In Michigan, it took a blizzard of epic proportions to keep kids out of school.  I clearly remember my dad fishtailing his way up the giant hill to Junior High cheerfully blasting NPR and giving me a hearty “Have a great day, Sweetheart!” at the top of his lungs while I considered the repercussions of flipping him, and the school system, the bird. 

When we did have snowstorms of epic proportions, school would be canceled one or two days at the max.  If we got the second day, I can still recall the pure joy burning through my veins - TWO DAYS in a ROW!!!  Later, when I could drive, my diesel Rabbit would be unplugged from the power source that enabled it to start on cold days and my friends would pile in.  Donuts in the high school parking lot (the kind that don’t make you fat), specifically looking for icy roads so we could spin out - it’s no wonder I still remember how to drive in terrible conditions.  Is it possible my parents actually let me drive in that stuff?  They were probably so fed up with me, they would have let me drive the Rabbit across West Bay just to get me out of their hair.  The ice was so thick I could have anyway.  Not that I ever tried it. 

It is true that every 4th vehicle in my hometown of Traverse City, Michigan was either a snowplow, sand truck or a very large 4 x 4 truck with two pieces of triangular metal welded to the front - the makeshift redneck snowplow.  Therefore, it was rare that that the buses couldn’t get anywhere on the days it snowed very hard.  The entire population of hearty corn-fed Michiganders banded together in an ice-fueled festival of “CLEAR THE ROADS!” and got out there, shoveling, snowblowing, welding metal to their cars, and making sure their precious kiddies never missed a day of edu-macation.  I’m sure I’m making this up but I wouldn’t be surprised if Grand Traverse County voted unanimously to outfit all school buses with chains during the winter months of September through May. 

I’m not going to launch into a tirade about Virginia, or Henrico County, or the lack of snowplows and budgets.  It’s rare we get snow like this so okay, I get it, but that doesn’t help the insanity that sets in.  I have to ask:  why is it that the first time in nearly a year, I have a paid contract job and my kids are suddenly home, crazy from cabin fever, and crawling all over me like ants on syrup?  I get that every single solitary freakin’ back road in the entire county has to be cleared before the buses can run because if a single child can’t be bussed in to school, then dammit, no kids will suffer the misery of education! 

I think even the kids are starting to miss school.  And that’s saying a lot. 

Last week was “my” week with the kids.  No school Monday through Wednesday.  Lily went half day on Thursday; anytime there is a half-day Arden’s preschool is cancelled.  Based on the threat of bad weather, schools closed again on Friday.  Yep.  The threat.  Not only does forecasting bad weather send everyone streaming into stores for milk and bread (and according to Nicole and Dan, Rainbow Cookies from Ukrops), it sends the schools into a frenzy of OMG OMG OMG we need to preemptively close schools. 

I know.  Safety first.  But can we mix in a healthy dose of reality?  The rest of the Virginia universe drove around, to work and to Ukrops for more Rainbow Cookies - all week long.  Most were miserable and stressed out, going either 104 mph in their Suburbans and Lexus SUVs.  The rest drove 3 mph and randomly stopped in the middle of the roads.  Oh and by the way?  Did you know that snowplows don’t have to follow basic traffic rules, like stopping for red lights?  Yeah, we were almost creamed by one yesterday.  I even saw a snowplow in a ditch in the middle of 64 over the weekend - that had to be embarrassing. 

We had another wicked snowstorm this weekend.  I’d venture a guess and say it was worse than the one we had last weekend.  If my calculations are correct, this will mean the kids will be out of school for the next week entirely.  And there may be some freezing rain mid-week, the threat of which may cause them to cancel school for a third week in a row.  Did I mention the paid contract due at the end of this month?  Did I mention the ants in syrup reference previously? 

