Oh what to do. . .

. . .when all the presents are wrapped?  My usual modus operandi is to have everything sitting in bags until Christmas Eve and then engage in a wrapping frenzy.  It's getting old.  So today I decided that I would hang out and just get it done.  No computer, no other distractions, just me, the tape, the scissors and the gift wrap taking on the bags of stuff.

And it worked.  It's done, other than the stocking stuffers.  Oh, happy day. 

Now I just need to remember to charge the camera battery and work on the side dish menu for Christmas dinner.

This will be our second Christmas staying at home, so we still haven't gotten down our Christmas schtick, yet.

'Twas Three Days Before Christmas. . .

Time to take down the Hanukkah decorations . . . .and get out the glue gun to secure the bolts (candle holders) onto the paint stirrer that is the newest addition to our menorah collection.

The stockings finally got hung up on the bannister today; the tree was decorated last weekend after standing in the living room for a week with only four ornaments on it.  Tomorrow I may get around to hanging a wreath, which is the sum total of my outdoor decorations.  All those who put up light displays that can be seen from the International Space Station are just putting money into PSE&G's pockets.  And in our neighborhood, it is always those who have the ugliest combinations of lights who put them up the earliest and leave them up the longest.

I have seen enough sappy made-for-the-Hallmark-channel Christmas movies to last me for the remainder of my life and they have served to eradicate what little Christmas spirit I was able to muster.  I'm not usually overjoyed by the holidays, but this year's holiday malaise is worse than usual due to Retail America starting to put up Christmas displays before  Halloween had arrived.  Thank you, Target et al.

The kids are excited about being off from school until January 2, 2013, particularly no Chinese language school until January 6, 2013 though no let up in the homework from Wang LaoShi.  She's a wonderful teacher, but the amount of homework given on the last day before break puts her up there in the stratosphere range as far as buzzkills go.   At regular school, each of their classes each held holiday parties and made gingerbread (read: graham crackers masquerading as gingerbread) houses.  Both kids are relatively clueless as to the events in Newtown, Connecticut.

Fortunately most of the holiday shopping was done on-line, so I have not had to set foot in a shopping mall since sometime in early November.  All the stuff is waiting in bags in the family room waiting for divine inspiration or time finally running out before I get out the wrapping paper, tape and scissors.

Meanwhile back in every day life, both of Micah's BAHAs are out of commission.  One has a nasty case of feedback, the other died while Micah was at school.  Micah and I went back to Audiology at JFK Hospital in Edison, where Micah was first evaluated and fitted with the BAHAs, but if we sent the BAHA back to Cochlear via Audiology the repair cost would be over $800.  So it's been sent off to Centennial, Colorado and the cost will be around $400 per BAHA.

The experience was a lesson as to how spoiled we were while Micah was at Summit Speech School.  When one of the BAHAs needed repair several years ago, the school's pediatric audiologist sent it off and it came back within a week good as new. No muss, no fuss and very little in the way of effort on my part.  Just how I like it.  As Forrest Gump said so eloquently, "One less thing."

And instead of helping with ordering a newer model BAHA, the audiologist at JFK, who is the same one who saw Micah in 2007 to 2009, was all over the options map:  should we have Micah seen by an ENT surgeon who would implant the titanium post so Micah would not need to wear the softband, or since air conduction is always better than bone conduction so maybe since over the ear hearing aids are so small and lightweight some sort of loop could be made to fit over Micah's ear cartilage if Micah's ENT would allow for placement in the canals of an ear mold?  or we could just get the new BAHA3 and continue on as we have been doing.  Personally, I think a nice hit of Ritalin on a regular basis would help her achieve some focus and lessen the stream of consciousness-type chatter that drives me nuts.

I'm in favor of continuing on with the softband.  The BAHAis anchored with a safety tether to the band in case it falls off. -with the over-the-ear hearing aids, if one fell off, it would be near impossible to find it due to it's small size.  No surgery (for now), and if there would be any surgery, I am not going to some new specialist at the recommendation of the audiologist, I am going to Micah's current ENT surgeon, period. 

Grinching

Last night was the first Saturday of the month, and that means it's time for The Sew Must Go On at Olde City Quilts.  One of the things I live for.  Except last night it was also the Burlington City Christmas parade, so its route, right down High Street where OCQ is located.  Much traffic aggravation, alternate routes, doubling back.

And noise.  Christmas music.  Flashing lights from all the fire trucks (not a good night for a house fire in Burlington. . . .)  It really brought out my inner Grinch.  I get annoyed when Hallowe'een immediately slides into Christmas and Thanksgiving is not given it's proper respect.  Thanksgiving is overlooked in the time after Hallowe'en, and when it does arrive, it's just a springboard for Black Friday.  It's just sad.  Thanksgiving was one of the best holidays when I was little.  Big meal, family, lots of food.  The day after Thanksgiving we would go downtown to see Santa Claus at Garfinkel's and look at the Christmas display windows.

