It's GONE

No posts the past two days. I have been VERY busy... All the beige is now gone! Yes, I started to pain the living/dining rooms Friday night after dinner. At 2AM (yes 2AM), I was halfway done with the top color. 

That's before.. one last glimpse of the beige

Picked back up on Saturday morning right around 9AM until I ran out of paint around 1:30PM. then it was off to the Home Depot and a side trip to the grocery store. Yep .. mundane but it had to be done. Picked up the brush again after dinner for the last 3-foot section. And then the OCD bug kicked in and I had to paint all the trim that I had saved for next weekend. Again I was up until 2AM. Yeah I know I am crazy. But this morning I was greeted by a changed room and some sunshine that made it even prettier. The beige is GONE.

I rewarded myself with a trip to the Ikea store to get new sheers that I will be hemming on one  evening this week and a short nap this afternoon. The last bit of this "freshen up" job will be done by the hubby... I discovered that the room has since it the house was built in 1972 been painted various colors : Beige (last to date) , orange (!!) and dark moss green (ewww). How did I find out ? All the wall socket have been painted many times over by previous owners that apparently didn't know about painter's tape and when I removed the plates, I nicked one of the sockets with my screwdriver the various layers suddenly became visible again. Silly me that thought the last (beige) coat was the only one covering the sockets!! No matter,  all the nasty, 30-some year old wall sockets will soon be replaced by brand new one, and new wall plates. I refuse to mess with electricity unless I have absolutely no other choice. 

Somewhere in the middle of all the painting, I managed to watch the 4-men bobsleigh olympic event, to get the laundry done and made sure the house doesn't look like it's been hit by a hurricane so I'm ready to tackle the coming week. 

The only bummer in my weekend was to find out that the check engine light on my dashboard meant a sensor in the engine needed to be replaced... I'm now $500  lighter. Meaning I will have to wait a bit longer to get a SLR and retire my aging digital camera.. again. Mupff!.

Frustrations - Part 2

Day 4 of training. Not so smooth today. The last file is definitely not coming along as the previous ones have been. After some extensive troubleshooting still no go. We will have to figure it out tomorrow. More frustration on the work front. I do not understand why people wallow in mediocrity at work. I want to learn and to get better, more efficient. I want to grow and overcome more difficult challenges. I do no understand people who have the power to make a difference in this kind of attitude actually facilitate it by their actions. Why make any effort to get better at your job when you can get away with being mediocre. It irritates me. And this all contribute I am sure, to comfort the idea that   the work conditions are too lax. Let's wield the stick again. Another rule. Let's tighten the screw for everybody. More frustrations. 

On the feline front, after talking to the vet, it looks like we are back to higher dose of steroids until we figure out what  causes the allergic reactions, or what food doesn't. Our cat is not the sharpest tool in the shed but after 5 weeks she got the pill routine spotted. It is getting harder to get a hold of her to deliver the medication she needs. So far we have been lucky and she doesn't fight back too hard. Hopefully we will continue to dodge bites and scratches until the pills are no longer needed. Murpff!!

On the bright side, Anna came for dinner tonight and we had a good time. And the "Canadian Connection" found me a pair of the super cute and totally sold out Maple Leaf olympic red mittens. Yay! for Diane. 

Frustrations

Day 3 of training. My friend Anna and I got this module down now. We matched the output file we were given as practice. Yay! More practice exercises tomorrow with a slightly trickier output file but I'm pretty sure we can get it done. Good news! It's official. I'm going one week in Scottsdale AZ next month. I'm looking forward to the field experience and also the hands on training on a really interesting new product. 

On the house front, a frustrating day. We share our house with two fur balls of the feline species. We adopted them from a shelter in 2002. Up to the arrival of our little miss in 2006, things were going great. Our furry friends were happy and so were we aside from few quirky habits. But things have been slowly degrading. There has been some jealous/territorial behaviors. Then one of our cats started to have urinary problems. We had to switch her diet  several times to get that issue under control. But we are now finding ourselves in a situation were it is very complicated to accommodate the needs of our furry friends. One cat needs a special food, and the other one is having allergic reactions to said special food, and since the first big flare up last month, pretty much any foods we have tried are causing more allergies flare ups. 

