Hot!

It's calling me.

My goodness it's hot today.  Our air conditioning is acting up again.  It's about 85 in here.  That's probably not really all that hot by normal standards, but when you are spoiled rotten to central air it's hot.  If I EVER get done with work today I am going to get in the pool, but I despair of ever getting done.  I overslept this morning and then my sons were doing a lot of talking this morning and the phone rang several times, then the dog had a reaction to his insulin and between all those interruptions, I'm only a little more than halfway done at 4:00 p.m..  It's going to be a long, long day.  Actually, it already has.

Summer schooling.

Okay, we are not doing a formal summer school study.  We never do.  We just go ahead and take the summer off from school.  However, kids don't stop learning.  You can't make them.  This week, my youngest has been reading the almanac and the atlas, listening to audio books, working on his tree house (mostly in his head, very little actual outside work in the hot, hot sun!).  My daughter has been crocheting and doing a little math to see how many rows she needs to do each day to get it done by July 2.  Apparently 5 rows a day.  I know it's not much math, but it is a little.  Plus, she and I have been working on tiling our floor, which has got to be good for spacial reasoning or something.  We've been swimming, which should count as PE.  My daughter wants to do the Presidential Active Lifestyle award thing again this year.  My oldest son is getting an education in REAL LIFE at his first job and he seems to be doing fine with it, although I miss him.  I started to put lactose free milk in the mashed potatoes and then I thought, he never gets to eat with us anymore anyway, so why bother.  Yes, it is odd to miss a kid's special dietary needs, but there you are.  I do.  I went ahead and made them with the Lactaid milk, just in case he wants some later.  It is the weekend coming up so we may get to see him a little bit.  

One thing and another.

We've had an interesting week I guess.  The two younger kids and I have been getting some things done and having a regular week.

The oldest son has been working, working, working.  He did 2 twelve hour shifts in a row, yesterday and the day before, came in this morning and collapsed.  He's been asleep for 12 hours now and if he doesn't get up soon, we'll have to wake him up in a little while to work tonight, though I hate to. 

Yesterday when I was getting ready to cook a meatloaf, the oven heating element started sparking like sparklers on the fourth of July so we're going to need either a new element or a new stove.

Then today, the brakes on my husband's car caught fire.

It's really not Friday the 13th is it?

Sometimes my work is kind of funny.

This was just dictated to me.  Notice the numbers.

DIAGNOSES:
1.  Rhabdomyolysis..
2.  Equivocal cardiac enzymes.
2.  Permanent pacemaker.
3.  Hypothyroidism.
6.  Diabetes mellitus.
8.  Hyperthyroidism.
9.  Hypertension.
11. Advanced age.
9.  History of normal echocardiogram.

Seriously, he numbered them this way.  I didn't, of course, on the report, favoring the more traditional 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,  numbering system myself.  :-)  I think it's kind of interesting that he ended up with 9 at the end, which actually is correct.  Next time you feel kind of dumb about something, remember this guy.  He has advanced degrees in medicine.  We all do silly things from time to time.

This guy also never, ever, ever codes a report as the right type.  He always puts the wrong number in when he dials into the system, so I have to listen to see what in the world he's dictating.  This particular one was a consult coded as an echocardiogram.  I guess it keeps it interesting?  

Okay then.

Well today, oldest son came in and said it was pretty awful at work.  He had to pack over 30,000 magazines into boxes and now he is exhausted and his back hurts.  I've been there but I hate to see my kids suffer.  I really hope he can sleep today.  Yesterday was pretty much a bust in the sleep department.  None of us are going to be all that perky today as there was a wolf spider in the living room last night.  My daughter tried to wake my husband and I to deal with it, but I can't cope with spiders and my husband wasn't getting out of bed.  So, she and her dog got in on my side of the bed and slept with us.  No one slept all that well.  Who could with something like that in the house?   I dreamed about spiders and, for some reason, proper comma usage.  When I got up this morning, youngest son had trapped the mama spider for daddy to deal with later and was busy killing the hundreds of babies that she carries on her back.  Now my husband is awake and dealing with the spider in the bathroom.  I don't know what we'd do if he couldn't handle it?  Call 9-1-1?

Move out?

Another job update.

Oldest son came in from work this morning and said that it went okay.  He didn't hate it.  As I said before, thankfully, he's not me.  He's got a better work attitude.  Actually he's got a better attitude in general, but he's not hormonal or just plain crabby or whatever I am.  :-P   He did finally manage to get to sleep yesterday with the help of a little Benadryl and so he was reasonably well rested.   We'll see how today's trying to sleep during the day goes.  Now I'm going to sit here and be thankful for my job where I set my own hours.  

The moms from the homeschool group and I went to the salvage grocery store together and saved a ton of money.  I got some pantry staples for less than half price and also a bunch of junk that I don't usually buy, fruit snacks, Capri suns, Snickers and gum.  My youngest son came to me and asked if he could have gum, then came and asked if he could have a Capri and then came and asked if he could have a mini-snickers.  Finally, I said "there's nothing in there you can't have" and he said "that's a really good answer."

It begins.

My son begins third shift (overnights) tonight and of course he can't sleep.  We spent 10 years watching my husband suffer through trying to work third shift and he finally got off of it a couple of months ago.  Now we begin again, trying to be quiet ...

Sigh.

First Jobs.

My son came home happy and excited from his first day of the job.  He went through orientation and safety training.  He's actually going to be doing 2 different things, switching back and forth so that might make it easier or less boring.   He actually starts the job tomorrow.  I remember from my hospital job a couple of years ago that the training part bears no resemblance to the actual job part and day 3, when I actually started the job itself, was when I realized that I hated it.  :-)  But, he's not me (thank goodness) and maybe he'll like it, but not so much that he'll give up college for it, if you know what I mean.  