And adding to my Grinch-y attitude, I forget my Saturday Sampler box, so I didn't have what I needed to work on the most.  But I did get Thea's purse fixed and I ripped out all the log cabin squares I had screwed up last month, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

But it was good to see my quilting ladies.

Now I just need to finish those Saturday Sampler squares before next weekend. . . . 

Post-Hurricane Recovery

 OK, so I am not a meteorological genius (referencing my previous post.)

Our power went out at 8:23 pm Monday night, so it lasted 23 minutes longer than my prediction of darkness descending at 8 pm.  It spent  ten minutes or so flickering and toying with us before the final outage.   It had been raining all day on Monday, but it wasn't until after dark that the wind really started raging.  Fortunately I had finished both squares of my Saturday Sampler homework at 8:00 pm.

Monday night wasn't much for sleeping, at least for me. Too much noise.  The trains running on the Northeast Corridor tracks behind our house had stopped, but the wind sounded like a continuous train running through the backyard.

Tuesday was spent occupying the kids so they did not run down the batteries on their Nintendos and iPods since we were told it could possibly be a week without power.

School was cancelled for Wednesday, and Princeton University also decided to close for a third day.  (And the watch for signs that Hell was going to freeze over began.)

Dinner was leftovers heated on the stove.  Pizza, believe it or not, can be reheated without an oven by inverting a vegetable steamer over boiling water, and it helps that the pizza was a little stale.  Micah ate four pieces of it.  This Little House on Krebs Road approach to cooking was getting a bit old, though.

Wednesday morning I got up and went to work, where there was power, so I had every device I own that has a battery - minus a power strip, which would have come in handy.  It's Hallowe'en and I originally wanted to be home for trick-or-treating so I asked for a half-day, and this was an act of genius, because right as I was finishing my last patients of the morning. . . .

. . . the power went o-u-t at work.  Seriously.  Sense of irony and sense of humor were wearing fairly thin.

Lovely, just bleeping lovely because with no power, the server for the EHR system goes down so I can't even write my chart notes from home.  Though I was a bit of genius for requesting that afternoon off (for the now cancelled Hallowe'en); no patients needing rescheduling for me.

Route 1 had most of the traffic lights out still, long lines at the gas stations that were open.  The Dunkin' Donuts was not open. (Hell must really be ready to freeze over.)

West Windsor-Plainsboro schools were out the entire week.  By Sunday night eight out of ten schools had power, but  the district offices had no power or phones, and one upper elementary school and one middle school were still without electricity so the district arranged accommodation for those schools at two large churches.

Soccer on Saturday went on as usual, and Sunday's GoalFest/GhoulFest which had been rescheduled also took place.  Neither kid came home with a trophy this year, which was probably a good learning experience for them.  They had great teams, but there weren't enough 4th and 5th graders for individual teams, so the league made a Girls 4-6 level for GoalFest.  Which meant my delicate little 4th grader had to go up against 6th grade Amazons riding a wave of premenstrual fury.  It was just not right that nine-year olds had to go up against adolescents with attitude wearing orange tutus (those damn tutus hid quite a bit of hip checking.).

Steve is getting a generator as his Hanukkah/Christmas present, and I am going to by a few dozen "D" cell batteries.   I will be better than prepared for the next one.

Once upon a hurricane. . .

Hurricane Sandy.  I'm not a believer yet.  I don't think the impact is going to be significant this far inland.

The impact on the weekend was significant:

On Saturday we found out that the GoalFest 3v3 Tournament schedule for Sunday was cancelled due to the weather.

What weather?  It was grey all day and a little chillier than usual.

And there have been no "D" cell batteries at Target since Thursday.

Sunday Micah's Tiger Cub Pack was scheduled to go on the 3:00 pm tour of Rockingham, George Washington's headquarters in NJ.

But all the state parks in New Jersey closed at noon today.  Because of the weather.

Seriously?  Not a raindrop has fallen at this point, and the wind was barely above a breeze.

So once home from our failed Rockingham adventure  I felt compelled to check out the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district web site and found all schools would be closed on Monday AND Tuesday.

And then, Steve called to say that he got a auto-dial message from Princeton University telling him that it would be closed tomorrow.  The university that almost never, ever closes, that has made him drive to work in heavy snow and ice. 

What the hell?  Is the world coming to an end?  Really?

To ice the cake, there was an email from my office telling us that it would also be closed on Monday AND Tuesday.

And still rather than feeling a sense of impending doom, I am still not fully convinced that it will amount to anything signficant around here.  The patio chairs and grill are in the garage, the trash can is inside.  We have enough food for a few days that doesn't require significant preparation if we lose power.

I'll amend this tomorrow, in my mind at least, if  and when the power goes out. 

Let it the rain come, let the wind blow.  My panties remain un-bunched.

Surviving the Birthday Weekend

It was a weekend dominated by the calendar telling me where I should be.

