Who knew snow globes were a security threat?

I haven't flown in a while, so, since I have a business trip tomorrow and would prefer not to check my luggage, I went to the TSA site to make sure I would my makeup in my carry-on bag. The list of prohibited items is pretty entertaining. Please leave your blow torches and hand grenades at home. However, feel free to bring your screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers, provided they aren't more than 7 inches long. But this prohibited item just struck me as hilarious...

Snow globes and like decorations regardless of size or amount of liquid inside,
even with documentation.

BTW, does anyone really think it is reasonable to expect a woman to put all of the things needed to make her beautiful into a single one-quart bag? I am not a high-maintenance girl, but I am going to have a hard time fitting the necessities in there.

Holy cow

The whole office has been crazy busy with the big new case. Good news for me in that I am getting plenty of hours and the opportunity to work on a really big case--even though my work is basically all in the background. But it also means that my supervising attorneys are so busy wrangling Really Big Case that some of the smaller stuff is being punted to me.

Tomorrow I have to go out of town to close a deal. I have pretty much orchestrated this deal and am very comfortable with closing it, but it was never suggested that I would do so.

I'm also being sent out of town again Wednesday night for a Thursday morning hearing. I haven't made a court appearance since law school.

And I am sitting in on a client meeting (I have had no client contact since being with this firm) on Friday. It is a relatively minor case, and I think that they are preparing to have me run with it.

So I am definitely glad to be getting more responsibility and venturing out from my usual research and drafting tasks. And I am happy to "cut my teeth" on the smaller cases, while still being involved in complex cases. It is a good blend.

But, damn, I am tired.

Its midnight, do you know where LC is?

Blogging in the bathtub. Don't worry, there's no water in it. But my house is bursting with company and I didn't want to keep DH up, and so here I am. I'm just not tired. Don't ask me why. I worked all day at the office and will probably need to put in some time from home tomorrow. Hmmm, maybe I should be doing some reading for work, that would probably put me to sleep.

Today was my official start date--so no more hourly pay for working all day on a Saturday. I have a boatload of paperwork to fill out. All of the regular work stuff, plus forms to list me in M-H and a few other lawyer listings. And the firm website. So I have to figure out my practice areas. Ummm, I've been licensed for 4 months--I haven't really established any practice areas. I've done a little bit of everything. Mostly products liability, but at this point I feel like a bit of a fraud claiming anything as a practice area.

Still putting in lots of hours, with no end in the very near future. I know it will settle eventually--but it could be a few weeks. Meanwhile I am taking advantage of a little bit of quiet time, hiding out in my bathtub.

Life is mostly good

Thanks for all the congrats! Everyone at the firm has been very nice and happy that I am finally sticking around.

But I have been so busy. We got a big case that is getting a lot of attention. The good news is that I am having no problems getting my billables right now. The not-so -good news is that I am exhausted. (The time change did not help.)

And since I worked all weekend, I didn't get any household stuff done--like grocery shopping. And my in-laws are coming this weekend, which we have known about for a couple of weeks. But then SIL just called to say that they decided to come visit, too. So I will have 7 houseguests for the weekend, 3 of whom are small children.

I really do like my inlaws, but I am so tired, and there will be no rest with a houseful of people. And I have to prepare for them. Thank god I finally got a housekeeper and that they are coming Friday. Tonight I went out and bought extra sheets and towels, because ours are starting to get kinda ratty. At some point I need to find my way to the grocery store. And planning a menu--arrgh.

And then next weekend we are planning to leave town (if I can get away from work). I'm beginning to think that might be a mistake, because with all the craziness I am going to need a break.

Oh and get this--at my firm all vacation/sick/personal time is discretionary for attorneys. As in, there is no set amount of time that one is allowed to take off. I'm thinking this is not a good thing.

I should probably put another hour or in tonight but I am truly pooped and would probably be useless. So I think I'll call it a night and try to find that extra hour that I lost earlier in the week.

