An Accidental Goodbye

I never wanted to go up and say my goodbyes. It felt too final. I wasn't ready. As the rest of the family crowded around the room saying their goodbyes, I stood in the corner facing the back wall. The backpack I'd packed with my schoolwork and things to do while I was originally supposed to "wait" at the hospital during a Saturday visit was still on my back. I kept it on the entire time I stood, not even noticing the weight of it. There was a newer, heavier weight, one that simply could not be removed and placed aside.

I had a continuous roll of thoughts going through my head. Words were being spoken behind me but I wasn't actually listening. I could hear voices. My uncle. My aunt. My grandfather. My grandmother. But my thoughts weaved in-between the words they were speaking. The last words they wanted to leave her with.

And then I remember my aunt coming up behind me. She asked me, "Are you ready to go now?" I nodded my head thinking, Yes, I want to go home. Get me out of here. Let's go, right now. I need to get away from this place, get away from what's happening. 

And then she started removing the straps of my backpack and pulling them off my shoulders. Wait, what's going on? I thought we were leaving. I wanted to go home. No, I'm not ready to go, this is not what I expected when I nodded my head. I turned around and faced the bed. People started leaving the room. They let me speak to her alone. Good, I needed that. That's the only way I would have.

I sat next to the bed and faced her lifeless body. I wasn't sure where to start. She and I didn't talk. We didn't share things. I didn't know how to do this, how to have a conversation and share things with her. I'd spent my life learning how to hide things from her so she wouldn't find out. Now I had to share them? I didn't understand. 

I started somewhere. Boys. I told her about the guy I liked (and she probably knew I did). I told her about the guy who liked me. I told her about how hard feelings were and asked how to deal with them and how I wished she could have helped me in this regard. I must've told her a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember because I'm pretty sure I talked for nearly an hour. 

It didn't feel like an hour. An hour wasn't even enough.

I knew at some point I had to stop. I had to stop talking, and then that was it. That was the last time I would ever speak words to her, face to face. Before I left, I gave her a hug. It felt weird, hugging someone who wasn't going to hug you back, who wasn't even looking at you, who felt colder than I expected even though I knew it was already happening.

I left the room and found the rest of my family. As we regrouped together, I remember someone saying to me, " She looks like she's smiling, whatever you said to her." 

I'd never need to hide things from her again.

Inducted to Induction

This was something we had talked about since we bought our house. The cooktop that came with the house was already 15 years old. It worked, but you could tell the burners which had the most use were not heating as effectively. We put it off for years because we made it work. It cooked food, and we ate. 

This year due to some changing circumstances, I was cooking more than usual. I was spending a lot more time in the kitchen and it felt like the right time to upgrade our cooktop. Lovely enough, prices had also shot up since Covid began in 2020. The induction cooktop we were looking at originally retailed for around $1,200. Now, it is selling for $2,000. Yup, almost double. As much as we wanted to upgrade, that was just too much money for a cooktop. 

So I went back to the drawing board and did some research. There was a separate brand rated well and we could save about $500 from our original. I put that on the back-burner to think about and life continued as usual. 

One morning, out of curiosity, I started browsing while the kids were still asleep, and I saw that the model I wanted to get was half off! I was so excited. I told my husband and he told me to buy it right then and there. So I did. Well, the excitement was short lived because within hours of placing the order, the store emailed me saying there was going to be a delay and the item would not be available for an extra month. 

Great. At least we weren't replacing a broken appliance, just upgrading. Well, we got two more of these delay notifications and they were telling us it wouldn't be available for pickup until May 19th. That was two months from the date I'd purchased! 😑 Oh well, we were at the mercy of the store. 

As we waited, the excitement died down because life just continued as usual and didn't include a new cooktop yet, and eventually, I kind of forgot it was coming. On April 20th, I got the email. It caught me by surprise, because like I said, I'd kind of forgotten we'd ordered a new cooktop. We went and picked it up a few days later and had it installed this past weekend.

Installing it was supposed to be easy. Undo the wires on the old unit. Lift out. Drop in new unit. Connect wires. Done. It was supposed to be a 20-30 minute job. Ha..ha...jokes on us. It ended up taking 2 hours. After unboxing, we dropped it in and realized that the top was wiggly in one area. Not good. We inspected and looked around and my husband told me one screw wasn't going in tight. Turns out, it wasn't making contact with the bracket to hold the top in place for that spot. So out it came and we did some creative adjustments to make it work. 

Then, we dropped the cooktop back in to the cutout only to realize it was slightly uneven on the sides. This was not good as I did not want my cooktop doing a seesaw motion on the counter. So...once again, I jerry-rigged a fix. Don't worry, nothing was damaged, cut, or broken in doing so. And it sits on the counter absolutely wonderfully now. 

