Don't Kid Yourself

...being a mom is a big job. Being an interactive mom is a Full Time job. I am not an especially interactive mom because as I just said, it takes a ton of work. Consequently my children are fairly adept at entertaining themselves...which by the way I believe is an essential skill.

Tinker is sick and has been sick for the past three days. The kind of sickness she has would knock me on my a** and I'd be in bed asleep. If I keep the pain meds coming for her sore throat (she has croup) and a bit for her cough so it doesn't make her sore throat worse, she's being pretty normally active which means she wants to play with friends. I can't find anybody who wants to come over and catch croup from her, so we're on our own (Rachel: this is Charly's official invite :D).  I'm home from work for the the 3rd day in a row and although I'm not necessarily bored, mainly because I don't know the meaning of the word, I have extra time on my hands. I'm feeling bad for her because she's sick and bored so I'm trying to entertain her by playing games with her and helping her with crafts.  This is where this post is headed though...crafts for preschoolers.

HELL. O!  I have spent the better part of 3 days printing, cutting, in short...PREPARING crafts for her little hands to do.  I have cut fabric, riffled through my stickers, scrapbooks, reorganized my miscellaneous craft box looking for pom pons, printed and cut out cardboard glasses, set up and re-moistened watercolors, pulled out and organized beans, macaroni, and an assortment of fall craftable knick knacks.  I am a flurry of preparatory activity to the point that my house is a total wreck, dinner was a joke last night, the dishes are stacking up and my laundry is like, "dude, where'd you go woman?"  But Tink is happily away "doing something fun" while I am her slave to her Pinterest whim. Yes, thank you Pinterest for providing the fuel to our imaginations because otherwise, not only would I be PREPARING, I'd also be LOOKING FOR IDEAS.

This is exactly why I sort of resist entertaining my kids all of the time. All they understand is that they get to do a super fun activity. And the whole time they're following me around the house as I pull all the supplies together, they're driving me crazy because they don't get that it takes me like 3x longer to do THAT part, then it does for them to actually DO the activity. 

Now, maybe while she's still working on these glasses, I'll get the dishes done. MAYBE.

Fall Gardening Creates Less Spring Gardening...It's The Truth

It's the last thing you want to do people. The Last. Summer's over, you're depressed. The fun annual colors are dead, your veggie garden is dead. All the fruit is off the trees and leaves are falling creating a depressing  mess in your flower gardens.  But look on the bright side! All those hours you spent slaving away in the 100 degree weather are over!  Now you can slave away in the cool weather and not feel like you've sweated out every extra molecule of moisture in your body!

I do not love the hot summer days. During those days, I sadly watch my garden grow weeds and deteriorate because in the past few years, my body has grown a strict intolerance to heat above 80 degrees.  It's awful because even when it's evening, I still can't tolerate the heat so my gardens really suffer.  Now however, the weather is perfect for some serious gardening and my body loves it.

Today, I did a major cut back, clean out of my front garden. Cut down all the irisis, weeded like crazy, cleaned out all the leaves, cut back the phlox and basically got that beautiful bed ready for snow.  And, when the snow clears and the spring plants start coming up, I will just have to stand back and watch them come. There is literally no spring cleaning needing to be done out there besides my February rose pruning.

I used to save all of my Fall work for the big Spring cleanup and it was such a mess. All the dead smushed leaves, cutting back last year's perennials etc. Such a mess and a huge drag when all I really want to do is watch the bulbs come up.  I've learned in the past couple years that once most of the leaves fall, there's no reason why you can't clean them out, cut back all the perennials (mulch them a bit if you're worried they are too tender) and then sit back and wait for the snow.

Today, my little 4 year old buddy helped me plant over 100 bulbs in my garden right outside my front door. I showed her how to plant daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and crocus.  I also put a few daffodils and tulips up in the front garden, a task I have been wanting to do since I moved here 8 years ago. Perhaps I will do a few more every year - there were some distinct holes.

I'm feeling very optimistic about Spring also. I have big plans for my garden directly under my front window. I've been letting it go these past few years and it needs a big overhaul. I have some good ideas now and have gotten a little more organized wrapping my head around what needs to be done there in the Spring.  Super excited!  Even got my 2014 vegetable garden laid out and organized last night in preparation for the Spring.  I have never been this motivated in the Fall for the next year.

BTW, today's big job outside would not have come to pass if I hadn't been so organized with my awesome app mentioned in my previous post. 

Getting Organized

I have this app on my iPad that syncs with my phone. It is simply an amazing app. I've been using it for a long time for my calendar because it has some awesome features. It also has my contacts and my tasks. I wanted a smaller version of Outlook (like on my computer) and I found it. But the tasks never worked for me. I'm an old Franklin Covey girl and still break down my goals and tasks in that way in my mind. I want them to work for me the way they did back when I carried that ridiculously bulky planner. 

