It is the time of year for planning and goals and breaking down your lofty goals into manageable, achievable steps.
This seems very sound in theory, but in practice, manageable, achievable steps bore or frighten me (depending on how many of them there are).
It may be unorthodox, but on both a large and a small scale I do better if I think about the things that I want and then just putz about and do what seems to come next. If I want to get the house clean and I make a list and do one thing at a time and cross it off, I'll be exhausted and cranky at the end of the day. If I just leave a blank of time and do whatever inspires me most to do next, I get more done for less crankiness.
Sorry. I know it's not supposed to work that way. And I freely confess I've never managed to make it on anyone's list of 30 under 30 and it's too late now. Probably the world of high-powered, amazing achievement is closed to me, as is the world of immaculate houses. But I'm OK with that. I do the stuff that really matters to me and I still have time to have fun.
On the large scale, life takes way too many twists and turns for me to make long-range plans. And yet the road has a curious way of curving back around to that spot I saw in the distance. A long, long time ago, at a time when most of the people in my life had extremely conservative ideas of what females could be doing, I had just started law school, and someone asked me, "But why are you going to law school? Don't you want to get married?"
"Well, maybe," I said, "But maybe my husband and I could practice law together."
I did wind up meeting DOB through law school, but then neither of us practiced law, and we even lived in a state where it was impossible to be licensed. Then we moved back to where we could be licensed, but he got hired and I started free-lancing and things looked like they would stay that way for a long time.
Last year I was taking the kids on one of our weekly hike/park days and I noticed the trail we were on went right behind an office park, including the offices of a local firm.
"Hey," I thought, "If I were practicing law more regularly, this would be the place to do it." Cities and desks I hate, but having a little trail by the creek leading down to the beach right out the door would do a lot toward making it survivable. (There just aren't that many jobs involving analysis and debate that also involve a lot of time outdoors. Street preaching, maybe?)
Well, late this year the road took an unexpected hairpin and all of a sudden . . . here we are. Starting our own firm as of January 1. And, what do you know, but the CPA firm that DOB knew that was eager to lease him office space--is in that very same office park. Technically I've hired him, as I'm maintaining majority control of my corporation, but as he's the rainmaker he's pretty sure he has job security.
Current plans are for me to work primarily from home doing drafting and research, maybe going in once a week and filling in at court from time to time, while continuing to home school. Right now DOB is still in transition, wrapping things up at his old firm. We are going crazy trying to set up phones and email and computers and insurance and all that stuff. We'll see how it all shakes out. I'm sure the road will stay curvy.
I do have one specific goal for the year: Green eggs. I've decided to add vegetables to breakfast. I abhor smoothies, but a mess of fried green stuff with eggs is a tasty way to start the day, and right now fat is rated as healthy, so I'll enjoy it. I was going to set a goal of not remodeling anything but the new law office to be is . . . of all colors . . . bright blue.
Showing posts with label DOB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DOB. Show all posts
Saturday, January 03, 2015
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Plot Twists
Things have been rather quiet on the blog lately, because just at the juncture of everything else quieting down, something we had been hoping was not a big deal jumped out of the bushes and sat on our chests.
Since May, DOB has been having occasional but noticeable episodes of . . . something. Sometimes he won't be able to move or talk. Sometimes he will be jerking uncontrollably. Sometimes he can talk, but with slurred or stuttering speech. Sometimes only a single area is affected, sometimes the whole body. They began rarely and under significant stress, but have increased in frequency and duration. Now that they have become noticeable, we recognize that he has had them before--but on the order of once a year or so, and usually while sick or otherwise under circumstances easy to dismiss.
What the doctors have figured out so far is what they're not: they're not strokes, or heart attacks, or seizures (turns out if you are having a *real* seizure, and you go jerky on both sides, you pass out). They're not, apparently, life threatening, as long as he doesn't have one while he is driving. (ER Doctor: "You do *not* drive yourself to the hospital to be evaluated for paralysis!") So now I am driving the truck, a terrifying change for both of us, although the ducklings have managed to remain calm.
