Author: Doris

We are here at home and Doris is far away in California. But somehow we are surviving.

Yesterday was a busy day, with open houses at both kids’ schools. Both schools look great and we are pretty much ready to go on Monday. Vince just has to remember his first PIN number so he can pay for his school lunch. We also made it to two playgrounds, one in the mall, and one in our favorite park. This morning we went for an early hike and Ruby took a dip in the creek. I think we may hide out indoors for the rest of the day, as it promises to be a scorcher. And tomorrow we are all reunited again.

I was up at 4 am and sneaking out of the house to catch a 6:30 am flight, I was surprised to see in my peripheral vision a massive TPing of our neighbor’s house across the street!

The suburban hoodlums are talented TPers, they got every tree and every bush on the property with each loop reaching the ground. Everything was fluttering in the early morning breeze.

I checked my luggage and glided through the airport without children, husband, stroller, diaper bags, DVD player, bananas, toys and Tylenol.

Donald picked me up and showed me his new place. Fan-cy.

We are walking up and down a lot of hills and eating a lot of snacks.

Remember the kind-of-sort of job I got? Well, finally today I got the real offer with a start date, Sept 17th, a few days after I turn 35. First time in over 5 years I’ll be a working stiff again. Oh, I should put that in a better light. I’m going to be the “provider”! Woo hoo! I’m making the kibble.

Edda’s been going to PT, OT and speech therapies each once a week at this place that I like, it’s about 20-25 minutes away from the house. One of the reasons I took the above said job is because it has really nice health insurance which will cover a lot of these expenses.

I hadn’t really thought this whole thing trough carefully about scheduling the therapies, I was like, oh, Jeremy will take care of it or if he’s working, we’ll have to bite the bullet and hire someone to be at the house to drive Edda to her therapies. But then it occurred to me that based on the time Edda gets home from school and when Vince gets home from school, how long it takes to get to the therapy place, the fact that the therapy appointments fall on the hour and the fact that the therapy appointments are fully booked for pretty much all after school appointments that it is physically impossible for one person to take care of the 2 kids and go to these appointments. If we were both working, we would have to hire 2 people and pray that we get either a 3 or 4 pm slot, which are pretty much fully booked at this time anyways. Hmmm. A conundrum.

I’m not worried. We are going to figure this out. Thank goodness we don’t have 7 kids. What would I do?

Wrinkled Jeremy.

Tonight, I made some scrumptious blueberry muffins for the bridge party tomorrow. (Thanks Ja$ for the recipe.) I dutifully mixed together the dry ingredients. I put all the wet ingredients together. Dumped the wet into the dry and went to turn on my beloverd KitchenAid mixer that Doris and Jeremy gave me when they left California, and sadly, nothing.

No LED light. No nothing. 🙁

I tried another outlet, but to no avail. I guess it got trashed in the move somehow. I’m sad.

Stayed in our pajamas most of the day and watched the rain fall and the temperatures stay in the low 60s. It’s as if someone flipped a switch and it’s no longer summer.

Started at home with Pua pua visiting.

Then we went on a road trip to upstate NY to the other set of grandparents.

Rest stop action.

The next day, we explored Tivoli, NY. They have a new yarn shop (Fabulous Yarns, fabulously expensive and closed).

Ruby tried out the dog hitch in front of the post office.

Vince and Edda had loads of friends come over.

Kiki found this lawn croquet set.

Edda loved kicking the balls through the hoops.

Spent Sunday afternoon at the New Brunswick, NJ Rett Clinic. Saw some doctors and nutritionists, gave them all of Edda’s medical records. Met oodles of other girls with Rett Syndrome. Vince was great waiting in the waiting area for more than 4 hours.

Took over 6 hours to get home on 95, we got home at midnight. Did not learn our lesson, avoid 95 at all costs. Poor Ruby got to spend 12 hours in the back of our station wagon.

OMG. I’ve been dying for one of these. I have found the most wonderful bakery in my neighborhood. Almond croissants are simply heavenly.

I have found the most wonderful blog. Only cycling geeks need apply. *cough* Charles *cough*.

A lot of the interesting stuff that is happening these days is job stuff which I know I’m not suppose to blog about in detail. But our days tend to go like this:

1. Wake up
2. Turn on TV for the kids
3. Try and make Vince eat something for breakfast – but he can’t eat in front of the TV even though it’s on. I know, tough.
4. Drive Vince to camp.
5. Computer/phone/paperwork time (9 am – 3:30 pm) or playing online Scrabble if fed up with job prospects or celebrating a nice email or phone call from a person who might give us money in exchange for some labor. (Jeremy celebrates with a fruit Popsicle and researching electronic gadgetry on the web and I indulge with a useless trip to Target – window shopping only.)
6. Some therapy appointments for Edda.
7. Get Vince.
8. Eat dinner.
9. Go to bed.

Nothing exciting, we are still unemployed and unpaid. (Notice TV never turns off, we have gone over to the dark side.)

Look, I put on some office clothes today.

I look 3 months pregnant in this outfit and what’s with the bohemian bag with the leather briefcase? Sigh. I need to find me some fashion sense.