The Working Mom

Life is seriously kicking my butt right now. There was the pre-vacation work panic, the vacation “I refuse to turn on the computer except to play facebook games”, and now the post vacation work panic. There’s actually posts floating around in my head.

There’s a post about how I skied last week – Sometimes ok, sometimes not ok. Sam crashed into me once and I fell. And cried. I thought about quitting. Then I didn’t and I went back for more punishment on the slopes. Now I want to go back for another lesson now that I have in my mind what I need to improve on (aside from steering clear away from Sam when he skis!!) FYI – he’s a bit of a daredevil – skiing backwards, through woods, etc. My daughter too. Oy.

There’s a post about some cool iPhone apps. That one I will definitely be making.

There’s another post about some cool products I have – I even have a giveaway to uhm… give away. Yeah. Words aren’t working for me at the moment.

There’s a post about how work is great, I’m not even advertising, but still people are finding me. In fact I think I may have too much work on my plate. (Maybe I need to charge more?? Or will that scare too many people away? LOL)

There’s a post about how despite all the exercising and dieting I’m a bit discouraged with my appearance at the moment and am tentatively investigating… something. Surgery? Tummy tuck? Mini tummy tuck? Laser something? I don’t know. Between kids and weight loss, I have… skin. How do you loose skin? It’s not fun, and it’s not really all that fair. (I know, life isn’t fair. I’m nearly 40. Maybe I should give up my dreams of wearing a bikini. I never have – I guess I never will) The cost is kind of prohibitive from what I’ve been able to gather – and really ANY cost seems so vain. The whole thing is so vain. I have a voice in my head that yells at me for even thinking about spending money on something so selfish. The money should either go towards my kids education or retirement. Anyway… I’m still looking.

That’s all there’s time for now. More to come once I dig out…

When it became clear that the iPad was going to be the new product launched in January by Apple, my first reaction wasn’t excitement. But at the same time, it took me over a year before I got the whole iPhone thing. Obviously, we know how that worked out seeing how I have a huge selection of posts on this blog reviewing iPhone apps. I know they say that necessity is the mother of invention, but sometimes it seems like Apple has managed to reverse that equation. They seem to be really good at inventing a product that solves a problem I never even knew I had.

So the iPad – I was extremely surprised at the price – I had originally been thinking like most others, that a product like that would have been closer to the $1000 range. That would have completely put it out of the range of my even thinking about buying it (which was why I wasn’t terribly interested in it to start). But since the “entry” price into an iPad is much lower than I expected, suddenly I start to wonder, Would I buy one? What and how would I use it? Do I need one?

And here comes in the problem that I never knew existed. When we watch TV, I almost always have my iPhone with me because I check email compulsively. When I need to respond, a quick reply it’s fine, but when a longer response is needed, I need to head over to the computer. I also like to be able to look up things online sometimes while we’re watching. Maybe it’s because there’s an actor we see that I’m trying to remember what other shows have we seen them in. Or there’s a product or website that’s talked about and I want to immediately check it out or bookmark it. Or I could just be multi-tasking. Browsing the web, reading blogs, playing on twitter, while also watching TV. Or even away from the TV, just around the house, I’ll have my phone with me to look things up online, check the hours of a store, or make notes about what I need to do the next day, etc. The iPhone can work for some of this, but it’s not the most convenient because of its size. The laptop is just a little overkill for this, but does do the job. However, something in between is probably even better. Enter an iPad.

It makes me wonder if they specifically announce these products before they’re actually available so that people can spend the next few months doing exactly what I did. Putting the pieces together and realizing that actually a product like that would in fact be pretty useful and cool.

I’m not saying that I’m going to run out on day one and buy one. But I have to admit, that while I didn’t before, I do see one in my future at some point. The issue with Flash does bother me. (One of the other things I like doing while multi-tasking is playing games on Facebook – most of which are run via Flash) I also kind of wish the iPad had a camera. (I’ve had the same complaint about the iTouch and that is the main reason why I haven’t bought one for my daughter. I’m still kind of hoping the will eventually, and when they do, THEN I’ll buy it. But I’m not interested in investing the money in an iTouch when I think at some point they will add a camera) I am glad to see they made the 3G an OPTION. Being that I am the biggest home-body, I would probably get the 3G model but not sign up for the plan right away until I saw how and where I was actually using it. If I used it, as I expect to, mostly at home where wifi was available – then I don’t really need that 3G as much as I thought. (But I’d still probably get it with the capability in case that ever changed…)

As for the name – yeah, even I got a chuckle out of it, but I think in general people will get over the silly side of the name and move on. It’s not like the word “pad” is only used for one meaning. Certainly, as names go, iPod is probably more silly. So I don’t think this will really have any long term negative effects on the product itself.

