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walkitoutToday was a snow day. The decision was communicated at 5 am, which is annoying, because nothing had really changed. It still wasn’t snowing and the weather forecast was stable. All that changed was that we were closer in time to the predicted snow AND the weather forecast was stable which is actually an important difference. *shrug*
R. had an appointment on the calendar for the Mass Saves Homeworks people to arrive. I had nothing to do with it, so I just sort of ignored it. It was at 9 am, which seemed, well, I’ll definitely be up by then and reading to cope with whatever happens. Except it was a snow day, so I slept in, and they arrived at 8 am. *sigh*
So, ran downstairs, they were back in the truck and not responding to me leaning out the front door yelling hi, so I just opened the garage door directly in front of their truck on the theory that they won’t ignore _that_. They did not. One came in through the garage and sent the rest to the front door and I apologized, validated the shitty weather and went and told R. Hey This Is Your Appointment.
R. had mentioned they were going to do insulation stuff in the kids’ rooms and the kitchen, and as mentioned above, I didn’t see a conflict, but he did not remember oh, hey, in the event of expected snow day . . . *sigh* So the kids had to get out of their rooms for the work to be done and none of us could really get breakfast until it was all done, all of which was less than ideal. A. was annoyed because she couldn’t get her phone and she was bored. She’d gone up to the third floor, then came down to see if I could help. I was like, crawl in with me, we’ll figure something out.
They arrived early, so they left early, so I got dressed and we got breakfast and tea and I had a discussion with R. on the General Topic Of This Was Your Thing and It Had Dependencies and You Neglected to Manage the Dependencies (viz. tell the kids, oh, hey, yeah, snow day but your rooms will be unavailable, also, oh, hey, breakfast before 9 or after whenever they are done). In the event, the breakfast dependency would probably have gotten blown up by the 1 hour early arrival, but we could have grabbed things when they were getting their stuff together, except we didn’t even think about it because no communication on dependencies from R., beyond mentioning to me casually weeks ago that the work would be in the kitchen and between the kids’ rooms.
Obviously, we _also_ neglected to clear out the work area ahead of time, which from the perspective of those poor workers was definitely our biggest failing. And one I am sure they are used to. R. did vacuum up a lot of the inevitable bits of cellulose that escaped the hose used to blow it into the walls. Thank You R. A. was upset because she was hungry and because the top of her dresser had been completely cleared off and now had to be restored. I said, I’m not helping you manage your emotions until after we have both eaten and I’ve had tea because I just don’t Have It. I fed her and me and got my tea, while explaining that I was not mad at her and she wasn’t in trouble or bad or anything and we were not eating to suppress our feelings, but that our hunger was making things worse so we were fixing that first. It worked (duh, always does) and then we decided that it was an Opportunity to declutter the top of her dresser and maybe some of her room. She asked for dusting materials and for some help cleaning her mirror, but other than that, she got through that project mostly on her own. I had R. get some bins from the basement, and directed her question about which pants to get rid of to R. The question was basically, I have 2 (or 3) of these and only want 1. Which one(s) should I get rid of. R. is better at assessing clothing wear than I am (probably). In the event, once I understood she wanted more space in the drawer but that she intended to keep 1 of each, I was like, you know, let’s just put these with the back-stock of long-sleeved shirts in the closet. I am _not_ buying identical replacements after getting rid of perfectly good ones, basically. If she didn’t like the _fit_ that would be different. (Yes, I am _quite_ good at remembering what is in back-stock and either bringing it out for use when the item it duplicates is Done or getting rid of the back-stock if the item is not ever going to be needed.)
Along the way, we had a detour. A. is pretty unhappy about how hard it is to get into her closet and, it turns out, open and close her window coverings on one of her windows. The issue is the location of the bed. I agree that it is a real problem, and I started imagining all kinds of solutions (move TV — well, it’s where the cable outlet it AND it is on a stand affixed to the wall, so moving it involves R. and he is going to resist for those reasons) and possibly replace furniture and so on. I went so far as to download MagicPlan, but then realized it was going to take a while to learn to use it (altho I kinda do want to learn how to use at least one of these tools) and then I thought about graph paper and at that point, I called a halt to that whole thought process. I did go measure some things. But then I thought, you know, if we just move the bed a few inches this way and a few inches that way, you’ll be able to get into the closet easily and also access the curtains easily. If we move a cord here, and a table there, then there won’t be any trip hazards / dangerous during the night crashes involving electronic items that are charging. You’ll still be able to watch TV and access everything in your room. We’re going to see how she feels about that over the next few days before entertaining any of the heavier weight solutions.
