Things to do in 2 minutes

Now that I have a few more productive months to use for tying all loose ends and complete all unfinished business, I thought of things I could do in little time slots. When I am in the middle of something important and get a couple of minutes of spare time, or between 2 tasks on my daily schedule and can't start the next one right away, or playing with Dr. Chill and he does not want me to interfere for a few minutes - the feeling of having time and not filling it with anything productive makes me panic. It will probably get even worse once I have 2 kids and my schedule will be broken down to bits and pieces, and I will never get a chance to get to the bottom of my daily to-do list on time :)

So, to begin with, 2 minutes would buy me an opportunity to:

1. Wash sinks and counter top in my bathroom.
2. Squeeze out carrot and apple juice for 4 (not counting time for washing and peeling fruit and veggies: it will probably take another 5 minutes).
3. Vacuum the main entrance area. OR Vacuum the laundry room area. OR vacuum the kitchen area. 
4. Unload the dishwasher (with reasonable amount of dishes and utensils)
5. Load /unload washer. OR Load /unload dryer.
6. Make and serve a snack for a toddler. OR heat up and serve lunch/dinner for a toddler.
7. Make a bottle of milk with probiotic for a toddler. 
8. Fully dress up.
9. Brush my teeth.
10. Wash my face and brush my hair. AND pull the hair into a ponytail or a hair clip if needed (alright, that's how my time in bathroom build up...)
11. Briefly dust each of the bedrooms, the office, the dining, music and living rooms.
12. Review daily agenda, make changes, cross out completed items.
13. Check each email box.
14. Type a brief email from phone or ipad.
15. Stock up diapers for Dr. Chill in his bedroom.
16. Make a cup of coffee AND while the espresso machine is warming up and working - either a sandwich, a bowl of cereal or a bowl of cottage cheese for breakfast. 
17. Pack up full lunch for me (given the main course was put in a container the night before).
18. Wipe all the counter tops in the kitchen.
19. Organize my closet.
20. Pick up and put away toys, books and clothes in Dr. Chill's room.
21. Go over daily mail received (given it's already been picked up from the mail box)
22. Pack up the gym backpack. OR - the work & study backpack.
23. Clean up and organize the laundry room: hang the jackets into the closet, put the shoes on the shoe shelf and wipe those that need it, take away bags, backpacks, toys, mail, parcels, and any other random items that are piling up here. 
24. Fill up 2 glasses with water OR (maybe AND) 1 kettle with water. 
25. Fill up a pitcher with water and while it's filling up - cut and throw in  slices of lemon (1/2 lemon).
26. Set up the oven for 400 degrees and put in the container with mix for cottage cheese.
27. organize 1 pantry shelf.
28. Put away all the toys in the living area into the boxes and baskets in the play area.
29. Clean up each of the bathroom mirrors
30. Wipe the entire laptop with electronics wipes (including cleaning the keyboard).

I have very frequent thoughts on how lucky I am to be a Mother nowadays

"Very frequent" being between every other day and every single day. Yesterday though, while Dr. Chill's single-hand-ball-throwing-practice in the kitchen ended up in the attempt of serving us all a fried ball with veggies for dinner:

Literally!

I realized that in a way he is lucky to be born nowadays too, and see his Mom laugh her pants off while fetching her smartphone, taking picture of the cooking ball, and then proudly going on for the next couple of minutes about how cool and good at aiming he is. No spanking, no yelling for being to noisy, active or generally not fitting into Mom's miserable life. 

What are the chances I could have had even a vaguely similar experience of motherhood... , say, a century ago? Sometime and some place where life would have been all planned out for me from the start and if I were born with ideas of my own regarding my life (and what's worse - same personality I have today) - well, too bad for me! At least every other day I reflect and appreciate no need to change a my whole life and tuck it around my child. Several arrangements around the most important areas of my life work just fine. I also don't have to believe that my Child owes me anything: now, or when he grows up. I can just enjoy motherhood with no strings attached!