I really like the completely flat design.

After we got everything hooked up, we had to re-insert our drawers. We have four drawers that sit below our cooktop, two skinny ones and two large ones. The large ones went in with no problem, but the skinny one on the right wouldn't push all the way back. Once again, we had a moment of panic because the wire cover on this new cooktop was thicker than the old one so we weren't sure if the drawer would actually fit back properly in the space. Luckily, we moved the wires around underneath and the drawer pushed in normally again.

Perfect skinny drawer for spices.

So that was a lovely afternoon spent installing our new cooktop, a task that took four times as long as it probably should have in a perfect world. If it's one thing we've learned in our seven years of renovating, it's that everything takes longer than you think it will, you always realize you need something as soon as the store closes, and nothing is ever as straightforward as the instruction manual makes it sound.

Next time, my actual thoughts on induction cooking.

Hodge Podge

There are a lot of things on my mind lately. Don't really have the time to organize them, just felt like writing, and miraculously both my children are napping today, so here goes, in the style of my 14-year-old-blog-post-style. 

1. Warranty

We bought a refurbished vacuum last summer and it came with a two-year warranty. Last week, I was trying to get it out of the stand and I pulled it the wrong way and some piece came out. So I pulled out my warranty information and looked up how to file a claim. The next morning, I dropped off the package at the local FedEx, and today I received an email saying they had it fixed and it was being shipped back to us. Wonderful! 

In the last week, I've actually missed the vacuum a lot. Our vacuum came with two heads and one of the heads had the problem so we've still been able to vacuum...just not the way we want. The head we sent off was the carpet head. The head we have left is the hard floor head. Our wood floors and tile in the kitchen have been vacuumed and kept clean in the last week, but our carpet has not been vacuumed. I can't wait for it to be returned.

2. Small Kitchen Appliance Tracker

We are still diligently tracking our small kitchen appliance use! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, at the beginning of the year, I decided to spend this year and track what I used every single day. I last gave an update on February 1st. Since then, there's been a lot of new tallies as well as a new front-runner! As of right now our number one most-used small appliance (not including the must-haves) has 25 tallies! To put that into perspective, we are in week 16 of this year. That's almost two times a week!

3. April

April has always been an emotional month for me. It's emotional not because of the month itself but because of what proceeds after. I remember telling a friend in middle school I wanted to skip the entire month, and he replied back, "Why? It's my birthday month!" And now I have a child with a birthday in April. Can't skip it for sure. This year is extra emotional. Lots of things are happening, most of which I would never directly share here, but you're always welcome to contact me privately. 

4. Headbands

I've never been a big fan of doing hair or the like, but I've been thinking about headbands lately. When I was a child I had a ton of headbands but I hated wearing them because they'd hurt behind my ears. Eventually I stopped wearing them and just relegated to boring ponytails, and as a mom, they're the most practical so my children aren't grabbing and pulling my hair. 

Now that my children are older and I actually have some time to think about myself, I suddenly got the urge to try headbands, but not the ones like my childhood. 

I don't seem to have the sense to be able to wear them right, or maybe these are just not the right type for my head. I had read reviews online about them slipping and not holding hair in place, etc. So I may need someone to help teach me how to wear and use a headband...as simple as that sounds. Do I just need to stretch them out so they're bigger and less likely to want to spring back smaller/slip off? Someone, please help. 

5. Patio 

We're debating adding a patio in our backyard. We put it off for years, and now since Covid, prices are skyrocketing. The irony is though, despite being cheaper 5+ years ago, we weren't ready to spend the money. And now that we are, prices have nearly doubled. 🤷‍♀️ I'm trying to convince myself it's worth it despite the money because my kids love being outside. It seems to have this natural calming effect on them. If they're being fussy and throwing a fit, we just open the door, take them outside, plop them down, and voila, they're happy. It's pretty magical. Probably worth the (more than a few) thousands of dollars to pave a nice patio, huh?

So that's the quick summary of everything going on lately. I haven't felt very inspired to write anything else and the posts I have in the works...well, they're special. 

So while my two children nap, I'm cooking, and finishing up this blog, and hoping you are having a wonderful week. 

A Day in the Life: Tuesday

I got to play supermom yesterday for a tiny bit. My daughter turned four recently and had her well check. What I didn't realize is that if you get your vaccines before your actual 4th birthday, public schools do not accept them as vaccinated. Her well check was three days before her actual birthday, so we had to go back after her birthday to get her shots.

I waited a week because we had other things going on the week after her birthday. So finally, on Tuesday morning, I dragged both kids with me so she could get her two shots. I got to the office and brought the kids in. My daughter can walk herself very well and I carried my son. They let us in rather promptly and she got her two shots. Then I carried both children out by myself and walked to the car, having to open four doors on my way out mind you. They were not all push doors either. 