(Side note: I have a list of iPhone apps I’ve recently purchased and have been playing with, so stay tuned, I’ll have tons of that stuff to talk about soon – in the meantime, I leave you with another installment of my learn-to-ski saga)

So back to the slopes we went this weekend. I probably would have preferred to either take a break for at least a week after last weekend’s fiasco (and the fact that the Sundance Film Festival is going on right now up there), but I kind of had to go. I had filled out a customer comment form on the resort’s website and told them about the various problems I’d had – the first lesson, with all the equipment issues I had, then of course was last weekend where the class had been much more advanced than I had wanted. I got a call from the director of skier services and we talked a bit about how the classes are supposed to be run – obviously there was some miscommunication that landed me in the class I ended up in. He promised to have my favorite instructor be the one teaching the class I needed for the following Sunday if I came back to give it another try. So I had to go.

That instructor is a ski-goddess. I love her. I really do. If you are in the area (Park City, UT), (and especially if you are new to skiing and want to learn) and want to take a lesson with the most awesome instructor that ever was – let me know and I will give you her contact info. She has just the right balance of understanding my fears, but also getting me over them so I can progress. I never feel like she’s talking “down” to me, and even when I’m trying to deal with a kind of silly fear (like my panic attack on the chair lift) she never made me feel bad about it, but still got me totally over it.

So the class started off on the bunny slopes I was comfortable with. She gave us a few little pointers to improve what we were doing, then up to the big slope we went. The same one I was “Yard Sale-ing” on last week. (I was told by a friend that it is passe to call it “face plants” – and that the cool kids call it a yard sale. This totally baffled me why someone would call it a yard sale until I saw this video. Then I understood… Ah… they call it a yard sale because your gear goes in all directions all over the mountain like you’re having a yard sale. LOL! Got it.) Before going up, she looked at me to make sure I was ok with the idea LOL! I told her I trusted her, and I totally do. If she thought I could do it, then I believed her.

I’m sure that part of the problem last week was it was really new territory for me and I just didn’t have the same kind of confidence in that instructor that I do in this one. But also, I knew that if I started to have problems, she would be right there to help me out.

Ironically, this time, I had no trouble on the run. I didn’t fall once. I didn’t lose control once. I joked with the instructor that now she’s in for it, because I think I just need her to be my personal lifelong ski coach. LOL! I will admit that I was still quite a bit nervous and I have this little mantra going in my head. It’s totally ridiculous, but it does help. When I start to get a little nervous, I just say over and over in my head “You can ski! You can ski! You KNOW how to do this!” LOL! Like I have to convince myself I know what I’m doing. But you know what, as soon as the mantra in my head starts, I start to ski better.

The run we did was about 3-1/2 miles I think, but part of it we did twice, so it ended up being about 5 miles. Downhill. No falls. I DID IT!

So now I think I’m done with the lessons for awhile and will probably just be sking this run (a green run) and maybe a few other green runs they have at the resort. I’m skiing now at the level I wanted to be at – so now it’s just doing it over and over again until I feel really strong on it.

Meanwhile, Rachel was skiing blue runs in her class (kids learn so easily. It’s so not fair. LOL!) And Zach also was really improving. We put him in their all day program and he had a blast. The instructor was really impressed with how well he’s picking this up. He said he was listening really well (that alone is impressive!! LOL!).

Not sure if we’ll get up there next weekend. The Sundance film festival is still going on, but by getting there early we didn’t have trouble getting parking at the resort. Sam is on call with work, so he can’t be away from the computer for the whole day like that. But Rachel and I might go up just ourselves. Now that I can do that green run, I know she won’t be overly bored with skiing with me.

On Saturday I went back to give the skiing another shot. I figured, with my level of discomfort and fear of the whole thing I was probably better off getting a private lesson, just to get over that hump and feel more comfortable. That is exactly what I got.

Talk about being out of my comfort zone – I went up there by myself feeling totally scared. The last time I went it wasn’t the most fun. But at least I’d had a friend with me. This time I was totally on my own. At least I already knew the instructor (I had requested the one from the last lesson) and knew she was a lot of fun and very patient. But even she said that she had been surprised (but really happy) that I’d come back. After the last time, she would have expected me to throw in the towel and said to hell with it. But I didn’t feel the last time gave me a fair assessment of the sport. It had been snowing, my equipment sucked. Not a good way to start.

