Just checking in...

Hello there! How are you? I'm still here.

I'm plugging away at work, and just trying to balance out the other stuff that happens outside of that. Before I started with this new firm, I was lucky to get one to two jobs a week, and they were maybe an hour or two at the most. On a real crazy week, I might have had three jobs! That was all well and fine with me because then I could go fun places in the middle of the week, make beads when I felt like it, go to the gym... stuff like that. So life did not CENTER around work.

Now... whoa! What a change! Right now, life is CENTERED around work! I have plenty of work, and the depositions go three, four, five, six hours! I just went on a deposition yesterday that was only two hours... but they want it expedited!!! Yipes...what about the other jobs I am working on before that? I have to play a little bump and shuffle.

This is what I wanted though, and I am by no means complaining... I'm just amazed at what a difference a bigger city makes! I like it! I like the point where the corn fields and cows end..and the skyscrapers begin! York is not all cows and corn, but we really don't have any skyscrapers in our little city. It's just civilized enough... because believe me... I'm just as excited to get out of THE city too when a job is done, and return to the slower pace of York.

I have lots of pictures to post from the York Fair and from our Day Out with Thomas the Train this past Sunday in Strasburg. We went with Jen, Scott, and Paden.

I taught a beginning lampwork class this past Saturday and got to meet five wonderful people... hopefully getting them addicted to fire! ha ha ha

I made a list of all the sample requests I received from the website, and I want so much to make beads to fill these requests! So if you are a reader who may have sent me a sample request, I haven't forgotten you!

The Moochies also need my attention.

Then there is the cleaning around the house... the laundry....the children who are trying to get used to me being gone more often, only to come home and see me sit in the kitchen at my laptop... and the staff at the gym must think I fell into a hole or something...(Ssssh....don't tell them about the ice cream!)

The rhythm is coming... and at least I'm not chasing the deadline wagon from a mile behind...I'm kind of trotting along beside it and maybe only a few feet behind. Balance is coming... and so is cooler weather!

What was my favorite thing today: I was folding underwear and heard David behind me. He says, "Mommy, you want to see something? Look, Pockie is dressed up like a ghost for Halloween!" First I think to myself, "Who is Pockie?" So I turn around to see David with one leg of his shorts hiked up, and his hand, cleverly disguised inside his pocket, is poking out! I launched into quite a big laugh. It was so cute that he named his pocket "Pockie", and that he thought he was dressed like a ghost for Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by! Take care! ***hugs***

My conclusion....

MR. NEWMAN IS FULL OF CRAP!

(Just in case you were wondering how the stress management was going.)

Okay...just so as not to make it sound like my day was total poo, and that this proactive approach to handling day-to-day activity isn't working at all, I will list here my favorite things of the day:

1. Enjoyed a lovely view of Baltimore from an eighth-floor conference room.
2. Had a smooth depo and the enjoyment of meeting two nice attorneys from North Carolina.
3. Finally started listening to "The Vendetta Defense" on tape in the car, which I borrowed from Mothwoman. So far it's a great story, and my very first audio book experience.
4. Found out I could still jump, thanks to a cockroach in the parking garage.
5. Heard the phrase, "Hello, Nice Customer!" from the friendly parking attendant with the interesting accent.
6. Narrowly escaped being sent to Reno, Nevada for four days! Whew!
7. Remembered I had a little one-pint container of cookie dough ice cream in the freezer! YES!
8. Enjoyed David's chanting, "Can you feel it, Mr. Krabs? Can you feel it, Mr. Krabs? Can you feel it, Mr. Krabs?"
9. Listened to the kids play tag with Invisible Pickle.
10. Pretended to be scared when Sammie told me to close my eyes and then put a rubber bug on my leg. (I had practice earlier with the cockroach in Baltimore.)

Now, I must say, I haven't completely thrown out all of Mr. Newman's teachings. From the time I left the house this morning, until the time I walked back in the door, everything was pretty fantastic, even though I circled a half a city block on foot in the rain for no reason! It was the chaos that broke out once I crossed back into the disaster of my living room that made me fall apart. I need a lot of work in the domestic stress control area. HELP!!

I.C.A.C.A!

Quick blurb this morning to reinforce what I have learned this morning. If I say it out loud here, it may help me. It's 7:10 a.m., and I am starting my day the ICACA way! (If you say I-CACA out loud, it sounds really funny...but I guess that's what is helping me remember it! (Or maybe you have to be Mexican or live near them to know why the word "caca" is funny!) (Or maybe I'm too easily amused!))

ROFLMAO! I know...it's too early to be ROFLMAO, but oh well!

