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The Geek of All Mothers is Here (Again)!
Welcome to my website! I claimed the title "geek of all mothers" by virtue of being a certifiable geek and a certifiable mother. I have a preschooler; trust me on the certifiable bit. When I started this, I was a work-at-home mother telecommuting while keeping my daughter at home; and I used the blog to document my daughter's development and to rant about dealing with my corporate master, RadioShite (aka Da Shack). I was reorganized in 2005 and then laid off in 2006. Since then, I have been self-employed running an office solutions business. My husband was laid off in 2007 and has joined me as a web designer and programmer. The benefit of all this self-employment is that we have very flexible schedules and are able to tag-team and stay at home with her. It has, as they say, been one wild ride.
My areas of basic geekness are -- Computers (1983+), all things tech and audio (birth+, per parents), Roleplaying Games (early 1980s+, starting with Basic AD&D), and comics (late 1970s+). I hold advanced geekness in comparative religion, pregunpowder weapons & warfare, and being an evil bastard.
I have been on the Internet since 1989 (back when it was just text and invented by Al Gore, for you younger folk and snarky folk). Agewise, I will admit only to being less than 40 less than 100, possibly for the rest of my life.
I had the good fortune to meet a wonderful he-geek in high school and married him a few years later. Genetically speaking, our daughter is doomed to geekness, unless she rebels and becomes a Luddite!
Some special areas include the Dee-to-English Dictionary, the "up the nose" list, GOAM's recipes (quick and easy foodstuffs), and the FAQ.
Enjoy the site, and feel free to comment. Please note, however, that you have to be a register to comment. |
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Cheap Trick, Dee-style
Part 1
Hubby has been splitting his time between Guitar Hero II and his real guitar, and Dee has been wandering in anytime that she hears music to see what he's doing. Apparently, it's having an effect on her. I was at my desk working the other day when she came wandering down the hallway, singing.
Mommy's all right,
Daddy's all right,
Mommy's all right,
Daddy's all right,
"Excuse me?!?" I ask, surprised. Dee giggles madly, and sings it again. "Where did you learn that?" I ask.
"Daddy!" She chirped.
So, down the hallway I go, followed by a giggling monkey. "Hey, hubby? Have you heard this?" I looked at Dee. "Sing your song for Daddy."
Dee beamed, and started singing. Hubby began laughing, cementing this little song as part of her regular repertoire. "Okay, now, she says that she learned this from you," I told him. "So, why, exactly?"
Hubby laughed some more. "I didn't teach it to her; I was playing it on Guitar Hero!"
Part 2
Sometime later, I was sitting at the computer working, and she started singing again. Since she had been singing this off and on for a couple of days, I paid no attention and kept working; but a few minutes later, I started laughing uproariously. Dee had changed the lyrics!
Mommy's all right;
Daddy's all right;
Smokey's all right;
C.C.'s all right;
Mommy's all right;
Daddy's all right;
Smokey's all right;
C.C.'s all right;
(and so on).
Smokey and C.C. are the dogs.
Part 3
After several days of Dee walking around repeating four verses, I decided to minimize the damage to my psyche and at least teach her the whole refrain. During bath time, we went over the actual words:
Mommy's all right,
Daddy's all right,
They just seem a little weird.
Surrender,
Surrender,
But don't give yourself away,
Hey, heeeeeey.
This worked out pretty well, except for a tendency to go up two octaves on "weird" and pronouncing "surrender" as "render". Also, I now have the dang song stuck in my head on a daily basis!
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Posted by geekmom on Sunday, April 27 @ 03:25:35 GMT (215 reads)
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Not Using My Real Name for a Reason
Ya know, I try very hard to keep this an anonymous blog. Originally, it was because RadioShite would fire me if I had a public blog and discussed anything about work even if I concealed who I worked for. Since being laid off, I have kept it anonymous because there the three thing that I do not discuss with fellow networkers, clients and potential clients -- religion, politics and general complaining -- are about half of the contents of this beast. Discussing any of these with business folk is a very risky business ... there is no shortage of people who will decide not to do business with me based on religious and/or political views, and I see no reason on limiting my income because of other people's issues. General complaining is best kept to friends and family; in business, it looks bad.
