Category Archives: working mom

The Art of Absent-Mindedness

Posted on April 4, 2014 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

It is well-known at my household that I have a gift for being absent-minded.  My family is resigned to the fact that I will forget the dinner choice they made in the den after I walk the ten feet or less it takes to reach the kitchen and have to ask again.  Kayla, when she leaves the house to catch the bus, makes sure that she locks the front door to the house so I won’t forget. while Mark is very patient when he asks me for something from the kitchen, I leave, go in there, putter around for a while and then return to the den without his original item. Kayla knows when the two of us are riding around to do something to speak up when I am about to pass the original destination, having already forgotten what that was.

Yesterday, I reached what must be the  pinnacle of absent-mindedness for any mom –  I forgot to pick up Kayla!  She has been riding to and from school on the bus, but on Thursdays I pick her up from the house and take her to art, then pick her up from art at the end of my workday.

Yesterday, although I knew I had to pick Kayla up from art when I left the office, I had forgotten by the time I reached the driveway of our house.  I remembered Kayla just as I pulled up into the driveway, so I immediately left and returned to art to get Kayla.

I called our art teacher, Bonnie, to let her know what I had done and that I was immediately turning around to pick up Kayla.  Bonnie is always a very good sport about things and I was so amused at myself I told her what had happened  When I picked up Kaya, she was outside Bonnie’s The Cottage Gallery, waiting for me with that gleeful l look all children get when their parents manage to mess up on something.

After we got home, Mark told Kayla not to worry; he’d always send me back to get her – we would never want to do that to Ms. Bonnie!

Have a great day!

Nancy

 

 

 

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Posted in Just stuff..., When things don't go as expected, working mom

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Middle-Aged but Handy

Posted on April 2, 2014 | 1 comment

Good morning Everyone!

Yesterday the three of us went out to dinner, and on the way home Kayla was chattering away when she hit the topic of things she didn’t want to have happen when she got old.  At the top of her list was having her face wrinkle.  Mark explained to her that as life goes on, somehow it prepares you for the next phase of your life so that the things you once dreaded don’t end up seeming like a big deal after all.

MIDDLE AGED

In the midst of this discussion, Kayla started to tell us something and then started to talk about our age.  After a couple of stumbles, where she started to say that the two of us were young, she finally stopped and said, “You might as well face it – you two are middle-aged.”  I told her it was a good thing she hadn’t said that around Christmas time!

HANDY

I do not think of myself as particularly handy.   I can usually handle an electric drill after three false starts – one to figure out how to turn the thing on, one to figure out how to put the drill bit in and one to figure out which way the drill is supposed to be turning  – and I can hammer a nail into a piece of wood without hitting a thumb or finger more than every other time but that is where my tool competencies stop.  However, even a blind pig can find an acorn now and then, and yesterday was my day.

One of the copiers at work was acting up.  It kept thinking we wanted to use the manual feed, which was supposed to be closed, instead of the automatic feed.  I decided that even though the manual feed was closed, I would see if I could press it even closer to the copier and hold the manual feed door shut while I encouraged the printer to print – and it worked!

Then I got home to find out that Kayla and Boo had managed to knock a lamp onto the floor, which broke the shade off.  Kayla said she couldn’t put it back together.  Repair was essential because it was my lamp for my seat in the den, the seat I sit in to cross-stitch, knit and write.  I studied it for a minute, took part of the inner workings of the lamp and made a center screw stand a little higher, then used the pole at the bottom of the shade to attach shade and lamp back together again on that central screw – and it worked!

I think I am going to be smart and rest on my laurels for a while, before I assume that my two little repairs yesterday makes me capable of tackling a really big problem, such as replumbing the kitchen sink.  None of it is ever as easy as it looks on TV.

Have a great day!

Nancy

 

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Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom

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Moving

Posted on April 1, 2014 | 2 comments

Good morning Everyone!

I recently have had occasion to reflect upon the adventure of moving.

Hand truck with crates

You know you’re moving if: 

1) You changed all of the shelf paper in the house any time recently.

2) You order new checks with your address on it.

3) You are on a first name basis with The Home Depot greeter who  keeps  a stack of boxes reserved especially for you.

4) Images of full trash bags dance in your head.

5) You tell someone, “I don’t care what it costs; all of the books are coming with us!”

6) You have to search your 12-year-old daughter’s bags every time you leave the old house going to the new house to be sure she isn’t trying to sneak more toys to the new house than her room will hold.

