Category: Me

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Me Mothering Parenting Ryan School Work

Working Mama Guilt

Ryan will be five in a few weeks, and when he was born, I had a full-time job.  I took 3 months of maternity leave when he was born, and returned to work part-time for a few months, to ease back into work.  Before I returned full-time, the company I was working at was sold, and my job was eliminated.  We were in a position where I didn’t have to work, so I decided to become a full-time stay-at-home-mom.  I loved it. 

When my second son, Cole, was 18-months old, I was offered a very part-time job, working one and a half days a week, that would allow me to keep my professional skills current, but still allow me to be with boys, most of the time.   Ryan and Cole’s grandparents graciously offered to watch the boys one day while I work, and we found a great child care provider who watches them on the other day.

I have been at my job for fifteen months, and I haven’t missed anything that I felt guilty about in my boys’ lives.  But that is going to change this week.  Ryan’s preschool is having a winter concert later this week. The kids have been practicing their songs for a few weeks now.  I hear Ryan practicing his song, and humming the tune.  He sounds so cute singing it, and he is so excited.  The school is having the concert at a local church, so it is a very big deal.

Except I can’t go.  The day of the concert is one of the days I work, and this week I have to be there.  Normally, I could switch my schedule around so I could attend, but I have to cover for vacations and my co-workers working off site.  I am the only one who is scheduled to be in the office, and I take that responsibility seriously.  But it is breaking my heart that I am going to miss my son’s first and probably only preschool concert.

The school is rehearsing at the church all week, and I am hoping tomorrow and on Wednesday, I’ll be able to catch some of the rehearsal to at least hear him sing a bit.  Ryan’s teacher told me someone should record the concert and they can burn it on a DVD for me, but it isn’t quite the same thing as being there in person.  Thanks to Ryan’s grandparents, he will more than likely be able to attend the concert, because Joe can’t change his schedule this week either. 

I know I shouldn’t be sad- I should be thankful I have a job, and I am, but how do you balance out the grown-up responsibilities that you must fulfill with knowing you will miss your little boy singing about seven little penguins who are cold?

This is really hard for me- I’ll take any words of wisdom you can offer.

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Activities Current Events Family & Friends Me

Party at the Blogger Bash

Last night, I ventured out to the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash with three of my friends, and fellow bloggers.  Amy, from Crunchy Domestic Goddess, Melissa from Nature Deva, and Julie from ChezArtz.   

Amy, Melissa, Julie, and I were all friends before we were bloggers, so this was a great chance to catch up with each other, mingle with other bloggers, and watch the Obama speech.   We took the bus downtown, which is the first time I have ever taken public transportation anywhere.  I’m glad Amy’s husband, and Melissa could figure out bus schedules!

We arrived at the bash a few minutes before the speech started, and I met Amber from Mile High Mama’s in person.  I was a guest blogger there in June, so it was wonderful to meet her! 

When it was time for the speech to start we all crammed in a room to watch.  I am not a big political person, but Sen. Obama gave a terrific speech.  It was very interesting to hear his thoughts and ideas.  He had some great humor in there too, and I think this was probably one of the best speech deliveries I have ever heard in my lifetime-so far. 

After the speech was over, we took pictures, ate, and visited with more bloggers and some company representatives.  I was really happy to meet Tara from Lijit, who’s search feature I have on my blog.  She gave us the only bling from the night, a Lijit T-shirt, so thanks Tara!

I met some local bloggers who I have talked with on Twitter before, such as Crunchy Green Mom, and  met bloggers I was not aware of (but are now) such as Laura from LaLaGirl (a mother of five, who has TWO sets of twins!)

We also met the husband and wife bloggers behind My Left Nutmeg, who were chosen as the ONE political blog from the state of Connecticut to blog at the Convention.  Julie and I left a guest post on their blog, and Tessa, let us use her laptop to check in on Twitter. 

We didn’t want to go home, but we didn’t want to miss the last bus back to the suburbs, so we left a little before midnight.  The bus we wanted to take was packed, so we waited about 15 minutes to take another one.  We at least had a seat on this bus, but it made a lot of stops. After driving back from the bus station, and then back to our town, it was 1:30am!