Last week, we were meeting with a potential web client (and networking colleague) and discussing various options for his system, including PHP-NUKE, which he already had access to. This is a great system for a simple blog site, but we explained that it is very susceptible to hacking (based on my personal experience). Then hubby casually mentioned that my site (i.e. THIS SITE) used PHP-NUKE, so the client asks, "Oh, really? What's the URL?"
So there I am, having spent the lifetime of this blog keeping it anonymous, and I've just been outed to a client and fellow networker -- by my own dear husband. It's not like I can lie and send him to a different site, and in the 2 seconds I had, I couldn't come up with a plausible excuse, so I gave him the URL (and shot hubby a look).
We discussed the site briefly and then redirected the conversation. After the meeting was over, we went back to the van. Once we were in, I looked over at my darling husband. "Why, exactly, did you bring up my website?" I asked, in what was intended as a calm voice.
"It was related to what we were talking about!" he explained. "I didn't think that he'd want the URL."
"Sweetie, there's stuff there that I may not want business people to see. I'll need to go online and pull the site (or at least the blog posts) down until I have a chance to vet things. I'm not mad, but I really wish you hadn't done that."
That night, I moved the News section behind the registration and moved the Encylopedia in its place while I figured out what to do about this. After a week, I only find two entries that are problematic, and that for language. Given that one was the rant after BCBS sent their completely unhelpful response and the other was regarding my next-to-last reorganization, I am leaving them be. In both cases, I was greatly upset, and since this primarily functions as my Journal, editing that out defeats the purpose.
If any of my clients or business partners read this and feel offended, I hope that they would talk to me about it rather than making a snap decision. I considered taking the blog down entirely, but having this online makes me more motivated to write. In the blog's absence, I might not write at all.
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, April 26 @ 13:07:11 GMT (177 reads)
(Read More... | 1 comment | Score: 0) |
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Space Station flyover
Early ast Wednesday evening (March 26, '08), hubby pointed out that the space station would be visible going overhead at about 8:30pm. Since Dee had been going on about wanting to be an astronaut for a couple of weeks and had sat and watched the NASA feed with her daddy, we figured this would be cool for her to watch too.
We got out there about 8:20 and set up the lawn chairs. Dee started in her own chair but later climbed onto her daddy's lap, and we sat and watched the dogs chase (and eat) crickets and june bugs through the yard. It was a little chilly, but not really uncomfortable.
When the flyover started, the station was much brighter than anything else in the sky and very obvious. We pointed it out to Dee and talked about the station a bit. Then we noticed the small dot trailing the station, the space shuttle having already left the station. This was really cool!
Dee, on the other hand, being just under 5, got bored fairly quickly. We talked about being an astronaut and how, if she was one, she could be up there someday looking down; and we could see her go over us.
"That's okay," she said. "I don't want to be an astronaut. I want to be a racer!"
"A wha?" I answered.
"A racer!" She chirped. "On Ninja Warrior! Will you watch me when I'm on TV?"
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, March 29 @ 05:25:34 GMT (131 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0) |
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School Daze
Well, I scheduled my appointment for the Keller Kindergarten Roundup next week, so by the end of the month, Dee will be registered for school (hopefully the morning session, as I am scheduled well before that fills up). This makes me happier than I can express.
Dee will finally get to go to school, she will be getting regular indoctrination education, and I will get 2-3 hours of not turning around to find a new mess.
After I entered the previous post, I turned around to discover the play room floor covered with small pieces of pink felt. Smokey has in her bed a pink blanket that she chews on. This makes for lots of small pink bits. Dee had pulled this out of the cage and scattered the bits all over. She is presently cleaning it up, but this is pretty much how my days go right now.
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, March 24 @ 06:55:29 GMT (141 reads)
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Will the last one to leave please put out the light?
For quite a while now, I have been in charge of a group of like-minded heathens. Also for quite a while now, participation and membership has been steadily dropping. At the moment, there is only one member other than myself who is in the area, with all others being regularly unavailable. Additionally, that one and I have scheduling issues, so that we don't get together very often. The other active members are dedicated to making it in when they can, but their jobs make it very difficult.
This has resulted in yours truly becoming very disheartened about the whole thing. I am starting to wonder if this is my fault somehow, and if I have managed some spectacular failure of leadership so that everyone involved has fled to the four winds. Rationally, I realize that it's probably not my fault, but since when have I ever been rational?
