The Average Blogger

Stuff and Nonsense

It's been a good week.  Things are going the right direction. I am doing some things and giving myself permission to ignore other things in the process. 

I'm writing a Cliffs-Notes-like thing for pay. At least, I assume I'll get paid.  I suppose they could tell me it sucks and not pay me ... but it's Cliffs Notes and doesn't seem like that complicated a task.  The other thing they want is Creative Commons photos. It just so happens I live near some of the sites mentioned in the book, so this was a good excuse to run off for the afternoon and take pictures of things by myself. And buy some clothes while I was at it.

And I've got other fish biting, which is always an ego boost.

The kid has been on a hot streak with school and play rehearsal. I think my fear of god speech last week actually had the intended effect -- now I'm just waiting to see how short-lived it is.

We saw the Hunger Games this weekend, at a Cobb Theater.  I'd never been to one before, but I'm not sure I will be able to go back to my boring old humdrum Regal experience.  The idea that you can take a pitcher of beer into a theater and kick back just warms my heart.  Plus, they've got D-Box seats and I am all fired up about trying those out.

Honestly, it's like I told Not Your Average Blogger the other night:  Apparently I'm a bit of a fatalist, because every time I've ever been in this position -- this hanging moment in time where all is opportunity and it still looks like every success is attainable -- my first thought in these moments has always been, "OK, I can be hit by a bus now, because everything's good; I've got stuff to look forward to,  nothing has gotten fucked up or been a huge disappointment."  Of course, I've never been hit by the bus and I reckon I've had as-many-if-not-more successes than failures, so I'm not sure where that sort of Scandinavian outlook comes from. The thing to focus on, really, is that I'm at a point again where I'm thinking that way at all. Huzzah for that.

The diet is going to take a dive this week.  It's my birthday on Friday. I'm having cake. I'm having food. I'm not gonna sweat it. I'll probably have a debauchery hangover next week, but, eh.

On the Upswing

Well, I was waiting until I was in a more positive frame of mind to write something here, and it appears to have paid off.  Several waiting games are still being played, but we have at least seen some small movements on several fronts.

The Young Prince is well into his form of capitalism, which is to say that he now understands good deeds are rewarded and shoddy work is shunned.  He is paid in the form of poker chips which are redeemable for a dime at some later point in time.  He's up to about $8 right now, and I was thunderstruck when he said he did not want to spend it all on a milkshake but would prefer to keep going and buy a videogame. Deferred gratification is a bit of a stunner in my ADHD world.

He's writing more. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  His penmanship is still for shit, but then, so's mine and I've got 30 years on him.

The writing conference was good.  It kicked me back into gear, not least because the agent I chose to talk to asked for three chapters and a synopsis.  So yay.  I was also pleased with the fact that doing research in advance led me to actually choose the agent I would have chosen in person.  She was the only one on the panel who seemed to have it all there: one was a bit too tree-huggy for my tastes, one said like she was in it for "a change of pace from writing books," and one was absolutely irritating with her arrogance; when someone asked how to bounce back from bad sales of a first book and how to convince Barnes and Noble to take a chance on selling your second, this one had nothing helpful in the way of how to pitch the second book capitalizing on what little good may have come out of the first, or altering one's marketing strategy, or looking for other sellers, or writing in a different genre, -- no, her advice was "write a better book."  I found that a bit insulting, as if the people in the room intentionally wrote/pitched/published a bad book the first time around.  (But in sharing this with others I have also been informed that I'm an ass for thinking this was unhelpful, so what do I know?)

Weight loss continues to be a slow if steady process. I'm down 10.  35 to go. If nothing else, I'm getting a hell of a lot more exercise these days.  The family put in a 5-mile hike yesterday, which wound up being a little longer than that after the dog took off on a spree and Not Your Average Blogger and I headed out to find her, leaving the tired and complainy YP where he was to wait.  As it turned out, he's the one Miss Amy returned to, and he also had the presence of mind to ask other people he saw on the trail if they'd seen her, and if they happened to find her later to please call the number on her tag.  We didn't tell him to do this; he just used his brain. I can't tell you how delighted this made me, especially when coupled with the fact that he'd up and started a load of laundry entirely on his own a few hours before. 