We have yet to find a solution that will have both cats healthy and happy and the humans of the house sane. It's been over a month now that things have gone from manageable to downright distressing. Imagine having to give pills daily to a cat for 5 weeks with no clear end in sight, go on a wild good chase for the miracle pet food , not knowing which ingredient is causing the allergies. I have had cats in my home as far as my memories go but this is proving to be a bit too much. Frustration, stress are also affecting  the family as a whole. In fact, I'm considering whether to ever get another pet (other than a goldfish) after our current housemates go to chase mice in cats' heaven. I hope we can find a good nutrition option that will work for both cats with the help of our vet. If not we will be forced to find a new home for one of the two. Not an easy task... As much as I hate the current situation, I love our fuzzballs. *sigh*

Easy as (Apple) pie

Day 2 of training and things are starting to click into place in my head. I always thought this module had to be awfully convoluted when I poked around the documentation. It turns out the documentations makes it look much harder than it actually is. For the most part, it is  all about proper formatting: following the template is the key. Of course there are tricks to learn, and this hands on training is the best way to integrate new concepts. Not quite as easy as pie, but very manageable. Tomorrow I am going to spend the time to write it all down in my own words, the one method I have found works best for me to memorize new stuff rapidly. And I mean write, not type. For some reason, taking typed notes just doesn't work as well for me. I also found out that one of the technical solutions I wrote last week got an installer out of trouble. That's always nice to get that type of feedback!. 

After work, I headed to the local Apple Store to see what could be done about the camera issue ( see my previous post). Apple is living up to its reputation of great customer service. Not only my iPhone was replaced immediately after I explained the problem and that the device troubleshooting had been done already, but I also received help every step of the way. Yes, easy as pie. Apple Customer Service is awesome: I was able to backup all my data while the technician was getting a new device from the storeroom, given the time to restore to the new phone, after which the old one was wiped of all data right in front of me. The technician answered all my questions, even the side questions about resolving a problem with the latch of my MacBook without spending the $300 the repair would cost if done by the Apple Store. Oh and yes I tested the camera on the new phone. No yellow to report. Happy customer, I will give a 5 star review to my service call and store appointment.

I'm seeing yellow

I have mentioned it before, I love my iPhone. It's not only sleep and stylish, it is also such an awesome piece of technology. It's my shopping list, music player, calculator, agenda, menu manager, won't be late or forget an appointment, can keep kid entertained quietly during a wedding ceremony, web browser of extreme situations (see my post), capture moments, notepad, gamepad, find that restaurant/gas station, convert metrics to us and the other way round device. Oh and I can also use it to make phone calls. 


Anyway, it's not my first smart phone, I used to have a Samsung BlackJack II. I liked the BlackJack as a phone. Not so much as a smart phone. I also never found much use for the integrated camera that really didn't have a great resolution and a funny pink hue. Anyway, a couple of days ago I took some pictures of the snowbanks in the parking lot at work with my iPhone. And what I had suspected to be just a problem of indoor lighting turns out to be an actual camera problem: all my iPhone pictures have a funny yellow hue. Gaaack ! not again !! 

See on the right side, the original picture downloaded from the phone and below the same one after color correction. 

Thankfully, hubby being a firm believer some items are worthy of a warranty extension, both my iPhone and his were purchased with the Apple extended protection plan. So I call the Apple iPhone support line. The tech walks me trough making a full backup of my phone and my iTunes purchases, followed by a complete device reset. Re-tested after, still yellow. No matter. My tech immediately books me an appointment at the nearest Apple Store for tomorrow and sends me an email to confirm the appointment. Easy!! Apple's customer support is the bomb. 


Work wise, after last week's madness, this week won't be nearly as intense: I'm training on an optional software module for the product I support and we will be doing 3 deployment  during the week. That should cover the bases and then some. A welcome change of pace. I also received confirmation I will go to Scottsdale AZ next month on a customer's site for the installation of another optional module. I can think of worse places to go than Arizona in March. 


