Brain Cloud

The powers that be have already broken ground on what will be the new NICU at my hospital.  We, the staff, have been brainstorming all the many many things we want for the new unit for the past few months (or years as it may be).   A few days ago, I found myself in a work conversation about cycled lighting and the potential for it in our new unit.  The idea of cycled lighting-reinforcing day and night patterns-I find to be a comforting thought.  I hope we get to test it out when we move into our new space.  Not too long after this conversation, the ballast started to go out in the dated fluorescent fixture above one of my patient's bed.  The resulting random and spontaneous strobe, was anything but developmentally sound.  All I could think of was the scene in Joe Vs the Volcano where Joe rants about the fluorescent lights sucking the juices out of his eyes... "suck, suck, suck..."


and for those of you out there who have never seen Joe vs the Volcano... ahem... you know who you are...

Adventures in Homeschooling Day 4

Matt's chalk tribute to 2nd Cycle

I had to work friday, but Matt had a full day planned for the kids.  Just before lunch the fam headed down to the Frost Park Chalk Off.  The Chalk Off is a weekly event every friday held at a former fountain downtown. Neighborhood artists, kids, and downtown workers on lunch break come out to enjoy some chalk art.  Here's some of the art; butterflies (not pictured) done by my big girl and a (for real) homeschool friend.  Friday was also Park(ing) day.  So, Matt and the girls toured the scene.  They got freebies from vendors and had lots to tell me about when they stopped by my work to say hi on their way home.

20freakin47...

In the 8 years that I've claimed to be a grown-up, I've been throwing my money in the general direction labelled "Retirement" and I've never met with anyone about what a great job I'm doing at saving... I honestly try not to think about the numbers in my retirement account because I find the whole thing really depressing.  The numbers fluctuate, and with each fluctuation I find myself tacking more years onto my career...groan.  I had an appointment today with an advisor for the company that manages the retirement plans for my employer.  I'm not sure exactly what I expected, a little pat on the back "nice job sport", a little "looks good, keep it up"... Wrong-o!  She really didn't have anything bad (or good) to say.  The only thing I really took away from our little meeting was anxiety.  


The retirement calculator thingy that the system uses is quite simple, you enter your estimated year of retirement and the system automatically tapers down your risk the closer you get to retirement.  No biggy... just wish I had thought of something brilliant like that... then I wouldn't have to talk to anyone about my retirement plans because I'd already BE RETIRED!...  So, in big bold print on my account's page it has my estimated year of retirement; 2045.  I cringed when I saw it.  I can't even fathom that number.  AND THEN this horrid little woman says with a shrug, "Realistically, it's really going to be at least 2047"  AND SHE CHANGED THE YEAR!  Just like that.  I almost vomited right there on her laptop.  How dare she!  I choked a little and said, "Good god, I seriously hope I'm not working 12 hour shifts on the floor when I'm 67 years old!"  She smiled and shrugged.  I said, "Lets be optimistic and leave it at 2045" to which she hesitantly said, "ooookay."  That's how she became not my favorite person.  I'm not sure what else she told me.  I just kept seeing the number 2047... 2047... 2047.  Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.  Where's my paper bag.  I could hear my pulse in my ears... uuuuuugghhh.  


In the 2 hours since this meeting I've decided to try two things to help me retire by 2045, NOT 2047: 
1) I'm going to start buying lottery tickets on a routine basis
2) I'm going to start hoarding cash in random places like my great grandmother did- random cupboards, old purses, we even found it in her vacuum along side the vacuum bag- it seemed to work for her- worth a shot, I'd guess.


When the torture was over, I took my belongings and my bruised life plan and started to exit the hospital cafeteria- the uber private place of this fantastic meeting.  And lo, what did I see?  A plant sale... Maybe this meeting wouldn't be total shit... Ah yes, Orchids, my favorite... Meet my new friends.  I may not be able to retire for another 40 effing years but at least I'll have pretty plants.

Storage...

Newport's South Sound Keg Depository, where empty kegs rival bicycles for majority rights!  The ballerinas may be building a fort soon.  They are studying blueprints of those houses they make in the desert out of old crap and calculating stacking stability as we speak... 

