Month: March 2006

Howard pondering aloud the evening’s proposed entertainment:

“I think I’d like to crash a few cars before we Throw Momma from the Train.”

Monday is my day for accounting. I pay bills, reconcile statements, enter reciepts, and all sorts of other number matching and account keeping activities. I do this for both the business and the family budget. I graduated with a BA in humanities. Math was my least favorite subject all the way through school and I haven’t had any formal mathematical education since halfway through my senior year of high school. If someone had told my 17 year old self that I would enjoy accounting, I would have laughed.

I probably wouldn’t enjoy being a professional accountant, but I do enjoy doing the family and business accounts. I love making all the numbers match and categorizing all the expenses. I love walking into the CPA’s office with the right tax reports and reciepts. Budgeting is satisfying because there are categories for all the spending and all I have to do is make sure that we don’t over spend in any of the categories. Or if we do I make sure that we shift money from other categories to make up for the overage. I love the fact that it all stays exactly where I put it from one week to the next. It isn’t like dishes or housework that gets undone the moment my back is turned.

Not everyone feels this way about accounting. They face paying bills and managing budget with a dread that borders on fear. I can understand that because when I first began learning how to manage accounts I felt some of that dread. I was always afraid that I was doing things wrong and that the sinister IRS would swoop down upon me and tell me that I had accrued a bill so large that they were going to auction off the house to pay for it. I can’t say when I stopped fearing the IRS. It was probably sometime after the second or third time that a CPA commented positively on the organization of my accounts and reports. At some point I realized that I was good at small business and family accounting. It is nice to have something I can point to and say “I’m good at that.” It is also nice to realize that I have a set of skills that would quickly land me a job in a workplace if I chose to seek one.

With the upcoming release of Schlock book 1, the business accounting is about to get more complex. I’m relishing the coming challenge. I’m not relishing the wait until the challenge arrives. I feel like Inigo at the top of the cliff while the man in black climbs from below.
“I hate waiting.”

Hey lookit that. I survived last week. Next week has no major events in it, just the normal accumulation of minor events, so hopefully life won’t feel so crazy.

When life gets really busy I don’t take time out to write journal entries. But this does not mean that I stop collecting things that I want to write about. Instead the ideas sit in my brain taking up space and adding to the general clutter which impedes clear thought. I’m going to try to work my way through some of this backlog. Some of the thoughts really need entries of their own, but some don’t and so I’m throwing them into a pile here. Feel free to pick through and see if anything interests you.

I saw an interview with Geena Davis where she was talking about the organization she’s founded called See Jane (www.seejane.org). This organization was founded because of a study. The study showed that in G rated programming 3/4 of all characters are male. It didn’t matter if they were counting speaking parts, appearances, or just people in crowds 3/4 of them were male. There were a few shows/movies that were gender balanced, but by far most were not. See Jane’s goal is not the have a crusade demanding rectification of this, instead their goal is to make people aware of this. They particularly want parents to be aware so they can discuss with their kids the unspoken messages that this imbalance may send. I’m all in favor of parents discussing values with their kids, so I’m impressed with See Jane and Geena Davis.

The other day a friend was picking up her daughter from my house and let me know that there was a fantastic sale on cold cereal, poptarts, and juice boxes at a local store. I thanked her and appreciated the thought, but I did not hop into the car to take advantage of the savings. For me those items are pure luxury. We don’t need them, they aren’t really good for us, so no matter how cheap they get, I won’t be buying them. I remember when I did buy convenience foods like those all the time. I also remember when my grocery budget was three times larger than it is now. Advertising works folks. The number of ‘essentials’ continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Honest, it is possible to feed kids without buying juiceboxes or snackpacks.

A conversation in the car:
Gleek: (trying to come to grips with possible futures) “When I turn into a mom, you’ll turn into a grandma.”
Me: “That’s right.”
G: “When I turen into a grandma, our grandma will be dead.”
M: “Probably”
Patches: (Trying to join what he percieved to be a game) “I turn into a puppy!”
G: “No! You’ll turn into a grandpa!”
P: “No! I be a puppy!”
G: “No!”
P: “Yes!”
G: “We don’t turn into puppies!”
P: (trying to make peace) “When I’m older I’ll turn into a puppy.”

I’m still not very impressed with the organization of our local soccer leage. After cancelling games 3 times in a row we finally had our first game today. Only they sent us to the wrong field and two people were under the impression it was their turn to bring treats. Link had fun, which is the important bit. Even better he actually got into the middle of the action rather than hanging around the edges. I saw him make a few really good kicks. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to score a goal at least once before the season is over.