I had a lot of fun though, and it was wonderful getting to go out for a night (thanks Joe!), with my friends, and being able to make some new friends as well. 

I forgot my camera, but Amy e-mailed me the pictures that she took, so here are some shots from last night:

 Melissa, myself, Julie & Amy

    Amy checking in on Twitter (that’s Tessa in the background from My Left Nutmeg taking the picture)

 Writing my guest post on My Left Nutmeg

 The three ladies at the top are Amber, Lilith, and Laura. 

P.S. If you are a regular blog reader of mine, then you may have picked up on something that I never have done before on my blog, but did in this post.  Can you guess what it is?  Leave me a comment or e-mail me.  I’ll give a special shout-out to you if you noticed what it is.  🙂

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Activities Family & Friends Me

Garden Sitting-When Things Go Wild (Part 2)

You can read Part I of this post here. 

After eating dinner at my in-laws, I was planing on going to the garden and giving it some extra TLC.  As we started eating, the wind was picking up and the clouds were getting darker and darker.  It started raining, really hard- harder than it had rained in a long time.

As I was helping my mother in law clear dishes after we were finished eating, I noticed from her window, which faces north, a massive, and I mean massive cloud.  It covered the entire horizon, and it was shaping up to be a perfect funnel cloud.

About that time, Joe brought the boys in from outside on the covered patio.  He was looking at the massive clouds forming as well. The wind was picking up, and it was still raining very hard.

We turned the news on, and they said there was a tornado warning, for the next county over.  We relaxed a bit, and left the TV on while we were talking.  The boys were playing an a few minutes later, I heard some wailing like a siren.  I thought it was the boys, who imitate police and fire engine sirens all the time.

A moment later it struck me- our city projects siren warnings in the case of a tornado watch!  I asked everyone if that was the sirens going.  We turned off the TV, and the boys were quiet.  We heard the sirens issuing the warning that we were under a tornado warning!

We turned the news back on, and they had issued a tornado warning now for our county.  The wind was really strong, and the rain had not let up.  The sirens continued for about fifteen minutes.  When our county’s tornado watch was cancelled we decided to go home.  I told Joe I was going to stop off over at Amy’s before I came home.

It was still raning really hard when I arrived at Amy’s.  I pretty much figured the wind and heavy rain probably did some more damage to the garden.  Unfortunately I was right.  The tomato cages had completely come out of the ground, and all the tomato plants were toppled over. 

One of the really large sunflowers, had toppled over across the tomato plants, breaking off numerous limbs and fruit on the tomatoes.  Between the wind, the tomatoes toppling, and the sunflower hitting them, there was a lot of damage.

I wanted to get the tomatoes back in their cages, so some of the limbs were supported.  I braved the mud and the rain, and since the ground was so wet, the cages went back in, but it was a bit tricky trying to get the plants back in the cages, without breaking more branches.  I did the best I could, and went home.

I was so mad all this was happening.  What were the chances that while I was garden sitting, there would be an infestation of bugs, and then when everything was getting better, a storm producing a tornado watch, would whip through?  In all my years of tending to a garden, nothing like this had ever happened to me before- why did it have to happen when I was in charge of someone else’s garden?

At least there wasn’t any hail, I thought, and then immediately knocked on wood. 

I wanted to get over to the garden one last time before Amy came home on Saturday to clean up a bit.  Friday it was raining, so I didn’t think I would be able to go, but it stopped raining.  I tried to anchor the tomato cages in more, and cleaned up more debris.  I also applied another layer of the diatomaceous earth to the garden.

As I was cleaning up, I discovered two giant zucchini’s.  I hadn’t seen them the entire time.  It gave me a good feeling that despite the stress the garden had been under, it was still managing to produce, and continue on. 

I picked the zucchini’s and left them for Amy.  I hoped she would be happy to see them, and hoped she wouldn’t be too sad about the way her garden looked.  Later that night it started raining again, in effect, washing away all of the diatomaceous earth. 

Amy told me when she arrived back home that the garden wasn’t as bad as she had thought.  She was either being very nice, or I perceived it to be worse than she was.  She told me she had found some squash too, so I was very happy to hear that. 

