Wednesday, May 31, 2023
It's a Mess
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Passion Project
My husband and I are very worried about my son's "Passion Project" that he's doing for his final year at school. It's a luminary project but things about it seem all wrong. It doesn't seem well-thought out. He didn't seem to know what was going on, including that he was supposed to be at school early this morning for his own project to sell luminaries at drop-off.
We helped him understand how the luminaries work this weekend and I got him to record a video to tell his classmates how to set them up. They were planning on preparing things in advance (which would have ruined the luminary bags and the whole thing would have been a big mess).
We hurried around and I went in to talk to his teacher. She said my son had talked to the head of school three times, did I know this? No, we didn't, because he doesn't like to tell us anything. At any rate, she said it's okay if the selling doesn't work out because there were added days in the scheduled to look at a second option for selling them,
She said it was intentional that they weren't involved, because it was okay to have setbacks and learn from them. So I hope it will all be okay and my son will be happy. He thought we were messing up his day. Before I left he ran back that they'd sold one. One luminary. He wanted to sell three hundred. I think they sold a few today. But he was excited he sold the one. Which was all I needed to hear. I need to let him figure it out.
I just don't want to fail as a parent by not being there for what he needs. Hopefully we're doing enough. And not too much.
The First Random Item
We are using a post office to have people mail things to Filament Stories. We have that address posted on the website in case people want to mail something with information saying there is no guarantee anything sent will be used on our social media or used at all for that matter.
Companies for the most part want to negotiate a contract with us which means we don't receive much to our P.O. Box that is unexpected.
I got something today that I had heard was coming. I didn't know what it was for, and it didn't seem to make much sense, but it was magnets and I love magnets. What it was was a fidget using some strong magnets, for my daughter. It's very nice to move around with the little clicks a magnet does. And it's a solid little fidget.
My daughter likes it. Although she was confused as to why someone would have mailed something to her that we didn't know.
Monday, May 29, 2023
They Understand
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Every Night This Happens
Family In Town
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
The Sidetracking Marathon
Some days I feel like I can't get anything done. There are so many ways to communicate: email, Discord, text message, voicemail, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, FilamentStories website, Patreon.com, Any of the model repository sites we download models from, and I'm sure I missed some others that I'm on regularly. Keeping up with it all is a maze of being sidetracked. Here's a very reasonable scenario of a typical morning's start:
It's the start of the day and I've gotten home from dropping the children off at school and procuring coffee. I need to find things that have come in and handle them. But if it’s not slapping me in the face, banging on my forehead, or sounding a gong, I’ll miss it when it arrives. I feel like I'm bombarded all day. For example, I start by going to Instagram to respond to someone when I see a post in the Instagram feed that I had been meaning to comment on. I comment and then see the next post which is amazing and I want to consider printing it for an upcoming video. I go to Cults3D.com to download the model I notice on the front page, a model is being featured—a model I’ve already printed for an upcoming video—so I click in to get the information I'll need when we record the video. "Now where was I," I think, "Ah, yes, responding to that person on Instagram." I go to Instagram messages and there are some messages I can handle very quickly, so respond with a heart or smiley face. Then I see a message that's concerning so I click in. I need to look a few things up to confirm the facts before responding. I grab a sticky pad to write down some numbers and there is something on the top page that I was supposed to have done two days ago, so I go check to see if I have an email about it. When I open email I see I didn’t respond to Reese’s teacher about the upcoming IEP proposed meeting date. I need to respond so they can coordinate with the other eight attendees. I open my calendar to add the meeting to it and see that today, "Hm, I was supposed to do that today? Gah! I’ll add it to the to-do list for today, which includes yesterday's list of incompleted items. I'm now how many sidetracks in? I can't even remember where I started. I'd better write down what I remember.
There are just TOO MANY ways to communicate and too many ways to try and organize everything but since I’m using multiple, because Protopasta uses this, and Asylum uses that, and Chris isn’t Mac, so we coordinate. Looking at my text messages I think, "Oh no, I didn’t see the message from the dog groomer: she was waiting for me all weekend to let her know if she could come to groom the dog. I see a prescription is ready to be picked up. So I don't forget, I write "Prescription" on a sticky note and stick it on my purse to get it on the way to get my daughter. At this point I think, "where was I? Sigh, I got lost in sidetracks...again.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's first video has not only had a lot of views on all of the platforms, but people are also commenting and saying the nicest things to her. There are only a few outliers like the one person who said how did we really know if she was blind she could have been looking. People jumped all over him about that. Another person said if she was blind, why was she wearing glasses. My husband responded that they aren't corrective, they're for protection. People also jumped on that commenter saying there were "Legally Blind" people who had glassed which in no way changes the fact that they're blind. But forget those people. Thank you so much to everyone who has been so supportive and kind!
The Big Boy Update: My son had a very bad day yesterday, he said. He has very sweetly apologized for the things he said in the car yesterday morning. He wasn't even hoping for a change in my decision. He is upset it's a three-day weekend. I don't know what to do to get the children to understand that flat out insulting a person is not okay. My husband and I talked and wondered if they were getting this behavior from us. We don't think so, we don't resort to insulting someone if we're angry at them or if we don't get what we want or any number of things along those lines. We never talk about the person as a whole, we talk about the specific action. At least we hope it's not behavior they've learned from us.
