sueeeus

The dream is alive. Now, it’s just a matter of choice. What view would I like best, from my kitchen window

Shall it be water and mountains Or a grove of white barked trees. With large rock outcroppings scattered in the distance

I think I’d like the water view from a covered porch, where I can sit and enjoy the evening air.
I’d like to make the most of passive thermal heating and cooling properties, so I’m going to have to figure out the lay of the land, North and South, East and West. The dream is for a green home that uses energy wisely.  I like a woodsy, Asian, contemporary flair.  It will be a Pacific Northwest Zen home, at one with the environment and the family. So many things to consider, but oh! The possibilities!

The clock is ticking, but I’m not sure when we can take those steps and boldly go forth and immerse ourselves in Rural America. Mr. Gadget’s heart isn’t there yet. But I’m working on him.

For now, this piece of paradise is ours.  It’s a step.  A leap, in fact.

Let’s try that again, shall we

• 5:15 – 5:35 a.m. wake up (4 mins)
• 5:19 – 5:39 a.m. prepare for work
• necessary hygiene
• bathe (20 mins)
• brush teeth (3 mins)
• get dressed (5 mins)
• apply warpaint (5 mins)
• pack lunch bag (5 mins)
• 5:57 a.m. prepare for daycare
• dress the munchkin (5 mins)
• pack diaper bag (5 mins)
• snuggles and cuddles (5-10 mins)
• 6:12 – 6:17 a.m. make the bed (ha ha, as if that will happen) (3 mins) 
• 6:15 -6:20 a.m. drive to work (35-40 mins)
• 7:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. work (8.5 hrs)
• 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. drive to daycare (45-50 mins)
• 4:15 – 4:25 p.m. daycare pickup (10 mins)
• 4:25 – 4:35 p.m. drive home (10-15 mins)
• 4:35 – 5:05/5:35 p.m. prepare dinner (30-60 mins)
• 5:05/5:35 – 5:35/6:05 p.m. feed the munchkin (30 mins)
• 5:35/6:05 – 5:50/6:20 p.m. feed myself (15 mins)
• 5:50/6:20 – 6:10/6:40 p.m. clean the kitchen (20 mins)
• 6:10/6:40 – 7:05 p.m. exercise (25-55 mins)
• 7:05 p.m. miscellaneous household chores (30 mins)
• 7:35 p.m. bathe the boy (20 mins)
• 7:55 p.m. change into jammies (5 mins)
• 8:00 p.m. put him to bed (15 mins)
• 8:15 – 8:20/9:00 p.m. get him to sleep (5-45 mins)
• 8:20/9:00 – 9:00/9:40 p.m. marriage maintenance (40 mins)
• 9:00/9:40 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. me time (20-60 mins)
• 10:00 p.m. prepare myself for bed (5 mins)
• 10:05 p.m. – 5:15/5:35 a.m. sleep

I don’t know why I was complaining.  According to this schedule, there is not only room in my life for exercise, housecleaning, and marriage maintenance, but there is me time as well.  Except, I just realized, that apart from the 5-10 minutes of morning snuggles and cuddles, I am completely ignoring my child.  This will never do.

This is more what honesty looks like.

• 2:30 a.m. wake up for diaper change, put toddler back to bed (10 mins)
• 2:40 a.m. back to sleep
• 5:00 a.m. wake up for another diaper change and hungry boy, give in and feed him something (20 mins)
• 5:20 a.m back to sleep
• 6:30 a.m. wake up exhausted, realize we’re late again, wonder to self, “what’s the point “, try to get up, fail, go back to sleep, drag self out of bed, finally, after a ten minute struggle
• 6:40 a.m. prepare for daycare
• dress the munchkin (5 mins)
• pack diaper bag (5 mins)
• snuggles and cuddles (5-10 mins)
• 7:00 a.m. prepare for work
• necessary hygiene
• bathe (20 mins)
• brush teeth (3 mins)
• get dressed (5 mins)
• apply warpaint (5 mins)
• pack lunch bag (5 mins)
• 6:12 – 6:17 a.m. make the bed (ha ha, as if that will happen) (3 mins) 
• 7:20 – 8:00 a.m. drive to work (35-40 mins)
• 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. work (8.5 hrs)
• 4:30 – 5:15 p.m. drive to daycare (45-50 mins)
• 5:15 – 5:25 p.m. daycare pickup (10 mins)
• 5:25 – 5:35 p.m. drive home (10-15 mins)
• 5:35 – 6:05/6:35 p.m. prepare dinner (30-60 mins)
• 6:05/6:35 – 6:35/7:05 p.m. feed the munchkin (30 mins)
• 6:35/7:05 – 6:50/7:20 p.m. feed myself (15 mins)
• 5:50/6:20 – 6:10/6:40 p.m. clean the kitchen (20 mins)
• 6:10/6:40 – 7:05 p.m. exercise (25-55 mins)
• 7:05 p.m. miscellaneous household chores (30 mins)
• 7:35 p.m. bathe the boy (20 mins)
• 6:50/7:20 – 7:55 p.m. play with beloved child, pay bills, misc. household chores, delete spam, waste time
• 7:55 p.m. change into jammies (5 mins)
• 8:00 p.m. put him to bed (15 mins)
• 8:15 – 8:20/9:00 p.m. get him to sleep (5-45 mins)
• 8:20 – 9:00 p.m. delete spam, blog
• 9:00 – 10:00 p.m. marriage maintenance (i.e., watch tv together)
• 10:00 p.m. prepare myself for bed but get distracted by an assortment of distractions, including but not limited to: blogs, tv, arguments, chores, daydreams, internet research, projects, and so on, and so forth.
• 11:00 p.m. – 2:30 a.m. sleep

