Up and down.

That's the way some days go.  I tell you.  I was not prepared for the roller coaster ride that is middle age.  Today my mom is not feeling well and I took her to the doctor.  Then afterwards, I had to field calls from family members asking what the doctor had said.  She's basically okay, I guess.  She may have something wrong with her gallbladder so we'll go and have a scan for that on Wednesday.  I was also getting calls from the college my son may be going to next month, which is very exciting, but also a bit scary and bittersweet, because I mean, how did he grow up this fast?!  Also, I got a call saying the custom log bed that a friend's husband is building is done and I got to see the wonderful progress my husband and 2 youngest kids have been making on remodeling the house.  They've got a ton done.  And lastly, I've gotten a couple of update calls from my oldest son who is at camp this week.  He's enjoying himself very much and is very bubbly and talkative.

Today I was up.  Then down.  Then up.  Then down.  Then up.  Then down.  Then up.

I had so many interruptions that it took me 14 hours to get my 6 hours of transcription done.

Some time in the middle, I had to take a nap.

It happens.

I just don't know if I have the strength for another day like today.

I hope tomorrow is kind of normal, but it's really not looking too good.  I've already got a ton of stuff to do.

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.

Not AS bad.

I know this is supposed to be a homeschooling blog and this week it's been all about my oldest son's job, but this is actually a stage in his educational process, the time in his life, when he learns that he really wants to further his education so he won't have to work so darn hard.  :-P.   I think even MY job is starting to look good to him now.  His night's work last night was not as bad, helped, I'm sure by the fact that he got 11 hours of sleep yesterday.  He really, really needed it.  Also he only got assigned to the most difficult work task for a couple of hours, instead of all 8 and the other hours he got to do the easier job that he was actually hired for.  One more night and he'll have the weekend to rest and contemplate his life plan.

Being helpful.

One of the doctors I type for is very helpful.  He spells the word S-E-S-T-A-M-I-B-I for me very carefully every single time he dictates it.

Unfortunately, he spells it S-E-S-T-A-B-A-M-I.

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.

Updates.

I always have New Years resolutions and this year it was going to be exercise.  Trouble is, I haven't started yet.  I've postponed my New Year's resolution until after Easter. I think that's reasonable.

Yes.

I do.


Anyway, onto other things. 

Work is driving me kind of crazy.  First they want one thing, then another.  A month or so ago they were whining that we were not putting the dates on the reports.  Then I challenged them and they found out that their computer system was somehow removing the dates after we'd put them in.  My co-workers would thank me, I'm sure, if they had ever heard of me!  When you virtually commute, you don't know your co-workers, it's weird.  Anyway, during that time, they said that if there was any question about the date, if it was not dictated, that we should not assume the date of service and the date of dictation are the same, that we should leave it blank and send it to the editors to fill in.  So now we do that and now the latest thing is that we are sending too many reports to the editors and we must justify why we are sending things to them.  It goes on and on, but I'll spare you.  I sent them a report of all my blanks and the reasons for them last night (which I was not paid to do) and I thought about putting this P.S,

P.S.:  I haven't had a raise in 10 years.

But I didn't.   Actually, 10 years is how long I've been with them, other than my 2 month break a couple of years ago, which they may count in calculating how long I've been with them.  Anyway, you know that by harping on transcriptionists to justify blanks, they are encouraging us to be sloppier and guess at things that we cannot hear, for fear of losing our jobs in this tough economy. 

But enough about that.

I'm going to focus on the good.
1. We got a really cute outfit for my daughter last night.
2.  We have cupcakes.
3.  I still have a job.  :-/
4.  My daughter has to sing with me on my Easter special, because she got drafted too.  Ha!  That's what she gets for volunteering me.  :-P

Blah, blah, blah.

That's what I feel like today after listening to the same (very bad) physical therapist dictating all day long.  He pronounces words so badly that I have trouble differentiating things like core and quarter.  It is extremely frustrating.  Also, he has not dictated in about 6 weeks and is catching up, so there are a ton of them.   I am downloading right now and if there is another one of his, I will scream.  So brace yourselves.  I've had about all of this guy I can take.  Yes, for the most part I like my job.  I like the hours and the location, but sometimes it just frustrates me to no end.  Sigh.

I wish I could just be a stay at home mom instead of a work at home mom.

I need a break.

Vindicated.

I have been having this problem at work.  The company I work for said that I was sending reports through with the wrong dates on them.  Now I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty good at checking the date.  I'll park my cursor there and wait until the doctor says the date and then I'll type it in.  Last week, I was fined 10 dollars by my company for putting the wrong dates on 5 reports.  The funny thing is though, the dates were correct on my end. The files that my computer keeps had all the correct dates on them.  No mistakes at all.  I send an email to my boss explaining that I didn't think that I had made these mistakes, but she dismissed it.  Then today I got an email again saying that I had messed up a date.  My husband was here and is very techy and we started discussing it.  He said that I could send them my file and a log/record from my computer to prove that I had not modified the file and I could prove I hadn't messed up.  So I sent another email explaining this, this time to the boss of my boss (who was the one who emailed me this time).  A few minutes later, someone called me and said they had a "glitch" and they'd pay me back my 10 bucks.  Yay!  It's not the 10 bucks so much as being believed.  You know?   Well, that and all the future 10 bucks.  It could have gotten expensive. 

