AtHomeMom, Unplugged…

AtHomeMom goes back to work, what happens next?

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Another 100 Things…

June 9th, 2009 · 100, Life & Times

I haven’t done this for awhile and so much has changed that I thought it was about time…

  1. I’m not really the AtHomeMom anymore.
  2. I went back to work full-time when P was 4.
  3. I’m currently working in an awesome job, but
  4. things are changing and stressing me out.
  5. I still love my job though.
  6. More when the stress of it isn’t making me sick, like today.
  7. On top of that, I commute over 30 minutes, each way.
  8. Working and being a mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
  9. I spend most of my time being tired.
  10. My oldest, N, is now going into her last year in college.
  11. I’m really proud that she’s doing better in life than I did at her age.
  12. I also have:
  13. 1 in high school, K,
  14. 1 in middle school, H
  15. and P is about to start kindergarten.
  16. It blows my mind
  17. and makes me miss the days when they were younger
  18. and easier!
  19. I don’t get to read for fun much anymore.
  20. Just too tired at the end of the day, I guess.
  21. It makes me sad.
  22. I have a huge stack of books, just waiting for me to have the time.
  23. I’ve recently started playing around with Linux, for fun.
  24. It’s really pretty cool,
  25. all the different things you can do with it.
  26. My current project is designing an awesome desktop for my new netbook.
  27. I’m having fun with it
  28. even though it can be frustrating too.
  29. It’s really a kick when I finally figure out how to make something work.
  30. It just takes me awhile to get there.
  31. Which is why this is a hobby and not a profession.
  32. Still have Portia and Fats Domino, but
  33. Rosie just up and disappeared one day.
  34. I felt bad about that but
  35. the truth is that she never really fit in.
  36. I got 2 new kittens for Mother’s Day this year.
  37. They are sister and brother
  38. and their names are Sierra and Nevada.
  39. They got their first shots this weekend
  40. and didn’t react well to them. [Read more →]

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Could I? Should I?

May 20th, 2009 · Life & Times

It’s that time again…  Reunion time.

I don’t know about you, but high school was a period of my life that I was glad to put behind me.  I wasn’t all that tight with anyone.  In fact until recently I haven’t even been touch with anybody that I was “close” with in high school.  Interestingly enough I’ve kept up with some friends from before high school and some from after, but none from that fateful 4 years of my life.

I was one of those weird, undefinable kids that hung with the honors kids and at the same time, the band geeks.  I wasn’t ever one of the “popular kids,” not for want of trying but was never really cool enough.  In the end, the best description for me is probably “drama queen.”  Yeah, I hung with the theater kids too.  I spent most of that time in “love” with at least one boy who didn’t return that feeling.  I was the only kid who got a perfect score on the AP English semester paper but struggled mightly to pass geometry.  It’s the eternal story but I really didn’t fit in anywhere.

  • Didn’t go to prom
  • Couldn’t make call-backs for the Spring Musical to save my life
  • Was told once by a great, gay friend that I shouldn’t diet anymore because I might fall over from being top-heavy
  • Was told by the drama teacher that I was “too healthy-looking” to think that I could really land a leading role
  • Finally landed an ingenue part but the guy who got the part opposite me (and was a football player) refused to.work with me because he wanted to work with another girl.  I was told to step aside because “that’s how it is is in the pros…”
  • When the Senior AP English teacher announced who got the perfect score on the term paper, everyone looked around like, “Who?  Her?”
  • Had to repeat the 2nd semester of Geometry to get a grade that gave me a prayer of getting into a decent college, at least by my parents’ standards.
  • And that’s not even getting into my parents’ divorce in middle school or how much I was moved around from 5th to 9th grade…

Now, almost 25 years later, I’m faced with: do I really want to go back there?  Yes, there were some fun times.  There were more times that were just heartbreaking.  To this day, I don’t understand pre-teen and/or teenage girls.  They are some of the meanest, most loving, most hurtful,spiteful people that the Lord put on this Earth.  And don’t even get me started on boys…

When my daughters come to me with problems with their friends, girl or boy, I don’t know what to say.  I mean I barely made it through myself and still don’t understand what could make people be so mean to each other as my “friends” and I were to each other back in those days.

