Laura

Friday Five, a day late

2024-11-23T22:20:34Z

1. What is your favorite childhood memory?

Hard to say. There are many good ones. Time with my parents and the cats at home is definitely up there, but picking one is not easy.

2. If you could be reincarnated as anything besides human, who would you want to be?

A cat. Preferably a pampered housecat, but even as a feral, I think it would be interesting.

3. If you had to start your life all over, what are three things you would change?

I would write down more things in the moment to help jog my memory later (which I nevertheless still don't do often enough). I would spend more time just talking to my parents. And I'd try to be more courageous about changing jobs more often, rather than staying as long as I did. That has worked well for me but meant I've gotten to do fewer different things than if I'd moved on more often.

4. If you had to forget everything in your life, except one thing, what would it be?

There's no good answer to this. I mean, if I remember my self but nothing else, does that drag along all the how-I-became this way? I think the best answer would be "my family" just because it's pretty broad and I wouldn't want to forget them, but then that implies forgetting non-family friends which just no....

5. Do you have a lucky charm?

Nope. Sometimes we have them for a bit when the boys beg and I'm feeling like a sucker, but otherwise, nope. (No, I don't have one the way the question means it, but how could I pass up a chance to make it about the cereal anyway?)

Questions post

comments

Trying to post here more.

2021-08-08T22:40:05Z

Not that my life is very exciting lately, but that's a GOOD thing. After breaking my knee in December and all the stuff that followed, boring is good.

I'm working (going into the office now, but wfh is supported - office is optional and masks in the office are required whenever not in your own office by yourself). I'm arranging the usual bunch of before-school checkups and appointments for the boys. At least right now, they theoretically have school - and mandatory masks - starting in September. I'm waiting to see what happens with that and with the numbers.

Only our youngest isn't fully vaccinated; he's too young for the current approvals. Of course, vaccinated is still pretty vulnerable to delta and sharing it with others, even if not to severe disease. I don't like this pandemic or the way we've dealt with it so far. :P Darnit. :P

comments

I am tired but mostly grateful.

2019-10-11T01:57:00Z

It has been a very busy week. But the parent-teacher conferences went fine, the appointment went fine, the benefits info for open enrollment this year at work was boring*, we had a team lunch and I was able to order something off the menu adjusted to be fine for me to eat (and it was tasty).

The road construction today was very much Not Wanted - I ended up parking at Graham Oaks and walking to the school (which is about a 5-minute walk) to pick the boys up from their school's-out program (which is at the school). On the other hand, they are doing the stretch in front of the schools today and tomorrow, when they are NOT open so it's just Club K attendees and some staff affected. It was originally going to be Tuesday and Wednesday next week, when it could have snarled up the afternoon school buses (among other things).

* Open enrollment info SHOULD be boring, in my opinion. It's very, very rare that any excitement around the open enrollment is good. I mean, if they want to do something exciting-but-good I won't complain, but I also won't ask for it unless it happens. But I do like to avoid exciting-because-it's-bad news. :)

comments

Things that didn't matter do now!

2015-06-14T16:23:56Z

Things that didn't used to matter when I worked my four-day week-of-doom (because I had Fridays off), but do matter now:

The vet my cats go to, here in town, to has full Saturday hours. Which reminds me, I need to schedule appointments for the critters. They will not appreciate it.
The dentist we see is here in town. And has occasional Saturdays, but I'm not sure how much I need to depend on that.
Our doctors are 15 minutes away, but no freeway/rush hour traffic need be involved unless the weather is bad. We have EXCELLENT doctors, so I am not likely to change this.
The eye doctor we see, who is perfectly fine, is 10.5 miles away but it all involves roads that can get ugly at rush hour. They are open only weekdays, except "some Saturdays" (call and ask) and the latest they are open is 6 pm on Monday - the rest of the week it is earlier. Meanwhile, there is what seems to be a perfectly good eye place here in town, which is open until 7:30 on Tuesdays and has regular Saturday hours. ...I need to change eye doctors for us, yes I do.
The affordable/easy store probably isn't, unless I ask Scott to go. They used to be right on my way home; they are now an 11 mile drive away. But they aren't too far from Scott's office, so when he's in the office I may ask him to stop on the way home. Some days. (Scott doesn't like grocery shopping, so this is an imposition, though.)
The Washington County library system has been my preferred library, both because picking up holds was easier (three days a week I drove past my "home" library in that system, Tigard, when they were open - they're not open Thursdays - whereas Friday was the only day I could go to Wilsonville's library without sorting out kiddos), and because they have a slightly better book selection system-wide, in my experience. Now, Wilsonville and Clackamas County is, because the Tigard library is holy whoa out of my way.

