Kevin told me about the great service the LA Times has been providing in blogging about the fires and updating this Google Map with evacuation information. According to the map Angie’s babysitter’s house is only one street away from the mandatory evacuation area. When we called her last night to see if she was okay, she and her neighbors were all packing their cars.

Today I’m staying home with the kids. Alex’s entire school district is closed due to the fires; one of the high schools is being used as an evacuation center. We didn’t get a call from Ana’s preschool, but I preemptively left a message saying I’m keeping her home. Aside from the babysitter situation, Angie is recovering from a cold, and I’m going through tissue after tissue mopping up her runny nose.

Meanwhile, I’ve rescheduled my meetings for the day, and our Internet access seems to have been restored, so I’m checking my work email from home.

Categories: kids and parenting, memes, news, work-life balance
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Just read an interesting study that takes a look at the amount of time spent doing various activities and how happy a person is. Essentially, the more time a person spends doing non-work activities, the happier they are. The one notable exception in the study was television. Though people indicate enjoying TV, those who watch more TV are less happy.

Some other researchers have found evidence that suggests that different parts of the brain fall asleep and wake up at different times. When a group of cells gets tired enough, it turns off. When enough of your brain is powered down, you fall asleep. I think we need to get these researchers together because this is *exactly* what watching television does to me.

Categories: TV, memes, work-life balance
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Yesterday I worked from 9am to 6pm, came home, had a quick dinner, then worked from 7pm until midnight. Yes, I’m tired. No, I still don’t have this work-life balance thing figured out.

These bell peppers are the sole survivors of our gardening experiment this summer. They tasted good enough that we might try again next year.

The kitchen remodel is going well. All that’s left are 5 more cabinets, the vent hood, and the drawer and door knobs. Installing the vanity panels and the flooring and buying accessories for the cabinets will be icing.

This was Angie’s Halloween costume. I think she looks great in orange.

Here’s Angie with her friend Payge who is 4 and a half months older. Payge is small for her age and Angie is big for her age, so they end up looking the same size.

In other news, there’s something screwy with our internet service. Our access has been spotty on a minute by minute basis, and we haven’t been able to get it resolved because every time Kevin calls customer service he gets cut off about 20 minutes into the conversation.

The strangest part is that for about 3 days Google kept redirecting us to their United Kingdom page. Tonight it redirected us to their German page.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t post a Nablopomo entry yesterday. Apparently I was in Germany.

Categories: angie, gardening, home improvement, memes, work-life balance
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For about 2 weeks I had so much work to do, I had to bring it home every night and weekend. Combine that with Kevin tearing apart the kitchen last week, this translated into an awful lot of take-out for dinner and the house gradually transforming into a pigsty.

I’m happy to report that some of the hardest parts of the kitchen installation are behind us. I’m also happy to finally be coming up for air from work. Yesterday Kevin vacuumed the living room. Tonight I folded a basket of laundry. There are three more baskets somewhere around the house waiting to be folded, plus every room other than the aforementioned living room as well as all of our cars could use a thorough picking up and cleaning, but at least we’re no longer a health code violation.

It hasn’t completely been all work and no play. A week ago on Saturday the whole family strolled about a block to watch the annual parade hosted by our sleepy ‘burb. The pictures are on Kevin’s laptop, which is on its last legs, so wish us luck in getting the pictures off before it goes to computer heaven.

Then this weekend we watched High School Musical 2. It’s even better than High School Musical 1. Alex’s favorite song seems to be “Bet on It” as performed by Zac Efron. I loved all the dance routines, especially the one accompanying the ironically named “I Don’t Dance,” but among the songs I have a soft spot for “Everyday.” It makes me all weepy.

Everyday
of our lives,
wanna find you there, wanna hold on tight.
Gonna run
while we’re young
and keep the faith

Everyday
from right now,
gonna use our voices and scream out loud
Take my hand;
together we
will celebrate,

Everyday!
Live every day!
Love everyday!

Categories: work-life balance
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TGIF. In my case a sentiment expressed not with a bang but a whimper. I just finished my first week back at work, and I am pooped, physically and emotionally. Everyday I came home more exhausted than the night before. One morning I was so tired I forgot Angie’s lunch of expressed milk at home and l had to drive all the way back to get it.

I can’t help but miss the idyllic few months I spent with all three kids. That picture at the top epitomizes my summer. When I recall what we actually did I’m amazed at how productive a time it was, filled with my home brewed Chinese lessons, Alex’s percussion classes, Ana’s nighttime potty training (very successful!), etc., because it felt so slow-paced and relaxed, whereas the past week has felt like a long sprint.

I do have hope things will get easier. This is an adjustment period after all. The number of hours that I devoted to filling out school forms for the kids the last two weeks would make anyone cringe, but at least it’s only once a year. I’m just glad that the kids seem to have already gotten used to their new routines. It’s just a matter of time before I get used to mine.

Tags: philosophical
Categories: work-life balance
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