The Last Month

Goodness, it's been a whole month since I updated the blog. I know I need to post SOMETHING when both my brother and my dad bug me about it.

Okay...so what have we been doing over the last month?  First, what I have I been doing over the last month instead of blogging?  When things get overwhelming, I tend to make lists. So:

1. I'm spearheading the fundraising efforts for the family's airport.  I've made calls, written letters, created a Facebook page and a website, processed the payments/donations that have been made, created membership swag, etc. Two weeks ago I was interviewed by a reporter from the Airplane Owner and Pilots Association. To prepare for that I pored over the airport deed and transcribed a recording I made of my FIL about the history of the property. And for months before that, I worked with a pilot friend to convince AOPA that our story was worth an article in one of its publications.

2. I've become the public relations person for the water company, which I love doing...most of the time. As a chatty person, I'm pretty good at calming irate customers down and explaining things to them. Last week threw me for a loop when I ended up being interviewed on a live radio program.  Dave and our office manager had both been asked repeatedly to go on the air to discuss water conservation. Of course neither of them would agree to it so that left me. I didn't mind so much, but was caught a little off guard when I phoned the woman at the local station and she asked me to come down in 10 minutes to do it.  Ack!  A little ironically, it was raining that day--the first day in a loooooooooooong time--so I walked down the street from the office and did the show. I could have been more prepared, but it went okay.

3. Last week I submitted my second (or third?  depends on how we chop/edit things) chapter to my PI and to my post doc. I dreaded the reply from the post doc--he's a highly skilled writer and top-notch ecological statistician. But his reply was much, much more positive than I feared so that made me super stoked. Now that my two working days for the week are done I will sit down to fix and reorganize it to resubmit.

4. I was stay-at-home sick for a couple of days and now I have a lingering cough. One day about two weeks ago I stayed in a half-sitting/half-laying-down position on the couch watching Land Girls on Netflix (so good!) and snoozing allllll day. Dave let me sleep in for a few days and the extra sleep seemed to speed the recovery process. For a few nights I was taking the green flavor Nyquil. I don't know who decided that was a marketable product. It is DISGUSTING. And how did we end up with a bottle in our house?  I have no idea. But it has three times the cough suppressant as our Kirkland brand cold capsules so I took it. It did require some major encouragement from Dave to swallow the stuff....and resulted in major gagging from me.

Okay...so what have "we" as a family been up to?  I'll have to refer to my picture archive to answer that.

We went to Livermore for a weekend in mid-January. We did a LOT that weekend and maybe I'll get around to posting about it at some point. Or maybe not. Here's a shot of my dad and Dave getting ready to install laminate wood flooring in the family room. It was quite an undertaking since none of the prep work had been done before we arrived, but Dave made sure it was all installed before we left on Sunday evening.

While in Livermore, Jennifer and I attended a charity ball for my childhood friend's little girl who is fighting brain cancer. It was a fun event and it was touching to see how many people came out to support Delaney. I got to reconnect with a few girls I grew up with that I hadn't seen in person in more than a decade.

We celebrated Christmas in January, the Levie way. And although my mom wasn't here with us this time, we upheld her non-stocking stocking tradition of office supplies, treats, and random things from the dollar store each individually wrapped and placed into shopping bags. She'd be so proud.

Eddie received a new-old bike from Uncle for Christmas!  It was my old bike and then my brother's old bike.  DO YOU SEE THE COLORED TIRES?  Edward really went nuts getting that bike decorated with a Spider Man theme.  We were all really impressed with how the bike turned out--and even more impressed with how well Eddie did transitioning from his teeny weeny bike to this bigger one. It's about twice the size but he did just fine, even zooming down the gravel hill on my dad's road the afternoon he received it. Back at home, we've spent a considerable amount of time biking around the neighborhood and the airport.

Eddie FINALLY got to have a friend over to play. Mason came over for a few hours one Saturday. The boys had a grand time playing in Eddie's new downstairs bedroom and making gun shaped bread before we took them to bike at the airport. Up to this point, Dave and I felt that that construction at the house made it too unsafe for kids to visit. It felt so nice to let Eddie have Mason over!

Sorry about the blurry photo...last Friday when the drought-quenching storm hit, we settled into the upstairs living room to watch a movie together. It was amusing to see three generations crammed onto a tiny loveseat sofa to watch a VHS copy of Aladdin. I had to hold myself back from singing the whole movie.

Last Saturday the rain REALLY came down fast and heavy. We got almost 6" that day!  All of us love playing outside, wet or not so we took Eddie to the river to check out the flows. We'd been checking the USGS river flow website constantly. Our gauge maxes out at 400 cubic feet/second so we wanted to go see it in real life at that point. In this picture Eddie and Dave are standing north of the river beach where we play in the summer.  Eddie was confused, asking where our beach was. 

Valentine's Day is coming up on Friday. Eddie is getting pretty good at writing his letters so we thought it'd be good for him to address and sign his cards for his class. All NINETEEN of them. I started out having him do 2-4 each day but he decided he wanted to power through a large number of them at a sitting and then take a few days break. It worked out pretty well and we're quite proud of him. I hope he doesn't notice that I went back and wrote the names on them in black ink...but I worry that his teachers won't be able to read his writing to help him 'deliver' them to each kid. 

Where does the time go? Our weekdays feel like treadmill program:

• Dead stop at 5:40 am since we're still cozy in our bed.
• Slow walk at 5:45 am when we wake up.
• Increase to a brisk walk at 6 am when we're scrambling to make/drink coffee, get lunches ready, and start Eddie and Dave's egg-and-cereal breakfast before one of us gets Eddie up around 6:20.
• The jog starts at 6:50 when we start urging Eddie to finish his food. Why-o-WHY does it take kids so loooooooooong to eat their food?
• We increase to a run at 7 when one of us literally runs out the door to warm up the car and put Eddie's lunch/backpack inside.
• At 7:10 we're back at a run getting Eddie out the door, into the car, and buckled up. If we leave the kitchen at 7:10 then we're able to get to the bus on time.
• We get to walk (or sit!) for about 20 minutes before rushing out the door to work. This is the time I eat breakfast.
• Then we're off to work. That's either a run or a walk, depending on the day.
• I leave the office at 4:30 pm to drive north to get Eddie. Once I walk in the door of the daycare it's an uphill hike. Getting Eddie to leave his friends and toys is a chore in and of itself. 
• The moment we step into the house it's a run all the way to bedtime. We get dinner on the table by 6 pm and almost every night Eddie has to take a potty break in the middle of the meal. Shower happens next around 7 pm and we try to get him into his room "for the night" by 8. I put that in quotes because he always comes back out for a kiss or to tell us "something important" like what he wants to wear the next day. 
• Luckily one of us cleans up the kitchen while the other does Eddie's bedtime, leaving post-Eddie time for a show or work or whatever...until we clock out no later than 10 pm. 

I wish there were more time to play with Eddie at home on weekdays!  It seems that there was a lot more "free time" in Davis on weeknights. I really think it's this giant, disorganized house that is sucking the time out of our lives. 

Anyway, that's what we've been up to!