Here we go again...

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

Well, it's Memorial Day weekend and we're going nowhere. We have two more trips in June and then the travel will STOP.

The trip to Santa Barbara is costing us way too much- I already bought the wedding present and we have stuff to wear but yikes! I changed our hotel from the Holiday Inn Express (which was $250/nt!!!) to a Ramada further out of town in Goleta. I got the cheapest rental car I could find. But I have no leave built up so the three days I'm out of work will be a complete loss of income.

The trip to Baltimore for the Boards will cost us my income but at least we don't have to pay for a hotel or rental car.

We have to somehow come up with the last payment for the property tax and also the second half of the payment for the guy redoing the fences. I have a feeling the fence is going to take a while though so I'm hoping it will dovetail w/ the July bonus. Crazy. Keeping the house in DC is killing us- even though we have a renter. I don't know what else we can do though. Hopefully after the election, things will move more.

I can't wait to have the Boards DONE. He's studying, studying, studying. I don't expect that we'll see him much over the three day weekend. Oh well. Four weeks from today he has orientation and then Sunday are the actuals boards.

Nikolai has the first week of June off from school so we've hired one of our friends nannys to watch him- the kids she usually watches will be on vacation so it works out well for everyone.

Oh, I just want it to be July- we'll get the bonuses- pay off as much as we can, the Boards will be over and we can finally relax.

Jenn

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

I love my job.

I love everything about my job. I love that it's ultimately helping people but I no longer have to do the helping. I love that it's interesting and different enough EVERY DAY to keep me wanting to go back. I love that people respect my background and appreciate my insight. I love that I can be wrong. I love that I get to hang out w/ all of the politicos, give them their information but I don't have to have any of their responsibilities. Nada.

and I love that I get paid to do it.

and I love that I get to do it all while my son is thriving in his daycare. Summer classes start the week after next and he's going to be doing some of the funnest activities. It's awesome to know that he'll be learning stuff that my lame arse couldn't ever pull together. Some people just aren't cut out to be a good SAHP.

Whew. How I lucked into this, I'll never know. Of course, 3 years managing 6 groups homes, one of which housed 6 people with Prader-Willi had to have earned me some REALLY big Karma.

Yay for the employment gods.

Jenn

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

Back from the ILs. and once again, the Nature vs. Nuture conversation has occurred. (Me: Well, I guess it's obvious that you are a clear cut indication of Nature vs. Nuture. Rick: I think I overcame the Nuture...)

Springer Show. I can't even begin to get into the drama. We wisely stayed at a hotel in Goleta, rather then sharing a house with the rest of them. We used having a 4yo as an excuse. I'm so glad we did as we were there about 36 hours and there were fights (physical and verbal), people not speaking to each other, far too much drinking, etc.

The difference in education and lifestyle makes it difficult to carry on conversations with most of them. (by lifestyle I mean things like I don't let my kid watch just anything on TV, he eats regular meals, and I don't let him play with guns)

and then we went back to his mom's house and it was just as painful as we thought it would be. They don't recycle (pisses me OFF), they didn't spay their cat (couldn't afford it...), they drink way too much (and this is coming from ME?!). They talk about my SIL's ex-husband in front of her kids. It's just endless. His other sister is raising her grandchildren because she's allowed her son to do nothing. (he and his girlfriend live in a 4 bedroom house but he can't take care of his kids...)

So, NOW my husband understands why I only made the reservations for 4 nights. He hadn't been there in 2 years. I knew he'd be insane by the last day and he was. He says next time we go we're staying in a hotel because his mom's smoking drives him nuts. (she smokes outside but it all drifts in anyway)

I don't know how he ended up escaping but thank goodness he did.

DONE. I don't see us going back until sometime in '09 at the earliest.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

I met my husband online- I sent the first email on Valentine's Day, 1999. (party like it's 1999!)

He was a third year medical student. When we finally met 6 weeks later (he was in hawaii doing his peds rotation) he started his surgery rotations. I have NEVER known him when he hasn't been studying for something. Ever. Except for when he was in Iraq, and he even studied there, I just didn't see it.

