Recuperation Process

Now that we've been virus-free for a week, you'd think I'd have more time to blog. Nope. Now I've got to get caught up on the huge disaster that my house has become in the last three weeks. And now I'm training a co-worker to do my job (we're switching responsibilities--we do this in the department at least once a year to help with training and back-filling for absences and such). The training has taken up most of my time at work, and I'm running on practically zero clean laundry at home, so the blog has been feeling neglected lately.

And it didn't help that I had a very busy weekend, so the house went from "barely livable" to "CHAOS" (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). And the blog hasn't been touched. Hey, it happens.

Our union and the company finally came up with a tentative agreement. Last Saturday morning I had to go to a Union meeting to listen in on all the changes (and lots of greedy griping) and vote. Fortunately, the Union did not make the membership wait until the end of the meeting to vote (as in contract year's past). I guess they knew they had to be lenient since the meeting was on a Saturday and most people have plans on Saturdays. So I stayed about an hour, voted, then had to rush home to pick up Mary and another Brownie from our Girl Scout troop to go to a Brownie Carnival. Despite a nay-saying campaign, the contract DID pass. Lots of changes (a good portion of which is affecting my day-to-day job duties). Lots of questions. Lots of headaches back here in my "dungeon" of an office (yeah--we're seven chics in a secure, locked-in area--with NO windows).

A few changes ARE for the better and may present me with an interesting opportunity in the next few months. Won't say much more. The way my luck goes, the opportunity will be taken away before I even try to go for it (@#$% seniority), and then I'll have built up all this hope for nothing. So....we'll see what happens.

Sunday John and I dedicated to Mary. Mary's report card came last week, and John and I had a parent/teacher conference last Friday. Our first-born is still rockin' it in first grade. Way, way ahead in language arts, and even doing great in Math skills. So we took Mary (oh, and the other two) out to lunch and to Adventure Landing. It's like a Put-Put and Chuck E. Cheese's combined. Of course, we didn't golf since it was still snowy and freezing from winter's usual, last attempt at a snowstorm that came our way Friday night, but we played tons of games and won tons of tickets to get 4 cheap-a$$ toys. Izzy was the star of the day, though. We put a token in the Spongebob machine, and she hit the button and scored the big win--125 tickets! She grabbed those tickets and ran all the way to the other side of the building to show off to Daddy--the line of tickets trailing around the corners behind her. Mary and I were cracking up.

I also gave Mary a bunch of new earrings and an earring tree. She liked that even better than the trip to Adventure Landing. :-)

Another development after the month of sicknesses: Mary is now afraid of the dark (again). It's MY fault, of course. You see, this last month, we've been watching a lot of movies. After the kids made it through the first Harry Potter with no permanent scars, John decided to go ahead and let Mary watch the second. She seemed to make it through fine. Then one of the days I was home with her, I let her watch the third. I did the same speal: it's a movie; it's pretend; people in costumes; pictures made with computers; dementors aren't real; etc. Well, the last two weeks, we've noticed Mary now doesn't want to walk upstairs (or downstairs) by herself, she doesn't want to be alone while she's in the bathtub, she has started waking us up or crawling in bed with us in the middle of the night again. She hasn't done this consistently like this since we lived in the townhouse. Yes, it's apparently MY fault for letting her watch Prizoner of Azkaban (even though Chamber of Secrets was watched without MY permission). I do feel bad for the poor kid. Last night I made sure she had a flashlight and even gave her Izzy's Glowworm to cuddle in the night. She made did make it through the night. Then Keith rudely woke her up this morning by turning on their bedroom light (Seriously! We do this routine every morning! Why would he forget and turn on the light TODAY?), so I told her she could go ahead and crawl in bed with John. Let's hope we extinguish this fear quickly..... I feel sorry for her, but I need my sleep!