Overflow

Like art? Like writing? Wanna create a future?

Science says you too can be happy!

I’m seriously considering going online for my next degree. Drexel has a good online program in information systems. I might even be able to get my employer to pay for it.

I was thinking of going the PhD route with Leeds Metropolitan. I would love to teach futures and I’d need a PhD to do it, but I’d be getting a degree for which there were only maybe three possible jobs I could get. This MSIS degree seems as if it would be more applicable and afford more opportunities.

I love my new laptop. Now Heidi and I can do our work at the same time without having to wrestle over computer time. Since it was refurbished, the price was right.

Family Update:

Mr. Freshpants is almost ours. It’s up to the lawyers now. Who knows
when that will come through. He starts early childhood school tomorrow.
He’ll go every MWF for a few hours to hang with the other toddlers.
They’re called the “Bunnies.” How cute.

GirlZilla loves her new school. She’s starting at the school nearest
our new house, anticipating our upcoming move. She’s been happy with her
classmates and teacher since day one, which comes as a relief to us
all, especially GirlZilla. She was quite sure she was going to hate her new
school and miss Whitcomb.

Hmmm, lessee. Thing1 and Thing2 have moved on to another placement. We
were overwhelmed and outgunned with those two. We made it over a year
with them, but their issues kept bubbling up into outbursts that were
turning increasingly violent. We just didn’t have the level of training
needed to handle it. And with a baby in the house we were beginning to
worry. So now they’re with a therapeutic foster family. We really miss
them. I miss reading them their stories and singing songs with them at
night. I miss playing out in front of the house with them. When we had
the twins we spent more time outside - the better to keep them from
destroying our house - and I was getting impressed with Thing1’s
sports abilities. He had good catch and throw abilities for a three year old.
Yep, I miss the little tykes.

Maybe we’ll take another foster placement after we get settled in the
new place. But I think we’ll stick to babies. Emotionally, I think, we
can only handle the kids who are not pre-screwed-up. Fostering is hard
enough.

The biggest change afoot is the impending merger between our household
and the household of Heidi’s parents. Heidi’s mom is increasingly in
need of help with her health and Heidi has been helping coordinate her
care. Partially they are moving to Houston to be close to better
quality medical care and partly they’re moving here because Heidi does
such a good job of taking care of her. Her mom’s been living with us
for pretty much the whole summer with her Dad going back and forth on
weekends and as needed. They’ve sold their property in Corpus Christi,
we’re closing on the new house, Hannah’s in the new school. And away we
go.

Merging our households will be interesting. Not the least of our
concerns is all the stuff. It’s a big house, but the in-laws have fifty
years of accumulated stuff and they are moving into a four room space
in our house. We’ve inquired gingerly about how they are going to cull
through all that stuff, all the while hoping against hope that our part
of the house is not their backup storage strategy.

Living with the parentals-in-law is a trip. Like parenting itself, it
is proving to be an adventure on the cutting edge of the relationship
world. The biggest challenge involves dealing with the inevitable
decline that comes with age and how that sort of begins to invert the
parenting relationship. Another problem is dealing with impending
mortality — that of the elderly person living with you and, indirectly
I guess, your own. It’s weird having folks around who are these great
resources of wisdom and experience in many areas but are flirting with
the edges of competency in some other areas. They can fix our plumbing
and our furniture, but have diffculty operating the television or the
new coffee maker. The lapses in logic mixed with flashes of bright-eyed
wisdom can be maddening and confusing.

Not to mention that you have to get used to a whole new set of
idiosyncracies. I’m just getting comfortable with Heidi’s, and now I’ve
got to learn to get along with those of two more people. Discarded
sweetner packets in the sink when a trash can’s but inches away, TV so
loud that you can hear it from every inch of the house, spoiled pet
dogs that they feed from the table, etc. Nothing insurmountable, but it
is a small withdrawal at the sanity bank every time I have to, say,
close up the odiously smelly bag of “beggin strips” dog treats they
leave open in our pantry. Of course, I’m sure we have lots of habits
that drive them crazy too. Some of these things will ease when we all
have our own space in the new house. But some things will… well I
like to think of them as oppotunities for personal growth.

So far, the key to dealing with living with elderly folks is empathy.
I’ll be there some day (well I hope) and I want the same compassion
shown to me when I’m eighty-two and a bit daft. It has to really suck
to get old and watch your body and mind slip slowly away from you. It’s
hard seeing their anguish over dealing with that and not knowing what
to do or say.

I want to teach our kids to love and respect older people. I want them
to learn that taking care of family is what you do. Period. No better
way to teach them that than by example. I want to love old people too,
and not just because I will be one someday. It’s easy to love little
kids. And I love a challenge.

I have a crush on Miss Guidance over at BuddhaJones. I always look forward to my daily scolding.

This is a great site. Fabulous and creative ways to use snail mail to make art. And a nice online community design too. What the web was meant to do — bring ordinary people together.

When the dot-bombers and the e-commersaurs are all extinct, sites like this will rule the online world.