Seanna (n. shaw-nuh)

My last day at the office for a while...

...yay!  All week I was training the new girl; today I am filling in for the boss.  This means I get to sit at the nice desk and do her thing probably all morning.  The new girl has gone home and seems to be doing well.  She already managed to set things up and connect to the company mainframe, etc.  All seems well on the Edward Scissorhands front.  Ha, just kidding.  She's really nice.  But LONG nails.  Long RED nails.  Quite remarkable.

I am waiting for the children to finish getting ready and then I am being a nice mom and driving them to school since it's sort of on the way.  Right now a lunch is being packed and I believe makeup is being applied.  My P child is pleased because it has become obvious that she has inherited the same hair genes as her big sister. I just have to brush my teeth and I'm all set. 

I ran across this site today.  It is the motherlode of all gross foods.  This is why you're fat .  That crap is really gross.  Unreal.  The least scary thing was probably the giant doughnut.  Don't go if you have a weak stomach.

OK, I am out.  It's rainy and stormy here and maybe 55 degrees.  Blech!  If it's going to do that, why not let the temp drop and the snow commence?  MUCH BETTER PLAN.

5:15 a.m. on Thursday morning

...and I am wide wake. I've actually been awake about an hour.  It doesn't take much to get me back to my natural waking schedule, which is why my regular work schedule of working late into the night is so weird and unnatural for me.  But that's OK.  I have to get started on my part-time thing pretty soon because I've been at the office all week (again).  I will be there most of today and then also tomorrow.  I should be back to normal next week.  I actually don't mind it so much when I don't have to drag all my equipment back and forth--I've just been leaving it there. Much better.  I'm hearing alarms go off in the bedrooms.  That's kind of cute.  They go off briefly and then someone shuts them off. 

I suppose I should actually try to get in the shower before someone else wakes up, and then I can settle down for a few hours and get the part-time thing done.  It's definitely a challenge to fit that into my day when I have to go to the office.

We went to a meeting at school the other night because my two baby girls are going to be high school seniors next year.  When did all this happen???  They are very involved and proactive about their schedules, which is what the meeting was about, so I probably didn't even really have to go, but I figured since I was not working I should put in an appearance and see what was new.  All the school funding challenges have left many things in limbo, that's what's new.  Or maybe that's not new at all.  But it definitely seemed a little new. 

So, have you been watching the stock market tank over the last week or so?  Good times.  I guess it's a good time to be investing, so that's the upside of this whole situation.   It's always good to find the silver lining.  We aren't focusing enough on the positives and I think that is making things even worse than they would have been otherwise.

But since I'm on the subject, let me tell you what's going on with the company I work for.  Apparently income is down, largely due to a big capital project they recently finished and have to pay for, and so they called all the department heads in to present cost-cutting proposals. For our department, we have a full-time position frozen for the foreseeable future and they are not going to pay for home workers' internet bills anymore, but that's about it.  Could be worse.  We did just hire a new person and there is also a new part-time person in the hiring pipeline, plus someone else just gave notice, so we will be hiring someone to replace her.  That means that the company I work for is still hiring.  Gotta find the little nuggets of good news where we can, I guess!

I have no photo to share with you today, or even a link.  Sorry about that!

We stopped counting at 40

Here are just a few of the guests as they sang "Happy Birthday" to C.  I believe she is holding a cupcake while standing on my couch.  There are more guests on the stairs, behind the camera, hanging from the chandelier...

Many, many people.  I think probably a total of close to 50.  That officially makes it our largest party ever in this house.  Maybe just ever!

Present time.  She got lots of necklaces, I think.  I mostly stayed in the kitchen and baked cupcakes and sliced pizza and tried to keep the cup supply going.

These two reprised a "piece" they perform at tournaments and for the school.  It was amazing.  Like we had paid entertainers at the party.  I hope they enjoyed their payment of pizza and soda and fellowship...  Did I mention it was amazing?  It is about a 10 minute speech on "American History, Abridged," complete with rapping and just all kinds of entertaining little tidbits.  Sooooooooooo good. They pretty much have it memorized.  I wish I had videotaped it. 

Here's what was going on upstairs:

Look!  Twister!  Is that girl in the back laughing or yawning?  We may never know. 