I am also extremely grateful for being able to cook different meals for my family every day, if I decide to do so :)  I can create a pretty good diet with not just red meat or poultry, but some enormous choice of fish, veggies and fruit. I feel happy when I see Dr. Chill stuffing his mouth with salmon, green beans, rabbit meat or drinking soup right from his bowl, but frankly - if the only groceries I could lay my hands on were good enough for making sandwiches, or if we had to live on potatoes,  pasta and chicken drums - his idea of eating well would have been quite different. Yep, maybe as a highly prone to allergies child grown up in the post Cold-war era :)  I still beam when I open a small plastic box of fresh raspberries to wash half a dozen for my kid. In January. 

Same thought goes to being equipped with a washer, dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner and other little benefits that the past 150 years rolled on us. Real life-saviors for simplification maniacs(not pointing a finger here), who use dishwasher to wash all plastics baby items, toys, organizer containers that have been standing on parents' bath counter for too long; and who use the washing  machine for... pretty much everything else. If your toddler loves loading and unloading the washer and dishwasher, and also pushing the buttons  - it helps. 

Personal space. I'm lucky,  I'm extremely lucky to live in a house that provides a lot of clean, free, safe personal space for my son. As well as for my husband and I  - after child's bed time. The mere thought of trying to fit in 4 people in 1000 sq. ft. apartment  makes me dizzy; although this is not even the worst-case scenario, I know. When traveling, one of the priorities for us is to have a hotel room with a separate common area and a door to the bedroom.

I am not even mentioning all baby gadgets, diapers, toys, learning apps - this deserves a separate full size posting to refer to later :) 

Pregnancy, baby delivery, postpartum recovery. I suspect if it wasn't for epidural during my first delivery, I would have very likely ended up with a c-section. Comparing the level and amount of prenatal medical attention I got the first time with that provided in other parts of the world is not something I would make a point of here; I just felt greatly at ease to have the opportunity to receive intensive medical care - should I have needed it. And I felt lucky enough to never have needed that intensive medical care. 

What I was able to do - and did - for myself during pregnancy requires another separate post :) Again, something tells me access to sports, body cosmetics, prenatal massage, vitamins - are quite a recent privilege :)

Just as the whole experience of having and raising a child without the feeling of being in the surviving-of-the-fittest race followed by the feeling that misery and suffering is what all real women ought to go through is. Which is something I sincerely congratulate myself with for the past 18 months now.

Still under the impression after the weekend-y call to parents,

I chopped down almost the entire backyard. Everything that's dry was cut down to about an inch, everything that had spread like a weed got a nice creative cut down to almost bare trunks, and if only I could start the chainsaw - our backyard would have soon looked like a desert with two greenhouses and a sandbox in the middle. 

The rest of the weekend went by in a much more peaceful way though. Our Saturday date night with Von Zobel (God bless smart younger sisters!) proved that I can still somehow fit in a nice combo plate of Mediterranean food AND top it with a desert worth 2 full pieces of baklava (also - to be too lazy to fish out all pieces of bell pepper from my salad and freak out over some mild stomach seizures in the middle of the night :) ).

 

Benefited from the free entrance day in Botanic Garden, moving around with a bunch of friends (ours and Dr. Chill's :)). We gotten the taste of getting professional pictures taken in beautiful places and have been taking Sis and her camera around for 2 weeks now (God bless smart and creative young sisters!). Dr. Chill is absolutely  great at modeling, and getting around crowded public places with him while Dr. Chill Jr is kicking inside makes me feel that being a Mom of 2 very active toddlers will not be too bad as long as those two do move in the same direction and with the same speed. If they do have opposite opinions on where they should run simultaneously... I'll probably consider volunteering for live human cloning with one of the British science universities...

Speaking about getting cloned: in order to get the Audit class credit ASAP, I can take the class in University A in Maymester or in Summer, which are both in-person classes. Or I can wait until Fall and take a class online in University B. I'd personally prefer going through University A's schedule and getting it over with, and I already got their approval to take the class; but: the Maymester end date is 5 days before my due date. The Summer start date is 1 day before my due date. University B's approval process is still up in the air, and the commitment would be for the whole Fall semester, but the online class looks like a more realistic option now... Hm, brain, what do we chose? 

Oh, and I really need to start memorizing and accessing the memory more efficiently!

And how do I start with sharing my own experience and developing my own material?

And remember how to group accounts in Engagement correctly?

Come on, brain, don't shut down on me! :)

Oh, and now I know that a super cool email from a prenatal yoga center on Sunday night should read:

"We're cancelling tomorrow's class: your instructor gave birth today!" :)

Life with 2 backpacks and a lunchbox.

