A few views of our yard

These are from last week, before the wind and rain knocked everything down.




A small fraction of what's in the yard.



Go Sox!

I is for Ice, J is for Jack O Lantern

I finally found my camera, buried in the bottom of my purse. So I took it out to put it somewhere safe, which means I didn't have it with me for the following photo ops, so you'll have to make do with blurry cell phone pics.

The most sincere pumpkin patch. Or at least the most sincere one within 10 miles that is open on Sundays. (One drawback to the nearby Amish & Christian Homesteaders is that their farmstands aren't open on Sundays.)




Nathan's first skating lesson. He fell down. A lot. But he had fun, let's hope the fun continues for every Mon & Fri night for the next few months. I felt bad not being out there with him, but I'm not sure I could survive even five minutes on skates. Hoping that Dan will be able to take him on Mondays and he can get out on the ice instead, while Claire and I have some girl time.



Work's good. Still hoping that it can somehow morph into a permanent job. More photos of Halloween costumes to come.

Peak in the High Peaks

Even though we have a bunch of Sugar Maples on our property that will be turning soon, we couldn't resist the drive down to Saranac Lake yesterday to see the peak of color in the Adirondacks. It was really perfect, a great sunny day and lots of red color on the mountains. We stretched our legs at a nature center that I like. I swear the lovely odor of the pine needles when we got out of the car just about knocked me down. Such a beautiful day.

Chaos

Forgot about the conversation:

"Wah Wah Wah"
"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Cracker"
"I'm sorry, I don't have any in the car. I'll give you some when we get home"
"Orange"
"Orange Who?"
"Apooplane"
"Yes, honey, that's an airplane flying overhead."
"Orange and a banana. Ha Ha Ha Ha"

Catching up

Things going on in my life, in no particular order.

1. Dan's mom had a stroke on Tuesday, but got to the hospital very fast and is feeling fine now. Did you know that blood typing has gone way beyond A,B & O in the last few years. Apparently she, and probably Dan, have a problem with their Factor V blood type that can cause clotting, so we'll be keeping an eye on that now.

2. Zeppo chomped on Dan's very pretty cell phone. LCD screens do not like to be chomped on. He's also on a streak of decapitating the toys we give him. I'm glad we finally found a use for the giant bag of stuffed animals that the kids never play with.

3. The Sox are making me very happy, but I need to call my Dad more often so that we can celebrate together. I would have today, but he's in Connecticut going to his Grammar school's 50th reunion.

4. Had another dose of Rituximab today, and now I'm feeling like I'm having hot flashes. Why is it still in the 80's here? Every weekend I say we should take the air conditioner out of the window, and then the next week we're back in shorts.

5. I am completely amazed at the amount of things Nathan is doing at Pre-K. They went to an apple orchard this week, and then made snacks with the apples. Each week he's given a new letter to study, and we print out something that starts with that letter for him to bring to school. This week I made him a snowflake. Now I have to think of some fun things that start with L for next week. He also told me he made a journal this week, and I'm really interested to see what is going in that.



6. Claire is doing pretty well at daycare too. Each day we get a report that says she's happy, although she didn't nap and barely ate the first week. Today was the first hiccup, when they didn't want her taking her blankie to the lunch table. We've tried not sending her in with blankie, but then she just carried her puppy-shaped pillow everywhere instead. When I came to pick her up, she was sending him down the slide.

7. We can make an attempt to sleep in for the next three days. No school and no work, but I'm sure we'll send the kids to daycare on Monday so we can have some time alone. Although that time alone probably needs to be spent dusting, vacuuming and mopping. I'd like to say that I just haven't had time since I started work, but I was pretty behind even before then.

8. Work is good. After a week of giving me lots of copying, typing and filing, they realized that my talents were being wasted. So I am now doing the whole job of the person I'm filling in for. I'll be taking care of fraudulent or mistaken direct debits to checking account, refunding the money and any overdraft fees. (An aside: Don't people know that you're not supposed to use Debit cards for online transactions, hotels or rental cars. Doesn't everyone know that?)

9. I thought I left my credit card on top of my car while getting gas and had to cancel it. So for the last week I've had to use my debit card for everything, including online purchases. Found it in my jacket, which I had not worn for a week because it was 80 frikken degrees.

10. I wanted to add more pictures, but I can't find the camera. Cleaning the house is a definite priority this weekend. I'll have to settle for these pictures from a carnival last month.

To be continued

Still adjusting to working full-time, and too busy and stressed to want to write. Except that this was an actual conversation (if you can call it that) in our car today that I wanted to share.

ugh, nevermind. We ran out of milk and I had to go get some. Now it's 11:30 and I have to be up early to drive to Saranac Lake for more Rituximab. Night Night.

Yes please, I'd love to buy some overpriced wrapping paper

Gah, the fundraising merry-go-round has already started. The kid's daycare sent me home with a giant book full of candy, coffee mugs and magazines subscriptions for my schilling pleasure. And when I signed Nathan up for skating lessons I was given another booklet, out of which I must sell $50 worth of useless crap, or be assessed a $25 dollar fundraising fee. The daycare is going another route, awarding the highest seller with $120.00 off their bill. I won't be the least bit surprised if I get something from the Elementary school in the next few days too.

