My pre-Birthday Grand cleen up brought me 3 new online points of inspiration within a few days!

In particular, 2 blogs and 1 website/Facebook group =)

A few weeks before that I finally put together for myself the reason I would never become a professional blogger or, for this matter, an Instagram-mer (although the feeling that there is something wrong with posting your thoughts and pictures full time had been flown around me for a while). I wouldn't be able to commit to religious posting of sheets of text or pictures online because at some point I would also have to commit to sticking to a certain personality I had developed through my blog and used most often. And my Alter-Ego strongly objects this idea. I would have to translate everything I do, have or feel into the realm of the person my readers or viewers are already familiar with and expect me to be. But at some point the need to constantly these expectation would ruin the genuinely of my self-expression and hold me back on all those ways I want to show my growth, changes and development throughout life.

I notice it more and more often, when bloggers try to maintain not just their writing style, but their life-style and personality so hard - the things they write about finally stop making sense. It shows when bloggers try to appear casual and care-free, positive head to toes, and projecting love and acceptance to everything around, and suddenly switching to depressed wishing he wasn't so lonely and life wasn't so tough - nearly in every other post.

It pops up when a "professional mother" of 5, who has a whole mosaic of Instagram to prove a happy mommy's life with 5 kids born 2 years apart and all doing distance learning at home is possible, with a working husband, without a nanny (ever), a housekeeper, or any other help - forgets herself and starts posting pictures of her with her mother, who's staying over for a couple of months...  Followed by series of pictures of her kids playing with her in-laws, who apparently, flew in right after to take over after her mom...  Topped by a picture of her with a stroller and a list of her time management secrets, where a super-secret tactics of "Plan everything in advance" is followed by an unthinkable "Delegate! My husband takes 1 full day off work every week to take the kids to a park or playground, so I can have some me-time or meet with girlfriends for coffee."  Closing curtain...

This nowadays fashion for being happy and absolutely self-sufficient tends to push people to extremes, which eventually come up as fake and completely not belonging to lives of people with the strengths, values or abilities they claim to have. Or, as one of my Regulation course instructors says, - "When you see an answer that starts with All, Always, Never, Only, Must - it is almost always a false answer". :)

Anyway... The 2 blogs I stumbled upon (or maybe they found me once I was ready and had space for them) - proved to be extremely useful so far, filled less with claims of the writer's ability of Having-It-All in the Land of Rainbows and Unicorns, and more - with precise examples of how they coped with every complex situation and life challenge using resources they had. Some wisdom for me to soak up during my 2am nursing sessions :)

Chinchilla Sr. & I put a start to library classes.

I finally decided to give a try to the kids' story reading in Russian session, and it went way above my expectations!
Instead of having a meeting room full of parents and kids sitting on chairs and listening to a story all the way in the back in complete silence (Dr. Chill. Sitting still. In complete silence. Ha!) we found a small group of toddlers of same age (3 out or 4 were also 2.5 year olds), hanging around a blanket, listening to  "teacher" Librarian and making all sorts of random noises. Apparently we were in some extra luck that morning, because no one of the kids really spoke, so we were all on the same level of stubbornness.

The "teacher" started over by asking the kids their names and ages (to be shown on fingers), and then to point at their ears-noses-eyes-teeth-necks, and go through some more physical, mental and vocal stretching before getting on to the actual story reading. The story du jour was a tale of Masha I Medved', in a beautiful book with picture cut outs on the page, and cardboard figures of the characters to go with. The kids were kept engaged on every page of the story:

- Once upon a time there were... (The teacher shows the cardboard figures of the Old Man and an Old Woman).
- A  Grandpa and Grandma! (the dialog was conducted with the oldest boy in the group who actually did talk).
- That's right! Now raise hands those of you who have a Grandma and a Grandpa!
- ... (moms, me included, raise hands of their lucky kids)
- That's great! Now, for your grandparents you are a... (facing a boy)
- ... eeeh.... Vnuk!
- That's right! And you would be... (facing girls). You are Vnuchka (since girls did not reply). And you are, for your grandparents... (facing Chill)
- Ai-ai!! (*the curtain falls*)