7) Your husband gives you an uneasy glance when you inform him that you and you alone will be packing the craft room.

8) You raise the art of swearing at the tape gun that refuses to work correctly for you to new heights.

9)  You are seriously considering donating everything you own to charity and then moving to Key West where you will live in a tent in ultra minimalist style.

10) You ditch the Key West idea because two parents, one 12-year-old and three dogs are too much for one tent to hold indefinitely.

11) You have to navigate a labyrinth of boxes to reach either end of the house.  While navigating, you discover where the book boxes are by running into them.  The following trip to the ER is optional.

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, working mom

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The Southern Spring Show

Posted on March 31, 2014 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

I thought I would mark the return from Spring Break here at our house by showing you the latest set of four paintings I have finished.  I call the series the “Southern Spring Show.”  They are done in oil, and as you will see at the end, are meant to comprise a single piece of art, although each of the four can also stand individually.  It took me about nine months to do these (remember, I only get to spend an hour or two each week, if that, working on them though, so that’s not quite as long as it sounds!)

The Dogwood:

Dogwood take 2

The Camellia:

cropped camellia scan

The Magnolia:

cropped but full magnolia

The Azalea:

azalea scan

The Complete, Framed “Southern Spring Show”:

The Whole Thing

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Art, working mom

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The Best Diet Plan Ever!

Posted on March 20, 2014 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Quite by accident, I have discovered the single greatest diet plan ever – even better than the 1 to 4 ratio imposed on anything that we eat around here that the dogs feel they should get a part of  (one bite me, three bites dogs!).

Clip Art Illustration of a Silhouette of a Woman Holding Her Wai

The Best Diet Plan Ever!
PhotoCredit: http://www.clickartonline.com

You need two ingredients:

1) Food in the house;

2) A 12-year-old girl.

A dill pickle

A Dill Pickle

Kayla started riding the bus to and from school a couple of weeks ago, which leaves her with a short period of time during which she is free to raid cupboards and the refrigerator to her heart’s content.  While Mark had already reconciled himself to the fact that he will never have a pickle he can eat at the house until Kayla goes to college, and I was already checking whether we needed peanut butter at least twice as often as I used to, we didn’t really expect that everything sweet in the house (except for the box of HoneySmacks I have hidden on the top shelf of the pantry behind the bread maker so Mark will have something – shhhh!) would be gone each week by Tuesday.  By Wednesday, fruit, apple sauce, peas, stew and vegetable beef soup have managed to disappear.  I suspect by Friday, we will be down to bread and water.

empty refrigerator

Looking for Something to Eat!
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com

The start-up costs for this diet were pretty low, since we had all the ingredients to hand, but I suspect that the long-term costs may end up being astronomical.  At least until Kayla graduates college and enters into a profession that will enable her to support Mark and I in the lifestyle to which we desire to become accustomed!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Child's Play, Just stuff..., working mom

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Parking Not

Posted on March 19, 2014 | 6 comments

Front Parking

Photo Credit: Me!
Parking Lot in front of Our Building

Good morning Everyone!

To quote my husband when he and Kayla were pulling into the garage last week (gleefully repeated to me by my daughter later), “I love your mother, but she cannot park.”

He’s right; I can’t. My co-workers know it; I’ve hit at least two of their cars over the years while parking. I was over the age of 35 before I managed to parallel park, and I’m still not sure that I would have managed it if the parallel spot hadn’t been the only spot within a mile of the office in the midst of a frog-strangler. FN1.

One of my fellow attorneys has a beautiful Porsche coupe convertible; it’s now about 10 years old and still looks like it came off the show room floor. Pulling off a rare successful practical joke, I walked into his office one day and said, “Randy, I’m sorry about the Porsche.” I don’t think his heart stopped, but I’m positive his face blanched for a second before I started laughing.

Tahoe

Tahoe
Photo Credit: http://www.cars.com

The office breathed a collective sigh of relief the day we traded in our Chevrolet Tahoe for an Aveo. The Tahoe was a great vehicle, but there was just too much of it!

Another collective sigh of relief emanated from the office when Mark and I got the car I currently drive, a Hyundai Sonata with that greatest of miracles – a rear view camera! As one co-worker observed, since then I have only needed one parking space to park in instead of two.

At home, the relief was short-lived. Did you know that the rear view mirror (passenger side) can still hit the frame of the garage door even when the rest of the car has clearance?  The mirror is sturdier than it looks; it’s survived three hits so far. Mark is pretty certain it won’t survive a fourth, though. Now if I pull into the garage and Kayla is with me, I go ahead and let her out to go on in the house while I concentrate on getting the car into the garage. So far, the record is about six tries before I got it right. Backing out can take anywhere from one to four tries.