So, why would I want to go back there?  Well for my 25th, I’ve already decided not to go there.  Told my dad that I wouldn’t be coming in this August but I’d try to make it in soon.  This was an issue for me 5 years ago and will be an issue in another 5. 

There are people that I was, at least at times, close to.  People who had their own hardships and reasons for having trouble staying close to others, but we had our moments.  Moments that I can remember as clear as crystal even now like laughing until we cried over a rotten, black pear that was sitting on a friend’s nightstand and she didn’t even remember that it was there until I turned and gaped at it in the middle of a conversation one night.  Or the Freshman that sang “Rio” over and over again during our Choir trip to Mexico City Junior year.  They were lucky that we didn’t push them out of the airplane down there but it still makes me love that song.  Or growing apart over stuff like boys and lifestyles and other BS stuff.  The sad thing is that, good, bad or indifferent, there aren’t any other people in this world who I can share those same memories with.

The flip side to that coin is that even some of the people that were there with us don’t have the same memories or perspectives on that time.  If I’m going to fork out for plane fare and a rental car (don’t get me started on why I need that…) then I’d like to know I’ll see at least a few of the people I was closest to.  And that’s the rub, I was part of a huge class but only really close to a few people. 

My biggest fear is going to this thing and having a whole bunch of people I don’t remember, not remember me too.  And that takes me right back to: why should I bother?  I wanted to be somebody back then.  Now doesn’t matter.  Or at least, it shouldn’t matter.

I’ve got the cool job.  Hot, fun husband - check.  4 beautiful kids, great life, so why does it matter to me what these losers from my past think?  To me now, it doesn’t matter.  To the me back then, it mattered a whole lot.

I wish I could go back and tell that person that it would all be OK in time.  But she wouldn’t have believed me, just like my daughters don’t believe me.  Sometimes I don’t even believe me.  I hate living with all these doubts and second thoughts…

But I wouldn’t go back and do again for any money so why should I try to go back and change it now?  Would I really want to?

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:::Sigh:::

May 17th, 2009 · Life & Times

Another weekend gone by too quickly…  I just came back from running all the weekly errands that I only really have time for on the weekend.  It seems like a treadmill.  If it’s Saturday or Sunday, I have to get groceries for the upcoming week, pick up/drop off any dry cleaning, pick up/drop off any prescriptions, get gas, get cash, run any other oddball errands that are needed, etc.  This weekend it was Macy’s for my favorite Clinique eye cream and foundation and DH needed to go to Vitamin World for some supplements he takes.  Once you get all that done, the weekend is mostly gone.

I guess I’m a little extra worn out this weekend too.  On Monday, our team was called into a meeting and told that while there were going to be big layoffs this week, nobody on our team would be affected by it.  Then stories of people being cut loose started trickling in then the trickle became a flood.  Everything you hear about “survivor’s guilt” is true.  You feel bad but at the same time immensely thankful that it isn’t you.  So it was just a stressful week all the way around.  It was more stressful for others I’m sure but we all got hit with some of it…

I am so looking forward to our OBX vacation in July!!  I’m not going to do anything but lie on the beach, read and sleep all week.  It sounds like heaven!!

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Seriously spoiled…

May 16th, 2009 · Life & Times

Girl gets fab job.

Girl survives huge round of layoffs at fab job.

Girl wants fancy car, seasonal trailer in nice, lakeside park, boat and jetskis for use in lake, newer, larger house, closer to work…

Girl should learn to be thankful for what she has, don’t you think?

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Looking to release my inner geek…

May 3rd, 2009 · Cool Places & Things, Fun Stuff

I am considering getting myself a netbook with Linux to play around with.  Since I get such a kick out of tinkering with different computer/Internet programs and applications, I thought it might be fun to do all that on a totally new (to me) platform.  Before I do it though, I want to be sure that DH will be OK with me hanging on to my existing laptop (as opposed to passing it down to one of the kids) for times when I need to do heavy-duty graphics editing or for synching my Moto-Q which has a Windows-based operating system.  I think it will be fun to play around and learn how to manipulate something new.