Yesterday the fighting and nitpicking reached a fever pitch.  I clearly recall saying, “I’m going to lock you both in a dark room with soundproofing and feed you through a slot in the door if you don’t knock it off.”  I also lost it entirely when Arden was screaming and crying because she was “cold”.  She was “cold” because I’d let her use my bathtub as a pool and she’d stayed in for nearly 90 minutes.  Why would Arden be cold?  She was running around the house buck naked refusing a towel and screaming at me that she was cold.  It was refusal of towels that caused a psychotic break in me.  We both survived the cold incident, but just barely. 

I have meetings this week that will be canceled.  I’ve already abused my regular babysitter with favors; time to start hitting up the neighbors or just standing on the side of the road with a billboard advertising Two Sometimes Well Behaved Children In Need of Entertainment. 

To those parents like me - hanging onto their sanity by their fingernails - I salute you.  And I actually feel a tiny bit of guilt for the joy I felt when schools closed.  My poor mother.  If it makes you feel any better, mom, I’m paying it back in spades now. 

Every time I think I’ve had one of the hardest days of my life, or hit the biggest speedbump, I can be sure that there is another larger, bumpier and sharper one up ahead.  It’s good to have this mindset because life is definitely a journey, and it’s not always smooth. 

Ever heard of collaborative divorce?  Now you have. 

Mike and I had our first meeting with a “divorce coach” this morning.  If we proceed down the collaborative path, she will be our main point of contact.  Involved in the collaborative process will be a child specialist, a financial analyst, and two lawyers trained in the collaborative approach.

I could go into the details of how it’s supposed to work, but I’m really quite raw and very tired from this morning and I don’t feel like it.  If you’re curious you can read all about it at the link above.  One thing I came away from the meeting with:  if divorce is a shit sundae, collaborative divorce is a scoop of ice cream with shit sprinkles.  It puts the family first, especially the kids, and contractually binds you to negotiate the terms of the divorce in the most reasonable way possible.  There were a lot of tears during the meeting.  There’s nothing like saying the words outloud to make reality set in and force you to face what you may have been avoiding.  It was not easy and it was more than a little bit heart-wrenching, but we took that first step and it was a doozy.

Someone once remarked to me that ending a relationship is a series of tiny steps.  The doubt in your head, the acknowledgement of issues between you, the first vocalization that something is not right - they are all tiny steps in one direction.  Sometimes they can be repaired and turned back.  Sometimes they can’t. 

After all the head shaking and confused looks we’ve gotten after explanation how we are doing our separation, it was very validating to be commended by the divorce coach. She commended us for truly putting the kids first even though she can tell we are both suffering from our living situation.  For those who aren’t aware, the girls stay put in our house and the parental units rotate in and out of it.  We rent a small room about 25 minutes away from here where we stay on alternating weeks.  It is difficult even at its best; for Mike who hates change in any shape or form, it’s incredibly difficult.  She also told us that if the kids are still not acting out in school, we are doing something right.  The Child Specialist will help us to determine how they are actually doing and suggest therapists for them if it comes to that.  In the meantime we try to be open with them, answer the questions we are asked, and reassure them that we love the hell out of them. 

Divorce is a terribly sad thing, no matter what.  Mike and I still remain calm and mostly quiet with each other.  It makes it worse.  Neither of us seems to want to fight about things - at least not yet - and that makes it worse. There is no anger to propel me forward.  I’m sure there will be on his side, sooner rather than later, but I just have a large empty hole of sadness and it makes me want to take very long naps. 

This whole process will be draining, financially and emotionally.  It adds another layer of guilt onto a sandwich that is already piled precariously high with guilt meat and mustard and shamed lettuce and pickles.  This process is going to be expensive.  The divorce coach and child specialist run around $175/hour.  The lawyers require retainers.  If we both end up with a divorce coach instead of using one, it will be twice as much.  The financial analyst takes a retainer too. Emotionally the costs are not countable, at least not now.  We fumble toward some resolution, mostly in the dark, trying not to fall down.