The story was followed by taking pictures in a Hoberman Sphere, playing dominoes and finding animals on a farm poster. Dr. Chill was multi-tasking by running around from one protected electrical outlet to another and opening and closing the covers on them, one at a time. Finally, the teacher said she had something for this young engineer  and took out a whole... tool box full of plastic tools!
- Sweet! - Said Dr. Chill... in a non-verbal way, grabbed a screwdriver, run to the wall and stuck it in the electric outlet.

...For the next weekend, I've been told to bring my youngest one along too.

29

To tell the truth, every year the mere thought of how quickly time flies by becomes more and more scary to me. I have a feeling I don't have time to do anything - anything at all - substantial! Just as I accomplish something - I mentally move is from the category of "Oh, if only!.." to "Well, that wasn't too bad. Can't believe I  wasted so much time on this!" and continue to gnaw myself on the idea of not accomplishing enough. Again.

 Nevertheless... Since this time a year ago I improved my life by:

1. Having Chinchilla Jr! That's by far the most significant event of the past year. My little-little one is such a darling, smart, kind, curious boy, and we all couldn't love him more and be more grateful for such a wonderful new member of our family!
   The 12 hours (or so) it took to deliver Dr.Chill Jr was a whole different story and an experience worth living through to later make it fall under Ce qui ne nous tue pas nous rend plus fort(c). Making a birth plan is indeed a waste of time (that's why I never had any this time), whenever I go to the hospital "for a quick check" might mean I will return home in 2 days and with a baby(happened both times), and... I am a very lucky person indeed! (a statement proved by my life over and over again).
2. Completing all necessary education requirements for the licensing and passing FAR.
3. Building up experience on tax and valuation prep. Helps a lot in defining my direction further on...
4. Maintaining good relationship with Chinchilla Sr. and Von Zobel. One of my goals for 2015 was to organize monthly date nights out with Von Zobel. To my great surprise, we were able to make this happen (God bless younger sisters!), even around the birth day of Chinchilla Jr. - a few days before, and end of the following month.
5. Having read 30 new books. Not quite 50, as initially planned, but - still acceptable, given how little time I had for leisure reading and little-side-project reading. Oh, and yes, - most of those books were actually audiobooks I listen to in my car while driving.
6. Following through the Grand-Maintenance project of the roof, window screens, some window replacement, stucco replacement, garage and entrance door repainting, as well as Grand-Remodeling of the master bathroom and floor replacement in the Jack-and-Jill and Liz's bathrooms. The latter cannot even be counted as one of my big projects as I had to coordinate it about 3 hours after delivering Dr Chill Jr  and miss the first couple of days of work as I was still in the hospital. Bottom line - done with house remodeling and refurbishing projects for now. For a while.
7. Getting back into shape after having 2nd child, and on the whole - have a healthy and fit 2nd pregnancy. Took hell lot of time, energy, money and effort on my part, but was well worth it.
8. Having completed my first online course in Universite de Geneve. Studying right at this  university gave my some... unexplainable feeling :)
9. Meeting a few great new people. Some of them are cool to hang around with, others must have entered my life to give me a magic kick to move forward faster :) I guess keeping all old connections and not losing any friends could also go under this line item.
10. Beginning of Life Coach studies - as coming from another goals of 2015. Definitely was not a priority for the year, however a start was put.

A counter-intuitive way to win over the job-interviewers, impress them and get invited for the next one

is to show up to a large corporation (TM)'s interview completely sick: with voice almost gone, pink teary eyes, swollen nose and shaking from side to side even when seating on a chair. It is essential though to talk non-stop, use excessive body language and gestures energetic enough to turn over the round table at any moment, and loudly wheeze an apology, emphasize that you're slightly under the weather today.
Apparently, large corporations are naturally attracted to candidates who show up the drive of a locomotive even at the worst of their condition, and are able to show up and perform even sick like hell (sadly, both seem to be true).