So that is what made me supermom, a tiny little person of 5' 3" holding two tiny people who are more than half my height each and collectively weigh more than half of my body weight. I remember looking through baby pictures when I was younger, and there was one where my mother was holding my brother in one arm and me in the other. He was probably 2-3 and I was probably 1-2. But I'd always admired mothers who could hold two children at the same time and not collapse underneath the weight. And here I was making my way out of the pediatrician's office doing just that with a half-falling purse off my shoulder.

I wish someone could have captured a picture of it at some point.

My supermom. She made it look so easy. She also wasn’t 5’ 3”…

Most days seem pretty mundane to me, but perhaps for anyone who isn't a working mother who also stays home and manages tasks around the house, it would seem that I have a supernatural ability to squeeze out more hours in the day.

So what do I do all day? Let's take yesterday (Tuesday) as an example.

7:30 Wake up and roll around in bed uselessly.

8:00 Get up and get the first child who's awake.

8:20 Get the second child.

8:30 Both children eat breakfast/change clothes.

8:40 Start the laundry.

9:10 Leave for the pediatrician's office.

9:30 Arrive at the pediatrician's office. 

9:55 Leave the pediatrician's office.

10:30 Arrive home. It's only supposed to be a 15-20 minute drive but I took the way home with construction...oops.

10:45 Put the clothes into the dryer.

11:00 Start heating up lunch.

11:30 Eat lunch.

12:10 Finish lunch. Kids play independently-is.

12:40 Frantically search for the thing my son needs to sleep because it gets misplaced.

12:50 Found it. Put him to bed. Set up a show for my daughter.

13:00 Clean the kitchen from lunch/Fold the laundry.

13:25 Turn off the show for my daughter and finish folding the laundry.

13:30 Start making French toast because we ran out and I make big batches for the freezer. Continue listening to my audiobook.

13:55 Finish making French toast, put them into the freezer, continue listening to audiobook.

14:30 Decide that I have time today for once and do my hair a little more than normal (which is not doing it at all unless brushing it counts..)

14:45 Retrieve my first child who has woken up/quiet time over - let her play with shaving cream.

14:50 Sit down and type up this blog.

15:20 Clean up shaving cream

15:30-20:00 Teach almost nonstop with two short breaks in-between totaling 40 minutes, one for me to wolf my dinner down.

20:00-21:00 Put children to bed.

21:00 Eat second dinner because first dinner at 5:15 was too early and too small. 

21:45-22:45 Shower/unwind/"relax" if I ever get to. Continue typing this blog.

22:50-23:30 Listen to some more audiobook.

23:30 Go to sleep.

This is really what a typical day looks like for me. Looking at it all typed out like that makes me feel ultra productive. But in a day or two, the details of today are forgotten and get lumped as "done." Did I actually have time to sit and do nothing? Maybe for tiny moments here and there. Was it long enough for me to register in my brain that I was doing nothing? No. 

That's a DITL of me, a stay-at-home working mom of two.

Saint Say-Ens

Two years ago I was accompanying a French horn. I'd played for her previously. She was the first French horn I'd ever accompanied. When she came to my studio the first time for a rehearsal, I had two thoughts: the French horn is a very loud instrument and it has a very lovely timbre. For our second performance, she was performing Romance by Camille Saint-Saëns. It was a nice piece and I liked it a lot. We had a few rehearsals, she was prepared, and we were ready for the festival.

Yes, Camille is a man.

The morning of the performance, I arrived at the school and waited for her. She arrived and was allowed to perform shortly after. We entered the room and adjusted the chairs and positioned ourselves so we could see each other. Before performing, she introduced herself and the piece she was playing. 

"Hi, my name is...and I will be playing "Romance" by Camille Saint Say-Ens." I almost died right there. I knew whatever was going through that judge's head, he was sure to have already marked her down mentally because of her pronunciation. We performed, it was decent, I got paid, and that was that. (I made a mental note to discuss with students the proper pronunciation of their piece and composer after that, except Covid hit in full-force approximately a month after that performance and I put accompanying on the back-burner).

***

Over two years later, I was on the phone with a friend. He was in a very loud room and I had picked up his call on my iPad. Apparently, the audios/microphone on iPads, although decent, are not as strong as phones. Noted. 

We were talking about music and this particular composer came up again. I kept saying Saint-Saëns, and I said it the right way: San-Sohn(ce). And my friend just could not understand me whether through the din around him or the bad quality of the sound through the phone or iPad or whatever. I tried two or three times, and finally, I said, "Saint Say-Ens" to which he responded, "Ohhh. Ok." 😑

We both had a good laugh and continued on with the rest of our conversation. But for the record, I do know how to say his name correctly.