Back to school

I'm going to pick up a class this fall, that will help me better do my job.  Something like biostats or epidemiology or research methods in public health.  I'm not really thrilled at the prospect of going back to school.  I like being out of school.  I spent 11 years on advanced education, I'm kinda tired of it, and I'd rather do other things in my free time.  But oh well. 

I've been trying to figure out "what's next."  I like what I'm doing now, but where do I want to go from here?  My boss has talked about wanting to pull all of the healthcare advocacy groups at the hospital under one umbrella, and our program being just one of those.  So maybe that's my path.  Or maybe it's into Risk Management or middle management.  I don't know.  I got a card in the mail when I got made a real employee that offered "career counseling" from the university, that's for employees.  Seemed interesting. 

Not that it's necessary right now, but eventually I'll need to figure out if I'm just going to take the classes I need post-bacc, or if I'm going to try for a DrPH.  (The PhD requires the second semester of calculus, and let's be honest, that is just never going to happen.  I was lucky I got credit for the first semester 15 years ago.)  I have to talk to the department to see if they'd take my Masters in IR.  They take one in Communications, and we had a global health concentration when I was there, and I focused on international organizations, including public health organizations.  So, I think they'd let me skip the Masters and just take the 5 core classes to get up to speed.  The question is whether I should do public health, or health care administration.  Regardless of what path I take, I still want to make use of my JD.  (By the gods, I spent enough time and money on it.)  So, even if I'm not practicing law, I still want law to be a part of what I do.  I'm interested in health care policy making (I'm about to write a policy statement to submit to a national healthcare organization).  I like the advocacy work, and discussing health in the legal context.  But I don't know.  Whatever will get me a job and will pay me good money to do work that is interesting but doesn't control my entire existence?  That's what I want to do. 

But, yeah, biostats.  Feh. 

In other news, we're leaving for vacation on Thursday.  We're taking Cora to Disney.  (Vee's going to Chicago to visit cousins with Grandma and Grandpa over Memorial Day weekend, and then staying home with her other Grandma, who's house-sitting for us.)  Vee does not like people in costume, waiting for anything, or being restrained, all of which would occur at Disney.  She does, however, greatly enjoy her cousins and their piano and her grandparents and their herd of Shih-Tzus (commonly referred to as the "ShihTs").  I would be all, "awww, I'm going to miss the baby," but she was an absolute nightmare this evening, so I'll reserve the "awwws" for when we're in Florida and away from the beastie. 

Next year, the family is talking about doing an Alaskan cruise, which I will skip and stay home with Vee.  I suppose she could go by then (she'd be almost 3 and will be potty-trained and might be less beastly), but I don't think she'd have a very good time, and frankly, neither would I.  I see pretty much zero appeal with cruising through Alaska.  I don't like wildlife.  I really don't care for nature that doesn't involve beaches/ocean.  I don't like cold weather (or extremely hot weather either, unless there's a pool).  Vacation for me involves:  culture (history, art, music, food) and/or beach/ocean.  So, horseback riding on a Moroccan beach, yes.  African safari, no.  Fall in Munich, yes.  Winter in St. Petersburg, oh hell no. 

Cora, however, has been talking about Hawaii constantly.  She really wants to go.  I've promised that, for her birthday one year, we will go.  (She was born on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.) I think, being an epic history nerd (and American military history having been my undergraduate focus), I can come up with an appropriate "curriculum" to justify it as an educational trip and get the kids out of school in early December for a week in Oahu.  And if they don't approve it, well, screw 'em, we're doin' it anyway.  Like it'd be my first trip to truancy court.  Pffft.

Sweet Dreams of Dragons, Sirens and Austin Moon

I am not a morning person.  If the day didn't start til noon, I would be so much more productive.  And I hate morning people.  You ever roll into work in the morning, half-asleep, hair still wet because blow-drying it would have taken away an extra 10 minutes of sleep, sucking down caffeine in an attempt to feel human, and some obnoxious fool comes bounding in, loud, hyper, energetic, just so damn cheery, and you just want to rip their face off and then crawl back into bed?  That's me.  Don't talk to me before 10 a.m., seriously.

So, it's good for me that my children are also not morning people.  They wake up sometime in the 8 o'clock hour, and sometimes even the 9 o'clock hour if we let them (and we sure do on the weekends... they normally go to school at 8:30 for breakfast though).  The problem is, they also don't want to go to bed at night.  (Again, my problem as well.)

