Spinning on that dizzy edge

Good: We went to the Emperor's class picnic and had a lovely time. He ran around like a maniac, while I commiserated with the mom hosting the party about how frustrated we are with the school and its complete lack of communication of news, like how many teachers and support staff leave without the parents being informed.

Bad: Work is being a pit of despair. We've lost a couple of days now to a data refresh on one of our environments, and it took forever for someone to find me a test login that worked in the open environment. Plus the request I'm working on should be finished, but I have to fix someone else's pre-existing code to get my part to fully run. In addition, the code review for another request I did came back with pages of changes, when all I did was copy and slightly adapt accepted code. I want to ask how the original sections didn't rack up the same errors, but I don't think that will go over well. I'll be working from home this weekend to try to catch up.

UGH: Being asked by a little girl in the Emperor's afterschool program if I was his grandmother. Bless the Emperor for scornfully saying that I wasn't old enough for that.

TGIF, everyone!

...though from how much today sucked, it might as well have been.

My period continues to harass me; I had to get up twice Sunday night to change supplies and avert a flood (and the second time I failed anyway). Today was only slightly better.

Last night the household had a strange insomnia hour at 3 AM. I woke up with my mind racing about absolutely nothing in particular and couldn't go back to sleep, so I wandered downstairs. My husband was awake from having crashed out super early and slept a normal amount of time. Then my son complained down the stairs about being awake due to a nightmare. I snuggled him for a bit and got him calmed down, then petitioned my husband for a foot rub and finally settled back down to sleep myself. This morning was a killer.

Today I had my annual review with my new boss and old boss in the same room. The best thing that happened was that I got the standard company raise. Everything else ranged from "eh" to "suck". I got "meets expectations" for each and every category. I have never had a review where I didn't get at least one "exceeds expectations" rating, if not a couple or more. The new boss said that I had excellent feedback from everyone she talked to, I did quality work, and everyone liked me, yet she failed to translate any of that into a rating higher than "yup, you did your job." I'm more than a little pissed about this, because it means that no matter how I feel how I did or how hard I work, I can't expect her to notice or care. So she basically just sucked out all the motivation I have to improve myself. Yay.

I think my old boss wasn't comfortable with the ratings, because she spoke up about a couple of points. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the time and awkwardness to talk about it to the old boss in confidence, not even trying to change the review but simply to calibrate my feelings about it.

The timing is especially vicious, considering I'm coming off a month of juggling multiple hard-deadline projects having met each timeline with quality work. I think I'm going to be Tumblring a lot in the upcoming days, because I'm spiteful like that.

A week ago, the Emperor woke up early with a horrible cough, but he assured me that he could handle school. The school nurse called me a couple of hours later with the news that he had a 100.8 degree fever, and that I needed to take him home. I'm very lucky that my boss is flexible and my laptop is portable, so I worked from home the next couple of days as he recovered from the fever/coughing/tummy bug that laid him low.

However, returning to school after a five day binge on TV and videogames did nothing for his social skills success; he cried most of the way home when I told him that not meeting his goal still meant no privileges. He was tired out of his gourd and hotly denying it, too. (Kid, I've been your mom for your whole life; I know what you sound like when you're tired.) I didn't even rub it in when he fell asleep buried in his couch cushion cocoon ten minutes after getting home.

Yesterday he was very proud of himself to have made his goal. I was glad to hear that he was back on track.

Then today I got an email from the teacher informing me that he's leaving important work in his desk instead of bringing it home, and he's still being disruptive in class and is falling behind other kids because he can't pay attention the first or second time something is explained. As I was composing a reply to that letter, another email from the teacher showed up, this time letting me know that he hadn't bothered working on the class holiday craft, so he wouldn't have that to share with us.

I guess I haven't been keeping an eye on my "CAN" levels, because that second email literally reduced me to tears. I feel like such a shitty parent when I've got nothing left to tell the teacher about how to handle my son. I don't even know if ADHD medication would help at this point, considering that he throws up any pills other than his multivitamin.

I know part of my over-reaction is the looming menace of my period, but goddamn, I'm feeling really low right now.

For as much as today was trying really hard to be Monday, part 2, it did turn out much better than I expected.

An online misunderstanding got resolved, which lightened my mood considerably. Then my boss and I discussed periods and parenting, and briefly my project queue. I love bonding with her.

The husband had a stellar first day at work; he came home energized and feeling like he can really make a difference there. It's a relief and a joy to see him excited about going to work.

