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JANUARY 2008
(Hold your mouse over a picture for its caption.)


January 1, 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I start my new job tomorrow, so we decided to make a big family day of it and went to Sea World.  Patrick is FINALLY tall enough to ride Kraken, so that was certainly the highlight of the day.

Taking on the monster! The blue track is all Kraken - INSANE!


Wednesday, January 2, 2008

I survived my first day of work today.  I spent most of last night bawling my eyes out.  I feel so much like I'm abandoning my boys.  I know they'll be fine, but this has truly been the hardest thing I've done as a mom.  As for the job, it's going to be great.  Derrick is amazing, and my teammate, Cookie, and I are going to get along beautifully.  I was absolutely shocked at the reputation that preceded me into the office.  This is the same law firm I left 11 years ago, and apparently word had gotten around the office that I was one of the original four people to open the law firm.  Cookie has been working for Derrick for 10 years, and is the 4th senior secretary there, and we've been dubbed The A Team.  It was a helluva welcome.  I hope I can live up to it!  I'm absolutely exhausted.  Not only did I have to wake to - gasp - an alarm clock this morning, but it's been a long time since I had to be alert and pleasant for 8 hours straight.  LOL


Thursday, January 3, 2008

Yesterday was mostly just orientation and getting to know people.  Today I got to actually do some work.  My oh my how things have changed in the past 11 years!  When I left, the office was not even networked, much less on the internet, and email was unheard of.  Now we barely use paper!  We email our letters and e-file our pleadings with the court, and everything is on our network so I rarely even need to pull a file out of the cabinet.  It's amazing!  (And boy am I OLD!)


Saturday, January 5, 2008

Thank God this was a short week!  I slept until 11:00 this morning!  I can't believe I only have 2 days to recover before I have to do it all again.  The kids were off school last week, and Mark has been home with them.  He's been amazing - dinner's been on the table every night.  :-)  Next week will start our new routine, though, once the kids are back in school. 


Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Derrick has pretty much left my schedule up to me, as long as I get in my hours each week.  Fortunately, he's letting me work through lunch so I can leave at 4:00.  I have no idea how we're going to fit all of the kids' activities into just the evenings.  Others do it, so I know it can be done, but I sure don't know how! 

Patrick's gym coach, Scott, and I have been talking about getting Patrick into the gym more often.  After his lesson tonight, we stayed to try out an advanced tumbling class.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it at the time, but several weeks ago at open gym, one of the coaches told Patrick to do a back handspring without being spotted, and Patrick landed on his head and hurt his neck.  Since then, Patrick has been afraid to go to open gym, since Scott isn't usually there.  Scott has talked to another coach, John about it, and John has worked with Patrick during open gym and has managed to gain his trust.  John is teaching the class tonight so it's worked out great.  Patrick sure is tuckered tonight, but he's excited to be in a new class, too.


Saturday, January 12, 2008

We made it through the first full week of our new lives.  The kids have been amazing and have shown just the right mix of maturity and understanding with tons of hugs and sadness.  We had to make a small tweak to the schedule.  If I stay until the kids go to the bus stop, then I get to work pretty late, so Mark has had to get up to see the kids off in the morning.  He didn't hesitate when we discussed, it, but we're both very used to sleeping much later than we are, so I certainly can sympathize with him.

Aside from being exhausted all the time, I have only one other problem with my job - the shoes!  My feet are killing me!  I so very much miss my tennies!

The boys have air soft guns which shoot small plastic pellets.  (Mark actually shot himself in the calf from a couple of inches away to prove to me that they aren't dangerous.)  The kids have to wear eye protection whenever the use the guns.  Patrick's friend gave him this goofy hat.  Put all that together, and this is what you get!

