<p>NM- what a great deal! I need to start reading my groupon emails and stop just deleting them. BTW - I forgot to congratulate your D1 on her promotion!</p>
<p>Missypie - I received several cards when I lost my brother years ago. I still have all of them. My parents have kept all of the cards that they received and my Mom still reads through them now and then. </p>
<p>arabrab - I mentioned the email thing to H and he said he had told D, I will need to remind her of that.</p>
<p>sevmom- that’s cool that your S gets to attend those kind of events. </p>
<p>It’s snowing here and the schools closed early. S’s school actually closed at 10:50 (they are a special situation) so he took his last midterm and then got to come home. Only 3 more semesters in HS! Yay!</p>
<p>FallGirl,Yes, It is nice that he gets to go to some nice events. They’ve had things at the Old Ebbit Grill,sporting events,National Building Museum, tonight is at one of the Smithsonian museums,etc. He is looking forward to this tonight. I would love to see him in his new tux! I think it was good he went ahead and bought the tux. Better yet is that now that he is out of school almost 4 years, he bought it on his own dime! </p>
<p>kmcmom, No, not UMich. S1 graduated from UVa. Sorry mcson did not the get the job.</p>
<p>It is chilly here and we may get some snow. I’m making some goulash and noodles for dinner to warm us up. Have a great weekend and stay warm!</p>
<p>FallGirl, have a great trip to NYC. I hope the weather cooperates for you. </p>
<p>We are supposed to get more snow here today - from 2 pm to 8 pm and then it will be over. Next week they are calling for temps in the 60s. I’ll take it. It is just too cold - and the wind chill is unbelievable! I am taking today off from the gym but can’t take it off from sabadog. Our schools announced this morning they would be closing early. </p>
<p>When my father died, I got quite a few cards but there are several I enjoy rereading as they are nice anecdotes about Dad and the impact he had on people. The best ones I have, not surprisingly, came in the form of notes via email from people Dad worked closely with and I knew well. I hope every day gets easier, Missypie. </p>
<p>Afraid I can’t offer any staging or decorator tips; H and I refinished our own wood floors in our first house. It was a project and I do not recommend DIY. D was reminded by her future employer to set up an email that wasn’t connected to school, so happily I won’t have to nag her about that! </p>
<p>KMC, I know Mcson will find the right opportunity. Sometimes it just takes a few frustrations before the right thing comes along. Nice that they called him, though. That alone would give me hope for the future!</p>
<p>NM, it sounds like she has the kind of relationship with the firm that she could tell them anytime. She needs to be prepared to be firm, as they will pester her to change her mind, but they will really appreciate the early notification. She should also be prepared to answer the question about whether she will consider returning to this firm after graduation as I’m sure they will ask that as well.</p>
<p>kmc, that message sounds like they had an inside candidate and the posting was just for show, but they were impressed with your S and so will make him the inside candidate next time. S2 did not make the cut for the post-grad internship at the firm he interned with last summer. The only thing that makes that easier is nobody else he knows was selected either, including one of the others who interned with them last year and is a rising senior. I think this business is as connection-related as in finance, so much more who you know than any other factor unless you are the top of the class.</p>
<p>Our house is all hardwood and we’ll have to leave for a couple of weeks (and rent one of those storage pods) while they redo the floors. We also have to leave for a while while they paint. The insurance company will pay for hotels, but I don’t have that much spare time.</p>
<p>I’m on my way back from Mexico City where I stayed in a nice hotel and when I started to check in, they said, Oh Mr. Shawbridge, you can check in on the 26th floor at the Executive Lounge because you are a Diamond. I head up to the Lounge and the person says, “Oh. We can give you a nice upgrade.” So, I was in a suite that looked like it was best suited for a pro basketball player with bling and his two or three female friends. Huge hot tub in a room of glass many stories up overlooking the park and city. Huge bed with TV. Living area with TV, desk area. Big shower room. When I got there, I couldn’t find the toilet as there were so many doors/spaces. I checked out this morning and the same person said, “I hope you like your room.” I said it was great but said that I’m coming back for a week of work in April and was hoping to bring my wife. She said, “email me when you make your reservation and I’ll see if I can get you that room again.” If ShawWife comes, my client and not the insurance company will be paying for the room, I would think, but then I’ll try to arrange a long weekend vacation and then I’ll try to work with another client at the end of the week.</p>
