The Great Disappearing Act of the Summer of 09

I've been MIA in blogland most the summer, but with good reason. My work is kicking my butt, and without regular child care during the summer I feel like I'm in a constant upstream battle. Since June I haven't left Richmond except for a few family visits to NoVA and a meeting in DC, from which I promptly returned. I'm dying to get out of here, but alas, vacation is not in the cards this year. Or next the way things are going.

Jason finally found employment, but it's anything but steady and reliable. So he continues to work. Both of my clients are struggling more than ever with the economic climate. I keep finding new things I need to spend money on for the school - a new addition to the driveway for parking, the addition of an ADA accessable bathroom, insurance, yadda, yadda... I feel like every time I call the county or social services it costs a few thousand bucks in new requirements. Take that and add in seven months of unemployment and you have the makings of a lot of fun.

There are lots of changes going on, too. The biggest one is changes in staffing at the school and with MCC, which I'm in knots over. I'm not sure how it will all play out, but I'm hoping that the fall will be less eventful and I can find a way to reduce my workload to 40-50 hour weeks.

So, needless to say, I haven't felt like blogging in my free time. The kids are doing oodles of adorable things to share, but by the end of the day I want to plop in bed with a good book (just finished Shadow of the Wind - incredible!) and ignore the world. I'm sure I'll come out of the blogging slump at some point, but for now, I just can't keep up, so I won't bother with apologies to the 3 folks that still follow along.

I did manage one splurge for the summer - we joined a pool at long last. It's great to take off in the late afternoon, head to the pool and soak up the sun. I'm a much better mom, employer and friend if I can get just an hour in the sun and water a few days a week. Guess I need to move to Florida.

I'll have big updates on the school, happenings in the house and more soon...

On the road again!

But only to DC this time. Someone should have slapped me when I suggested we'd save money by doing IMPI's symposium locally. I hate DC. Sure, it's nice for a great night of theater, or perhaps a day on the Mall, but overall, dislike it. Mean people. Crappy drivers. Nonstop traffic in every direction.

So I check into the hotel after 7 hours on the road today (from RVA to MD back to DC - should have been more like 4 tops). I'm handed a nifty slip of paper that informs me that a "routine maintenance" will occur between 3 and 5 am tomorrow morning. It's now 9. Crap. The maintenance of course involves fire alarms, power outage and flashing lights. Oddly enough, I've been to this hotel ONCE before, and it resulted in a 5:30 am fire-alarm wake up call. I'm not a fan of this hotel now. It's official.

I retire to my room and wait an hour for the usual bottle of wine to appear (when you give the hotel 60 or so thousand dollars of business they usually give you a bottle of wine and perhaps a cheese tray) and finally give up at 10:15, get in the PJs and start working. Of course then the knock comes... 10:17.

A 2006 Cab... not bad, but not to die for. It can wait for another night. But this tray of, um, stuff. Now this I must investigate. A brown squishy object, lumpy greyish glob, soggy biscotti and some squishy pecans. Now this is a new one.

Of course I have to try it all anyway. Squishy brown object is perhaps a spiced pear, aged 1 month. Greyish glob is applesauce, and not the good kind. Soggy biscotti... well, it's soggy. Pecans - one bite and I spit it out. And I do NOT spit out food. Gagging and looking for comfort, my eyes settle on the bottle of wine.

Wine in hand, I return to my beloved PJ's, log onto the computer (no free WiFi? What is this, 2002?!). But I figure, eh, what the heck. I'll be up at 3 am anyway... might as well call it a night, screw around on FaceBook and write a blog entry. I'm so far behind on work that another three to four hours will make no difference.

With that I'm off... another fabulous week of international meeting intrigue officially under way. At least there's no opportunity for lost luggage this go round.