Below are the photos I promised earlier. As for other goings on...we finally go see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow, who will hopefully schedule surgery for Jeff. At this point, it seems as if we are just delaying the inevitable. We are both anxious to just get on with it already and start moving forward.

Other news...the new nanny we hired has decided to move to California with her husband and work for the family she just left (they moved to California and asked her to go with them, apparently they have wooed them out there). So, we are back to square one. She is coming for the next two weeks as needed to fill the gap. I am so bummed about it, but am trying to move forward.

I have been in such a funk lately. I am not sure what my problem is, but certainly not feeling like my normal high energy, optimistic self. I think I am just way overloaded with many, "have-tos" and constantly feeling like I am just spinning my wheels, moving from one thing to the next. It don't think I do well with disruptions in my normal routine and the last three weeks have been all about that. Between Jeff's being off and home, and the nanny transition, I don't think I have had a single day of "normal" work and being sort of in my regular routine. I am hoping to return to that this week.

On the nanny note, the old nanny stopped by to drop some stuff off and she just irritates the living shit out of me. Jeff and I were talking over dinner of how she just totally morphed over the last few months into someone so different than when she started. Granted, I am sure she was pissed at us a lot of that time because I didn't want her drilling the kids with "Hooked on Phonics" like her last family let her. And, as she told my cleaning lady, she thought it was horrible that Samuel, almost four cannot count to ten. While I disagree (and know he can if he wants to, but gets a kick out of doing anything other than what you ask him to), she could certainly have take him outside and teach him to count to ten by counting leaves on the tree or berries on a bush, or birds in the sky. Ugh...I get so worked up about it. And, we were so generous with her and she still acts like we weren't. I am trying to make this parting amicable (if you remember, she quit--but it was a good thing because we already had an ad in the paper) and not to waste energy on it, but I think I will need like a year before I can see her again without having to hold back on just totally going off on her! Which, I have avoided up until this point as I recognize, my opinion won't change her--it will only make me feel better to say stuff to her for the moment, then feel bad for being so judgmental and downright hateful.

Okay, she is sucking my energy out even now, so I am going to stop and move forward. But, one day, oh the stories I can tell that you just won't believe what an idiot she was! Why, then, you ask did we keep her on so long? Because for the most part, the kids really enjoyed her and she was good with them, this is all "our" stuff: adult to adult stuff.

Kids are stirring upstairs..Finally--it is 8:25--I thought they were never going to wake up!