The current odds-on favorite is a rare genetic disorder connected to the body's handling of potassium--the symptoms match pretty well, but so far the blood tests have not confirmed it. However, the hospital managed to botch the critical tube of blood, plus sometimes it doesn't show up in the numbers. So it hasn't been ruled out yet either. Coping with just one rare crippling genetic disorder is for underachievers, apparently. (He's been diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a condition affecting the nerves in the extremities, since infancy, for those not up on our medical files. Progression of that has put him in a wheelchair or braces since last winter.)
If that is it, it operates a lot like migraines with various triggers precipitating the attacks. (And various medications keeping them more manageable but not curing it.) We are wondering if he can use this to his advantage at work: if stress is a trigger, is it a "reasonable accommodation" under the ADA to insist he win every hearing? In the meantime, the court reporters will just have to put up with a lot of stuttering and spoonerisms.
Anyway, whatever it is, the consensus is that it's very strange. (ER Doctor: "I will never see another patient with symptoms like this.") If this were a House episode, we could be reasonably assured that it would be figured out in the next forty-five minutes, after two wrong diagnoses, one of which would be nearly fatal. But life seldom follows such neat plot arcs.
In the meantime, I really need to learn to keep reading material in my purse. Dante omitted the level of hell where persons afflicted with impatience are kept in hospital rooms with only a four-month-old copy of a Seattle art scene magazine for company.
Since May, DOB has been having occasional but noticeable episodes of . . . something. Sometimes he won't be able to move or talk. Sometimes he will be jerking uncontrollably. Sometimes he can talk, but with slurred or stuttering speech. Sometimes only a single area is affected, sometimes the whole body. They began rarely and under significant stress, but have increased in frequency and duration. Now that they have become noticeable, we recognize that he has had them before--but on the order of once a year or so, and usually while sick or otherwise under circumstances easy to dismiss.
What the doctors have figured out so far is what they're not: they're not strokes, or heart attacks, or seizures (turns out if you are having a *real* seizure, and you go jerky on both sides, you pass out). They're not, apparently, life threatening, as long as he doesn't have one while he is driving. (ER Doctor: "You do *not* drive yourself to the hospital to be evaluated for paralysis!") So now I am driving the truck, a terrifying change for both of us, although the ducklings have managed to remain calm.
The current odds-on favorite is a rare genetic disorder connected to the body's handling of potassium--the symptoms match pretty well, but so far the blood tests have not confirmed it. However, the hospital managed to botch the critical tube of blood, plus sometimes it doesn't show up in the numbers. So it hasn't been ruled out yet either. Coping with just one rare crippling genetic disorder is for underachievers, apparently. (He's been diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a condition affecting the nerves in the extremities, since infancy, for those not up on our medical files. Progression of that has put him in a wheelchair or braces since last winter.)
If that is it, it operates a lot like migraines with various triggers precipitating the attacks. (And various medications keeping them more manageable but not curing it.) We are wondering if he can use this to his advantage at work: if stress is a trigger, is it a "reasonable accommodation" under the ADA to insist he win every hearing? In the meantime, the court reporters will just have to put up with a lot of stuttering and spoonerisms.
Anyway, whatever it is, the consensus is that it's very strange. (ER Doctor: "I will never see another patient with symptoms like this.") If this were a House episode, we could be reasonably assured that it would be figured out in the next forty-five minutes, after two wrong diagnoses, one of which would be nearly fatal. But life seldom follows such neat plot arcs.
In the meantime, I really need to learn to keep reading material in my purse. Dante omitted the level of hell where persons afflicted with impatience are kept in hospital rooms with only a four-month-old copy of a Seattle art scene magazine for company.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Waiting for the Apocalypse
Around the end of last week, it became evident that the old, lingering cold that we all were fighting off over New Year's was turning, in DOB's case, into something more sinister.