Holy Crap. This could be IT. (you know the old saying about how there's never an atheist in a foxhole? I was just thinking, damn, it sucks that I have no belief system because I'd really like to say "please (Oh Great Being/God/Allah/Buddha/Mohammed/Jesus/enter name here_______) let him pass this test." and have it actually mean something)

Now, my husband is pathologically shy w/ adults. He's fantastic with kids (he says that they're far more real than adults). He has three hours of oral examination on Sunday. He has one live patient to examine and then get questioned about, then one hour of child neurology vignettes to be tested on and then one hour of adult neurology vignettes to be tested on-six vignettes per session.

I'm getting nervous just because I know that he knows this stuff inside and out but oral speaking is a circle of hell for him. He's just going to have to suck it up and do it. and then we have a month to wait to see.

If he doesn't pass, it's going to be 100% nerves that did him in. I hope he's medicated. I hope he's got some anti-anxiety meds. I may need some, too.

Jenn

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

So- the Boards are over. He thinks he did OK- whatever that means.
Of course, my biggest issue is that I had NO control over the event. Those are rare in my world. 90% of the things in my life I can exert some level of control over. Not that I'm a control freak or anything. It works well for me at work. Not so much at home.

We're going to have the WAY overdue "come to Jesus" meeting this weekend over finances. I've kept him sheltered because he's an idiot, and then he was deployed and then he needed to study but now? He's going to get the whole ugly picture. This all started because he wants to hang on to the DC house. Fine. But it's an interest free 5/1 ARM that adjusts in July of '09. I've been paying principle anyway but we're losing about $600 a month by keeping it and the renters at the current rent. So- I explained about increasing the rent and the tax situation and the refi vs. selling with the market the way it is, etc.

I've laid out the income and the outgo and I think it's going to make his already short hair fall right out.

Man, we'd be rich if we weren't so poor.

Jenn

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

We're hashing through the monetary stuff- of course in between 'life'. Last night the neighborhood did a neighborhood crawl- start at one house and keep going until we ended up at the neighbors who have a movie projector (like a REAL movie projector) and they showed Raising Arizona. I think by the end of the night (five different houses) there had to have been at least 100 neighbors gathered. We bailed before the movie started- dude was going to melt.

One of the neighbors is the manager of one of the huge B & Bs here in the 'hood and he hired some of his staff and they made the BEST stuffed jalapeños that I ever had. They were stuffed with some kind of queso fresco and bacon and then lightly breaded and then pan fried. Crave worthy. He also made the most refreshing sangria.

We met two families with actual living breathing children. and they're Nikolai's age. One other family who we know from Crunchy School also came. It was so fun. I swear, I know more people here now that I have in my last 10 moves combined.

I am now serving as the Treasurer for Crunchy School and we had our first 'official' Board of Director's retreat today. It's going to be a long year. I'll leave it at that.

On the job front, Rick is thinking about signing a contract that would give us a sum of money that is pretty obscene- but it would require that he stay in the Army for another 4 years on top of the five that he already owes. The pluses outweigh the minuses for him for the most part, the most compelling being that he doesn't ever want to do research, he hates teaching and he doesn't want to ever have to deal with the management aspects of running his own practice. Add in the fact that those additional years will put him 25 years in- which means more retirement money- and it seems like a good plan.

except for that pesky deployment thing...

We'll see. He doesn't need to decide this second.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

I'm plan old tired today. I've been yawning since I put down the coffee cup as I was walking out the door.

This weekend we were Harry and Harriet Homeowner- chopping down bushes, mowing the grass, trimming the edges, weeding the garden. It was fun but whew- I'm done in. I also went to the gym on Saturday just to solidify the overkill.

Rick rebuilt the pool cleaner (her name is Daisy) and that helped tidy up the pool bottom. We ended up in the pool with a bunch of neighbors and neighbor kids yesterday afternoon. It was fun. We also grilled some buffalo steaks which I have to say were delish. I don't mind eating meat if I know it comes from responsible local farmers.

We spent all last week at work getting ready for the auditors to come and they (once again) no-showed. At least they called, unlike the city auditor.

