Hot becomes cold

Just a tidbit about living in the Middle East. Around this time of year, generally a bit earlier for most people living in houses hot becomes cold when it comes to water. Our "cold" water tanks are on the roof. Well what happens when I giant tank of water sits on your roof in 120 degree weather, it's no longer cold. And our water heaters are all located in each bathroom and in the kitchen, which we can manually turn on and off via a switch in the room. So during the summer our "cold" water is super heated, like can become scalding very quickly and the water in the water heaters is cooled by the AC in the house, so it's all reversed. One friend doesn't have the water heaters/now coolers in each room and has to set a bath for her kids about 2 hours before they want to take a bath so it will cool down enough to put the kids in it. It also means that we can't let the kids wash their own hands all willy nilly and have to supervise so that they don't scald the crap out of their hands!

It's also a fact of life that every building you are in is super cooled to the point of chattering teeth and frozen fingers. People will often bring in space heaters for beat the cold in office buildings. Go figure, 11 days until vacation begins! I'm so excited and dreading the travel at the same time. We also need to get out of this country, short of the 12 hour visa runs back last year we haven't left the country since August. This is not normal for here, people get serious cases of "I need to get the f*ck out of here or I'm going to hurt someone" and I'm almost there. I'm not looking forward to the flights (more than 48 hours of transit), but the trip will be great!

I'm alive! Barely...

Two sick kids, plus two working parents is a real nut shot! Z was puking all night and Boo is coughing so hard she's retching. We've been having a sandstorm for the past week that makes it feel like someone is sitting on my chest.

I have officially shut the door on the university job I was offered.  The HR manager asked to mee with me after I said I wouldn't be able to take it at the salary they were offering. She was blunt said that they wanted me and what would they need to offer to get me. I gave her a number and she was like, "Wow, we can't do that, but here's what we can offer." I told her I would think about it. It would be a great job, but essentially impossible between the two trips we have coming up.  It would only leave about 3 weeks to plan, coordinate and execute a new student program, handle students graduating in Sept, start all the research grant work and jumpstart 2 new programs, which haven't even gone through the admissions process for August.  I would kind of be setting myself up for failure and working through both vacations. So that definitely colored my feelings about the position even with the bump in pay they counter offered  Then the HR Manager told me she thought I was awesome and outside of this whole work thing would I like to get our kids together! Haha, I said sure, she seemed nice and it's so hard to find friends around here, so we're hanging out next weekend and getting the families together.

The office manager position is still a nebulous thing, but they keep trying to give me the responsibilities without the official offer. I've been pushing back and will continue to do so. I have also been warned off of taking the position by everyone who has brought it up to me! I don't know how that makes me feel. I think it just boils down to the office is such a mess that it would be nearly impossible for almost anyone to fix it. Pretty essential things aren't being monitored and I'm not sure what kind of job I would be in for. I was also told that they pay most likely won't be that great. Quasi-supervisor received a 3% raise for a promotion and taking over a major function at 2 offices. Not to say the job Quasi-supervisor is doing is well done, but I mean that's pretty bad.

If taking over the position means a minimal bump, plus a sh*t ton more responsibility and more time away from my family...not going to happen. 

Job Prospects

So there have been some new developments.  I was offered 2 jobs.  One at a university and one as the Office Manager at my current job.  I really wanted the university job, it would have been amazing, a lot of responsibility, a lot of freedom to create programs that I wanted, but it was paying less than I'm making now.  The very next day I was asked if I wanted to be Office Manager. I ask about the salary and I still haven't heard back about that one...it will determine whether or not I take the position or stay in my current post.  At this point, we're making double payments into my student loans and I want to keep being able to do that while still leaving work at the end of the day promptly at 5 and coming home to the girls.  I like being able to leave the office in the office and I like not being tied to the office via a Blackberry.

The thing that scares me about the Office Manager positon is that no one really seems to know what it entails; this includes the person who is currently doing it.  I'm a little afraid that there will be a LOT that hasn't been done over the past 2 years and I'll have to sort it all out as I've done with other tasks that have been handed over to me.  One task was given to me, which hadn't been done since August 2012 and a vendor had cut the office off.  I managed to sort it out in a month, but that was a fairly small task. Just imagine what might be lurking for me in one of the Supervisors boxes of doom.  This is where papers go to die in order to maintain the appearance of a clean, tidy and organized desk!  I was warned by some of the senior associates that previous Office Managers have been completely overwhelmed, had to come in on weekends and just seemed to be drowning.  That's not what I want at all. I also don't want to work in a completely dysfunctional office.

It's also weirding me out that I'm getting so excited about creating an office manual in my down time during the day.  The outline is already 9 pages long, I have plans for a Complete Guide, Fee Earners Quick Guide and an Admin Quick Guide.  Did you know you can create an index for a document using a concordance document? Amazing! I can't wait to start compiling all of the content.  

Finger Woes

We're still dealing with the fallout from the finger in the drain.  It doesn't seem to be healing and alternates between looking really yucky and like it's on the road to healing.  We spent another day in the hospital this weekend having the ER doc and plastic surgeon look at it before we were referred to a hand specialist.  The hand specialist now wants us to meet with the hand surgeon on Wednesday and he will try and see if there is nerve damage/infection compromising the bone/just a slow healing wound.    It's definitely at least a little nerve racking.  I am freaking out that one of these day when we change the dressing (which is daily) that it's going to black or I'm going to see some kind of sepsis and she'll lose the finger.  It's just making me nervous that the healing isn't progressing more quickly.

