I took today as vacation. I’ve been working since 4 am and it is 15 til noon. Wtf?
Also, VP I don’t report to, when you ask me to write something and give me exactly zero direction of how you want it, do not wait 5 days to then say it’s not what you were looking for and needs a rewrite. Especially when that gives us less than 24 hours to get it to the people who need it.
Sincerely, Seems to me I’ve worked about 8 hrs today
Dear MIL:
You need to stop going into a freaking panic at every little thing that happens. Seriously. You’re effing battery backup to your modem went down. The dude told you this would happen and to just stop using the battery backup and plug it to your other battery backup in using the adapter he gave you. It’s literally like plugging it into the freaking wall.
You used to be semi-intelligent. What the hell?
DIL who is beginning to think you need to live with us or go into a home now
Dear Government/IRS Could you please come out with the info on all the new tax laws or at least some kind of guidance. It is almost September and we know squat on 99% of the new stuff. How are we supposed to tax plan or help our clients when we can't read up or get continuing ed on the new stuff because nothing is out. Signed Stress tax lady who is seeing myself cramming over Christmas
Dear Government/IRS Could you please come out with the info on all the new tax laws or at least some kind of guidance. It is almost September and we know squat on 99% of the new stuff. How are we supposed to tax plan or help our clients when we can't read up or get continuing ed on the new stuff because nothing is out. Signed Stress tax lady who is seeing myself cramming over Christmas
Are you signed up for any of the big 4 webinars? A lot of info is available and things are getting finalized. BNA has some too. Most are free and quick to sign up for!
Dear Husband, Stop blindly shoving wet items into the beach bag. I’ve asked you this half a dozen times, but every time we go swimming you shove wet stuff in there. I have carefully packed the beach bag and it is full of items like spare changes of clothes, dry towels and diapers that all then get damp. Why can’t you understand this? Signed Pack mule
Dear Husband, Stop blindly shoving wet items into the beach bag. I’ve asked you this half a dozen times, but every time we go swimming you shove wet stuff in there. I have carefully packed the beach bag and it is full of items like spare changes of clothes, dry towels and diapers that all then get damp. Why can’t you understand this? Signed Pack mule
I was just joking about this with a friend....every pocket has a job! Moms agree. Things belong where they belong! We have ziplocks for all the goggles, ziplocks for all the sunscreens, and I keep a small bag IN the bag for wet clothes and now all my kids know the drill. Our husbands were both laughing like, "she tells me to find the chapstick in the chapstick pocket....I can't find it and she's all 'it's the small one on the left!' Duh! "
Dear WPs, Apparently DH and I assembled the power team in our area for our divorce without even realizing it. I just did a bunch of googling and research and picked these people. I feel such a sense of relief now about the whole situation. Doesn't mean it will be easy and perfect, but at least they all know exactly what to do and will guide us through it all step by step. Signed, Breathing a sigh of relief
We've spent a year planning our vacation with my family so it's not okay for you to suggest that we leave a different day and time because YOU think it will be better and easier. This suggestion of yours made two days before we leave and without any of the details of our trip. Yes, we are still going to soccer tonight. No, we are not leaving tonight because you think that's a better idea.
This is a joke right!?
Dear Work,
Please slow down today so I can head out early and finish all the packing.
I thought vacation was supposed to be fun and relaxing...
Dear work, I’m tired and have too much to do. Please let me breathe and catch up. Signed, I’m over these 60 hour weeks
Dear universe, Thanks for letting Ds have a good first day yesterday and no tears. Help him have a great year! Thanks! A relieved mom
Dear contractor, Please be super anal and detailed because dh comes home everyday and complains about the small stuff. He’s right but I’m hoping you’re just not there yet. Please forgive all the nitpicking. Thanks, Trying to keep it all together for everyone
Post by covergirl82 on Aug 16, 2018 9:28:43 GMT -5
Dear WPs,
After the disappointment yesterday related to classes and friends...today has been immeasurably better. I reached out to one of DS's friends' moms via text this morning, as she hadn't posted on FB which teacher her son got. Her son is in the same class as DS, and she mentioned two other friends who are in the same class. Such relief, and I can't wait to tell DS! THEN, I got a text from DD's best friend's mom, who told me that the principal granted her request to have her DD moved to the same class as DD (I know the mom really wanted her DD to have the teacher that DD got)!! I literally had happy tears reading her text. I know DD will be beyond thrilled when I tell her later today.
Happy birthday you amazing kid. I love you so much and can’t wait to see everything you learn to do this year. May you be as much of a dynamo at 6 as you were at 5.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Aug 16, 2018 11:41:36 GMT -5
Dear DS,
I know how excited you are. And I also know you got intimidated when we walked into the main hall of the school and it was full of noise of excited kids and chatty parents.
Listen. You have this. You're ready for this school. You're fun and strong and smart. Your teacher is kind and smart and patient. And you have a pokemon backpack. This year is going to be amazing.
sandandsea, I will look into those. We have a couple organizations here in Oregon that put on some amazing seminars for reasonable prices. I have 20 hours over 3 days in September and it was $185 and comes with breakfast each day, lunch 2 days, and a banquet dinner. They just don't have any of the new stuff planned until update in January.
Dear DD's Doctor I think I need to call and get DD in for what looks to be a major sinus infection. You blew me off in June when I said she had been complaining of face pain, so I've been avoiding bringing her in. I'm going to call and try for tomorrow afternoon but I'm going to ask before hand if you are going to blow me off because if you tell me kids can't get sinus infections again I will be pissed off since a sick visit is going to cost me $350 since we haven't come close to meeting our high deductible insurance plan!
