48-Hour Days

Just a short post because I have an incredibly busy day ahead of me. But, I’d like to know where my focus has gone. Does somebody have it? Can they please return it? I’ve looked everywhere: under the bed, in the couch cushions, all the closets, in the garage. It’s nowhere and I desperately need it back.

I remember being able to get into the zone in a nice quiet office. I remember coding away, finishing a module and looking up to find it was time to go home.

* sigh *

Now I’m lucky to get four hours strung together to just work. Even then, there are constant interruptions. Except at one in the morning. Then there are no interruptions. Heh.

I’m getting burned out working this way. An hour here, an hour there. Trying to get back into what I was doing and figure out where I left off. It’s hard, folks. Anyone who tells you that working from home is easy probably also has a bridge to sell you.

* sigh *

And the thing is, even when I have a Sunday with Ray home and I’m holed up in my bedroom office, I still have a hard time focusing. It seems that with the constant interruptions and scattered working hours I have lost my ability to focus. I can’t seem to get to that point where I’m thinking about the code and only the code, and progress feels incredibly slow.

So, please keep an eye out for me. My focus has to be around somewhere. If you see it, can you please let me know? I’ll keep looking.

We went to the park today. I haven’t been there since last year when a group of rowdy kids decided it would be fun to push then two-year-old Timmy around on the jungle gym. That experience made me a little nervous about going back, but the kids needed to burn off some energy. They don’t like playing outside at home, but give them slides and ladders and swings and they are very happy.

When we arrived I saw no one. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. Then a tiny little boy toddled over a hill, followed closely by his mother. Soon I spotted his big sister going down the slide. I stiffened a little bit, but the woman seemed nice and her daughter was Timmy’s age, so there didn’t appear to be any threat of bullying.

Timmy and this other little girl immediately hit it off. He ran right up to her and yelled, “Hi!” She yelled an enthusiastic “Hi!” right back at him. From that moment they chased each other, raced down the slides, and told jokes to each other that only three-year-olds get. Kellie and the baby brother did their best to keep up. All four children had a great time and us Moms relaxed. Then they left and the next family came.

This time it was a lady on a cell phone and three boys. The youngest was Timmy’s age, but the older two were quite a bit bigger. This made me worry and I prepared myself for the tantrums as I dragged my kids off the playground and to the safety of home.

But these kids were awesome. You’ve never seen two older boys who were more eager to play with little kids. Each boy had a bottle of bubbles. The youngest wasn’t interested in his and ran for the swings. Of course, Timmy came running over yelling, “I want bubbles, Mommy!”

The lady was really super nice and gave the youngest child’s neglected bottle of bubbles to Timmy. He happily blew soap solution all over himself while the older boys blew magical clouds of bubbles for Kellie to run through.

Watching my children interact with other kids and make new friends so easily, I couldn’t help but remember being a kid and the absolute dread I had of strangers. Still do. Seeing other kids on the playground would have been enough to make me beg my Mom to take me back home. Painfully shy, I’ve always had a rough time making new friends. To this day, I have a terrible fear of walking into a room of new people by myself and I make my husband promise to stay by my side if I don’t know anyone. (Lucky for me, he’s the understanding type)

So seeing my kids greet these new people without any reservations or fear just makes my heart soar. I can’t help by admire the reckless abandon with which they met these strangers. Kids so much want to be like their parents someday, but maybe someday I can be like them.

“Mommy, I got a burn in my eye.” says Timmy.

“That’s right, because you jumped on me when I had hot coffee.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why Mommy tells you not to jump on me when I have hot coffee. Do you think you’ll listen now when Mommy tells you not to do something?”

“No.”

Well, at least he’s honest. BTW: he didn’t really get burned, just a drop splashed on his face.

Last night we had a pretty nice thunderstorm. It wasn’t as bad as some of the others we’ve had, but there was some spectacular cloud-to-ground lightning. One bolt took out our utility pole. Ray went out to take a look after we lost our power and found shrapnel in the back yard and some box or other smoking and hanging from the line.

Talk about horrible user experiences! I tried to call the electric company to notify them of the lightning strike, but all I could do with the stupid IVR was report that our electricity was out. I thought maybe I’d get a chance to speak with a person after that, but it refused to let me do anything else, politely informing me that they are now aware of the problem.

So, I tried the customer service number. Same infuriating IVR! Luckily, this one has an escape hatch for “Other Services”. I listened to musak and how important my call is for about 5 minutes, then finally got a very friendly, if slightly testy, customer service rep. I explained the situation to her. She said, “We already have your report that your electricity is out. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you when someone will be out because they are extremely busy due to the storm.”

“I understand. It is just that the smoking pole in the backyard is a bit worrying.”

(getting testier now) “I have added a note to your report about that. The technicians will be aware. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

It took all I had not to answer, ”You mean you actually did something for me? When? I missed it.”