I have no idea how people deal with more serious injuries/illnesses.  This is stressful enough!  But the saving grace is that she seems totally fine with it.  Boo doesn't really seem to care most of the time, only if we take too long putting on the new dressing.  Otherwise docs take a look, move the finger around, give it s squeeze etc and she just looks at them looking at her.  And I was comforted by that until I started thinking, Oh no what if it is nerve damage!  So Wednesday is the day we will finally have some more answers, I hope.

Trudging along

My meeting with Partner B keeps getting pushed back.  New cases/projects keep coming up and making everyone crazy busy, so there isn't really time to talk over changes.  He did say he would make up all of the push backs with a fancy lunch...we shall see.  The Supervisor is still pretty crazy, but still not to me.  Although I was given an assignment yesterday and literally no one seems to know anything about it!  I asked Supervisor, she just laughed and said "Good Luck" and forwarded me someone's email address to ask them.  I emailed the company finance service desk to see if they would be any help and I got shrugs and another person to contact via email.  I mean how does no one seem to know about a separate billing platform that some of the biggest clients use? I understand that only a few use it, but if they are some of the biggest clients why don't people know how to use it or even where to find info about it!  I can't believe it's coming up to 2 months.  Ugh, I need to change things or I need to peace out.

Boo's finger is healing nicely.  I'm not looking forward to getting the stitches out at all, but I'm hoping it will be over quickly.  She'll be so happy once she can go swimming again! Z is loving our new swingset, but definitely learning the "dont' walk in front of the swing while someone else is on it" lesson the hard way.  We are also looking at possibly moving at the end of the year.  Our contract is up in November and we might just do it.  We're looking for a compound that has some better facilities and a little bigger.  The girls are getting bigger and we'd like more room for them to ride their bikes and also one with a small store, playground and nice pool.  I think that would give life more of a small old school neighbourhood feel than the tiny road feel we get now.  We have looked at a few, but nothing seriously yet, just trying to get the lay of the land and cost.  This becomes especially important as the sh*itshow that is getting your kids into school will begin in the fall if we want Z to leave nursery and go to Preschool.

I used to laugh at those articles in the NYT about parents trying to get their kids into Kindergarten and laughing at how crazy that was because of course I would be living somewhere with good/great public schools...hmmmm not the case.  There are perhaps 6 acceptable schools, which teach either a US, UK or International program.  These schools all have crazy waitlists, but I knew of one friend who got her daughter into one on what seemed like a fluke.  I think it may happen, but I have no idea and I'm not looking forward to everything being so crazy and going to assessments, filling out applications, going on school tours and the generally stress that will be involved with getting a 4 YEAR OLD INTO SCHOOL.  She will be 4! Freaking 4! Can you tell I'm excited for this.

We have a baby down!

Boo is the latest injured baby to join the gang.  We were going to put the girls in the bath before naptime after a particularly Nutella filled morning.  We figured the safest place for them was in the tub while we rounded up the PJs, how much trouble could they get into in an empty tub...Boo decided to check out the drain and somehow got her finger stuck.  In her haste to get her finger out quickly Liam saw her yank it out.  She sliced it in a semicircle near the base.  Talk about screaming and man the blood was insane.  We called Melody and asked her to stay with Z while we took Boo to the hospital.  She fell asleep while driving there, so I took it as a good sign.  The pediatric emergency room saw us right away and then referred us to the regular trauma ER just up the road.  So we drove over there, again they took us back right away and showed us to an exam room.  I waited there with Boo by myself since it was the women and children section.  I wasn't happy about that bit and neither was Liam.  He waited in the car.  The doctor came and we went to Xrays to make sure is wasn't more serious.  After that was the real horrible part, the stitches.  To day she was screaming was an understatement   I was crying, she was crying the doctor and nurse were trying to do the stitches as quickly as possible.  It was 4 stitches in total and they referred us to the local health clinic for daily dressing changes.  All in all a draining experience.  For all of the complaints about living over here, the fact that we walked in, were seen treated and released within 2 hours and the whole thing without having health insurance, including medications for home only cost us $1.64 is pretty amazing.  They took great care of us and it didn't bankrupt us.

The Kiddos

Another weekend gone and it's Boo's 1st birthday!  I still can't believe it's been a year since she arrived.  It was all pretty chill after I finished my final paper and then went straight to the hospital.  For some reason the first birthday seems like an end of an era, although she's been doing most of the same things for months now.  She's eating like a champ, walk-running, saying Mama/Mum and Dada and just being a tiny little peanut.  She's still a toothless wonder and I don't know when those things are going to show up...I'm hoping soon.  I don't want to send her to pre-K without any teeth!  We will have cupcakes and pizza this evening to celebrate.  We bought her one toy, which Z decided she had to have.  Z was not happy to learn that she didn't get a birthday present as well, but she got over it once Boo decided to share her keyboard caterpillar.

Over the summer, we will do a joint welcome home/birthday party for the girls at a local discovery museum, so they will be where they get to balloons, big cake and lots of friends and family.  I'm actually getting really really excited about the summer trip.  I think the girls are going to love it.  It will be nice that both can run around, play, interact and just have fun.  We have 3 zoos, 2 amusement parks, 2 beaches and lots of park time scheduled.  It's going to be so ridiculously tiring, but I'm excited and my family is being a lot better about actually keeping in touch with us and showing their excitement as well.  Yay summer rain!