The Emperor made his goal at school today and wrote down his assignments in his binder, so he got his privileges and wound up watching "Agents of SHIELD" with me. I had to explain a couple of times which were the good guys vs. bad guys, but I think he enjoyed it almost as much as I did. Bonding with my son over geek TV: PRICELESS.

As a weird-but-good cherry topper on the evening, a visitor noticed the D&D manuals I picked up over the weekend at a garage sale, and mentioned excitedly that the D&D 1st edition of Deities and Demigods was probably worth quite a lot of money, as the sections on Cthulu and Melnibonéan were removed in later editions due to copyright violations.

My heart is considerably lighter than it was at the start of the day; I like ending well.

Today was a mixed bag. Work has gone from nothing in the queue to everythingdueallatonce! This means that I can't keep up as well with my email/DW/LJ non-work shenanigans, alas. (Or if I do, it's at the cost of what I should be doing.) One problem is that my current project is waaay above my current knowledge base (refactoring straight-up html into an MVC project), and the brain weasels are out in full force, trying to drown me in imposter syndrome. This makes escaping into online diversion ever so attractive. I can make this project work, I just need a little help and patience.

My local team of two had a conference call today with a project manager who has been hounding us for updates on his project, when we've told him all along that we've been given nothing in the way of details about what he wants. So he scheduled a meeting just this morning for the afternoon, had a lackey send us some materials, and then demanded a timeline estimate from us on the spot. I was so glad my long-distance boss was also on the call, as he pointed out (just a little sharply, and for that I fist-pumped on my end), that considering we'd only been given the files a couple of hours before for a code base that's almost completely foreign to us, it was unreasonable to ask us for any kind of projection. I love a manager who actually manages.

In a burst of parental involvement, I attended the first PTA meeting of the school year tonight. We're trying to make a deal with the Emperor that we finagle a gaming club for him, so he can be social with that instead going to Cub Scouts. Now to see if we can organize it through his school, or if we'll have to set up some sort of community group.

I am still trying to get over what a blazing bitch my ex sis-in-law is. My folks let me know that she sent away her and my brother's dog, that they'd raised from a pup, to a breed rescue, because she couldn't be bothered to take care of him any longer. The dog is a high-maintenance Lab, who gets worse the more he's left alone, so he's probably been going wild with neglect. My brother couldn't take him due to his current situation. I just...we were raised that when a dog comes into your life, he or she is a part of your family, like a kid or a sibling. You don't boot a family member to the curb because they're inconvenient. It also sounds like she's never home to care for my niece and nephew, who are barely teenagers. Instant karma cannot take care of her soon enough.

I should be a better human, and try to see her side of things, but she's caused my whole family so much pain that I just want her gone and out of our lives.

Ugh. I need to wash my brain out and go to bed. Here's to a better tomorrow.

I was sooo happy to wake up to a rainy morning today. It's been too long since we got some condensed water in these parts; it's about time that humidity stopped loafing around and applied itself to the ground.

It also spoke to how freaking hot it's been, that when I was walking to my car after work, I thought the temp was perfectly pleasant - and yes, in comparison to 100 degrees, 85 is a balmy day indeed.

I've spent the last couple of days at work chasing down on my computer system error messages with singularly unhelpful descriptions. Whoever had the brilliant idea to program a pop-up to say only "An error has occurred" should be ashamed of themselves. Eventually I removed and reinstalled the code management and request tracking applications, which involved restarting my computer a bunch of times, and finally, all was well. Argh.

The Emperor is not adapting well to the new school. His social skills teacher doesn't seem to be offering him any useful tools or feedback on the issues he encounters; granted, that's reported through his defensive filter, but my heart aches at how frustrated he sounds. I miss his awesome teacher from last year.

I thought we might be able to get through his elementary school years without having to drag him to therapists or investigate medication, but if his school support staff is not up the challenge, we may just have to take those steps.

Bleh. Here's hoping Friday is a nicer day.

Timing is everything.

Thanks to my coworker's competence, our assignment queue is empty, which means I've spent the last couple of days catching up on email and posts and such. My garden has been busy as well in my absence; I've already picked a pint of raspberries and a quart of tomatoes in the past couple of days. (Next year, garden, let's produce the bumper crop BEFORE I go on the road, so I can bring the tasty bounty with me.)

I've also been pondering, as seems to be usual post-Vividcon, which vid I want to tackle next. Well, after I remaster my Club Vivid Veronica Mars entry (the timing was just off enough in a couple of parts that I wanted to tweak it) and post it. And probably after I finally get around to redoing my Avengers vid with gorgeous, updated source. Driving home listening to "STAY AWAKE OMG" music led to some other ideas, a few songs of which I may toss out on the waters.