I leave home every morning with 2 backpacks: red,  with my laptop, agenda and all the lehrstoff bundled together, and green - with a change of clothes and shoes (to change into after elliptical workout, yoga or swimming), completely stuffed shower bag (I don't understand how all these things fit in, and I swear I use them all!),  swim suit (for Wednesdays) and a shabby and scratched all the way red MP3 player (I suspect the manufacturer's information provided on it was a shameless lie:  it WAS actually made in Switzerland, and now this  9 year old, AAA battery powered freaking dinosaur will outlive me and my grandchildren).

There is also a lunch bag with an 8 hour supply of food that goes into the car, a bottle of water with lemon and a thermo mug with rooibos. If the day has started right, I should have already has some breakfast and my 1 legal cup of coffee. So far I've been very good about it.

It took me less than a week to change the settings on how I need to run my day, so that now I still get the necessary work/study time. A few little changes I notice now are:

1. I spend less time running the errands, doing grocery shopping or ordering items for home.
2. I write down every single minor to-do thing in my agenda, even reminders and day menus, and sometimes - short grocery shopping list.
3. This helps me to keep my mind clear at all times, and focus on reading, doing analysis, research, writing, being on the phone. 
4. And help develop new ideas and thoughts, Which, again, I then need to write down in my agenda - not to spend any of my RAM on it. I do like the way this cycle works.
5. I sleep less, but function well so far.
6. I start getting the sense of pressure and emergency thinking that I only have a few more productive months ahead of me. And then daily routine will need to be reg-established to stay on top of things. Again.
7. A friend of mine shared her experience with getting a professional license was to study 12-14 hours a day non-stop, not leaving her study area. Another connaissance said she could complete all studies and obtain the actual license all during her pregnancy. I know my situation is unlike anybody else's, but it's still very tempting to speed up and double the efforts... Why on Earth not try...
8. The German language does calm down my mind and spirit. I've long joked that Rammstein is my best meditation and fall-asleep music; now I realize that jokes aside, - there is something reasonable to it.
9. Changed my library location for ordering and picking up books. 

Days got longer, warmer and sunnier. Not my accomplishment by any means, but helps staying active and after a long hard winter feels just like having the weather and nature back on my side :) 

Watching and giggling

Finally could start to watch the 3rd season of the House of Cards (American version) - very entertaining. Kudos to the movie crew for bringing in the real Pussy Riot, I was surprised to find out it was actually them! Not sure the girls were invited to star in any similar projects in Russia after they were released.  Kudos to Lars Mikkelsen for picking up Russian and putting on some Russian accent for his role, I assume that couldn't have been easy :).
My only two questions on the dinner at the White House scene were:

1. Why would the Pussy Riot bother to make a provocative toast in the language very few of the present would understand? Why not speak out in English - if you really want to shame off your president in front of everyone?

2.  Even with all the Cold-war era and post-Cold-war era stereotypical behaviour the Russian president demonstrated - teaching the American president how to drink vodka, how to chase it with pickles, singing Russian folk songs and hitting on the first lady - is still too  shallow and superficial. Why wouldn't he bring in his pet bear? :) Or show his hosts and other guests at the dinner how to have a shot of vodka AND eat the shot glass after that? :) Or pull everyone into a paint ball shooting or fishing contest right after the dinner? :)  There seems to be no growth  in the outrageousness and insanity of the Russians - as perceived by the West - within the past couple of decades... very disappointing :)

Meanwhile... (couldn't resist)

                                                     (taken from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31901078)

Less is more.

Over and over again, my personal experience proves that the less useless stuff, time consuming and non rewarding activities and negative people I have in life - the more of all the opposite actually fits in :).

I am ready to believe that any type of clean up in just one area of life alters the energy flow on a very major scale, and creates a domino effect on attracting new things, people, knowledge and situations in other areas. It is especially interesting to watch new people enter your life and new situations being created out of thin air. 

On a scientific level - I can rationalize having only that much space to fill in, and then filling it up with something necessary and fit for my life. Once something does not fit my life anymore - space needs to be created before new opportunities, habits and events can take their place. What I find fascinating though is how much more value those new things bring - if we don't just look at the space, time or energy they consume (and it is obvious it costs us all time, energy or space to own anything) ), but also at what we get back - emotionally, financially, for the sake of health. 