Even with the heart failure of the dog disappearing, days don't get much better than that.  Life is good, y'all.

Sigh.

Well, assorted other shoes have dropped. I feel like they all landed on my head.

Home: The Young Prince brought home 2 Cs, 2 Bs and 1 A on his report card, along with a note that said, "He is smart. He gets A's on the tests.  He answers the questions when I ask him out loud. But he doesn't finish his classwork, and he is disorganized and loses things."  In my "this ain't gonna fly" conversation with the YP, his response was, "Well, they aren't F's!"  Where the hell did I go wrong with this kid?? I think-- though of course, this is the YP so I can't be sure -- that by the end of the conversation he understood that in this house a C actually IS an F, and an F is grounds for being put up for adoption. Play rehearsals are still going somewhat well, at least -- although on Monday they introduced more kids to the cast and the boy was MUCH more interested in goofing off with them than doing his job. I think we squashed that urge, though -- the rehearsals since then appear to have gone better.  Not Your Average Blogger appears to be trucking along; it's nice that there is one fairly steady and consistent force in the otherwise looly Blogger household.

Personal: Got 3 rejections this week on the book. Better than the void, but obviously not what I'd hoped for.  In worse news, my computer hard drive crashed.  I lost the latest versions of both scripts, all my notes, my synopses, my query letters, my list tracking what agents I'd tried... along with a zillion photos (So Christmas 2011 and the YP's ninth birthday never happened, as far as that goes,) a bunch of blog ideas, addresses, passwords, genealogy stuff, old email exchanges and other manuscripts I also thought I might resurrect into something someday.   I was telling a friend that I'd much rather have had my wallet stolen than have this happen, because at least I can accurately identify every item in my wallet. I have no idea what-all I lost on that computer.  She said it's much more like having your house burn down, and I think she's exactly right.  Buy those flash drives, folks.  Jeezopete.

So now I need to figure out what I'm going to do next and what lesson to take from all this. NYAB thinks I'm insane for trying to divine messages from the universe, but I have to wonder: Is this the universe telling me I shouldn't be a writer? Is it dispensation? There's a part of me that would love to think this was a sign telling me it's OK to say "Yeah, fuck this noise. I'm going to use my precious personal hours pulling weeds in the flowerbed instead." But it feels so much like quitting, and that bothers me. Maybe it's just a slap to the head reminding me that my kid isn't the only disorganized dumbass in the family and maybe I need to fix my own self as much as I need to kick him to fix himself? ("Or maybe," I can imagine NYAB saying with exasperation, "it's just that your computer died. That sucks, but it does happen. No deeper meaning necessary; events do simply occur. Get over it.") Hmm.

There are two bright spots in all this.

1: I lost six pounds this week, and I'm not as unhappy about deprivation as I was. This is especially noteworthy given my proclivity to stress-eat. I don't know that I'll ever manage to alter that behavior to "stress starve" or "stress exercise" although I can certainly see how I'd benefit from either of those as far as the scale is concerned. 

2: We have conquered the pill thing.  The kid gulps them down like a pro now, almost as well as his dad, who takes more tablets and capsules than any non-senior citizen I know.  I told the YP this just proves that he can do anything we ask as long as he doesn't psych himself out. I don't know how we'll apply this to other endeavors, but I'm definitely counting it as a beautifully positive milestone in a tremendously negative week.  

What's the Use of Worrying...

Thinking of the song "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag" always makes me want to watch All That Jazz.   I think I just got my weekend plans squared away.

It's been a week of mostly needless anxiety at ye olde Blogger homestead.  I'm still waiting for the phone to ring, and I'm afraid my impatience has crossed over to flat-out irritation.  Not Your Average Blogger is also waiting for the phone to ring, but he's not as far gone as I am. 

