Category Archives: Current Affairs

When push meets shove, I get coffee

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This weekend, well,  to put it in a single word; SUCKED.

Let’s see, Friday we had a Girl Scout party with another troop and two girls in my troop got into a fight which concluded with a backpack being thrown, a kid hit in the head and someone running OUTSIDE of the building and into a roadway. Great. Two kids are going to be asked not to come to the next meeting. I hate this part of being a leader.

Saturday, I took Soleil to her 6 am hockey game. Her violin was canceled, so I slept off until I got up at 10. Then going to a birthday party, continue to remove thick glue from the downstairs bathroom, picking up birthday party kid, going to ice skating, then to home where we had friends over.

Sunday, I was able to stay home and found that our toilet appeared to be leaking. Damn. We had noticed for a while that the water seemed to be running, but we hadn’t found the issue. I had about 2 minutes to discuss this with Dr. Jay while we handed off Soleil at Temple. She had violin right after temple and he was taking Luna home. He lost it that I started ANOTHER project (his words) and then we handed off. He decided later that nothing was leaking, but when we installed the toilet with a new wax ring, the running water magically stopped.

I also wanted to take the time to make cookies, then the girls wanted to sell Girl Scout cookies and somewhere in here, we needed to make Latkes for Soleil’s class report on holidays in Israel. Following so far?

In addition to all of this, we had two meltdowns and only one was me.

Today, I am working from home. I have the cookies to bake (old family recipe, but the cookies have to dry before you bake them) and then laundry, packing and some last minute shopping to do. Sigh.

I think I better get more coffee. Because starting Thursday, I get to spend 5-6 days with my mom,dad, sister and family. I’ll need a great deal of alcohol to survive this week. 

 

Say what?

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Last night, I had the joy of going to Soleil’s parent teacher conference. Yea me. NOT.

I hate these. I get to hear the same things, "She’s so smart, but she can’t focus.", "She’s a real pleasure to have in class, but she needs better self control.", and my personal favorite, "I love it when kids read, but I often have to stop her from reading because she needs to follow the class." Last night was not too different. We started with the book statement (yeah, I know…) and then moved onto the "real pleasure" statement. Fortunately, I had started the school year with speaking to her teacher about some of her issues (no-I haven’t gone into them and I probably won’t, but let me say, they aren’t considered special needs so she can’t get an IEP even though she really needs one- But don’t get me going or I will never shut up about the inherent unfairness of the system)

I was waiting for her teacher when the phonics teacher came out of the classroom. I had just discovered on Monday that Soleil went to a phonics class. This was very surprising to me since she has been speaking since 13 months old and her enunciation is the clearest I have heard from a child except when she calls hamstrings "hamsters", but that may just be confusion. Luna clearly needs help with speech and has only recently realized that the word "the" is spelled with the "TH" blend instead of the "D" she hears and says.

The phonics teacher took a moment to introduce herself and tell me a bit about Soleil’s classroom behavior. While doing well, I discovered that she needs extra help with her short vowels. Apparently, she can’t tell the difference between a short "a" and a short "e" sound when speaking. Um, okay…However, she is very fluent and emotive in her speaking and is a real joy to the classroom. After a few minutes of the explicit issues with my daughter’s speech patterns, I couldn’t resist, "I do have to point out ", I said in my best, calm voice, "that both my husband and I are from the mid-west. I am afraid she has learned how to speak with our accent."

Teacher stops and blinks. "Oh! I never thought about that." Blinks some more. I think the gears are moving in her head. I am afraid smoke will start pouring out of her ears in a moment. "Well, I’ll keep that in mind, but if you could help her when reading and speaking, that would really help."

Smiling my best smile that says that I am biting my tongue, I agreed and checked "You said it was her short vowels, right? And we should help her practice?"

"That’s the general idear".

I almost burst out laughing right then and there. A woman with such a strong Boston/New England accent is teaching my kiddo, who has excellent enunciation for someone who could be from Erie PA, how to speak. If she starts replacing random "ah" sounds with "er" sounds and replacing "ar" with "ah", I am going to have to hurt somebody.

$$$

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The recent tax compromise has the Spacefamily in disagreement. I am not thrilled with the fact that the top 1.8% ($250,000+ yearly income) still gets tax breaks. I am not happy that the estate tax is now a $5 million start point instead of $1million. However, I am happy that the 98.2% of Americans are getting a tax break. Dr. Jay is FURIOUS at the President for not standing his ground and telling the Republican leaders where to take the tax breaks for the rich and shove them. While I understand his anger, I actually agree with Obama on this one.

