Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Conversations I Never Thought I'd Have and "A Day In The Life"

After his bath Mini-Geek asked if he could take out his tongue. I said if he did he wouldn't be able to talk anymore. He wasn't entirely convinced so I went into a brief discussion on taste buds.

Tuesdays are nice. I don't work the night before and I don't work that night. I don't have class either. Tuesdays are my day to spend with Mini-Geek and to get things done.

Otherwise here's a normal day in the life, at least for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday:

Wednesday
6:30 wake up, get self and Mini-Geek ready
7:20 leave (riiiiight)
7:45 arrive at school, drop Mini-Geek off, purchase Amp if necessary
8:00 babysit computer lab, usually getting nothing done on Wednesdays
9:30 Multimedia Production I begins
10:45 Class ends, pee, buy Amp now if needed
11:00 Database-Driven Websites begins
12:15 class ends, pick up Mini-Geek, usually wait for him to finish lunch
12:45+Arrive home
1:00 do whatever I need to do, Mini-Geek time, grocery shop, homework, online tests, clean, project, etc.
4:30 drop Mini-Geek off at my mom's
4:45 go to bed
9:00 get up and shower
9:30 leave for work, earlier if I need to purchase an Amp
10:00work starts
Thursday
7:00 leave work
7:30 get to Mom's, get Mini-Geek dressed
7:50 leave Mom's
8:20 arrive at school, purchase Amp if needed again, drop Mini-Geek off
8:30 Portfolio class begins
9:20 class ends, pick-up Mini-Geek
9:45 arrive home, do whatever I didn't do yesterday
4:30 drop Mini-Geek off at my mom's
4:45 sleep
9:00 get up and shower
9:30 leave for work, earlier if I need to purchase an Amp
10:00work starts
Friday
7:30 leave work
8:00 get to Mom's, get Mini-Geek dressed
8:20 leave Mom's
8:50 arrive at school, drop Mini-Geek off
9:00 computer lab babysit!
4:00 pick-up Mini-Geek, entertain for the next hour in the lab
5:00 leave
5:20 drop Mini-Geek off at Mom's
5:30 sleeeeeep
9:30 wake up and shower
10:00leave, earlier if I need to buy an Amp
10:30work starts
Saturday
7:30 leave work


Yeah.....

Spring break soon.
You have no idea how excited I am. I am taking a vacation day or two I think as well. Especially since Phase I of the project should be completed by the end of the month.

P.S. The schedule is NOT an April Fool's joke!

School Post

Applications are finally in for my schools for the fall. (I know, I'm a huge slacker.) Unless I find a super-awesome job between now and then (haha and I am realistic enough to know that I won't) then I will be a computer science major rather than digital media in the web developer career track. There's really only one school that is realistically close enough for me to attend and I do not like the price tag or the idea of taking religious classes. I take enough non-major crap, I don't need to take more, I just want a degree and then a job. I am a busy person, time is important.

Honestly that is fine by me. I want to emphasis the programming aspect anyways.

For philosophy (pointless B.S. class....) I can write an optional 10-page research paper on anything that I want. You know, just to pass all of that extra time that I have. So I am choosing to write one on raising children in such a technology-based society. I will look at "BlackBerry Moms", Baby Einstein and the recent studies that it is counter-productive, Edubutu, the laptop programs for children and everything else I can think of.

I may be rather geeky but Mini-Geek has been raised without all of the toy crap out there as much as I can. I won't say that family members don't buy him flashy electronic toys, but for the most part I try and pick out educational things. I don't substitute electronic story-telling toys for mommy's lab and a book. I buy wood over plastic. If the toy does something for him over him doing it himself then I don't buy it. We don't have cable or dish, which I may have mentioned. I despise television. The Internet will give me news faster anyways. (I may secretly like Yo Gabba Gabba a tiny bit though. Come on, 8-bit graphics! And monsters!) I tried to avoid the Disney trap, that was more my mom's doing. I owned Finding Nemo, once upon a time I was a marine biology major, a homesick marine biology major. It makes sense. Heck, if I didn't have Mini-Geek I probably would have gone back for marine biology and never discovered the fun of coding. She put it in, then she got her hands on Cars and it was all over. Pixar mania began.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Yesterday was one of those horrible days that you wish would hurry up and end because your child is so obnoxious and so tired but won't sleep.