 

Some Rock Band going on later in the evening.  The boy with his mouth open is one of our favorites.  He was unofficially in charge of keeping things under control upstairs in Teen Cave, since I sure didn't want to go up there after it reached critical mass.

More Rock Band.   Such intensity it inspires.

This is what was going on downstairs.  A DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) party.

Oddly enough, we don't seem to have seating for 50.  The stairs turned into a viewing gallery for the DDR festival and also for the present opening/birthday serenade.  Do you see the silver tape on the second-from-the-left girl?  There was some sort of duct taping of people going on upstairs.  That tape was labeled as C's "buttcrack" tape.  Although it sounds sort of racy, I believe the actual intent of that particular piece of tape was for modesty and avoidance of the display of a certain body part.  That's all I know about it, and that's all I ever want to know. 

 

I have no idea who this boy is, or from whom he seems to be hiding.  I just thought this was a cool shot.

 

I'll bet you have no clue what that brown thing in C's hands is.  It has just left her control and is taking flight.  Gravity won, as it always does, and there was cupcake mess on my floor about 1 second after I shot this.  I'm really not sure what those boys are doing with C, but she seemed to like it.  Whee!!

 

We were happy to see our neighbor, B.  He and my B had a lovely belching festival.  B won.  Which B?  I'll just let that be my own little mystery. 

This kid (in the British Army jacket) brought coolness with him to the party.  He was officially my favorite guest.  Look how he's in the photo with P&E on the wall (don't look at the dust, though). Also, he was polite.  Two thumbs up.  The blond kid in the back was funny, too.

This kid was in the running to be my official favorite guest, because he approached my husband and shook hands and introduced himself, but then he had an unfortunate lapse in judgement wherein he seemed to be suggesting by both body language (leg raised as if at the ready to deploy) and words ("Let's punt that cat") that he harm my Leo. So then he went to the bottom of the list.  However, he did say that by the word "punt" he meant only love.  So, he was allowed to stay.   See the poster in the background?  B made it and everybody signed it.  Cute! 

Going back to the pre-party preparations, here are some of the children getting the directional balloons ready.  These were placed around the neighborhood to help direct people to our house.  At times there were three cars down on the street, waiting to come up the driveway.  It was really sort of surreal.

It was kind of difficult to find a picture of my little E, but here she is in the hallway with C and G.  I wonder if the fact that she does not like parties is a factor in why she was not in many of the photos?  Hmmm.  She did have fun, though.  It took a while but she warmed up and was all smiley.

 

Awww.  Pneumonia boy (he spent almost the whole time in the kitchen) and P.  He was so tired at the end of the evening.  Apparently he is a DDR maniac, and it was killing him to watch the people play DDR because apparently he could have wiped the floor with them, but he was just not up to hopping around like a fool due to his compromised respiratory system.  Poor guy.  He was very helpful and went out twice to fetch things with B.  P was also helpful--she took photos, helped with food, circulated and made sure things were under control.  B was a huge help, too.  Frosting cupcakes gets kinda old after about the first two dozen, so she took over for me.  She also helped keep the food flowing as she marveled at the incredible number of people in our house. 

I will leave you with this image:

"This is the best night of my life!"

Awwww.

While spying on the children via Facebook today....

...I noticed that more than one of them took a photo of the following while we were shopping in a little village in Colorado.  That surely must be a sign that I should share it with all of you:

I don't know why we didn't pick us up one or two of those.  "Drop me in the water for a lover that's made to order?"  Yet somehow we resisted.  It would have been a better buy than the wooden keychain I bought.  The wood part already fell off and the rest has been tossed in the trash.  I'll never see that $4.95 again, will I.

Today is C's 16th Birthday bash. If you're reading this, chances are you already know all about it.  The girls did not get quite done with all the preparations.  I'm sure we all find that quite shocking.  However, the Teen Cave is ready to go and I just cleaned the upstairs bathroom, all but the floor.  The fumes were starting to get to me so I bugged out of there for a bit to let things clear.  Too many Scrubbing Bubbles or something.  The kitchen is also in serviceable shape.  That just leaves the living room, the laundry room (through which the children must pass to get to the Teen Cave) and the dining room. 