I think Obama has a point that bickering and doing nothing is a bad idea. Action is needed and there are so many families working to discover that they still can’t make ends meet. These are the people who need the break. They are the ones who need to have the extra $$ to save/spend/put food on the table, etc. Of course, the tax breaks help the middle class more than those who are in desperate need, but this is how things always work.

On the other hand, I am peeved that people making $1million+ are getting tax breaks. These are the people who are in a better position to help others. I know one friend (I don’t know if you still read, I miss you and hope you do) who is a strong believer in capitalism. She feels that SHE can choose where her money goes and that the government has no right to use it. Period. She does like to drive on the government built roads and she does like the roads cleared and I am sure she enjoys the police protection in her town. I am sure she would prefer the people who run her money accounts be reasonably educated by the public school systems and to have been involved in school sports and activities instead of being only involved in the activities the family can afford. The public money does trickle up in ways that many fail to see.

The truth of the matter is that the United States is NOT a capitalistic country. It is a mix of socialism and capitalism.

The rich have created several capitalistic loopholes to prevent them from aiding the socialistic agenda of our country.

The middle is further away from the middle these days. We have a parfait that has a very creamy top layer, but thin, and the main of the parfait is watered down.

We’ve been built on the horrible idea that those who work hard will become rich. Have you ever seen your garbage man working? Want to say that’s not hard work? Now, do you want to say he’s going to get rich from doing that? Yeah, didn’t think so.

I don’t have an answer for the tax issues. I just wish it wasn’t such a polarizing issue…

Oh hi! You’re still reading?

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Yeah, well, it’s been a wee bit crazy at Chez Spacefamily, so I haven’t been around much here. I have been on facebook and a friend challenged me to do workouts everyday, and I am trying to eat better (does it count if I have a salad and then Doritos?), and the kids have mucho activities and grandparents were here and hannukah…. I could go on, but your brains would explode. If anyone is still reading, of course!

I have a IRL friend who moved far far away, as in not only the west coast, but to CANADA’s west coast. She is homeschooling her kids, but in a new way called "unschooling" (ie- no set curriculum,class time etc). If you are interested, her blog is here. We don’t always agree, but I find her way of thinking interesting and sometimes wish it for my kids.

Our kids are fully packed. Most of my friends think we are crazy for letting them do too much. Sometimes I agree, but other times I don’t.

Soleil has: hockey (her choice), violin(her choice), Girl Scouts(her choice) and Hebrew School (our choice)

Luna has: figure skating (her choice), Girl Scouts(her choice) and Hebrew School(our choice).

Luna used to have piano, but she got fed up with it and we decided it wasn’t worth forcing. She now wants to learn guitar or flute. I am voting guitar since flute is something she can take in school and she is pretty good at coming up with songs. I can imagine her wanting to play around with chords and singing even if she doesn’t know music theory.

What does this have to do with my friend? I think about choices. Dr. Jay made is clear that he wanted the girls to learn about their Jewish heritage. Not just the religion, but the ethnic portion of the culture. How it is mostly recently that Jews are intermarrying, what have Jews done historically and what do Jews feel are their obligations to society (note: all forms of Judaism are different, but our temple is very big on culture and social help and giving back to society).Ok, I am good with that, even though I am atheist.

But the ice hockey? That was Soliel’s choice after seeing her cousins play. The figure skating? Once we got Luna on the ice, she was off! She started at age 3 and never looked back! Violin? When Soleil was 3, she saw a violin for the first time. From that point on, she wanted to play. We made her wait until she was 6 so she would be a bit more patient…

The girls have also done soccer (one wants to continue, one would rather try karate). We try to allow them to do what they choose. I don’t want to force them into something specific, although I did with piano and that was probably a bad thing to try.

My friend is very good with allowing her kids to choose their way. I do make my kids go to our public school. We will need to evaluate this as life continues. I’ve mentioned this before, Massachusetts is one of 5 states that does not consider gifted as a special need. Therefore, despite Soleil’s need for an individual education plan, she is left out. We may need to deal with this as time goes by. Luna is also gifted, but the principal at her school wants less pull out classes and more integrated approaches. This frustrates the hell out of her and I hear it EVERYDAY.

I don’t think I could do unschooling. I am not patient and I would want to teach in more structured settings. But then again, we discuss everything and anything in our family. When a girl noticed that "everything is made in China", we discussed why. I asked how much they thought groceries for a week cost. The answer they gave was $10-$20. When I reported closer to $100-$150, they were shocked! And then discussing world wages shocked them more. So maybe we do unschool.

Anyway, most of this is just food for thought babble. I am tossing ideas around in my head. I need to think more about everything.

Another fragile moment

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This weekend, we drove down to DC (I forget how far that really is from Boston) and visited with family for the second of the kids’ generation Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. (Boys are Bar and Girls are Bat). The first kid was 3 years ago, now things start rolling. I think Luna is the last in this generation who will actually do the Bat Mitzvah.