This morning started out that way but has seemed to make a change. I'm hoping it lasts.

I made Rice Krispie Treats because I cannot remember the last time that I had them and the evil store put them marshmallows right by the cereal (just a local little mostly produce and deli place) and they sounded so good. Jerks.

I've now had my BlackBerry Storm for four days. I have already forgotten what life was like pre-BlackBerry when I just had my little LG Venus.

Today is a dark and rainy day, just the way that I like them. The high is 51 and I wouldn't want it much warmer. I have strange weather preferences, I know this. iTunes is all about the Sigur Ros which makes the weather that much prettier.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Fired?!

I was just fired.
This firing won't be like the rest of you who have been laid off or fired due to our current economy or just your general sucking at work. Oh no, this firing will actually save me money, tons of money.



I was fired by Mini-Geek.
For singing the alphabet.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I quit.

I told Mini-Geek it was bath and then bed time. I was getting ready to wash hair and he gave his usual, "you like me dirty" which I have grown used to, the giggles are gone.

Then I hear, "you like me dirty in bed." I stepped out of the bathroom, shampoo still in his hair. I couldn't handle it.

He's off to bed in a few, it's an Amp and a Mountain Dew Slurpee (I love living right by 7 Eleven!) to keep me up for awhile so I can code more. This morning was quite productive and aside from that some new awesomeness may happen but I don't want to write about it and curse myself so let's just see.

I hate how the nice little to-do list on my computer won't stop growing. I mark something as complete and then I add three more things. I do highly recommend Rainlendar though if you need calendars and to-do lists to help keep you on track. It's skinnable too.
I passed out on my couch somewhere between 9 and 9:30 with Socrates in my arms and a discussion post due at midnight that never was made. Oh well, I'll take the one point for a late post today and do some more in the hopes of earning points.

We won't discuss all of the other tasks that I had planned on working on throughout the night for a few more hours. The program that's due tonight at midnight (I have it nearly done this morning. I am getting one error that I cannot figure out but I need a break from it. Of course once that one error gets straightened out there will be like ten more. But it is going all of the way through the program because it gave me errors from the last function (way to forget semi-colons!)), the project that I'm working on, the flow-chart that I finished this morning and the story board to go along with it, my portfolio...working on any of these would have been perfectly acceptable. Tonight I shall. Today I will continue some more soon, but I am supposed to go birthday shopping with my mother later on today since my birthday is Friday.

You know those chocolate sticks from Pizza Hut? Yeah, amazing. If you have an account set up online you get an email for free ones during the month of your birthday. Last night I figured why not, Mini-Geek wanted pizza, I didn't feel like cooking, and I had to order them soon or miss out. Mini-Geek can keep those cupcakes!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Too much time at the computer lately

I have reached a new level of geekdom.
I dreamed in code the other night. Not even anything in particular. The street signs and my IMs had HTML tags, I remember seeing the telltale question mark and greater than/less than symbols designating PHP and I think I remember something resembling the structs we are currently doing in C++.

And if that isn't enough, I also downloaded some PHP tutorial podcasts and put them on my iPod for work last night.

Oh and even a tiny bit more, the program we use at work has us hit F12 to zoom. Due to the amount of Flash and Photoshop time I have had lately I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't zoom when I was hitting Ctrl+. Like I did a few times before I realized that I am a moron.

Mini-Geek thinks the word "soaking" is actually "smoking" so he was "smoking wet" when he woke up the other morning at my mom's. She tried to correct him but he argued and asked her if she was "smoking hot."