Banker's hours

This is going to take some getting used to. Working 40 hrs again, and trying to sort out the kids, the dog and dinner in a short period of time when I get home. At least I don't have the insane commute anymore. Although I now have an insane amount of paperwork to look through from Pre-K, Nathan's daycare and Claire's daycare. I'll have you know that most of the artwork goes straight into the garbage. Although I am keeping some of Nathan's best attempts at writing his name.

The job is pretty cool. Not at all what I was expecting. The office is termed "Deposit Operations" and there are four departments with 8-10 people each. I'm in Reconciliation, and the people I work with review IRA accounts, ATM transactions, Debit card disputes and more that I haven't seen yet. The woman I'm replacing is on maternity leave, so I'm expecting to be there 3 months. They're not teaching me the complicated stuff, but the "grunt work", which is fine. My immediate boss has made a good impression on me so far, although it's pretty hard to fall lower than my last boss. Hopefully she'll be like my first controller at Hyatt, who was a hard worker, but took time each day to check in on us and joke around a bit.

Whether it will turn into a permanent job is a big question. Another woman in the data entry dept said that she'd been there as a temp for none months and no permanent jobs had opened. But I don't think she had any prior job experience, or much interest in the job, since she's now leaving for her completely different dream job. So things could be different for me. At the least, I'll make the best impression I can in case there are openings that the boss can recommend me for in the other local offices. I'm afraid that they do a lot of their hiring by promoting tellers.

In other news, the pig farm is now a cow farm, and they're being quite noisy on their first day home. Claire is thrilled, and wanted to go out and wave to them for a bit.

Kelly Girl

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lost job last week. I obsessively checked websites for job leads, and even began to wonder if I could make a living off mturk at .10 a job. All that's behind me now, at least for the next two months.

I'm not sure why I wasn't registered with Kelly Services earlier. Maybe it was bad memories of a summer spent opening mail for Publisher's Clearing House when I was a Kelly Girl in 1991. But I sent them a resume Friday, took the skills assessment tests yesterday, and on Monday I start a new job. I'll be working for a bank, but not in a branch. Instead I'll be working for "Deposit Services", which I guess means handling the paperwork that flows from the other 130 branches in the area.

Technically, it is only for two months. But the recruiter said that they have kept a lot of people on permanently. I was amazed that I could set daycare up this fast, it will be annoying if I have to pull them out again.

And because I'm a history buff, here's a 1910 postcard of where I'll be working. Somehow, I don't think it still looks like this.

I do it!!!!!!!!

Claire is in her "independent" phase these days. "I do it" is her favorite phrase, whether it be fastening her seatbelt, putting the top on her cups, putting socks on. She has to do it. Unless it's doing her hair, then she runs away screaming.



When we take Zeppo for his walk, I always start her in her stroller, but many times she has to walk back. First, she'll re-fasten the seat belt even though she's not in it. Then she'll insist on pushing the stroller, even though she can only go about two feet before she runs aground. And if she hears a car, she'll sing out "Car Coming" and then abandon the stroller in the middle of the road. If I try to help, she whips out her second favorite phrase "Go Away".




And a shot of Zeppo, who is getting gigantic. I was trying to line up a shot that would give you a good view of the field we pass every day on our walk, but Zeppo's ability to sit still and pose is very limited.

A near miss

Given how much time and effort we put into our restaurant plan, it's not surprising that we continue to keep up with news and rumors surrounding the building. This week Dan heard something that makes us happy that we didn't continue our plans.

It seems that there may be an illegal/dangerous oil tank on the property. Which will be costing the college $100,000-200,000 to remove. Yikes. Can you imagine if we'd been up and running for a year and then found out about this while trying to buy the building? It certainly would have kept us from buying, and probably would have led to the restaurant having to be shut-down for clean-up. Luckily, it's not our problem.

I think this might mean that they had a buyer lined up, but then found out about the hazard while doing disclosures. They may also be doing some more renovations before trying to sell again. We'll keep an eye on it, and hope that it takes so long that we'll be able to try our concept again.

And on.

And the job search goes on. And on. And on.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Things you should not say at a job interview.

"I'd like a job with less stress."

God, why? Why did I say that? aaarrrgh.

In context, it makes sense. She saw all the experience I had on my resume and wanted to know why I was looking at this job, especially since she'd just told me the sadly low pay rate. She was just trying to make sure that I wouldn't take the job and then leave in a few months if something better came along. So I was trying to be reassuring that this is a job I want, and instead I said something stupid that makes me sound lazy.

I'm hoping that I recovered. I tried to make it seem that it was stressful because of the 50 hour week (which Hyatt expects of management) and horrible commute. But I should have also stressed that since my degree and experience don't match, I was only expecting semi-entry level job offers when I moved back.