Despite it all, by the end of the lesson she had me turning back and forth down the hill to control my speed; we moved from the very very easy hill to a more steeper one. I was able to navigate around people in front of me. I actually only fell once the whole time – and even then I sort of did it on purpose because I wasn’t slowing down enough and I wanted to stop. After that, I was getting better at controlling my speed so I didn’t need to just bail like that to come to a stop. And the best part, I was really starting to have fun. When we went down the steeper hill, I really felt like I had gotten it. She was really happy with the amount of improvement I’d been able to do.

And now? I can’t wait to go back. I’ve been thinking about the whole experience all day – I’ll probably be on the mountain in my mind all week. Next weekend we’ll all go up. I’m going to do a group lesson (now at least, I feel like I won’t be holding anyone up), Rachel will do a lesson too. And we’ll try to sign Zach up for an afternoon lesson. Sam will probably just be on hand for Zach’s lesson since his and Rachel’s lesson would end an hour before mine does, as well, this will be the first time we put Zach on skis so we have no idea how he’ll react. My instructor said that probably one more (group) lesson and I should be good to do some green runs on my own outside of a lesson.

Aside from wanting to learn, I was really hoping that this would be something that we could do together as a family and it’s starting to look like we just might be able to do that. That it can be something that we all enjoy doing together.

I’m also still on a high because for years, I have had a pretty strong fear of skiing. I really didn’t know if it was something I was going to be able to do. I’m not exactly very athletically inclined. (Understatement of the year) I had always imagined myself getting on skis, not being able to control my speed and just hurdling down the mountain without breaks. So doing this; getting to the point of actually feeling comfortable on the skis; getting to the point of not being afraid – and in fact ENJOYING it. I feel like a faced and conquered a fear. It’s extremely empowering. I can’t wait to get back on the mountain again.

So I had my first ski lesson on Sunday. An adventure from beginning to end. The day begin with a massive snow storm. That would have ended the trip right then and there if it wasn’t for the fact that my friend who was taking the lesson with me had 4-wheel drive. (My little mini-van doesn’t do so well in snow). So we made it up the mountain, although it did take quite a bit longer than we had planned for. We got checked in, and fitted for the rental equipment.

Lesson 1 for the day: Even if the high school student working behind the counter says you don’t need to, and that it will be fine – make sure the boots fit into the skis they give you.

After getting checked in and getting our equipment we had just enough time for a quick bite for lunch before meeting up with the instructor. We set our skis outside the restaurant – I even made the comment “You mean, people just leave the ski equipment out here?? Nothing gets stolen??” My friend made the comment that we had rental equipment… True – if someone was going to walk off with equipment, I’m sure there was a better selection of items to chose from.

We then go to meet up with the instructor. First lesson… how to clear off snow from your ski boot – and get it into the ski. Ah yes, that’s when we realize my boot does not actually FIT into the ski!! At first we thought maybe someone had switched equipment on me, but no… after some back and forth – we finally got the skis fitting. Lots of wasted time there.

Then it was time to ski… sort of. I thought with skis on you were supposed to… I don’t know… move? I had to do a lot of pushing with my poles to move. The only time I would really start to go was if the hill got significantly steep. There were several points to the day that I just could not get moving, I was holding the class up, and the instructor literally had to tow me down the hill. Seriously? Tow me DOWN a HILL when I’m wearing SKIS??

Lesson 2 for the day: Going forward – I’m going to make the rental place wax the skis right then and there. I’m not wasting this much time again on equipment FAILS.

Where the lesson was – there was no “magic carpet” (I still have no idea what that is), so we took the chair lift up. That’s probably the biggest thing I took away from the lesson: getting over my intense fear of the chair lift. I mean, aside from the height issue – which isn’t really like a “phobia of heights” or anything – just like, I’d rather be somewhere else kind of feeling… but the getting off, I was having a huge panic attack about how to get off the chair lift without it killing me. After about 3 times through, I got the basic idea. You’re supposed to just go straight off the chair lift – you will stop eventually because it’s really flat just after the lift, but if you try to wedge and stop too soon or use your poles, you’re going to screw up the people next to you – which is what the others in the class were doing to me! LOL! But the instructor saw what I was doing and said I did it the right way and would have gotten off cleanly otherwise.

I feel like I really only got a very limited amount of real SKI time – so I’m only slightly more comfortable with the idea than I was before going into it. It’s going to take a lot of practice I think before I feel even vaguely ok just going down the beginner slope. The other factor that doesn’t help is other skiers. The ones zooming past me. Granted, I know they probably have more control than I do – but I’m not going to bet money on it. So there’s a lingering fear of someone screaming up behind me and crashing into me – with my being able to do little or nothing at all to stop it or get out of the way.

