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Wedding Woes
ei34
member
Hump Day
ei34
member
in Wedding Woes
Crawling towards Friday. My week feels longer because it's just one of those weeks where I have things every evening. Pandemic perk #1 was without argument not having to put on work clothes every day. PP#2 (for me) was back to school/meet the teacher nights being remote 
it's just a busy time of year for parents/teachers/people who are both...there's a certain peace that comes with being able to veg on the couch at 8pm. Oh well...that's what Saturday will be for. /end rant
How's everyone today?
it's just a busy time of year for parents/teachers/people who are both...there's a certain peace that comes with being able to veg on the couch at 8pm. Oh well...that's what Saturday will be for. /end rantHow's everyone today?
Re: Hump Day
I am trying to get out to the stable today because I want to talk to my trainer. I haven't been riding because I dont want to disrupt the study schedule I have going on, but there is a dressage clinic I want to attend happening during my break in October. I will need to get some hours in the saddle if I don't want to be carted in on a wheelchair day 3 but my trainers schedule and mine don't really mesh at the moment. I want to ask for his blessing to ride with someone else. He will say yes but he is kind of sensitive so I don't want to hurt his feelings.
DefConn's homework is kicking all of our asses this week. It's almost the end of the quarter, so some of it is making sure everything is caught up/turned in and the rest is just projects that take time.
Other than that, looking forward to finishing our foyer this coming weekend. Finally! I also need to get DefConn some fall/winter stuff. I've waited as long as I can since he's growing like a weed. I'm probably going to have to make him try stuff on, which will be like pulling teeth Fun times. LOL
@missJeanLouise nap trapped!
@mrsconn23 how do they do homework there? I've heard some kids get a folder that's basically "finish to x spot by x time"
I did heavily rinse them in the sink to get majority of dirt/mud/water out and then back in the wash.
I think in spring, if this is a continued situation I'll get more dark socks but also find a better way that isn't soaking in some stain solution. I know BK's skin couldn't handle that.
Anyone got stain solutions that are sensitive skin safe?
@MissKittyDanger, he's in middle school now. He's got daily stuff and then projects that are due by a certain date. He missed to 2 days last week, which put him behind because we didn't have our ass in gear early enough to keep up. DH and I talked last night about how we need to be more on top of things and be up on reminding him. We're all adjusting and once we incorporate this stuff into our routine, it will literally be something that takes up 10-30 min of our day. I had to remind DH that we've had a lot happen in the last 2+ months and that it's no one's fault that things fell through the cracks, we just now know better to do better.
@ei34 - PP#1 continues for me as I'm wfh since the pandemic but now am going to a work conference in October. That means 5 full days of work clothes and I'm stressing about what to pack in just a carryon. The conference is in Vegas at Planet Hollywood during John Legend's final residency concerts. I was hoping to get tickets. Now I get in too late on Sat to catch one. Stupid airlines cancelling flights. FWP, I know.
I really like my job but there's just so much of it right now! Hoping things settle a bit after next week.
Saturday I upgraded to an iPhone 13 as my 6s was dying. Have to say it's been a pretty seamless transition. Yay for the iCloud.
good luck with your trainer meeting! @missJeanLouise
work clothes are the worst. I had to go buy a bunch before I started my new job. I quickly noped out of them and returned to scrubs. Once a week I make myself wear professional clothes to keep track of any weight gain though because the scrubs are way too forgiving.
Nothing too much going on. I'm white knuckling it at work this week, but I expected to be. Trying to be nice to myself.
I have worked in the same industry for years and the supply chain issues are at their WORST right now. A customer wrote this week and advised that due to OUR inability to deliver on time they were going to find a second supplier. It felt like such a slap in the face to literally decades of working with them and I think we may have had a salvage meeting to redeem what's going on. I'm now not trusting several people at this long-standing customer but will ensure I stay on top of my game.
It's a crazy busy week. Both tonight and tomorrow Chiquito has soccer at the same time as a back to school night at the kids' schools.
Did I mention that Chiquita auditioned for the school play and it's Shrek Jr and she's gonna be a pig? I'm SO excited. But to echo you @mrsconn23 I'm now adding chasing her down to get her work done to my list. My kid is lovable but it takes a cattle prod to get her to turn her work in and I am exhausted thinking that I'm in for another year of running through Google Classroom and Infinite Campus to nag her.
I hate nagging. Why do I have to do something I hate doing?
I know some kids are getting a folder - my coworker's kids had them before but doesn't seem like now? - and they'll say to do up to page X by friday.
I personally like that idea because if someone is sick or has afterschool activities, you're not panicking about stuff.
In grade 6 I got super behind - hated homework and lied to my parents. Eventually my teacher called my parents in and we went through everything. I was up super late for so long. Like homework until bedtime then I was up and doing homework again - it was so bad!