R. had an appointment on the calendar for the Mass Saves Homeworks people to arrive. I had nothing to do with it, so I just sort of ignored it. It was at 9 am, which seemed, well, I’ll definitely be up by then and reading to cope with whatever happens. Except it was a snow day, so I slept in, and they arrived at 8 am. *sigh*
So, ran downstairs, they were back in the truck and not responding to me leaning out the front door yelling hi, so I just opened the garage door directly in front of their truck on the theory that they won’t ignore _that_. They did not. One came in through the garage and sent the rest to the front door and I apologized, validated the shitty weather and went and told R. Hey This Is Your Appointment.
R. had mentioned they were going to do insulation stuff in the kids’ rooms and the kitchen, and as mentioned above, I didn’t see a conflict, but he did not remember oh, hey, in the event of expected snow day . . . *sigh* So the kids had to get out of their rooms for the work to be done and none of us could really get breakfast until it was all done, all of which was less than ideal. A. was annoyed because she couldn’t get her phone and she was bored. She’d gone up to the third floor, then came down to see if I could help. I was like, crawl in with me, we’ll figure something out.
They arrived early, so they left early, so I got dressed and we got breakfast and tea and I had a discussion with R. on the General Topic Of This Was Your Thing and It Had Dependencies and You Neglected to Manage the Dependencies (viz. tell the kids, oh, hey, yeah, snow day but your rooms will be unavailable, also, oh, hey, breakfast before 9 or after whenever they are done). In the event, the breakfast dependency would probably have gotten blown up by the 1 hour early arrival, but we could have grabbed things when they were getting their stuff together, except we didn’t even think about it because no communication on dependencies from R., beyond mentioning to me casually weeks ago that the work would be in the kitchen and between the kids’ rooms.
Obviously, we _also_ neglected to clear out the work area ahead of time, which from the perspective of those poor workers was definitely our biggest failing. And one I am sure they are used to. R. did vacuum up a lot of the inevitable bits of cellulose that escaped the hose used to blow it into the walls. Thank You R. A. was upset because she was hungry and because the top of her dresser had been completely cleared off and now had to be restored. I said, I’m not helping you manage your emotions until after we have both eaten and I’ve had tea because I just don’t Have It. I fed her and me and got my tea, while explaining that I was not mad at her and she wasn’t in trouble or bad or anything and we were not eating to suppress our feelings, but that our hunger was making things worse so we were fixing that first. It worked (duh, always does) and then we decided that it was an Opportunity to declutter the top of her dresser and maybe some of her room. She asked for dusting materials and for some help cleaning her mirror, but other than that, she got through that project mostly on her own. I had R. get some bins from the basement, and directed her question about which pants to get rid of to R. The question was basically, I have 2 (or 3) of these and only want 1. Which one(s) should I get rid of. R. is better at assessing clothing wear than I am (probably). In the event, once I understood she wanted more space in the drawer but that she intended to keep 1 of each, I was like, you know, let’s just put these with the back-stock of long-sleeved shirts in the closet. I am _not_ buying identical replacements after getting rid of perfectly good ones, basically. If she didn’t like the _fit_ that would be different. (Yes, I am _quite_ good at remembering what is in back-stock and either bringing it out for use when the item it duplicates is Done or getting rid of the back-stock if the item is not ever going to be needed.)
Along the way, we had a detour. A. is pretty unhappy about how hard it is to get into her closet and, it turns out, open and close her window coverings on one of her windows. The issue is the location of the bed. I agree that it is a real problem, and I started imagining all kinds of solutions (move TV — well, it’s where the cable outlet it AND it is on a stand affixed to the wall, so moving it involves R. and he is going to resist for those reasons) and possibly replace furniture and so on. I went so far as to download MagicPlan, but then realized it was going to take a while to learn to use it (altho I kinda do want to learn how to use at least one of these tools) and then I thought about graph paper and at that point, I called a halt to that whole thought process. I did go measure some things. But then I thought, you know, if we just move the bed a few inches this way and a few inches that way, you’ll be able to get into the closet easily and also access the curtains easily. If we move a cord here, and a table there, then there won’t be any trip hazards / dangerous during the night crashes involving electronic items that are charging. You’ll still be able to watch TV and access everything in your room. We’re going to see how she feels about that over the next few days before entertaining any of the heavier weight solutions.