<p>DTE, I have missed a lot of yoga, because I have been out of town a whole lot in the last 5 weeks. But I really don’t think I started the spring worn down…just bad luck, I think. I’m pretty sure that the pneumonia was acquired during a transatlantic flight, something from another part of the world to which I had no immunity. And D had strep first, misdiagosed, so we didn’t take any extra precautions. But I am SO ready to be healthy. My house is a wreck…traveling, boys left home alone, then not feeling well enough to straighten/clean when I’ve been home. YIkes! It’s very nice that we aren’t having Easter company.</p>
<p>DTE - I do indeed feel badly for your discontent. If it brings you any solace, I felt my Mom was an incredibly considerate patient, so very thankful and we all were. They were truly wonderful in the face of not knowing exactly what was up with the new record keeping system. Mostly I think people are becoming ruder with higher expectations in a general way, not just in healthcare. It’s amazing the level of entitlement out there in my opinion. At the same time, there is a real malaise towards customers in all service industries. Generally, I feel we just don’t care much about each other’s feelings let alone their person. Too bad.</p>
<p>Sending all good vibes to CQ D… Really hoping she knocks it out of the park.</p>
<p>Went to the jeweler this morning to get some things repaired and a few other things looked at. Turns out my great grandmother’s diamond earrings aren’t real diamonds. 
I was going to get them posted anyway as they arent cubic zirconia either but the pricetag was going to be $220 ($110 each). But everything else is going to look amazing when cleaned and repaired.</p>
<p>CQ, sending your D the fairy dust.
Just so you know, there is a content producer job open locally – just in case 
We’re a good few hours from CHItown, but not a terrible market size in which to start. Here’s the link: <a href=“http://woodtv.com/2014/04/04/digital-content-producer/”>http://woodtv.com/2014/04/04/digital-content-producer/</a></p>
<p>Oh good luck to cq’s D!! Please let us know what happens!
Moda - absolutely great news about your S’s recommendation! He must be such an impressive guy!
Hugs to you DTE. Do you want to stop working? … or do you feel a real push to get you out?</p>
<p>Missypie - I had an art teacher of D’s tell me - not D! - a similar thing - which was kindof weird because I never made an issue about it. At the time, my response to her was that D had so many opportunities to shine in her future that she, the teacher, shouldn’t worry about it. (I know kindof snarky but I said it anyway.)</p>
<p>kmc - I love reading bout your S…what a journey for him! So many decisions that could really change the course of his life.</p>
<p>H and I are in Puerto Rico thoroughly enjoying the sunshine, great food and late nights!</p>
<p>Hugs to moda, dte and missy.
I was sending the good vibes to your D today, c_q.
woody, enjoy Puerto Rico. Sunshine sounds good, it’s sleeting here right now.</p>
<p>Yes, good luck to the job seekers! DTE, for your own sanity, you have to look internally for validation. It is the rare boss that openly appreciates what underlings do (in my experience, anyway). I don’t know why you don’t like yourself. I like you 
better health to you and everyone else, too.</p>
<p>BTW Dad’s wife finally got out of the hospital and went into the same nursing home my dad’s sister died in in early March. In fact, she is right across the hall from my aunt’s former room, if you can believe that. They could have given her the same bed. I guess they thought that might be too much. Anyway, we already know many people there, and that has been a plus. Ideally she will return home in a week or two, but I keep trying to keep Dad’s expectations real. While all of that was going on, we had to go to the wake of a young man. Very sad, not fun. H decided to take next week off, but I don’t know how free I will be to do anything. He took off the days before Thanksgiving and I got stuck on a trial on jury duty, so no fun then, and maybe not this time either.</p>
<p>Thanks for the good thoughts. D thought it went well, but not out-of-the-ballpark great. I guess time will tell. kmcmom13 - thanks for the link. I forwarded it to my D.</p>
<p>Missypie, I’m glad the choir teacher said what she said, and it sounds like your D handled it with grace.</p>
<p>woody - Puerto Rico sounds lovely! </p>
<p>Woody, what I want to know is how on earth the bus failed to pick the rest of us up for your PR trip :)</p>