Meet Goofy Finster


Friday, January 18, 2008

Mark's pretty much been taking care of the kids since I went back to work and the strain finally got to both of us and I had a huge bawling session while we were trying to work out the logistics of next week.  We're both stretched to the limit and just couldn't take it at that point.  I'm having a very hard time dealing with the guilt of being gone, and he's trying to take on everything at home while still doing his job.  I'm so thankful for him, and that we have such a strong marriage, and I know this will all work out.  For now we've decided to rely a bit more on Mom (who's been there whenever we've asked and made all of this possible).

There's nothing like boys and their dogs Alex and his little girl


Saturday, January 19, 2008

This is how kids play "together" these days.  They're all three on computers playing with each other online - in the same room!


Monday, January 21, 2008

This week is going to be my first real challenge.  Mark will be out of town all week.  Mom was funny.  We were trying to work out the week, and I told Mom that I was okay with letting the kids stay home alone after school until I got home.  She said, "Well, I'm not!" and she's completely rearranged her schedule so she can be here every afternoon this week.  She's even going to stay over one night so I can get off to work earlier.  I am SO lucky to have her!


Friday, January 25, 2008

We made it through Mark's first business trip with no crises.  He got back last night, and thank God because Patrick woke up sick as a dog this morning.  He's got a fever and is coughing like mad.  Mark took him to the doctor this morning and she put him on Prednisone for his cough.  Poor little guy.

On the upside, Mark met with one of the bosses this week and was reassured that despite the mortgage downslide, Mark and his employees are still a valued part of the company.  That sure was good to hear right about now!

When Mark was out of town this week, during one of our conversations while I was at work, he asked what I thought about a vinyl-liner pool.  The idea of getting any kind of pool is so preposterous at this point that I didn't even consider what he was saying.  Well, tonight he brought it up again and explained why.  The company he works for, HornerXpress, manufactures and distributes pool equipment.  The way he came to work there as a mortgage broker is because financing is just one of the many products they offer to their pool contractors.  Horner is now going to be distributing the kits for vinyl-liner in-ground pools for a company up north, and they need a training pool to build in order to show local contractors how to install it.  Wow.  It's a great opportunity to get a pool at a huge discount, but even at a huge discount, we're in no position to be getting a pool right now.  Hmmmm.


Sunday, January 27, 2008

Patrick is still really sick, and now Alex has come down with it, too.  I can say this - the house sure is quiet!  The poor boys are really miserable, though.  :-(


Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Well, one down, one to go.  Patrick went back to school today, but Alex is still pretty sick.  Whatever this virus is knocked Patrick on his butt for 5 solid days, so I'm not surprised Alex is still down for the count.  Thank God for Mom - she's been at the house just about every day administering generous doses of TLC.  Alex's new teacher has been sending his homework home everyday with a classmate who lives in the neighborhood, much to Alex's chagrin.  At least he's not falling behind.

Patrick was tired after school today, and made a burrito out of himself.

Burrito boy


Thursday, January 31, 2008

Mark and I had to make a new sort of decision this morning, since I'm working.  Alex is doing much better this morning, but not so much that we're sure he'll make it through the day.  My job is 45 minutes away, Mark will be in Tampa, and Mom is busy, so if Alex needs to come home from school, nobody will be available to pick him up.  Not only did we let him stay home again from school, but he got to stay home for the entire day by himself.  I'm really proud of him - he did great on his own and even got his homework done.  But he'll definitely be going back to school tomorrow!

Patrick and I went to the school's skate night this evening.  He had an absolute blast, but of course, as with every other skate night, the evening was not without injury.  Patrick was playing red-light-green-light.  When the DJ says red light, the kids all fall to the floor to stop.  Apparently Patrick fell to the floor head-first and knocked the heck out of his eye.  He came up to me after the game fighting back tears.  It was already swollen and purple so we grabbed a bag of ice, and I asked him how he did it.  Apparently, he'd done it at the beginning of the game, but didn't want to miss the rest of the game to tend to it.  Goofball! (If you enlarge the picture, you can see it on the outside of his right eyebrow.)

There's a purple marble under his skin!