I started Weight Watchers.  My hope is to lose 40 lbs in six months.  We'll see what reality brings. I'm hoping the warmer weather will also be an incentive to get out and drag the dog up and down the road a bit more than we have since Christmas.

The Young Prince, on the other hand, got to ditch school early one day this week, for an exciting trip to the doctor where he was declared "pre-acid-reflux" and "allergy suffering" and ordered to start popping not one but two pills a day -- Zantac and Zyrtec.  The boy said that sounded like twins from some alien planet, and that was the last bit of revelry he had for a while becuase then the reality hit that he would have to take pills.

A few years back, I recounted the YP's trouble with pills. I am sorry to report that in this respect he has not grown up one whit.  It didn't help that the doctor somehow believed it was possible to buy liquid Zantac and got that into the boy's head. The pharmacist laughed at me and said if I wanted it in liquid, I'd have to get a prescription.  La la la.  I bought the pills and off we went.

This is how things started.  And this is how they ended.  There was screaming, and crying and several pills were sacrificed before the kid lost the battle.  I won the battle but lost my voice. This tells you how epic the struggle was.

The next night, neither of us really wanted a repeat. We tried peanut butter. The kid still resisted. I had no voice and no patience, but NYAB was home, so the kid more or less realized he was outnumbered and outgunned and choked them down with about half the agita of the night before.

Last night, I shoved half a container of applesauce in his mouth with the pill. He swallowed it without noticing. Then I shoved the other half of the container in with the second pill. Again, no problem.

It's the little things, ya know?

I'm not so foolish as to think we've found a solution, but I do hope it marks a turning point in his pill-taking psychosis. A little drama I can deal with, but I'd just as soon not revisit this sundering of body and soul that usually occurs. 

We have to do this for a month.  It'll be interesting to track his progress.

Wow. Has It Been That Long?

I am exhausted.  And yet, so little has happened. 

Work at the office continues apace. Congress was in recess this week, which means that everyone has free time to schedule a zillion other meetings about stuff that gets shoved aside in the day to day bustle.  I spent one day in management training.  I spent another day thinking about staff evaluations.  I even managed to spend a few hours thinking about the actual members of my staff.

Wednesday was a fairly early night off work for NYAB and myself, so we went to a Japanese steakhouse.  The YP was surprisingly well behaved and snarfed down more food than I've seen him eat in ages, which made me quite happy.

Last night was the read-through for the play he is in.  NYAB came along, and we both immediately opened our own books and ignored each other for most of the 2.5 hours we were there. The YP's behavior was sterling.  I couldn't have asked him to be more professional and adult. 

This morning I got up and made brownies for a cooking club thing at work that I'd forgotten about until I got home last night at 11. I was still in the office by 6:45. On the other hand, I made a rookie mistake in dealing with a person who works for me.  So I'd say my performance is breaking even on that front. 

I'm almost done with Brideshead Revisited.  I'm rather glad, because while the writing is beautiful and evocative, I find pretty much every single character in it fairly despicable. It's a lot like the Great Gatsby, actually. I love the craftwork in that book beyond all measure too, while finding those characters every bit as vile and irritating. 

Beyond a Saturday rehearsal, I'm not sure what this weekend will bring.  Hopefully several hours of sleep. Presumably another dog park visit or two. And I may sneak off and indulge myself with several pounds of chocolate before resuming the diet effort in earnest.  Or so I tell myself. 

It's interesting.  I count myself very lucky on so many fronts.  I have a good job that pays well. I have a house I like. I have a husband who is steadfast and brilliant, who is not an embezzler or a drunkard. I have a son who is coming along quite nicely and continues to surprise me with his abilities. I have the best friends a person could hope for. I have plenty to keep me busy and lots of interesting things to read and think about.