Did I mention I got new spectacles the other day?  I did.  I have been wearing them since yesterday but I'm already anxious to get back to the contacts.  I figured I needed to give them a good tryout since I have only 30 days to return them if something's not right.  I'm sure they are fine, though.  Contacts = much better.  They are almost like having normal vision since I hardly ever change them out (shhhh).  The guy at the eye place was gracious enough to tell me, "Whoa, your eyesight is really bad."  Thanks, man.  I kind of figured it was a bad sign when they made me take off my contacts and stand in front of the eye chart and the big E was even blurry.  But thanks.  I have been told that I do not need reading glasses unless I have my contacts in, in which case I need a 1.5 strength.  That's not too bad.  My husband's reading glasses prescription is worse, so yay.  It's a first that he needs a stronger eyeglasses prescription than me.  Must enjoy the moment.

I suppose I should finish up the last little bit of cleaning and preparation that I feel personally responsible for.  C has already phoned ahead to ask permission for several people to come home from school with her.  "Yay, more cleaning help," was my response.  I feel I can confess here that my husband has shocked and appalled her by using some of the words she innocently taught him (when he asked) and creating a nickname for her:  Fraulein Furzen.  Look it up.  NOT NICE.  I can confess that because I have already confessed to C's parents via email.  C and I both agree it would be best if she refused to teach him any more curse words of any kind, in any language.  He's already found the online translator with the little animated head who pronounces all the vulgar sentences he feeds to it.  At least that keeps him occupied and off the streets.

Ahhh 1:00 p.m.  T minus 5 hours.  Say a prayer for us...

This week...

I have been on site at work.  It's almost like a 9-5 thing, weird!  I go back tomorrow and then I'm done for the moment . I am training another new lady.  She has very, very long fingernails--they are quite remarkable--and she says the F word and the S word and the B word a lot.  It is quite shocking.  I work in a professional office when I am not lounging around in my PJs working, and I have never encountered this in my life.  She's good, though, and very nice.  And if I need backup in a street fight, she can do the vocals.  So, yay!  I have never actually been in a street fight, or even really a physical fight (except for the time Trisha Harkins tried to beat my butt after I pointed out that she was cheating at flag football in 7th grade), but still. It's good to have a plan.

We are off to the grocery and to drop P off at her boyfriend's house for a while.  He had to be extracted from college this afternoon by his parents because he has pneumonia.  Since she spent a lot of time with him this weekend and I'm sure he had whatever bug caused the pneumonia then, I figure she's already exposed, so why not?  He is a very nice boy (young man). 

Would you like a photo?  Of course you would.  How about a nice Sam?

Right after this, he sniffed the camera lens. Sorry about the eye booger. I would have whisked it away prior to the photos had I noticed.

What about a bonus photo.  How about a Leo and an Austrian?

Birthday Girl!

Of course, her birthday was February 11th and I'm almost a week late posting this.  Originally it was because she had to confess something to her parents and hadn't yet, and the photos would have made them wonder.  Apparently, C brought a great digital camera over with her, but the screen on it broke and now it's almost like having a film camera because she can't tell if she is getting good shots or not until she gets back home and downloads what's on the camera. 

Anyway, so did you know that a girl's 16th birthday is a big deal in Austria, too?  It is!

She is laughing because we are all singing Happy Birthday (again) to her.  Did I mention that she instructed us all to sing Happy Birthday to her in the restaurant before the waitress took our drink orders?  She did!  Hilarious.  This was one excited, newly minted 16-year-old!

Oops, didn't have time to clear the photo field.  Sooo, that's the cake just as the candles were blown out by the birthday girl.  And the crockpot.  And some stray Diet Cokes.  90% of an Uncle Steve.  And a water pitcher.

Just another ordinary, everyday Monday around here...

...oh, except for the gigantic inferno that nearly engulfed our house.   If it wasn't for my brother-in-law and his expert wielding of the garden hose, I think the house might have gone up. 

All is well.  The animals have been in and out of the car, and the car has been barfed and pooped in, possibly by the same creature.  We are back home, and the firemen are all around, setting preventive fires and wetting everything down. There are quite a few of them here....now...which begs the question...where were they when the blaze was racing toward our house with the wind not in our favor at 15-20 mph and the only thing between my house and the rather large and extensive fire was my brother-in-law and his garden hose. The children missed most of it. 