And… somewhere in there I manage to shop for groceries, fuel the car, do some banking, and so on and so forth. 

It’s been exhausting, just trying to sort out where my day goes!  However, I think that I shan’t berate myself quite so much for not making more time for exercise.   

I am using WordPress as a blogging tool, which I like very much.  I even migrated my family’s personal web site and message board to WordPress recently.  However.  There are times when it doesn’t work well or efficiently, and I’m not sure how much is related to my hosting situation, and how much is related to WordPress itself.  I’ve read on the WP technical support forums that there have been complaints of extremely slow performance with the latest version, which I’m using.  I’ve also read reviews from other forums that rate my particular hosting service as downright awful.  In either case, it’s frustrating when it’s slow, or doesn’t even respond. 

Some day, when I’m smart enough (or driven enough) to rectify the situation, I’ll make some changes, but for now, I’m not interested in fighting this particular battle.  So, my blog availability may be sporadic, and for this, I apologize (to my extensive readership –cough– ).

Is readership a word   I can’t be bothered with looking it up at present.  Although I find it interesting, and disheartening, that my vocabulary has deteriorated dramatically with age.  However, I theorize that it’s not so much age related as it is usage-related.  I think language skills tend to be ‘use it or lose it’ skills, that need to be continually exercised in order to maintain.

I’m the type of person who does well with schedules and routines.  I’m very process oriented.  These things work for me.  Structure.  I like structure.  With that in mind, I have some new restated goals (in the interest of re-focusing my life, and gaining some control over the chaos in which I live.)

D A I L Y   G O A L S

• an uninterrupted night’s sleep, which can theoretically be realized by the following:
• wean the beautiful boy from his bedtime bottle habit so that he doesn’t wake up between midnight and 3 a.m. needing a diaper change.  every. single. night.
• find a way to fill his tummy with non-liquid food to keep him from waking up hungry between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.  every. single. morning.
• an hour of exercise a day
• more realistically, 1/2 hour a day
• more realistically, 1/2 hour every other day
• wholesome organic glucose friendly meals.  period.
• more realistically, omit the packaged/canned/preserved/prepared foods.
• a clean kitchen
• a tidy home (to the unscrutinizing eye)
• a little bit of me time (ha ha ha ha guffaw ha ha ha…)

I’ve distracted myself so much with the thundering guffaws in my head, that I’m not able to continue this list.  It was nice to start to think about, at any rate.

One Saturday morning, not too long ago, we loaded up the car at o-dark-thirty, and headed for the water. After a long drive, which was much longer than it needed to be, but that’s an entirely different story (suffice it to say that, had we filled the gas tank when Mama suggested it…   …oh, we weren’t going to talk about that now…)… …We made it to the fishing spot. It was too late to fish for salmon, but it wasn’t too late to enjoy the scenery.
There was a fabulous bridge.

The water views were stunning.

There were big mountains, not so far away.

There were many more mountains, far off in the distance.

Shhhh! Someone doesn’t have a license! (Phew, fishing is free when you’re nineteen months old, and you have friends who own a boat.)

Look! We’re catching crab!  Who knew one could catch crab with a fishing pole   It’s fun!
This boat is kind of scary.  It’s a little hard to keep balance.
Sometimes it’s better to just take a nap.

This is even better than driftwood.

Gee, Daddy’s friends have the neato toys, but I don’t know how to drive!

And this thing doesn’t have any seatbelts!

Once upon a time there was a blog. And then there were more. And more and more and more. One day, a fine blogger named Blackbird started a fun game called Show and Tell. Oh, the bloggers who liked to play along! Show me a chicken, said Blackbird. And some bloggers did. One day, another blogger, who was very far behind in blog happenings, happened upon (name withheld for privacy), where she exclaimed, “What a fine chicken!” (or something to that effect). In nearly a blink of an eye, said chicken took flight, and made its way across the miles. The flight was long, the journey was arduous, but the weary chook is home to roost, happily in my kitchen.

