mamacate

Seven A.M.

Ah, to awaken, on a rainy morning, to the sweet and melodic sounds of drywall being hung.

These are the moments that make a renovator's heart glad.

No, really.

One Down

Remember that job I've been working weekends on all summer?  The one that has been dogging me for four years?  That one?  Sent the final report to the foundation yesterday.  Five pages.  That's 1.25 pages per year.

Talk about summarizing.

Anyway.  Where's my martini?

Next project lining up for the smackdown?  The languishing small consulting job.  And then that will be it for overemployment.  And then all we'll have to worry about is the house renovation and the family crisis.

Noooo prob.

Any Day but Wednesday

So today isn't Wednesday but who cares.  I'm just going to be Wednesdayish anyway.

First the update: we are no longer at the White Liberal Preschool.  We are taking a break from preschool.  In some sort of freaky Mary-Poppinsish turn of fate, just after the cook stormed out and I simply had to get to the bank and Rhys had to be at a suffrage rally, we found a preschool teacher looking for afternoon childcare work.  Dude, he's even a GUY, which in this House of Many Ovaries is a really good thing.  He's like a highly-educated, artistic, cool...Mary Poppins.  And my question is (well, aside from "what's the fucking catch?") if Mary was a governess, does that make J a governor?

Speaking of which, if you live in Mass, VOTE.

Right, where was I?  We'll probably try for half-day preschool in a month or two, but for now, it's a huge relief to not have a career hanging in the balance and a four-year-old who just can't be in preschool right now, for whatever reason.  And we're trying to figure out what whatever reason is, and I figure we will at some point. 

And people?  You guys?  Dudes.  I have slowly responded to all the comments and emails and personal stories and just LOVE I got when I fessed up that things were not so hot here, but you know, it's just so amazing.  I feel a little cheezy here, like Sally Field all hopped up on cashmere and red wine but you know what I mean.  THANK YOU.  Really.  I got good peeps.  Truly: thank you.

And now, let's get all Wednesday.  Because it's almost Tuesday.  And for the couple of weeks I've had, I just don't care.

WTF?

This is a box of kosher salt.  With a shrimp recipe on the back.  I ask you: what the fuck?

Ah, that feels good.  WTF.  Not just for Wednesdays anymore.

I'm still finishing up the old job project too (since the kid crisis wasn't enough stress).  I think I've got about one more weekend of work until I can send the damn thing off.  Man will that feel good.

Oh, speaking of finishing long, arduous jobs, it has been a LONG time since I've shown you a picture of the house.  In fact, it has been a while since I've even taken a picture of the house, but here's the latest on the camera.  This is two weeks old. 

There are now windows and a fireplace, though the fireplace doesn't actually fit in the space they framed for it.  Whoops.  Redo.  Still, things are moving along, and I keep making the project manager swear it will be done in October.  He keeps swearing.  Right, also saying that it's going to be done. But that's the living room.  It's going to be great.

I did point out to Rhys that maybe we didn't need to spend all this money on an addition, and that in fact maybe we should have just moved into three tiny rooms for three months, and then moved back into our old house.  Because right now, the simple thought of having a living room and a dinner table that seats our whole family seems like an impossible luxury. But it's going to be great.  Really great.  One more month.  Breathe.

Blah blah blah Elizabeth.  Blah blah blah knitting.  Blah blah blah photo.

As you can see, I have attained the blah stage. Soon it will be time for sleeves.  The yarn is really springy and it might end up a bit more clingy and a bit less drapey than I was hoping for, so I'm trying not to think too much about that.  I'm going to do unspeakable things with a steam iron and hope for the best.  (BTW, no idea what that white spot is--it's not there in real life--apologies for the crappy photo.)

I also made some socks.

(see, evidence that despite severe deliquency, they remain extremely cute)

Also evidence that my brain is currently inoperable.  I haven't woven in the ends (all two of them, per sock) because I couldn't for the life of me think where I might have put my darning needle.  It was hard to believe that I could think I could go months without one, but there was no obvious place and there aren't a lot of places to look in our abbreviated housing.  Until Henry asked me if I had some scissors.  And I opened my bag and got out my Emergency Sock Kit.  The one I carry in my pocketbook everywhere I go?  The one I look at every time I rummage for my car keys or buy lunch?  Yeah, that one.  Doh.  Found the needle, at least.

And sweet Lisa sent me sock yarn.  For Sanity.

The kids say, "Sanity?  Mamacate?  Don't hold your breath, but every little bit helps!  Thanks Lisa!"  (They're really saying that.  Okay, just the "thanks Lisa!" part.)

Okay, I need to sleep, but file the following under cool things found on the internets:

Knitting obsession (thanks Mafia)

Send your kids to Ceres--okay, just their names, but cool, huh? (thanks Giz)

My kind of periodic table (thanks stumbleupon)

And this.  (forgive me forgetting where I saw it, but just click on it and see what happens.)

