I don't watch a lot of television news, but when bad weather occurs, you have to watch. Since we live an hour away from the city, it can be fine where we are but deadly treacherous in Dallas. Since some teachers drive from quite a distance, our schools are often delayed and even closed when the weather "elsewhere" is bad. Thus is the case today.
The big ice storm of '09 is upon us, but not really. News reporters in Dallas and Fort Worth have dug out their cutest winter head gear to stand in the intersection of some major highway to tell you that it's slick out. There isn't much traffic on the roads, Dallas looks to be closed, and my husband just stayed home. With the economy the way it is he isn't overwhelmed at work. Since the company is in Dallas, they may close for the day or at least delay opening anyway. He's been there ten years. He has days off he can take. So be it.
Of course I have to work. There is no such thing as unable to get to work when your office is in your house. It also means I'll have to make breakfast later than usual and maybe take the kids to school when they start at 10. The bridges and overpasses will be icy, and my 16 year old has no experience with that sort of thing. (There are several bridges over a lake before you get to the high school from here.) On the other hand, he has to learn.
I don't like unexpected weather patterns. I don't like having three people "at work with me" unscheduled. These people know me as Mom and Wife, and they are used to talking to me and having me do things for them. Between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., I don't like to be Mom or Wife. I have work to do.
Ice Storm, Schmice Storm. The weather is fine where I am. I'm a little worried about my iris and Cana bulbs that have sprouted in the last week. My tropicals and palms that are in the ground are not looking too good either. (But neither are the pots of palms and other plants that got brought in for the winter. I just do not have a green thumb.)
But I digress, which is what happens when there are people home who should be at school and work, and when the reporters on TV are making a big deal out of a little ice. But it is a big deal in Dallas. We don't get ice often. People don't know anything about it. Pick-ups do horribly on ice, fishtailing everywhere, and everyone drives pick-ups. I even heard some idiot say, "At least I have four wheel drive." As if that would help! I lived in Colorado for 15 years and we had four wheel drive. It's great for snow or mud or going through streams or up mountains, but on ice it's like having four wheels out of control.
My husband tried something he saw on the news. The dumbest thing I've seen today. He put a cardboard pizza box over his windshield so he wouldn't have to scrape the ice off. I was out this morning doing a "weather check" in time to see him trying to get the pizza box off his windshield. Yes, it was stuck. I wonder how many viewers were dumb enough to try the same thing? And how many are sorry they did today. Once when I was in college I saw on the Dallas news that you could pour a pitcher of water on your windshield and melt the ice off if you didn't have a scraper. I did that with a steaming pitcher of water and my entire windshield cracked, costing me several hundred dollars. These people haven't got a clue!
My kids are getting ready to go to school. My husband thinks he'll take the day off. We've been painting, and he can finish one of the areas. Of course it's part of my office. He says he can do it without disturbing me. I doubt that very, very, very much.
Ice storm, schmice storm. What do they do in other parts of the world? Up north people can't possibly stay home everytime the weather is bad. I suppose that because people down here don't have proper coats or gloves or even ice scrapers, we have to shut everything down. But come on people. How is anyone supposed to get any work done when the city shuts down and my husband stays home. Do you know how easy it is to get me off task? Do you know how much I enjoy a day alone with my spouse, and how rare those days are? I have lunch plans and conference calls....this changes everything. Can we reschedule this storm for next week? I'm just too busy this week.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Is Today Sunday?
My kids have been home since December 23 nearly full time. My spouse has been home since December 24 full time. I have had plenty of time off. I have had a lovely, low key, stress free holiday season, with lots of laughs and plenty of family time. Holiday decorations have been put away. My house is clean, the laundry is done. Even the cats have adjusted and have started sleeping in. This has to be about over.
Don't get me wrong. No one loves vacation more than I. But now the entitlement of it all is starting to wear thin.
My mother will tell you that I have spoiled my boys rotten. I always figured it was my job as mother (and a privilege for me -- a source of pride too) to make my children a warm breakfast. I have made breakfast for my kids for 16 years. As teens they are becoming easier and often want just cereal, which they can get themselves. When it comes to lunch, they can make their own sandwiches but don't. I don't mind making lunch, figuring it saves me money if they aren't wholesale raiding my refrigerator every few hours. But having them home means there's been little time for much else between "feedings."
Meal time has been especially dictated by the incredible poison ivy rash that my youngest, who is severely allergic to poison ivy, decided to get for the holidays. His three times daily regimen of cortizone steroid medication requires food, so I've been a short order cook for a week.
The poison ivy episode itself was an ordeal. The weather has been nice. Dylan and his friends have been building a course for playing with their (I'm told) relatively harmless airsoft guns. On Sunday, Dylan's rash appeared, the itching kept him awake overnight, and by Monday his right eye was nearly swollen shut. After applying every home remedy on the internet (with some short-lived success) throughout the morning, we knew he needed a shot, so I took him to the doctor. Anyway, after a big shot of steroids in his butt he got immediate relief, but he needs meds with food three times a day.
That was five days ago. Since then I've made sure that he has taken his medication three times a day with food. If you can imagine how much time in the day that takes up, you can understand my growing excitement about returning to work, kids returning to school, and life returning to "normal."