My parents are taking the dude for a week at the end of August- we're giddy with the anticipation of an entirely adult week. What to do? Hopefully the newly minted Child Neurologist will have started and that will mean that there will be FOUR of them to rotate leave. Of course, it's mid-July and the August call schedule isn't out yet... I'm so tempted to email the others, including their spouses and ask for everyone's upcoming work schedules (one spouse is an anesthesiologist and another is a NP) and get all of the call schedule done through New Years- it's not brain surgery. (no- it's neurology...hahahaha. I amuse myself) I have yet to understand how this can be so difficult for four grown-ups to put together. I mean, granted, they're doctors- and doctors aren't necessarily the most put-together group but jeez, Nikolai could probably figure out a call schedule for them- since he can count to four just like they (theoretically) can.

In other updates, I have a MRI scheduled on the 26th for my back because I have had extremely annoying pains and numbness in the oddest places- like the back of my left foot. sometimes it feels like I have a UTI (I don't- I've made them test me three times so far). Sometimes my butt muscle feels like it's asleep. Obviously, I've pissed off some nerve. The BAMC ER was fabulous though- the day before they had a 4 day weekend over 4th of July- they ran me through there and I had an x-ray and a bunch of other tests and was home by 8pm. Hooah. (and that was the day after the Columbian hostages were admitted to BAMC.)

My husband wants a motorcycle. Whatever. I'm not going to fight him on it- he knows how I feel and he's worked with head injured adults so if he's stupid enough to continue, I'm upgrading his life insurance and his disability insurance and he can ride into the wind. dumbass.

That's all. The dude continues to be my most favorite person in the entire world. We were trying to explain to my neighbor's girlfriend that parenting is such a mindtrip that it cannot be explained. You can't fathom it- and if you don't know what you're missing, it's not like you're really missing it- you're only missing your idea of it. anyway, he's taking two classes this week- the Grasslands and also The Silk Road to the Great Wall. I want to go hang out at Crunchy School. It's way more interesting that my job.

Time to go gather the smallest Hussey.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

Well, well, well.

Two years of my life. TWO YEARS of nearly daily studying and at least one entire day of EVERY weekend for TWO YEARS (and let us not forget the seven month deployment in there). Have I mentioned that it was TWO YEARS?

What the heck are we going to do with ourselves? We're going to have to find some hobbies- together kind and separate kind. Seriously? I get weekends with my husband? What is that like?

I ordered a bunch of Texas landscaping books from Amazon yesterday- now I can actually plan what I want to do! and have someone actually help me!

I was pretty sure he passed the orals, but he was convinced that he hadn't. I have NEVER seen him so relaxed and relieved. I mean that. I met him as he was starting his surgery rotations in medical school and never once since has there not been some big pressing thing that he needed to study for.

Ten years until the next one. Nine years of freedom!

Wow. We can take a vacation and not have to lug around giant medical books.

Happy times in the Hussey household!!!

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

I'm getting REALLY bored with my exercise routine. I mean even with my trainer I'm bored. So, tomorrow I have her training me at 6am and then I'm going to switch it all up and take some different classes. I also bought a belt for the pool to do running in the pool since my days of running on land are DONE!

Work is fine- today was hurry up and wait day but other than that, it's going well. My boss has to do my evaluation so that should be interesting.

My grandmother's 92nd birthday is on Saturday- I sent her a card. She needs nothing and has no room in her room.

I cannot even explain the sense of relief that if pouring through my home since we got the results of the Boards. Rick is on-call right now so he's pissy about that but generally, he's a happy camper. He has some really complicated kids that he's dealing with. I guess it's a generally accepted bad day if the consult team brought in by peds is the child neurologist, the neurosurgeon and Hem-Onc. Poor guy.

I was elected Treasurer for Crunchy School which as it turns out is a good thing since I'm apparently the only one on the Board with Non-profit Administration experience. It's as bad as you'd expect a school run by hippies to be. My goal is to get it all straight this year. Luckily some of the insanity at work has died down so I have time to make some calls.

