Saturday, December 02, 2000

Ben is running around with a boxing glove on his hand saying "Me. Bear. Grrrrrrr." Oh, to be two again....

I had really good intentions today but no follow through. It's been crazy at work so the housecleaning has been hit and miss at best. I had planned to tear into it today but just didn't have enough ambition. My boss left for the Bahamas this morning so next week will either be relatively easy or all hell will break loose. It's never a happy medium. I suppose Murphy's Law will prevail... if I don't clean the house, it'll be another hell week. If I do clean the house, I'll work the normal 8 to 5 and be bored when I get home.

Just found out Christopher will be coming home from his dad's at 7 in the morning. No sleeping late again this weekend. Crap. I swear, my next vacation is going to be spent doing nothing but sleeping. I have been averaging about five hours a night and that just doesn't cut it. Lisa+NoSleep=Grouchy²

posted by Lisa 12/02/2000 09:31:00 PM | link it |

Thursday, November 30, 2000

After being in sysadmin mode for so long, I now have to kick it back into design mode. I've never been real long on creativity so I have to go searching for some kind of inspiration. Today I looked around at several ecommerce sites trying to find some that had good flow to them. I think a site should look inviting and the ordering process should be painless. Just try and find sites like that. There are some hideous looking sites with good shopping cart systems and some fantastic looking sites with crappy carts. I didn't find many that had both qualities... maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

posted by Lisa 11/30/2000 11:06:00 PM | link it |

I figured out why the biting hamster hates me and loves Todd. I thought it had to do with the fact that Todd rescued him from the cats when he escaped the cage. Oh no.. it is much deeper than that. Todd feeds him pieces of cookie! I make him get out into his ball and exercise. Todd gives him cookies. I have a feeling he'd have given him milk to dip it in if I hadn't caught him. Isn't that the equivalent of tying a pork chop around your neck to get the dog to play with you?

posted by Lisa 11/30/2000 08:01:00 PM | link it |

Wednesday, November 29, 2000

It is amazing that Todd and I get along so well when we have such different ways of dealing with things. He lets things roll right off of him that would cause me to blow sky high. When he does get mad, it's just a blip on the screen. When I get mad, stand back. Luckily I've learned to pick my battles so I'm not constantly torqued off like I used to be.

Another big difference is that I get mad in milliseconds, blow up, then it's done and forgotten. He doesn't outwardly express anger at all but it stays with him forever. Our differences keep things interesting. I try and teach him to stand up for himself. He tries to teach me to calm down. When I was growing up, I heard people talk about the "Kelly temper". My brother and I both inherited that from my dad I guess. It's easily ignited yet easily extinguished. Just listening to Todd talk about his day made me mad on his behalf. He says "Well, that's just the way it is so why get mad?" He has a legitimate point but I get mad over the general principle of things. I am all about mutual respect and kindness and it angers me to no end that some people can't be kind or respectful.

posted by Lisa 11/29/2000 10:13:00 PM | link it |

Tuesday, November 28, 2000

Today I wore my system administrator hat again. The more I do sysadmin, the more I like it. At one point the server froze during a reboot which was very, very bad. Since I work remotely, this particular server is 1400 miles away. Unfortunately, it's also quite a jaunt for my Massachusetts constituents. Oh well, they all got to take a field trip to the collocation facility to reboot the machine. My boss ooohs and aaahs everytime he goes out to visit this particular server. I don't know if my co-workers were as taken by all of it as he is. Probably not but I'm sure he enjoyed taking "the kids" out to see the whoppin Dell server. heh.

Last week I lost a cousin in a car accident. I hadn't seen the girl since she was little but felt bad for my aunt (her grandmother) and other cousins. Today my brother calls me and says our aunt in Washington died. I didn't know her at all. She was my dad's sister so of course I've heard of her through the years. Again, I feel bad for my Aunt Marie, who I do know and love, for the loss of her sister. The thing that really concerns me is that these things always seem to happen in three's. If you are related to me but I don't really know you - be careful for the next few days, okay?

And now in a blatant effort to steal Al's traffic - let's talk about fibroid tumors of the uterus. My mom had them. Nasty things cost her a major surgery. There does seem to be many more alternatives available now.

posted by Lisa 11/28/2000 07:34:00 PM | link it |

Monday, November 27, 2000

I have been looking for my dad's aluminum Christmas tree for the past couple days. This little four foot tree, uglier than sin, was very important to me. When I was a little girl my dad hated Christmas and all the lights, music and festivities associated with it. Something changed in him when he became a grandfather so when Christopher got old enough to enjoy Christmas, dad began to enjoy Christmas too. Christopher always wanted Grandpa to put up a tree at his house too but dad wouldn't do it. He was almost completely blind by this time and couldn't see lights on a Christmas tree after dark anyway. Christopher dug this old, ugly aluminum tree out of the closet at grandpa's and put it on the porch where my dad sat in the mornings. The morning sun would reflect off the branches and dad could see that. Thus began the tradition of dragging out the aluminum tree. Christopher could put it together by himself and he and grandpa would hang candy canes on it. When dad passed away, we brought the tree home so Christopher could continue to put it up in a sunny window here. Last Christmas he set it up on my desk, candy canes and all, so I could see the pretty reflections while I worked. After another thorough sweep of the house tonight and still no tree, I had convinced myself that it was gone forever. I went up to take a bath and thought I might just sit in the bathtub and cry over a stupid tree.

I hadn't been in the tub very long when Todd came up the stairs with his big flashlight and began rummaging through closets. A short while later I heard him and Christopher tromping around downstairs, opening and closing doors. Just as I was finishing my bath Christopher yelled up the stairs, "We found it!!" It was on the front porch behind the lawn furniture that had been brought in for the winter. How many guys would spend an evening searching closets and porches just so the lady of the house wouldn't be sad? Not many that I know of. I'm lucky enough to have not just one, but two guys like that!

posted by Lisa 11/27/2000 11:31:00 PM | link it |

Sunday, November 26, 2000

Todd is whining because I don't link him whenever I mention his name. I say he doesn't need linked since he is on the sidebar. He says people don't know that. In order to preserve the peace, stop reading and go see Todd. Drop him an email and tell him you'd have never known who he was or what he was about if not for the big link on my page. No really, go see him. He's a sweetie and he takes my teasing so well. : )

posted by Lisa 11/26/2000 01:57:00 PM | link it |

Finally got around to fixing my archives so they go clear back to last spring now. I just spent an hour reading them. I now wish I had written more about the transition Todd and I made over the summer. I guess it happened so naturally that nothing really stood out enough to write about. I remember wishing last spring that he could work things out with his ex so that his kids would have their dad in their lives every day. Now those kids are a big part of my life. That's one of the best things about Blogger. You can go back and see how much things change over the months.

posted by Lisa 11/26/2000 01:40:00 PM | link it |

Is it just me or is time flying by too fast? It's Sunday already... the day where I have to rush around and finish all the things I need to get done before another work week starts. Sometimes I wish I could just be a full-time mom again. Time went by much slower then. So much slower that it drove me nuts and I had to get back to work full-time. I don't want time to slow so much that I go stir crazy. I just want to be able to sit down and watch a movie without feeling guilty about leaving some things undone.

My mom used to always cut out the Baby Blues cartoon strip for me on Sunday. It almost always paralleled what was happening in my own life and helped me see the humor in raising a child. My favorite one still hangs on my kitchen cupboard so that I can see it when I am doing dishes. If you are a mother, go here. Print it out and hang it where you can see it. It's so painfully true but you'll feel better knowing that it happens to all moms.

posted by Lisa 11/26/2000 11:48:00 AM | link it |