Dreary Monday here...

[mae0111]

How was everyone's weekend?  What's up this week?

[mae0111]

The weekend was nuts, as expected. Friday DD2 had footskills, DD1 had a basketball game. It was a terrible game. The ref totally checked out, and I was really concerned that the kids were going to get hurt. The parents for the other team were harassing our players. They told our little blonde, blue-eyed point guard (who is an absolute menace on the court, in a good way) to "go back to Switzerland". Our head coach is the nicest, happiest person, and I had to physically restrain him. I thought he was getting tossed for sure. Our team won, but it wasn't much of a celebration.

Saturday started early with a 7am indoor soccer game for DD2, so we left the house at 630. Then she had a basketball game. She did well at both, both teams won. Home for a quick lunch before DD1's 1pm basketball game, and I think I cracked a tooth eating a piece of pita bread. Rushed to the dentist who is referring me to an endodontist for a root canal or extraction, depending on what he finds. Rushed to catch the last quarter of DD1's first game, home for her to change, then off to another game where her team lost but played well.

At the last game, DD2 starts complaining of a headache. I was coaching, DH thought she was hungry, sent her to the snack shack... woke up Sunday crying of a headache... positive for COVID. So she's home for the week, and it just made my week quieter. No soccer, no bball practice or games for her, no piano since the teacher comes to the house.

[twinmomma]

Overall a good weekend here! 

Company party was Friday night and it was amazing! Everyone had a great time and it all went smoothly. Beau and I spent the night at a hotel after, which was a fun treat. Then we got up Saturday and went to his son's friend birthday party. Beau was locked in an escape room with his ex-wife and 5 9 year old boys. God bless him. I did not do the escape room, but we all went back to his ex's house for cake and pizza after and hung out. By the evening I wasn't feeling great - nauseous and exhausted so I crashed early. I figured maybe I got gluten-ed accidentally at some point. 

Sunday morning we went to go look at the condo, then talked to his mom about the money she's offering us as a down payment. When that was done, I felt really sick again and ended up spending the rest of the day in bed sleeping on and off. 

I wonder if I had a brief stomach bug, because when I eat gluten it doesn't usually knock me out like this did. I feel much better this morning. I've had some toast and coffee and am working from home. 

[rere]

Nice weekend. I won $20 at bunco. Other than that we just cooked and I got the house clean. Dh is getting over yet another sickness, so he wasn't up to much.

I leave for a leadership retreat today until Wednesday. We are staying at some historic village turned retreat center. I usually don't like going out of town, but at this point, I am looking forward to just taking care of myself for a couple of days. There has been something wrong with somebody since Christmas. So I can sleep without being disturbed, enjoy some nice catered meals, chill with my colleagues at the cocktail hour.

[waverly]

We had a chill weekend which was needed after the sleepover weekend and all the tantrums this week (not sleepover related).

Saturday was DS's rec BB game. They only had 5 players, so they played the whole time, but they won! DD did not have a game. I am starting to finalize summer camps. I signed them both up for a soccer camp, so I think that will be good since DS doesn't have a ton of interest in camps anymore (he'll be 12 almost 13 at that point). Oh and DD had a soap making event with Girl Scouts.

We are working our way through Marvel, so we watched Ant Man. DH was cleaning the basement and wet vac the couch in the basement (due to the cat). And he was doing laundry. More of the same on Sunday, but we managed to watch Ant Man and Wasp.

I am feeling some kind of jerk towards my one friend, but DD decided she does not want to have a playdate with her daughter. So I am trying to stay out of it and just keep my mouth shut. But I am having all kinds of weird dreams about rescuing my dad, about this friend, about another friend so clearly something is bothering me or I am missing something, but I don't think there is anything I can do about it.

I'm also coming up to my surgery soon ish, so I am running out of time to do the social things that my dream self is telling me I need to be doing.  I think I am putting pressure on myself to do something or be a certain way, but I can't actually do it time and energy wise plus my kids don't actually want to do it.  So I am not sure why I am pressuring myself or dreaming about it.  I think I just have high standards for others and decided that I am not actually meeting my standards myself right now.  

[sandandsea]

Weekend was nice as Dh took both boys Saturday so I was able to clean up the house and get chores done. Dh left for a work trip Sunday afternoon so I’m On my own with the kids through Wednesday night.