<p>Happy Birthday, SLUMOM; hope you enjoy your day. </p>
<p>And thanks for the reminder to include home email on resume upon graduation. I’ll remind S that the edu may end. He’s home for the weekend, and we’re gearing up to discuss his plans which seem rather ‘fluid’ at the moment. We know he’s not sure what he wants to do for a year so we need to motivate him to look for a job or internship, and to find out what he’s really thinking. He’s said classics, med school, research, priesthood…quite a range of options. He’s not saying much so we need to have a heart to heart. We had hoped he’s seek a research job somewhere fun; enjoy the year and then make a plan for his future. He’s been an a driven academic for a lot of years, and we encouraged a bit of a break. Now, however, he seems stuck as to what to do. We’re not sure he knows how to proceed to find that next position. </p>
<p>Shawbridge… how exciting and glam! Mexico City; beautiful suite…ahhhh. Sounds like you enjoyed it! </p>
<p>Back to my dinner cooking; time to check on the stove. Stay warm, all!</p>
<p>And, ahem, shawbridge didn’t you adopt me a few thousand posts back? I think I should come and keep shawwife company :)</p>
<p>Mycroft, a year is actually trickier then simply graduating and saying “what now” in some ways. In mcson’s case, his “year off the real plan” is inspired by his desire (and now his own fiscal commitment) to stay in his U’s city to await his gf’s graduation. I’ve suggested he forget the fact he intends to move across the country in late 2014 and instead treat it like the move is open-ended and optional and the present moment is real. Otherwise, the energy to move forward dissipates, and you’re stuck in a holding pattern. </p>
<p>Maybe your son needs to suspend the idea that the year is interim too. I think you’d see a difference in approach. Kind of like learning to swim or riding a bike – sooner or later you
have to let go of the kick board or remove the training wheels and say “now I sink or swim, ride or fall” despite the fact there’s a lifeguard at hand.</p>
<p>As the fiscal lifeguard/coach, I plan to sit on my duff, read a book, and keep one eye open so that he doesn’t drown. The rest is on him ;)</p>
<p>TA, I’m sorry you s2 didn’t get that position but I am confident the right thing is winging its way to him and am certain his pragmatic enjoyment of field work will give him the edge in the right setting. I am doing some work for a client who is a very small exploration company founded by a rugged field type ,and I may know of a few new drilling areas opening up. Let
me check to see if I can share any info yet, and whether there’s line of inquiry to take later
next week!</p>
<p>Ah, first “real” weekend of the year! Weekend 1: take down the 18+ Christmas trees. Weekend 2: flu. Weekend 3: in Illinois due to Dad’s passing. Weekend 4: hair cut and color, buy gift for niece’s baby, thank you notes, put remainder of Christmas in attic. Sounds so wonderfully normal! I admit that last night I watched What Not to Wear and hours of Say Yes to the Dress and dozed on the couch. Absolutely wonderful, but I do have to get some things done today and tomorrow.</p>
<p>I so appreciate y’all and hope we really can meet up in April.</p>
<p>Happy Birthday Slummom! And NMN - wish I would have gotten in on your groupon, but we will expect a full report so some of us can live vicariously. </p>
<p>I was upgraded one time on a solo trip when I took S to a lacrosse camp in Newport RI. For some reason I ended up on some club level with a massive room overlooking the ocean. I know this probably sounds terrible, but having that awesome room and doing every touristy thing I wanted to do without having to convince anyone else for three days was pretty much one of the best vacations ever for my mental renewal. Don’t tell my H.</p>
