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Missing my puppy

Jennifer — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:39:48 +0000

Seems like everyone is doing okay except me. I’m really not over it. If you ask me anything about him I will spontaneously burst into tears. Sometimes you don’t even need to ask. I was listening to a song and the lyrics were “I forgot to tell you I loved you” – I burst into tears. I told him I was sorry, but I forgot to tell him I loved him. I keep remembering to do things that I don’t need to do anymore. I get up in the morning, and my first thought is “I have to walk the dog”. I go to bed, and I look at the empty spot where his bed used to be. I miss hanging out with him on the couch, and the way he’d curl up by my feet and keep them warm while I worked.

Sam is already talking about what dog we should get next. And part of me is glad for that because if/when I’m ready to put myself through this heartbreak again, at least I know I won’t have to twist his arm. On the other hand, I am so not ready. No dog I get will be him – it won’t do the things he did, it won’t be the same. Not to mention, we have no idea what our life is going to be like in a few months. Are we moving? Where will we live? If we have to live in apartment for awhile, it would be better for us to wait. Maybe by then the spontaneous crying will stop.

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A Good Friend Gone

Jennifer — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:47:58 +0000

Late in the middle of the night, Charlie’s (our dog) spine suddenly ruptured. Most likely from all the various ailments he’s been dealing with, and the medication to help him. He was in terrible pain, more pain than I’d ever seen any animal in. I didn’t want to see him suffer anymore and decided to put him down. I didn’t want to stay to see the vet do it, but he’s been faithfully by my side for the last 12+ years, I couldn’t bear to let him die alone. I can’t really get the picture out of my head of my dear friend dying before my eyes. I know he’s at peace now, even though I am not.

All this on the eve of my daughter’s birthday. At first we weren’t going to tell her, but I don’t like deception so we told her in the early afternoon. She’s definitely handling it better than I expected, (and certainly better than I am)

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Sure Sign of Overtiredness

Jennifer — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:09:39 +0000

Zach was throwing up most of the night last night. When he wasn’t throwing up, I spent the time trying to fall back to sleep, a wasted effort. So I’m really short on energy today – and brain power. While I was driving Rachel to her day-camp, Sam stayed with Zach back at the house. In my head I was mentally listing off what I needed to do that day, how I would juggle it all with Zach staying home. On one mental item, I thought “we should feed him the BRAT diet today – I think that’s what they usually have you do with a kid that is recovering from vomiting, etc. Ok. BRAT diet… Bananas… Rice… Apples? No Applesauce, right…? And something starting with a “T”. What the hell is it. Tofu?….Turkey?… Tepid water… How many foods could possibly start with the letter “T” – what the hell is it??

I kind of gave up thinking about it and figured I’d just look it up on Google when I got home. So I get home, Zach asks for some toast, I say sure. I’m making him the toast and while I’m getting it all together I start thinking again… What the hell is the “T” word??? GAH!! Why can’t I remember what it is?!

Yeah.

It wasn’t until I finished making it and handed it to him… TOAST!

Oy. It’s going to be a long day.

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Focus on the details of life (avoiding the stress)

Jennifer — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 05:21:40 +0000

I don’t know where my head is at the moment. I’m trying hard not to think about anything except the various tasks at hand. Our future is so up in the air, out of control and depressing all at the same time. Sam is thoroughly freaking out, I’m trying to keep him together, keep him focused on the goal(s) : 1) Get a career, not just a job (or better yet, find a calling) 2) Get out of Utah.