Party at LC's place

It's official--I have a job. (9.75 months after graduation) They made the offer today and I will switch from contract to associate on the 15th. It is such a huge relief to finally have some degree of security. (Now I just have to worry about keeping up with my billables.)

They are paying me the salaried equivalent of what I have been earning hourly. DH though I should have negotiated for more, but honestly, what they are paying me is very competitive outside of Biglaw, so I didn't really have much to negotiate with. Besides, I didn't really expect a bump since I now get the benefit of, well, benefits.

But the best part is that the office managertold me that Big Boss spoke very highly of me and was very complimentary--and compliments are hard to come by from him.

So I know that I have had some misgivings about this firm, but I do think this is a good thing. I really like the cases that I am working on, and I have been given more varied and important tasks over the last month. I definitely could have been stuck with something much worse.

Now I need to go edit al of my posts that could get me fired. I wasn't especially careful when I was contract, because I didn't feel that I had anything to lose. My apologies if that screws up anyone's reader.

The world revolves around families of 4

Which is irritating when you are a family of five. Most restaurants can easily accommodate 4, but with 5 they feel like they have to seat you at a giant table for which you have to wait an extra 15 minutes. (I have learned to tell the hosts that, because my children are small, we can fit into a standard size booth. That's not going to last much longer, though.) When we visit amusement parks, most rides will accept only 2 or 4--leaving one of us to go it alone. And then there are hotels.

In certain cities it is nearly impossible to book a hotel room for five. We are considering a road trip in a couple of weeks to a city we have visited once before. And we had the same problem last time. On that trip the twins were not quite 3, so I just fibbed and booked for 4. It's pretty easy to sneak an extra kid into a hotel when 2 of them look exactly alike.

But besides the fact that I don't really like having to hide one of my kids, a standard hotel room just isn't big enough. I can't sleep in the same room as my kids. They toss, they turn, they snore--loudly. And they don't go to sleep when we are all in the same room.

The answer, of course, is to get a suite. Suites are great, the are bigger, they divide the space (sometimes) so I don't have to listen to my snoring kids. So why are suites so friggin' hard to come by? Is it because I waited until the last minute to book? Is it because everybody wants a bigger room and to not listen to their kids' snoring? And if that is the case, why aren't hotels catching on and building more suite hotels. Isn't the average American family supposed to have 2.3 kids. Just where do they think we are going to put that extra 1/3 kid?

Rite of Passage

I worked 12 hours straight yesterday (yes, that would be Saturday). And I'm going back today. It sort of seems overdue. What kind of lawyer doesn't have to lose an entire weekend every once in a while. But I did have a bad mommy moment. When I explained to TT that I had to work yesterday, I watched her face scrunch up with worry as she said, "But it's Saturday. We don't have school...and you are supposed to stay home with us."

In the end, I think they had a good day with Daddy. He actually had to meet with a client yesterday, so he set them up in Starbucks with our MP3 players and coloring books and they thought it was cool to go to a meeting.

And I think I definitely earned some brownie points. I was in before anybody else and The Boss was shocked to see me still there when he popped back in at 9:30 last night. But he mentioned that they recognized that my 30 days was up and that "obviously [I] had done a good job" and so the office manager would be talking to me next week. So I guess I finally have a real job (but I don't know the details).

P.S. If you haven't already, don't forget to reset your clocks.

Did I jinx myself?

I hired a housekeeper--yea! My inlaws are coming in two weeks and the serious cleaning has been seriously overlooked, so their impending visit pushed me to find somebody. I've needed someone for a while--it's just so much trouble to go find and hire someone. And the whole I-still-don't-have-a-real-job thing.

I interviewed two different services and would have been fine with either of them. The deciding factor was that one could get in tomorrow for the big cleaning, and again right before my inlaws come. I was also afraid that the one I didn't choose wasn't charging me enough. I think she would either end up resentful that she wasn't getting paid enough or not do what I wanted.