If you aren’t familiar, I should tell you that when a Jewish child turns 13, they are considered an adult in the community and read from the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible). Their religious school is all about training for this and learning about the culture and connections to the past.  In other words? This is a big deal. No, wait, a Big Deal (capitals are required).

We stayed with our cousins who have three crazy kids and 2 golden retrievers. I am allergic to the dogs. By the second day there, I could barely talk, but I love the cousins too much and the dogs too much to stay at a hotel.

The reception party for the Bar Mitzvah was held at a lovely center, with outdoor appetizers. I was kicked out by my children because there were too many bees there. Suckage…. I really felt fragile between the bees and the dogs. What? I can’t be outdoors because of the bees? WTF? No!!!!

And I love those dogs! I am not going to change my plans because of everything that will kill me.

I know, most of the reactions (physical and people’s reactions) are due to my current immune state. I am a bit weak right now and my immune system is in overdrive. It will take about 1 month to deal with recovery from the latest reaction. Sigh.

I just don’t need to be reminded how fragile I am right now.

A focus on cleaning

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November is always a tough month. The weather turns cold, but without the snow. Precipitation is usually rain, cold and penetrating. I hate going to the Mall because this is the start of the economic frenzy we call "Holiday shopping" (NOTE! Hanukkah comes early this year, so I am already pretty good on gifts). I cant stand the crush of people at the malls.

I don’t feel I can go out, nor do I feel I can stay in. What do to?

So today, I want to talk about cleaning. Being in the middle of construction, our house is, a mess. There is dust everywhere. There are dusty foot prints down our hallways. We want to start organizing our pantry and new storage area, but we can’t yet, so there are things out of place EVERYWHERE.

Our downstairs room is squished to half of its normal size due to new furniture that goes in the new room and that current stuff that is squashed against a wall where the new wallboard is up. sigh. It’s a mess.

Add to this 2 kids that are not keen on cleaning and are natural hoarders (aren’t all kids?), I feel out of control.

We have cleaners that come twice a month. It’s expensive to me and lately, a few things have been broken, and I hate having to pick up for the cleaners (although that is also the bright point because then it gets done).

We are considering dropping the cleaners. Or at least dropping to once a month. Here’s the logic:

  1. I am now working from home 2 days a week. This allows me to get some of the cleaning done.
  2. I really hate doing a once every 2 week cleanup. I want to slowly encourage the girls to clean up, so maybe we can make this part of Monday afternoons once our ice skating session ends today.
  3. It’s a lot of money that could be used for something else, but it’s not so much that it is putting us out.

I don’t know. I like the convenience of never mopping, or dusting, but in reality, does it really take that long? No. I mean they take 2 hours every 2 weeks, but I could probably keep things in shape over a month or so and let the cleaners do the deep cleaning once a month. I also know that this woman needs the financial help. I wouldn’t want to cut her when we certainly can afford things. Sigh. Such a tough call.

What are your thoughts on cleaners? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em?

Writing

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So thanks to my BFF Becky, I am writing a novel this month. Yes, in addition to hosting my in-laws for Thanksgiving (no problem), hoping the new room will be DONE before Thanksgiving, knowing that Dr. Jay has to run off to DC for a day trip, going to Bethesda for a Bar Mitzvah and trying not to drop dead from anaphylaxis, I am writing a novel.

Am I an idiot or what?

Of course, I will probably never let anyone read it (except Becky. Because she is making me write this, then she has to read the crap I come up with). I tried this last year and totally failed. I got to 15,000 words and stopped. Sigh. This time, it is completely different. I haven’t found a struggle with my character yet. She is doing great and surprizing me when I get to certain situations. I have set up a) a character and b) a starting point for the plot. That’s it. From here, I will see what my character tells me to do.

I also decided to write in first person because that is so much easier for me. I hope I can pull this off, I doubt it, but hey, I am putting this out there!

Anyone else doing this? Buehler?

Dear Body

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I hate you. There. I said it. Plain and simple. I hate you.

I went in for my bee/hornet shots yesterday at 3:20. I got home from the ER at 10. Sigh

My tongue swelled and my throat tightened after the second set of shots. We did an epi-pen, plus 2 antihistamines plus steroids. After laying down for 15 minutes, I still had the symptoms, so we did another epi-pen. I finally got the shakes from this epi-pen and my tongue went down, but not my throat. The doctor insisted that I go to the ER. I asked for my husband to drive me, but NO, she insisted on an ambulance.