Their bedtime is 9pm, but it isn't unusual to push it later because we have stuff to get done, baths and violin and chores.  Last night, Vee was placed in her crib at 9:15 after her post-bath pedicure (she wanted red toes), two books, and performing her new chore (feeding the dog... this only has to be done once every few days because she massively overflows the bowl, and the dog doesn't like dog food enough to over-eat).  Cora then wanted a story out of the Greek mythology book.  We read the one about Athena's gift of the olive tree to Athens, and then she wanted to talk about whirlpools, because "they're called something funny, right?  carrobs?"(Charybdis, and I don't even know how she knew that, since we hadn't gotten to the Odyssey yet), so then we ended up talking about the Iliad, because the Odyssey doesn't really make sense outside of the context of the Trojan War, and somehow it's 10pm before she went to sleep, to happily dream of sea monsters. 

Meanwhile, Vee is not sleeping.  Vee is talking, she is playing, she is not sleeping.  Finally, by about 10:30, her insomnia begins to upset her, and she starts crying.  It's not unusual for her to still be awake at 10, but very unusual for her to cry about it.  So, I go snuggle her, and she's so obviously very tired.  I ask her if she's ready to go back in her crib.  "NOOOO!"  Then the bribery:  "If you lay down in your crib, you can listen to Austin Moon."  Big smiles.

So, she laid down in her crib, I laid down in the bed in her room, turned on "Austin Moon" on my iPhone, and read on my Kindle app while it played.  She gives a muffled "yay" after each song, until finally she falls asleep.  I stay up until 12:30 reading Clash of Kings, and wonder why I was tired this morning.

Concerts and such

For Cora's birthday back in December, I got us tickets to see Taylor Swift.  Six months is a pretty long time for a five-year-old to wait, but she was very excited the date of the concert finally arrived this past weekend.  The kid loves Taylor Swift.  (Not really my doing, exactly.  She loves the song from the Hunger Games soundtrack, wanted to hear more of her songs, and we now own all of her albums.)  Anyway, she very carefully chose her outfit, and then chose mine very specifically ("that black dress that we bought at the mall for your orchestra concert" and "that necklace you made with the octopus") and insisted I needed a head band to match hers.  Seriously, if this kid doesn't grow up to be a designer/stylist, I'll be surprised, she's obsessed with fashion.  

 Concert selfie

Cora had a great time.  We didn't have really awesome seats, mostly because no matter how close we got, the munchkin still wouldn't have been able to see with people in front of her.  So, we sacrificed distance from the stage, for being in the front row of a section.  But Rupp isn't a huge venue anyway, holding about 18K for concerts.  Also, it turned out pretty perfect, because half-way through the concert Taylor changed stages to the small one in the back, that we were directly in front of.  Fun.  I think the only way Cora could've been more excited is if "Austin Moon" showed up to do a duet, her little head might have exploded.  (Vee would have loved that as well.  Geez.  Two things the baby is obsessed with:  Elmo's Ducks and Austin Moon.  And she knows how to get to both on my iPhone/iPad.  Yay.)

Cora was pretty tuckered out by the end.  Because I'm too cheap to ever pay event parking prices, and I was afraid it would start pouring down rain by the time we got out (thus, I didn't want to park on campus and walk), Husband had dropped us off, and it didn't end until nearly 11.  We ended up walking anyway in the cool drizzle from downtown to north campus to meet up with him (because traffic was so backed up).  He'd had to get the baby out of bed to come get us, and she was awake and ready to party, so we got the kids some ice cream.  Hahaha, insanity.  Cora passed out as soon as we got home, but Vee was still ready to party, and continued to do so until about 1:30 in the morning, and was pretty grumpy the next day.  (She's also teething, so she's especially pissy this week.  Yay.)

We also got school pictures back, and I don't know what dark sorcery the photographer used, but geez, she got that beastly baby to smile in the photographs, instead of screaming/scowling, which is normally what she does (other than candid moments I might catch with the iPhone).  

She's smiling because after the photo she's going back to her classroom to bite more children.

Vee is beastly, but she's usually fun.  She loves music (Austin Moon) and loves to dance.  She hates Justin Timberlake's new album (fair enough, I have criticisms to make of it myself).  Whenever a song ends, she has about a five-second delay and then says "Yay."  (That was great during the violin recital, as she'd wait until after the applause was over to do it.  Like, shhh.)  She's using a lot more words now.  Her favorite word is still "GO!"  In particular, "Go 'way!"  Her second favorite is "mine now," as she confiscates items and assumes ownership.  She has, and rightfully so, taken Cora's old violin.  She thinks she is a baby virtuoso, and she will spend 30 minutes just bowing on open strings.  She screams when it's time to put it away.

"Mine now!"

I think I'm going to buy her a 1/32 size violin (the 1/16, which was Cora's first, is too big for her).  Cora, on the other hand, is probably going to need a 1/4 size soon, she's getting so big.  She's been doing great with violin lately.  She's working on an arrangement of Sleeping Beauty's Waltz her teacher did for her in D major, and she is so excited about it.  (Sleeping Beauty is her favorite princess.) 

And that's pretty much it.  Kids.  Music.  Work is, well, work.  We won't go there. 