Less is more. It is the simplest formula of instant life re-organization and improvement I've discovered over the years. So simple in fact, I smile wide every time I see it has just worked again without me even realizing it. 

I had a feeling there would be something crazy about this week

when I found myself dancing at Bistro Al Vino around midnight on Saturday, shocking the clubbers around with the mere looks of my 3-rd trimester belly (at least I think this time it was the looks of belly at the dancefloor that widened the eyes of those around).

In the next 4 days I managed to cover the Litigation section of REG (to those who find themselves having an urge to do the same - don't even attempt!); survive the last week of Dr. Chill's daycare; take a Friday exam and while running errands all day after that - to get a huge screw in my rear tyre and to actually discover I have one - by the hissing sound I heard while unloading my truck. Some things just need to happen 1.5 hours before you need to pick up your kid from the daycare, and on the day when you need to also get ALL his things out of there, so you DO need the car! Thank God, miracles do still happen to me :) and the car shop across the road from the daycare fixed the hole in less than an hour!

Next day I assembled Dr. Chill's new furniture in his new room. Never again! - the skin on the palms is rubbed and hurts like crazy. I was lucky to get help from Dr. Chill though - he does an amazing job putting the screws in the proper wholes, bringing and holding parts and pieces. And once he got a hold of the screwdriver - he immediately personalized his table by punching a dozen of holes in his brand new table top, before I could reach out and take away the screwdriver. What a sweet cutie, aaaargh...

Sunday, after brunch with friends - the annual pregnancy and baby-wear swap took place. Now there are a few minor things to get, and I'm ready for enhancement of my motherhood experience :)

Little project of the week  - Dr. Chill allowed to brush his teeth every single day of this week. Another little victory, given his gums are full of bumps, and the teeth are not showing yet!..

On a larger - scale - in the month of February -  the trip to the 2nd new place to visit this year has been booked.  The date of the month has been arranged, but not taken care of, for health reasons. Still counts though :) 

5 new books read in February. Plans for the on-going education modified slightly. Plans for the education for the side-project - are moving forward. 

I wonder now, how do you take an international trip with a 4-5 month old baby and a 2 year old toddler? Say, to even Canada? And how do you find time to study for 3 different areas all at once? And what comes first in my side project - education or experience? :)

Snowing again. Heavy snowfalls forecasted.

The week started with cleaning up the driveway. Very fun, especially when you have an 18 month old toddler hanging around; thank God mine is as smart and patient as it gets - I was able to clean up the whole driveway. Nevertheless, to all 6 month pregnant girls out there - do not attempt!

Happy to have finished The Black Monk by Akunin.  It was getting a bit boring towards the end, although the final scene of the murderer escaping with a load of uranium, making plans about using the money on scientific breakthroughs, restoring himself as a scientist and finding new source of energy - not knowing he had already been lethally poisoned with radiation - got stuck in my mind for some time.

Next fiction in line - Pelevin. Smart, unpredictable and incredibly delicious! Read the first several chapters of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf - and after Akunin's attempts to depict woman's psyche, - it gives a special pleasure.

Caught myself ironing a shirt for a 18 month old guy :) Who would have thought!

Actually, cleaning up the whole house with Dr. Chill around is still doable. He can wipe furniture with dust cloth, even helped me wash the baseboards in the kitchen this week, put things back to their places, help me with the laundry - put dirty clothes in the washer or take clean dry clothes out of the dryer, and then sit on the clean dry laundry in the laundry basket  - he just loves that! And vacuuming! He's been checking on the vacuum cleaner 2-3 times a day for the past 3 weeks,- must be going through his vacuum cleaner phase, - so whenever I vacuum, he will shadow me holding on to the vacuum cleaner.

As for the Dr. Chill Jr, it feel like he is a pretty active guy too. Probably a bit more good natured than the older brother :) but just as active. Great - I can have them both exhaust each other! if I survive the next year with them I mean

There is something exiting and aspiring in thinking the 2nd pregnancy will only last for 3 more months. That all this constant self-discipline, hard work and inconvenience is only for the lesser part of the pregnancy. And then - life will get easier in terms of getting my body - and what's even more important, my brain - back in full use. Time flies with the second pregnancy so fast I'm only glad I manage to  jot down a few notes into my little pregnancy diary every now and then, otherwise I'ld only realized the whole speed of it once I was in hospital.