<p>We’re going to have to fire that bus driver. Perhaps he just couldn’t get to me due to the freshly fallen snow!</p>
<p>DTE, sending you the mojo for some kind of shift in your work world where you are rewarded for the way you care for your patients. I know it feels thankless when there’s obvious corporate dysfunction, but patient satisfaction is a better indicator of your value than the political games of the mucky-mucks 
so keep making a difference where it counts as long as you can stand it and hex upon the rest of them!</p>
<p>My tulips are up and it’s snowing. Ugh. I am SO ready for this weather to be over! All I feel like doing is sleeping and eating - yes I’ve gained back the weight I lost for the wedding. I really need to get my life together. Work is just that – work. Too many hours at the office lately and it’s still not enough for my boss. Dealing with getting the car fixed from the idiot driver that ran into me. 9 more weeks to vacation. Not sure if I’ll make it!</p>
<p>27 degrees this AM, but no snow. Poor daffodils, drooping with the weight of yesterday’s snow. I vote for a long, moderate spring!</p>
<p>Ridiculously cold this am in MN - my idea of spending the spring walking around the lake is not exactly working out as envisioned! I really hoped to walk off about 8 pounds before summer and leaving for the nook in mid June (as is the plan right now). Weather.com says the recent high temps “are very much below average.” Understatement. I understand a late spring cold snap, but this is just continuous cold.</p>
<p>As for S, he does know how to turn it on and as a science nerd, he indeed has personality plus which is helpful. At the same time, he can be a little too confident and a lot of a perfectionist in a general way… which don’t always go together. When I had my gallbladder out a few years ago, the ER doc told me that most good doctors are both those things. Maybe, maybe not, but so far it seems to be working alright for him, even if drives the rest of us crazy at times. We’ll see how it goes with his med school applications and where he gets interviews.</p>
<p>H is out of town for the rest of the week which consequently has me being extremely lazy. This place we’re renting, while all hard wood floors, has a black rug AND a black couch. How incredibly impractical… and having a semi white/gray fluffy cat isn’t helping the situation. Every single hair, crumb, or piece of lint literally glows. The Dyson does a great job and I don’t think I’ve ever truly loved a vacuum cleaner. :)</p>
<p>I"m not sure we are going to have a spring. I think it’s just going to go into summer. Then I’ll complain about how hot and humid it is. I LOVE spring and fall. Just the right temperatures and not too humid. I don’t think it’s my year.</p>
<p>Found out on Facebook that an uncle passed away (89 and needed constant care, so certainly not untimely.) He was my dad’s sister’s husband (she passed away maybe 5 years ago.) My cousin didn’t break the news on Facebook, but her friends posted their sympathies on her wall. I guess that’s just how it’s going to be…close to impossible to control the message.</p>
<p>I predict that younger D will dislike her school and will transfer to the school Son will be attending after a year. Last night she went to an admitted students event. It happened to be next door to my city meeting, so I dropped by when my meeting was done. Preppy kids. Future frat boys and sorority girls. But it’s a fairly large state school, so hopefully she will find her “people.” I told her that on the first night of sorority rush, she should walk the halls of her dorm, and find her friends from among the others who wouldn’t join a sorority if they paid her.</p>
<p>I never could play the game, so it rears its ugly head. Can never understand why people don’t want to hear the obvious hah. So have to accept this as I just don’t think can change and that’s what it takes to succeed. The work is a good fit not he politics. I so envy you successful people who have managed to navigate this . If cant do a good job I get really angry. This is because a good job cant be done. I feel nurses suffer the back lash of cstcttig because we are the largest budget item. However it is never accounted for what we do, no matter how many forms you fill out, it never will quantify it.
MP my D2 does not do sororities either and many do, she does fine.
Moda many doctors go into fields that suit their personalities, there is something for everyone.
MP sorry about our uncle.
couldn’t believe the snow this am</p>
<p>Spending a lot more time lurking than posting lately.