***

On a side note - after 1.5 year (give or take) I resumed my blood donation, and discovered that:
a) donating blood while breastfeeding is ok, and does not stress body badly enough to cut off milk supply :)
b) exchanging a pint of blood for a pint of... beer is a fun and fair experience. I don't think I'll be able to put the beer coupon to use any time soon, but hope Von Zobel will;
c) Bonfils (at least at Highlands Ranch location) has some amazing employees. I already forgot what it was like, but it feels nicer than having a blood work at a physician's/ob/gyn office: you get help with adjusting the seat the way you want it, can ask for a bottle of water at any moment (that will be opened for you), can get a cookie (I didn't ask for any, but saw other donors do :)), get a Bonfils shirt,  but the best part of it is how professionally they actually stick in the needle. This time it took 3 people 3 (three) attempts each to get the vein, and I already pushed myself into the seat as hard as I could thinking of how blue the inside of my elbow will look like in 2 days, but... nothing except from a few traces from needle pokes. Not a small bruise. Simply amazing!

It feels like 2015 never ended.

Maybe because of the non-stop cycle of daily routine that went through the Holiday season, and the need to study for the exam through the New Year, and taking the exam on January 4th, and jumping into the next section before the results are even known. The hardest thing in going through the exam planning is trying to focus on the next study subject while the results for the old section are still unknown. But you need to focus and push forward. And be very, very patient...

The  Board I'm waiting to hear from, while taking their time with scoring, try to spice up the waiting period and send an email out of blue with an update on application status. For example, saying the application status is now closed. Just like that. And if you do want to discuss that - here's our general line, knock yourself out.

The only organization that succeeds in wearing me down even more is Humana - still looking forward to the day when an hour or more of being on the phone and on hold would yield me a reasonable professional employee who could cancel - this time for real! - the insurance coverage I thought they cancelled for me end of last year. Swear to God, as soon as I completely outsource my house cleaning, the very next thing I'll do is hire a virtual PA!

Yoga works magic: in 2 weeks of daily (Mo-Fri) classes the backache is almost fully gone, and skiing goes much smoother and well-balanced :)  Can't wait to completely recover from the cold to start making my workouts more active; my boxing gloves have collected enough dust in the basement since mid-1st trimester of the 2nd pregnancy!...

New Year Beginn(er)ing's luck

The warm words of gratitude this week go to the Universe for:

1. Missing the fire drill at Prometrics Test Center. In particular for:

a) Stepping out of the elevator literally a second before the alarm went off and both the elevator doors behind be and those leading to the corridor started to close. Last thing I needed today was to be late to the exam due to being stuck in an elevator :)

b) for deciding not to come to an earlier time and thus not being part of the earlier group who lost 5-7 minutes on leaving their testing rooms, and then being searched, scanned and signed in. I ended up needing every single minute of my  time. ( Damn, this exam was hard!..)

    2.  Successful return to skiing after having been out of practice for 3 consecutive years. By "successful" I mean being able to ski away on my own legs every time after a pretty bad fall :) You never know how much of a Pinoccio you've become until you try some activity you used to feel comfortable with, and apparently the next few weeks call for lots of yoga practice! :)

I think I know now how insanity, in it's most trivial and common form, emerges.

First and foremost, it comes from not being able to receive any substantial informative valid feedback to what you do. Week by week you do something (might be a repeating action, but different approaches), and expect to see a result... and the result does not come. No result you were hoping for. Neither attempt is no good or no worse than any preceding or subsequent one.
Am I going the right way at all?
Is anything going on here at all?
Hello? Anyone out there?
And so it goes: week by week, and if objects started talking to you suddenly, or if you started hearing voices in your head - that would have been a better sign than no sign at all. Day by day - seeing all your energy being sucked into the void. And then, at some point, something just shifts in your head...

Meine Uni periodically issues email warnings of crimes occuring on campus.

