May 13, 2008
We spent the weekend in NY visiting the handyman’s family. Although we did get two beautiful mornings on the beach playing in the sand and watching a group of surfers which made the handyman nostalgic for his high school summers, the majority of time we sat around ‘visiting’ as they say. I was looking forward to T spending time with her cousin Addie who is 2.5 yrs but after her folks drove 2 hours from Connecticut she complained of being tired and it turned out she had a temperature of 102 F so they had to turn around and head home. This also canceled out our ‘Mother’s Day’ plans of driving the next day to Connecticut (2 hours of traffic each way so I wasn’t terribly disappointed) so we ended up with a delightful day at the beach (just the 3 of us) followed by dinner at a local pub a block from my mother-in-law’s enjoying an early start to the evening’s entertainment of karaoke.
T was introduced to all sorts of new foods (Goldfish crackers, pretzels, English muffins, Fig Neutons–see below to see her cramming one gleefully into her mouth) which was fine and I am sure she is sad to be returning to her regular program of Kashi cereal and granola for snacks upon our return.
The flight home was delayed so we spent about 4 hours with a restless toddler hanging out in NY LaGuardia. This will be the last opportunity to fly as ‘infant in lap’ and I must admit I’m relieved as she was a squirm machine the entire flight home.


Mmmmmm….fig neutons!

April 27, 2008
Finals are approaching and I have been mired in the grading of lab reports and other actual *work* this week. Pearl is acting crazy as she needs to run, run, run and we only made it over to dog park once this week. Remind me never again to get any type of spaniel even the long-legged variety. Right now she is currently panting in my face as I type plus on Wednesday she pooped in the baby’s room (only room with carpet) and then a couple of hours later I was letting T air out and she pooped in her room. So, make that a dog and baby poop clean up day for me. And last night after EarthFest (which was fun to hang outside and I ran into a lot of people I knew from my pre-baby life when I worked in enviro ed) at midnight T woke up and had vomited an adult amount all over the bed. Poor girl. So, I am mired in yuck as well this week plus finishing up work so there it is.
April 9, 2008
In an effort to not appear quite so white trash we decided to have this old shed moved from next to our deck to the back corner of the yard where it could blend in and be engulfed by the overgrown vegetation on the fence. This was not a job the handyman could do with his 2WD Ford pick-up so I asked my mom if she knew anyone and she said “I’ll check with Wes; he owes me a favor.” Wes is my mom’s actual handyman and he is one of those guys that lives close to the mountains in a cabin he built himself who comes into town but can hardly mask his contempt for the suburbanites that he services. He seems like a nice guy but every time I have dealt with him he does have this kind of ‘know it all attitude’ reminiscent of certain snobby hippie types I knew in Oregon but he is definitely more e. TN redneck than hippie so to speak.
Anyway, I asked about cost and my mom again said “Oh, he owes me a favor so don’t worry about it.” When I asked why he owed her a favor (I think I said “Why what did you do?” thinking maybe she loaned him money or gave him something of value) she replied “It is not what I did, it is what he did” but wouldn’t explain. So, for about a week we played phone tag with Wes as he would leave a message on my phone saying “This is Wes, call me tonight at 7:00 pm” so I would tell the handyman to call him and of course he would call a little after 7:00 but Wes never answered so he just ended up leaving a message but always with his cell phone number explaining that I didn’t want to deal with the shed issue so Wes should call him. Except Wes just kept calling me. Eventually they talked and set up a time to move the shed and the handyman met with him to explain where we wanted it and Wes planned to come over the next night after work to move it (the handyman planned to help).
So, after dealing with a feverish, fussy baby all day yesterday I finally got her down for a nap and then the doorbell rings and there stands Wes on my front porch an hour early saying “I’m here to move the shed.” Tess is crying now from the doorbell and I get her and sequester the dogs and then about 20 minutes later look out and the shed has been squired to the back fence but is angled at about 45 degrees because there is a drop off in the yard (we had planned for the shed to be moved not flat against the fence but several yards forward to an even surface and the handyman had planned to be home so he could determine the best placement). I call the handyman and he says “Don’t worry I told him to level it” and I decide to not think about it anymore and get ready for work. Several hours later I return home and go inspect the shed and realize that he didn’t move it forward to level it but just piled wood underneath the back end. And apparently I am some kind of hysterical female for worrying that 1. the wood is going to start to rot (it rains a LOT here) and the shed will go sliding backwards killing one of my dogs or my neighbors behind 2. the soil on the hill may erode from said rain thus sending the shed sliding backwards killing my dogs or my neighbors behind. And it is the perfect height for a child to want to play under so next summer I can add the sled sliding backwards and killing T to my list of worries. But because the wood is ‘treated’ and the soil is ‘red clay’ and Wes says ‘I do this all the time’ I am supposed to be fine with it. Which really I’m not.
So, after a long day with a sick baby, a major fall from a rocking chair backwards onto the wood floor because the springs broke (hitting my head hard because I had to hold on to T instead of using my arms to break the fall), a broken copier at work (and a pissed off full time faculty member basically being rude as hell to me over this) making me late to give my unit 4 test, no lunch and now a somewhat precarious shed situation I end the evening squabbling with the handyman and pissing off my dad who called to see if I liked the new location by asking him ‘what the hell was wrong with Wes?’ (my dad hung up on me).
But I really don’t think I’m crazy (see below and notice the wood in the back corner does not extend the entire rear of the shed but is only about 2 feet long–the other corner has a similar pile):

March 27, 2008
Lately it seems that I can’t get my head out from under it all. The little destroyer just found my school file and within about a minute has distributed the notes & old exams & hard copies of my gradebook for my entire semester course throughout the house. I don’t rely on a lot of notes anymore since I have been essentially lecturing on the same information for 8 years but I had pulled the file to review the plant hormone information that I am to lecture on Tuesday. Plant systems is my least favorite topic anyway (I heart me some plant taxonomy and ecology but an entire lecture on ‘vascular systems of the plant’ just does not get my juices flowing). Lately, my work has not been very satisfying. I was thrilled that I was given 2 online courses and 1 night lecture this semester as it requires no child care but the online teaching takes away the part of teaching that I love (talking about science! and interacting with students face to face) so I am left with mostly grading and emailing. Plus, because I don’t have childcare I end up working at night when I am tired or on the weekends when I want to be having fun. And lately it bothers me how few students are understanding the content in my online class. I just graded the genetics unit and a pretty basic sex linkage problem was missed or misunderstood much more than in the traditional classroom. I realize that just because I love biology not everyone does but just the level of comprehension in this course (a college course at that) is a little disappointing. Plus, if they are not older students I know that they had (or should have had) a lot of this information in high school (and middle school). I guess what bothers me the most is that I find this general lack of knowledge surfacing when I read discussions on my local momblog and thus it makes me feel like I am a failure as a science educator in a sense.
So, the house is a pit (seriously) and my hayfever is driving me insane since I can’t take all those pharmaceuticals being pushed daily as the miracle cure on the TV so I rely on pouring salt solutions up my nose (I really do need a neti pot) and dumping gallons of water on my face when the sneezing start. Today at the dog park I think I sneezed about 30 times in a row. Should I be blaming gibberillins for flowering or ethylene for stimulating flower opening or should I be focusing on the hormone that stimulates pollen production instead? I guess I should find those notes.