I also just went through my closet and pulled out all of the DC Buisness Person clothes and got rid of everything that doesn't fit, is out-dated, skirts that are too long or too short. The cute pants that give me a wedgie, the blouses that don't button nicely. and then I went online at jjill and bought $1000 worth of new clothes and shoes. I am currently wearing 5 year old birks, a pair of wearing out capri pants from Target, a t-shirt from Target and I have a blouse from the PX covering it. It's high time that i get clothes that fit and that will LAST. and I don't have to be dressed up for work but I do need some more options. I think the last time I went 'shopping' for clothes other than filling in randomly was in 2003. and I'm dumping the evening gowns/bridesmaids dresses, too. Why did I keep them? I hardly think I'm going to be invited to any Inaugural Balls and even if I were, I think I'd buy a new dress!

I have a huge pile of stuff that I'm going to donate to Dress for Success.

so, that's all that exciting in my world. I am excited about changing up the exercise routine. That alone is going to help improve my outlook on the world.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

The downside of having a really fun neighborhood-

one aching head, two cases of beer bottles and five empty wine bottles (one a magnum) in my yard, and not going to bed until 1am.

Yup- we hosted First Thursday again and once again, the neighborhood turned out. One neighbor was accepted to art school in Chicago so we all said good-bye to him. The seventy year old neighbors hung out until 11pm. The neighbor behind me just got engaged. My next door neighbor brought her lab over so Bella could swim in the pool. Petey and Honey did not play well so they were put in the house and Bella got the run of the yard.

I LOVE my neighborhood. We all basically said last night that none of us is leaving. The people who are living in the cottages all said that if they need more room, they'll put on an addition but no one is going anywhere. Poor Nikolai- he's going to grow up and everyone is going to have eyes out. (good for us, bad for him)

I actually live in a place where my kid can (eventually) bike over to another friends house and I wouldn't have to freak out about it.

I need a nap and some ibuprofin.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

Actually, it turns out that three cases of beer were consumed...

I wonder if the recycling people want to do a streetwide intervention?

I actually got on my bike today and rode to the gym. I forgot what a PITA it is to constantly have to look for SUV drivers. No offense to the gas-guzzling monstrosity drivers HERE (iMSN) of course, but the ones in downtown San Antonio are clearly out of their element. Probably bringing guests down to the Riverwalk. In any case I survived the one mile bike ride there and back.

This aging shit is most unpleasant. My foot hurts, my ass muscle hurts, I get random shooting pain/numbness/burning in random parts of my lower body. Oh well, the options are adapt or medicate to oblivion or stop moving. I choose Answer A. I've completely stopped weight bearing exercise at the moment. I've been riding the recumbant bike at the gym and doing Pilates and other floor work. Even certain standing yoga moves hurt my foot. I blame my new Sauconys. I'm going to the running store and going back to Brooks. I've never had foot pain w/ Brooks. I'm also doing water exercises and swimming when I can.

Oh well, if the foot thing continues, I'll go to the doctor's office but I'm not sure that there's much they can do other than tell me to take anti-inflammatories and rest my foot...

Time to get motivated and go to the grocery store- I'm off the next two and a half days with the dude since his school is out. I want to be able to focus on prepping the office for painting during his quiet time (he's far too mature to nap, of course)

Then...a week of no dude! It's going to be weird. I told Rick that we're just going to sit around and talk about him. But we can do it at the kid-unfriendly restaurants at midnight!

OK- someone make me move.

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

2 gallons of eggshell Mexicana
2 gallons of flat White Linen
2 gallons of semi gloss White Linen
2 gallons of eggshell Terrapin Green
2 gallons of eggshell of Fernwood Green

Spackle
Joint tape
sand paper in four grits

cleaning clothes

Smells like a home improvement project! I'm so excited- I've been spackling all afternoon. Yay! I have to get my husband to carry in the ladder because it's HUGE. (12 foot ceilings= one huge ladder) and then I can finish and then hang the drop clothes.

and I took off the electrical outlets- ewww- the colors that these rooms have been painted? Bad.

So- from now until the time that the dude gets back home, I'll be on sporadically. (my reward will be to come online for a few!)

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

I guess everyone is thinking "end of summer". Nikolai is at my parents for the last week before school starts. Of course, it won't be that different for him because he was in Summer Fun Camp for 10 weeks. I'm thinking of putting him in gymnastics or some other sport once a week. You know that move on the pommel horse where the guys lift themselves up and have their legs out in front of them? He can do that- my trainer's boss at my gym stopped me and told me that he'd never seen a little kid with that kind of strength and that we ought to try to channel it.