They made cupcakes last night and my mom asked if I could have one. He told her no, they make mommy sick.
He's clearly looking out for my thighs and my "fat belly."

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Boxers

Mini-Geek just put on boxers for the first time.
He promptly reached down and adjusted himself.

Trying to avoid a programming project

I really don't feel like working on this project. This very empty project for my programming class. It has the include files and the functions and that's about it. It's due Tuesday and I prefer to get them done early in case I get stuck.

So instead I am sitting her typing a blog entry! There aren't plenty of other things I could do! Homework, projects, cleaning, working on that whole learning to knit, nope nothing at all.

I have entirely changed my portfolio. I didn't like the direction it was going in. I think I like it now.

I am thinking about going to Niagara Produce later after I plan out some meals.

I am really trying to avoid homework.
It's a yucky gray day and it's being reflected by my lack of desire to do anything.

Ah crap, I have to do a post for philosophy online today. He always has posts due on Sundays and just poo to him for ruining my weekend. I can't wait to see if he makes us do stuff over spring break, which cannot get here soon enough.

Alright, trying to motivate myself now...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Today we found Wall-E underwear. Mini-Geek, as he will by known from now on, is obsessed with Wall-E. He has a Wall-E hoodie and the very idea of laundering said hoodie results in tears if not a full-on tantrum. At least he wears another shirt under it? When it sits in the hamper waiting for me to bother doing a load of laundry I hear "Is Wall-E shirt all clean?" about 600 times a day and when I say no I hear "I like it dirty!!!" He has Wall-E curtains and random non-Pixar colorful robots adorning his walls, and a Wall-E light. I do believe I mentioned Interaction Wall-E previously. Wall-E stuff is not nearly as prevalent as Cars. My bank account is pleased. The underwear were packaged in with other Pixar ones but I was hoping his Wall-E adoration would encourage some potty training. I also let him pick out a package of boxers thinking maybe he has already developed a preference and doesn't know it and maybe if he wears them he'll like it. Hey, I'm desperate here. I want to be able to use my diapers if baby #2 ever happens. Granted around $400 for over two years now is nothing to complain about, I mean he's worn disposables in there too but had he not worn cloth I would have spent far more. There's also the year before that, about six months of that year he wore old school cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants when we were home since they were too much to deal with out (I have no issues with his current diapers and leaving the house though.).

He wanted me to open the package right away.
Good sign?
I told him we need to take care of our purchases first and asked him to take the toilet paper to the bathroom please, figuring it'd be dropped in the hallway.

I made him sit on the toilet before he put them on, "I'm not wearing them backwards!" because he previously wore underwear backwards on occasion to see the picture on the butt. I didn't care, he was wearing underwear. I asked him every twenty seconds or so if he had to use the potty after that.

And he pooped in them.

I was not pleased.

Then later I realized that the toilet paper was not dropped off in the middle of the bathroom doorway and I wondered what my dear sweet boy could have done with it.

All was forgotten because I had to go meet with someone and we left the house.

I just used the bathroom and discovered that he had placed it on the floor right next to the toilet, underneath the holder.

I forgot about the rest of the day after taking pride in the logic he used. My baby is growing up into a smart little boy.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Conversations with a 3 year old

One of the most awesome part about having kids is the stuff that they say. I don't get embarrassed by penis talk in the store, I just explain it isn't the time or the place and on the inside I am laughing though my face is serious. I deserve every minute of store penis-talk. My step sister and I were horrible whenever we were in public, even once we knew better.

The other day my son told his grandmother that I feed him pretty rocks. I think he was talking about the fish tank. It came with that spongy stuff that makes up the background and bottom and looks like some sort of rock formation. Well it was starting to come apart, tiny pieces would fall off when I cleaned the tank and then I saw The Evil Fish That Kills Everything taking bites out of it so I decided it was time for some gravel. He picked out some purple gravel and a plant and I picked out a plant. He's been watching TEFTKE more now and he noticed that he eats the rocks and spits them back out. And he has to tell me about it every time he witnesses it so I know that it excites him.