The end.

I am constantly amazed, and grateful, at the sense of community and connectedness that blogging brings into my life. Truly, it’s a beautiful thing.

Thank you!! This fine bird is holding an assortment of tea bags, and is quite content passing the time with Cookie Monster. Oh the tales they tell. The wild and crazy goings on of the Sueeus kitchen.

In all honesty, I have a warm spot in my heart for a kitchen chicken, as there was a white hen crock perched atop a shelf in my mother’s kitchen for as long as I can remember. Nostalgia. 🙂

I didn’t even mention the part about the kindness and generosity of fine people out there. I’m astounded and blessed.

(Thank you again!!)

Self Portrait Tuesday

. . . Love is . . .

. . . . . nothing but smiles . . .

. . . it doesn’t hurt to have a captive audience either . . .

. . . because . . .

. . . it’s not so easy to sit still when you’re nineteen months old!

I’m loving every minute of this journey called motherhood.

It’s not so much that I hate technology (although I do, I DO!), it’s that things just don’t stay the same. Ever. Why is that Why can’t things just stay put

My permalinks have crumbled and fallen into the sea. Or something to that effect. My archive links. All gone. None of them work.

Did I do anything to make this happen To my knowledge, no. NO!

And do I have an abundance of time to try and figure these things out No. NO!

Grrrrrrrrrr!!

Update:

So. For the time being, my temporary fix is to disable permalinks. When I have the time, I’ll see if I can fix the permalinks.

Until then….

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

It’s not like my work makes a huge impact on humanity, or anything like that, but once in a while I do something that gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment. I built a dynamic web calendar some time ago, that provides a two month rolling window, minus the weekends. I was quite pleased that I was able to figure out how to make it, at the time, but it had room for improvement.

We have multi-tiered organizations, where I work. There are many departments, groups, and sub-groups. My calendar shows a complete group’s schedule, sorted by its sub-groups, with the supervisor and leads highlighted. The beauty of this particular calendar is that a supervisor (or anybody) can see at a glance the coverage (or lack thereof). Availability is important where I work, as we are a service organization.

Each person has control over their schedule and can input their planned out of office days. Each type of absence has its own color code. We also have flexible work schedules, where our pay periods are two week intervals. We can work non-standard schedules (within reason), as long as we work 80 hours every two weeks. In general, that means 4×10 hour days each week (a day off each week), or 80 hours/9 days each pay period (a day off every other week). I originally had a table look-up function where I had a sub-set of alternate schedule possibilities and holiday dates pre-loaded. Not very robust. It worked, but wasn’t very elegant, and I had to manually update the table each year to load the next year’s dates. And there are so many possible day off combinations. Too. Much. Work.

So. I made it calculate on the fly. It doesn’t sound like much, but I am quite pleased with myself for figuring it out. It’s not the most efficient code. It’s nearly 900 lines, after all. And, I probably reinvented the wheel, because someone else has probably already done this. All the same, I did it, and it works. For leap years, as well. Imagine that! It can calculate all the 4×10 and 9×80 alternate work schedules, and company holidays. Each day for each person, it says, hey, I am dd-mm-yy. What kind of a day am I Am I a day off Am I an alternate schedule day off Am I a vacation day Okay then. I will be color X. Next And so on. Yes, there is a LOT of looping taking place.

It’s taken a lifetime of bicycling discontent to reach the conclusion that I am not a cyclist. I’ve had several bikes, and have enjoyed the occasional ride, but not enough to overcome the discomfort of shoulder, head and neck strain, not to mention the pain in the rear. Who designs bike seats   What are they thinking   C’mon.

Since I am now in my forties…  …ahem…   …I am somewhat more humble than I have been in years past, and have embraced come to terms with the fact that I am not a nimble athlete.  It pleases me to learn that there is a bike for riders like me.  Middle aged, sit-at-a-desk-all-day, non-nimble-athlete types.  It’s called a comfort bike.  Comfort!  Now that’s what I’m talking about.  That has me written all over it.  Finally!  I can sit upright with no weight on my shoulders, so I don’t have to strain my neck to hold my head up.  I can enjoy the scenery as I peddle on by.  Not only that, I can put my feet on the ground without having to get off the seat.  And, to put icing on the cake, look what I found –a WeeRide for my wee rider.  He sits safely in front of me and sees what I see.  He’s a part of the action, and we both like that quite alot.

Look at us go!  The bike even comes with a bell.  See   My little smartie is busy letting everyone know that we’re on our way.  Ring-ring!