Month: February 2015

Last week, only a few days after our last phone upheaval, Jeremy accidentally dropped his phone on the ground. There was only a slight crack on the glass face, but something internal was malfunctioning so it would start rebooting itself all the time.  We are using T-mobile, so it means we buy the phones outright and pay a reasonable amount for the data plan, but it also means that when a phone breaks, we need to buy a brand new phone.  Jeremy wanted a phone that was either $500 or $700.  Oh, it makes my frugal heart cry.  But as Jeremy pointed out, he spends more time with his phone than he does with me.  He was all ready to buy a new phone when he discovered that the broken phone was still covered by the year-long warranty for another three days.  Woo hoo, I felt like it was as if I found $700 on the ground.  For a few days while he was waiting for the new phone to arrive, he used Vince’s old, old LG phone.  So light, so small, no apps loaded, nothing but what Jeremy needed.  He kind of liked it.

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Edda’s wheelchair’s brake stuck again today.  OMG.  The total frustration.  I’m not the maddest at how long it takes to fix (which I am mad about) but I’m maddest about the actual design of the brake!  Those engineers!  I need a good engineering design here.  This is an important piece of equipment in our house.  But I managed to fix it with some WD-40 and a good whack with a hammer.

It snowed last night.  Yesterday, some white chocolate chip cookies were made because my students were suppose to have their first big exam in Adult Health today.  Our recitation would have come right after the mid-morning test, so I wanted to give them some comfort food to celebrate (and not commiserate).  But school was cancelled for me too.  Where do you think all the cookies for the class went?  Straight into my tummy.  I must have eaten at least 10 today.

Today was a holiday for some dead presidents.  It’s frigid out (8 degrees!) and leaving the house did not seem like a fun idea.  Jeremy and I put in a full work day.  God, we are so boring.  Maybe someday we’ll learn to have more fun – skiiing or bobsledding or ice skating or whatever it is that people do for fun in the winter.  The kids were bored. Vince tried to entice some friends over, but no one was free or willing to brave the cold weather.  Vince decided that he wanted to make fried chicken for lunch and this is what happened:

It was delicious.  Vince is a good cook.

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It’s good that we got some extra insulation blown into the attic a few weeks ago.  Listening to the wind howling outside while paying last month’s electricity bill and thinking about heat transfer can make a person think that dollar bills are just blowing off of the roof.  Even with the extra padding upstairs, the heater can’t quite keep the upstairs at 68 degrees.  At 9 am, the upstairs was 65 degrees.  I was working at my computer with a bulky sweater and some cozy slippers and I was just fine.  Jeremy was shivering under 2 down blankets and reading some documents.  Jeremy thinks he might have screwed up his metabolism with his fasting diet.  He’s cold a lot.  Even when it’s not 8 degrees outside.

MCPS called a snow day for tomorrow.  We are relaxing into the last bit of our impromptu four-day weekend.  I’m hoping that the heater can keep up, that the pipes don’t burst and that the electricity stays on.  Stay warm everyone!

My father is in town this weekend.  We went to Far East to celebrate both Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year.  It’s the year of the goat.  I asked what people who are born in the year of the goat are famous for and I didn’t get a clear answer.  We went to dinner with cousins of mine; the woman, Xiao Yin and I have a common great grandparent.

Edda enjoyed her Peking duck burrito.

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Last night, Edda woke up at 2:30am which is a little early for her to call for us.  I went into her room and found her tangled in her blankets on the floor.  She was not hurt or unhappy, but she was immobile and seemed to tell me that she’d rather be in her bed.  I lifted her back into bed and pulled the covers straight over her and went to sleep next to her.  We slept until 7 am – a little Edda miracle.

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I do love Boba the best, but there are some drawbacks.  He is a dog, so there is the whole interspecies challenge.  He’s blind.  He’s also unemployed.  And he likes to pick up shoes and put them in different rooms of the house so when you are looking for your shoes, they can be anywhere which can be a little frustrating.  Other than that, he’s perfect.  So many shades of grey!

Look at this amazing heart in a slice of bread.  Who is the crafty baker who pulled this bit of magic off?  Hmmm…

Boba is staying with me on Valentine’s Day.   Jeremy is complaining because I shove him over to the side in bed so Boba can sleep in the crook of my arm.  What can I say? I love Boba.  He’s my main squeeze; he’s even hypoallergenic!

Edda says, “Happy Valentine’s Day!  I hope you got a lot of chocolate.  If you didn’t get any chocolate, I have lots, you can share with me.”  She also says, “What’s the big to do about Valentine’s Day?  Everyday should be about love.”

Vince fell down the stairs last night while reading his phone at 9:45 pm.  He came into our room crying that his foot hurt.  The thought of going to the ER at 9:45 pm for a slightly sprained foot made me exasperated.  I was already in my PJs thinking of my head against my soft pillow.  And even though I think of myself as a compassionate person, I also am kind of a suck-it-up kind of mother.  So I gave Vince an ice pack and Motrin and sent him to bed.

This morning, I was gone early and wasn’t back until after school let out and Vince’s foot still wasn’t feeling good.  I found an after-hours ortho office that was open.  He brought math homework that was freaking him out to do in the waiting room.  It was basically a whole afternoon freakout about math/foot/testing anxiety.   It didn’t help that I was sure that the foot wasn’t broken and that it was all in his head and Vince could tell that I was impatient.

Anyways, the joint is very point tender and they couldn’t quite tell if there was a fracture on the film.  If there is a fracture, it’s right on the growth plate of the fifth metatarsal and so we got the conservative treatment.  We got a two week stay in a boot for our trouble.  And I think he understands his math.  Gah, now I feel badly.  A little mothering guilt.  Anyways, if we had gone to the ER last night, we would have had to go to the ortho today anyways.  So…win?

I think Vince’s Chinese spelling is better than his English spelling.

Thank you for the shirt, Kappa!

It was a busy and satisfying day.  I still feel like I haven’t yet gotten a handle on the new semester, I’m not working entirely efficiently.  It will come to me – hopefully sooner rather than later.  I’m learning more about how to fly by the seat of my pants.  I want to go into things 100% prepared (or even overprepared), but I’m learning I can do things without being super prepared and still do OK.  This is a weird post.  A little vague, but it will have to do.

I do not have a beautiful photo today.  I do not even have a decent photo.  I just have this bad photo of Maxi eating a roll of smiley face stickers and getting tangled in a ball of yarn.  Sometimes it’s just like this.