(and in all honesty, he probably 'could' be dx'ed as 'ADHD' by aggressive pediatricians so having an outlet probably isn't the worst idea! Rick says it's pretty common for preemies to be ADHD and according to the Russians, he was 9 weeks early)

I'm finishing up painting the office. Note to self, the next time I have built-ins installed, the wall color needs to be done first. There are little nooks and crannies that I'm having to paint with a one-inch paintbrush. Total PITA. We love, love, love our house but when we visit friends who have bought new we always walk in like, 'wow. Everything is finished...' Our house will NEVER be finished. Oh well, the price you pay for buying a house built in 1907.

We have had a great two days of being dude free- Saturday night we went to our friend's Julie and Jenn's for Jenn's birthday party. They had a DJ, caterer and a bartender. We got home at 2am and slept until NOON! Amazing. We basically hung out and watched the olympics for the rest of the day. I think today we'll go shopping and maybe go to the movies.

I still can't believe the difference in my husband. I swear to God, it's stunning. How he doesn't have an ulcer, I don't know. He's so relaxed and fun to be with these days. Now, he's got some military stuff to catch up on. We had a long talk about 'the future' and him in the military. Basically, there are so few child neurologists in the Army (or any service for that matter) as the Col's start to retire, he'll have lots of opportunities to do what he wants. In fact, we know that one of his colleagues who doesn't have as long a payback is going to get out once he's finished so that leaves one fewer person of Rick's rank. He's almost decided to stay for Colonel which means we're looking at probably another 10 years or more. But, at that point he'll have 30+ years in, and that means 75% of his salary in retirement pay plus we'll still have all of the health care and other expenses covered. and the new GI bill provides for extending the benefits to spouses and children.

He's being sent to Honduras for 10 days in September for a humanitarian mission. At a BBQ last weekend at his AF bosses house, one of the other Col.s told him that he thinks that they will really use him for his neurology background while there. The problem is of course that there won't be any equipment to do any diagnostics (or at least confirm his DXs) but he'll bring what he can with him.

We're planning on having another huge blow-out end of summer party at the end of September. My neighbor Andrew can't afford to pay us for his entire half of the fence we put in so we bartered for his band to play for 4 hours. I'll get the moon bounce again for the kids and possibly hire a baby-sitter for the pool. Now that we actually KNOW all of the neighbors, it will be even more fun than last year.

But now? It's time to sign off, crank up the iTunes and finish this office!

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

We've survived our week dude-free. We haven't really done anything spectacular, unless finishing painting the office counts.

My husband has had a craptastic week at work with some very sick kids. He had to have an end-of-life conference with some parents this week and needless to say, it's hard to feel like celebrating when you're dealing with something like that. He's been spending as much time as possible in the PICU with these sick kiddos. (and their families) Next week he goes to Ft. Hood for a few days and then he goes to Honduras. His AF colleague is supposedly going to be deployed but no one has heard anything official, yet. It's not until January so we'll see. It would be nice for the department to not have any deployments for a while. In the meantime, my husband actually has an office again. While he was deployed one of the other docs took down all of his stuff, packed up his books and moved into his office. and didn't move out when he got back from Iraq! Nice.

In other news, work is great. (see the article in Grand Rounds) I love it when things all come together to actually do what they're supposed to do- and save the taxpayers money all at the same time. It's fun to watch.

I'm continually amazed at how much better life is this year. (especially compared to this time last year, when i was crazy!)

[DCJenn]

Re: Here we go again...

Dude is back, my mom is here until Wednesday- it's all good.

I just got off the phone with the Crunchy School accountant. I can't decide if I'm glad that they made me the Treasurer or horrified- it's just a giant soul-sucking vortex. The bottom line is that until recently the school was run by hippies who while nice people and fantastic artists, didn't really 'get' the whole "let's pay our taxes on-time" thing. The former Treasurer was a hair dresser. (pretty good one, too- I went to her once at the Aveda Salon) Turns out that of the ENTIRE Board, I'm the only one w/ Non-Profit Management experience. Great.

It's going to be a long, long year trying to get all this stuff that they haven't done all caught up.

Jenn