...yeah. Reorganizing my life around being extremely local, and having five days a week of job. On the whole I like it, it just needs some adjustments to fully make it work. The library adjustment I knew was coming; I didn't know about the local eye care place and how good it was relative to my schedule until I started hunting during a recent eye health crisis (when I luckily turned out not to need it, and may I never have a stye/infection on the inside of my lid again, because ugh). I didn't know the vet had Saturday hours because I never _needed_ to know, but it was right there waiting for me on their web site when I looked.

And hey, I get a Thursday farmer's market that I can actually get to. Which is nice, because suddenly driving to the Tigard farmer's market or Lake Oswego's looks like an even bigger pain. (Although LO is a good weekend option, but on Saturday, it's pretty close after the Thursday market. Tigard is on Sunday. Both of those are really good markets, IMO, but ... they require more driving!)

This week, I made two trips that I expect to be atypical - I drove up to Tigard to Home Depot and the Farmer's Market on Sunday, and I drove to downtown Portland for a company event on ... I think it was Wednesday? Maybe it was Tuesday. Some day. And I only walked to work one day this week, Friday.

Even with that, my mileage for the week is under half my former _commute_ mileage (not including side trips or Friday errands). This is really sweet. Of course, this week Drew starts summer camp, which is further away. My route to pick up Drew-then-Ian-then-home is just under 15 miles per day, though - so 75 miles a week for that. Add another 5 miles once a week for the farmer's market. Add 2 or 4 miles per day I drive to work (depending on whether I come home for lunch). 100 miles is sort of the worst-case for all of this, before any attempt to add in errands such as grocery shopping. My former commute mileage, for 4 days a week only, was 200 miles a week. And during the school year, the whole loop from home to Drew to Ian to home is 5.5 miles (instead of 15 miles), and in fact next summer the same will obtain.

(We are switching child care for Drew next school year and summer from the YMCA to Club K, so he can stay in the school and go to after-school activities and such. Drew loves the YMCA, and so do we, but he's willing to try it because he also hears good things about Club K. And one of their summer camp locations IS Drew's school, so that will simplify a lot. Also, his school is close to the farmer's market, so the full round trip hit for the farmer's market won't happen in that case. This switch was already planned for the after-school activities, before I changed jobs, so.)

Reorganizing my life to be incredibly local and allow for my schedule turns out to be, on balance, fairly easy. And really rewarding.

comments

This is amazingly nice.

2015-06-13T15:03:35Z

I miss my free Fridays. But I'm enjoying picking the kids up at the end of the day, sometimes stopping at the park before we come home. And yesterday I walked to and from work. (So why was yesterday the only day so far this month that I FORGOT to take my antihistamine in the morning? lol)

I'm not in the best of shape, IMO, but a mile walk is still very doable and I feel good about having done it. Plus, a commute by foot is a win for the environment.

Thursday, I drove in a little early and was able to leave a little early (although not by as much as I arrived, because heads-down work distracted me, heh) and get to the farmer's market and still pick the boys up on time and head to the park. So very awesome all around.

This morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that, in spite of my not getting any more sleep, the dark circles under my eyes are missing.

comments

Job/health

2015-05-30T01:38:37Z

My first week at my new job was EXCELLENT from a work perspective. I feel like I'm getting the hang of this, and I really like the team.

My first week at the new job was not so excellent from a health POV. I managed not to take any time off work, but I did go to urgent care tonight. I have: probable viral pink eye (not a surprise, I expected that), a stye on the INSIDE of my eyelid (no wonder it hurts so much, and also wtf?), probable start of a sinus infection (symptoms started yesterday), probable strep throat (symptoms started this morning - probable because the full culture wouldn't be back until Monday, so he'd prescribe antibiotics regardless of the quick-test results, so he didn't see the point in doing the test).

Really, universe?

comments

So far, so good.

2014-08-20T00:55:01Z

Well, okay, a piece of code is kicking my behind from here to tomorrow at work. (Hopefully no further. I need to make it behave and move on!)

But aside from that, so far so good. REALLY busy weekend, but fun.

Saturday:

Swim lessons, 9 am.

Then off to the Children's Museum where the Garage room (formerly 6+ years old only) is now open to all ages WITH parental supervision. I thought the boys would love it. They walked in, looked around, Drew said he was going to make a puppet and changed his mind, and they walked out. LOL. But they had a blast in the other rooms they went to, and it was a good time. Plus there's now a piano out front "feel free to play" and they did (unharmoniously, of course). (Neither is interested in piano lessons - at least yet - I did offer. But it's fun to push the keys anyway.)

Then on to our friend N's to celebrate his 50th birthday with gaming (and food and gifts, but lots of gaming). I played a game of Pandemic. We, um, failed to save the world. But only barely! We stopped three of the four pandemics. LOL. Scott and I wanted to stay longer but the boys were absolutely done, so we left. Just in time to dash to open swim! So we did, and had a blast.

