Future Guitar Hero star

 

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a great tool for busy folks to keep the facet of their lives organized. It will sync with iCal and other calendars, accept notations from Jott.com and allow you share and publish your site. (if you are sharing tasks in a group!) Here are a few screen shots:

I have to admit, that I haven’t had the time to use it to the best of my ability, but I intend to. This is one of the many great tools out there for busy folks moms to keep organized with a little help from technology. Now if only I could use it to show my 2 1/2 year old how beneficial going to bed at 8:00 o’clock and sleeping until at least 7 a.m. would be.

 

The bitter weather man

While I was getting ready for work this morning I flipped on the local news to catch the weather forecast for today. Mr. Morning Weather Guy was in quite-the-mood this morning:

MMWG: Today, the high will be 38. Yes that’s 10 to 15 below normal for this time of year. And the rest of the week will be about the same with some rain, snow and sleet tossed in. Like it’s anything different from what we’ve had. If you detect a bit a sarcasm in my voice, you are correct. I don’t make the weather folks, I just report it.

It’s ok MMWG, I understand, I understand.

On another note: I’ll get to the Remember the Milk info I promised a couple of weeks ago later today.

 

Phew

I did it.  I finished my paper TWO DAYS EARLY!  Effing sweet.  Of course, I don’t say “effing” around the child, but I can say it here.  Why? Because it is 11:51 p.m. and I am still up after finishing my paper AND, AND doing the lesson debriefing.  I can now go to the hockey game tomorrow night without guilt and NOT think about school until Sunday.  Which is when the next lesson begins.  Online learning is great.

Side note:  Sofia had THE worst meltdown of her short 2 1/2 year old life last night when the play date was over with her daycare best pal.  Physically restraining your child to get her into her car seat is just not cool.  The screaming, tolerable.  The arching back to avoid being physcially held, restrained and strapped into a vehicle in just not high on my list of “Things I wanted to experience when I become a mom” list.

Promise: I will let you know about RemembertheMilk.com in my next post. (This weekend)  I’ve been kind of busy.

 

Cool tools for busy moms (if you are a tech geek like me)

Last Thursday and Friday, I attended an conference on K-12 classroom technology.   Some of the focus was on tools for the classroom, but another portion of it focused on tools that teachers could use online.  Since here in Michigan, there is a new requirement for all high school seniors to take at least one online course, there is new focus on the tools for teachers to use.  Web 2.0 tools are great for collaboration and building those online skills.

In the process of attending sessions, I found some cool tools that I myself have started using.  I may be behind the curve in discovering these, so you’ll have to excuse me if you all already know about these.  The first is:

http://jott.com

Jott.com is a site that provides a toll free number that you call to add items to your Google Calendar, blog, to do lists or send a remind text message to yourself.  It translates voice to text, so when you want to add something to your WordPress blog (as I did above), you call the toll free number, say WordPress, confirm with a yes, and then record.  Usually within 5 minutes your post with be made.  I used it yesterday to send a text message to myself at 10 a.m. with my grocery list while I was thinking about what I needed to get earlier in the morning.   I have to give credit to Liz Kolb of Cell Phones in Learning for showing me this cool web and FREE tool.

I have to get back to writing a paper for school, so tomorrow I’ll tell you about Remember the Milk.

 

In the motherhood, for…

In the motherhood, for mom’s, by mom’s, about mom’s. It’s a great site with video stories submitted by mom’s and played out by actors including Jenny McCarthy and Leah Remini. It is inthemotherhood.com. listen

Powered by Jott

 

Life as I knew it gone

Life is different now.  Different good.  Things are looking up.  True we don’t have enough money.  We are house poor.  But with the new job and school, as crazy as things are they are good.   I hardly have time to think about anything but work and school, but the time I have to think is about good things like being a role model for my daughter, valuing the time I have with her, the incredible support that I have from my husband and the great confidence that builds.  And hell, as tired as I have been, when we do have time to get busy, it has been great.  Like, when we first met great.  How I have the energy is beyond me, but it is there.

 

Gone but not lost

I promise that I am back this time.   For good.

