Mama Ball Says

Busy day in the middle of vacation today! Dropped the kids at school, went to work for a little while and sorted donated books for Grand Caillou, then went to see my mother-in-law hard at work in rehab, then off to see Jake at swim lessons. He was REALLY nervous -- last year's incident is still hanging on. I'm going to have to get him in the pool this summer as soon as it's warm enough and keep him in every day to get him past this. Went back to work after and sorted through more stuff ... have a shitlist for tomorrow to blow through in the morning.
Tomorrow afternoon I promised to take donuts and juice for snack for Jake's class, and then I am taking him out early so we can go skating over at Doro Hamill. They have an extra public session tomorrow afternoon since it is vacation week. Wayne is coming over so I am leaving the boys with the kids and I am going to go see Brokeback Mountain in Port Chester. Otherwise, I'll never see it until it hits HBO or Cinemax. I was hoping that they'd have early times this week but no dice, the only time it shows in the afternoon is too late for me to get the kids ( I COULD... but picking them up at 6 pm is just not something I like to do ).
Wine barrel opening party is Friday night, so Friday is a clean house day for me, even though the majority of the shindig will happen in the garage. Gotta take what opportunities I have to get the big stuff done. Steve and Wayne are going to the Bronx to get food ... I may have to go with them as I don't get to do that often.
Steve bought me a combo blender/food processor -- hurray! Came from UJ's store, and the only color available was red, but I think it looks nice in the kitchen -- lots of fun. :) The coffeemaker isn't dead, but the pot is completely shot to hell (terrible design if you ask me) and I am stymied as to replacing that part, If I don't find it this week I am going to either go back to Gevalia and get a free coffee pot from them or go buy a Mr Coffee as they have replacement pots at the goddamn Stop and Shop.
Spent time with my father-in-law today, hope things go okay for the next few weeks. don't hold out much hope beyond that, but you can never tell. I suck at betting anyway, so I am not the person to ask about odds.
Someday soon I will live in a house where I don't have to drink to get through the hours of 5-10 pm.

Mama Ball Says

Well, Wayne didn't call, so I am assuming that like a bajillion other folk, we didn't have the right set of numbers. Oh well! It was fun to play.
It went past frigid right to goddamn cold yesterday and today. I'm not sure the wind chill ever got above 20. Yuck. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little better, but not much, so I am taking the kids to the "members-only" 1-hour-early opening time for the children's museum in Norwalk. I figure we'll play there until it gets too crowded and then we'll head home for lunch and naps before we head over to Dr. Devine's. Jake decided we should go see the tigers at the zoo Tuesday, and then go see Curious George after lunch. Sounds good to me! Sadie's been running a fever on and off the last few days -- nothing worse than that and occasionally not being herself -- some whining and crabbing, but that's about it.
Took Jake skating today during the public skate time, and we had such fun! He was so proud of himself because he was getting moving on his own and staying up -- and moving relatively quickly! No lessons next Saturday, so we are going to take advantage of the extra public session at 3:30 on Thurs and then the regular sessions over the weekend.
Got home from that and took Sadie out to the mall just to get her out of the house. It was too cold to take her for a walk around the block. She was hilarious -- we walked around the mall for a while, wherever she wanted, and then she led me into Gymboree, cried and hid from the salesgirl, then went flipping through the clothes until she found a really adorable skirt that she refused to let go of. I have no idea how she did it but she not only grabbed the right size, but the damn thing was on sale. I picked up a little embroidered shirt to go with it, and we went up to the register, where Sadie proceeded to pitch a fit because the girl at the register needed her to LET GO of the skirt so she could scan the tag. I had to pry her fingers off it -- it was so embarrassing. You would have thought I was ripping her leg off the way she was howling! Anyway, other than the hissy fits, she shops like Kristen: she can find the best thing in the store in her size and on sale in three minutes or less. If this were an Olympic event, I'd have a gold medalist on my hands. I came home and told Steve that we're doomed.
Here's to a relatively uneventful vacation week!