In the meantime I don’t have too much else to say on the matter. All my wise advice is exhausted after repeating it to Sam several times a day and the rest of me is pretty empty. Yesterday and today I wondered maybe to fill the in-between time, I’d try to find something from my day and capture it. I really have been partial to the photos I’ve been taking with that ShakeItPhoto app – so I was going to do an experiment – not sure how long it will last – but thought it would be fun to just take a picture each day and post it. Too many days go by without notice of the details, so by doing this I’m trying to make myself focus on the details more. And focus less on the stress we’re dealing with right now. So now that I’ve said that, hopefully I can keep up with it. LOL! So many times, I have these lofty goals, and as soon as I say something I immediately fail at it. I’d really like to try and keep this one going. And since the photos will be coming from my iPhone, which is always with me, hopefully it won’t be too hard. So we’ll see how it goes.

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Ladyfingers and Popovers

Jennifer — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:51:58 +0000

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Printable Mask Ear Hooks

Jennifer — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:16:51 +0000

Zachary has been fascinated with printable masks recently. He colors them in and then wants to wear them, of course. The problem I’ve run into though is making it so the mask will stay on his face. We’ve tried string, but it doesn’t take much to pull the string right off the mask – usually ripping the paper (and inducing much crying from Zachary). And the string is just a pain to work with in general.

Side story: A few months ago, I had taken Rachel in to get her eyes checked. (She had been complaining about vision issues) They put drops in her eyes and then gave her these “disposable sunglasses” to wear until the drops wore off. Basically it was just a flimsy shaded piece of plastic with these adjustable (and detachable) cardboard “ear hooks.” For some reason, the contraption fascinated me so I saved it. Those sunglasses were lying on my desk when yet another one of Zach’s printable masks ripped.

*Lightbulb moment* – what if I used those ear hooks as a template, and cut out new ones (so I’d be able to keep the original), and just taped the ear hooks on the paper mask so they’re in just the right place to fit over his ears. (You can cut little slits – just the size of the ear hook arm, and adjust the size then tape in place.)

It worked perfectly! I scanned the ear hooks in and recreated the outline using Illustrator. If you use them for your kid’s masks I would recommend printing them onto card stock. (Or printing them out and then using it as a template to cut out the shape from something sturdier than regular paper).

Here it is for your downloading pleasure

Here is Zachary proudly modeling his latest fun mask:

If you’d like to find some fun printable masks for your little one to use with the ear hooks here are a few:

Moshi Monsters – These are very cute little monsters. On that page, if you scroll down, you’ll see the color-in / printable masks. Zach is modeling Diavlo in the picture above.

Activity Village – There’s a few cute animal masks on there – and the site has a bunch of other fun printable activities. Of course, this only helps feed Zach’s printing obsession. (Did I already mention He LOVES printing from the computer!!)

childcareandbeyond.com – There are a bunch of safari themed masks there. My favorite is the Tiger Mask – that one looks really cool.

Fantasy Jr. – Somewhat creepy – but right up Zach’s alley. (Also clicking around there, I found this Dragon Mask – on Animal Jr. (which had a few more cool animal masks) On that Dragon Mask page, it also showed a very cool looking Chinese New Year dragon craft! I know it’s not currently the Chinese New Year, but that dragon looks WAY COOL. We are SO making that very soon!!! – that last site is on Craft Jr., which, as you can imagine, has a bunch of fun kids crafts!)

Nick Jr. has a bunch children masks too, but they’re kind of spread out in different sections. Doing a search on their site though you can see a compiled list.

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Making major life decisions via eeny meeny miney moe

Jennifer — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:19:45 +0000

Portland, OR? San Jose, CA? San Diego, CA? Denver, CO? and now Washington, D.C.? In any particular moment, any one of those places looks like a place we might end up. For someone that likes to have everything under control, this process of figuring out where we’re going to go next is killing me. It all depends on things completely out of my control. And even though, my first choice would probably be Portland, it’s not really up to me or my preferences at all. Where we will go next all depends on where Sam gets a job – and where the best places for what he wants to do will be. Thankfully, I think he’s figuring out a path for what he wants to do. It’s not exactly what he’s doing now, but it’s in the same general field, and I think with some studying, certification test taking, he can transfer his experience. But everything else is up for grabs at the moment. He’s determined to have us out of Utah this time next year – so that’s encouraging. But where we’ll be… I have no freaking clue.