The point of this post is that this has been a really good break for me. But it's starting to wear thin.
Yesterday I had a melt down over a movie the boys rented, which disapated into a melt-down about everything to do with them on that particular day. I was relaxing, having spent DAYS doing laundry and the day taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning., putting things back to normal and rearranging things a bit. I was sitting on the couch doing a Sudoku (Santa brought it) when the boys came in from town.
They were carrying fast food drinks and a new horn for the golf cart (honk honk). My boys are funny. They are small town kids, and there really isn't much to do here. They find their fun at WalMart (buying silly things like a horn for the golf cart), and they even enjoy going through the new carwash. Last week my oldest showed me a video he'd taken on his phone of the new car wash. "You took my car through the car wash?" I asked, "Twice," he had answered. "Twice?" I'd asked laughing before adding, "What a waste of money." "It's fun, and besides, Stephen paid," he'd said. "Oh," I'd said, thinking "at least I didn't pay for it." Our neighbors have small town kids too, and they're all loaded up with Christmas money. I guess if one of the neighbor boys wants to pay to go through the carwash for fun and they are in my car, I shouldn't complain. It's pretty funny stuff.
Anyway, you can understand how the kids are getting bored too. You can only go to WalMart and go through the car wash or to the movies or to the burger joint so many times before you are truly bored. That's why they had gone to rent some movies.
So back to this movie: I was sitting on the couch. I never watched it, per say, because I was trying to do a Sudoku, but from the moment it began until the moment when I said, "That's enough, turn it off," I heard nothing but fowl language. It wasn't funny. It was awful. I wasn't watching, but I could hear my husband commenting from behind me about the violence, blood and gore. Before "losing it" and demanding that the thing be turned off, I had been told by my children in response to my exhaltations of disgust, "If you don't like it, go to another room," and "You aren't watching it anyway so don't worry about it," and other disrespectful things.
Anyway, long story short, the movie (a Ben Stiller movie called Tribal Thunder) did not get watched and today I am going to try to take it back to Blockbuster to find out why they allowed kids under 17 to rent a movie rated R, and I'm going to try to get credit put back on my kid's gift card. I can be really calm about this, and I can only try. That movie was nuts though. I'm thoroughly disgusted with Ben Stiller's choice there. I don't know where I lost control of the boundaries with my children, but the fact that they thought they could bring that into my house and play it on the TV in my living room while I'm sitting on the couch relaxing and enjoying some down time, is beyond me. But they learned yesterday that there is a line, and that movie crossed it. My oldest even agreed. My youngest, I was appalled to hear, had already seen the movie at the theatre -- a 14 year old with his 13 year old "date!" What is this world coming to?
So the movie incident led me to the money wasting of buying $14 worth of fast food at 4 in the afternoon (when they would want dinner in two hours anyway) and buying a horn for the golf cart. Spend, spend, spend. I haven't even checked to see if they also washed my car.
It's definitely time for me to get back to work and for the kids to go back to what they do. I have enjoyed having my husband around, although if was around a lot I'd have to buy him a computer and add on another office because he has been on my computer and in my office a lot. There's good reason. He has been helping my son try to fix his XBox. This in itself has been a ten day ordeal that has involved something expensive and electronic being taken apart on my conference table, new tools were purchased, special trips to Dallas for salves and gadgetry were made, as well as two trips to Lowes for nylon then rubber washers the right size. They thought they fixed it yesterday, twice, but to no avail. Now they are looking to buy another broken Xbox off ebay to get the part they need to fix it...I'm not sure I get it, but it's their business. All these activities require a computer so they could watch "how to" videos on You Tube and find locations for stores to buy what they needed, and because I thought the experience was excellent for my son, I allowed it to take place and did laundry instead. Now it really is getting to be time for me to get back to work, and it's about time to get that stuff off my conference table. I haven't said anything yet though.
The problem with a long holiday vacation is that, while at the start of the vacation every day feels like Friday, toward the end every day feels like it should be Sunday. I'm not particularly fond of Sundays. They always have the aura of "Bummer, the weekend is over" combined with "I have so much to do tomorrow." I guess that's why God invented church. Maybe if you go to church on Sunday morning you are thankful for the weekend you had and the job you are returning to. I think I need church every day.
Oh well, it's been a great break...are we going back to school and work now...no, not quite yet, but I've just been informed everyone IS hungry.
Don't get me wrong. No one loves vacation more than I. But now the entitlement of it all is starting to wear thin.
My mother will tell you that I have spoiled my boys rotten. I always figured it was my job as mother (and a privilege for me -- a source of pride too) to make my children a warm breakfast. I have made breakfast for my kids for 16 years. As teens they are becoming easier and often want just cereal, which they can get themselves. When it comes to lunch, they can make their own sandwiches but don't. I don't mind making lunch, figuring it saves me money if they aren't wholesale raiding my refrigerator every few hours. But having them home means there's been little time for much else between "feedings."
Meal time has been especially dictated by the incredible poison ivy rash that my youngest, who is severely allergic to poison ivy, decided to get for the holidays. His three times daily regimen of cortizone steroid medication requires food, so I've been a short order cook for a week.