Mama Ball Says

Powerball is up to some unbelievable number -- something like 350 million, so Wayne is going to take the couple of bucks I found close to the back door and buy some tickets. If we win, we'll split with him. :) Gotta have some hope, even if it's just for a little bit. Actually, I would just like enough to get out of debt and take everyone on a really nice vacation back to Mexico ... and of course set aside enough to pay somebody to clean my house for the rest of my life. Like they say, somebody has to win at some point -- might as well take a shot occasionally. It's Thursday, wish Friday was here as after tomorrow February vacation week starts -- hurray and hoowah! Monday is Jake's dental cleaning, Tuesday is "big boy" day when Jake gets a whole day of me to himself (we go to the zoo/museum/NYC/whatever), Wednesday I promised to come watch him at his swim lesson in the morning and then I'm going in to school to clean off my desk and straighten things up, Thursday I will finish whatever I didn't get to and go see a movie in the afternoon, and Friday is my day to clean the house before the wine party. Busy? Yep. Stressful? Likely not. Emma said tonight she thinks she will be up at King Street Home for another couple weeks. Lucille said maybe next week they will spring her, depending on how well she is doing moving around. Hope, my dears, is what keeps us getting out of bed in the morning.

Mama Ball Says

Blizzard was a record -- just over 2 feet of snow. Jakje and Sadie have had a wonderful time playing in it! We've played in ur yard, Emma's yard, and gone over to Byram Park to sled down the big hill. They loved it! Lots of pics on the website at http://www.ballfamily-ct.org. Supposed to be 50-60 tomorrow, so we should have lots of melting happening. MY carrot ginger soup is VERY spicy -- have to remember to cut the ginger in half, and then add at the table. Definitely cleans out your nose, though! Tomorrow is vegetable/bean/pasta soup day.

Mama Ball Says

Whew .. it's been a while, but damn, do I have good reasons. Mother-in-law with stage 4 cancer and fractured pelvis and arm, plus 92-year old neighbor who fell and spent the night on the floor before crawling to the back door to wave at me as I was leaving for work with the kids. Lots of scary stressful shit going on. They are both in the same rehab section of the nearest nursing home. Fortunately, it is wonderful -- private home with owners on site daily, and so clean you could eat off the floors without a second thought. Their rooms are around the corner from each other, so we're currently getting twofers on our visits.
Hopefully we are through the worst, at least for a little while, until things go south with my mother-in-law and we all need heavier doses. Don't know when that will be, as we need an update from the oncologist ... maybe in a couple weeks.
Big decisions coming up very soon, as I have to get Jake into a kindergarten closer to work, and I have to decide where work is going to be next year. Have a choice, don't know if I will take it yet. Hard to think about it with all the other shit in the way.
Blizzard's on it's way for tonight into tomorrow, so that should give us lots of fun stuff to do tomorrow once the winds die down and we can go out to play. Bought stuff to make soup and such, and Steve's got four lasagnas made for the freezer along with a big pot of sauce. Currently the blizzard warning goes until 4pm tomorrow, so we will see what actually happens. I think the meteorologists are doing the educated guesstimates most of the time anyway.
Brought the new school Nikon D50 digital slr home yesterday so I can play with it and figure out how all the functions work on it. Took some cute skating pics of Jake and his "Snowplow Sam" group this afternoon, so hopefully I will get those photoshopped and uploaded soon. He did well -- got some skating on his own, but he still needs to figure out the solo forward motion part of this for the most part. :)

oh, holy crap.

Well, it's been awhile, but damn do I have good reasons. Try mother-in-law with stage 4 cancer and fractured pelvis and arm, and 92-year-old neighbor with fractured hip. They are around the corner from one another in the same rehab section of a local private nursing home (which is absolutely fantastic -- so clean you could eat off the floors, and they have the kindest staff I've ever seen there). Aside from the fact that we like the people and condition of the nursing home, they have two dogs and a couple birds in residence, and the kids love going to see them. Sadie especially likes Ziggy the bird who is on the rehab floor -- she gets pissed when she can't spend the whole time with him! So lately it's been a merry-go-round: up, drop kids at daycare, work,, pick up kids, come home, eat fast, go over to do the evening visit shift, come home, kids in bed, collapse,and start all over the next day. Worst part is I lost my meds so I am doing this sans happy pills until it is refill time. Yes, I could call the insurance folk and ask for the lost-bottle-need-replacement but they only allow that once a year and I hate to blow it this soon. I'll get the refill in another two weeks, in time for the next disaster I am sure. Other than that, things are relatively okay. Pressure cooker decisions are on the way, though -- have to get my ass in gear about where to put Jake for kindergarten and make a decision about where I want to be too. Screw it -- I'm buying a couple powerball tickets just so I can have something fun to daydream about for a few hours.