When Howard is gone I have a hard time going to bed. I keep finding ways to distract myself from crawling into bed without him. This means I was sleep deprived today. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that I shorted myself on sleep all week long. And with the evening activities the kids were short on sleep as well. It was most obvious with Gleek who went ballistic with every small irritation. When Gleek is that cranky I need to be at my best to try to prevent conflict. That wasn’t happening today. Fortunately the kids spent the majority of today outside. This means that they were thoroughly worn out and dropped off to sleep without arguement. So now I just need to make myself go to sleep on time and tomorrow can be a much more peaceful day.

Soccer leagues should not schedule, cancel, and reschedule games three times in a row. They should not do this the night before the game and then leave messages on answering machines. I should be more conscientous about checking voicemail, particularly when the existence of a message is brought to my attention.

Gleek should not be allowed to answer the phone. She particularly needs to not pick up the phone and hang up on Howard when he is at the soccer field with Link and a cooler full of treats trying to figure out where everyone else is. She needs to not do this when I’m at a meeting with Link’s teacher and she is supposed to be playing in the backyard under the supervision of my neighbor. Even more important, after hanging up on her daddy, she needs to NOT turn off the ringer on the phone so that Howard calls repeatedly and recieves no answer even though I’ve arrived back at home.

This series of errors only came to my attention when Howard came storming in furious at spending hours buying treats and hanging around the soccer field waiting for people who never showed up. The bright spot in all this is that the cancellation of the game allowed the entire family to attend Kiki’s big presentation. That was a joy for her.

I was at Link’s school today and I noticed a vending machine in the hallway. My first thought was frustration that they were making treat food so readily available to gradeschool kids. Then I got closer to the machine and realized that it was full of books. Yes books. For $3 or less kids could buy popular/trendy children’s titles. I love that idea. I wish more places had book vending machines.

If I’d thought about it in advance I would never have picked this week to turn over a new leaf in childcare and housekeeping. But the leaf needed to be turned and in fact will probably save my sanity this week. I cannot possibly handle this many large projects without being more focused and organized than I have been recently.

Major events this week:
Soccer season begins— for the next 5 weeks I’ll be ferrying Link to practices and games thrice per week.
cub scout space derby— they handed out the rocket kit a month ago. We were supposed to be working on it carefully to create the perfect rubber band rocket. We opened the box this evening so now we have construction and painting and sanding to do. Howard said he’d help with this, which is good because I’m in a “get it done” mood rather than an “enjoy the process” mood.
preschool at my house— this happens every five weeks, so it isn’t new. I just wish it didn’t coincide with everything else. At least I don’t have to juggle NotMyBaby during preschool anymore.
dance lesson registration— this will be Gleek’s second dance lesson and the first where I have to register her and plunk down money. Not a big stress, but one more thing to do.
Meeting with Link’s teacher– Nothing major, but I wish it weren’t this week.
Images of Greatness— this is Kiki’s presentation on Thursday night that is a culmination of two months of projects. When this huge project was handed out I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. She had to create a poster, write a 7 paragraph essay, write a poetry riddle, create an issue of time magazine with multiple articles, create a poster size venn diagram, find and mount 4 math poems, write a journal as if it were written by her chosen mathemetician, create a display with all of these things on it, and do a memorized presentation. We’re down to the wire and significant pieces are still yet to be done.
drama, knitting, first aid— these are all afternoon activities that Kiki attends this week. None of them require much from me other than picking her up at a different time, but they do use up time that won’t be available for frantically finishing images of greatness.
potty training— I’m not stressing this right now, but I need to not let it go completely either.
Howard leaves for a convention— On Friday Howard has to leave for a convention appearance. Between now and then I need to catch up on all the laundry, help him organize his portfolios of art for sale, and help him pack.

And when all of that is done I need to not fall into a pit of introversion where I ignore house and family until the chaos reaches levels beyond any sane person’s tolerance.

The good news is that because of my leaf turning, today has been a good day and I feel like I can actually juggle all of these things.

Why is it that the kids always run through the house like howler monkeys just when I’m tired and cross? Usually this event occurs right at homework time or bedtime. The activities include couch acrobatics, pillow fights, poking with pencils, stealing of blankies, giggling, shrieking, running, thumping, thrown water, and door slamming. It always always always ends up with someone crying. Tonight Link ended up in tears because Gleek sprayed him in the face with cleaning solution. On purpose. Fortunately the solution in question is no more dangerous than shampoo, but about as painful.