And yet, there is a tiny part of me that is exhausted with waiting for a spot of good news and starting to doubt and despair. I'd settle for bad news at this point.  Any news, really.   A friend of mine laughed at me yesterday when I admitted I had started checking my email spam filters because of the deafening silence.

Well, next week is another week. Guess I'll cast more bread on the water. (Speaking of which: I know that's an allusion to sowing rice, but am I the only one grossed out by that imagery? Why would you want soggy, disgusting old bread returned to you? Wouldn't you rather not see it again? And what about that flock of new seagull friends looking for a handout? Don't look up when they come around -- ugh!)

 

Experience Is What You Get...

What's new? The federal budget, that's what.   So I spent 15 hours Monday and 15 more hours Tuesday working on coverage and charts detailing its ins and outs.

This time next week, it will be utterly irrelevant. But that's OK. That's news.  And every budget experience is another chance to refine the process and figure out another way to not screw it up next time.

The Young Prince auditioned for Fiddler on the Roof last week. Even though his monologue was fairly uninspired and he's going to miss one of the performances, he still got offered a spot in the chorus.  He's pretty jazzed.  I'm pretty sure he's the youngest one in the outfit.  That'll be interesting.

More interesting, one of the women who works for me also got a role in the show.  I'm not sure how I feel about this. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled for her and she'll be great. But I do wonder how horrified she will be when I inevitably drag the boy offstage by his ear during some rehearsal because he is not behaving himself and needs a reality check issued in harsh hisses and snarls.   Oh, well.  I reckon either she'll applaud my mad parenting skillz or she'll wind up scared of how I'll react if she misbehaves at work.  Win-win?

The weekend was good.  Steak and Shake was delightful, and we timed it well, in that we drove down in a light rain, ate during a massive snowstorm, and drove home in a light rain. Very strange weather.

Star Wars was less impressive. The 3-D was weak, and of course the plot was not improved. I still hate Jar Jar Binks. We came home and NeighborGirl and I watched Evil Dead 2 instead. Far superior, even in 2D. 

On the sloth front, I'm halfway through reading Brideshead Revisited, and I'm caught up on my viewing of Portlandia, Downton Abbey, Walking Dead, House, Glee, New Girl, 30 Rock and Justified. Man, it looks much worse all written down in a row like that.  Just think how much stuff I could get done if I wasn't a slave to someone else's stories!  There are also several things still languishing in NetFlix that I'm pretty sure I can zip through before spring comes. Ahh, winter. Even a mild winter like this is carte blanche to stay inside doing absolutely nothing. And it's everything I thought it could be.

Happy hibernation, y'all. 

Away in a Manager (No, Not a Typo.)

So after managing my little heart out during the power outage of June 7-9, I spent last Wednesday and Thursday in management training.

There weren't a lot of surprises during the two days of distraction. The first day we learned how not to get sued and how to parse annual reports. The fun thing about this is that we are owned by a British company, so fully half of our consultants flew across the pond to school us. Given that the jet lag seemed to exacerbate their use of slang, that aspect was pretty entertaining. The Don't-Get-Sued guy was a Boston lawyer who grew up in Philly, but it was a David Tennant wannabe (whose hair became spikier and wilder as the afternoon dragged on,) who did his level best to teach us how to read a balance sheet. I don't know if it was the hair or the content being delivered, but I still find our annual report fairly impenetrable, and from what the guy said most of it is a big fat smoke and mirrors show anyway, so I'm not sure what the point was. Though all the concrete stuff he did say about our parent company looked to be fairly positive.

The second day was actually only the first of two sessions  -- the second session will  last for two days in August.  We took a poor-man's Meyer's Briggs, which was interesting because you basically pop online, take a 5-minute multiple-choice survey ("I am: organized/spontaneous/emotional/insane")  and then the software spits out 15 pages of results detailing not only Who You Are but also Who You Act Like You Are.

