It's Friday, which means it's time for another Winter Shed post! The full back story of this blog hop hosted by Kathy at Bereaved and Blessed can be found here.
I feel I just want to crawl in a little hole and come back out when it's nice and warm and my kids are grown up. The weekend started great but that changed quickly: M. Sensible came down with the flu and M. Gourmand with a conjunctivitis. On top of that, hubby said he wasn't feeling great either. So on Monday no extra time for me to work because M. Sensible could have stayed at school for lunch, but sickbay at home caring for both boys. Same story on Tuesday. On Wednesday everyone was doing better but no school on Wednesdays in France, so I had M. Sensible at home. Luckily the sitter could take M. Gourmand (even though normally I have both kids home on Wednesdays), so I could get some work done. However I still hadn't received anything and the February 18 deadline was still standing! On Thursday I brought M. Sensible to school only to find out that his teacher wasn't there and they didn't have a replacement. If it would be possible, they'd appreciate it if I could keep my child with me, otherwise the class would be split over the other classes. I took him home after we dropped M. Gourmand off at the sitter. The poor little fella was still suffering from his conjunctivitis - every morning he would wake up with big crusts on his eye lashes and trying to clean his eyes, let alone administer the eye drops was a twice daily struggle. The skin under his eyes looked almost worse than the eyes themselves, completely red and raw from all the cleaning. He even refused to lay down on the changing table (still does, even if I just want to change his diaper), screaming as if I'm about to torture him, and I had to put all my weight on his little body to try to keep him to lie still. And of course, because we share everything, since yesterday evening I now also have an infected eye...
On top of that, when I picked him up at the sitter's yesterday she told me he now also has a stomach flu. I'm not completely convinced though, the way he's chewing on my chopping boards and everything else he can get in his mouth (my shoulder, for example), makes me hope the weird poop is caused by emerging teeth. But I've been wrong before...
Yesterday evening I got a little respite from everything during dinner with a few girlfriends, which was great, but they got me a little anxious when they asked me if our school would be closed too coming Tuesday because of a teacher strike. Hubby dropped M. Sensible off this morning while I brought M. Gourmand to the sitter and this is what he emailed me:
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| A note from M. Sensible's teacher: "I will be on strike Tuesday, February 12, you will receive a document (explanation) shortly." |
So yeah, no school on Tuesday... The strike is about the changes the government wants to make to the school week. Currently Wednesday is a school free day, but the government wants to change that and also have classes on Wednesday mornings. The teachers don't have a problem with that, but with the way the government decided on the changes without consulting teachers, PTAs etc, and giving no solutions for a number of other issues.
This is why I just want to crawl in my little hole and not come out until life is a little less complicated.
Now to report on how I did during week five:
1. Read more novels.
I made a nice little dent in the 500-page Dutch novel I'm reading at the moment. Mostly in the evening and a little bit during nap time, when I didn't want to take a nap myself because I wanted to be 'on alert' in case my client would send me the texts to translate (oh, I could have slept... see under #5).
2. Follow the news more.
Shall we just skip this item...?
3. Pick up regular blogging again and start a series/hop on Cultural Differences.
Two published post this week, a short one explaining my sons' new blog names and this one. I wrote a first draft for an introductory text for my Cultural Differences series, but am not completely satisfied with it yet, so the launch will not be for right away, but it's getting a bit more concrete already.
4. Get my professional website up and running.
Well, now that I think about it I could have worked on this while waiting for my client to send me the documents to translate (more on that under #5). So if I still don't have work by Monday I might do this.
5. Find more clients / pursue more paid projects.
I should be over my head in the translation job right now, but I still haven't received the texts! This whole project is really getting ridiculous and I'm almost at a point where I'll call them and tell them to forget it. I spoke to their project manager on Tuesday and we agreed that one of the three documents would be translated by someone else, because there would be just no way for me to be able to finish everything in such a short amount of time. The text for the other document would come the next day and the third document had been postponed to Mid-March. Ok, fine. Come Wednesday, no text. So I call again Thursday morning. No answer. So I send an email, demanding clarity. She left a voicemail that she wasn't able to answer all my questions right away, but she would surely do so tomorrow. Which is now. It's past 6:30 pm and I still haven't heard from her...
6. Start playing the cello again.
Skip please!
However, on another musical note, we bought a 1/4 violin for M. Sensible on eBay - it's still a bit too big (we should have bought a 1/8 size, but oh well, he will grow into this one). No violin lessons for the moment as it seems that the Suzuki classes (which are the only ones who take kids as young as three years old) don't take on new students halfway through the school year. That's ok though, he can get acquainted with it and we can sign him up after the summer.
5 comments:
TGIF! It does sound we both had very challenging weeks... I am so sorry to hear how sick your house has been. (((HUGS))) It was stressful for me just reading about your week, so I can only imagine living it!
As for #1 - What language is the Dutch novel in? Is this a dumb question? How many languages do you speak?
#2 - Yes, we shall and I laughed out loud reading this part of your post!
#3 - I will have to go back and reading the one about your sons' new blog names and am excited for your Cultural Differences series, but totally appreciate you taking your time getting it the way you want it before you launch.
#4 - Sounds like a plan.
#5 - That must be so frustrating!
#6 - Ha! Yes, by all means skip, you've had a full and rough week! Fun that one of your sons will be starting to play soon too. Not sure if I have mentioned that one of my good friends from college played the cello. I had never met anyone who did before her, but then found myself going to her concerts and learning to appreciate her playing more. It was very interesting and fun to learn about and listen to.
Thanks again for doing and sticking with the Winter Shed with us! Hooray for Week Five! Onward to Week Six we go! We can do it! :)
P.S. Sorry about the school strike! My son attends a Chicago Public School, here in Illinois and the teachers union went on strike last September for seven days. It was a bizarre experience and as a result my son will be in school until almost the end of June this year!
Ha Kathy, had to think twice about your #1 question. My mother taught me to always read novels in the original language if possible, so my initial reaction was that dutch novels are written in dutch. And with her blogname 'lostintranslation' I would assume she would read it in dutch.
Then again, dutch people can write in different languages too, especially if they are translators.
I have been wondering about the languages involved in the translation job too.
All I know is that in Dutch high schools Dutch and English are mandatory till exam time, French and German just a few years (optional later) and only some schools offer Latin and ancient Greek.
Love all the blogging lately!
@Kathy: there are no dumb questions! ;) The novel is written in Dutch, I think the author is actually Flemish (so from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) and the story is set in London during WWI.
I speak four languages: Dutch, English, French and German. I also had Latin in school but that was not such a great experience... ;)
@Valery: the translation job is from French to English.
oh dear! You had a rough week!! I'm amazed you actually managed to do something on the list! Well done on the novel and chasing that translation, I hope you didn't give in on the price!
On the conjunctivitis, I found here antibiotic drops which are not drops at all, but a gel which you can put on your fingertip and then gently rub on the eyelashes even when he's asleep!! It worked well for us when Oliver was small, now we do the wrestling thing if he needs drops but after a couple of days seems to accept it a bit better.
I must have missed the other post, better go check it out!
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