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Thinking outside the job-box

Jennifer — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:44:29 +0000

What would you do if money was no concern? I don’t mean take a permanent vacation on a deserted island. (Quite frankly, after awhile I’d get bored anyway) I mean, what job would you do if you didn’t have to worry about insurance, mortgage, family commitments?

I know exactly what I would do. I would do the same thing I’m doing now. And I only know this because after only a few months of what was to be the beginning of my “stay-at-home” mom life, I started messing around online again, playing with HTML/CSS, PHP, and WordPress. I started doing freelance work, then more, then more and more and more. It still can get very stressful and at sometimes downright annoying – but I know I love what I do, and I choose to do it because this is where my passion is.

Sam is a different case. He’s been driven more by the desire to “provide for his family” – and I’m not sure if he even knows where his passion is career-wise. He’s never had the luxury of taking a few months off to see what he would gravitate towards. I find this incredibly sad. Unfortunately, we still don’t have the luxury of allowing him to take that time off. Without his job, our income gets slashed by 3/4 and our insurance premiums more than double for as long as we can stay on COBRA (and then we have NO insurance. …Yes, I will need to find out what options there are for small businesses but from what I’ve heard they’re not great). It’s certainly not an environment conducive to creative personal introspection.

More than just finding another job – I’m hoping he can find something he can be passionate about. (I just hope he can do it quickly)

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Trying to stay positive

Jennifer — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:55:52 +0000

Today he was told that previously, job postings that would attract about 150-200 resumes – in this economy, are currently attracting in the range of 2000 resumes.

Ugh.

I can’t even begin to express my frustration and worry right now. I honestly have no idea what’s coming next, and I’m becoming more and more afraid to find out. I’m desperately trying to hang on to that little glimmer of hope that “something good is going to come from this” but when faced with a statistic like that… I don’t even want to tell you what’s going through my head right now…

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Laid Off

Jennifer — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 13:54:31 +0000

Not me obviously – being that I work for myself. Unfortunately, no, I’m referring to my husband, who, even though I make a fair living doing what I do – he was the main “breadwinner.” His job will be no more in just a few weeks – blamed on a “reduction in force due to contractual obligations” – which is a nice way of saying the company is looking to save money by doubling the workload of the people left behind and letting go the rest of the team that is required to actually get everything done.

We saw the writing on the wall as people have been let go at a rate of almost one or two every week. The situation there is not good – and I don’t envy the people that still have their jobs. If anything, I’m glad Sam isn’t one of them! If any good can come out of it, I’m hoping that this will spur him on to find another job where he’ll be happier. For too long he’s been tolerating a lot of nonsense there and it’s been a long time since he enjoyed what he was doing.

The other good that can come out of it is that this is the signal to me that it’s time to move on – as it’s been a long time since I enjoyed living where are, in case my recent posts weren’t clear enough about that.

Nothing is ever simple though: Life is what happens while you’re making plans. (The alternate saying is: People make plans, and God laughs) We had plans for Rachel to attend a different school this year, we had made arrangements in the fall to take our first vacation alone, just me and Sam, since our Honeymoon 13 years ago. (That was to be my 40th birthday present) At the moment we’re still planning on going, but we have no idea where we’ll be living (I have no idea how all that will work – we’ll have to change all our flight info if we move before then), and I have no idea what our money situation will be.

I have a great deal of hope that something better is on the other side of this current mess. Sam is freaking out as you can imagine – and I feel like I’m keeping everyone’s sanity together. That is quite a task. Mainly because when I feel like my sanity is falling apart, and I start to freak out – there is no one to support me and help me keep it together (except for my parents – but I hate feeling like a burden to them).

So that is the fun that is going on in our house at the moment. Life is certainly an adventure.

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The Working Mom » home

Missing my puppy

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