It was no shock when the thing informed me Who I Am charts as a perfect V, with the high points indicating "I like to be in charge" and "I like to make decisions based on facts and logic and efficiency." The absolute low point, also unsurprisingly, reflected that "I don't want to share my personal probs and I certainly don't want to hear yours, please shut up and go back to work."  

It was mildly amusing to see that Who I Act Like I Am entirely wiped out this clearly defined V by a hugely concerted effort on my part to demonstrate calm, laid-back patience.

My favorite line was from a description of the category I fell into ("Developer,") that read: Others see the Developer as someone who knows her business and requires a lot from herself, but someone who
is also critical and peculiar.

I have concluded that "critical and peculiar" should be my epitaph.

So anyway, after we took this survey, we spent about 30 minutes going over our results with the group. Then the whole thing morphed into team-building exercises.  For someone who hates talking, I sure spent a lot of time representing the group to the rest of the room.  (Though perhaps that is the "likes to be in charge" aspect coming through.)  All this stuff about "how to build trust" and "how to get results," and "what are some key factors to employee development?" 

Then, at the end of the day, we basically gave ourselves three things to work on for the next couple months, and in August we all get to go back and lie about how much effort we put into it.

There actually was some value to the whole thing, but a lot of that seemed to stem from just yapping with the other participants. The lead consultant -- who looked a lot like I reckon my dad would if my dad lived in Shrewsbury and had gone into consulting -- wasn't really dispensing a lot of advice from on high. I guess maybe he felt himself more a facilitator? In any case, he mostly stayed out of the way while the rest of us sort of puzzled out why Offering Food at Meetings Is Good and how Maybe If People Constantly Misinterpret Your E-Mail, You Should Pick Up a Phone FFS. 

So all in all, there were maybe 45 minutes of value in 16 hours of sitting.  But you know what? They gave us lunch.  So I was happy. It's the little things, you know?

Stuff and Nonsense

Two weeks ago -- I was in a big push to put out a 1200-page book profiling all members of Congress and their districts, wrapping up with a 16-hour marathon before the deadline.

Then I worked all the weekend shifts so everyone else got a 3-day weekend.

Then I took Tuesday off to go deal with My Crap -- oil changes, grocery store, you know, FUN stuff.  As I was shuttling the kid to a golf session, I get a call that the power is out at the office.  Well, OK.  The power goes out sometimes, even in first-world countries. 

It doesn't usually stay out for 3 days, though. 

So there was scrambling around and finding alternate accommodations for the people putting out that night's paper. I logged on from home and helped with that, then cataloged the various things that were broken. I logged off around 1 a.m., then checked back in at 4, only to find most of the stuff was still broken.  And stayed broken til about noon.  But we got most of our stuff out the door in varying degrees of quality.

Stayed under the laptop for most of Wednesday, with a mental health break around 3, and then checking back in at 6. Went to bed around 10 that night.

More of the same Thursday -- up at 5, bashed around on copy and whatnot til about 2.  Figured we were in decent shape so I went out and got a coat of water sealant on my deck and assorted other wooden fixtures around the house. Checked back in, then went to a movie when all looked OK.  Checked in again that night and when things were still good, I made cupcakes for the office, since the power had finally been restored and the office was being resurrected.

Got up at 5 Friday and worked til 9.  Got to the office around 11, and pitched forward on management and trench stuff until 6, when the 1200-page book returned to haunt me in soft-proof stage -- we needed four copies printed. So while one person printed the original from her machine, I made 3 photo copies using help from another person and 3 different copiers.  That wrapped up around 7, when I went to confab with my boss.  We finished worktalk around 8, then hung out a bit longer for decompression venting.

Then I went home and re-read the 1200 page book and was a little horrified by how many things were wrong in it.  Today I got to the office at 5 a.m. -- my new and improved schedule now that JB is starting his new gig as the King of Op-Ed and Special Projects -- so we'll  make all those book fixes and send it back to the printer.

And then, by god, I hope to leave by 3 and be on my way to what people around here laughingly refer to as a "work-life balance."