It will be soooo nice to come home to a freshly cleaned house tomorrow.

Now let's just hope that I don't get fired since I finally committed to a housekeeper.

It's just a roller coaster

This week at work has gone better. I have been busier--which is definitely a good thing.

Came home today to learn that our fence is dangerously close to falling over thanks to gusty winds all week, and had moved enough to cause the gate to open and allow Bob to escape. Fortunately, Bob did not go far and ran up to the kids when they got home from school. Poor Bob will be stuck in the kennel we built in the garage that he hates tomorrow, and poor DH will be stuck working on the fence all weekend. He replaced about half the fence posts last spring, I guess now he gets to do the other half.

TT got her new glasses today. I already found them stuffed in between the couch cushions. I don't know how she is going to manage to keep up with them--especially since she is far-sighted and only needs them for close-up work.

The in-laws are coming in two week and the house is a disaster. I really need a housekeeper, and I think I am going to have to just do it, even though I was waiting to see if I ever got an offer out of Contract Firm.

Life is just busy--but we are managing.

Thoughts on having it all

Most of the time I think handle the working mom thing pretty well. Today was not one of those days.

SS is the "Star Student" in her class week. So over the weekend we were supposed to make an "All About Me" poster and journal her adventures with Mr. Bear, the class mascot who spends the weekend with the Star Student of the week.

Except that SS and I both had the stomach flu all weekend. I didn't even have the presence of mind to think about school until about 4:00 Sunday afternoon. DH went and got a poster board, but we needed pictures. I uploaded then to Wal-Greens, where they are supposed to be ready in an hour. Wal-Greens said they wouldn't be ready til 9:30 pm. But it was ok, because Monday was a holiday for them and we could take care of it Monday night.

At 7:15 this morning, DH informs me that we never picked up or added the pictures to the poster. And I had totally forgotten about Mr. Bear, who had only witnessed SS barfing all weekend. So I totally and completely dropped the ball on this one, which led to a huge fight between DH and I about dividing responsibilities.

At 7:45 this morning, the girls head out to the Behemoth to load up only to find that my driver's side window is completely shattered--in the garage. DH was mad when he left, but he's not the violent type. I have no freaking clue how it happened. The garage was closed, nothing fell, nothing was taken from the car and the doors were unlocked anyway because it was in the garage. I called DH to come home to take the kids to school--so they all got tardies, in addition to SS not having her project complete. The whole ordeal also made me late for work, but DH dealt with the window.

So now my window is fixed, but I am driving a mis-matched, white-trash hoopdie mobile. Because I have a black surburban with very dark tint (think government issue) and one clear window. Hopefully this weekend we can have the window tinted--I just hope they can make it match. I don't want to guess what retinting the whole thing will cost.

Then I had eye appointments for the twins set for 5:45. I was planning to leave work early, but didn't really want to after I had come in late. So I begged the nanny to take them. (and since I just saw the Nanny Diaries over the weekend I kept thinking about the part where Annie says, "you take them to the doctor, too?"). I am feeling like the freaking mother of the year sending the kids to the eye doctor with the nanny. But I made it to the eye doctor by 6:00, and he even went on and onabout how well-behaved my children are. (My kids, really?)

Oh, and TT needs glasses--which totally shocked me. I really only took them in because they had never been before and when I first took PS she was already pretty nearsighted. TT is just a bit farsighted. Glasses might help her strain less and she could outgrow it. I think he only put her in glasses because I told him that she reads a lot.

So we were out of the eye doctor by 7:00, met DH for dinner, came home, glued the pictures to the overdue poster, SS wrote the imaginary adventures of Mr. Bear (who she forgot to cart around today), kids are in bed.

And somewhere in between all that I still managed to bill 7.5 hours today.