Friday:  Cancelled a class, "Fundamentals of Musculoskeletal Imaging" because being in Parsippany by 7:30 am and staying there until 4 pm would put me at odds with being back in Plainsboro in time for Girl Scouts at 3:15 pm.  There was also the question of where during the day would I have time to make samples of the crafts for the Girl Scouts' Crafting for the Community event so the girls could pick which three they wanted to do.  This year is our troop's first as Juniors, meaning they will be teaching the crafts to the Daisies and the Brownies.  So my morning involved hot-gluing popsicle sticks into triangles and then the triangles into Stars of David.  The first degree burns on my third finger are healing nicely.

All the while I am thinking, I did not get to Pennington Quilt Works for the Saturday Sampler on Thursday night as I had planned. A patient's appointment ran later than what was allotted in the schedule, and it was important that I not rush things along.  And there were plenty of Saturday Sampler slots on Friday and Saturday.  No problem.

The Girl Scouts meeting was fun - we're lucky, we have really nice girls who seem to approach all of the things we're doing with enthusiasm.

After Girl Scouts, Thea had to put on her shin guards, socks, shorts and cleats and head to soccer practice.

Saturday's schedule included soccer at 9 am, with both children playing on opposite sides of town.  The photo day for the soccer league was held at Thea's school, with both teams times (fortunately) within fifteen minutes of each other.  So all of us connected at the photo event so I could get Micah and Steve could go to see his mother.   Meanwhile Steve talked with Micah's friend Jeff's father and planned a play date - and it's now Saturday, and I still haven't been to PQW to collect the quilt fabric for my next square.

So after the team photos were done, talking with Jeff's father to finalize the time for the play date, I hauled Thea and Micah with me to PQW for the noon session.  Fortunately they were heavily armed with their electronic devices (Nintendos, iPods and my iPad), so sitting in the car for 20 minutes would not be torture.

And meanwhile, Saturday is Thea's 9th birthday - and the only thing I had really done to prepare is send out emails to the parents of four of her friends inviting them to join us for dinner on Friday and purchase the new versions of Pokemon Black and White.  No party bags, no cake, nothing.

At 2 pm we dropped Micah off at Jeff's and went on a mission to pick out a cake, buy stuff for the party bags and get ready.

Thea chose four boys that she has known since second grade to come along with us for dinner at the Olive Garden: Adam, Tommy, Amol and Jeffrey.  Her preference would have been to have two tables, one for parents and annoying sibling and one for herself and her boy posse.  But the Olive Garden gave us a long table in a semi-private area, which was worth the 45 minute wait.

After dinner we came home and the boys and Thea adjourned to the living room to play games on the Wii.  Tidbits overhead include:  "We can have cake after we kill off Thea," and  "You won't always be able to fight like a boy. . . ."

What I learned from this was, we could've skipped dinner, thrown a few snacks at them and let them play Wii for five hours and they would've been just as happy.  But they did seem to like the party favors - Pokemon cards, yo-yos and a super ball.

Sunday was Mandarin school for Thea and a playdate with Leland for Micah.  I got to sew a little bit, but eventually I had two little boys who wanted to sew.  So, I made a pattern and cut out four pieces that could be sewn into a person-ish shape. I then got out the fabric pens and they drew on faces.  And fangs.  And blood dripping off of the fangs.  Not quite how I envisioned the little project turning out.

Then we had to get Micah dressed up in his Tiger Cubs uniform for his first den meeting.  We made a scrapbooks and learned a few things about being a scout.  I had put a chicken in the oven so dinner was done by the time we got home.

Kick-Offs

Today soccer started.  Nothing like walking across an enormous field to the farthest DT (double tiny) where the kindergarteners and first-graders play to make my knees even more balky than they usually are.  Micah's team is the Red Bulls and the team is very lucky to have a coach; a few of the fourth grade girls teams are being coached by a different parent each week, including Thea's team, the Tigers.  Steve's taking the second week's practice and game next Friday.  Smart planning on his part:  the weather is still warm and expectations are still low since it's still early in the season.

Fourth grade soccer was a bit of a shock to the system because the girls are no longer practicing immediately before games, they have a week-day practice so it's one more thing to put on the calendar and they play for 55 minutes straight with a referee instead of coach-referees.  The Tigers' game ended in a tie score today; first-graders don't keep score.

And most of our games are at 9:00 am Saturdays, so we're kissing sleeping in for the next ten weeks, if one counts sleeping until 8:30 to 9 as sleeping in.

Girl Scouts got going last Sunday, as did Ying Hua Language School.  Still to come:  Boy Scouts/Tiger Cubs, and Back-to-School nights for both first- and fourth-grades and the fourth-grade music program orientation.  Thea has chosen the viola.  We shall see how this goes as she has deviated from my plan of her taking chorus for fourth grade and then starting flute or clarinet and we'll have one more thing to add lists of things she will need to be nagged about.