Depite everything that happened to the garden, during those two weeks, I did enjoy myself and enjoyed taking care of the garden.  I loved finding the produce- it was like a little reassurance that despite all the problems, it would continue on- kind of like a metaphor for life itself. 

That is why I like gardening, and growing things.  It reminds me that there is a pattern and order to life, and even though at times, it seems like the problems can be overwhelming, order will always emerge again, and things will be OK.  Every now and then I need to be reminded of this.  

I don’t know if I will be asked to garden sit again, but what are the chances of something like this happening two years in a row?  Knock on wood.

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Activities Family & Friends Me

Garden Sitting- When Things Go Wild (Part I)

I have been gardening more or less ever since I was six- helping my mother in her her huge vegetable gardens in the summer.  I can’t really remember a time when I haven’t been growing something. 

Some years I haven’t had a full-fledged garden, but always had flowers, or tomato plants, or something growing.  I would never claim to be a gardening expert (I’m not), but I enjoy it and can tell the difference between a plant and a weed on most days.  A few years ago, I even participated in a community garden plot with some of my friends, and to my surprise, I was able to pass down a few gardening hints here and there.

So when my good friend, Amy at Crunchy Domestic Goddess, asked me to garden sit her garden for two weeks while she was on vacation, at the end of July/beginning of August, I jumped at the chance.  Amy’s garden was just the perfect size-not too big, not too small.  Amy had tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, strawberries, some herbs, a cucumber plant, some beans, and some sunflowers in her garden. 

Due to a few reasons, I didn’t plant a garden myself this summer, so I was really excited to have a few weeks where I could garden!

Amy left town on a Saturday, so I went over on Monday evening for my first time. The garden was beautiful.  Tall tomato plants, with tons of green-just-turning-to red-tomatoes, and strawberries.  There were a few nice yellow pear tomatoes just getting ready to turn.  Everything was green, with no signs of weeds, pests, or any other problems.

Despite it being record heat, I felt confident on my way over for my next visit on Thursday.  I had watered deeply and didn’t want to over water, so I felt my timing would be right on.

Imagine my shock as I slid open the patio door, overlooking the garden, and discovered all the tomato plants top leaves had been eaten!  I could see the bug bites through the door, and saw the sunflower leaves had huge chunks of them gone! Upon further inspection, Amy’s garden was being attacked by insects.  The only thing that didn’t have major bug bites on its leaves were the strawberries, cucumber, and the beans.   

I immediatly thought tomato worms for the tomatoes, but the bites weren’t very large, but there were hundreds of them in the leaves.  I didn’t see any tomato worms on the plants, and didn’t see their droppings.  I searched high and low for signs of what was eating the garden.  I saw an earwig and an ant, but I knew they couldn’t do that kind of damage in just two days. 

Amy’s garden is organic, so I was not about to put anything on it without her permission, but I was stumped.  At the rate this was going, Amy would not have a garden when she came home.  I wish I had taken pictures, but I was really shocked.  I had never seen anything like this before.

After consulting with Amy and our other friend, Julie (who is a master and an organic gardener), Julie said it had been a bad year for pests and recommended some diatomaceous earth, to kill the insects.  She was a lot calmer than I, and seemed to think everything would be OK, and balance out.

I headed out the nursery for some diatomaceous earth, and applied a layer of it over the entire garden Friday evening.  The insects had continued eating, and had started in on the beans, and basil.   I really hoped the earth was going to help, because I was not feeling optimistic about the garden. 

We still had record heat the next few days- until Wednesday- so I went over almost every night to water, and monitor the insect situation.  Happily, Julie was right.  The earth seemed to be working, and it didn’t appear like the plants had sustained any further damage.

The tomatoes were staring to grow new leaves, and I was confident that Amy would still have a pretty nice garden to come home to.  The only thing that concered me was the diatomaceous earth washed away every time it got wet, and we were getting some rain showers at night.  Julie said it eventually washes away, so I figured every other day re-applying the earth would be OK.

