It was a lovely weekend here – nice (cold!) weather and good company / activities. I asked Jeremy to make Edda’s pancake breakfast for me for Mother’s Day because we weren’t able to schedule Edda’s birthday party this year. And we enjoyed it together. I’m lucky to have these kiddos in my life. And to Jeremy who is my indispensable teammate in parenting. I love you all.
On Thursday night, I went to the MCPS kickoff meeting for Edda’s transition year, meaning that these are the people who are going to help me find Edda a grown up situation when she graduates from high school in 2025. It’s very complicated and emotional and kind of word-of-mouth-y which I kind of hate, but it’s also OK because I’m kind of determined to find Edda a place to live apart from us by the time she’s in her early 30s. The funding for Edda is shifting a lot right now, the state used to pay directly for services (traditional funding model) that Edda would sign up for, but now, families are given a lot more freedom in how her day will look (self-directed funding model), but it essentially means that Edda is like a small corporation in which she hires/fires staff and programs. Which means that in reality, I run payroll and HR and stuff and find appropriate things for Edda to do, etc. So this night, I tasked myself to talking to vendors who provide day services and will take the self-directed funding. These are the same vendors who did provide traditional funded programs, but are just now transitioning to accept self-funded funds and there are hiccups (like not getting paid), but as time passes, I think it’ll be fine. I’m not really worried about finding a program that will take Edda from 9-5, I’m more focused on this apartment building I intend to build in the next 10 years with about 4-10 of her friends with staff and programming that I invision happening so I can take a long nap everyday and not worry too much about what Edda is doing. Because I like to take naps.
On Friday, I went to a noon presentation at Main Street about how to incorporate your values into the workplace. Again, a bit of networking and free food and it was nice. And then afterwards, there was a meeting with her Adult Life Planning person from her autism waiver program. There are other little social things that I did because I like to do them, but it’s really hard for me to schedule these things and be outgoing and then not come home and need a nap. I really should just turn back to work and work on some patents quietly and quickly because I have a block of a couple of hours, but it’s really hard for me to do.
Jeremy’s spent the week recovering from this really long cold. He and Edda are both like 87% well, but not 100% and it’s been dragging on for weeks now. Never terrible, but never really good. He’s also had a hard week at work in which he questions everything he’s ever done and ends the day exhausted and lying down on the couch. You know, this zoom thing is both good and bad. It’s great that we get to all work from home, but it’s also bad in the sense that building trust and friendliness in a group is really, really hard – even when everyone is kind of invested in that happening. I’ve been working with a zoom group in my new role at the office for over a year now, and it’s fine, but I know so so much less about these people than I would if we had spent a year in offices right next to each other. You lose so much.
Anyways, to divert his frustrations at his slightly ill body and his work situation, he’s been rearranging our gym – mounting TVs and fans directly to the walls. Moving things out of the way, ordering new flooring. This is totally ridiculous but we really enjoy our time in this space. It’s much less embarrassing because we are both into it and spend a lot of time working out here.
I’m also really enjoying my guitar lessons and slowly getting better and even better, getting to know people. I went to the performance this Saturday for a couple of hours. It’s really, really fun to watch people who are really really good at what they do. Also, one of the bass players is an olympic lifting coach (and intending to break some national lifting record for 70 year olds in December) and Jeremy’s into that so we are planning on starting to go to practices in the near future. They meet on Sundays at 10 am and I came home from the band performance and asked Jeremy if he wanted to go and I think I sprung it on him too quickly and he said – I gotta wrap my head around lifting around other people….lol. We’ll see how it goes. I’m excited to learn how to clean and jerk.
I’m doing random things in the early evening, which are fun, but take me away from having dinner at the “regular” time. But it’s OK (I think). I actually think it’s OK to practice leaving the house after 6 pm. My favorite is starting to wind down the house at 7:30 which precludes going out at night.
I went out on a Pokemon walk with many, many people – but mostly with Noah.
Here we are near the Rockville metro. Also, I park at Noah’s house so I get to spend some time chatting with Tom before I head home. Elka also goes on these Pokemon walks and has a good time. 🙂
Got this email from the university last night.
Sunday night dinner with the family. At Seth and Christine’s house.
Bette is 86!
Jeremy took me out for my favorite. Lunch at a&js and then grocery shopping. Nothing better.
I feel very lucky and happy these days. I’m enjoying myself which is a big blessing. Edda and I went to our, now usual, Friday night event at Main Street and I’m really getting to know the staff and people’s names and it’s a lot of fun. Edda had fun, I had fun and I’m *this close* to having Elka be able to come which would be even funner. Everyone asked after Jeremy who couldn’t come because he’s still a bit under the weather, but actually also had to work (I think pacific time work, so runs late on Friday afternoon/evening).
Jeremy made me delicious avocado toast for breakfast today.
I also like to bury the lede, but Vince was awarded the Outstanding Senior in his major – Chemical Engineering. It doesn’t mean that he got the best grades or did the best thesis – though you have to be in excellent academic standing be considered for the award, he got it because of his community building. (I also like that he isn’t a fan of inbox zero, lol.)
Here’s the general criteria:
When he started, it was the pandemic and he was unsure of himself and classes were hard and he had no friends because he was locked in his dorm room against viral attack and there were many, many upset calls back and forth and lots of worry and hand wringing and once the lockdowns lifted, he slowly but surely turned it around and did so many things for the department while getting good grades. Look, he resurrected chem-e-car from nothing and they ended up competing well at Berkeley a few weekends ago. I will say that Vince formed and led this team, but I don’t think Vince will actually say that, he always says it’s a team effort and he just held the meetings. Thank you UC Davis ChemE department (faculty and students all) for everything you’ve given and taught to Vince, my appreciation is deep and unstinting. Go Aggies! Moooooooo!
There are many people on Edda’s team and I’m appreciative for all that they do. Z, our current bus driver in the morning, got outbid (?) on this route so her last day was today. Why they change bus drivers like 5 weeks from the end of school is a mystery to me. But we all love Z, esp Elka, who got to run from the garage door and greet her and got scratches and zoomed around the driveway.
Dress #2. I like this dress. I think I actually like to dress as if I’m going to work in a dress. It’s almost as comfortable as being in pajamas.
Jeremy rode into work yesterday for a retreat (they flew people from his office in from all over the country), but then by mid-day he was feeling crummy having caught Edda’s cold. So he took the Metro home and I picked him up with his bike. But then he realized that he forgot his work computer at work. So, I think, he’s driving in to pick it up today.
He bought an even bigger monitor to replace the accidentally broken one. It’s like 4 “full screens”. He’s quite adept at using a large monitor, there are little secrets that maximizes/minimizes/searches, etc.
I moved my found-almost-dead-on-the-street fiddle leaf fig out onto our porch. I chopped off the top which was causing it to lean precariously over to one side and I hope to propagate it. I am propogating many plants in my house and Jeremy’s like – do you want more plants? And I said that I didn’t really, but in our neighborhood, there is a plant share stand where I will drop them off once the roots are formed.
I joined Rent the Runway for a monthly subscription because I am tired of wearing pants. Pants irritate me and so I end up just wearing my pajamas all the time all over town. And I have 17 hoodies which I wear all the time ever since I was 14 (so this is a hard habit to break), which is totally fine, but I really want to transition to dresses. But I don’t know which dresses I like. So I’m trying this rental thing to see if I can figure it out. I’ll be OK with going back to hoodies and leggings, but, you know, I want to try and up my game. Look at this shapeless, colorful thing I’m wearing today. A little too feminine. But I’ll roll with it.
