Year: 2017

My last semester of nursing school started yesterday.  I, yet again (because of my part-time status) know no one.  OK, maybe I know one person, but I barely know that person.  It really is a problem because I have no one to go, pssss, hey – there is a quiz on the first day of class or hey – you really should sign up for the three patient simulations right now.  So I walked into class, took a quiz I had no idea was going to happen (I didn’t even have a pencil, I had to do it in pen) and when I looked at the signups for the simulations, there was conveniently only one time spot left in each of them just for me.

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Jeremy and Edda during the regular night time routine.

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Jeremy texted me this photo of a “RESIST” protest sign on a construction crane near his DC metro stop.

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I made pork tenderloin for dinner.  Tomorrow is the end of the quarter for the kids.  No homework tonight!  We made it through.  I’m a little under the weather, I think I have a stomach bug or something.

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Is there a better time to rejoin my Unitarian friends?  I haven’t made it to Sunday service in years now, but Jo (in the photo on the right) sees me in the gym during the week and suggested that I should come to the quilting bee as my spiritual practice.  At the same time as the quilting bee, the church was hosting the first of the 10 actions/100 days from the Women’s March which was to send postcards to our representatives.  It seems a bit futile since our reps are the heads of the resistance…sigh.  Let’s see what tomorrow holds.

Four hours after I got home from Charlottesville, VA – I turned around and went right back.  This time I went with Vince, Soojung and Ben to a Twenty One Pilots concert.  Soojung originally bought two tickets, one for her and one for Ben for his surprise birthday present as he was a really big fan and they couldn’t find any friends to tag along.  She mentioned this to me a little bit before Christmas and I said – you should have told me!  Vince loves Twenty One Pilots, he would have gone with Ben!  And (though we were a bit nervous and told them never to leave each other, even to pee, because this was the first huge public event either of us has sent them to without direct adult supervision) so we sent the boys into the arena on their own and Soojung and I had a very nice, quiet dinner in downtown Charlottesville.  Everyone was *very* happy with this arrangement.

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We did all the classic concert things – standstill traffic a mile from the arena.  We ended up dropping them off 1/3 of a mile from the venue.  I had to teach them about opening acts and encores.  I hopelessly gave them many foam earplugs and encouraged their use – and if they weren’t going to use them, to please give them to any grownups who seemed to want them.

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Soojung and I laughed and laughed at the boys singing and talking seriously about music genres.

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Vince has a lot of photos from the event – he said it was “super fun” – this is the only photo he texted to me.

Way before the election, I conferred with Nat about having her take care of Edda for a weekend so Jeremy and I could skip town for a few days.  Nat is a busy person  and the weekend that worked out was inauguration weekend (though at the time we agreed on the dates, I didn’t remember that fact). After it became clear that the Women’s March was going to happen on Sat, I did think briefly about cancelling, but I really wanted the weekend away with Jeremy – the last time we were on our own was 2013.

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I booked a small, little cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains and Maxi got to come with us – we left on Friday, right after noon.  We had a quiet dinner in Charlottesville, VA.

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On Saturday, we spent all day hiking.

Over streams.

Seeing waterfalls.

Going to the top of mountains and observing college students.

Max did so well!  We haven’t taken her hiking in this way ever before, but she was an eager and willing hiking partner.

It got foggy on the way down.

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We drove back Sunday morning and got back to Rockville at noon.  Extra thanks to Nat & Dara who spent the weekend with Edda (and Vince).

Beautiful day here in Rockville.

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I went to Vickey’s house today to get my first quilting lesson.

I’m totally going to make a quilt.  I’m hoping to have it done in a year’s time.  Christmas is my goal.

I got to spend just a tiny bit of time with one of my favorite preschoolers.

I’m fretting about losing Edda’s Medicaid.  After being on the waiting list for almost a decade for our number to be called up, we’ve had it for almost a year now.  It provides mostly chid care for Edda, but it also covers all of Edda’s diapers and I’ve not paid any medical copays for her, her dental surgery this past year was at almost no cost to us, but 5 or 6 years ago, when we had dental surgery and just our primary health insurance, there was almost a $2,000 copay for hospital related surgical costs.  I would not be surprised if it disappears under the new administration.  I would say this benefit is worth $20,000 to $25,000 a year for us.  I know, I’m very, very lucky.  I know if it disappeared, we would be able to swing it – I mean we’d have to swing it – take it out of our retirement/college savings and, of course, we have good primary insurance, but, you know, $20,000 is a lot of money.