So, the other day, when I parked the car at the grocery store, and I walked up to the person in the car beside me to ask if I had left him enough room to back out, explaining that I was not good at parking, I can hardly fault Kayla for chiming in brightly, “It’s true; she’s really rotten at it!”

Have a great day!

Nancy

FN1. Frog-Strangler – a downpour; a gully washer

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Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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Labor Relations

Posted on March 17, 2014 | 1 comment

Good morning Everyone!

I have a friend who works for an employment agency, and I mentioned to Mark that in the last two months, my friend has come across more jobs requiring experience in labor relations than ever before. Kayla was listening and suddenly became very still. Then she said, “That’s weird! Why would someone have to prove they can deliver a baby before they can get hired?”

Top of the morning to you Irish men and Irish women out there (of which I am one!) and have a great day!

Nancy

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The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Posted on March 6, 2014 | 1 comment

Good morning Everyone!

Have you ever wondered where dreams come from?  I‘m not talking about the “Be President/Travel the US in a RV for One Year” type of dreams, but the crazy jumble of facts and fiction that parade through our heads every night.

My husband and daughter rarely remember their dreams – although there have been one or two Saturday mornings when Kayla asked for just a few more minutes of sleep to “finish off her dream.”  What dreams my husband remembers, he controls.  He has the capability to tell his subconscious, while he’s still asleep, how he wants the dream to end.  My subconscious, however, wanders footloose and fancy-free, taking me wherever it wants to.  Maybe in part it’s rebelling against the control I place on it during the day.

I have one or two recurring dreams.  I groan every time that I have to dial a number two or three times in “real life” before it goes through, because that means that the “I need to make a phone call but I can’t ever get the phone to put in the number correctly” dream is sure to pop up in the next week.

After over 20 years, I finally figured out that the “I forgot to attend a class for an entire semester and now the exam is tomorrow” dream occurs when I am under an intense deadline.  Usually the dream includes the certainty that I have made an F in at least two subjects that semester and I am trying, in my sleep, to figure out what that does to my grade point average, can I somehow get around the F’s or will they matter and why on earth I didn’t drop the class before the drop/add deadline passed.

Most of the time, my weird dreams are simply curious to me, even the recurring ones, but I still can remember the dream I had 28 years ago when someone broke into the house and was about to kill me.  A man was pointing a rifle right in front of my face while I was lying in bed.  I woke up with a start as I heard the gun click as he pulled the trigger.  I have one truly beautiful dream I dreamed back when I was about 15 that I also remember, for a couple of reasons.  The first is that it was in color, one of the rare dreams I remember being in color.  The second is that it was set in a radiant meadow where an absolute stunning mare and her foal were grazing.  I don’t remember what happened in that dream, but the scene has stayed with me for more years than I care to count.

Horses

Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
My horses and meadow were even prettier than these!

Scientists have been studying dreams for a while and are still speculating as to their biological function.  What they do know is that the crazy night-time peccadilloes that our subconscious engages in are essential to our health.

Indian Dream Catcher

Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
Indian Dream Catcher

Do you have any crazy or recurring dreams?  Can you remember your dreams?  Have you every kept a dream log?  I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., The quest for health, working mom

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The Warranty, Please

Posted on March 4, 2014 | 1 comment

Good morning Everyone!

Since all three of us need them, glasses are important objects in this house and a trip to purchase them a major event.

Our favorite place to purchase glasses is LensCrafters in Montgomery.  It has an independent optometrist’s office on the premises, owned by Dr. Goodman, who has seen to Mark’s and my eye care for more years than I care to count and who added Kayla to his list of patients about three years ago.  Mark and I once went to another company  and optometrist to get our glasses, but we weren’t happy with the results – neither one of us felt like our eyeglasses were working the way they should that time – so the next visit saw us back at LensCrafters.

Tyra never chewed glasses

Photo Credit: Me!
Tyra never chewed glasses in her life; I just felt that she deserved to have her picture in the blog post.

One of the reasons we like LensCrafters is their extended warranty.  The warranty provides coverage for everything that can happen to a pair of glasses except for being lost with only a $25 deductible.  (Even those of us whose mental math abilities are hampered can recognize that $25 is much less then the cost of even one lens.)  And in our family, if it can happen to a pair of glasses, it probably will.