Feck.
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, March 24 @ 06:47:18 GMT (112 reads)
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Feast Day of Cheap Chocolate
In the past, we have (sort of) celebrated Easter, in that we have filled plastic eggs with chocolate and hidden them for Dee without any real discussion of why. This year, because I couldn't come up with a good reason to go through the motions of a holiday I don't celebrate (and never really got into), we bailed on the egg thing.
In its place, we talked about how it was spring and what that meant. This broke down to "everything is green and warm, the flowers are coming out, and the animals are making nests and having babies". I'm just more comfortable with a discussion of the seasons changing than I am with doing things that don't reflect my beliefs and are in fact drawn from a religion that I don't believe in.
That said, I have no problem celebrating the holiday in this post's title. Dee and I went shopping this morning and came back with a bag full of chocolate, including a decent-sized chocolate bunny. Unfortunately, little miss thing deciding to have a snit and throw the bunny at the table instead of just putting it down and helping unload the van, so the chocolate bunny has been put up for 24 hours. Assuming we don't have any other chocolate-related incidents, she should get it tomorrow.
For myself, I got another 12-pack of miniature Cadbury's eggs. These things just totally rock. You get the sticky-sweet gooey stuff without having so damn much of it all at once. Another facet of their attraction is that Dee doesn't much like them and so I can eat them without having unnecessary drama involving her howling down the hallway "Daddy! Mommy won't share!"
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, March 24 @ 06:39:49 GMT (149 reads)
(Read More... | 1 comment | Score: 0) |
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Sleepover and related carnage
Dee had her second sleepover Friday night with her friend M. M is the quickest "to sleep" kid that I've ever known. Come 8pm, she puts herself to bed and is out in just a few minutes. Compare that to Dee, who isn't even tired until 9pm and would stay up until she collapsed of exhaustion if allowed.
Last time, we put them in Dee's room where M went to sleep in moments and Dee fought sleep for 90 minutes before winding up back in our bed. This time, we put them in the living room on the hide-a-bed in the couch. M went to sleep same as last time, and Dee was a little jack in the box. She stayed in bed for about an hour at a time, and then would get up complaining that she couldn't sleep. Around midnight, she crawled into bed with me.
That morning, we had waffles and I took the two of them down to the park down from our house to play. Unfortunately, the pinheads had gotten there first and there was graffiti everywhere (of varying rudeness) and spray paint up and down the slide. While the girls played in the part of the playground that wasn't jacked up, I called the FW dispatcher and reported the problem. 20 minutes later, the anti-graffiti crew showed up in a van. Turns out, it had been reported yesterday and they made the park their first stop for the day. The lead guy focused on getting the paint off of the slide and the other four painted the park wall and the sidewalks in the playground and picnic areas.
While they were finishing, I took the girls around to the trees in the park, and we talked about spring coming in with the trees making baby pine cones and the birds making nests. On the way back, we passed a robin that was chasing some bug, and I pointed out that he was after breakfast. This lead to a rather odd conversation.
"What do birds eat?"
"Well, birds eat worms and bugs, mostly."
"Yuck! That's gross!"
Laugh. "Yes, but if they didn't, you'd be up to your eyeballs in worms and bugs!"
"Oh. What do worms and bugs eat?"
"Worms and bugs eat dead things. Dead plants, dead critters, even dead birds."
"Yuck!!" M made a face, and then looked thoughtful. "Do bugs and worms eat dead people?"
"Well, yeah, eventually." M made another face, and I tried for a subject change. "That's only fair; some people eat bugs!"
"They do not!" she answered, with all the surety of a six year old girl. "Really!?" chimes in Dee, who looks entirely too interested in this idea.
"They do so. In some places, people eat deep fried grasshoppers for a snack. They eat it like candy."
"Candy!" they both yelped. And for the rest of the way home, I had to explain that a) Dee shouldn't eat bugs out of the yard because "they will make you sick", b) I don't know where to get deep fried grasshoppers, c) I don't know how to make deep-fried grasshoppers, and d) even if I knew how, I would not make deep-fried grasshoppers.
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Posted by geekmom on Sunday, March 23 @ 04:08:48 GMT (121 reads)
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Guilt Tripping
Dee has mastered the art of the guilt trip. She's not even five, but she can make me feel like utter crap in just a few seconds now.