First Solo Video
Monday, May 22, 2023
HotMakes Firetruck!
Sunday, May 21, 2023
First Livestream
Saturday, May 20, 2023
So Touching
I haven't been reading the comments, or looking at how many likes the videos have gotten. I've tried to do very little to see how they've been received other than checking view numbers across platforms. I'm just too scared.
Why am I scared? I have no idea. People are nice. In this case, they're being incredibly nice. My husband, producer, and Clockspring have told me how really positive everything has been. And I know there are some comments I need to answer specifically, but I can't right yet.
It is something to do with how heavy a topic it is in my brain. How important it is to me, perhaps. It's such a relief and a feeling of success that I got the project finished that I need to take a break from it for a while. That, coupled with me not wanting to know if people didn't find it as important as I did.
But bottom line, I can't explain why I want to run and hide as soon as we put out a heavy hitting video.
The Big Boy Update: My son is off on an overnight trip to the lake with four other boys for a birthday party, staying at the lake house of one the birthday child. My son was very happy to get out of here and go off with friends.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been at Busch Gardens all day long. ALL day long, since six in the morning. They were in a choir competition and then they spent the day at Busch Gardens, with the day ending with an awards ceremony. Their group got a trophy for winning something. My daughter told me everyone won something. It was a nice way to end the season. She loved the rides, of course.
Friday, May 19, 2023
So Close
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Lumbar!
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
My Own Deadline
Monday, May 15, 2023
Holding My Email Breath
Sunday, May 14, 2023
My Mother's Day Song
My daughter's teacher sent out to the parents this morning a Happy Mother's Day message with a hint that there was something our children had made for us coming later. Here's what my daughter gave me when I got in from getting coffee and biscuits:
Why Do I Apologize?
Friday, May 12, 2023
A Teen Party In the Backyard?
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Fourteen Hours and Still Tired. Maybe
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Interesting Appointment
Today was an interesting appointment. The message keeps being that I'm being referred to another provider that happens to do the same thing they do. I get different information from different people, and ultimately I don't want to be at a practice that doesn't want to have me as a patient.
When I was walked back today by the tech, she took my weight and got me into the room to take my blood pressure, temperature and heart rate. She said, "so I see you're going to be transferring to another clinic?" Again, another person saying that information that is so surprising to me, because I haven't asked to be transferred. I said that to my knowledge, I wasn't, but I am continually concerned because I've been told this on multiple occasions and I don't understand why they would be trying to terminate my care there.
She backed down immediately and said she didn't know what was going on and that maybe that wasn't what was happening and she would let me talk to the doctor. Then she told me my heart rate was high. I said I wasn't surprised it was, because coming in her has been extremely stressful recently because I keep getting information about other clinics your office wants to refer me to for transfer. She left hurriedly.
I had a nice conversation with the doctor and he is saying they aren't trying to "get rid of me" there are some things in play though. And I understand all of those things from a position other than looking at it from my own personal healthcare situation. We will figure it out. The good part is at this point the insurance company is working with them now so more people will be looking at it. I hope that's a good thing.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter today wanted to play with the guinea pigs while we had them outside eating grass in the back yard. She was not being kind to them. She wasn't intentionally being unkind to them, she was just wanting to interact with them in a way that I found not safe. Jumping (even gently) on the trampoline with Cheerio, even though he is very understanding, is not okay. I just worry about them. They are so little and can get injured easily. She would be devastated if she hurt one too, which also worries me.
The Big Boy Update: As of tonight, my son is now an orange belt at Code Ninjas. That's a decent accomplishment. He's been working on building his code writing skills for several years now. He started with visual code builders but he's getting into the more complex things now. I'm proud of him.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Not Looking Forward to Tomorrow
Monday, May 8, 2023
What's The Point?
My daughter had choir practice tonight. She was not excited about it, citing it as, "boring." This is a word that is black listed in our house. It gets used, we just give them pushback. There are plenty of things that will keep a bored person not bored for the foreseeable future. What I think my daughter meant was she'd had enough of choir for the week.
She had dress rehearsal on Saturday, concert on Sunday and now another rehearsal on Monday—but this time it's to prepare for their trip to Busch Gardens, and that's a place my daughter wants to go, because there are roller coasters!
And that sparked a conversation with her: what does she go to choir for? Is it the practices where they're learning the songs? Or is she looking forward to the performances? Or something inbetween. It's hard to say practices are boring if you don't like to rehearse for the concerts. But if you aren't going to go to the concerts, are the practices just boring anyway?
She came around to the conclusion that all of the parts are good, just too many days and too much in a row is not good.
The Big Boy Update: For Five Minutes—my son lost screens with his friends for the entire week. We heard him dash across the carpet to find the iPad and take it upstairs. He fell asleep almost immediately after getting it. But that didn't decrease the punishment. He still is unable to weigh the impact of one decision against the result that will happen if he gets caught—and he's caught a lot.