The cool thing is that there are a couple of Windows developers who have purchased the same model that I am looking at and they are going to be experimenting with different Linux distros and blogging about it.  It will be fun to follow along with them and maybe pick up a few tricks too.

For my next trick, I’m thinking about releasing my inner spoiled-princess and conning DH into letting me get one of these

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Fun, fun, fun…

April 11th, 2009 · Cool Places & Things, Life & Times

I’m really getting a kick out of Facebook.  I have already reconnected with several people that I haven’t been in touch with for…  Well, I’m not going to say how many years but let’s just say it’s a large number.  I’ve found people from high school, from middle school and friends that I’ve sort of been in touch with via email but now we can connect on a more regular basis.

I’m still trying to decide whether or not to take the plunge (and spend the money) to go home for the reunion.  It’s not going to be cheap, and I’m waffling about whether I want to dredge up all the old high school feelings (good and bad).  My history of teen angst would take a book to detail.  I think it would be good for me to face it and finally lay it to rest.  At the same time, life is going along pretty well right and do I really want to open up that can of worms?

I just don’t know the answer right now…

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Just playing around…

April 5th, 2009 · Cool Places & Things, Life & Times, The Family

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time just fiddling around lately.  Thanks to DH, I’ve discovered all the wonderfulness that is Facebook (and all the revisiting of teen angst that comes along with it).  It’s fun and time consuming.

And then to top that off, I got a new smart phone with the Windows CE operating system.  And bundled with that is the game, Bubble Breaker, that is hopelessly addictive.  So, since I hate have my phone batteries wearing down on me all the time, I found a version that I can load and play on my laptop.  So, I’ve just had my nose in the computer most of the weekend.

Well except when DH and I met some friends for dinner at Stir Crazy and then got dessert at The Cheesecake Factory.  And P was running a fever earlier, so we’ll just have to see how tomorrow goes…

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So nice…

April 1st, 2009 · Life & Times, The Family

to be able to come to my site, and actually have it be here.  After spending most of the weekend futzing around with the thing and having my provider tell me that it was a code issue, I was frustrated to find that the database had become corrupted.  Luckily, it was still working on the admin side so I was able to back up the contents of the important tables and restore in a new database from that.

In other good news, we had a furnace installed last week.  It has been a long, cold winter, but we are back to heating the house the usual way.  I won’t miss tripping over the electric radiators that we’ve had all over the house or blowing the fuse every time I tried to blow dry my hair without unplugging the one that was upstairs.

And even better than that, we’ve put a down payment on a week at a house in the Outer Banks for this summer.  That’s right!  We’re going on our first REAL vacation as a family in 5 years.  I can’t wait!!!

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What do you do when your database breaks?

March 29th, 2009 · My Blog

Why, create a new database and start from scratch with the latest version of WordPress

I’m actually pretty impressed with myself because I could still access the old database, but it just didn’t want to play nice with either the old or the new version of WordPress.  So first, I tried uploading a backup copy of the entire database, but the database itself was hosed.  So then I got the idea to just upload just the table contents after doing a clean install of WordPress.  And it worked!  Now I’m just working on fixing the categories and then putting in some widgets to personalize this thing again…

Be patient if things look a little funky for awhile!

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I’m almost afraid to say it…

February 15th, 2009 · Life & Times

But things seem to be on an upswing.

We got the electrical problem taken of. We got the gutter that was falling off of the house removed, so we’ll have to do something about that when we can. And we’ve filed our taxes, so we should be able to do something about the furnace situation shortly.

Things have settled down somewhat at work after the year-end push that always winds up being an exhausting marathon.

So, I might be able to take a deep breath and settle in for less drama for a while. We would still like to take a week off this summer and head down to the Outer Banks, but whether or not that will be doable remains to be seen.

Beyond that, with a lot of luck and the gods smiling down on us some, we would also like to move to a bigger house in a new school district this summer if we can. That might be a little more than we can take on this year, but if we could find a seller that would consider some creative financing, it just might work.

Now I’m knocking on wood because I know I’ve just tempted fate by thinking good thoughts…

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