On a positive note, however, I really liked the instructor. With the deal I got for this ski package – I can go up another 4 times this season with my rentals, lift tickets and group ski lesson all costing only $25 each time I go. Or I can opt to just use the lift ticket and rental, and buy a private lesson – which is what I might do, if I can swing it. If so, I’ll be requesting THAT particular instructor because she was awesome.

I’m frustrated that I didn’t end the day feeling more confident on skis. But I also accept the fact that will probably take a long time, and I wasn’t given a fair advantage with my equipment. But as frustrating as it was, I’m willing to give it a few more tries before I concede and say “This is NOT FOR ME.”

As you may or may not know, I live in Utah – supposedly home to some of the “best snow on earth.” I say supposedly because I really don’t know what that means. I mean, I live less than an hour away from Olympic-quality skiing, and yet I have never gone skiing in my life.

Well, that’s not entirely true… I did go snowboarding. Once. I actually went down the hill twice. The first time I’m not really sure how I made it down, but I know falling was frequently involved – and this was when we lived in Massachusetts – which is not home to the “best snow on earth” – unless snow is supposed to resemble ice. The second time we tried to go down the hill, the wind had picked up and was so strong, I couldn’t stand long enough to even fall down again. So I just sat on my board and slid down the hill because at that point I just wanted to go home.

With an experience like that, maybe it’s not a surprise that I haven’t exactly raced to the mountain to try my hand (feet?) at skiing. I’m told snowboarding is different and that skiing is easier, but as an outsider the fact that it’s one board vs two just seems like that just gives you more opportunity to break your legs or end up in a split.

Then there’s the whole concept of going down a hill without control and without breaks. I’m told there are ways to stop, but they don’t sound easy enough – at least without involving legs being twisted in ways they were never meant to be.

But since I am going insane, I signed up for skiing lessons. Well, that’s not the only reason I did it. My brother and his family are coming here for a ski vacation early next year and if I’d like to spend any time with them, I’m going to have to strap on some skis. We got a coupon in the mail that had a package deal for locals: a lift ticket, a group lesson, even equipment – all included in one ridiculously low price. There was simply no excuse. I even found a friend of mine who is also going insane and is willing to give it a try with me.

We will be falling down often – and thanks to my friend – laughing just as often too. But I’m not going to guarantee I won’t break a leg or that I will willingly go skiing again. LOL!

My parents headed back home this morning. It was great to see them and my mother cooked her standard fare for Thanksgiving (with some help from Rachel and I) We spent Saturday at the Treehouse Museum and Sunday at the Clark Planetarium. Both were fantastic. The Planetarium’s actual exhibits aren’t extensive (although what they do have is pretty cool), but their coolest feature is the dome and IMAX theatre. Free admission to shows in either theater for a year convinced us to buy a membership.

While they were here, my mom and I had a discussion about artwork. She’s been spending a lot of time creating water color paintings and was trying to encourage me to pick painting or drawing back up. I was saying how I think I hit my artistic peak just after college and really kind of dropped it after that. So she and I went out for art supplies. I didn’t want to get into the full expense of painting – I don’t have any of my old art supplies – so as a second choice, we picked up some water color pencils. I made two little “paintings” this weekend, and I really like the medium. It’s perfect for what my life is right now. It’s easy to clean up, it can be a fairly quick project. It’s flexible… I’ll have to update abovethefold.org with my paintings now.

Sam’s company recently switched up their health insurance offerings. Previously, we’ve stuck with the same plan or something similar for the last 5+ years. It was pretty straightforward, easy to understand. I was never happy with the insurance company itself, though. They seemed to reject claims on a regular basis without cause, you’d call them up and then they’d “realize their mistake” and pay for the claim. For the number of times this happened, I really became suspicious that they were just hoping you’d give up and pay the claim yourself rather than following up with them every single time. Sometimes it became tempting to do so, but I just couldn’t on principle – figuring that’s probably exactly what they wanted.

In any case, that plan is not even being offered anymore. The two choices we were given were another plan similar to what we had – but with a higher premium (and a smaller selection of doctors to chose from!) or one of these “Health Savings Account” (HSA). My first instinct was to turn down the HSA. I just couldn’t imagine how that could ever be better than the standard plan we were used to going with. But his company gave two key incentives: they gave you a credit in the HSA and the premium was quite a bit cheaper than the other plan. As well, the selection of doctors from the HSA was much wider.