Do you have an urgent care clinic nearby? DD1 gets swimmers ear a lot, and before her tonsillectomy, strep 3-4 times a year. I was able to save a ton of money and time by bringing her to see a NP at our local pharmacy (CVS). They bill insurance, so I still have to pay due to my crap high deductible plan, but it’s like $125 vs $350 that our pedi charges. And my experience is that they err on the side of prescribing for questionable ear infections.
Dear akafred Are you back yet?!?!?! Our friends and I are anxiously awaiting your trip report!
How did you get from the airport to resort? Any good excursions and where did you get them through? What’s the food situation? Did Char trapeze? What was her favorite part?
Post by covergirl82 on Aug 16, 2018 15:01:06 GMT -5
phdmomma, they increased classes for 2nd (DD) and 3rd (DS) grades this year from 4 to 5, so I knew it was going to be even less chance that the kids would have many friends in their class, but we are told each year that teachers put at least a pair of friends together in the next year's class. I hope your DS has some friends/kids he knows in his class!
mommyatty yup! Or... He called the one lawyer referral the divorce coach mentioned. Whatever. He did something. And, he found a place! So, this shit is getting real. The coach today commended us for how we're handling it. Basically, we got married when we were babies, both finally grew into who we are as people, and turns out, are not compatible at all. If we met fresh today, I don't think we'd make it past a couple dates. I feel surprisingly calm about it. But we haven't started the hard conversations yet. Now I just have to make my job survive all the appointments in my future... ugh.
Dear akafred Are you back yet?!?!?! Our friends and I are anxiously awaiting your trip report!
How did you get from the airport to resort? Any good excursions and where did you get them through? What’s the food situation? Did Char trapeze? What was her favorite part?
Can’t wait! Signed Campermom
Yes! We got back on Friday night but I’ve been too swamped to WP this week catching up. Can finally breathe!
Transportation: It was included in our package, but on the way there we used Gobecon and rented WiFi from them. WiFi at the resort sucks. Honestly GoBecon wasn’t a lot better (nowhere could you stream video), but at least we could use it in our room which the hotel WiFi didn’t reach.
Transportation within the resort was also a factor because it is HUGE! Our room was on the far edge, which made for near-Disney level walking. There are some “buggies” (golf carts) but very limited. Tip the younger dude who works evenings and speaks pretty good English (sadly I didn’t get his name) a $20 early in the week and he’ll be your BFF. Then drop him a $5 every couple days just to keep him happy . Seriously, one night we were getting ready for dinner and he knocked on the door and offered us a ride. <3 him.
Food: Overall really good, but some quirks. First, there are 3 restaurants, but we only ate in 2. One requires reservations for dinner. Dinner at all 3 restaurants starts at 7pm, which is late for us. Both Samana and Hispaniola have open walls or doors which means flies! Also everything is buffet style and you cut your own bread and stuff like that (with just a towel to hold the bread with), and the Mini Club kids all get their own plates and kind of run wild. Thankfully I am not a germophobe but if you are, beware. There was a huge variety of food on any given night, with veggie options, stuff kids like, salad and yogurt bars, meat etc. But day to day most of the options stayed the same, so we ended up eating a lot of the same foods twice a day. Especially the cheese pizza and white chocolate bread. OMG so good! But by the end of the week it was getting a little old. Breakfast had TONS of choices.
Excursions: The only one we did was I took C snorkeling from a boat that left right at the resort and didn’t go far at all. It was $40 each and we snorkeled about an hour and a half, plus boat ride. Dude didn’t want to sign me up, saying, “We don’t take little kids.” I said, “Really? Because on the app it says 4 and up and she is 9.” Then he signed us up lol. The boat driver was awesome! He took us both out together while scuba divers went off. The reef was nice! We saw a barracuda, a pretty good variety of fish including red snapper, and a squid! Apparently there are nurse sharks but nothing dangerous.
Trapeze: Char definitely trapezed, but not as much as I expected. The circus wasn’t her favorite. There was a lot of waiting in line which I think was the problem. She didn’t spend as much time at Mini Club as we had hoped. Too few English speakers. Part of that is because France takes their vacations in August, so maybe in a November that will be better balanced. The “independent” thing worked out; we ate meals in the restaurant where the Mini Club was, for the most part, and she would either meet up with them or us while there. Toward the end of the week she joined them more as she found a few friends who spoke English. They have shows every night, and at the end of the week (Thursday night) the kids perform for the resort. She loved that! Basically each group of kids divided by age and gender (and a couple of those age groups broke into smaller groups) did a dance routine complete with makeup and costumes. Char’s group had a little gymnastics element. It was great! I would have to say she liked snorkeling the best. She also did the sailing lesson most mornings, and the pool parties.
As for the kids, it was very French. LOTS of unsupervised kids even at the pool, as young as 6 or 7, I kinda wondered if some of them flew all the way from France without parents lol. But the kids weren’t misbehaving or wild or disruptive or even annoying. They were fine. I was less enthused about all the smoking and random cigarette butts at the pool, beach, etc.
Oh and the other negative was the seaweed. OMG! Soooo much! They literally had huge tractors and lots of men working just to dig it up in the morning and throughout the day. The beach was nice because the water was super calm, like no waves, no tow, etc. But walking over and swimming with seaweed was not so fun. The pools were clean and nice with great big palapa umbrellas.
I would say the location was nice with lots to offer, but I am not sure I would spring for it again.
meagain - details? Like, he’s back in it or .... he’s still out but loves you .... or he’s out but wants you? The early days suck.
They do sick. He thinks he had another stroke. He lost sight in his other eye for a few minutes but it came back. So we haven't really talked more yet. We are really tip toeing around right now. I am not willing to give back to the way it was so I dont know where all this leads us right now.