4 years

We miss you daddy-o.

Dearly.

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Hallowed

Son#1 had his first school dance last night.

We decked him out with fake blood, fake stitches and a cheapo children's chainsaw.

He was still sleeping when Son#3 and I left for swimming lessons.

I've spent my week studying science philosophy for social sciences and of course, working and avoiding my colleagues.

I've never worked in such a team of mean and unthinking people.

The stupid/mean combination is lethal.

Kindness!!!!

Above everything!!!!

I won't be staying there for long, methinks.

One reflects one's environment after a while, and I miss intelligent, THINKING colleagues that I had at the university.

Oh well.

A quiet weekend lies ahead.

Looking for kids' winter clothes in the attic.

Work preparation.

Cleaning the house.

And perhaps to a museum in Dordrecht where the Netherlands was declared a country.

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Ground Control to Major Tom

We've had a strange autumn break.
The husband and I went to Maastricht and Aachen on Saturday and Sunday (the boys were dropped off at the in-laws').
On Monday an emotional funeral for the husband's uncle, who passed away due to a brain tumour.
The boys' behaviour was exemplary.

The rest of the week was spent trying to clean the mess after our cleaning lady failed to show up - again.
She has problems, but hell, so do I.

Things #1 and #2 have been butting heads and various other limbs all week.

Today was Son#3's swimming lesson during which I get to spend a blissful hour studying every week.

Then groceries and the husband took the boys down to the little beach with pond we recently discovered, about 5 minutes from home.

They took the metal detector with and 'found' some coins (which the husband had scattered).

Son#2's friend was there too, swimming, in this cold.
Of course, the temptation to get wet far outweighed Son#2's sensibilities.
Live a little.
Right?



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Still here

All has been quiet on the Western front.
My not-so-new-anymore job at the vocational college is still going strong, but working 4 days a week with 3 mad children, Midlife Crisis Man and some vague autoimmune disease kind of sucks the life juices out of you.

Healthwise, nothing much has changed.
Son#1 has started high school and puberty, we fight often and chaotically.
If I have to spend another 5 years forcing him to do his homework, I may not survive...

Winter is well on its way and this adjustment period with my new job/life away from the varsity seems like summer has been swallowed and digested - a looooong time ago already.

The husband has started a new job and he, like me, is slightly autistic and change scares the bejesus out of us.
But, like Meryl Streep told students at Barnard: There is no normal, only change.

Only change.


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