We tentatively diagnosed it as a sinus infection and tried to treat it at home with tea and broth. On Sunday morning the agony was sufficient that he went to Urgent Care, where the doctor confirmed that it was a sinus infection and that it should be treated with tea and broth, as they are stockpiling antibiotics for the zombie apocalypse.
So we did more tea and more broth. DOB usually handles illness by passing out in bed for between 12 and 36 hours, depending on the severity. Although this freaked me out on our honeymoon, I have come to appreciate it. All I need to do is pour water down his throat every few hours and wait for him to reemerge, leaving me free to concentrate on other things. However, a sinus infection does not cooperate with the "lying down" part of this equation, and so he has had to deal with being sick while being up and miserable and it is taking far longer. Especially at night.
Monday night he started having an asthma attack on top of the sinusitis. (Probably triggered by me thinking that that afternoon was the perfect time to go on a quick shopping trip with Duchess, leaving him alone with the younger three kids, and then they thought they smelled something funny, which is hard to confirm when you have a sinus infection, and then I couldn't hear my cell phone because it was covered with clothes we were going to try on, so that by the time I got home they had all been sitting outside, DOB bundled up in blankets with a towel over his head, for a couple of hours.) Anyway, he couldn't breathe and his chest was tight and he couldn't move or do much beside moan, so I called the 24 hour nurse hotline. The fellow on the other side was doubtful, possibly because it was me on the phone, which meant the conversation went like this.
QOC: "Hi, my husband can't breathe and his chest is tight, but I think it's just his sinuses and his asthma, so can you please tell him he's not going to die, and if it's OK for him to use the inhaler?"
Nurse: "Hmm, that's a little concerning. Do you think he might be having a heart attack?"
QOC: "Nah, it's mostly in his head. I mean, he can't move or anything, but he gets like that when he's sick."
Nurse: "Well, let me talk to him."
DOB: "Graaahwww."
Nurse: "Well, you could go in if he seems to be doing worse. Or you could try the inhaler."
Ducklings in background: "Hey mama! Mama! Mama!"
QOC: "It's an awful lot of trouble to take him in."
Nurse: "I can tell."
So we didn't go in and he used the inhaler and came to the regretful conclusion that he was going to live, after all. And things went along and he got a cough to go with the sinuses and this afternoon he decided that he needed to call the nurse hotline again. This time he talked to the nurse himself, and this time it was a different nurse. He thought he was answering all the questions right, but perhaps he shouldn't have used terms like "zombie green" in describing bodily discharges. This nurse told him to get back into urgent care immediately, because, while it might just be the sinuses doing their thing, it might be some far more serious condition she was not at liberty to disclose.
He took himself into urgent care and they did various tests of his mental functioning and decided it was still just the sinuses doing their thing. But at least they gave him some medication that may help with sleeping, which hasn't happened in a while. They never did tell him what the serious condition they were concerned about was, but I'm thinking it was probably the zombie plague. I should possibly wear a helmet to bed, just in case.
We tentatively diagnosed it as a sinus infection and tried to treat it at home with tea and broth. On Sunday morning the agony was sufficient that he went to Urgent Care, where the doctor confirmed that it was a sinus infection and that it should be treated with tea and broth, as they are stockpiling antibiotics for the zombie apocalypse.
So we did more tea and more broth. DOB usually handles illness by passing out in bed for between 12 and 36 hours, depending on the severity. Although this freaked me out on our honeymoon, I have come to appreciate it. All I need to do is pour water down his throat every few hours and wait for him to reemerge, leaving me free to concentrate on other things. However, a sinus infection does not cooperate with the "lying down" part of this equation, and so he has had to deal with being sick while being up and miserable and it is taking far longer. Especially at night.