She will come up to hubby or I while we're working and in a still, small voice say, "Mommy (or Daddy), I know that you can't play with me, but....." It's like getting punched in the heart. Here we am working (or trying to work) so that I can stay at home with our daughter, and we're neglecting her!
As bad as that is, hubby got hit by one even worse. I had to go to an early morning meeting and left the two of them in bed. At some point, she rolled over to her daddy and whispered, "Daddy, I have a secret!" For the past couple of months, she has been saying this, followed by "whishsishiwhwiss" whispering noises that don't actually say anything. Hubby, expecting this type of response, asked "Oh, what's the secret?". Dee snuggled closer. "I don't have anyone to play with," she whispered sadly.
This, of course, is just a lovely way to wake up in the morning. Hubby dealt with it by calling his mother, who has her own guilt issues from not helping us as much as she helps my brother-in-law. She helps BIL more than us for two reasons -- 1) he has three kids, and 2) he has no shame. Even when it's something that he can pay for, he calls her or his wife's parents first to see if they will pay for it. We don't call for help unless it is something that is really needed that we really can't afford. In this case, getting the munchkin into more social stuff is a real need that we really can't afford.
Dee is now (in addition to Little Gym) in a weekly playgroup, in a weekly art class and has a zoo membership. She's doing something every day of the week except for Monday.
Wanna bet that we still get guilt-tripped?
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, March 22 @ 11:38:23 GMT (96 reads)
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Yah, this is fun.
I'd like to say that the past three months have been very, very busy for me and that things are going fairly well in the business, but the truth is, I have not had the work I expected and I have been fighting a bit of depression. Not the soul-crushing "I have no reason to live" swerve-into-oncoming-traffic depression, but that insidious stuck-in-wet-cement sad kind of feeling that "for everything I do right, I'm just going to screw it up in the long run, so I might as well do nothing" depression. Needless to say, this makes for poor motivation, and I have been having trouble sleeping at night. I go to bed, and I just lie there with the budget and what I should do and what I have done chasing each other around in my head.
I could blame it on the weather or the fact that I've been at this for over a year without the kind of success that I expected or I could even blame it on the fact that my daughter has taken to really effectively guilt-tripping hubby and I over working instead of playing with her. Fact is, it could be all of that... and it could be for no real damn reason at all other than my effing brain chemistry is out of balance again. "Why" doesn't matter. "Figuring out why" is just another thing to drive around in the demolition derby inside my skull at night.
I'm feeling better now, mostly by forcing myself to mentally shut the fuck up and sleep. I know that if I let the "in bed but not sleeping" go on for long enough, it will fuck up my brain chemistry bad enough so that I have to get meds to sort it out, and I can't afford to have to do that. It's cheaper to tell myself to shut the fuck up. I have health insurance, but we may be looking to get new insurance this year, and if I have a recent prescription for depression medication, they'll stick a damn waiver for mental issues on any new policy. It is a jacked-up cycle that many of us are stuck in -- we avoid going to the doctor so that we can afford to have heath insurance so that we can afford to go to the doctor. It's an evil roundabout, and I don't know that there is a way off of it.
Money-wise, we're not broke; we're just limping along in that scary "not broke, but not comfortable either" state supported by occasional stock sales. I will personally be oh-so-grateful if Mr. Julian Effing Day will get off his ass and get RadioShite stock up to 30 again so that I can sell at LESS of a fucking loss and finally be done with that sack-of-shit company.
Client-wise, we have good relationships with several clients, but we are still in search of people that want regular work every week, instead of periodically every month or three. With one exception, I enjoy working for all of our clients, so I have that to be grateful for, but I'm spending a lot of time out of the house networking and busting my ass hoping to get work without looking like I need work. The one client in question is one of our earliest clients that is playing passive-aggressive games centered around not paying their fucking bill. I expect these games to continue right up until the day that we act on the clause in the contract that lets us take their site down for nonpayment, at which point there will be a great deal of yelling. That should be fun. Perhaps I'll bake a cake and call it "CrazyAssPissedOffDeadbetClient Day". Something chocolate would be nice.