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Speaking of dental surgery, at Edda’s last dental appointment we got scolded for not properly brushing her teeth.  It was so bad that we scheduled the next cleaning for three months out rather than the regular six months out.  All of us (the four of us who brush her teeth, Kitachi, Adriana, Jeremy and I) refocused our tooth brushing efforts and we came out of today’s dentist appointment we a gold star!  Go team!  Jeremy took her in and said she was laughing and smiling during the whole visit and didn’t try to grab anyone’s hand.  For someone who can’t purposely use her hands, she’s really good at grabbing toothbrushes.

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I did get in the mail a new brake for Edda’s old broken wheelchair.  They included a very confusing exploded drawing of how to install the brake.  Convaid (the wheelchair manufacturer) wanted to send the part to a Convaid service provider (like a car dealership) to have it installed.  These “dealerships” drive me crazy.  Oftentimes, I can’t get them to return my calls.  I have, in one instance, called them every week for 6 months straight only to be denied a bath chair.

It took me 45 minutes, but I fixed it.

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Quick date night tonight.  A smart growth meeting for the White Flint area.  Jeremy got me a cookie.

Inspired by success at Sat night’s party, Edda and I continued to go out and check out wood glue and epoxies at Home Depot on Sunday morning.  Edda and I need to go out more.  I think this is the first time that I’ve taken her and her new wheelchair out on an outing since we got it.  Just this morning Jeremy and I were trying to figure out a new hobby that would involve the two grownups and Edda to encourage us to go adventuring.  Jeremy & I both have things we like doing on our own that we can’t see combining very well, we need to find something to do together with Edda.  I think it should involve something quirky, but I’m not sure what it should be.

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I saw an eagle’s nest on Sunday’s run at the C&O.

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The boys got back at noon.  I tried to get Jeremy to take ownership of an UnderArmor jacket that I bought Vince on super sale that he hasn’t worn once this season.  Jeremy wore it to Sunday night dinner, but he didn’t like it.  Edda’s in the front seat for the first time.  She seems unimpressed.

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Mom & Dad are in South Africa eating lots of food.  We are all excited to be getting texts from them. xoxo.

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I went out with 3/5 of the usual suspects last night.  The usual suspects at our usual restaurant.

All my life, I’ve believed that I’m an introvert.  I like time to myself, I feel that need time to myself everyday or else I get grouchy.   I usually credit Vince (all his friends/playdates/sleepovers), Jeremy (his desire to host parties and cook for a lot of people) and Edda (all her many caregivers coming/going from the house everyday) for helping me not be a hermit.  I don’t mind spending a whole weekend at home puttering around, talking to no one. And I could have done it this weekend too with both Jeremy and Vince gone, but I didn’t.  I made plans with friends and I had a really nice time – a nicer time than I think I would have just hanging out by myself. Maybe I’m not really an introvert?  It’s hard for me to tell anymore.

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I had childcare through lunch, just enough time to fit in a run (at the gym b/c it was cold/rainy.  So crowded!  I hardly ever go to the gym at 10:30am on a Sat.  Lots of people getting tours of the gym, it’s the new year.) and a leisurely late lunch at Matchbox with Debbie.  A quick stop to Ulta where we talked about skin care, wrinkles and plastic surgery.  Then we came home, relieved Kitachi (who had taken Edda out to lunch at Denny’s with her mom!  so sweet!) and hung out another few hours.

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Then Edda and I went to a Russian Orthodox New Year’s party.

I planned on staying only 90 minutes, but I ended up staying almost three hours and had a great time meeting and chatting with people.  Who am I?  I have no idea.

I didn’t try either the herring or the fish eggs.

Nor did I do a single vodka shot.  Maybe the chatting was easy for me tonight because everyone else was doing vodka shots.  But I swear, I was mainly talking to the other teetotaling folks.

Loves, I’m behaving like a toddler.  I’m complaining about stuff, but I’m not exactly sure what I want instead.  I want it ALL!  Everything my way!  What way is that?  I’m not quite sure, just not this present way.  I could give you an example, but it’s too embarrassing really.  Movers came today and moved our spare washing machine from the basement (everyone has a spare, right?) to the 2nd floor and moved both the broken washing machine and the enormous desk from the 2nd floor landing to the first floor.  I know you guys are transfixed by my washing machine saga, but really, it’s the only thing that is going on here (besides the fact that every 5 minutes something is revealed about the state of the changing US govt that makes me want to crawl under the covers and take a 4 year-long nap).  Our spare washing machine predates the birth of our children and was one of the first large purchases we made as a married couple in Austin, TX.  Still works great!  I’ve run 2 loads through it already.