About once a month a report is emailed describing the evens where people got stabbed near the Light Rail stop, harassed with an attempt to be kissed and chased into a ladies' room, punched, robbed. The most recent incident involved 3 people being shot in the neighborhood, although near a different campus.

Today's crime warning email talked about an attempted robbery of a backpack by a Hispanic guy of aprox. 180cm and 100 kilos. Not only did he target a victim walking along with friends; after an unsuccessful attempt to get the backpack - he apparently fled being chased by the victim's friends and lost his shoe.
....

I immediately start picturing in my mind a big gloomy guy in a hoodie, picking out of all passers-by on a dark evening and throwing himself into a middle of a group of people to pull off a backpack, after a few seconds realizing something had gone wrong, and continuing to realize something had gone wrong as he is now being chased by just the recent victims up the street so quickly a shoe slips off his foot and quietly escapes the scene.

Just last night I was grumbling about how lucky Putin is, despite everything he does. Something always happens that he can turn around in his favour.

Hosting Winter Olympics and winning to host Football Cup - but of course! No matter how much money mysteriously disappears in the process, - we're a great nation, we deserve it!

Civil war breaks out in a neighboring state - time to say "tut-tut!" to a nation who have been in vain hopes of spurting economic growth, development and quality of life. Set them as a bad example of see-what-happens-to-the-disloyal-ones?!  to your own nation. Feeding the bullshit of some Fascists, NATO, US secretly participating in the war to your own people successfully - definitely requires some tremendous amount of luck going your way.

Actually, successfully feeding your people the bullshit of nearly the whole world conspiring against them for many years - requires some tremendous luck.

Terrorist attacks and violent shooting in developed countries - serve them right!

Annexing part of the neighboring country while it's at war? - sure, we're a great nation, on our way back to being an Empire! (apparently) :)

Providing asylum to Snowden? - Yep, let the world know what the real Democracy is!

EU approaches Russia after having suffered a number of terrorist attacks? - of course, that's because we're great!

But fine. There's a good opportunity to improve relationship with the EU and USA, to unite and contribute and to really do something that counts and can make your people proud. After all - here's a common enemy - a real one! - and you do have resources, and you're the one being approached! A very, very good chance to start off a new clean page!

...Leaving it on this thought makes reading the news at 3am about the shot down SU-24 and Putin's response, threats of sanctions and calling for the Russians to cease visiting Turkey a bit like a... deja vu (deja lu) caused by sleep deprivation.
A big fat vicious circle deja vu.

The world is changing.

On a large scale, major changes are inevitable. The entire human history is the history of new discoveries made, rise and fall of empires, values changes, cultures abandoned, technical innovations playing "survival of the fittest" game with traditions and lifestyle (not in favour of the latter).

On a much smaller, much more selfish scale... I dread these changes. I learnt the world as it was centuries and centuries ago, I know it well the way it is now, and this is the way I want it to stay. I know the existing system well enough to understand and analyze current global events, and make plans for my life and the life of my family accordingly. Is it likely that during my life at least one major geopolitical change will take place and the balance of power at some point of our planet will shift? Most likely than not! Will I be able to adjust and adapt to whatever chain of events this will cause? Absolutely! Will I be able to make new speculations about my life, make plans for education, traveling, work? But of course!

Once again, the mankind has been through revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, change hundreds of times. And yet, on a scale of my single short human life, I want to hold on to science, culture, art medicine, philosophy and peoples just as they are now. One stupid move - and the world does change, people within it change in response,  and it may so happen - that whatever I am used to, whatever I appreciate, respect and value - will cease to exist.

Life as a mother of 2. Month six.

Chinchilla Jr is eating his third breakfast. Or having an early brunch. Or a coffee break. Chinchilla Sr asks for immediate help with potty - he uses the adult toilet because... he just has to.