ICACA is from a book I dug out of the basement called, "How to Stay Cool, Calm and Collected When the Pressure's On; A Stress-Control Plan for Bussinesspeople" by John Newman. You need a stress-control plan just to get through the title! (Or for that matter, the fact that every other paragraph repeats the phrase, "Cool, calm, and collected." Arrrgggh!) (It's helping already, right? ha ha ha ha)

I pulled it out because my method of managing how I handle what I perceive as stressful situations is not so good. Yep, that's right... stress is not the problem, it's what you perceive as stressful and how you react to it. So I dusted it off and revisted the pages. There was a crumpled Post-It where I left off last time, and some areas had been written in already with purple ink. I think the last time I looked at this book was about six years ago at least! The sad thing is, a lot of the purple writing still applied, except now I could check off things related to having children. LOL! Needless to say, it is obvious proof that I never finished the book or applied it's principles since I am not far from where I was when I bought the darn book! Don't you just love that!?!

So back to ICACA. It's a pledge....

I will live my life with...
*Integrity
*Courage
*Action
*Control
*Awareness

Are you being true to yourself? Do you live your life with the courage to not worry about what other people will think and to make your own choices? Are you commited to take action? Are you in control of your emotions, your thoughts, and your actions? Are you aware of what's going on in your life and what shape you are in?

Even though I am 80% true to myself and 80% aware of myself... I fall short in courage, action, and control with an average of about 30 to 40 percent! So I'm leaving the house today the ICACA way!

(And it has nothing to do with the shredded wheat I had for breakfast! LOL!)

Have a great ICACA day!

P.S. - Today is trash day, so Bathtime Betsy will be going far, far, away! Bye-bye Betsy!!!

The Haunted Trash Can!

Okay...some of you know how I feel about the supernatural ... I am one of those people that hope for signs of life after death, but get all creeped out if something strange occurs. I know, I'm weird that way!

The other night I was awakened by a noise in the hallway... a garbled sound and then the words, "Let's get wet!" -- Wait, wait, let's go back a bit.

Some history about my house. My husband's grandfather worked for a local brick manufacturer, and he had the opportunity to have this house built here with the bricks his company made. So he and Keith's Mamaw were the first owners. He past away on December 31, 1970, the New Year's Eve before Keith was born in June. He never met him, but somehow inherited so many traits, like wanting to run a lawnmower repair shop in the back yard. Anyway.... fast forward quite some time. My mother-in-law claims that her mom used to see her husband in this kitchen from time to time, and that she always told him to go away because she wasn't ready to join him yet. Supposedly around Christmas of 1998, Keith's Mamaw told my mother-in-law that the next time she saw Paul, she would go with him. Well, she passed away in her sleep on December 31st of 1998 at around 2:45 a.m. -- yes, the exact same date as her husband had passed back in 1970! Her room was the room that the kids are in now. For a while, David would wake up crying on consecutive nights around 2:45 a.m. each time. I am not trying to say that is related...but there is something curious about it.

Now what I was leading up to is this.... my mom was just visiting here for two weeks. She didn't mind sleeping on the couch, but one night she did sleep with David in his bed. Most of the reason she only did that for one night was because, if you have ever seen the kids' room, you know it is impossible to walk in there because of all the Little People and the millions of little cars and junk that litters the floor! It's impossible! But she did say that while she was in there, different toys would just be making noise at different times during the night with no provocation. Now, I believe a lot of times these things occur because of battery issues, but sometimes you have to wonder why else toys go off in the middle of the night for no reason, right? (At least I do! ha ha)

So, no big deal, I am hearing, "Let's get wet! Let's get wet!" and I want to roll over and ignore it, (Keith was at work, by the way, so it was just me and the kids) but I knew if I let it continue it would wake up the kids because it was so loud! I figured out that it was Bathtime Betsy that was making all that noise. She is kind of creepy to begin with. She has matted up hair and Samantha wrote on her hands and feet with a black pen that will not come off. When you push her belly button she sings, "Bathtime Betsy loves to splash, in a pool or in a bath. It's the most fun you can get. Splash with me and get all wet," followed by a maniacal laugh/cackle. (There may be a picture of her in the Eavesdropping on the Damned post) She is naked in the hallway with her leg missing. Not only did Sammie rip her leg off, but she chewed on the socket, so I could not fix it. She had duct tape for a while, but that morning Sammie took her in the tub and the duct tape fell off. I figured she was making noise because she was in the water. Even though she is meant to go in the water, it seems water still affected her voice mechanism. Well, clearly this doll needs to go in the trash now. I picked her up with her leg and, since I really wasn't dressed right to go out to the trash can, I just threw her outside on the porch the way she was. (This was Thursday morning, by the way.) I figured all this noise was because she was recently submersed in water and things were drying out now.

In the morning I was supposed to go out and dispose of her before Samantha saw her, but I forgot, and as we left the house -- me with all my equipment for a depo in Baltimore, and the kids with their juice cups, Samantha sees a pile of Betsy on the porch! CRAAAAAAP!!!

Sammie: "Hey! Why's my naked baby out here??!!!" She exclaims in a disapproving and confused tone.

Me: "Just pick her up and put her inside! Hurry up before we are late!"

So Bathtime Betsy got a reprieve for a while, and has been behaving herself for the most part.... until about 20 minutes ago.