Also while we were looking at this, I got a call and I won a 25 dollar gift card at the 4H fair yesterday.  Cool! 

Yesterday, just kind of

whooshed by me.  It went quickly.  I got up and while I was making my coffee, a friend called and she needed to talk, so instead of working, I talked for an hour to her.  Some things are just more important.  One thing led to another and I didn't get started with work until 10:30.  So, 6 hours later, I finished work, at 4:30 and then we had 45 minutes before I needed to leave to take the kids to youth group.   So I dropped youngest off at grandmas, took the older two to youth group, went to the library to return 2 overdue books and look on the shelves for one we thought we had already returned.  No such luck.  Then, I went to mom's and played a game of UPWords with her while waiting for the older 2.  Then youngest and I headed back into town, picked up the older 2 kids, came home, dropped the boys off at home and then daughter and I headed to choir practice.  It is from 8-9 pm.  All this and we would have also had 4H needleworking class at 4 if we'd remembered it.  I don't know if we could have made it ...   Anyway back to the choir practice - we've joined the a choir temporarily to do an Easter concert.  This is good for my daughter because she's learning to read music in her guitar lessons and now she's trying to learn to follow along with singing.  I'm going to sit down with her and give her a small crash course in 'where do I go from here" in complicated choral music, because she's never dealt with anything like that before.  It's hard for me too because I haven't sung in a choir in many years but it is slowly coming back.  I've also been trying to sing soprano because my daughter is a soprano and she wants to sit by me and sing what I'm singing.  My voice is not that high and its kind of a strain, so if you were outside last night and heard some awful squeaking noises, I'm sorry!  :-P

Friday.

Youngest son set his alarm at 6:00 a.m. so he could get up and finish school today.  When I got up at 9:00 a.m., he was almost finished, working on handwriting while listening to an audiobook.  I kind of wish I'd gotten up early and did the same, but I really enjoy my sleep so I didn't.  One advantage of my writing my own schedule and working at home is that I get to sleep until I wake up.  Now the girl and I will be working most of the day and youngest can gloat that he's done.

You wouldn't think

that this time of year would be prime out-of-doors time but it is.  The sun is shining.  The temperature is in the high 50s and the kids have been outside every day..   The sunshine, exercise and fresh air is good for them.  I probably need to join them.  I could seriously use a boost of mood and a change of attitude that a nice walk in the sun might provide.  I'm almost done with work, thank goodness. 

Work, school and life lessons.

It's Friday and I wonder at how fast the weeks just zoom by.  I am not feeling great today due to a bruised tailbone and an aching neck, but I am working.  I pretty much never take a day off, but I would sure like to today.   It is surprising what physical demands a job like mine places on the body.   It's a strain, sitting and typing all day.  One of these days, I'm going to have to do something else.  Maybe soon. I'd kind of like to get a standing desk, but I'm not sure what I'd do about the foot pedal.  I use a foot pedal to play, rewind and fast forward the recorded dictations that I type.

The youngest kid got up this morning at 6:00 a.m., did all of his school work and then fell back to sleep on the couch.  Now he's got the afternoon off to do as he pleases.  The girl got up at noon, as usual (beauty sleep!) and is doing her school work now.  She's got a guitar lesson this afternoon.   Time management is one of the things they are learning, I suppose.  Her Dad took extra time with her this week on math and she's back up to speed and doing fine.

I learned a lesson on envy yesterday.  There's this woman I've met online whose life I have kind of envied.  They are wealthy.  They have traveled and adopted kids from overseas and were starting a nonprofit to help others. She seemed to me to have it all together.  Then yesterday she went public with something that gave me quite a shock and reminded me that no one's life is perfect and made me very thankful for the life that I have.

Perspective.     

Stressed.

There's just no other way to say it.  I'm stressed.  Working more hours, schooling, raising teenagers dealing with my mom's needs, dealing with my own health problems, trying to keep this house from being condemned ... it all there.  I was just read an article that said that this generation of women are stressing themselves out to the point that we will be the first generation of Americans not to outlive our parents.  I've got to figure out how to somehow get taking care of myself into the equation.  :-(

I knew going into this week with several doctor's appointments, my job with no paid time off, the post Christmas winter blahs and starting back to school (even though the kids are pretty independent with school) was going to hit me kind of hard.   :-P

Zipping along.

This month is zipping along very quickly.  It's already the 6th.  I finally ventured out today and got some groceries.  I haven't posted much this week because I've just been working and coughing and not much else.  Youngest son took 2 days off due to the cold.  Oldest son didn't get it very bad.  My daughter still hasn't gotten it yet.  She's probably waiting for next week so she can share the experience with Dad.  :-P   I hope the rest of the family can avoid it.  It's not the worst ever, but it's not fun either.   I did up my hours at work now that I am working at home and I had hoped that it wouldn't be all that bad, but it's been kind of awful.  I feel like I am always, always at work.  Today they are begging for someone to work, but I need to keep my days off as my days off or I will be always at work.  That's one of the hazards of working at home.  Funny, the kids are home-schooled and they never, ever are tempted to do school on a Sunday afternoon.  :-P

A little glimpse of my weekend.

I sincerely hope that you are having more fun!

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.