Free milkshakes really do make everything better

I stopped by Steak 'n' Shake on the way home at 8:00 tonight. I had eaten only a Snickers and a granola bar all day and I was looking forward to drowning my troubles in a greasy cheeseburger. When I got the the window, the chipper girl collecting the cash asked if I'd had a great day. And because I had, in fact, had a rather crappy day, I answered no. So she gave me a free chocolate milkshake. And it really did make me feel better--ok, actually it made me want to cry that someone was being nice to me. I heart Steak 'n' Shake.

Tonight's Dinner Conversation

PS: "I got the menstrual."

Me: "What?"

PS: "I got the menstrual."

Me: "What the heck are you talking about?" (Knowing that she is certainly not going through puberty and wondering what she confusing with menstrual.)

PS: "The part in my play--I got minstrel #3"

Me: "Oh, duh! Woo Hoo, go PS!" She got one of the larger speaking roles in her school play. And this fits well with the acting class that she started last week. PS tends to be a little timid, so hopefully these experiences will give her more confidence.

It just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

So I survived yesterday--barely.

I think my interview went well--but have thought that before and well, I still don't have a permanent job. I should hear something next week.

Then, DH and I met at my office garage to go to the concert. The plan was to park there and take the train to the concert, with a stop along the way at a touristy district with lots of restaurants. We went to a steakhouse that was mediocre and had a waitress that was content to ignore us. When we went back to the train stop, the schedule said that we had missed the last train to the concert venue. Cursing the neglectful waitress, we started walking the 6 blocks to where we were parked so that we could just drive to the concert.

Halfway back to the car we saw a train marked for the concert headed our way. So we took off running at top speed back to the train stop. OK, I am not in shape. At all. I have a treadmill in my bedroom gathering dust because I hate running. So after running less than 3 blocks at top speed I thought I was going to die. (To make me sound a wee bit less wimpy, I was in 3 1/2 in ch heels.) My chest burned. My calves burned. I started feeling nauseous.

I seriously need to start working out if 3 blocks is going to kill me.

Anyway, we made the train and then the concert. There were 2 opening bands. The first band I had never heard of and they sucked. The second one I have heard of and knew a few of their songs--they were ok. The main gig was pretty good. It was not a band that I would have chosen, but the tix were DH's Christmas present. They put on a good show, but then tend to scream a lot.

But they didn't go on until 10:00--so we didn't get home til 1:00. I am getting old and my butt was dragging this morning. I was incredibly unproductive today.

Crazy Week

It started Sunday with my mad dash to complete the defensive driving course so that I could get all my paperwork in by Thursday. Fortunately, I received my completion certificate today. So I got home from work, had dinner with the kids, then headed back out to to the nearest Fed Ex Kinkos to send my paperwork. $17 later, it is guaranteed to be at the courthouse by my due date on Thursday. I also had to pick up pantyhose while I was out, dinner for the kids tomorrow, and get gas because I will be traversing a good part of my great state tomorrow.

I needed the pantyhose because I have an interview tomorrow. It's with a local DA's office, but a rural office, not Big City. This is good because 1) I still need a job, 2) I would like to work for a DA's office (but would prefer Big City, which is under a hiring freeze), and 3) if I can get an offer, I might be able to use it as leverage to get an offer out of contract firm.

Because contract firm told me that they would talk to me about permanency in January, but when I mentioned it last week I was sort of given the blow off. Not the kind of blow off where they aren't planning to keep me around, but the kind that indicates that I am not a priority and they will get to it when they get to it. I honestly don't think they will do anything until I tell them I have another offer. And while I really would like to work for the DA's office, I would be looking at about a 35% pay cut from what I receive as a contract employee.

Except that when I agreed to this late afternoon interview tomorrow, I completely forgot that DH and I have concert tickets tomorrow night. At a venue very near contract firm. So now I will have to leave work early, drive forever to my interview, then drive back for the concert. And now I have to wear interview attire, which is going to leave me changing in the car for the concert. Fun!

Thursday is my birthday, which I am happy to ignore because DH already got me an awesome gift and there is too much other crap going on this week.