I stop feeding Chinchilla Jr, put him in his bed, go and help Chinchilla Sr sit on the toilet. Chinchilla Sr suddenly changes his mind, jumps down and tries to run away. I catch him, remind him 5 seconds ago he needed to go, and put him back up. Chinchilla Sr cries <possibly> that life is not fair and I suck, jumps off the toilet again, at the same time trying to get out of my hands, and as I realize insisting is pointless and let him go - he gets into a tantrum, loses balance and falls down on the floor his cheek against the tile.

As he gets air into his lungs to tell me again life is not fair and I suck, before returning to his interrupted tantrum, I quickly walk out, closing the door behind me and instructing him to join me once he's done crying and realized that throwing himself side to side between a toilet, a bath and travertine tile is not worth it and would hurt not me, but him most. Literally.

Meanwhile, Chinchilla Jr has grown impatient and wants the rest of his breakfast. Or coffee. Just as I pick him up and continue with him, Chinchilla Sr appears in the bathroom door with a bleeding lip. I freak out, leave Chinchilla Jr right on the nursing chair to run up to Chinchilla Sr and make sure he did not lose a tooth or break his nose.

Chinchilla Sr has his nose intact and his full set of teeth in, and no blisters anywhere on the face, except for the upper swollen lip - which he must have hit his teeth against, when falling. I wash his face, take off the vest with a stain of blood, wipe the blood from the floor and as Chinchilla Sr turns into his highly energetic smart and sly self, hear a boom! sound coming off the nursery.

Chinchilla Jr, apparently having lost us out of sight for a whole minute and started for worry, crawled off the nursing chair backwards. With his legs getting off the chair first. And is now lying on the carpet, telling me life is not fair and I suck.

*******

The following day Chinchilla Jr manages to roll off the changing table. Since he is actually fastened to his changing pad, the changing pad, which is much bigger than him, somehow gets carried down with him and ends up covering him on the carpet. Chinchilla Jr tells me I'm not fair and life sucks and that I need to do better than just milk if I want him to calm down.

After running around with Chinchilla Jr., panicking and googling what needs to be done and what the risks are, I realize I need to give a call to the pediatrician's office to let them know we're running late for the scheduled flu shot for Chinchilla Sr. For some reason my call can't go through and I can't reach anyone in the office. I leave Chinchilla Jr to the nanny - both are giggling at me panicking and the fact Chinchilla Jr has his trademark smile back on his face allow me to breathe a little deeper, - leave instructions with her, grab Chinchilla Sr and drive off to the pediatrician.

Chinchilla Sr gets his thigh poked - it's getting harder to control him, as he's much stronger and smarter than a year ago. He cries that nothing is fair nowadays and everything sucks, but only until the nurse leaves the room. Both Chinchillas do it - must be some sort of self-worked out strategy of getting rid of strangers with needles. Later today, in the middle of the night he will develop an adverse reaction to this shot...

But now I want him to calm down and feel better and walk in the snow in our drive way and across the street with him. He wants to walk in the stream of melted snow: grabs my hand, pull me towards him, hears a crow and says "Varrooon" with very much French accent and pronunciation, and  - I can't say no to him.

Spend the next 20 minutes running in the snow and in the water. I need to be in the office - needed to have been there a while ago - so after continuing taking Chinchilla Sr into coming home, I grab him and walk with him across the house to the patio. The bribe works for a short while. He wants to get down into the backyard, but the stairs are covered with 4 inches of sticky snow and I've had enough of one kid falling down this morning already.

I tell him he can walk around the patio as much as he wants, but block the way to the stairs with a folded patio chair. He gets through just for the sake of it, pretends he does not hear and tries to escape. The rebellious attempt gets him back indoors without boots, hat and jacket and... screaming.

Screaming so hard Chinchilla Jr, who has finally fallen asleep after almost an hour of trying - is woken up. And tells us all life is not fair and we suck.

Rebot.

Repeat.

I'll miss these days.

All petty things always come up in batches but never mean much.

That is, it's not too bad when an espresso maker breaks down all out of sudden or when your bathroom is about to be taken apart and turned upside down, or appliances or plumbing are acting up. All that's negligible, even thought weeks can go by feeling like all you every day is playing tennis against three. All day long.

