Haywire Continued...

So you may remember my Haywired post.  We had an electrician come out two days after I posted it and he made the corrections and I waited and waited and waited to hear from the state but never did. I did check online a couple of weeks later and our permit cleared.  And I waited and then school started and I forgot about it.

Then last week I received a note from the state telling me that I had failed to respond to the corrections within 15 days.  The problem was that I never received a report from the state!  I called them immediately and the guy who said he would need to do research and call me back which he did 2 days later only to pass me along to another guy.  That guy told me that (I cannot believe he told me this) the original inspector was diagnosed with "something that you never want to be diagnosed with" and was out on disability.  So it seems that I never received the report that I was supposed to and this warning letter that I received was supposed to go to the appliance store.

So, he called the appliance store who put him in touch with the installer who called me and said I had to apply for a new permit and they would pay for it.  The permit would bring a state inspector out.  So, I applied for the permit and they sent me a check while we waited for the inspector. 

In the meantime, I got another letter from the state saying that I had failed to respond to the warning letter (so not true) and I was going to be fined $250 AND my electricity might be cut off!  WTF?!?!

So I called in a panic and they told me to ignore the letter because it was sent in error.  And then the inspector showed up.  We went over all of the details again and he asked for a copy of the check from the appliance store and then checked out the electrician's corrections.  He told me all looked good ...except that there was a red wire nut on the wire and it needs to be blue.  Again, WTF!!  Were they just being uber picky (as appliance store believes) or was this really a problem?! 

My designer (who hooked me up with this electrician) got the electrician to send someone out today to "fix" it but now I wait to see if yet another permit is required or if we are good with the way things are.

This cooktop has been a friggin' pain in the ass.  If it did not boil water so quickly (and look so great) I would say it has not even been worth getting!

Dex is still struggling with the workload in Algebra this year.  When I suggest that he transfer into grade 8 math a meltdown always ensues.  I guess we will just wait until the first unit test and if he does not get a B I think the teacher will automatically transfer the kids out.  I can only hope the hours of moaning and ranting is wearing on me.  He gets stuck in these thoughts and will focus on one particular thing and no amount of rational explanation will get him out of it.  It reminds me of how he was a few years ago when we had to take him to counseling (where he was subsequently diagnosed with anxiety) only it seems worse now because he is 13, 5'8" and one does not expect a teenager to act this way (irrationally at times, yes.  But not for hours).  I think sometimes that we may be headed back to counseling and perhaps treatment for anxiety?  Or at the very least, have the counselor teach him how to calm himself down and get out of these irrational thought cycles.

I let Jax drive to his hockey practice the other night. He hadn't yet driven to this particular rink but knew the way.  I had to tell him occasionally that he was riding a bit too far to the right.

The rink is off a two lane highway and as we approached the intersection to turn left, he had a green light so he turned.  The problem was that there was a car coming in the opposite direction and he turned in front of that car!  Fortunately, the car wasn't close enough to hit us.  

Me (yelling) : "Why didn't you stop?"
Jax:  "Because I had a green light!"
Me: "So did the other car!"
Jax "That makes no sense!"
Me (thinking): WTF!!

Then I realized that around here, virtually every intersection has a dedicated green light (usually green arrow) to turn left so he is not used to turning left if he does not have the right of way. 

I drove home that night and we discussed right of way and other important intersection tips.

Yikes!

Today, a gunman shot 12 people dead at the Navy Yard in Washington.  Here is the first sentence of the article that I read on MSN:

A former naval petty officer who apparently had a grudge against the Navy sprayed an office building with bullets at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, killing 12 people in a rampage that paralyzed part of the nation’s capital, authorities said.

The next sentence continued...

It was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since

As I was reading this I was wondering what the next part of the sentence would be and continued...

the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year.*

WTF!  I was thinking it might be since a few years ago but no, since last year.  And by last year they mean December which was actually less than a year ago. 

Something has to be done about guns and this shoot-em-up mass shootings!  It is crazy!  Why are we so complacent to allow this to happen again and again and again?  I know that gun advocates will blame mental illness or whatever but the simple fact remains is that guns are glorified here in the United States of America and they are still so easy to obtain, 

Please, let's work together to get this to stop.  Now.  I do not want to read about another mass shooting. 

And meanwhile this has taken away news reports of the over 1000 people in Colorado still missing after the rains and floods.

~shaking head~

* link to article At Least 12 killed in shooting...

TOmorrow starts the third week of school for this year.  Jax was upset that he had no friends in any of his classes but I guess things have gotten better because he has not complained about it since the first day of school.  This past weekend I had him take a practice SAT at the high school and he complained about THAT though.  It was 4.5 hours of testing and I had him go in cold just to get an idea of what it was like so most likely he bombed part of it, especially the math sections. He had hockey evaluations this weekend and last and it will continue this week and next weekend.  Looks like there will be just one Midget team this year (vs the three Bantam teams last year).  I guess as kids get older they stop playing.  I'd like to see him play through high school.

Dex is enjoying school although he got into Algebra and is a little overwhelmed with the amount of homework.  I suggested that he could drop down to Grade 8 math but then he had a meltdown, so sure that by doing so would ruin his "career".  Whatever.  I could not talk to him like that (this meltdown happened last Monday night).  He has been ok since but we will wait until his first test and if he does not do well I will move him back to Grade 8 math. He says he "guessed a lot" on the placement test.  Hmmmm....

Cars is very happy at school. He likes his teacher and the girls in his class!  Today he told me he was ready for his birthday party and gave me a list of people to invite.  There were 4 boys and 4 girls on the list.  Uh-huh. 

Cars was cut the from rep hockey team today.  He mad it further into the tryouts than he did last year which is great.  He really did work his butt off and looked better than some of the kids who made the team but...he can be lazy and sometimes does not give 100% and two of the coaches who are coaching the rep teams know him and know what he does sometimes (claims to be tired and skates around the ice like he just does not care) so they clearly did not want him and influenced the third coach (we know this because Stephen talked to them).  But that is ok.  Cars will do just fine in rec hockey and our lives will be easier with no travel except for perhaps one tournament over the holidays.  He is devastated that he will not be playing with his bff though (who did make one of the rep teams).

We are having rare thunderstorm right now.  Well, they used to be rare but we have had so many of them this year.  Climate change perhaps?!

Wake me up when September Ends

September is always so busy.  Besides the kids starting back to school (which was today of course), this is the month for Curriculum Nights, High School Community events, hockey tryouts and evaluations, appointments to be made that had been put off all summer while the kids were home (carpet cleaning, mammograms, dentist appointments, oil changes, new tires, MOMS group starting back up, wood carving classes starting back up, etc).  Busy busy busy! 

I have decided to cut back even more with volunteering at the school and have limited myself to art start for Cars' class and donating items for the staff appreciation at the middle and high school (yes, sign me up to bring in a case of Diet Dr. Pepper or a tub of grated parmesan cheese from Costco!).  And already I feel so much better about it all.  No room mom or party planning.  No vision and hearing screening (although I did enjoy doing this), no health room, no photocopying or selling popcorn at events.  There is no Art Gallery night at the elementary school this year (they have decided to alternate years with Science night) so I won't be doing that either. 

And I will not be volunteering to be Cars' (or Jax's) hockey team manager.

I am busy enough without adding that stress to my family.  While I would love to be someone who handles pressure and stress with grace, I do not and I have learned to accept that about myself. Only took nearly half a century!

So I will breathe breathe breathe away the busy this month and come October, just be not busy.