Networking is finally paying off, as I have two potential clients that will be recurring and who could want up to 20-30 hours per week. That would just be lovely. Right now, my best regular client is one that needs less than 20 hours a month. I'm getting assorted small jobs, but the problem with small jobs is that when they're done, I have to get more small jobs. The networking is leading to quite a few good referrals, and I have two networking partners that are so on my Yule card list this year. Fact is, together they're responsible for most of my referrals, and nearly all of the work that I have done or scheduled is from a referral through a networking partner.
This sounds like I should be thrilled. I can see the potential for regular work, things are looking up, etc, etc. Problem is, I am a cynic at heart -- I figure that the universe in its infinite cruelty lets get close enough to see what I want so that it is that much worse when I lose it. Yes, I know that's bleak. Depression sucks. My point.
Outside of this blog, my story has been "it's rough, but I'm ok." That's probably why I haven't blogged for three months; I can't blog bullshit, and I didn't want to discuss why I feel bad. I have friends who read this who will worry or wonder why I didn't talk about it to them. It's really simple. When I'm depressed, I cocoon. I pull away from people and don't talk about what's bothering me because talking about what I'm worried about gives it shape and form and scares the everliving crap out of me. I probably still won't talk about it to people, because focusing on it makes it a bigger problem than it is. For reference, if I go three months without blogging, I'm either physically unable to blog or I'm depressed. For additional reference, if asked "Are you depressed?" while I am, I will probably lie. Depression hurts, but talking about it to people while I'm depressed is excruciating. I do realize that this makes living with me annoying as hell (sorry, hubby) and aggravates the hell out of my friends as well.
I am sorry. I do the best that I can, and I apologize when I realize that I fucked up. I try to realize my own fuckups early on, but my ego has a way of blocking my vision sometimes. I'm not perfect, and I need to accept that and just try to do better. This is easier said than done, as I have raised beating myself up for not being perfect to an art form. It's not a healthy art form and it's certainly something I need to stop, but it is something I'm very good at. That said, if I have to accept that I'm not perfect, then I have to believe that other people are going to accept it too. Part of my whole "I must not eff it up" mindset comes from not wanting to disappoint people.
Hubby came in when I was typing and noticed that I was writing in my blog. I had originally intended on writing to get this out of my head and then deleting it so that I didn't worry him and/or upset friends. But I don't think I will. I'm going to bet that my husband would worry more if I deleted it and that my friends are more forgiving of me that I am of myself.
If I'm wrong, please keep it to yourself. This is the most optimistic that I've been in a while.
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, March 22 @ 11:23:10 GMT (116 reads)
(Read More... | 1 comment | Score: 0) |
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Work News
I have two big projects in the works right now; I'm already working on one and the other starts at the first of the year. Also, I have a new project next week for an existing client which will be a new thing for me and will expand my repertoire (yay me!).
In addition, I heard back about my last big project (a work-at-home research job), and the end user was just thrilled by the results. So much so, in fact, that we will be doing work for them on a monthly basis now! Regular work is a great thing...
On the networking front, I am making a lot of good contacts and meeting with dozens of folk trying to expand my circle of contacts. This increases the number of people keeping an ear out for the lovely sound of "Damn it! I need office help!" and then giving my information. What I look for in networking is someone who is a serious networker (out there meeting tons of folk) and who has a professional demeanor (so that people they talk to will be interested in getting a referral from them). Ideally, I look for people in a business that is targeting my target client (small business owners, 50 people or less, with a growing and/or busy business). These ideal networkers are a great source of referrals and provide me with the best chance of giving referrals, since the people I talk to are their target as well.
So far, it's been working out pretty well. In addition, I've had good luck with the door prizes, and it's nice to get out of the house and be social, since all of my current projects are virtual rather than in-office. Compared to last month, when most of my work was at the eastern edge of my range, this is a definite improvement.
I have been self-employed for 16 months now, and the quantity of work (and quality of client) that we have coming in has dramatically improved.
We have one client that is an absolute pain in the backside; they have not paid us in two months and will not send the information we need to get done the work that they expect (with the absence of said work being their excuse for not paying). When their current project is done, they are either going to a prepay arrangement or they are being fired as clients (preferably the latter). If I wanted to deal with passive-aggressive pseudo-professionals and not get paid for crap, I'd have stayed at RadioShite.
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, December 15 @ 04:10:03 GMT (171 reads)
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