Stay tuned for the syndicated graphic novella "The lonely Keg" by Gwen Newport

Project progress

My sweet nephew, in the "office".
Don't you love the purple? Especially
with the brown trim... Ewww. '04

There are some really good things about owning an old house.  There is comfort in knowing the things that an old house has withstood.  Earthquakes, windstorms, ice... and it still stands solid and almost square.  I'm not afraid of breaking anything.  It's been standing almost 100 years and it's probably seen worse than I can dish out... probably.   I've painted walls, I've stripped paint, I've yanked down wallpaper, I've textured walls, removed shower doors, I've laid vinyl tile... all in the name of progress... or angst... or desperation... or whatever... I've mentioned before that manual labor is therapy for me... whatever, I own it.   Just this weekend Mr APS and I finished up the room formerly known as "the guest room" (aka the crap room, the overflow kid junk room, the tv room, the play room, the bottomless pit of a room...) which we had been renovating for the master bedroom in an attempt to keep all of the kid crap upstairs.  Depending on who you ask and what you consider the actual start of this project, it has taken us anywhere from 3 months to 6 years... again depends who you ask...

Gwen's room '08

Now with white trim.  This was Gwen's
room at this point. '07

This started with Mr APS and a friend (ahem, Yes Blaine, that's you.) deciding with beer infused inspiration that the carpet of our then spare room should come out.  I recall no real critical thinking going on around this except that there was "pretty" wood floor underneath and that alone seemed to be good enough for all of us to sign onboard for the carpet removal.    Once we were in too deep to put the carpet back, we realized that the smart guy (read:assclown) that owned this house before us had painted the room beige (read:nicotine cream) with a power sprayer and no drop cloth.  Yes, our poor beautiful fir floor looked like a bad 80's splatter paint project.  That was 6 years ago... Mr APS and I just finished scrubbing the paint off that damn floor this weekend.  Hateful.

Guest room/crap room/toy room/tv room... '09-'11

Motivation to continue... the wood is BEAUTIFUL!

Start of the door work... They looked like
this for far too long... 

One door stained, one not... beauty.

We have completed the "guest room" and turned it into "our" room.  We're pretty happy with the outcome.  The girls are stoked that we're done because now our focus is on getting them and all of their crap into the room that was ours.  Workin' on that one today...  What do you think?

The new closet trim looks perfect if I do say so myself

Bad light but whatever...

The Beerman's wife

So, something like a month ago Hubby got a job.  He wasn't looking, it just sort of fell into his lap... er, hand perhaps?

An old friend of ours and her husband own a small Seattle brewery and they asked Hubby if he would be their Tacoma beer rep.  After much hesitation and deliberation he said he'd give it a go.  My husband has an engineers brain, an environmentalists conscience, and a politicians gift for gab.  Besides all that, he's frugal... quite frugal.  Salesmen have no hope of hocking their product to him, he's done fine without it thus far, so obviously he just doesn't need it.  Salesman?  Hubby?  I have known him for 15 years and never have I imagined him a salesman, but alas... it's beer, and it's good beer, so I guess the salesman part isn't so much.  In the end... he's out of the house two days a week, and he gets paid to talk about beer and perform "quality control".  How in the world did that happen?  Apparently the stars were aligned perfectly and they were in the shape of a pint glass.

So me?  Well, I'm getting used to having the household tasks be solely mine two days each week, which I must say is more difficult than I remember it.  And I'm getting used to having empty kegs, firkins and coolers on my porch, which I must say is making me feel a bit like a party girl living in a frat house (except for the fact that I didn't get any of the beverages in aforementioned beverage storage units!).

In any case, I'm warming up to the new life of having two working parents.  It's odd, sometimes uncomfortable, and kinda hard to explain, but this working thing is working out.

Last week Hubby's new work had a potluck for the employees and their families.  Every employee picked an ingredient and the group made a small batch brew.  The fam-damily et al got  a mini lesson in micro brews and in 10 days time we can throw back a pint of the new brew.  Good times had by all and the girls got to try out their new role as brewery rats.  I think they liked it.