My family makes fun of me because my iPhone is literally an extension of my arms these days.  And I make fun of myself about it too.  However, I thought I’d talk a bit about WHY it’s an extension of me and WHY I love it just so much.  I was a Blackberry user, but I’m firmly converted. I could never go back to the ol’ Crackberry.  For me, the iPhone fits me much better. 

My entire business life runs online. If I don’t have access to it, I am not able to work.  Yes, I receive phone calls on the iPhone - that’s important.  I get texts about work, occasionally, but more often than not it’s from a friend wanting to poke fun at me about something or to respond to something we’ve talked about previously.  The phone is really the least important part of it to me, but it is necessary.  If you hadn’t guessed, I would much rather write - or text something - than talk on the phone.  The iPhone allows me to sneak around talking as much as possible.

Since training for the 10k began, I use the stopwatch feature on the phone constantly.  We’re doing a run/walk training for the first few weeks, and that’s been indispensable.  I can listen to music while timing myself.  If I run on the track at the Y, I can use the lap feature to count how many (or how few) laps I’ve completed.  Best of all, I’ve downloaded an app called “iMapMyRun” which can be used to map out a location (including things like calculating distance when you run around a cul-de-sac or the block), gives verbal directions, tells you what your pace is, and can berate you if you’re not meeting a goal or a pace you’ve set beforehand.  It uses GPS to map exactly where you are and you can see graphically how fast you were running during specific parts of your run. 

I constantly use Weight Watchers’ app as well.  I can track my points directly from the phone, yes, but I can easily search foods by restaurants or style and get the points value before I even order off the menu.  This enables me to go to a new place, scan the menu, do a few minutes of research and have a fairly accurate idea of what I’m eating and how much it’s gonna cost me (points-wise - money is a different story entirely). 

I’m a movie freak, so I use the Fandango app.  You can view showtimes and movie theaters, read reviews and rate your own experience, but best of all you can buy tickets with 2 touches of a fingertip.  For a $1 convenience fee, I’ll gladly bypass the ridiculous lines at my nearby theater, blow into the theater and swipe my card to retrieve my pre-reserved tickets.  Now if only they would let you pre-order Twizzlers and water . . .

QuickTip, for the mathmatically challenged, is fabulous.  Since I usually give 20% in restaurants, I can figure out the tip by adding 10% plus 10% and generally not make too big of a mistake.  It’s the pesky ADDING of the tip to the total that gets me every time (math major I am not).  QuickTip has a slider that allows you to move the tip percentage around.  You enter the amount of the check, slide to figure out what percentage you’re going to give, and voila - it adds that percentage to the total and tells you to the penny what you owe.  It turns a #mathfail into a #mathwin.

CheapGas uses GPS to determine where I am, and gives me a list of all stations within a preset radius of my locations (I usually set it around 5 miles).  I get a list of gas stations and their current prices for different octanes of gasoline, and lists the cheaper ones first. 

It took awhile for the value of FourSquare to sink in.  It’s merely a bigger and better version of BrightKite - basically a stalker’s tool to find out where your friends are and what they’re doing.  FourSquare is private - meaning only people you allow can see your location - but it’s better than a simple GPS system.  Those in Richmond can post their locations to their friends and add tips and suggestions that pop up when you check in at that same place, or near it.  For example, I was at Short Pump Town Center yesterday and checked in on FourSquare.  A couple of tips popped up, telling me to visit the Apple store for awesome customer service from a specific person. Another one suggested a menu item at a restaurant nearby.  Yet another alerted me to a discount at a nearby sporting goods store.  For the voyeur in me, I enjoy seeing where my friends are - I’ve been introduced to a few new places I’d never heard of.

The Flickr app lets me consolidate any pictures I take with my camera phone or on the fly into my main Flickr account.  It also updates my Facebook photos and Twitter, if I want it to. 