We drove up to NYC last weekend to see D and her fiance, H hadn’t seen their new place in Brooklyn and he and future SIL installed 2 window air conditioners (and then the weather turned cold, but it will eventually be warm). Did ikea and costco runs. Except for dinner in the city on Sat night (D’s birthday was Monday) we didn’t do much else. H and I drove back on Sun, and S stayed until yesterday as he’s on spring break.
There is a small lull at work, but I will be out next Wed-Fri (going to visit my parents and try to figure out what is going on there) when I return it will be catch up, then month end, then…
I have been looking ahead to the next few months and realize that there is a lot going on. Sometimes I wish I was still working part time.
MP- there have been a lot of threads here on cc re: sororities and most agree that it really depends on the school and the chapter. I don’t know about the school that your D will be attending, but I would encourage her to keep an open mind. If I had the proverbial dollar for every “non sorority type” that pledged (back then and now), I could go back to part time. At any rate, I am encouraging S to find some sort of club/group (no greeks at his school) and become involved. D did not do this and I think it was a mistake.
So D is still on our health insurance and she recently had a small procedure done (she is fine). H told her that she needs to look into why the insurance thinks that we need to pay $4 K. And my washer was making weird noises this AM. Oh, no…</p>
<p>I would never have considered my D to be a sorority girl… and then she went and joined one! However, it is known to be the least likely of sorority type girls sorority… so you never know. She isn’t overly dedicated but enough, and I like that it gives her connection. </p>
<p>Snow and rain created lots of ice and therefore some school delays… truly enough has got to be enough at some point.</p>
<p>Having just returned from chaperoning the choir kids, I am even more horrified than usual at the story about the South Korean ferry capsizing with all those HS field trip kids on board. It seems that the ones who obeyed the instructions to stay put are the ones who are dead or missing and the ones who disobeyed and jumped off are the ones who are alive. Our group took one of those NY harbor cruises…I would not have brought any good shipwreck survival skills to the equation had our ship had a problem.</p>
<p>Did a videoconferece/webinar late last night with 30 people in Asia. Went remarkably well. Unfortunately, had to get up early to catch a plane for another client meeting.</p>
<p>DTE, sorry to hear about your travails. I have to work with companies that often have dysfunctional organizational politics. Even in my little organization, we have highly idiosyncratic people.</p>
<p>Great to see ShawSon and ShawD for Pesach. ShawD wore a long casual dress with probably a little too much cleavage for the events but was drop dead gorgeous. The second night we went to a friend’s seder and one of the other guests (a female biology professor at a distinguished med school said upon seeing ShawD, “I wish I were young again. They talk about how we get happier when we get older, but what I wouldn’t give to look like her.” One of the sons invited a bunch of Harvard classmates of one of the sons at the Seder. I wasn’t looking to see if she had any interaction with them, though she was sitting at the same table. On a more important note, the med school prof said that it was now harder at her school to get into the NP program than med school. Seems unlikely, but she thought it was a great career path. </p>
<p>ShawSon is aping his father in a number of ways, but this one was better avoided. I broke my nose playing basketball in college and had to have surgery. It looks like he broke his nose playing basketball and is heading to the doctor to see if he needs surgery. ShawD gave him some very clear medical advice and he said afterwards, “Once you are a nurse practitioner, I’m just going to call you. I’m not going to a GP.” Very sweet.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading but not posting lately. I’m relieved tax season is over. We moved to DC from Ohio over the winter, and I had thought I was taking the season off, but ended up working after all. We had 14 for our seder first night, only 6 the second. I am exhausted.th</p>
<p>CQ, I hope your daughter gets good news soon. DTE, I hope you hang in there because you are the people I like when I have to be involved in the healthcare system.</p>
<p>Shaw, I feel for your son and for you. I had three boys in sports and we had our orthopedic surgeon and our dentist on speed dial. S3 had his front teeth broken playing soccer–three times.</p>
<p>I just ordered younger D’s graduation announcements (they are so pretty!) and we ordered the cap and gown earlier this week. D seems to be so detached from school that it’s hard to get into the “parent of graduating senior” frame of miind.</p>