The poison ivy episode itself was an ordeal. The weather has been nice. Dylan and his friends have been building a course for playing with their (I'm told) relatively harmless airsoft guns. On Sunday, Dylan's rash appeared, the itching kept him awake overnight, and by Monday his right eye was nearly swollen shut. After applying every home remedy on the internet (with some short-lived success) throughout the morning, we knew he needed a shot, so I took him to the doctor. Anyway, after a big shot of steroids in his butt he got immediate relief, but he needs meds with food three times a day.
That was five days ago. Since then I've made sure that he has taken his medication three times a day with food. If you can imagine how much time in the day that takes up, you can understand my growing excitement about returning to work, kids returning to school, and life returning to "normal."
The point of this post is that this has been a really good break for me. But it's starting to wear thin.
Yesterday I had a melt down over a movie the boys rented, which disapated into a melt-down about everything to do with them on that particular day. I was relaxing, having spent DAYS doing laundry and the day taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning., putting things back to normal and rearranging things a bit. I was sitting on the couch doing a Sudoku (Santa brought it) when the boys came in from town.
They were carrying fast food drinks and a new horn for the golf cart (honk honk). My boys are funny. They are small town kids, and there really isn't much to do here. They find their fun at WalMart (buying silly things like a horn for the golf cart), and they even enjoy going through the new carwash. Last week my oldest showed me a video he'd taken on his phone of the new car wash. "You took my car through the car wash?" I asked, "Twice," he had answered. "Twice?" I'd asked laughing before adding, "What a waste of money." "It's fun, and besides, Stephen paid," he'd said. "Oh," I'd said, thinking "at least I didn't pay for it." Our neighbors have small town kids too, and they're all loaded up with Christmas money. I guess if one of the neighbor boys wants to pay to go through the carwash for fun and they are in my car, I shouldn't complain. It's pretty funny stuff.
Anyway, you can understand how the kids are getting bored too. You can only go to WalMart and go through the car wash or to the movies or to the burger joint so many times before you are truly bored. That's why they had gone to rent some movies.
So back to this movie: I was sitting on the couch. I never watched it, per say, because I was trying to do a Sudoku, but from the moment it began until the moment when I said, "That's enough, turn it off," I heard nothing but fowl language. It wasn't funny. It was awful. I wasn't watching, but I could hear my husband commenting from behind me about the violence, blood and gore. Before "losing it" and demanding that the thing be turned off, I had been told by my children in response to my exhaltations of disgust, "If you don't like it, go to another room," and "You aren't watching it anyway so don't worry about it," and other disrespectful things.
Anyway, long story short, the movie (a Ben Stiller movie called Tribal Thunder) did not get watched and today I am going to try to take it back to Blockbuster to find out why they allowed kids under 17 to rent a movie rated R, and I'm going to try to get credit put back on my kid's gift card. I can be really calm about this, and I can only try. That movie was nuts though. I'm thoroughly disgusted with Ben Stiller's choice there. I don't know where I lost control of the boundaries with my children, but the fact that they thought they could bring that into my house and play it on the TV in my living room while I'm sitting on the couch relaxing and enjoying some down time, is beyond me. But they learned yesterday that there is a line, and that movie crossed it. My oldest even agreed. My youngest, I was appalled to hear, had already seen the movie at the theatre -- a 14 year old with his 13 year old "date!" What is this world coming to?
So the movie incident led me to the money wasting of buying $14 worth of fast food at 4 in the afternoon (when they would want dinner in two hours anyway) and buying a horn for the golf cart. Spend, spend, spend. I haven't even checked to see if they also washed my car.
It's definitely time for me to get back to work and for the kids to go back to what they do. I have enjoyed having my husband around, although if was around a lot I'd have to buy him a computer and add on another office because he has been on my computer and in my office a lot. There's good reason. He has been helping my son try to fix his XBox. This in itself has been a ten day ordeal that has involved something expensive and electronic being taken apart on my conference table, new tools were purchased, special trips to Dallas for salves and gadgetry were made, as well as two trips to Lowes for nylon then rubber washers the right size. They thought they fixed it yesterday, twice, but to no avail. Now they are looking to buy another broken Xbox off ebay to get the part they need to fix it...I'm not sure I get it, but it's their business. All these activities require a computer so they could watch "how to" videos on You Tube and find locations for stores to buy what they needed, and because I thought the experience was excellent for my son, I allowed it to take place and did laundry instead. Now it really is getting to be time for me to get back to work, and it's about time to get that stuff off my conference table. I haven't said anything yet though.
The problem with a long holiday vacation is that, while at the start of the vacation every day feels like Friday, toward the end every day feels like it should be Sunday. I'm not particularly fond of Sundays. They always have the aura of "Bummer, the weekend is over" combined with "I have so much to do tomorrow." I guess that's why God invented church. Maybe if you go to church on Sunday morning you are thankful for the weekend you had and the job you are returning to. I think I need church every day.
Oh well, it's been a great break...are we going back to school and work now...no, not quite yet, but I've just been informed everyone IS hungry.
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