Except Not So Much With the New Preschool

Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful good vibes about preschool.  I don't think I've replied to a single comment because, unfortunately, all the good vibes in the world did not help, and I've been a little busy with all the being called to take children home and Serious Conversations and such.  The first day did NOT go well.  Really not.  Really.  Not.

I need to decide how much of this I can blog.  Mom, don't freak out, we're dealing with it.  I'm in that place right now where you want to spill your entire guts to the entire internets, and then you regret it and they don't respect you in the morning and its there on bloglines and the wayback machine and there's no unsaying.  We're just in a kind of intense place and it's one of those places where it could turn out to be something that we deal with as a major feature of the rest of our lives, or it could be something where you look back 10 years from now and say "damn, four-and-a-half was a bitch, huh?  We sure were stupid for changing schools, changing part-time at-home mommy/primary caregiver, and tearing down our house at the same time, huh?"

I honestly don't know which it's going to be, and that's not for lack of thinking about it.  I had some bad moments last week, but I'm a bit calmer now, and I figure we'll work it out one way or the other.  Whatever that means.  Forgive me for not being more specific.  It's not too terrible, but it's terrible enough that we're seeking help.  We had actually already started seeking help, but now we're on a different schedule.  I suppose that'll give you a sense.

This whole optimistic-positivity thing isn't easy for me, as I say through gritted teeth: "GLASS. HALF. ...FULL!"  But seriously, we have everything we need to navigate this whole thing, and in the end, well, I think we'll be okay.  But any good vibes you got, well, keep 'em coming.  I'll try to keep sending up smoke signals the knit signal (thanks Wendy), and I'm hoping things will look brighter soon.  Plus there's a fireplace (unattached) in our living room, and that's just a sign of good times to come.

Roller Coasters

I'm exhausted, and tomorrow is the kids' first day at their new preschool and we're all kind of keyed up.  Four has brought some worries for us, though it's likely just the combination of changing schools and, you know, knocking down our house at the same time.  Oops.  Please send good, calm, happy adjustment to the new school vibes Henry's way--Ellie's too, but mostly Henry's--tomorrow.  I don't always blog about this kind of stuff, but I'm worried.

It didn't help that I went to the parent meeting tonight and it was so...Noho.  It was me and a room full of a bunch of other upper-middle-class liberal mostly white pretty much intellectual types and though I completely cop to being exactly that girl (lesbian variety), something about it just was so...ugh.  The upside is that this is a pretty good piece of information about our likelihood of electing private school next year, which is to say that I'm looking forward to public school saving the tuition money.  I don't mean to talk trash about the people there--they all seemed totally nice and friendly and smart and sensible and not overly anything except I felt like I was stewing in my own juice, and like the kids would be too.  Yet this school has small classes and experienced and well-supported teachers and....well, there you have it.  And thus we end our review of inequities in US education.  Ahem.  Also, duh.  Anyway.

We went to the county fair in the rain on Sunday and it was pretty fun.  We got very wet but warm pierogies helped with that.  Also fried dough.  Um, and cotton candy.  The festival of carbohydrates!  The kids LOVED the mini roller coaster.  And Rhys, who lives in fear of roller coasters, went on it too.  I think it was just about her speed.

The house appears to actually be happening.  I continue to listen for shoes dropping, because I think we might be violating some law of physics if a construction project ends early.  I suppose the fact that I've been in my office at work for two weeks and they just brought my files and finished painting as of today, and there's still regular construction going on and one bathroom for the entire building, perhaps that is the universe's expression of balance.  But here's a somewhat recent picture of the outside.  This was last week.  The rough framing is now done.

They found a built-in bookcase blocking an old doorway...right where we're going to put a built-in bookcase.  Unfortunately, since it's 2 inches deep and made of paneling (woo!), we won't be keeping it, but it's a funny little relic of the many renovations this house has seen.  There is a little graffiti from the last renovation--it reads "Les + Jill 1987."  Since everyone else on our street has lived here since before the flood, we happen to know that Les is now minus Jill, and I'm not sure whether Jill wants to talk about it, though we could tell her since her mom and dad live across the street. 

I'm thinking that a time capsule in there would be pretty cool.  Advice on time capsule items (must fit in 2 inch cabinet space) welcome.

There is knitting, but it's not terribly interesting.  Eliz spent but one day in time out, and then was sprung and her neckline finally corrected, well, correctly (as opposed to the four times I corrected it incorrectly, yah).  She has the beginnings of a front.  It's a nice sweater.  I'm having dangerous thoughts about Beadwork.  There will need to be some Solstice knitting, and I do hope to spin again someday, and of course there's Rhinebeck so I'm trying to be good.  It's not easy.

That's it.  No knitting photos.  This was supposed to be a drive-by post, but well, I do go on.  G'night.  And extra thanks for good thoughts for school tomorrow.