Life has taken some twists and turns since you last saw me, including a new job and going back to school.  Now that I am a technology director, I figured I should probably update this site and get a real web presence (other than Facebook) up online.

This blog will change over time to reflect the new changes and challenges in my life.

 

Business travel

I was out of town last week for a conference in Orlando. The little bits of warm weather that I was able to enjoy between conference sessions was glorious. Apparently, the sun went away the day I left and has only returned a couple times since that day. Pretty typical November weather in Michigan. Gray. Overcast. Cold. Blah. So 75 degrees and sunny was great.

I have traveled twice for work since Sofia was born and each time I have felt the same way: Happy to have the opportunity to get away and have time to focus on only one thing at a time (the conference) and anxious to get home at the end of the trip.

This trip I was a bit more nervous because it involved plane travel and the older I get, the more I don’t like sitting in airports or dealing with cranky, impatient people in them or on my flight. Take off and landings also make me nervous. I used to love it when I was younger.

On the flight down, we were delayed by an hour and half because of high winds in Detroit. So once we boarded, we sat there on the plane for quite awhile. Sitting in front of me was a woman and her 3 children. Her husband was seated somewhere else. I’d say the kids ranged in age from 18+ months to 7 years old. The littlest one was having a hard time dealing with the delay and then the long flight.

Being a mom to a 2 year old, I understood what the mom was going through. She thought she was prepared by packing a bag of tricks toys to keep the little guy occupied, but that plan went out the window after such a long delay. He would have his ups and downs and the downs would be really bad. Lots of screaming, crying and “NO!” declarations to everything this mom tried to do. The older man in front of them kept looking back and giving them nasty glances. So did others on the plane. Myself and the guy seated next to me tried to entertain the kid when he would look back at us. Like the guy next to me said, “I have 3 boys at home. I understand.” Most people aren’t that understanding. About an hour into the flight, I said to him, “I bet you anything, 20 minutes before we land, he’ll be fast asleep.” I should have put some money down.

When we were all getting ready to exit the plane, I leaned over and said to the mom, “It’s ok, I understand.” By this point, even though Jr. was asleep, she was in tears.

What I don’t get is if you are on a flight to Orlando, don’t you expect the plane to be full of families? And if the plane if full or families, at least one of those little ones will not be happy. If my ears and head clog up during the descent, think about what it does to the little ones, who don’t know to chew gum, yawn, take Sudafed or pop their ears?

 

With or without, it is what it is.

A seemingly trivial conversation on the elevator up to my office this morning has got me thinking about how much is too much to say at work.  Well, at least about personal things.  The conversation went something like this:

Co-worker: How is your daughter?

Me: Great!

Co-worker: How old is she now?

Me: She’s 2.  Well, 2 + a few months.

Co-worker:  She’s your only one, right? Will there be more?

Me: Umm, well…..we’ve been trying but nothing has happened.

Co-worker:  Oh great!

The rest of the day, I’ve been thinking about this conversation because there’s so much more to the story besides, “We’ve been trying but nothing has happened.”  But of course, you can’t elaborate on that kind of information in an elevator ride first thing on a Friday morning.  In fact, I don’t think I should elaborate but part of me wants to say, “Yes, we’ve been trying for a year and half now.  I’ve even been on fertility drugs the past 4 months with no luck.  So we decided to just stop “trying” and whatever happens, happens.  We want another child very badly, but we’re not willing put my health at risk and keep trying for years on end until I’m 39 and he’s 41.”

I hear it all the time around the office and in other conversations.  People with only 1 child get criticized for only having 1 child.  “He only has the one to worry about.”  “They hardly have to manage the way I do with my three kids.”  “It must be nice to only have put your resources towards one child.”  But do these people throwing the barbs even know why there’s only one child?  Maybe it’s for financial reasons, or infertility, or maybe the mother’s health could be at risk.

It really is getting hard to answer the question, “Are you going to have another?” without feeling the need to explain it beyond “We are trying.”  Because in truth, we aren’t trying anymore.  We are just taking life as it comes and if it comes with another child (or not) then it’s what is meant to be.