The unexpected rewards are the best
There are times when I behold my children and wonder if they have been replaced by aliens who’ve never had a mother. Times when I find myself asking what it is they don’t understand about turning off a light or putting something in the hamper or not tormenting their sibling or waiting just a minute and not making my eardrums bleed while they do so. Those times, I wonder if I’m doing anything right, because clearly nothing is sinking in to their precious little half-formed brains.
And sometimes when these things happen, I say things to them like, “Can you hear me AT ALL?” or “Is anyone home in there?” or “DID YOU HIT YOUR HEAD?” You won’t find that in any parenting book, but I assure you that the alternatives which are close to falling out of my mouth are much worse, so we’ll pretend that’s not so bad. read more…
So many possible titles
I have decided that I would like to have a title, as just plain Mir seems to boring and, well, SHORT for someone as verbose as myself. And Mir, Lady Who Looks All Over The Entire House For Your Damn Slippers Even After She Said She Wouldn’t Because It’s Your Own Careless Fault That They’re Lost And Then Delivers A Lecture On Taking Better Care Of Your Belongings And Maybe Throws In A Reference To Starving Children In Darfur Who Would Love To Have A Nice Pair Of Slippers seems just a mite overlong.
(It’s Pajama Day at school today. That’s a persuasive argument for procreation, right there: There is nothing quite like watching your kids walk out the door in pajamas, robes, and backpacks. It’s better than cable television.)
So I’m going to try out a few other things. Right now I’m trying to decide between Mir, First Place Loser and Mir, Backseat Knitter. read more…
New girl seeks right crowd
The thing that has been hardest for me about moving is making new friends. And part of me feels ridiculous, saying that, because I don’t really have trouble getting along with people. (You, in the back—shut it.) I’m not particularly shy. I’ll talk to anyone, and despite frequently ramping the dork factor all the way up to 11, FOR THE MOST PART I’m able to enter a social situation and interact in a socially acceptable manner with others.
The problem comes in establishing friendships which go beyond “Hey, how ya doing?” or “I think my kid just kicked your kid in the nuts. I’m really sorry.” (Yes, I’ve actually had to say that already. I considered letting the ground swallow me up, instead, but THE GROUND WASN’T COOPERATING.) These things take time, which I know, but—and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, because I’m so good at hiding it—I am not a patient person. And I’ve been here for six months already and I really, really miss having MY GIRLS. read more…
Things I would’ve mentioned
The thing I found most interesting about having my blog out of commission for the better part of a week is that there’s a part of my brain which notes “blogworthy” moments/thoughts/items and when I am not allowed that outlet by which to share them with the world…
… I realize that wow, 99% of my thoughts are pretty inconsequential.
[Insert clothes-rending and general wailing about my station as but a speck in a vast universe here.]
Nevertheless, the brain dump availability of a blawwwwwwg does come in handy. Plus, I am all about the sharing. For example, after yesterday’s post—a veritable love letter to that husband of mine—Otto reminded me that the last time I asked him what he’s getting out of this marriage, he answered without hesitation, “Beer bread.” Ah, romance. read more…
The first 6 months of the rest of my life
Dear Otto,
Happy halfiversary! I’m sorry I spent most of it on the couch and/or unconscious. I guess the stress of the last week finally triumphed, and the germs just had to have their way with me this weekend. It seems like YOU having your way with me might’ve been a more fitting way to celebrate this milestone, but the germs will go away and you won’t, so there’s that.
(I have already sent your brothers running for the bleach, to cleanse their eyeballs. Sorry, guys.)
This weekend was momentous for two reasons: First, it marked six months since we got married (AND! it goes without SAYING that we STILL LIKE EACH OTHER!), and second, we are just one week from the end of The Year of Living Changerously (if, indeed, we keep it to just a year, which I might not, because I am a rebel that way).