Meanwhile, the poor Young Prince has been a bit neglected, as you might guess.  He watched us work all week, during the book, and then his classroom performance went straight to hell.

So in the middle of all this power outage drama, we had a meeting at the school with assorted authority figures -- his teacher, the PE coach, (with whom the kid had gotten into a few scuffles and we couldn't figure out why,) a counselor (whose name is Miracle Ryder, which cracks me up no end, but hey, maybe she is, what do I know?), the assistant principal and the principal. The long and short of it? Thomas is still recognized as very smart, but he's also still a total doof about proving it.  In the course of a one-hour meeting, it was suggested that he might qualify for both the gifted program and for special ed.  At the same time.  

So after that, we went to great lengths to make sure SOMEONE was chasing the kid around the yard and reminding him that we have performance expectations for him, and that he's smart and we know it, but he needs to prove it to other people by writing as well as he talks. I think he was truly astonished when I said to him, "Look.  You read at a 7th-grade level. You think at a high-school level.  You talk like an adult.  But you write like a preschooler. Unless you WANT people to think you're a dummy, you've GOT to fix this and start writing as well and quickly as you speak." I know I had never put it across to him like that before, and I'm hopeful it made a dent.  But I won't know for a couple more days.  He's got a book report he has to work on this week, and I'm curious to see how he does on his first pass unassisted.

Meanwhile, he still insisted he doesn't have time to finish his timed math tests.  Well, I proved to him that he had that one wrong too.  I said, 'How long does she give you?" And he said, "three minutes."  (Note, I seriously doubt it's 3 minutes. It might be 5, or 10, but probably not 3.) Anyway, I said, 'OK, then, let's see if it really is too hard for you to do in 3 minutes."  And I started the stopwatch and read the problems aloud to him.  Even with four or five, 'Ummmmm, Ummmmm... wait wait!! Oh! 12!" kind of stalls, he still answered them all in 2.5 minutes.  "I did??? That was less than 3 minutes??"  "Yes. So, OK, no more excuses, right?" 

So he came home the next day and was very excited that he had filled in answers for every problem on his timed test.  Apparently the teacher and I both gave the same answer: "Good! Hope you filled in the RIGHT answers for every problem!" 

I love his teacher.  I totally want to be her friend once she has fulfilled her professional obligation to my small cretin. Sigh. Only two weeks to go.  I wonder what fun will commence then!

All Moved In

So, last week was the Young Prince's spring break.  It was also my company's first week in the new building. This worked out well, on several levels.

My slave performed his labor admirably -- no complaining, except when he was worried about dropping something heavy; digging into boxes and putting stuff away unbidden, crawling under my desk to plug in assorted lamps and chargers. And when the labor was over, he maintained his delightful behavior by not running amok, but simply plopping down under my desk and reading his book until given dispensation to play his video games.  He was less pleased with the four math worksheets I threw at him every day, but he even did those without too much grief. Better, from his view, was his reward for getting them done: My new office (which I like very much and find quite a nice home away from home,) has a television -- with a plug for headphones -- so he also had cartoons aplenty. 

This was especially good given he spent three days cooped up here -- not just two, as originally anticipated.

The other nice part of having him here was that it meant the family could go out exploring as a unit. As it stands, the only thing I haven't found yet is a stairwell. (And a list of new phone extensions, but that's a diferent matter.) The rooftop "terrace" is very nice, there are a couple different places to eat close by even if you exclude Union Station, and the fitness room is much nicer than I was expecting.  The kid was a little miffed I wouldn't let him burn off some energy in there, but since I'd had to sign 2 forms promising not to sue if I fell off the treadmill I figured the Powers With Security Cameras would take a dim view of my throwing my kid on there.

Now, of course, his break is over and I'm just feeling guilty that we didn't do anything more fun than explore a new office building and let him rot his brain on TV while I read reams of copy and sat through several meetings.  So perhaps tomorrow we will make it up to him in some as-yet-undetermined fashion, weather depending.