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The lights on the front foyer lighting fixture burned out and I replaced them with LED special small bulbs.  They are not the right “home” light spectrum.  Our front foyer now has the feeling of a hospital surgical suite.  Very bright, very white, very sterile.  No one noticed for weeks that the lights had burned out, but now that they are replaced, everyone is like – woah!  what happened!!?!

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Maybe I’m in a blue mood because Vince and Jeremy are headed out on a camping trip with the scouts all weekend.  This is a special leadership campout and now that Vince is in “leadership” he gets to go.  They are headed to Gunpowder Falls, north of Baltimore to heated cabins – so not too crazy of a winter outdoor getaway.  I gave Vince some snacks.  He brought Cards Against Humanity.

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Note: enormous desk and broken washing machine in the garage.

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One of our shameful secrets is that we do almost no volunteering for scouts even though we both know that it is a huge time commitment from a handful of scout leaders and Vince loves scouts.  So Jeremy volunteered to drive this time as they are always begging for parents to drive to the campouts.  One of the reasons that we don’t volunteer a lot is that it’s boring for us grownups.  The bulk of the campout is “boy led” so that grown ups stand far away from the boys and will let the boys sometimes go all “Lord of the Flies” as boys sometimes are wont to do.  I haven’t heard too many stories recently – which is a good thing.  But it means that there is a lot of standing around and killing time waiting for the campout to end so everyone can re-pile into the van and drive home.  We contemplated doing two round trips, one tonight and one Sunday morning, but we ixnayed it.  Anyways, he packed his bike and is hoping to meet up with a Baltimore friend while the boys are eating mayonnaise and ketchup sandwiches tomorrow or whatever else the scouts decided to bring for food.

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My parents are gone for a couple weeks on travel, so it’s only me and Edda for the weekend.  And Maxi (bottom right of photo – trying to steal my omelette dinner).

Edda and I are going to go to bed so early! so early! tonight.  After I rub a ton of lotion on her face.

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I’m indulging myself – watching a movie during dinner.  Making myself some tater tots for dessert.  Yummy!

I did not sleep soundly last night.  I woke up suddenly at 2 am and couldn’t fall back asleep.  I read a little in the dark, I probably did doze off, but I kept seeing the clock hourly – 3 am, 4am, 5am and finally 6am.  I think I had a nightmare, I remember remembering it at 2pm this afternoon, but I don’t now recall what I was scared about.  I don’t often sleep poorly like this, usually when I don’t get enough sleep it’s because I’m up too late.  Vince was trying to tell me the other day all of our parental quirks – the main one being that we go to sleep so early!  So early!  I’d love, in theory, to be in bed at 9pm with lights out at 10pm, but this almost never happens.  It usually is shifted 30 minutes – so I’m generally asleep by 10:30 pm.  Vince told me that his friends all have bedtimes at 11pm and all their parents go to bed at midnight.  I told Vince that he has no bedtime – it’s just that his electronic curfew is at 9pm.  He could stay up until midnight if he wanted to (reading a paper book, making art, thinking about life) – he laughed at me.  I told him I could stay up until midnight every night, but that I’d be markedly meaner which I was this morning in my exhausted state.  Sorry everyone!  I’ll be better tomorrow.  I resisted the 20 minute power nap today I desperately wanted so I’m hoping to sleep soundly tonight.

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Jeremy’s been sleeping better (at least from the peaceful snoring I heard last night) – it is usually he that sleeps poorly not me.  This morning I found him on a virtual bike ride/race/workout with some virtual friends in London.

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Vince is learning sin/cos/tan.

I’ll leave you with this math cheer:

e to the u, du/dx
e to the x dx
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3.14159
integral, radical, u dv,
slipstick, slide rule, MIT!

The new washing machine pump came today.  Glorious!  I was very excited to fix our washer for the low price of $89.65. I found a lot of stuff behind the washing machine.  Lots of coins, some tools, a lot of pens.

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Here it is, the pump.  This was my ticket to two more years of clean clothes bliss.

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Took off the back panel.

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Removed the old pump.  Cleaned all the gross parts I could see (with the help of Jeremy).

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And fail.  This is after the machine has gone through the “drain” cycle.  Still full of water.  Ahhahhhaha!  Three hours of work?  I’m so bummed.  So bummed.  I like it when things I try to fix actually get fixed.  Now to get a new washing machine.