My first job was in a restaurant.  I worked as a cook and then as a dishwasher, about 15-20 hours a week, after school and on weekends.  I made less than minimum wage because they paid us all as if we were waitresses, and assuming we'd get tips, which you didn't if you were washing the dishes, so I made very, very little money.  Still, the money I did make was nice to have.  I wonder sometimes how those past prices and those past wages, compare really to now.  The prices are higher but so are the wages.  Sometimes I'll be debating on buying something and I'll calculate how long my husband and I would have to work to pay for it, which is probably kind of weird.

The younger 2 kids procrastinated about school today, but then finished 1 minute and 3 minutes after the deadline, so I didn't ground them.

This/That

We've got lots of stuff going on.  We're finishing up the crazy busy week and next week doesn't look too awfully busy for some of us.  For my oldest son, he's starting a job in a  factory tomorrow.  His first job ever.  Right now he's packing up his lunch and making sure he's got everything he needs to take with him.  I'm not ready for him being gone all the time, but he needs to buy a car.  My fear is that he'll just get stuck in a rut in this factory job and end up never going to college.  Moms worry, you know?  He insists that he won't, but it's not a part time, not a temporary job, they are hiring him with the expectation that he'll stay for a good long while and I'm afraid he'll bow to the pressure and just stay.  As a people pleaser myself, I battle with trying to make everyone else happy and often making myself miserable in the process. With kids, it's hard letting them go and letting them their own decisions.  Actually, I'm not sure if this is his decision or if he's just bowing down to some intense pressure from other family members.   :-(  Can you tell I'm not thrilled?  Still, I'm being supportive and as helpful as I can.  I bought a bunch of gluten free dairy free lunch options for him, new pants and socks for work and I'll be loaning him my car 5 days a week for a while.   

Anyway, we've only got 10 days of school left and the other 2 kids are counting down, ready to take a break.  I'll be glad not to have them next to me whining about math all the time.  With school out, they'll be up and about during the day, not at our shared computer table.  Although, when those 2 are all grown up and starting jobs of their own, I sure will miss their old math whining days.  We've only got 4 years of homeschooling to go. Again, can you tell I'm not thrilled?   I'll miss it.

I need to plan some fun stuff for this summer. 

The work thing.

I got the work thingy straightened out this morning after a couple of emails with my supervisor.  It turns out that they had a temporary rule that we had to send all blanks to the editors, but now it is back to what it was before, anything more than 3, which will pretty much totally eliminate my need to send anything to them.  I am relieved.  I know this doesn't mean anything to anyone, but since I whined about it earlier I thought it would be a good idea to update it.   Back to life as usual.

We went

and picked our girl up today.  She had a good time but is really tired.  She's used to sleeping late and I don't think she did much sleeping, period, the whole weekend.  :-)   I was a little worried about today's weather when I dropped her off Friday, because they were predicting snow for this morning but nothing happened.  Now the forecast is for snow and rain mixed this afternoon.  I guess we'll see if we get any snow.   I feel kind of doubtful about it. 

In other news, my husband started his new work schedule today.  Day shift.  This is the only the second time that he's been on day shift the whole time we've been married so this is going to be interesting having him home in the evenings.  I hope we adjust well   The kids and I will have to change when we sleep as well, so as not to disturb him (juggling teens at 1:00 a.m. will probably be really frowned on by someone who has to get up at 5:00 a.m.) and consequently we will probably get up earlier.   We'll be able to finally get the bedroom painted and the closet reorganized, because he won't be sleeping in there during the day.  I'm going to move my office in there since now I won't have to worry about sneezing and waking him up.  It's just going to be so weird.

Murphy's Law?

It's not been the best day.  Not terrible, just kind of annoying.  I got up feeling all dizzy and went to the doctor thinking I probably had an inner ear infection.  I had one maybe 6 months ago with the same symptoms and she treated it with an antibiotic and I got better.  This time, she only gave me an anti-dizziness pill.  Since my dizzy episodes only last about 5 minutes or less and this pill is for the symptom, not the underlying cause, I don't know that it's gonna help.  Then I came back home and had to finish work.  I had a particularly irritating, really, really long report ended up being 7 pages, single spaced typed and at the end, he said that he wasn't sure why he'd been consulted because this patient's problems were outside his specialty.  I still get paid for it, but otherwise, what a waste of time.  Then I took the kids to youth group, ran a bunch of errands, came home and spilled an entire gallon of tea when I was trying to get it out of the fridge.   The towels we used to clean it up are in the washing machine right now and I am going to relax quietly for 1 hour before bed.  Sigh.

Back to Work.

Today the kids have "play all day day" as my youngest calls it. We don't have to go anywhere and they can finally enjoy their Christmas presents without interuption. Their Dad and I have to go back to work. Joy.

Here are some messages I've gotten from my computer this morning, which will indicate how this morning is going so far.

Welcome. Enter password.
Start downloading information. Please wait ....
.........................................................................
Updates failed. Abort? Retry?
Abort.
Stand by. Turn off. Restart.
Restart. (wait while rebooting)
USB human interface device not recognized.
bong. bong. bong. bong. bong.
(unplug and replug USB human interface device about 5 times with no response)
(sigh)
Stand by. Turn off. Restart.
Restart. (wait while rebooting.)
This time the human interface USB device is recognized.
Welcome. Enter password.
swwooshhshhwwooshhhwoooshhh (sound of dial-up dialing up)
The connection to the server has failed.
Please wait ................................................................................
.............................

One hour and 21 minutes later, I start typing my first report of the day.
Then I get a phone call.
Then my 8-year-old walks in the room and orders a triple decker peanut butter sandwich. Apparently peanut butter is one of your more difficult sandwiches to make and he can't yet do it without tearing the bread.

Sigh.