So I figured, the best thing to do would be to run the numbers. First we calculated out how much it would cost if we went to the doctor’s 10x a year and then 20x a year. And in both cases the HSA was less expensive. So then I downloaded our actual claims for the past year. Figuring that we would probably be about the same. Meticulously combed through each claim and sorted them for how we would have been charged if we had been under each of the new plans. Again, the HSA ended up being cheaper. In truth – the difference between the two almost always equaled the delta of lower premium and that HSA credit the company gives. If it wasn’t for that – the two plans would have been almost neck in neck.

But it’s crazy how confusing this all is. I wonder how many people spend that many days agonizing over the decision, and then actually creating a spreadsheet of claims from the previous year – recalculating the charge on each one based on what would be charged under the new plans just to see what the difference would have been.

I really hate how difficult that needs to be, and even more than that, I hate that in this country employers are the ones that decide on the fate of your health care. I doubt his company has our family’s health interest in mind when they make these decisions. They’re going to do what makes the most business sense. It doesn’t belong in their hands.

So, as I had said before, I was doing this thing in my daughter’s class…

I was dreading it and predicting that it was going to be bad, and my expectations were pretty much on the money. LOL! I had really freaked out a few days before doing the presentation about how awful I knew it was going to go, and was even offered a way out. They offered to have someone else do it for me – but I couldn’t take it. I don’t know, maybe I should have. But I felt that backing out, especially so late in the game wasn’t fair to anyone and set a bad example for my daughter. But at the same time, what did I teach her by getting up there and doing such a poor job. Even if it wasn’t my own fault. I did do my best, but in this regard, my best is probably the average person’s worst job. I’m not saying that to be hard on myself – it really has more to do with my issues on public speaking.

Before I went in there, a friend of mine asked me why I was so afraid – I mean, after all, they’re just kids. But it’s not fear that’s the real problem. I’m not afraid of the kids. I’m afraid of myself. I’m afraid of the fact that when I get up in front of people to speak, I simply lose the ability to put words together and make a coherent sentence. I’m not kidding. I’m not good at thinking “off the cuff” anyway – but it’s even worse when there’s a crowd. The more eyes on me, the less I can function. It’s really pretty annoying. But I think it’s something I’m going to have to come to terms with and accept and ultimately turn down anything that involves my getting up to speak in front of a group of people. I wish I could, I love the idea, but the reality is it’s just not something I can do. Under any circumstance.

A few years ago I was asked to be on a panel at SXSW. I turned it down. I sort of regretted that decision, but I’m thinking now maybe that I was right. Again, I love the idea of being able to get up and speak. And certainly there are some benefits tied along with it – becoming more well-known, being able to share some of my thoughts and knowledge with others. But in the end, I don’t think the good things I want will come from it. I forget where I read it, but someone was saying how they never wanted their “15 minutes of fame” – they never wanted to be on a reality TV show – because the fact of the matter is when it comes right down to it – you have way more to lose than to gain.

So while the kids didn’t pay attention, I had trouble making sense of what I wanted to say, and they probably absorbed not even the tiniest bit of what I had hoped to pass on to them – I at least learned something about myself. If I don’t have a memorized script – if every step isn’t planned out precisely – I do not belong up in front. End of story.

Of course, after recovering from this whole mess I was saying over and over “never again!! never again!!!” – I quickly realized I will have to get up in front again. Right at the beginning of the school year, the teacher had asked me to come in and talk about Hanukkah. This has become a near yearly ritual that I have come to dread and when possible avoid. Of course, since Rachel is probably the only Jew in her school, there may not be many opportunities to expose these kids to cultural differences so I feel obligated to do it. But I’m thinking I will need to either heavily involve the kids in the presentation and/or have them read things to the class and/or I will have a word-for-word script memorized beforehand. I guess knowing the real problem is half the battle.

Speaking of healthcare issues, I thought this was pretty ironic…

The other night, I got a phone call. Now granted, on the caller ID, it did list the name of the insurance company that handles our prescriptions. But I know it is possible to fake this with the right equipment. So they called and asked to speak to me, and then said they needed me to tell them what my birthdate was. I asked why – they said it was to protect my privacy – because of HIPAA rules or something, they had to confirm it was me. So, I told them, “let me get this straight, you call ME in the middle of the night and then want me to fork over my personal information and this is to protect my privacy?? Sorry, I don’t think so.”

I told them anything they needed to tell me, they can put in the mail but I’m not going to freely give personal information to someone who randomly calls me in the middle of the night. Somehow I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they wrote up the HIPAA Law.