And next year's spring break will be much, much better. And hopefully warmer.   

Overloaded

So, last week I wound up working til 3 a.m. on Friday because of the congressional pissing contest over spending for a fiscal year that is already half over.  Then I worked Saturday night. And Sunday morning. And Sunday night. 

And lo, I was cranky.

Monday had a moment of brightness: I took the Young Prince to open a savings account and he actually seemed to grasp the concept. I asked what he was going to save up for. He said he wasn't sure, but he had 10 years to decide. The bank lady suggested a car. I suggested college.  The YP said, "Hm. Maybe both.  A hybrid car so I can save money on gas and a college close to here so I can come home and eat."  It's almost like he has been listening to us over time.

Tuesday was the usual whirlwind of school/drama class/swim lessons/home just in time to eat and go to bed. There was also a bit of angst because the YP decided he was empowered to argue with his teacher about fractions.  That does not fly, and he was set straight with absolutely no room for argument -- with his teacher or his mother.

Wednesday I got up at 4:30, did my morning obligations for my job, and raced out the door at 7:10 a.m. to chaperone a field trip to the science museum in Richmond -- arriving at 7:30 to catch charter buses that didn't actually leave until about 8:45. It was a lot of fun, and the YP and I had a pretty good time. He loved the exhibits, he stayed with me and rode herd on his two little friends,  and all was ginger-peachy until the last 20 minutes or so of the (two-hour, one-way) bus ride, at which point I think The Tired hit both of us, which manifested in him getting mouthy and me getting impatient. Yet we both kept it fairly contained til we got to our own car, at which point all hell broke loose and the boy was very nearly tossed back out to walk home.  As penance, he did two hours of math homework -- more or less unbidden; I'd simply told him he could figure out a way to make it up or he could go straight to bed.  Instead he spent two hours working on double-digit subtraction.  So ... yay?

And Thursday, of course, he came home with a note that he'd behaved beautifully. This pattern, it never ends. Fortunately, next week is spring break, so we can all sort of regroup. I'll have more time to focus on how to get the best out of him, and he'll have more time to show me his best.

Meanwhile, I have also been going through my office and packing it up for the umpteenth time in this job, as we are moving again. 

When I was pregnant, my company had signed the papers to move out of an office down the street from where we are now. I packed up my boxes, went on maternity leave, and two months later I went back to work with a relatively new baby/company mascot and a brand-new desk in a brand-new building that shaved three blocks off my commute. Since then, I have changed desks three times, moved down a floor and into an office, then up a floor and into another office.  And now we are moving to a new building, closer to the Capitol, smushing in with all the employees from both branches of our outfit, with all this Change to process.  New commute, new parking rules, new place to sit, new floorplan, new neighborhood.

I should be excited.  Frankly, I'm just wiped the hell out.

Which is kind of weird, because life in general is a lot less complicated than the last time my office moved. Heck, I've even got slave labor to carry assorted boxes up to my new digs -- even if he is a rather short and scatterbrained slave.

So Monday, the Blogger family is reverting to an old tradition and piling into the car and heading into the city as a unit. Not Your Average Blogger will fix up his new space -- a window seat! -- and the YP and I will set about organizing my space, then we will all head over to the Capitol complex for our annual visit: NYAB and I will get updated press passes; we will visit my favorite building; we will probably wolf down some lunch. Then we will head back to work, where I will read copy and the kid will work on his fractions.Without arguing.

On top of all this, I am mulling the idea of churning out 100 or so jars of jelly to sell at a library fundraiser thingie. The deal is I pay $50 to the fundraiser for table space, then I get to keep whatever money I make selling stuff. I figured I have to sell 25 jars to make up the cost of the table, so anything beyond that is good news for me.

And yet ... didn't I just say I was exhausted? Why am I thinking like this? A new swing and deck stand arrived yesterday that I could put together instead and just laze on for the whole rest of the summer. How come that isn't at the top of my list?