Ray and I prepared for a long, hot, sticky night. The kids actually went to sleep quite quickly and didn’t seem to mind the heavy air. There was a bit of a breeze once the rain stopped, so we opened all the windows. Ray and I played cribbage until it got dark, then I actually got to go to bed. No electricity, no work! Yee, haw!

Around one in the morning I was awakened by the sound of the electric company’s truck out front. After another twenty minutes or so, we had power! Still no A/C, though. Luckily, I am married to a pipefitter and he soon found the problem. But, since the night was wearing on and everyone was fairly comfortable, he left the fix until this morning.

So, the night wasn’t actually that bad. I got to spend some quality time with my husband and I got to bed early. What I thought was really weird was this feeling of isolation that I just couldn’t shake. It was totally irrational, but I felt like I had just entered a Stephen King novel and I was going to find that there was no one else in the world; that we were alone and would have to permanently live without electricity. I was just waiting for the water to stop! The irrationality was amplified by the fact that I live on a street of very close houses and we could hear several of our neighbors barbecuing. What was up with that?

It could have been due to the amazing quiet that settled over the house. There was no chatter from the television, no alerts from the computer, the telephone couldn’t ring, and the A/C wasn’t kicking in. My house is always a cacophony of kids and dog and TV and computer; the silence felt so alien. Today things seem so much louder.

What was too funny was the kids’ reaction. They couldn’t understand why we weren’t putting TV on or why they couldn’t turn the lights on. Every time Timmy went to the bathroom, he angrily asked, “Why isn’t the light turning on?!”

Kellie asked me to put on a movie for her. I told her I couldn’t because the electricity was out. She said, “No, in the playroom.”

Later on, Timmy stomped into the living room and announced (gesturing grandly), “We have to buy all new big TVs! These aren’t working.”

When they had to go to bed, they were quite disappointed that there would be no Mozart: “The music is broken, too?”

This morning, the first thing Timmy said when he got up was, “Mommy! There’s light! Is everything fixed now?”

It truly is the small things in life. I love roses. I used to have some beautiful ones on the side of our house. Unfortunately, rose bushes take almost as much care and attention as my kids—no joke! Once they came along, the roses were neglected and now I’ve got nothing but a tenacious climber left.

I would love to plant more, but we will (hopefully) be moving soon and I won’t be able to take them with me. Plus, the time and attention thing.

While cleaning out the garage on the 4^th I found a couple of old pots. FLASH!

This morning my daughter and I picked out this lovely pink miniature rose. It has a place of prominence on the kitchen table, which is where I frequently work. I know it is small and silly, but just looking over at that rose while toiling over authentication algorithms just puts a smile on my face. I was like a kid with a new toy: I couldn’t wait to get it home from the nursery and get it into its new home.

I really do find that small things like this can be huge pick-me-ups. If you are feeling down, find something small that will cheer you up. Read a book you’ve been wanting to read, see a movie you’ve been wanting to see, color in a coloring book, make your favorite cookies. When things are at their darkest, a small favor for yourself will let the light shine in.

Today was the first day of VBS for Timmy. He was pretty excited to go, although he didn’t really understand what it was going to be. He excitedly put on his special t-shirt (a yellow one he picked out with an iron-on we got at registration) and dutifully carried a pack of Oreos out to the car (part of our donation to the cause). He started to take off down the driveway, but I was scared he’d drop the cookies and bust them all into little pieces, so reluctantly he walked. He was really, really careful with those Oreos!

When we got to church it was a madhouse. There were two registration tables set up in a narrow hallway and all the kids, parents, and siblings were being funneled through them. The two elderly ladies handling sign-ins could barely hear me when I shouted his name! There were kids crying everywhere, with Moms telling them how much fun they’d have and just to give it a chance and they’ll make all kinds of new friends. I started to worry that my little man would want to go home, too. But he didn’t seem to notice them. He was anxious to get to school.

We walked back to the preschool classroom where the three-year-olds and four-year-olds were and got his name tag. As soon as he saw all the familiar toys, the play dough, and the other kids he took off. I had to call him back for a kiss! Not to worry, my little man would love school.

When Kellie and I picked him up, the first thing he said was, “Mommy, I was getting so angry.”

Puzzled, I asked, “Did you get angry at one of the kids?”

“No.”

“Were you angry with your teachers?”

“No.”

“Why were you so angry?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

We met Daddy for lunch at Bob Evans because he happened to be working very close by. At lunch he told Daddy the same thing. Daddy asked the same questions I did and got the same responses. Then a lightbulb went on.

“Buddy, were you angry because school was taking so long?”

“Yeah. I was angry because it was a long time and you weren’t picking me up, but then you picked me up and I said, ‘I was getting so angry.’ But I was not angry anymore.”

Uh, oh.

Since this conversation we’ve asked him several times if he still wants to go and the answer is always an emphatic “Yes,” which is a good thing. I just hope the answer doesn’t change in the morning.