I do want this job. Even though the pay was lower than what I thought was the lowest I would take, it comes with so many benefits that it will work out in the long run. Free tuition for the kids at any of the four local colleges is a pretty nice perk too. Even if they only went for a year or two before transferring, it would be so worth the low pay now.

Let me be a wage slave again, please

Are you all getting as tired of me posting about jobs as I am in looking for jobs? If so, cross your fingers for an interview that I have on Monday. Should be an interesting job, with great benefits and hopefully decent pay at one of the colleges.

However, I'm wondering about one little issue. The department posts pictures of all the employees on the website, so I was glancing through to see if I recognized anyone, and saw that one of the employees is one of our near neighbors. She's not someone I've met in person, but there's no doubt that I should recognize the name if we're introduced. And there's a chance that she would recognize me because I always walk Zeppo as far as her mailbox before turning around. I'm wondering if I should practice some complimentary phrases about her lawn in preparation for meeting her. And hope that she doesn't hold the fact that we're a bit messy against me. Maybe I should take a moment today to move the garbage can away from the street and put the hose away just in case.

P.S. I really want to complain about the heat, but I know that Joy has it much, much worse, so I won't. (but seriously, 92 degrees, in Sept, this far north, WTF??)

First Day of School!

Sniff-sniff. Boo-hoo. He's all grown-up.



Dan laughed at the parents who were taking pictures of their kids waiting for the bus, so I didn't do quite as much photojournalism of Nathan's first day as I may have wanted to. Plenty of time to correct that when I go to pick him up.

The class is only from 8:30-11:10, and a fair amount of that time will be spent having a snack. Two boys who he met last year at swim lessons will be in his class, so hopefully that will ease his shyness. Meanwhile, it's just us girls here at home.

Set my Season Pass

The news that Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) was going to do a stint on Heroes this year was reason enough for me to rejoin Netflix so I could finally watch it. Love It! I've watched the first six episodes - don't tell me what happens next. I don't know why I didn't get into it last year, I was Tivoing it, but I think I missed the first episode and never got caught up.

Now, I'm trying to sort out the fall schedule so that I won't miss anything good again. Pushing Daisies is definately getting taped. Maybe Chuck, because I've fallen in love with repeats of Jake 2.0 and these are as close as I can get to new episodes. Plus, Adam Baldwin's in it.

Part of the problem is that I have to tape things for Dan, and I don't always have the kids in bed in time if I want to watch something different. The battle between Ugly Betty and The Office was a big problem last year.

Maybe I should just get another Tivo. Ours gets so full of kid's shows, that we sometimes miss taping things. Especially when we save half a season's worth of Lost so we can go back and search for clues.

The McFarland Gallery

Continuing with the fridge theme, this is the current artwork displayed on the new fridge.

A charming portrait of the artist and his family.



This is a jedi battle with Luke, Anakin, a couple of storm troopers and what looks like a small dog.


The artist's signature, sure to be worth a fortune someday.

Frat parties, and keggers, and loud music, OH MY

I had to deal with traffic today. And lines. There was even pounding rap music heard in my back yard today. Am I still in Potsdam?

The students are back in town, and our population is going to go from nine thousand to sixteen thousand, and even higher this weekend with the parents in town too. I suspect Dan will be working late the next few nights.

Kitchen design 101

I probably said that one of the good points of our new house was that the kitchen is large. And it is large, there's plenty of room for Dan's cookbook bookcase, Zeppo's crate, a dining table and a kid's table. It's just that the part of the kitchen that is actually, ya know, for cooking, is very small.

When the fridge door is open, you can't get to the sink. We can't get to the corner cabinet next to the fridge, it's blocked by the garbage can and recycle bin. And all the counters seem to be covered in crap.

So, I'm thinking of moving the fridge. We're going to be buying a new one this weekend, since ours started making a funny noise that seems to indicate it's out of freon. And we've noticed some problems with food not keeping well since the sound started. Ideally, we could put the fridge where the butcher block counter is, but it seems like that's violating every rule of kitchen design to move the fridge so far from the sink and stove. Putting it on the other side of the door seems like a bad idea too.

Plus, once I see the state of the floor under the current fridge, I may have no choice put to put another heavy appliance there to cover it up.

Brain Damage

Sigh.

I do this a lot. Or at least more often then I should. I buy things at the store and then leave them at the register or in the cart. I once went through a drive-thru, gave them my money, took my drink, and then drove off without the burger and fries. At least I realized my mistake pretty quickly.

Today, I made it all the way home before finding that the closet organizer I bought at Wal-Mart didn't make it into the car. And there's something called NB TOL MADDI on the receipt that I honestly don't remember buying and don't see in the bag anywhere. What the heck was it?

Worse was the day I left my wallet in the cart. We had made it most of the way home when my gas light came on. I had Nathan's wallet with me, so I borrowed 4 dollars from him to buy a gallon of gas, then had to bug Dan at work so I could get his credit card to get enough gas to go back and pick-up the wallet. Soooooo annoying. And it was pouring down buckets of rain too.