On the Wednesday evening (3 days before Amy was due back), I was at my in-laws house after work having dinner.  The heat seemed to have broke, clouds were moving in, as well as a breeze and it felt great.  I was looking forward to going over to the garden that evening and working in the cool air, giving it some exra TLC. 

At the time, I could not have imagined what was in store for me a few hours later, and sadly for the garden.

Stay tuned for Part II

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Activities Family & Friends Me

White Water Rafting

On Saturday I got to go white water rafting with my dad, sister, brother, and their spouses.  We originally thought my dad’s wife was going to go, but she was having some back pain and decided not to go on Saturday morning.

I live in the west, and we are fortunate to have some wonderful rafting spots about two hours away.  This year was almost a record year for river depth, and even though the water had receded some, it was still pretty high.

My dad has a friend, Dan, who is around mine and my siblings ages, and he is a trained white water rafting guide.  He works as a professional guide, and even has his own raft.  He was not working on Saturday and he graciously offered to take us all rafting in his own raft for a private trip. 

In order for me to be at my sister’s house, “in the big city” by 7AM, I got myself out of bed at 4:45AM, Saturday morning.  I kissed my sleeping babies good-bye, but I was really excited to be going.  Initially I didn’t think I could go, because Joe had planned something with the boys, but it fell through.  He was wonderful and told me to go, and he’d watch the boys all day. 

We hit the road and after we got to the town, met up with Dan, waited while him and my dad drove their trucks down to our ending spot (so we’d have a way back up the river when we were done), did a safety check, and got a safety lesson (which turned out to be crucial), we were on the river by 11AM.

It was spectacular.  It was hot out- probably in the upper 90’s.  The water was ice cold, but it felt good, because by that point we were all dying of the heat.  There was a view of the canyon that you just can’t see from the road.  We noticed some clouds starting to build, but it seemed like we were about 15 minutes ahead of them, and even though at one point it was cloudy, we had the sun out the entire time. 

According to Dan, we were pretty much in class II and class III rapids most of the time.  Especially during the first part of the trip.  It seemed like our group quickly figured out all the rowing in sync, and were off to a good start. 

About an hour and a half into the trip, we finally hit some major white water.  I think this would be a class IV rapid.  We heard Dan yelling at us from the back of the boat, “forward, forward!”  We hit the rapid and it was thrilling!  I was sitting on the right side of the raft, and felt myself jerk as we hit the rapid head on.  I don’t know if it was instinct or Dan’s instructions to us before we started kick in, but I leaned into the boat, and dug my foot in as tight as I could into the holder for my foot.

Then I saw a wall of white water hit us. It hit the raft on the left side, completely covering my sister, Mara, her husband, Kevin, and my dad.  Then to my horror, I saw Mara, flip backwards and out of the boat.  It looked like she hit her head on a rock!

Mara shattered her knee cap 12 years ago in a rafting accident on this exact river.  I was so scared that she had hit her head or had hit her knee again.  I heard Dan yell, “Mara!”  We all realized at about that moment that Mara had fallen out, and what was worse, we couldn’t see her at all.  She was being held down under water somewhere, even with her life jacket on. 

The rapid carried our raft out of the area where Mara fell, and even though Dan had instructed all of us to try to grab the raft if we fell out, as soon as Mara’s head popped out of the current, we were too far away for her to try to grab the raft.  She was too far away from us to try to extend a paddle to her as well. The rest of us in the raft, just froze for a few seconds.  It was really surreal.  I could see Mara’s head going under water, and then back up.  None of us knew if she had hit her head, or her knee or what. 

I felt myself getting really scared and nervous.  I wanted to get out and help her, but I knew that would not be the thing to do.  I forced myself to listen to Dan, who started yelling commands at the rest of us.  I knew listening to what he was telling us was the best and only way to help Mara.  We had to get the boat out of the rapid, and to the side, so we could grab Mara when she came by us.

Dan expertly got us to the shore in a matter of moments.  We had a few moments where we could watch Mara, and she was doing exactly what Dan had told us to do when he was going over safety instructions.  He said to never point your head downstream, because you risk hitting your head on the rocks.  He said to sit up, keep your legs together, bend your knees, and point your legs downstream. Mara was doing just this, and was keeping her head above the water for the most part.  She was doing great!