I am much relieved that school seems to be going tolerably well for the Emperor. He is cranky and resistant to change, just like me; I need to drop an email to the teacher about getting him into good habits pronto, before he comes up with excuses for everything going wrong being not his fault. But he hasn't been sent to the office, or otherwise been written up for bad behavior, and we've been on time every day for the earlier schedule with him in a clean school uniform, so I'm going to count it as a win.

My goal is to keep up with the recent fannish hive mind resolution to Post More, Dammit! I figure even a few lines a day is better than the resounding silence that is my default.

Right now I'm waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in, as my period kindly decided to wait until after I got back from traveling, and is already ramping up to be an ARGH.

Tomorrow, if work continues to be light, I'd like to pull together a con post. I've been enjoying reading so many others from you talented and wonderful people; thanks for reminding me what my overstuffed brain forgot! :)

C'mon, Sony Vegas - let's finish rendering this beast so I can get to bed.

Wowsers, I seem to have lost a month there. I blame my birthday weekend, which kept me busy enough to put me behind on my email and social networks, and I just...never caught up. Plus, the Club Vivid deadline is looming menacingly (insert the Jaws theme here), and by gum, I'm not going to let another Vividcon go by without submitting some kind of entry.

Between sudden-death work deadlines and being sucked into vid headspace (which this time around means reading a ton of Veronica Mars fic and TWOP recaps during the precious free moments during the day and vidding waaay too late into the night), plus effectively single-parenting the Emperor due to my husband's soul-sucking work hours, I am running on too few neurons right now.

Sooo...anybody up to take a look at my Veronica Mars vid? I hope to have a first draft ready tonight, and the deadline is Friday, so that's not a lot of time. All betas welcome!

Oh, Friday. I had such good intentions to get shit done at work, and then I got thwarted by both Javascript being inscrutably annoying (seriously, why is there no built-in function to enforce all-numeric entry?) and a developer NOT GETTING IT when I'm asking for help. (Dude, I have asked you three different ways to tell me where the code for the main page is and how I'm supposed to tie in my shit. You've given me NOTHING USEFUL. Don't make me stoop to including bosses on my email!)

So yeah, in response I've been following my Twitter stream, (yay, TahmohPenikett is now on Twitter!) which is freaking HUGE because my add philosophy is a two-second "Do I know them?" question and not a "How cluttered is my list already?" ponderance. I'm a little jealous of everyone in the LA area who gets to see the last piggyback ride of the Space Shuttle.

I've also caught up with the last week's worth of LJ, which means investigating many blurbs of sales and deals. In the past few hours, I've sent people links to a sale on towels and Katniss Barbie, among others.

In other non-news, I finally saw "The Dark Knight Rises" last night! It was the last day of showing in the closest movie theater to me, and the husband graciously let me out of mommy duty for a night while he took the Emperor to Cub Scouts. So there I was, one of three people total in Theater 14 with no one in front of me. It felt so decadent and awesome, like my own private screening. I liked it, and I'm very glad I saw it on the big screen, but it definitely won't have an impact on me like "The Avengers".

( Is there anyone left to be spoiled about this movie? )

I think I'll take one more stab at actual work. Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

...Except maybe my stomach in a few hours. ;)

Today is goodie day in my department, where everyone brings in something yummy to eat or drink, and we snack our way through the day. There are currently at least four kinds of cream-cheese based dips with crackers available, among other tasty treats. I think I'm close to the lead for healthiest offering with my broccoli salad with sunflower seeds and bacon, though the bacon and coleslaw dressing may knock it down a few pegs.

We are celebrating payday, the holiday next week, and the 2.6% bonus payout for almost meeting our sales goals this past fiscal year. This might be the last time we get one; I love the digital age, but it's leaving our printing company in the dust. It doesn't help that the marketing department for the parent company has no idea what to do with us. We've been a small but dependable source of profit for so long that now that our sales are slipping and our outmoded hardware and software are showing their age, people are starting to worry.

I am fighting to finish this razzer-frazzer project, and it is driving me batty. It's code initially written by several other people almost a decade ago, as they were just learning this development environment, and the last update was 2007. Trying to make seamless changes is nearly impossible; an improvement here breaks something else there. My user contact has been very patient, as she can see how much things will be improved when it's done. However, getting there is taking forever.

Meanwhile, as it's Friday, and there's food and distractions like the Avengers kissing fest going on over at such_heights, I am finding it hard to care about work.

How are you all doing?