The improvements from my 1st pregnancy - my abdominal muscles still flex (I completely lost control over them end of 1st trimester of the 1st pregnancy); I am more flexible (was more swollen at this time of my 1st pregnancy a couple of years ago).

Downsides of this pregnancy - lungs (had to stop running half way into 1st trimester this time, and can already feel they are not functioning at their best); and back (my prenatal masseusse claims the right side of my back along the spine feels quite bad. Probably because when I have to carry Dr. Chill for 10-15 minutes straight, I do so with my left arm only while I am doing whatever I need to do with my right hand. :)  )

Another important upside is that I am still able to do 1/2hr of elliptical with my tummy!

Ah, why am I not surprised?

How much do women around the world pay to give birth?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31052665


I just hope that despite the high overall costs, Switzerland and Australia's major insurance companies do cover more than 80% of childbirth expenses...

The moral (for self)  is: work harder. And smarter.

Lunatic's notes.

The best way to burn dinner is to cook it in almost complete darkness outside, with a very-energetic toddler handing on you once you step indoors.

And I mean not just have a crust a little too thick, but to set the whole set of meat and veggies on fire.
So that the flames almost reach the house wall. And there's so much smoke as if boyscouts invaded our backyard and chopped the fence and the garden beds to firewood. And that the grill would burn for another 10 minutes after the gas is shut off.

Just as Liz explained a quarter of an hour later when ordering pizza: "When you said you can't check on the burgers because the flames burst all the way up when you try lifting the grill lid - I realized things'd gone reeeeally wrong!".

I believe it all started last week when I tried to drink compote from Dr. Chill's sippy cup, mistakenly grabbing it instead of my champagne flute with juice.

Or a few days before that, when I was running around Dr Chill's classroom in daycare looking for a bag I brought his diapers supply in, and which mysteriously disappeared after I took out the diapers. Until one of his teachers tactfully suggested: "Like the big red bag behind your shoulder?".

Closing curtain.

I begin suspecting it's either my oldest one or the youngest one - doing something to my brain. Or maybe both of them.

28

One of my little personal victories of the past few years - is that I am shaping my life more and more towards what I would like to see it. By now I know I can't - I am literally incapable of - just focusing on career. Or being just a Mom. Or just a wife. Or only building my life around gym, swimming pool and my kitchen. Or only devote time and energy to my hobbies, books and education. I get the biggest satisfaction and fulfillment from my life when I continuously take up all these different roles in different areas of my life and put to use all my skills and knowledge to find my life's new perfect balance. My life's new perfect balance is not a constant by the way; which makes defining and establishing it quite hard, but most of the times - interesting and exiting.

My other little personal victory of the past few years - is the ability to act before I change my mind :) Once I know I need to start doing something or I need stop doing something - I can push myself to do so, before starting wallowing in self-discouraging thoughts of the plan being too expensive, too time consuming, too exhausting...  Any form of action proves to be LESS time or energy consuming than when preceded by a phase of pulling yourself together.  Another interesting thing about the energy though, is that the more of it I use on getting things done right away (whether major milestones or line items in my agenda's to-do list) the more energy I get back. Mystery.

As for the things that still do not.... present themselves in the way most favourable for me :) I could probably single out the lack of time as single biggest drawback. With the obvious need to complete education, take career one step up, devote enough time to my family, welcome the new family member (which in my Universe equals to a significant amount of time put into sports, walks, sleep, body and skin care), making sure our home is clean and we have enough food in the fridge so we can keep running, getting roof works in the way and planning upcoming bathroom works, doing research on and planning to obtain another couple of licensing... with all that I sense like the days are packed and yet there are no major breakthroughs in sight. I was going to fix this feeling from last year by boiling down my current life goals to only 16 for this year...

Enjoying being myself. Biens dans ma peau, and starting to feel confident that I can maintain this feeling for the next several years at least.

A little hindsight on January 2015.

Good month. I was as productive as I could, given the circumstances (like a big family reunion around the New Year and stomach flu that turned me into an eye-blinking vegetable for a couple of days).