On the home front, another victory for Mommy. The young lady of the house ate the home made veggie (tomato, potatoes and chicken broth) soup, followed by applesauce, half a banana and a glass of milk. Pretty healthy and balanced compared to most of her meals. Slowly but surely we are making progress. I'm hoping to get her interested with fresh fruit in the sprint and summer. I think more trips to our favorite farm to pick fresh fruit and vegetables may just do the trick. Bonus for mom and dad, our visits to the farm are usually followed by a solid nap: countryside is exhausting when you are running 6 times the actual distance just because you are 3 and it's fun to run.

An almost day...

On my list of the day : bake some cookies. I was just going to go for plain chocolate chip cookies but then Anna (one of the installers I support) asked about the sugar cookies I had baked for Christmas. On instead I ended up baking a test batch for Easter themed cookies. As my current occupation doesn't really reflect, I went to a Hotel School in Switzerland. Of course part of the training included cooking and baking. As it turns out, I am a instinctive cook, rarely using recipes, but I am a laborious baker. Backing is like chemistry, when you don't follow the steps and quantities you usually end up with something else and often totally unusable outcome. Making sugar cookies for this past Christmas was an adventure. It was my first experience icing cookies. I must say the outcome was good however lacking the technical expertise to make it look 'Professional". This time around the result is much prettier. 

 The icing is shiny and smooth, covering more evenly, the coloring result is also much better. Almost there. Hopefully the next batch will be the one. I've done some testing with various sprinkles which I'm not going to to again. I think I will go rather for a multicolored pattern.

In the almost department, the tax return. Almost. I would have filed today except I could not put my hands on one of the donation receipts. I know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow evening.Murpff! Also almost caught up in sleep. Yay! 

In the not so almost department, my daughter's dinner. I got a great idea this afternoon. The young lady loves chicken nuggets. Ok it's got proteins. But when you look at the nutrition fact on the packaging it's generally horrible food. I told myself I could do better and this is what I whipped together : ground turkey breast meat, mixed with eggs and breadcrumbs, and made to look like chicken nuggets by doing small patties also covered in bread crumbs and oven backed to make it lean and healthy. Well my daughter scarfed it down. Take that Ronald McDonald. Mommy 1 - Fast food 0 on this one. 

Overdue list

After a friday from hell at least one good things to finish the workweek. Shari, my work mate and friend, had her birthday bash, at a karaoke bar. Ouch my ears are still hurting from the off key singing I was exposed to .. apparently when you are drunk it doesn't sound quite as bad. I didn't stay very long but it was good to relax and let steam blow off. Once back home, kissed the hubby good night, I crashed in bed, finally catching on very overdue sleep. Thankfully the phone stayed quiet and I woke up when the youngin' decided she needed her morning cuddle with mom. I decided I had earned a lazy morning. When I finally got up it was more brunch than breakfast time. 

After that it was time to get in gear for the rest of the day. Other overdue items this week: the whole house, especially the kitchen. De-clutter, scrub the floor and counters, dishes, dust, it all shines now. Glad the oven cleans itself though. That too was way overdue. In and there, intermissions for the usual laundry, the evening came way too fast. 

I'm afraid the dining/living room paint will have to wait a bit longer. The sample patches bother my OCD nerve but there is only so much you can do everyday and still  keep your sanity. There is another overdue thing higher on my list anyway: Taxes. It's almost done now,  I only have to set aside an hour of quiet tomorrow and it will be behind me. 

One downer today: My mom will not be visiting this year. Since I have moved in the US, 8 years ago, my mom has visited almost every year. She even came twice the year my little one was born. Her visits are my breath of fresh (and french) air. This is going to be a very long year even with our weekly video conferences (the internet is a wonderful thing when your family is far away). In 2011, we are going to Europe for sure and are already saving money and vacation days for it. 18 months. Crap. 

