Basement

Darn it! Our contractor came up with an awesome idea to turn all our shelving into a giant rolling storage unit, and I'm all "THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY IDEA"

Because that is just exactly zany enough to have been something I came up with.

Progress!

Peanut #1 has calmed down the tantrums a lot, and that is a tremendous relief for everyone.

We need to get some house stuff done, more, soon, and that's a good reason to have a long weekend!

If I can get another section of wall up in the basement, I suspect the Project Manager will be pleased.

oooh, also, I should brew some beer.

Stabilizing....

So it HAS been a bit up and down since I got back, but things have stabilized a bit.

We've stopped trying to night train Peanut #1, and so, as a result, she slept 11 hours without waking up, which hopefully will result in fewer tantrums. It sure did this morning!

It's funny though, I've been running around all 10 days or so since I got back, trying to make myself more valuable to The Project Manager, basically just trying to Up My Game a bit, and it turns out she's been FREAKING OUT about how well I work and how much I get done and totally stressed by her inability to do the same things as easily.

The trick is I am far less busy than her, so I actually do way LESS work, just more of it at home

The Eagle has... crash-landed. (Editted)

Edit: Things seem better now. Everyone is a little less exhausted today.

So I'm back from two weeks away, leaving the Peanuts with the Project Manager.

And it is a complete shit-show.

My children and the Project Manager fought every day, basically for the whole day.
In fact, it's not really like I left them with the Project Manager at all. I left them with a series of baby sitters who passed the Project Manager from time to time.
Of their four scheduled activities, they made it to one a week, consistently.

The cost of babysitters for this trip I was on was startlingly high.

There were 9 bags of garbage on the back porch of the house. Just piled up. The side sidewalk of the house was blocked with piled garbage. There was no groceries in the house to eat, except what had been brought by friends.

One house-plant had been sprayed with vinegar. So it's dead.

Mail was just left on the floor of the house.

I don't think the Project Manager can hack it alone.

There is just so much to repair and rebuild, both physically and emotionally. I'm not sure this kind of trip is doable again. It's breaking my heart

Fun and Excitement!

I'm solo-ing parenting this week, and it's as fun as always.  I really do need to just flush my phone down a toilet at night though, it is the Thief of Time in a big way.

I have a pretty good app for managing it, but it does need me to turn it on. I wish there was a way to trigger it automatically at a certain time, or at a certain location.

Haulin' garbage

I feel like I'm hauling garbage for a lot of people that I love and cherish, and I feel terrible for them.

I've pushed back against drama in a number of setting, personally, simply by walking away, but I reaaaally can't do that in a couple of these places.

So, I guess, hold on, 'cause this may hurt...

Cryptic Posts

Heh, those were some cryptic posts... but now it's all good.

But let's talk about the Graceful Exit.

Say you've been wronged, and you're hurt, and you're in a position that serves customers (and you are), so you decide to leave

When you decide to leave that position, you have a responsibility to serve those cusotmers one last time, to keep them from being hurt. Because, I think, if you don't, you are likely to be the one who carries the blame, not the people you left, especially if you, um, started the organization you left in the first place.

I'm reminded of a young priest, who after they had left a position, was contacted by a family who had scheduled them for an interment.  And when they phoned FROM THE GRAVESIDE to say "where are you?" said, " I don't work there anymore, you'll have to call the church" instead of "HOLY CRAP LET ME HELP YOU IF I CAN"