On the Road - #NaBloPoMo 9

Greetings from OMG humid Jacksonville, Florida. I'm on the road today and tomorrow meeting with clients and potential investors. It's a fun departure from the regular office routine, seeing a variety of people and offices and a part of the country I don't know very well. 

And now I'm in my hotel. Room service delivered a lovely dinner that included this giant pitcher of water just for me (score!). I'm catching up on email and watching "Love It or List It" (and being so grateful that our house is done!) and I'll go to sleep early. More meetings tomorrow and then I'll fly home. 

I'm really enjoying this new part of my job. Though I miss Marc and the kids, it's fun using a different part of who I am every once in a while. 

The Hierarchy of Deeds - #NaBloPoMo 8

I'm sure it's just me, but I'm continually fascinated by the order I chose to get things done when there are many discrete tasks in front of me. Today is one of those the more interesting variety, as I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow morning and have to pack.

I hate packing. 

So when I have so many things to do, and packing is the one thing I truly HAVE to do, it's always fun to see what I'll do instead of packing. 

Like unpack a box of snow globes and other handmade treasures.

 

Which is totally a thing I needed to do at some point. But totally not today.

But I did pack before writing this blog post. :)

Chicken Pot Pies - #NaBloPoMo 7

For as much as I might wax nostalgic about Hannah's fading childhood, I don't long to go back to her infancy or toddlerhood by any means. I definitely like the almost twelve version much more. And, she's much more useful. Today she made tuna sandwiches for lunch, and chicken pot pies for dinner. Plus she helped straighten up around the house. 

In between a sleepover last night and her book club tonight. :)

Sick Day - #NaBloPoMo 5 and 6

Remember on my birthday a few weeks ago, I told myself that it's okay to take a sick day?

Well, I didn't think I'd need one this soon, but I did. I spent almost all of yesterday asleep, fighting off a cold that descended on me very quickly. And though I'm still achy and not-totally clearheaded today, I'm going back to the office as I need to wrap up just under a million things before my business trip on Monday. I really thought I'd rest a bit, and then get some work done later in the day yesterday, but sleep really won out.

Too bad sleep can't always win out.

I only went outside yesterday to take Max to the bus stop. He's that tiny speck of a back pack moving so much faster than me in the below.

Tonight we're all supposed to attend the Camp Yavneh Shabbat Dinner, and I really hope I still feel up to going. We had such a nice time last year, and I can't wait to go again a year from now when hopefully Max will have developed some of the friendships that Hannah has.

I doubt I'll write again today, so forgive me for missing a day. Five and six are almost the same anyway, right?

When Bloggers Have Dinner During #NaBloPoMo - #NaBloPoMo 4

When you decide to have dinner with two of your very best blogging buddies during the first week of National Blog Posting Month, well, you don't get a very high quality blog post.

But you do get a couple hours of good listening, helpful advice, funny anecdotes, and chips and salsa.

Can't wait to see you tonight, Red Shutters and Napkin Hoarder. Both of whom have snazzy new blog designs that I'm totally coveting.

Almost Twelve - #NaBloPoMo 3

So yesterday's post, The New Routine is No Routine, listed out all that we've had going on as the fall and a new school year has gotten underway. I assured you there that while it's okay with me to not have as much routine as we used to have, well, it's not completely true. There have been some really hard days where I've questioned all of it. With a schedule like ours, I'd be crazy not to wonder about paring it all back, right?

But the day that really got me was a Friday back in September. We all went to school and work, but now that Hannah's in middle school, she leaves right around 7 am. We're both getting ready for the day between 6 and 7, and I get to see her for five minutes or less during that hour. That morning, it was on the less than five minutes side. That evening, Hannah was invited to an event and was going to be gone from when I'd usually be arriving home until after 10 pm. So I tried to alter my schedule and make it home 15 minutes earlier, just so I could spend a bit of time with her before she left. But the phone rang in my office and then the train took just a little longer than usual, and I made it to our block just in time to see her leaving with her friends. I missed her.

Now the funny thing is that when I'm traveling for work, there are of course days like this. Somehow though, they're different, and maybe because I'm expecting it, I can handle it better. But I really didn't like not seeing her all day, and often make myself a little crazy trying to avoid days like this. I realize, too, how lucky we are to even be in circumstances like these, where we have places to go and ways to get there and people counting on us, to be healthy enough and in this stage where the most quality time is often spent driving someone somewhere.

But she's almost 12. As I'm writing this the sun is setting on a beautiful fall afternoon and winter will be here in a moment and then she really will be 12 and two-thirds of her childhood will be behind her. The ball I picture rolling down the hill has picked up speed since I began seeing it in my mind two years ago and I can feel our time together shrinking and changing. There are going to be entire days when I don't get to see her. There are going to be more and more of them as I encourage her to spread her wings and try more and more things without me.

So it's really not about cutting back on the schedule. It's about adjusting to the changing times, about episodes of Project Runway and trips to the craft store and texting and listening to her sing. And it's about stealing an extra hug from Max, because thankfully he's still around, and working on my life with Marc so we can withstand the changes yet to come.

And sometimes, it'll be about making it home in time for those extra 15 minutes.

The New Routine is No Routine - #NaBloPoMo 2

I used to look forward to "normal" weeks. Weeks where everyone would go to school and work as forecast for a whole five days, where we didn't have any extras to navigate around. Frankly, they didn't happen often, but they did happen on occasion. Now, I can't claim that they happen at all.

Hannah started sixth grade this year, and with it, many new activities. In addition to last year's involvement with our town's All City Choir on Wednesdays, she's doing an extra choir at middle school on Thursdays. Unless she can't be at All City because she's starting her group bat mitzvah project through our synagogue, which starts this week and runs at the same time. Then she still has religious school on Tuesday afternoons at our synagogue, at the same time that Max has it as well, but on Sundays the timing is staggered and she starts half an hour later and in a different building five minutes away from his. Since Max started staying for extra choir rehearsals himself, that means they end within 10 minutes of each other, so we rush to make both pick ups. That is, if they both go to religious school on the same day, and Marc and I don't have to already attend with one of them for some program or another. And a couple hours later, we head back to synagogue where the kids attend a two hour play rehearsal for an upcoming production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (Max is one of the brothers, and Hannah got the title role!). Sometimes after that ends, Hannah has Rosh Hodesh, a group for sixth grade girls, or a bat mitzvah-related session. Soon she needs to start bat mitzvah lessons. And Max has piano on Tuesdays and basketball on Saturday mornings, at least for another few weeks, and Thursday afternoons at Hebrew school too. Got it?

Then layer in Marc taking a class one night a week, or occasional evening conference calls I have with clients in other time zones, or the fact that I might be traveling for work, or Board and other meetings Marc and I both attend with frequency, and the never-enough-time dinner we might schedule with friends, and there simply is no normal.

Which, actually, is just fine by me.