I’m exhausted. My thyroid meds are messed up and it’s affecting everything. I have an appointment tomorrow so just getting through until then when they can up the dosage. For my fellow hypo people I tried Armour for the first time starting in august after using Synthroid for 15 years and Synthroid plus a separate t3 drug for the past 6 years. It’s not working well as I’m very hypo again (tsh 8.88) and my free t3 is high (expected). But I really don’t want two separate prescriptions so I think my options are higher dose or go back to two prescriptions. I feel like going back to two is maybe my best option as much as I don’t like it.

[supertrooper1]

The weekend was pretty good. We went camping for 2 nights. It was cold and windy to be expected, but the rain held off for a bit on Saturday so we could spend some time outside and explore the old WWI fort with DS and Beau's grandson.

I'm starting the week off very tired. I woke up at 2am and maybe got another hour of broken sleep after that. I also started my period.

[librarychica]

Quiet weekend here. I did a lot of gardening, work laundry, and less housework than I should have. Both girls deep cleaned their rooms and bathroom. H split is time between working and house projects. No big excitement.

This week is busier. Busy week at work, girls night Tuesday (yes! It’s been so long), school event to attend/volunteer at Thursday, DD1 has an eval appointment with the orthodontist, etc.

[k3am]

Vent.. a person in my office is clearly getting a cold and keeps coming into my office and standing close to me to look over my shoulder at my monitor (which is an annoyance for another post).. Dude. I don't care if you have covid or something else, but if you're sick.. with anything.. kindly GTFO.

[twinmomma]

Omg boss. What the heck. I have my annual review on Thursday. He and I were just chatting and catching up on other projects and he just casually slips in "I got all the 360 feedback from everyone and you actually got a critical comment this year, so that's a first. But we can discuss it on Thursday, it wasn't anything urgent we need to address." Uh. Why would you tell me that?! Now I just have to stew on it until Thursday?!

[librarychica]

I just got an email from the PTA president “desperate” for volunteers for book fair this week. It is so annoying (situation, not PTA president, she’s fine). We have 1200 kids in the school! Why is it the same 15 parents doing everything all the time? I’m already committed for 4 hours and I cannot squeeze in any more book fair into my life this week.

[polecat8]

The weekend was pretty quiet which was fine since I was so sore from all the kicks at taekwondo on Friday night.
On Saturday, I went to a planning meeting for a STEM event. This event has been on hold since 2021, so it was nice to see everyone back for it. Then my parents met me at my house so we could do some more planning for vacation in June. We finally nailed down that we will fly in/out of Minneapolis for our South Dakota road trip. My parents have some companion passes and discounts so my Mom is going to book airfare tomorrow.
On Sunday, I slept all day because my stupid period made me moody and tired. Luckily, the kids were cool with lounging around all day. We did get Chinese takeout for Lunar New Year.
We're finally back on a normal 5-day schedule after the holidays.

[mae0111]

twinmomma, omg that's the worst! No way I could wait until Thursday!

librarychica, we have a similar issue at our school. It's much smaller, but it's the same small group of people that do everything. My favorite is the bazaar - 2 women do a ton of prep work, then they ask for help... the same 10 people volunteer to do all of the prep work, and of those 10, the same 3 bail out every year. So we are left short and scrambling. And then the same people show up on the last day of the bazaar, in the afternoon, and basically take credit for everything. Now I just stand back and roll my eyes.

[186momx]

After running pretty much nonstop since the holidays. I cancelled our Saturday plans and told DD she could watch all 8 Harry Potter movies over the weekend. I got to sleep in late and have lazy lounge day on the couch. I even stayed in pjs all day on Sunday. I feel so much more rested today so I needed to do that.

mae0111, librarychica, our district requires all volunteers to get a background check through the district and watch an online video and take a test to do any volunteering. This needs to be renewed every other year. Mine lapsed during covid and I didn't renew it. I think this really limits people from signing up to volunteer. The test/video and background check need 6 weeks to go through the system so if Sally's field trip is in 2 weeks sorry you can't go. Or they need volunteers for the jog-a-thon next week oh can't help because of red tape.