My vacation rental workshop in Branson went really well. The big, big question is where do I want to do STRs. That was always the big question, though I didn't expect the seminar to answer that for me, lol. But there was so much info about how to do it successfully, including managing it from afar.
Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to do much because we spent all day in a freezing cold hotel meeting room for most of the days we were there. Originally, we were going to stop in Hot Springs, AR on the way home to break up the drive. But changed our mind and decided to stay in Branson one extra day, in order to at least get to see a few things. So our one "real" vacation day was on Monday, lol.
On Monday, I went on my first helicopter ride! I was really excited about that. The first few minutes were a little terrifying, but then I got used to it. We toodled around the main strip in Branson for the rest of the day. Lots of antique/flea market types of shops. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice and friendly everyone was there. It definitely has that "down home, country charm" vibe.
For dinner that night, we went to Dolly Parton's Stampede dinner show. The food was plentiful, but meh (as we suspected). But the show itself was great! It's a little bit of singing/dancing/comedy and also trained horses and trick riding. They even had trained buffalo in the show! Not "trained" like they do tricks. But they know which part of the arena they needed to move to, based on the music/lighting. For buffalo, that was impressive enough for me, lol.
I'm off to enjoy last week's Prudie for my lunch time, lol.
I had a meeting earlier this week for his IEP and also, his tech teacher called me yesterday. It's nothing I'm super concerned about yet, but we need to be on it. We have to work with him and read a lot aloud to him due to his dyslexia (he gets that accommodation in school as well).
I definitely needed to be nagged in jr. high. My parents also nagged me in high school, but I think at least by my jr./sr. year it had tapered off because I was at least a little more diligent. I still procrastinated, but became wise enough to realize that I needed to learn how to motivate myself because nobody was going to bug me when I was in college.
This was me at 16-17, "Whelp, time to write that history paper. I've had two weeks to do it. It's Monday, due on Wednesday. Better spend a few hours tonight and tomorrow night, to make sure it gets done." So I did get it done on my own by that age. It just wasn't a pretty process.
And this was in the OLD pre-Internet days, so it was more difficult. To the young, whipper-snappers out there, I had to do my research at the library. Libraries are these buildings that have books...no, no, not Kindle books...books that are made of this thing called paper. We also had a full set of encyclopedias at my house. The paper kind, lol.
I was not the kid my parents could back off of.
My boss' daughter was still on her in beginning of college.
Now that he's in middle school, the expectations have leveled up a lot. Teachers will call you. If he doesn't turn in homework, he could end up with detention, which then impacts DH and me. Grades are weighted toward tests/quizzes, so he has to be doing and turning in the work so he can do well. All communication has come from a place of wanting him to develop good habits. Also, I feel like this is a conversation they have with a lot of parents at the start of middle school.
I feel like if I was still WAH full time, we would have started on a better foot. But it is what it is. The ship can be righted quickly. I'm hoping by next school year we can monitor the grading app and work with him when he needs help, but that he's a little more self-propelled. But we'll see. If not, we'll continue to prod him along.
She needs that tough love but I also know that right now she has so little free time we need to nudge just so she does it. I swear I have anxiety now about her work level in addition to my own.
My MIL was totally the opposite of that and still nags her kids (and kids-in-law) about literally everything. I always assumed i'd take a more "my mom" approach - but obviously all kids are differetn and need different things. It will certainly be interesting to figure out!
From the high school educator end of things-parent involvement runs the gamut. Not every time, but often, the more parents are involved, the more prepared the students are.
I'm also going to say that this is the first time in two years that she's both in middle school and off to a "normal" start.
What I have also done is put teeth into her assignments. She is so excited about some extracurriculars and I've told her I won't hesitate to pull her if the teachers continue to report that she's not getting it done.
This is one of my earliest memories and it's a cherished one.
I was in kindegarten and learning how to write letters. For a few weeks, my dad helped me almost every day after work/school. But the hardest letter for me to write was "J". I mastered all the other ones and still couldn't consistently write "J", correctly.
This was very upsetting for me because I knew it was the first letter of my name. My 5-year-old self finally had a heart-to-heart conversation with my dad about my greatest fear:
Me: "Daddy, what if I can never write a J? It's the first letter of my name! I can't even write my own name."
Dad: "You'll be able to write a J. It's a hard letter, but you will be able to with more practice.
Me: "But what if I can't? I know I'll need to write my name a lot when I get older, but what if I can never write my name? What will I do?" Said with all the drama and anguish that only young children can truly master.
He kept reassuring me that I would be able to learn how to write "J" and write my name, but when I was still super worried asked me if I could give it a month. And, if I was still having trouble, we would talk more about it. I agreed to that.
Of course, by the time another week or so had gone by, I could write the letter "J" just fine, lol. It's funny to remember this conversation as an adult. Because I can still remember the child's feelings I had, but can now also see it from an adult's perspective.
I can only assume that, in his mind, my dad was a bit amused. But he maintained the same "serious" tone and expression that I had.