Yesterday I managed to miss my exit on the highway WHILE I was using the GPS—which is sadly, not at all out of character—and still, you love me. Screw the Christmas miracle of the baby Jesus; THIS RIGHT HERE is proof that God works in mysterious ways. read more…
Why WiredHub can kiss my ass
It feels rather anti-climactic, honestly, at this point. I mean, I got all of my data back, I’m happily running on a much better server through a company with awesome customer support (Fusix! We love Fusix!), and so maybe it doesn’t really matter that WiredHub fucked up royally last week, at this point.
Except that it does. It matters for a few reasons. It matters because they’re a service provider that failed to provide, you know, basic service. It matters because their customer service is atrocious and in this day and age, businesses simply cannot afford to treat their customers badly and not feel the impact. (Well, unless you have a monopoly on a given service in an area, not that I’m thinking of anyone COMCASTIC in particular.) It matters because I was treated like I’m stupid and OH NO HONEY, I DON’T THINK SO.
And it matters because thanks to this little thing I like to refer to as “free speech,” I’m going to tell you all about it. And you are going to tell your friends about it. And they will tell their friends. And maybe my pals at WiredHub will change their business practices, or maybe they will just continue treating their few remaining customers like garbage. I mean, I suppose it’s their choice. read more…
I’ll be right there
I have so much to say, and none of it involves weeping (any more) which is a huge change from the past week. Soon we shall discuss this last week in detail and then put it behind us and move on, but I can’t do it just yet.
Today I am spending the day focusing on my children. My wonderful, awesome, patient children, who still love me even though I all but ignored them for four days while my business (and I) were in a tailspin. This may have nothing to do with me and everything to do with the pudding cups I packed them on Friday, along with notes about how great I think they are and how much I love them, and also the pudding was chocolate, so, you know, they may not have even read the notes. (Moral of the story: You can be a rotten mother if you have awesome snack foods.)
Anyway, if you missed what all happened here, you can catch up a bit by reading the last week’s worth of posts at Cornered Office, and soon I’ll tell you the rest. Right now, though, I have to go watch a movie with the kids. They have forbidden me to bring my laptop. Seeing as I have yet to buy them those ponies I promised, I think I can give them that, at least.
We are BACK! Stable! Better than before!
I am going to tell you this whole sordid tale from beginning to end (just see if I don’t, my pretties), but first things first.
In a heroic act of LIGHTNING SPEED AWESOMENESS, the fine folks at Fusix—allow me to state this in southern terms, so great is my gratitude—done grabbed up the whole mess and fixed it right proper. If you are seeing this, I am fully migrated and functional and now running on servers powered by unicorns and fairies and pixie dust. If you need not just hosting but possibly migration support and hand-holding and someone who will get the job done right, please please please go visit my new favorite human, David, over at Fusix.
And do stay tuned to hear what I have to say about my old hosting provider, too. Especially about how they followed a 3-day outage with the COMPLETELY UNFORESEEABLE PROBLEM of 3 days of back email breaking their server a second time. I’m sure there’s no way they could’ve predicted THAT. Fucktards.
I have no idea how this got here
Folks, sit tight please. Looks like my old provider is up and running, but my nameservers have been redirected so as far as I know, this is sort of impossible. Not sure what’s going on. But everybody hush up while I grab a backup and I’ll see if we can’t get restored for real in a jiffy.
UPDATE: Okay, the good news is that I have RETRIEVED ALL MY DATA. The bad news is that you’re gonna be on the rocky server-changing seas for a few more days yet. Hold on tight.
Day of rest, my ass
You’d think that with the extra hour of sleep we all supposedly got, that yesterday would’ve gone completely smoothly. Of course, I let the kids stay up later, because the only thing that sucks harder than being woken up at 6 on a weekend morning is being woken up at 5 on a weekend morning. (And you know, Monkey would totally be the rat who keeps pressing the bar for a food pellet, getting shocked, and pressing the bar again, totally bewildered by each successive shock. He never understands why we are not overjoyed to see him hours before dawn. “I had a good sleep!” he declares, jumping on the bed. “I am ready to get up now!” And then when I snap at him—in my defense, maybe on the second or third trip into our room when the clock hasn’t even made it to 7 yet—he is horribly wounded.)
Anyway, I had high hopes for yesterday, but I am a fool. read more…