Galas, steampunkery, and books

Saturday night, (with the kids spending the night with Grandma) Husband and I went to a fundraiser for the Lexington Public Library, themed from the book the Night Circus.  They brought in the author Erin Morgenstern, along with G.D. Falksen.  So, it was a costumed gala: steampunk, Victorian, or the red/white/black from Night Circus.  It was a lot of fun, I'm glad we went.  I read Night Circus for our book club last year (I didn't go meet the author to get the book signed though, because I have it on Kindle... the downside to ebooks, I suppose).  There were nibbles, and a cash bar, although the drinks were pretty reasonable ($6 for a bourbon is pretty decent).  There were performers playing with fire, and a magician, as well as vendors selling jewelry and art.  They also had free cotton candy, which is totally awesome.  It seemed to be a pretty big success, and was packed.  We had to wait in line for 30 minutes just to get inside.  The costumes were awesome though.  (Best costume?  The Fourth Doctor.  I mean, how awesome is that?)

So, yeah, costumes.  Husband spent quite a bit of money putting together his costume, including this annoying as crap steampunk gun that makes gawdawful noises when it "fires."  I, however, decided to make portions of my costume, because I'm crazy like that.  I had bought the material to make a bustle last year before Dragon*Con, and then ran out of time (I was going to have to hand sew it because I didn't have a sewing machine, and just didn't have time for it.)  I, of course, bought the sewing machine this winter.  The bustle was my first project, which was kind of a disaster, because I was sewing delicate lace onto delicate material, and the result was an epic fail ball of bobbin.  But I finally got the lace trim all attached, but then got tired of the project and put it aside.  Until Friday night.  I decided I was not going to deal with the sewing machine, which I scarcely know how to use, so I hand-sewed the bustle together, and attached the ribbon.  This was the result:

(Excuse the grossness of my bathroom mirror)

I also spent half the day on my hair.  My hair has gotten long, and there is also a ridiculous amount of it.  I put it up in curlers earlier in the day, and then did a loose updo around the "hat" I accessorized.  

It turned out pretty okay.  I had to borrow the hat from Cora.  It was part of a Halloween costume a few years back, and I gave it to her for dress-up.  She graciously allowed me to use it for the gala, in exchange for taking ownership of the bustle after the gala.  Fair enough.  I found a bird pin (peacock, I think) which I coupled with some feathers and pinned it to the hat.

I bought a costume on sale that was supposed to be some sort of slutty magician's outfit, so I could use the jacket and shirt.  (I decided I'm too fat for the corset at this point.  I wanted to be comfortable, and the shoes would be bad enough.)  Also, as an aside, the magician's outfit was the shirt and jacket paired with a pair of boyshorts, with garters for stockings.  Yes, this came in a size 12/14.  I'm sorry, ladies, but no one who is a size 12/14 needs to be walking around in public wearing only boyshorts.  Yuck.  I opted to wear a long black velvet skirt instead.  I won't be wearing a string bikini at the pool this summer either.  You're welcome, fellow citizens. 

(Hey, just because I cover my ass, doesn't mean I keep my bewbs covered.)

I also bought some materials to make a necklace and bracelet.  The necklace is a rope wrapped in a black chain, meant to resemble octopus tentacles.  It has an octopus pendant, and some gears and clock charms.  My bracelet is a chain with three clocks, tied with a ribbon.  Here's the bustle and the necklace:

(Wine goes with everything.)

Pair it with some dark make-up and uncomfortable shoes, and voila!  Steampunked!

(Close-up of the necklace.)

Overall, not including stuff I already had, I probably spent about $50 on the costume, which I'll likely use again since I'm going to Dragon*Con again, and we'll go to the mechanical ball again.  

Husband, however, spent a lot more money.  He bought our drinks, and then bought me something pretty, a strand of pearls from one of the jewelers.  (He has excellent taste in jewelry.)

After the gala, we went to our friends' house and continued to drink a lot of bourbon.  We got home at 2am, watched the new episode of Doctor Who, went to bed at 3am and then I woke up at 5am this morning to pray to the porcelain goddess.  Husband slept pretty much all day, hung over.  Ah, just like the old days. 

I had my book club scheduled at noon today though, at my house, so I woke up at 10 to get stuff ready.  I was going to do a Paula Deen give-ya-the-diabeetus casserole, but being around eggs seemed like a terrible idea, so I just went and got bagels and cream cheese, croissants, chicken salad and pimiento cheese spread.  I also realized that I didn't have any sparkling wine for the mimosas, so I had to improvise.  (Lexington has finally fought the blue laws and we can buy booze on Sundays now, but not until 1pm.)  So, I used a bottle of dry white wine, and bought a bottle of sparkling grape juice to add some bubbles to it.  It actually turned out really good, and made it a little bit sweeter, which I liked. 

And there you have it, my weekend of nerdy fun!