When Mara got closer to us, Dan threw Mara his rope line, and was able to pull her out of the rapid to the raft.  Kevin and my brother, Jeff, were then able to pull her back into the raft.

Fortunately, she was not hurt-only shaken up a bit. She said it was horrifying and it was like being in a washing machine.  Dan said most of the time if someone falls out, the raft is there for them to grab on to.  But since ours wasn’t, Mara ended up with the ride of her life.  (Keep reading to the end for pictures of this!)

She lost her expensive sunglasses, but we were all so happy she didn’t have any injuries.  After we took a short break we were ready to hit the water again.

While we didn’t have another rapid quite as exciting as our first rapid, we still had a blast.  We stopped for lunch a little while later.  The spot Dan really wanted us to go to was already taken, but we ended up at a place that had a rock about 15 feet up, where you could jump off of, into the river.

After we ate, we contemplated the jump.  At first I didn’t think I was going to do it.  After watching some people from other raft trips though,  I decided if they could do it, I could too.  The clincher was when my dad made his way over to the cliff to give it a shot.

I was nervous.  It looked a lot more scarier standing on top of this rock, looking down into the river in person.  Mara went first, and she told me the last few seconds were the worst.  So, I said it was now or never, and took the plunge!

The water was freezing as I hit, and the force of the jump pushed water into my nose, but it was so fun and exhilarating.  We decided to do it again. 

Dan and Jeff, were waiting for the rafters who took our lunch spot to come by, and when they did, they jumped in.  Unfortunately, they didn’t get them very wet, but came pretty close.

I jumped again, trying to hold my nose this time, but I still got water up my nose.  I didn’t care- it had been ages, since I did something like this. 

We cleaned up from lunch, gathered our stuff up, and went back on the river.  We were on for another two hours, had a blast with some more rapids, and then our trip was done.  I was so sad it was over.  I felt like I could just stay on the river the whole day.  We all kind of joked about staying on the river, but I think we all kind of meant it too.  It had been a perfect day- none of us wanted it to end.

We helped Dan roll up the raft while my dad went to get his truck.  We loaded everything back up, and drove back up the river to where we parked.  It took about 20 minutes and Dan said we had gone about 15 miles down the river. 

We decided to go grab some Mexican food and margaritas at a local spot Dan knew of.  We all got to talk some more, and relive the day.  Jeff got the high score on a pinball machine game, so he was happy.

After dinner it was about 7PM, and it was time to head back.  We all said how much fun it would have been if we were camping and staying over, but we hadn’t planned for that.  We all thanked Dan multiple times for taking us, and for being such an awesome guide.

I rode back to the city with my Dad.  After I got back to my sister’s house, I had about an hour’s drive in front of me to go home.  I was getting so tired, so I headed back.  I got home at 10PM and saw Joe in the living room-the boys were asleep.

I realized that this was the first time since having kids, that I had been away from them the entire day and evening.  I have to admit that I had so much fun. Not because I was away from them, but because for one day, I had zero responsibilities. 

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was that carefree.  I enjoyed just being, taking in what was happening and living in the moment.  Thanks to Joe, I knew the boys were being well cared for, and I didn’t have to worry about them.  A day later, I realize it was a day I really, really needed.  For this day I wasn’t mommy, but Heather again, if that makes sense.  

When you have young children, you just have to give certain things up for awhile- white water rafting is one of them.  I am so happy I was able to go though, and hopefully in a few more years, the boys will be able to go as well. 

In the meantime for me, having a day where I could just be, and enjoy each moment as they came, was wonderful.  It was a blast, and I hope I don’t have to wait another four-and-a-half years before I can do it again. 

To see pictures of us hitting the first rapid, and viewing Mara’s fall out of the raft, you can view our six pictures here.  We are pictures 12-17, and you will start at picture 12.  You can hit the arrow to see the series of pictures.  In the front of the raft left to right, is my brother, Jeff, and next to him is Kevin (Mara’s husband).  Behind Jeff is his wife, Kat, and next to her is Mara.  Behind Kat, in the hat is me, and across from me, is my dad.  In the very back is our guide, Dan.