[sandandsea]

I agree with the school volunteer thing. They make it so hard with getting background check, fingerprints, and not lasting more than a year or two. I think if the teacher or a “tested adult” is there, others shouldn’t have to be official and should be able to volunteer. Even so, it’s still the same people all the time. I use 5 PTO days a year to volunteer at school as a working parent so I know how hard it can be to volunteer but that’s really what makes a school great. The more invested parents are and the more they volunteer, the more the school can offer.

[erbear]

Weekend was good. We are in the process of hiring for my direct boss and I’m really nervous about it. The current boss (interim year, my principal quit in May) is my closest work friend and I adore him. He’s my person at work. If he doesn’t get this job, he will leave and I don’t know that I want to work at the school without him — we’ve worked together for 17 years 😭

[librarychica]

FWIW, volunteering here is the matter of filling out an online form and waiting a couple weeks (first time) or a few days (subsequent times). You don’t new to be finger printed or show up in person or anything. I register people then and there at PTA meetings.

We heard that some parts of our community felt self-conscious because of language barriers so now we hold all PTA events in three languages, have specific Whatsapp groups on the two primary languages spoken, translate all our materials, pair non-English speakers with English speakers, and that has helped some but there is still a pretty low level or engagement. Maybe that’s just how it is, but then we get complaints if there aren’t certain events and extras that the teachers can’t be expected to put on solo. It’s a situation, for sure.

[mommyatty]

Tonight we got a message that a former employee of DD’s school, who is a current parent, was arrested for solicitation of a minor and forcible rape of a child. Soooo… right now I’m for all the background checks.

At DD’s school, there’s nothing for parent volunteers. You just show up. At DS’s school, we had to do a background check but no finger printing. But DS’s school has kids with learning differences including autism, so they are a more at risk group.

[dglvrk2]

My weekend was busy but in a good way. Skiing, gymnastics meet fir DD1 and birthday for DD2.

Question: I'm usually the person who writes thank you notes for *every* gift I receive. This includes the small, generic gifts everyone receives at work (eg chocolates, trinkets etc). This year I keep forgetting and no one else in my department has sent thank you notes. I'm in a new role/department since July of last year, so no one is privy to my practices of yester-years. Okay to skip the thank you notes this year.

I too am all for the background checks for volunteers. It's my/my daughters' district policy. However, it's totally biting us in the butt today. Yes, *today.* There's a field trip tomorrow. There's not enough drivers with background checks and driving records on file with the district. (Every driver has to do this each year.) So they're asking parents to take their own kids to the destination, but not chaperone. We want to coordinate rides with our neighbors/close friends. The dads can carpool. However, even with parent arrangements, they cannot take other kids since they're not approved drivers with the district. So H and I are both taking time off to drive one child to/from the destination...grrr

[sdlaura]

DS1 turned 9 today (on 1-23-23, which is kind of cool). I chaperoned his field trip to the aquarium. It was really fun, but I'm exhausted. Re: volunteering and background checks, for our public school field trips, they usually have the parent chaperones drive all the kids to save money on buses (because we have no district buses - all kids walk or get rides from their parents - I guess it's expensive to rent them). I did have to submit a bunch of stuff to drive kids, but I was glad about that. I had to increase some of my already very good insurance coverages, submit good driver records from the DMV, etc. I think one reason I'm exhausted was the additional stress of driving other peoples' kids on the freeway. But overall the kids were really good and cooperative - I had 4 boys and 2 girls in my group (they're 3rd-graders). Then this afternoon DS1 wanted a haircut, and then we celebrated with our family and MIL and the red velvet cake that DS1 and I made last night.

I'm so behind on work since I was at an out of office meeting Friday and the field trip today. I'm looking forward to catching up the next couple days before I have jury duty on Friday - ugh. I really hope I don't get assigned to a trial. MIL leaves Thursday and I can't wait to get back to a normal routine, as much as I like her. Of course then I'm sure it will be like the meme that says something like "Being an adult means saying 'next week things will slow down' over and over until you die"....I'm sure we won't actually end up in a normal routine because there's always something

[waverly]

I had a dream that I couldn’t get my scheduled surgery because I had neck cancer (not anything in my neck just the neck muscles I guess) and they had to whisk me away for neck cancer surgery.

Ugh clearly I’m getting anxious especially in my dreams. My neck hurts because I need to go to the chiropractor and get it adjusted. I was debating whether I wanted to go or not.