Took 1 trip  - to Maui; which fall under "Visiting new place" line item of my plan.
Proceeded to REG part of classes.

Read 5 new books. As part of stocking up with new books for the next month, brought home 2 books by Osho: The Book of Children and Belief, Doubt and Fanaticism. But before I even opened one of them - I suddenly felt something was not right... Read Osho's biography for the first time  - et bien sur! - he did not have children of his own.
And then his citation about Jewish Guilt caught my eye.
The books went back to the library. Unopened.

Started doing research and got some free materials on the side project and C2. If done correctly, both are extremely time and financially consuming, so... these elephants are to be chopped down to bite sizes.

Cleaned our house from useless stuff; tossed lots of my own belongings that became unusable over the past couple of months. Looking at other households I'm glad I've never had a problem getting rid of stuff, especially when it can't serve its purpose anymore; now not even a huge garage and a basement would allow our house to turn into a junkyard.

Stopped sleeping on my belly. That's a huge loss of comfort for me :)

Maui is much more of a tourist place compared to the Big Island-

just as Von Zobel warned! Hence - more traffic and less solitude on picturesque stops around the island on Maui :)

More of green vegetation; less of volcanic dark rock - tastes differ though...  Maui views look more like most card pictures and less real. Maui fish in tourist snorkel spots are way more cheeky, throwing their schools at and around the swimmers. It was the first time in my life that I had fish swim so close to me, almost feeling that it is about to stretch out its fin and knock on my mask.
On the whole - very nice snorkeling by Monokini crater, although not as nice as by Captain Cook Monument.

Von Zobel, who snorkeled religiously twice a day, did claim there was way more to see by our hotel too than by Monokini crater. Quite possible.

Sunrises and sunsets are just as peaceful and romantic on each island.

The fruit stands are more impressive on Big Island though. The fruit were larger, juicier and tastier. There are fewer fruit stands by our hotel on Maui, and of those we saw of the other side of the island over half were abandoned or closed, citrus fruit were not as flavourful as on the Big Island, passion fruits were sour like hell. In addition to these first world problems :) ice cream shops were not everywhere to bump into. Shame - would love to try local ice cream without making a detour from our route.

That was compensated by great seafood and drinking coconuts.

The weather was amazing; not too hot during the day, and still in the lower seventies-upper sixties in the evening. Not a single cloud; no annoying humidity. Yes, on top of everything we were extremely lucky with the weather, the ocean and the beach. Von Zobel claimed the beach to be one of the best in the US - that might very much be so! :)

All in all - we had a wonderful time in a wonderful place. I would come back. To try local scuba diving, boogie board and local beer I missed this time.
A very much needed rest and adventure before being grounded for the next 18 months :)

While it's still impossible for me to win a game of chess with AI,

- I now came to the point where I can at least revengefully leave it nearly piece-less...

God knows who else plays chess with computer on vacation...

Valkyrie

What I find hard to do after finishing a happy ending fairy tale is to adjust my brain back to the day to day flow of life, my mind is still grabbing on to new concepts too easily... Or it might be that it is still not too good at distinguishing between the real ideas of life enhancement and the fiction ones, even though they might date back to over a thousand years ago.

Not that I expected more from the book, - I expected it to be different. By the description and reviews I was picturing more battle scenes and a tale of a self-made super hero, and thank God the novel was nothing like that. After all the recent literature on women written by men, with the attempts to depict women's inner world that were - quite ridiculous, - this was finally a true to life glance at a young female's psychology, and showing thoughts and actions that did make sense.

All wrapped in Semenova's amazing style, as always.

And Soaked with her amazing vocabulary, as always.

It would not have been such a sweet fairy tale without the cornerstones of the plot being - having two brave brothers, a wise mentor, a fearless leader and eventually all your hopes and aspirations come true. Outside the books, an outsider leaves her home and family - and this is the end of the story. 

On the other hand, the Valkyrie emphasizes a great deal the need to belong: either to the family you were born into, or the family you create yourself. The objective reasons a young woman could never be fully independent in Slavik culture over a thousand years ago are obvious, and yet I have always been curious what is it like - to be an integral part of a larger community, what it feels like to belong to something much bigger than yourself...