am one of those people who need to constantly be doing something. I don’t care what, but something. I will pace while watching TV. Sad, I know. Right now I have four projects:

 

  1. Boresight angles and bright X-ray sources in C++ code
  2. Reorganizing the webpage of internal notes
  3. Planning and writing the code for a flight software patch (someone else wrote the patch, I need to write the commands to send the patch to the spacecraft and then in a few months we will send it up)
  4. Working on a large change to the observation database that our team requested in December and the software team is just getting to.

That’s a bit on my plate to deal with mono. But I have to get through everything, because this is what we do here!

*With apologies to The Statler Brothers.

 

Jimmy August 6, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs , 3 comments

Here are a bunch of photos that we (at work) are putting together on Jimmy.

We’re going to miss him so much.

 

Jimmy 

Patapalooza-2007 August 5, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Nance , 1 comment so far

We just returned from Maine, Patapalooza, 2007. We go to Long Lake to our friend Pat’s parent’s house (vacation house). There are now 6 children who attend, all girls. I was "vigilant" this year , our code word for paranoid after what happened Thursday night. I was still in tears driving up on Friday as Jay and I discussed the tragedy. It was pretty odd because Jimmy, our friend, has gone swimming with 3 other people from work. The other three are married, two with kids. Jimmy is, was, single. Sorry, hard to use past tense. We were grateful that no one else was killed. But so sad that Jimmy died. It was his sailboat that they went out in. He was the guy who went out often and invited us from work to come out.

I required the girls to wear life jackets in the water. Period, end of sentence. I could care less if they were up to their ankles,  I couldn’t get Jimmy’s face out of my head all weekend. At one point, the girls went tubing. Yes, I let the girls (5 & 3) go on a tube (with an adult, one kid at a time) and get dragged behind a speedboat. Soleil loved it! I took movies on shore (I was awake during this time, I slept a bit this weekend, and at not point was I hyperventilating… I was concerned enough that before they went out, I had both girls practice falling off the tube and floating on their backs in the water so they would know what to do.

It was…surreal to me to allow them to go out on the lake, while thinking of Jimmy. I did my best to not allow death prevent us from living. But man, is it hard. I wanted to snuggle the girls and not let them near the lake. But… I can’t hold them close to me forever. I have to let them learn and have wings. But it is hard to let them go…
 

 

Horror–Update August 3, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs , 10 comments

My friend is missing

 has died. 

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Coast Guard searching for missing swimmer

By Elizabeth Ratto, Globe Correspondent

The Coast Guard says it plans to search through the night for a man
who went missing in the water near Gallops Island around 6 p.m. tonight.

The man was part of a group of four who went swimming from
their sailboat and drifted away from it. One person made it back to the
boat, one swam to the nearby rocks, and another was recovered by the
marine assistance service Sea Tow.

The Coast Guard, as well as crews from the State Police,
Environmental Police and Boston Fire Department initiated their search
at 6:20 p.m., and a "first light" helicopter search was scheduled for
this morning.

 

Friday, August 3, 2007

Body found in Boston Harbor after swimmer went missing

By Globe Staff

The Coast Guard found a body in Boston Harbor this morning, a day after a swimmer went missing near Gallop Island.

The body, which was found at about 10:30 a.m., has not been
identified. The Coast Guard did not say whether it was the body of a
man or a woman.

The swimmer went missing at about 6 p.m. Thursday when he and three others went for a dip from a sailboat and drifted away.

One person made it back to the boat, one swam to the nearby rocks, and another was recovered by Sea Tow.

The Coast Guard, as well as crews from the State Police,
Environmental Police, and Boston Fire Department began searching at
6:20 p.m., and a helicopter search was scheduled this morning.

Titleless August 3, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 2 comments

Yeah, can’t come up with a good title. Oh well.

I’ve been allowing myself to be sick. For the past 4-8 weeks, I have been fighting it. Saying "Why am I so exhausted?" And blaming myself for a series of things. No more. Now I am allowing myself to just be ill. And I feel it. I am going to bed about 1 hour before my normal bedtime. I’ve been resting in the afternoons. Tired, but letting things be.

It’s hard for me to do this. I am the type of person who can’t sit still. I must be moving, doing, something! And I find myself having trouble sitting back and resting.

I’ve been reorganizing our web pages for work. They needed it and it is a mindless task. I think that’s the best thing for now.

I have many things I wish to write about, but I am too tired to do so…

So, here’s to just being sick. And letting it be. So I can get better again….

 

PSA: Breast Cancer August 1, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , add a comment

It’s been a crazy summer. I know 3 people personally who have cancer and are fighting this summer. I know Whymommy on the web. I hate this.

 So I am taking a quick break today to have you go read this petition

The idea is to allow doctors and patients determine how long the hospital stay after a mastectomy the woman should stay. Right now, the insurance companies decide. Some women are not even allowed an overnight stay. Imagine, losing a body part and having to just go home to deal?

Cancer is already attacking these women. Why should insurance companies do it too?

Thanks