<p>i am so proud of D2. And of course we are all proud of our kids, but you know when you would say to your kids to try something or do something different that just might really result in a positive? Well, my younger D has a litany of actual results to point to that make this true (and thus perhaps easier to take the leap of faith the next time). Her new room is much closer to the gym (where she has to be every morning at 6:00am because she didn’t pass all her fitness tests for the team. The bad news is the test was ridiculously difficult and there were a lot of them. The good news is, she had a lot of company that until the first morning thought she’d be the only one.) Her new floor has quite a few of the freshman players on it and her roommate is a freshman transfer (not an athlete, which D likes) who also has a TV and a car! They stayed up really late the other night getting to know one another and H said D was very happy. He watched practice yesterday afternoon and said D was doing a great job and they were splitting time almost exactly equal. I wish someone OTHER THAN H had been watching because well… he doesn’t really know what he’s looking at to assess actual skill and talent. But the overarching news is, D took the ball by the horns and changed her room and that the other freshman recruit in her position not only left the team, but the school, which has somehow lightened everyone’s demeanor towards my D. While I feel really bad for this girl, her attitude was pretty crappy all along and it created a negative vortex that was sucking D down as well. Even D’s texts seem to have a new lightness! So so proud of her. And oh… she also likes her classes even the one she has to take from 6-8 because of practice. She doesn’t have classes on Friday which is good because the team travels for games. In looking at the schedule, I honestly don’t think she will be missing much in the way of classes at all through the actual game season.</p>
<p>Decorator/Stager came yesterday. Said to not paint the foyer or replace the light in the entry way, but that I had to definitely paint my dining room because the blackened/red walls make the room appear too small and the furniture blend into it. We’ll see, but I have my painter coming today at 10am able to squeeze me in. The thing I did not want to do was empty and have to move the china cabinet. The thing is a bear. Fortunately, as of yesterday, I was allowed to work out again. So I hope moving this cabinet qualifies. Depending, I might take before and after photos. But he also suggested putting in hard wood on the stairs to my lower level vs replacing all of the carpet down there. BUT depending on where that comes in, it might be less to just replace the 1700 square feet of carpet!</p>
<p>Thanks, kmc. One never knows where the opportunity will come from. I think your advice on living in the moment is also very good. While you lounge with the book in your lifeguard role, I’m right in the water dog paddling inches away and probably creating enough turbulence to drown my otherwise competent swimmer. I realize I do this for my own entertainment. I simply love this period in the kids’ lives when the possibilities seem limitless and the next steps really can range from monk to med school. Luckily, S2 is independent enough to largely ignore me, so presumably no harm done while I splash around and have fun with it. </p>
<p>S2 says he is enjoying a marriage and family elective course this semester required to meet the “individual in society” core requirement to graduate. A Nora Roberts romance novel is assigned reading so I downloaded it yesterday to read this week-end out of curiousity. Can’t say it’s my taste, but I can see where it would generate lots of discussion material on marriage and family (unwed mothers, widows, and divorcees) plus some steamy sex scenes.</p>
<p>^ in actuality, I likely THINK I’m sitting with a good book poolside but more likely that i am considered a friendly swimming lab mutt who is a total PITA but the swimmer throws her a bone because its fun to watch ;)</p>
<p>I love this swimming/lifeguard analogy. It’s a metaphor for all of child rearing. TA - Your description was priceless. Loved the visual! Monk to Med School… absolutely the case. I will confess that I am it is my greatest hope that all my kids do far more with their gifts than I have, and I don’t necessarily have a lot of real world work experience in which to offer them direction or insight how it’s done. H has always been self-employed or in family business prior to that, so it’s not like he’s got a lot of insight about navigating corporate life and the politics. He has barely needed a good suit these past 20-odd years of marriage, let alone a tux! There’s good and bad in that, and from a social standpoint, it would have been nice had he ever developed “work” friends and some of the social stuff that goes along with that.</p>
<p>Thought the painter was just running late and went to text her to say just come in as i wanted to jump in the shower. Good thing I checked. Her original text said Sunday because she had a job on Saturday. I confused it in my brain but she’ll be here tomorrow. Emptied the cabinet already having forgotten to take the before picture. Such a space I am.</p>
<p>Moda - Maybe start packing some of the china cabinet stuff now in preparation for moving? (Or am I misremembering & you’re staying there?)</p>