Saturday we are taking a road trip to an indoor waterpark. I spent all last Saturday hunting down swimsuits, which is not easy to do in January.

Oh, and all the kids have some kind of ailment. Which I pray doesn't leave any of them missing school tomorrow so that I don't have to a) miss even more work; or b) have the nanny taking care of the kids for upwards of 16 hours tomorrow, which I think might kill her.

I am a freakin' genius

Or not. Over Labor Day weekend I got a speeding ticket. No big deal--I haven't had a ticket in years and I was due. So I could either pay the fine and deal with insurance going up, take deferred adjudication--which is essentially probation, do defensive driving and have it dismissed, or fight it. My first instinct was to fight it. But the city I got the ticket in is 60 miles away and I was already contracting at that time, and figured they wouldn't be happy if I had to take a day off to fight my ticket. I wasn't about to do deferred adjudication because I speed all the time and there's a darn good chance I would get pulled over again before my probationary period was up. So I went for the defensive driving option.

Back in late October the court informed me that I had until Jan. to take care of anything. The paperwork is due on my birthday--that's ok, at least it was a day I could remember. And in October I was absolutely unemployed and had nothing better to do than 6 hours of defensive driving. But, of course, I didn't do that.

So this weekend DH asked when my paperwork was due to the court. My birthday. Oh shit, that's this week. But I could do it online this weekend, put the paperwork in the mail on Monday and be ok. Until DH (who takes defensive driving every two years like clockwork) informed me that while I could take the course online, I had to wait for them to mail me a certificate to send to the court. Double shit. But I could pay out the wazoo and have the certificate shipped overnight--ok, I can deal with paying for my stupid (albeit very lawyerly) procrastination. Except that Monday is a federal holiday--which means no mail. Fuck.

So my certificate won't go out until Tuesday, I won't get it til Wednesday, and it has to be at the court 60 miles away on Thursday. And there is no way in hell I will be home on Wednesday in time to have it sent, even overnight, by Thursday.

Let's hope the mailbox rule applies to municipal courts. I don't think the bar or my current or potential employers will be thrilled if a warrant for my arrest issues.

Yeah, he's awesome

I think DH took last week's post as a challenge. I posted that he did a great job on my Christmas gifts and wanted to see if he could match it for my birthday. Which was especially challenging because I really don't need or want anything.

Well, except one thing. And he got it for me tonight (a week early)! And I'm typing on it.

Woohoo, DH got me a laptop!! I definitely needed it. My old laptop hasn't been the same since I blew up the motherboard in a moment of pure brilliance. Still, I wasn't really considering getting a new computer until I had a permanent job. But I've been putting in lots of hours, and laptops aren't as pricey as they used to be, so DH decided to go for it.

Now I feel bad for calling him a nincompoop the other day.

Men.

DH is a nincompoop.

PS's class is going on a field trip next month to a semi-historical touristy kind of place. Last weekend there were coupons for a free child's admission to said touristy place. So DH, in all of his manly glory handed PS the coupon and said, "Here, now we don't have to pay for your field trip." PS apparently did not realize that he was joking and took it to school.

Today PS came home from school with a note from her teacher."Dear Mrs. LC. I'm sorry, we can't accept the coupon you sent for PS to attend the field trip. The school has already purchased tickets and must be reimbursed. Thank you, Mrs. T. "

I am so mortified. Can you imagine the conversations going on in the teacher's lounge about PS's cheap-ass parents? I am ready to throttle DH.

Instead, I responded to the teacher that DH is a nincompoop and was joking with PS. I also offered to help out with any children who can't attend for financial reasons. This field trip is quite a bit more expensive than any they have scheduled in the past, and we were planning to make the offer anyway. Of course, now it just looks like we are trying not to look like cheap-ass bastards.