Kayla's first set of glasses before the dogs ate them

Photo Credit: Me!
Kayla’s first set of glasses last year.

Kayla’s glasses lasted under a week before they needed to be replaced – she left them on the coffee table one day rather than wearing them.  (To be fair, she left them in the same spot Mark leaves his when he is not wearing them; the only difference is that he never leaves his unattended.)  When we got home that day, we found that Mandy or Darwin or both had thoughtfully tried to redesign the frames and the lens by chewing them.

Mandy and Darwin rest from their labors

Photo Credit: Me!
Darwin and Mandy rest from their labors.

This had happened to her first ever pair of glasses, too.  One trip to Montgomery, $25 and four hours later, she was back up and running.

Glasses Second Pair 2013

Photo Credit: Me!
Kayla’s Second Pair of Glasses

My glasses lasted through the middle of February until they slipped off my night table at night and hit the floor, lens down.  When I picked them back up again, the floor had scored (pun intended) a fantastic scratch on the right lens.  We went Saturday to get the replacement lens ordered (my prescription needs to be ordered and then shipped; most prescriptions can be made in the store’s own lab), tendered our $25, and in 8 to 10 day business days, my glasses will be blemish free yet again.

Glass scratch for blog

My Scratched Lens

So when next you decide to get glasses, let me humbly suggest that purchasing THIS  extended warranty, unlike so many others, is well worth your money if you have 1) children, 2) dogs or 3) a mysterious wooden floor that shouldn’t scratch glass but did!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

P.S.  I was NOT paid or requested to do this post by anyone.

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Talented Phones

Posted on February 28, 2014 | 2 comments

Good morning Everyone!

old telephone

Photo Credit: Purchased from http://www.clipartonline.com

Some of you probably remember using phones where the receiver was attached to the main phone with a wire that kept you close to the phone when you were using it.  In order to figure out the range of the cord, you needed to look at the length described on the package and then mentally decrease it by 1/3 to compensate for the way even the best  phone cords tangled.

tangled telephone cord

Photo Credit: Purchased from http://www.clickartonline.com

To those of us who were slaves to the cord, the cordless phone was revolutionary! You could talk to your friends and family on a cordless phone and still move around the house!  It was astonishing.  The cordless phone allowed us to talk on the phone and still cook, dust, fold clothes, iron and let the dogs in and out of the house.  It rocked!

Today's Cell Phone

Photo Credit: Me!

At our house, we always like to have the latest, greatest electronics (well, some of us do – for myself, I’m drawing the line at Blu-ray DVDs) so, of course, we have cordless phones. Our favorite type for the last two decades or so has been the AT&T Dect 6.0. It does everything you would expect a household cordless phone to do in the modern era – it has three handsets expandable to 12 (not that we’ll ever have or need a house that big!), takes messages, has an intercom feature and lets us have caller id and call waiting when we are willing to get off our wallets with the phone company and pay for them. They also have one other, non-advertised, talent – they are extremely gifted at camouflage. In fact, if the Russians ever invade the great state of Alabama, my three cordless handsets will be the last thing they will be able to find!

We have three people in the house, so you would think keeping track of a cordless phone would be easy – one phone, one person – but it’s not.  Take for example, this seemingly innocent couch top.

couch top

Photo Credit: Me!

Yet, upon closer inspection (usually accompanied by a fair bit of mental censorship as we hunt for the phone while its ringing), you find the following:

Cordless Phone Handset in Couch

Photo Credit: Me!

I believe that certain of the handsets have their favorite hiding spots.  I thought this one was particularly clever the other day.

For the casual observer:

cordless phone and iPad

Photo Credit: Me!

For the accomplished phone set hunter:

cordless phone and iPad

Photo Credit: Me!

Sometimes I think the poor things just get cold, and need to warm up. When that happens, their favorite room is my daughter’s room. For example, take a look at my daughter’s sheets from the other morning:

Cell Phone

Photo Credit: Me!

A careful search (by me, not her) revealed the following:

Cell Phone

Photo Credit: Me!

Sometimes all three handsets have decided to hide in her room!

I also think the handsets are capable of developing their chameleon-like abilities. Handset 2 had been missing for about five days, and we thought we had searched everywhere, including in this box right beside the phone.

Cordless Phone in Snack Box

Photo Credit: Me!

Today, however, I happened to drop something on the floor, and reaching down to pick it up, noticed the following:

Cordless Phone in Chip Box

Photo Credit: Me!

I can’t wait to see what they come up with next! [I think!]

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., Technology, working mom

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