<p>My dining room is getting painted Monday.Luckily no cabinets to move! The hardwood floor refinishing is going to be a bear, however – 820 sq feet of space to clear out. Refinishers will move the big furniture & fridge, but we’ve got to have bookshelves emptied, glassware moved,…and the only place they can put the furniture on this level is in the carpeted family room, which is going to be full up – so we’ll be putting everything else upstairs, downstairs, or in the garage. Just looking at that list makes me tired. All of that is scheduled for D’s graduation week – the guy was just plumb happy that I wasn’t trying to schedule for the local school district’s spring break like everyone else.</p>
<p>No misread - We’re definitely moving. And I don’t want to jinx the terms of that, but I hope it goes without saying that I am doing all the stuff I am doing to assure a good offer! But I am not packing any of it up quite yet. He loved a lot of what I had in there, and said it was just about rearranging, etc. So I will leave it all out and let him put it back together. And I’d much rather not have a bunch of randomly filled boxes and I don’t want too many big ones either. I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking at staging photos with a particular focus on the decor on built-in shelving, glass cabinets and so forth and I think there is a real line between what makes a home looks inviting, loved and lived vs cold, old or abandoned.</p>
<p>H is 100% on board with hiring a decorator. He always wanted to buy the model in a new development because neither of us have a whit of taste or decorating style and we know it. However, I just looked at a bunch of pictures of staged properties in our area and HATED them all. Yikes. Our decorating style (such as it is) is not the look the stagers are apparently going for around here. I would die living in such stuffy places.</p>
<p>When we lived in the NYC suburbs our house was on the garden club tour one year. They wanted us because of its location and recent work done by a landscaping genius, but included people walking through the inside as well. The inside of course was scary awful, which I’m sure they didn’t realize when they asked us to include our house, but an army of those fine garden club ladies came in and turned our disaster into a showplace over the course of a week-end (including carting in lots of key pieces loaned from local stores) but also artfully arranging everything so even our stuff looked amazing. I want to find that equivalent again, letting us keep all the carted in pieces. The difference seems to be that professional stagers want to depersonalize while the garden club folks wanted it as personal as possible so the house told an enchanting story about its residents.</p>
<p>TA, I think you’ll find yore best off with an interior decorator than someone who does a lot of staging for this very reason. A friend of mine who does this usually starts with a survey to figure out your lifestyle, use age, and aesthetic preference, cataloging what pieces are meaningful, etc. The stagers I know are instead focused on the psychology of neutralizing your territory so that prospective buyers have “room” to imagine the house as their own. So one tres to echo your unique personalities, while the other’s job is to erase it ;)</p>
<p>Sweat lodge was lovely in the moonlit snow. My skin feels like I was at a spa all day!</p>
<p>Missy, enjoy your “normal” and hopefully healing weekend!</p>
<p>And good luck to our redecorating cyber fiends. On one hand, I miss that Reno excitement and on the other, I don’t miss that Reno excitement, if you know what I mean!</p>
<p>Moda, so glad that my D’s twin separated by a year (your D) is thriving!</p>
<p>Shaw, so fun about the upgrade. I remember going to a seminar at the Broadmoor…I didn’t receive an upgrade or anything, but it was just so nice there that I felt guilty about enjoying it alone. (Of course, I didn’t have to feel guilty for long, because I was trapped in a freak October blizzard trying to get to the airport and spent two more nights in a cheap hotel that didn’t have enough food.)</p>
<p>Older D had an interview for an unpaid intership yesterday. She was nervous until she looked the guy up and found that he was only 25 years old. They met in a coffee shop; with the Saturday morning time and coffee shop venue, she switched her outfit from suit to slacks and a nice sweater. It was a good choice but she said that it was ridiculous to be walking on icy sidewalks in heels. What is the ettiquette for going to an interview on public transportation in the ice/snow? If you travel by car, you can wear boots and then change in the car. LOL, at least she didn’t fall. Turns out, the internship is for this term, which she still wants to do for the experience.</p>