Sunday we went to the Rennaissance festival for a couple hours. It's a pretty weak one, in that it's sort of a mix of things that fit and things that don't, and it's pretty small. But we got a good deal. It would have been more fun if the weather hadn't been so hot, but last year it _poured_ rain on us and at least this year we were not soaking wet! Got to see Cast In Bronze perform (omg awesome) and miscellaneous other fun. I would have liked to see more shows through, but the boys didn't really want to stay still for a whole show, and so it goes.

I got the most gorgeous hair ornaments there. I wasn't going to, but Scott talked me into them. I'm not sure how often I will wear them - but I really like them. So we'll see. :)

Scott was mourning after that, that he can no longer find his period-appropriate hat which he loved. It should be somewhere in the house, but if it is, it's totally missing. He'd been looking at the festival for another, but they didn't have one he liked. Well, I hunted up one online that I think he will like, and it's on its way. (I asked him, he agreed and said to surprise him, so.)

And my latest order of Goat Milk Stuff's soap is here. And the tomatoes are still doing well.

And tomorrow, maybe I'll get that problem bit of code back in line.

Oh, and our road's now closed where it joins the main road, until some time in October. The other path out isn't too bad as long as they're not working on that corner, though. I'll be glad when they've completely finished that, because right now it's kind of un-fun if I have to go through it when they're there.

comments

Gratitude catchup: end of May through mid-July

2012-07-16T15:50:21Z

Um. I may have let these go too long. On the other hand, seeing a two-month span, I'm struck by two things:

1. More days with more than one gratitude posted/sent. This is becoming a habit of thinking - yay!

2. Ian has progressed from an itty bitty baby who needed support to sit, to sitting unassisted, to pushing himself to sitting. From struggling to commando-crawl (and failing) to crawling, to (just this weekend) pulling himself to *standing*. From eating no table food to eating a wide variety of foods.

( May 21-31 )

( June )

( July 1-16 )

comments

Gratitude catchup: April, May-to-date

2012-05-20T15:46:41Z

Gratitudes and a few cute kid moments. All have previously appeared on my Twitter and Facebook.

( I like having friends, therefore I cut-tag )

comments

February and March gratitudes

2012-04-01T18:08:26Z

Thank goodness for doing this; reading back over these reminds me of many, many little good things that can otherwise be forgotten. And as I write them it helps me really look at, and find the positives in, my days.

So, here's February and March. (Well, except the first couple days of February were on the last one.)

( That's a lot of lines.... )

comments

Bleh. Note to self: NO SLEEPING IN.

2012-02-14T16:05:23Z

So, if I snooze the alarm and get up at 5:45 instead of 5:30, and especially if Ian then also needs to eat, I won't leave Wilsonville until 7:30. That's workable but it's not ideal and would mean a very long day at work. Note to self: DO NOT SLEEP IN.

Second note to self: discuss with boss/team how to handle after-hours coverage, as I shouldn't have the cell phone on while I am in the day care center. It should be only a 10-15 minute window, but I also cannot respond to calls during the period when I'm driving over. Of course, it may all be moot by the time I'm on call again, which isn't until later this year. By then we may have worked out a way to have Scott drop both boys off. But I'm betting on not. Hmm.

comments

Good day, long day.

2012-01-04T03:15:43Z

Today we took Ian out to visit/meet my coworkers - the office being in Hillsboro, aka nowhere near home which is in Wilsonville. He was awake for the visit, but fussy only briefly, and everyone was either very glad to see him or at least very gracious about the presence of a baby in the office. :) It was nice.

Then home by way of Powell's, the new Cellar Door Market storefront (which I now know how to find, and I'm glad we did that today as they're a little hard to spot from the direction we were driving from - they're planning on painting their name on the awning, apparently), Fry's, and the grocery store. Shopping, accomplished.

Scott goes back to work tomorrow. I've asked that he work from home when possible this first month back, until Ian starts day care. His bosses asked him to be on site at a client site tomorrow. Trial by fire for me and all that, eh? (They've really needed him back and this particular task and client really do need him on site. I understand, and I think it's what needs to happen. I can't say I'm thrilled, but I do understand.) We'll see how that goes! It should go fine, but. I'd feel better if the first day I'm supposed to solo were one where he was available. Ah well! :)

comments

I love my office.

2010-11-09T18:44:36Z

Email to office: "Free sample sandwiches in the break room."
Office staff: *converge on break room*
Programmer 1: "See, this is when the ninjas break in after we fall asleep from eating the drugged food."
Programmer 2: "At least that way I get a nap."

comments