The only way to stop possession by howler monkeys is to sequester the children into separate rooms. Unfortunately each child has to be corralled and sequestered individually rather than en masse. So while I’m changing howler-possessed Patches into pajamas and plunking him into bed, howler possessed Kiki, Link, and Gleek run amok. Hence the spraying with cleaning solution.

Fortunately for my nerves tonight, the Cleaning Solution Incident seemed to banish the howler monkeys. Snack and bed were able to follow in relative peace.

When I am on the ball I can usually prevent Howler Monkey Possession. I have to be one step ahead of the kids all evening to manage it. I have to have dinner ready before they realize they are hungry. I have to have homework ready to go before they are done with dinner. I have to have an activity ready for Gleek so that she doesn’t go howler while I’m putting Patches to bed. I have to separate Kiki’s homework space from Link’s so that they don’t go howler while I’m putting little kids to bed. If I fumble any of these steps, one child will prod another and I’ll have a cascading possesion on my hands. This of course answers my question. They go howler when I’m tired and cross because my tiredness prevented me from staying one step ahead.

We’ve had lots of howler evenings lately. My brain has been so tied up preparing to mail books and figuring out courses of action based on numbers of books sold, that I haven’t been paying much attention to the kids. They like this because they get to play during times I should be making them work. Unfortunately the work piles up rather than going away. Then we all end up cranky, in a messy house, with hours of homework to do, and dinner not ready yet.

Sometimes the kids get wired this way on evenings when the house is clean and I don’t feel stressed. I kind of enjoy the howlers on those evenings. I remember nighttime romps with my brothers and sisters. We’d all be in our pajamas and my older siblings would actually play with the littler ones, something they frequently distained to do during the day. Those romps lie golden in my memory. I’m glad that my kids are building a similar pattern of memories. But I’d be gladder if there was more clean house romping and less Invasion of the Howler Monkeys.

Yesterday Howard was named “The coolest family dude in webcomics” by Peter Hayward of Weekly Webcomic Reviews http://www.thechainsawblokes.com/wwr/?p=38 This was information I already knew. I’m getting pretty used to Howard recieving accolades of one kind or another. I happen to know that he deserves them because I know how hard he works and how hard he is on himself because he never feels like he is working hard enough. In this case the accolades are a little different because Hayward doesn’t read Schlock Mercenary at all. He reads Howard’s livejournal and enjoys it, but apparently he reads this journal even more avidly. He had some very nice things to say about my writing. In fact Howard has to share his award with me. This isn’t a problem since we share most things anyway. (Except for his computer, car, and ipod those belong to him.)

I read this review late last night when I was too tired to put coherent words together. Then this morning was slurped into the black hole known as “preschool field trip.” Once I arrived back home and shuffled the children off to play, I sat down and scanned through my recent entries trying to figure out what exactly it was about my writing that Hayward likes enough that he’s trying to send masses of people to read my entries about potty training or dance lessons. I had to fight back an impulse to try to write something particularly entertaining to validate Hayward’s theory that my journal is worth reading. It was a pretty easy fight to win, because the truth is that this journal is primarily for me, not because I want to gain an audience. I know lots of ways that I could drive more traffic to my journal, but I don’t really want the word “traffic” associated with it. Drive by traffic sometimes throws rocks. Everyone who is here wended their way here through a personal connection of some kind. It is a filtering process of sorts and the people who are interested in the kinds of things I have to say will stick around to read and comment.

I love having people read my entries and respond. I love when a response gives me new thoughts on the subject du jour. I love having people comment on my writing or tell me stories about their own lives. I love the way this journal allows me to connect to people with whom I never would have expected to connect. I began this journal as a way to write entertaining/interesting entries so that years from now I could cruise through my journal archives and remember what life was like today. It still serves that purpose, but it provides much more than that. The unexpected gift of this journal has been a personal renaissance. Because of this journal I began writing regularly. Because of the online friendships that have developed, I’ve grown into a stronger and more confident person. I gain far more from this journal and the people who respond to it, than I put into it.

So a big “Thank You” goes to Mr. Hayward for his kind words. I’ll add “Welcome” to anyone new who has wandered here and decided to stick around for awhile.

I spoke with my sister-in-law today and she agreed to watch my kids for 4 days. This means I’ll get to attend Conduit with Howard. I’m really looking forward to it, although coming home at night to an empty house will be a little strange. Being able to attend Conduit is pretty critical this year because for the first time, we’ll have books to sell. I’m also looking forward to being able to attend panels and visit with adults and spend time with Howard. At the end of the weekend I expect to be exhausted and hopefully ready to go back to mommying again.