Monday night he started having an asthma attack on top of the sinusitis. (Probably triggered by me thinking that that afternoon was the perfect time to go on a quick shopping trip with Duchess, leaving him alone with the younger three kids, and then they thought they smelled something funny, which is hard to confirm when you have a sinus infection, and then I couldn't hear my cell phone because it was covered with clothes we were going to try on, so that by the time I got home they had all been sitting outside, DOB bundled up in blankets with a towel over his head, for a couple of hours.) Anyway, he couldn't breathe and his chest was tight and he couldn't move or do much beside moan, so I called the 24 hour nurse hotline. The fellow on the other side was doubtful, possibly because it was me on the phone, which meant the conversation went like this.
QOC: "Hi, my husband can't breathe and his chest is tight, but I think it's just his sinuses and his asthma, so can you please tell him he's not going to die, and if it's OK for him to use the inhaler?"
Nurse: "Hmm, that's a little concerning. Do you think he might be having a heart attack?"
QOC: "Nah, it's mostly in his head. I mean, he can't move or anything, but he gets like that when he's sick."
Nurse: "Well, let me talk to him."
DOB: "Graaahwww."
Nurse: "Well, you could go in if he seems to be doing worse. Or you could try the inhaler."
Ducklings in background: "Hey mama! Mama! Mama!"
QOC: "It's an awful lot of trouble to take him in."
Nurse: "I can tell."
So we didn't go in and he used the inhaler and came to the regretful conclusion that he was going to live, after all. And things went along and he got a cough to go with the sinuses and this afternoon he decided that he needed to call the nurse hotline again. This time he talked to the nurse himself, and this time it was a different nurse. He thought he was answering all the questions right, but perhaps he shouldn't have used terms like "zombie green" in describing bodily discharges. This nurse told him to get back into urgent care immediately, because, while it might just be the sinuses doing their thing, it might be some far more serious condition she was not at liberty to disclose.
He took himself into urgent care and they did various tests of his mental functioning and decided it was still just the sinuses doing their thing. But at least they gave him some medication that may help with sleeping, which hasn't happened in a while. They never did tell him what the serious condition they were concerned about was, but I'm thinking it was probably the zombie plague. I should possibly wear a helmet to bed, just in case.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
The Duke Turns 30
It happens to the best of us. And today it has happened to DOB.
We'll skip all the old age jokes, though. Old is always twenty years older than you are.
Here's a meme I copied from Chickadee awhile back, although looking it over it doesn't seem the right sort of questions to even ask about DOB. I was able to answer more of them than he could.
1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? If he must, sports. Or if there's a movie on that he actually wants to see, he'd rather watch that.
2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Viniagrette, on the side, and hopes they didn't sneak soy into it.
3. What's one food he doesn't like? Unseasoned navy beans. Don't get him started on this one.
4. You go out to the bar. What does he order? Water with a lemon slice. Or maybe a Sprite if he's feeling wild.
5. Where did he go to high school? at home.
6. What size shoe does he wear? Um, I got this right before and now I think I'm going to get it wrong. Nine and a half. Ish.
7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Legos. Of the castle variety. And he would display them on top of the china hutch until he ran out of room. Ask me how I know this.
8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Reuben. (UPDATE: Actually, it turns out reuben is no longer his favorite; the current top would be something involving melted cheese and lots of other yummy stuff from Panera. That's the trick with DOB, he's not one to stick to one boring ol' thing as his favorite his whole life.)
9. What would he eat every day if he could? Fresh homemade bread and butter.
10. What is his favorite cereal? None, really. He's a protein kind of guy. Corn flakes would be all right if you served eggs on the side.
11. What would he never wear? Shorts.
12. What is his favorite sports team? Colts.
13. Who will he vote for? Whoever he thinks is least of a whack job.
14. Who is his best friend? Me
15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Drip egg white on the kitchen floor.
16. How many states has he lived in? Just Ohio.
17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what would it be? Whatever I feel inspired to make that day, as he will have refused to offer an opinion.
18. Did he play sports in high school? Only ones that involved mice.
19. What could he spend hours doing? Daydreaming.
20. What's something cool about him? He always appreciates what I manage to get done in the day, even if it seems like nothing. He's always supportive.
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