Girls' Day Out

PS and I started our morning with Starbucks and then were off to get our hair and nails done. PS's hair had gotten quite long and was looking pretty shaggy. She wanted to grow it out for Locks of Love, which makes wigs for children with cancer out of donated hair. It is a great cause, and I have donated a few times. The problem is that you kind of have to be willing to cut your hair short if you want to donate. And PS didn't want short hair. So I finally talked her into not donating and getting at least some cut. She probably took off four inches, and it was still below her shoulders. She looks so cute now, with long layers and the ends kind of flip out. My own cut is similar, but shorter. I told her she is my mini-me now!

Afterward we did a bit of shopping because I was taking the girls to the symphony and I didn't think they (or I) had anything dressy enough. Thanks to post-holiday bargains, I managed to snag some good deals. (Unfortunately I got the twins matching dresses. They rarely dress alike and I almost forgot how much attention they draw when they match. When they were infants I felt like a circus side-show, we got so much attention. I swear I had a lady chase me down in a Target parking lot in the rain because she wanted to see my twins--I told her no.)

Then we headed to Barbie at the Symphony. It was a real symphony playing the classical music from Barbie movies, with a screen showing scenes from the movies. We've been to a few outdoor symphony concerts, but I wasn't sure how girls' would do at a concert in a performance hall. They really aren't that into Barbie, but I thought it would be a good way to introduce them to live music.

I have to admit that I felt a pang of jealousy as the orchestra was warming up. I was a total band geek in high school, but I was actually very good. My dream job would be professional flutist. But my ability was due much more to hard work than raw talent. (I practiced at least two hours every day, and up to 8 hours a day during competition season) Even as a teenager I was practical enough to realize that I had no future in music performance. Still, if someone offered me a job in a symphony tomorrow, even for terrible pay, I would drop law like a hot potato. (Trivia tidbit: Tchaikovsky studied law before he became a great composer.)

After the concert the girlies and I went to dinner, and then spent a little time perusing the book store. It was a good day.

Make the voices stop---or not

I have to admit that DH isn't always the best present-picker (sorry DH). A lot of it is my fault. There just isn't much that I need or want and I am fickle and particular (can you be both at the same time?). But DH did awesome this year. (Let's see if he can match it for my birthday later this month.) I got two big gifts--one was a spa GC and the other was a GPS. I'll admit that the GPS seems a little frivolous, but it has actually come in handy a few times.

But I swear it is cursing me inside its little computer brain every time I refuse to follow its directions. "Ok, dumbass, I told you turn right. Now you have to find someplace to turn your big ass around. Why the fuck don't you listen to me?" I think it would be hilarious if I could download a voice that actually did swear at me. I have caught myself cursing it a few times (or responding snottily to its prim computer voice), might as well get it right back at me. DH thinks it would be appropriate around the kids, though.

Adios '07

I can't say that I was sad to see 2007 come to an end. Although I suppose I should chalk it up as a good year--having graduated law school and passed the bar--I mostly just remember spending the entire year unsuccessfully searching for a job. Plus the most-fun-summer ev-ah spent studying for the bar. And the root canal the day after the bar.

So, yeah, I have no problem saying goodbye to '07 and welcoming '08. Hopefully, my current contract position will turn permanent in the very near future. It is nice to be working and have income right now, but there is always that nagging reminder that I don't know how long it will last and I will be back to square 1. It is hard to plan very far ahead when I don't know how long I will be bringing in an income. (I really need a housekeeper with the crazy hours I have been working, but I don't want to hire somebody this week and then have to let her go in a month because I am out on my rear.)

So getting a permanent job is my one and only New Year's resolution. Because it is really the only part of my life that is screwed up at the moment. In the meantime I suppose I should be thankful that I am done with law school and that I am not studying for the February bar right now, and that all of my children and happy and healthy (we've had no problems with SS's asthma in months--woohoo!). Bring on the new year!

*ETA* Ok so the needing a housekeeper thing sounded kinda like a whiny pampered princess in hindsight. I guess it was just in the forefront of my mind. But there are certainly more significant financial decisions and planning that would be easier with some job security.