I have photos but I will have to come back later to post them and flesh out the story. 

Here are some links about the Great Depression

Since my daughter requested them, I thought I'd better try to get back on here and put them on before I started working this evening.

One man's recollection of the Depression.  His name was Pierre Rinfret and I believe he went on to become an economist.  This was a great read. 

 

Since Yesterday (an Ebook).  This is something you probably won't be able to take in all in one sitting.  It's an actual book.  I especially enjoyed the earlier parts and then the analysis of Hoover's approach vs. Roosevelt's.

 

Letters from Boxcar Kids (click on the red titles). 

 

Here are some links my fabulous father-in-law sent me:

Encarta Article on the Great Depression

page 2

I am also trying to get my new digital frame working.  I got it for Christmas from my fabulous husband but I needed a memory card.  I hope I got the right one.  I want to put it up in my office.  I loaded it with photos from the last few months, so we'll see if it works.  Those things are COOL!

So, guess what?  Today was another snow day.  And guess what else?  So is tomorrow. I think after that, they are out.  They'll have to borrow from summertime after this.  Or spring break.  Something.  On the positive side, I guess it's been saving fuel from the bus budget. 

I have to go to the office for a few hours tomorrow and work with the new girl (it's a different new girl than the one I was working with).  I also have to try to get my part-time stuff done before I leave.  It's going to be a big day, I think. A big, boring day.  But I'm grateful to have these kind of days.  It's really funny how fast things can change in this world, isn't it?  Well, maybe funny is not the right word.

Feeling sorta contemplative today...

...it's a Tuesday, which is generally my least favorite day of the week.  I usually love Mondays and reject the bad reputation Mondays enjoy in our 5-day-workweek culture.  Yesterday, though, was one of those Mondays.  The children had yet another snow day for something which was a drippy memory by 3:00 p.m.  The boss had me "stay" past my 10 AM escape time to test something for her.  My part-time gig people had an issue which took a ridiculous amount of time to resolve and necessitated a trip to their office.  Then the something I was testing didn't work too well and it took the IT guy most of the afternoon to solve the problem.  After that, I had to try to guide my coworkers through the same process which failed so spectacularly for me that morning.  I think I was finally done by 9:00.  THEN I had to go to Wal-Mart.  That makes two trips in less than a week, when generally I try to limit it to two trips in any given six-month period.  Fortunately, we hit the sweet spot, the time between irritated working mothers trying to get their cartful out the door at around 6:00 p.m. and the freaky people who drop down from their upside-down perches in their caves and start their day at 11:00 p.m. or so. I did learn that burn cream no longer exists.  Remember that stuff that Johnson & Johnson used to put in their First Aid kits?  It was white with a red cross on the tube?  Turns out now you just use the polysporin with the pain reliever. 

My earlier post about the R word vs. the D word seems to have generated a lot of discussion.  My wonderful father-in-law sent me some links to articles about the Depression, and my oldest daughter has been keeping a record of some of the bad economic news in her planner.  Every time she hears about a big layoff or some other harbinger of doom, she writes it down. I told her to keep it up because even though we have the internet, there really isn't a place where all of that will be collected in such a timeline fashion.  Sure, it's there right now but later on, it will disappear into obscurity.  One of the things that I have been looking for are stories and photos that will become the hallmark of this period in our history.  You've seen the Depression-era lines of men hoping for work, or the bread lines, right?  Let me find one:

Look at the building in the middle with the "Money Loan" sign.  What is that out in the front, coats for sale or something?  I believe this photo was taken in Pittsburgh back in the early 1930s.

Check out what I just ran across today. 

I believe this photo was taken in the last day or two.  It depicts a small number of the approximately one thousand applicants for 35 open positions in the Miami Fire Department.  35 open spots, 750 applications accepted

Obviously the photo above is a much better shot, but are the two not essentially depicting the same thing?  Some 75+ years and 1500+ miles apart, but essentially...this is the same photo. 

I want to post some links for the few Depression-era stories I've come across, but my part-time gig calls.  I will be back later (probably tomorrow).