Tweetdeck is my choice for Twitter apps - I like being able to separate with columns the different things I watch for, like people tweeting from RVA or those using a the hashtag for #writeclubrva. 

The Facebook app is much better than it used to be, but I still find it clunky and a bit buggy.  Still, I check in with Facebook more through the iPhone than I do with my laptop. 

Shazam is the most fun app because it puts an end to the annoying “What the heck is this song playing???” question.  Hold it up to the source of the song and voila, it tells you artist, name of song, album, and links you to a place where you can download immediately. 

Trapster is another new favorite of mine.  Using GPS, you can quickly add a live police checkpoint, a traffic camera, or an accident.  It blasts the information out immediately through text messaging to other users of Trapster with a specific location of the incident.  Ironically, a friend of mine who is also a police officer told me about it.  Now that more users are on Trapster, the results are much more accurate and reliable. 

A friend turned me on to Beejive - I can’t tell if I hate it or love it.  It pulls all of the IM programs from Facebook, GChat, Yahoo, AIM, et cetera ad nauseum into a single space on your iPhone.  This means that at all times of day or night, anyone who sees you online can start a chat - directly to your cell phone.  I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I know I’ll enjoy bothering random people while in waiting rooms. 

Boxcar uses push notifications to let you know if you’ve been @ replied through Twitter or mentioned on Facebook and a variety of other programs. I find it highly annoying, but since I’ve been taking a break from Twitter, I’m getting notifications of @ replies a lot less frequently.  You can turn off the random beeping and clanging sounds but I always leave them on so the rest of my family can be as annoyed by it as I am.

Now if I could just find an app that makes my kids quiet and well-behaved, I would hermetically seal the iPhone to my forehead for all eternity. 

If you’re an iPhone convert, what kind of things do you like about it?  Favorite apps?

I’m sitting here staring at would could be possibly the biggest pile of clean yet unfolded laundry I’ve ever seen.  What do I do when confronted with laundry?  I blog. 

I also had to go to Walmart today.  I couldn’t believe how easy it is to shop there - at 8.30 in the morning.  I had almost escaped without any Walmart experiences (you know, like seeing a child beaten in the toy aisle, a baby running around barefoot in a dirty diaper, really fat people in spandex - you get the picture) when while checking out, I caught sight of a woman pushing a child in a shopping cart.  The little girl was cute and probably about 3 years old.  And what was she eating for breakfast?  The breakfast of champions:  a Coke.  A regular Coke in a plastic bottle.  Okay first of all, hello caffeine - what 3 year old needs it?  Second of all - well, I don’t even need to discuss the nutritional value of a Coke for a toddler.  My head said, “Don’t Judge!” but it was too late.  I can never escape Walmart without finding SOMETHING or SOMEONE to judge. 

Mike is spending the week out of the house. I made it through last week.  It was odd that the only horrible night I had was during the week.  I think that had more to do with recovering from what could be described as the world’s most intense 12 hour stomach flu (the house was nicknamed “The Vomitorium” because with the exception of Mike, we all had it).  Every time I’m sick, I have one bad day during recovery where I just am depressed and cranky.  I was dreading the weekend and while I missed the girls a bunch, I was very busy.  I also spent a lot of time working on the room, hanging curtains and bringing pieces of furniture back so that the room feels less like a place to crash and sleep and more like a place to hang out.  I also met the downstairs tenant.  Her name is Kristine and she’s fun, nice, and we have a lot in common.  She was kind enough to invite me to a movie with another friend of hers, who made delicious tilapia and acted like it was no big deal that a complete stranger was horning in on her evening with Kristine. 

This week, I’m enjoying being back home with the girls.  I’m not enjoying the housework but as Ethan Hawke said, “Reality Bites”. 

Labradors can eat ANYTHING.  Thankfully she was busted before getting into the actual Pebbles themselves.  (PS - the mask was not about the cereal box. it was about the stomach flu going around the house.)