The kids are at the York Fair with my in-laws. Keith is at work. I'm at the kitchen table with the laptop trying to finish a six-hour depo....what do I hear??? "(Splash splash)Let's get wet!" Okay....Where are you??? There she is in the front room! So I scoop her up and look at her sad condition. "Sorry, Betsy, it's time for you to go out." For some dumb reason, I put her in the kitchen trash can. Sat back down and tried working again.

"Splash! Splash! Let's get wet!" -- Even though I knew the sound, it was like my brain forgot about it, so I was phsyically startled when it went off again only five feet away from where I was sitting! My heart was racing! I found a grocery bag and put Betsy with her detached leg inside...took her out to the trash can just outside my back door and said good-bye.

So I'm sitting here now... and as I type all I can hear is, "Let's get wet! Let's get wet! Let's get wet!" I would think she would be totally dried out by now that she wouldn't still be making all this noise...and this is the only phrase she is saying, not her usual creepy song. All that is in that can is her, some of my mom's cigarette butts, and a couple of tomatoes that some insect chewed on while on the plant. She just keeps saying it over and over and over...sometimes three times in a row!!!! I'm half tempted to walk out there and take her across the street to the dry cleaner's dumpster...

Stuff like this never happens when Keith is home or the kids are awake! He thinks I'm crazy! Everyone thinks I'm crazy! I just think some relatives know how weirded out I get and like to mess with me when I'm alone in the house!

"Dear Production Manager: I am late giving you these four files from my six-hour deposition session because my trash can is haunted and I needed to blog about it. Please tell the attorneys I am sorry. Best regards, Rachel Hilker...aka... Madame Scaredy Pants. P.S. - Enclosed please find one posessed Bathtime Betsy and her detached leg, which I have marked as Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 for the record."

Leaving on a jet plane...

Above: Mom, Samantha and David

As I write this, my mommy is sitting on a plane! We miss her already. It seems that two weeks came and went so fast. David kept making up excuses to get us to go back to the airport as we were on our way home. He said, "Mommy, I just remembered something! I left Invisible Pickle at the airport. Can we go back and get him?" I thought it was pretty cute.

Oh, who is Invisible Pickle, you may be wondering? Well, remember back in 1992 or 1993 there was a song by King Missile called "Detachable P*nis"?? Well, one day I think I tickled David or something and he said, "Who did that?" To the tune of Detachable P*nis, I said in a deep voice, "Invisible Pickle!" So it has been a joke around here ever since. If something weird happens, Invisible Pickle did it.

Anyway... Mom is on her way back to California, and maybe things will get back to normal around here...whatever that is! The new firm is keeping me busy already, and there are still kinks to work out with that until I get onto their software. I am making the production manager want to pull her hair out. I believe within a few weeks we will get some sort of rythm going here again. Take care, everyone! Hugs from Pennsylvania!

I call this one...

"The Serious... and the Seriously Filthy and Silly"

Park City Mall

I think David is outgrowing this kind of ride...but Samantha, in all her dirtly glory, (Yes, I did mean dirt-ly, as we had just ate at Cactus Willies, and she somehow forgot where her mouth was) is just as goofy as ever and having a ball on this simple 50 cent ride.

I was beginning to get all sentimental about how my little boy is growing up...but the funniest thing just happened...

Both of them just rolled out of bed and climbed up on my lap... excited to see a picture of them on the computer. David says in a quite saddened tone... "Hey, why's I'm not smiling. I want to smile again. I want to go back there again and put my smile back." He noticed it too, I guess... and perhaps the camera just captured him between movements... Let me go back to the file where these pictures downloaded... Hey, I found one, but I guess because Samantha was not looking at the camera, I wrote it off as a bad picture! Funny how we think that way. This is much better....


How about this one....


Now I have two happy kids, and Samantha's shirt is even clean again! It's a miracle! (Yeah, a Photoshop miracle!) ha ha ha ha Let me call David back again....
He said, "Yeah!!! That's better! I like that one! How'd you do that?"

Crazy kids!

A little lesson in physics...

There are moments when I look at my children and see the spark of learning in their eyes. They are little thinkers, and to watch their faces as they discover something new is a great pleasure. David is quickly coming upon his fifth birthday, and this time next year will find us getting ready for his first day of kindergarten. He is so ready to learn. He asks so many questions, and the way he explains his discoveries to me in such detail lets me know that he is processing the world around him just fine.

Thursday we made a trip to the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg. The purpose was mostly to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in IMAX vision. It was a blast. What David really left there with came from visiting the shopping center inside of Strawberry Square. There in atrium stands a two-story network of billiard balls and tracks. A huge clock, where the various chimes and knocks and dings are triggered by the motion of the balls. David was so excited about this...


We watched a chain lift system take one ball at a time up and up and up... then another ball would come spiraling down to wait in line...


Gears were turning...balls were rolling... an arm holding them would get heavy with the last to join the line...tip gently... then all the balls would spiral down again to another area... David and Samantha were mesmerized as they waited to see what would happen next...then so excited to see the result....

More balls would roll down and wind up in this funnel where they would rapidly race around the perimeter...eventually dropping out through the hole and beginning a new journey...

I'm curious to bring the kids back again when they are older to see how they react to this work of art and science.