Now, I have Pocket Informant Pro. A mighty powerhouse of an app that until recently I wasn't even utilizing to its fullest capacity and that's saying a lot because I hold this app to a very high standard with my crazy busy schedule for work, home, church etc.

I found the pdf manual about two weeks ago and spend an afternoon reading the whole thing. I wanted to get a full grasp on hows the task feature could really work for me. And boy did I ever learn a lot.

I am now so amazingly organized I scare myself. Like organized similar to the insanely over-the-top way I was back in graduate school (I got teased but I was secretly proud to receive it). This app can create projects - like "Spring Gardening Work" and then each task you want to do in that area will be joined and scheduled. THEN to make it better, if there are places that certain tasks need to be done...like you need to buy manure at the nursery but pots at Smiths, you use "contexts" with names like "Nursery" or "Smith's" and then every task, regardless of the project, that needs to be completed at Smith's, will show up in the Smith's list .... when you get to Smith's, just open up that list and do all the shopping for every task that you assigned that context. I now have contexts for each child, stuff to do at my computer desk, in the kitchen, Costco, local errands, Salt Lake errands, the list goes on and on and on.  Being able to date-assign the tasks also will make them pop up appropriately instead of just create this never-ending list.  I have a TON of tasks but they are all delightfully organized and will poke me at the necessary time. No more stressing about all the stuff I need to do. I have it managed.

Ta-da!

You guys. If you use an iPhone, Droid, iPad (and a few other devices but IDK because I'm an apple girl), then you really should look at this app.  I am so in love with it. I have literally never felt so organized as a mother.

I Dropped My iPad in a Bathtub Full of Water

So many people post random things on the internet that other people find especially useful. I always wonder what inspires them to even post that stuff and then I wonder why I am such an information sponge...never giving back to the information superhighway.  Here. I am going to give back right now.

So here's stupid me, sitting next to my patient who is merrily taking a bath. I suppose that sounds like a strange job but hey, it's a  paycheck, right?  I'm working on my iPad in my lap when it neatly slips off my lap, slides down my legs and fully submerges itself alongside my patient's naked body.  Nice.

I instantly plunge my hands in and snatch my iPad quicker probably than I would have if an infant child had fallen in.  I had a moment to recognize that it was still on as I leaned over the edge to reach in and get it out.

I pull it out and as I grab the first dry towel I see, I again notice that it is responding to my touch. It is still on. I'm still hyperventilating too much to fully grasp that it is still on after submerging itself in water (ok, it didn't submerge itself...I submerged itself with my stupidity).  I dry the iPad off completely and then look at it not really sure what to do. So I turn it off.  From experience only do I know that water and electronics do not mix. I didn't want any random app to cause my iPad to do some alert that would fry its internal workings.

I had to finish my work day so I just put it in my bag. When I got home I put it in a gallon sized zip lock bag full of rice and left it until noon the next day. Overall it spent about 18 hours in rice.

When I got the iPad out of the rice, I blew all of the rice particles out with compressed canned air. Then I turned it on. It took a long time on the screen with the grey apple but eventually it went away and it came just fine. A few days later, I see no residual deficits from the incident. And I'm amazed. Such I guess is my luck.

Bugs On A Bike

Growing up, 6th grade was the only year I lived within a short enough distance to ride my bike to school. I lived in Southern California, a much different place than it is now from what I'm told. I walked the mile to and from school by myself in an area now that I'm told "a white girl don't wanna show her face, girl!" I would have ridden my bike but we were poo' folk and the only bike I had access to was a huge men's ten speed that was so big I had to jump off of it in order to stop. I was too short to even straddle it. 

For every other grade, I had to take the bus, sometimes great distances. In Maryland, although distance is exaggerated in youth, I think it was 7-10 miles away, most of that freeway. In junior high in California, I was bussed to an inner-city school for program where they try to assimilate the races. It was about 20 miles away but all my friends were bussed on the same bus so it just a big happy hour for us. Free of adults and responsibilities...I remember those days.

High school again, although it wasn't cool enough to ride the bus, still I lived 7 miles from my school and never had a car so if nobody thought me worthy to pick me up, I was riding the bus. I certainly didn't ride my bike or walk.

My small family now lives about a block from the elementary school. There are lots of crossing guards, sidewalks and safe routes to get to the school. I let Bugs walk home from school every day and she usually finds friends to walk with.  She is in 3rd grade now and today, for the first time has asked me if she can ride her bike to school.  The mother hen in me shrieks. Her route will have to be different than that of walking, giving her more exposure to crazy people and texters. I worry so much that one of my most valued possessions won't return home to me at the end of the day.

Of course I said yes, however. Teaching children independence and responsibility will be stunted if I show her I don't trust and believe in her. She's my responsible child and will listen to instructions and do what I say. I taught her about locking it up, and using her helmet and we went over the route again. I feel this is a new beginning but I'm so glad that we live in a place that I can offer her this little bit of independence and not feel I'm compromising.  I'm sure she'll be fine but it's amazing all the ways that a mother can worry!