Girl Scouts, Websites, Cancer, and a Road Trip

Kayla has joined the Girl Scouts. We aren’t sure yet which troop she’ll be in, or who her leader is going to be, but we should know that within a week or so. I think she’s really excited about the meetings and getting to know some new girls. I offered to be a Troop Helper, but declined the (repeated) requests to be a Troop Leader or Co-Leader. I was never in the Girl Scouts growing up, so I’m not qualified to lead a troop. Yet.

I have mostly finished a website I was doing for my sister. There are a couple of niggly details left that I have to work out, but we’re getting there. She’s happy with the look, so that’s a relief. Once it’s done, I won’t have any major work projects going on, development-wise. That’s a little scary, but it does leave me more times for some of my other pursuits, including my new Close To My Heart consultancy.

My father has been diagnosed with cancer. He began his chemo treatment over the weekend for diffuse large-cell lymphoma. He has a huge growth under his ear and jaw, but I hear that it’s already going down after his first treatment. That’s a relief to him, but I’m more concerned that they are able to get all of the cancer, and that he is able to survive the treatment itself. It’s going to be a several-months-long process, and I’ll just have to do what I can to be supportive.

Two more months until the kids and I go to Dallas. My niece is having her first baby this winter, and she’s having a baby shower in November. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, and the kids are overdue for meeting some of their cousins and other family members. Mike’s staying behind, unfortunately, so it should be interesting to see how I manage with all 4 kids on my own. Guess time will tell!

Belts

It was a pretty momentous day for Adam and I on the karate front. Adam was awarded his second stripe on his white belt (his next test would be for a yellow belt), and I was awarded my purple belt! That puts only three belts between me and black belt. Those are, of course, the hardest ones, but it’s very exciting to be getting closer to such a challenging goal. It’s taken me almost two years to get this far, but I am gratified knowing that I am really EARNING my belts - too many karate systems just GIVE you the belt, since it is a money thing for them more than an honor thing.

Anyway, I know I’m not posting much here, but there are lots of other places to keep up with me, if you’re so inclined, so I don’t feel too bad.

‘Nother Blog

I have a new blog, just for my scrapbooking. Not too much there, but if you’re interested in that sort of thing, take a peek.

Lessons Learned

Never, never, EVER flat-rate, low-ball quote a web design job again. No, not even that one. Never. Ever.

Telephone Aversion

I find that, the older I get, the less I enjoy talking on the phone. As a teenager, I could waste hours on the phone, and I could rack up long distance bills with the best of them. Now that I am 33, I find that I talk on the phone as little as possible. We have a “family plan” for our cellphone usage, that allows us 550 minutes for both of our phones put together. We rarely use 60 minutes in a month.

Instead, I rely on texting, instant messaging, and email for the bulk of my non-meatspace communication, with the occasional Skype call thrown in. I think it’s just that telephone communication is so intrusive, compared to other forms of communication. A ringing phone demands your immediate, undivided attention, for however long the person decides to keep you on the phone. There’s very little multitasking you can do while talking on the phone, and it interrupts your work flow on someone else’s schedule in a way that other communication media just don’t.

I wonder how other people feel about this. Thoughts?

Guest List

Last night the kids were talking about their upcoming birthday parties, and who they would invite to them. Kayla, not surprisingly, wants to invite Sidney, her friend next door. Adam said he wanted to invite “smart people who just graduated from college, and hot girls I could flirt with.”

Precocious, much?

That’s Not Pretty

Yesterday was a total wash, workwise, as I was sick as a dog from 11PM Saturday, til now. I’m still not feeling great (only managing nibbles of toast and ginger ale for breakfast) but it’s a WHOLE lot better than it was at, say, 2AM Sunday morning. I had to cancel a meeting with a client that I’d been preparing for, and will have to reschedule it for this week.

I have a lot of projects coming “live” all at the same time, so I’d better get my butt in gear.

Week in Review

Monday I took Thomas to the doctor for his four-year-old well-child visit. All went well, though he was bored and cranky by the time it was over (he crashed in his carseat, so I blame fatigue). He came in at 34 pounds and 40 inches in height, all well within normal parameters. We discussed immunizations, but he didn’t get any. Then we went over the Payless to exchange some shoes and came home.

Mike spent the first part of the week feeling sickly, poor thing. I think something he ate must not’ve agreed with him (my guess is the seafood at the buffet; he suspects burgers from a fast-food place we went to). He seems to be mostly better now, thank goodness.

Tuesday Adam and I went to karate, as per usual. Nothing much to report, except that we went out to eat at Olive Garden afterward. The service was very slow, the food was adequate (Adam loved his pizza) though not remarkable. The manager (who I said hello to on the way out) was rude - he didn’t even acknowledge me, and it’s not possible he didn’t hear. But the worst was when I ordered tiramisu ($5.25) and it arrived at the table frozen. I literally couldn’t get my spoon through it. I sent it back, and they returned it to my table a few minutes later, microwaved and with more cocoa sprinkled on it. So now it was frozen in the middle, and melting at the edges. If I want microwaved frozen dessert, I can get that at home. I sent it back and told them to take it off my bill. I won’t be in a hurry to rush back.

Wednesday and Thursday were mostly stay-at-home days, though I did run out Wednesday for pizza-making supplies and yesterday for a storage cabinet and a few other things from Wal-Mart. I’m getting my fabric out of the open wire shelves it’s always been in, and putting it in a closed storage cabinet. The hope is that it will make the craft room look quite a lot less cluttered, and that it will cut down on the temptation Lindsey has to drag it out and play with it.

Today we had planned to go to Holiday World, but Thomas was pukey yesterday and is feeling a bit poorly today, so we canceled that. It’s probably just as well; Mike and I both need to get a bunch of work in.

Speaking of work, my first shopping cart client is ready to go live (we’re at the point of switching DNS records from her current shopping cart to the new one), and I’m working on landing a few more clients. I have one new one (contract signed, deposit paid) but the contractor work-wheel keeps spinning around.

I fired the cleaning crew this week. It’s not that they were doing a bad job, it was just growing increasingly hard to justify $200-$300/month when we’re about to drop thousands more dollars on work in the garden. I’ll just have to scrub toilets and vacuum carpets myself. I’ve done it before.

First Stripe

Adam was awarded his first stripe today!! Alas, I forgot my camera, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that he had a BIG cheesy grin on his face at the time. I’m really, super proud of him. He had also obviously been paying attention to the other kids’ katas, because when he got up to start his new kata, he already pretty much knew the whole thing! That’s muh boy!!!

Ouch.

Paper cuts to the cheek: not recommended.