I personally hate the attention these things bring. But I really didn’t have a choice. They came, tried an IV on one side, failed, did the other side.Stuck all sorts of electrodes on me to check for things like heart trouble from the epis and breathing issues. Gave me one of those oxygen thingies that go in your nose, but it was too big. Sigh.

The hospital was too busy, so I got to stay in the hallway. Things calmed down in my throat by the time I got there, but the protocol is 4-6 hours from last epi-pen to keep secondary reactions away. It was a fun busy place (okay, not fun), but busy.

Body, I am tired of this. I can’t be afraid of this, but the anaphylaxis is really damn scary. I don’t like it. I don’t like worrying about getting air. This sucks. Can we please let me get some sort of tolerance to this?

Thanks

In other news, I am in the market for an emergency GPS. I think I found a good one thanks to my friend Chad. Who happened to marry the daughter of one of my supervisors. After I met him. Weird world, no?

Have I mentioned I hate my body?

Go with the flow

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Trying something different today, I am just going to write what comes to my fingers. Humor me…

Listening to Blues Traveler on Pandora. I love Pandora. I hear just what I want to. Except they often play the Beatles, and I have little love for the Beatles. Nor do I love spiders. With the addition still being open to the great outdoors, we are getting the creepies coming into to our lower level. We still have our sliding glass door in place upstairs, but a single blue tarp separates the new room from downstairs. The windows will arrive tomorrow, sans my window seat.

Yes, I am claiming the window seat as mine. I have always loved window seats. They just allow you to curl up and hide from the rest of the world. That is what I need sometimes. To hide from the world.

I have thought about the job situation. I love what I do. I just am not dealing with my boss. I have started to say "Manny being Manny". It’s the only way to deal. I can’t imagine dealing any other way with this personality clash. As my girls grow, I see more and more importance of being with them, and the more and more he focuses on his job and in turn, those under him. I may wait until June, but then I might start look at another science lab that is within biking distance to my house. I looked this month and they had a job analyzing weather patterns. To me that seemed awesome. I love what I do, but…Maybe someone else will have jobs if I can wait. Dr. Jay and a friend are working on a new mission proposal. I could hang around for that. You never know.

Or maybe I can write my Great American Novel. I have a new idea. I have 3 paragraphs. I haven’t a clue about the main character’s mental condition except how it can play into her personal relationships and her job. That’s what research is for. Maybe if I start it now, I can do the 1500 words a day for the National Write a Novel Month. Then I could publish and makes tons of money, retire and do all of those things I want to, but need the money.

In truth, money is a funny thing. We probably could live in Dr. Jay’s salary alone, but I am not ready for that. I am too damn independent to have a single salary in the family. Granted, we already have his salary greater than mine, by a bit, but…. you know? That damn feminism.

Oooh! If I had a $1,000,000!

Want to go listen to this song!

The art of being Nance

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The panic attacks have started again. I know why. I don’t know how to stop them.

Someone said an offhand comment that cut to the fiber of my being. I won’t go into details here, but yeah, I’m pissed. And it set me into small panics about life. I need to stop these.

I understand why I am uncomfortable at work. It is personal, and not professional. I need to just ignore the words of someone that I feel that I want to impress. I have considered other jobs, but I am not ready to make that jump yet…

I am feeling good about parenting as of late. Luna is working on her screaming. Our system of giving a check mark for no screaming and a second check mark for good behavior has been helping. I think a Halloween party for her is on the horizon! Soleil has been working on several things, and she is comfortable discussing the tough stuff with us. For example, she was goofing at school and got in trouble. She needed to get it out because it was bothering her. She told us, we asked if she felt she was treated unfairly, she said no and we said, good. It’s done. Don’t do it again. And that was that.

On the health front, it has been tricky. I need to exercise more. I like the T-Tapp because it is definitely calming the depression, but right now, I haven’t been able to fit it in my life. I need to get it back in( I have been doing the shorter one more often, but I really want to get the long one in. Maybe I should focus on doing the 15 minute one every other day for a few weeks then moving in the longer one when I can)

On the house front, we are stalled. We are awaiting the windows. This means that our house is damned cold because we can’t get the insulation in until the windows and siding are up (town regs). The addition is open to the outdoors, and then opens to our house. We are getting into the 50s downstairs and low 60s upstairs in the morning. Brrrrr. So we haven’t bothered to turn on the heat so we don’t waste the energy. The windows should arrive by the 20th, although the largest window may not make it until a week later. Don’t get me started on what is causing the delay…NONE of these windows are custom sized. They are all stock sizes from pella.

 

Blog reading? HA HA HA HA! I barely get time to write in my own blog, not to mention reading everyone else’s. It will pass. I will find time.

Girl Scouts? Yeah- right now that is taking a lot of energy. More later on that.

It’s hard being yourself. Stick to it.