Then my brother posts the following conversation on my facebook wall the other day, the "me" being my brother:

Me: **** did you eat at grandma Barb's
My son*: yes
Me: What did you eat?
My son*: poop
yeah he definitely your son



He's also convinced that I am a lesbian. Every single day, at least ten times if we're together all day, seriously at least ten times, I'm not exaggerating, ten times, he has to ask me if I have a girlfriend. Every single time I tell him no. Finally the other day I was like "no I am not a lesbian so let's drop it!" out of frustration. He replied with "Haha you're a lesbian, that's funny!"

WTF


I suppose it's better than the usual conversation or some slight variation on it that we have:
My son: Mommy, you have a penis?
Me: Am I a boy or a girl?
My son: You a girl, you don't have a penis. Girls don't have a penis.
Me: You're right.
My son: You want one?
Me: No I am happy being a girl.
My son: YOU WANT ONE! YOU WANT A PENIS!

I can't handle these conversations!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

So I had this nice pretty little post started the other day. And then Vista decided to be Vista and randomly decided that it didn't need to use my wireless Internet anymore and it wasn't going to tell me about this either. I was getting mad at Verizon and my laptop and the entire world until I realized what had happened and by then in my anger I had gotten rid of my post and I haven't had time to re-visit since then.

I desperately need to get Ubuntu on this thing so that I don't have to go into Vista unless I want to. My desktop now has Linux Mint which makes me quite happy. Okay, enough really nerdy talk because I have a feeling that people will be even less likely to read this thing now.

Have you ever been so busy that your life is boring? I'm always on the go but I have nothing exciting happen because it's always the same crap. I mean the "highlight" of the last couple of weeks was when my son peed on the potty (yay!) and then walked into the hallway and pooped on the floor (not so yay). And making my own bread from scratch, that was pretty awesome. No bread maker, no mixer, nothing, just my wooden spoon and hands. There's something about making it yourself that turns it into the best bread you have ever had in your life.

I suppose I should go back to reading all about structs and making some discussion post comapring Neo from The Matrix and Socrates.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Rundown

I'm another busy mama out there, nameless and faceless, indistinguishable from any other stressed out or peaceful child-toting woman out there.

I tend to bite off more than I can chew and figure it's all okay, I work better under pressure. Until one more thing gets thrown into the mix and then there is all too much there.
Take the last week, thrown into our mix was the flu. Both my three year old and I had it, six days of what I deemed "The Worse Flu Ever." Well now I've missed 2 and a half days of work (yay for 4 day work weeks at least!) and am so far behind on school work and I missed some school responsibilities as well. And now I am overwhelmed and not wanting to do the homework that is waiting for me. Programming makes little sense to my exhausted brain right now. Searching for my two products to learn how to make an online shopping cart system seems daunting (Try Google image searching for "fish sippy cup" and see how many useful hits you get!). I think I need to brush my resume and write a cover letter for my portfolio class in the very near future. And probably make some random stuff with Flash. And let's not get into good old Socrates.

Quite frankly I would love to just sit down and get Ubuntu on both my new desktop and laptop. I'm using Vista and the security pop-ups are irritating. Then with the included McAfee stuff on this laptop and all of its pop-ups I just want to scream. These are productivity inhibitors.

So yeah, if you didn't pick up on it, I'm a busy and geeky mama. Full-time job, full-time student, part-time work at school, full-time single mama in a decent-sized 2 bedroom apartment full of Cars "stuff" and one Interaction Wall-E that must stay off for reasons that I don't comprehend that Daddy thought was a necessity. Maybe it was, Eve looks kind of like a tempting purchase now. And I am so over Cars and definitely prefer Wall-E.