It's much worse to binge google side effects of spinal surgery or vein removal and hope that everything goes well with the former, and the doctor has enough experience and knowledge and there'll be enough luck in the air at the time of surgery. And trying to decide if the later is absolutely necessary right now, or can wait until thrombosis starts to form and what not.

And then the fact of adding some formula to Chinchilla Jr's breast milk  - that completely throws me off the balance. Although having nursed for over a year now - 5 months of exclusive breastfeeding since birth is way more than I have hoped for, with both babies.  Still.
One day I will look back at this time of my life, and laugh...

October.

For a few weeks now I end up sitting in the same Light rail car as a big man in large headphones, humming and talking to himself. His humming is so loud, long  and deep-in-the chest, it keeps all the passengers who have not heard it before confused by  the sound ' s origin, and when I first heard it myself I thought the train car was going off the rails.


Today's the coldest day of this semester, with drizzling rain and gusty winds developing as I am already waiting for my train at the stop. sitting in the car I catch myself thinking my shoes are two light and thin for such weather. This thought flows into trying to remember the last time I was wearing weather-incompatible shoes. Must be when working at La Reserve - I did have to take train and walk to and from train stations. Good times!.. Where did I keep my work shoes then? Must be my locker - yes, I did have a locker in the staff changing room. Was it also where I would keep my German study book for the times I arrived to work too early in the morning? Must be.


It's amazing how such details escape conscious mind for so many years - not that I needed to refer to them daily, and because I needed to constantly keep my mind clean for other... thoughts. But they've been somewhere deep down my memory all along. As I pass downtown, I take a different route to the building my class is at, and when glancing in the window of a hotel I walk by I see a team of waiters circled around a Maitre-d'  and realize they're going through their instructions, and their shift is about to begin, and it's going to be a pretty busy evening with such nasty weather outside.

Dear Chemists, Chemical Engineers, Environomental Scientists et al!

On behalf of that luckiest part of the present day human kind who live in permanent accommodation  - and therefore, have to run a household,  and who also have children - and therefore, deal with a number of items and objects meant to ease up the process of raising up children, I seek your help in inventing, creating and making available:

1. A THING working on neutralizing the chemical part in gels, powders, creams, liquids used either for house cleaning or for personal hygiene. When a toddler squeezes out shampoo on the carpet, scatters dishwasher detergent all over the kitchen floor - it would be great to... pick whatever you can and put it into a THING  to make the end product less harmless for the environment. If you need to dispose off of a 1/4 bottle of hair conditioner  that by no means work for you anymore - instead of flushing it all down the toilet, it would be much better to run it through the THING and minimize the overall amount of the chemicals run in the sewage waters because of waste. 
2. STUFF for turning the contents of the baby and (especially) toddler diapers into all-natural organic fertilizer. All you need to do is to throw  in a filled up  compostable diaper. Just imagine - a Diaper Genie size STUFF that stands near your changing table or in the bathroom and keeps those extra... few pounds a day from going into a landfill,  but rather to actually benefit land. Priceless for those who have an excess of used diapers at home, and their green thumb spouses' little garden in the backyard. 
3. A SOMETHING that composts kitchen waste of organic origin in matter of days. I believe works on the prototype that used bacteria were already carried out, but please - come up with a SOMETHING affordable and available to the middle class, kitchen-size and  fully baby proof.

To any Chemists and Environmentalists that are in fact genius scientists: is there any way to design an exothermic THING, STUFF and SOMETHING? On the household scale, we could all use some additional energy...

I'm sure for many this will be an easy and logical step to contribute a small improvement to the world by "starting with themselves". On my end, I am willing to volunteer for the projects as idea contributor and the final product tester ;)

Sincerely,

Rita.

Second postpartum recovery is complete:



Ran my first 5K postpartum - which technically indicates I'm back to pre-prenatal shape - without killing my ankles and lungs. And judging by the photo it only took me .02 mile to get my phone ready and document the achievement.