Murphy's Law

It had to be. After yesterday's disaster, another ugly day at work. Too exhausted to go over the details.

Jinxed

Obviously this week was going way too good. It's always when you start believing it's going to be easy and  smooth that things start going south. In this case way south. It's past midnight and I'm still working on the same issue since 1pm apart from a break between 6pm and 9pm. Not to bore everybody with all the gory ahem sorry I meant geeky details but in short this is a database upgrade gone bad. Followed by a restore job gone bad. And another one failed as well. Now on restore number 3... This is going to be a long night. Unfortunately I'm not very versed into backup and restore intricacies. I'm just a database administrator. So if the restore job is not good, then I can't do my  job.. so here I am .. waiting for round 3 of restore to complete. Another 15 minutes to go. Help !! It's past my bedtime and my back hurts. Thank god for the calming virtues of chocolate

Insert intermission here. 

It is now 1AM and after the 3rd restore job completed the database is now recovered however the application layer is still not operational. Time to call the big guns, that would be the L3 technician on call. I'm sure whoever it is, is going to love me for my phone call. Of course they never pickup the phone so voicemail it is. I. It's getting harder to keep my eyes open. I'm obviously underpaid and now too tired to think straight. Can't wait for the call back. I can tell now how stress is one of the big factors for my back pain. Despite the medications, it is getting very painful now. And no sleep in sight. I don't think that chocolate can help at this point. 

Come on phone .. ring already. 

Finally ... 1:30 AM .. handed the disaster over to L3 support. Suddenly my back hurts just a bit less. Hoping to catch some sleep now. My life is just that awesome sometimes :D


4AM ... big guns could not fix the application problem. Handing the baby back to the upgrade tech to hopefully not fail this time and fix the application issue at the same time.

Just a bit of a geek

OK, I am a complete geek. I admit it. The most exciting thing in my day was when Mitch, administrator of the Global Technical Services gave me a hand-me-down server. By no mean is it a top of the line server, and it is also fairly old. But it definitely is a step up from the two old beaters that my team uses for testing and storage. More than double the disk, plenty of RAM, this is awesome. There is a little bit of work involved before being able to use it of course. The odds of having to beg for the usage of another server for a few tests are going way down low. 
More fun ahead with installing the OS, which will be the task of our resident network installer, and then the piece the resistance, the Oracle database and importing our test environments. Waaaaay cool. Waaaay geeky. Even more geeky, the server needs to be named. In keeping with our other servers, R2D2 and C3PO (seeing the theme here ?? ), here are the name suggestions for our new acquisition: 
Yoda, Jabba, Vader, Chewie, Obiwan. The polls are open and the team will decide tomorrow. :)

On the not so geeky side of things, this was another cold but beautiful day in MD. Still all around huge snow piles are making things a bit more "interesting" than usual especially at intersections without traffic lights. However, on my way back home, there was a noticeable shrinkage in the areas exposed to the afternoon sun. All traffic lanes are now fully cleared and it looks like some more sidewalks are now plowed. Still not school for the young lady of the house though as all half day programs are still suspended until at least Monday. Two full weeks without school!!. Looks more and more like the summer school program will be on for us. 

Back to the colors on the dining room wall, the contenders are **DRUM ROLL** : "Pineapple Fizz" and "Eggnog". Hubby says he cannot tell the difference between the two, but I can. Pineapple it is. Together with "Lemon Pound Cake" which is the color under the chair rail and "Swiss Coffee" for the trim, sounds good enough to eat, doesn't it ? How appropriate for the dining/living room. I can't wait to get the paint and cover all that ugly beige. Yes !!! Shopping list for the project: Paint, drop cloth, masking tape.

Fat Tuesday

Busy day! As it turns out it's my week to be filling the on-call duties. So the day started around 1am by a distress call from one of the company's installers. Thankfully, it was  an easy fix. I didn't even have to get out of bed. Of course the hubby was not exactly pleased... took his pillows and went to camp out in the guest bedroom. For a change, I managed to go back to sleep. I'm sure that the lack of back pain helped as well. So when time came to really get up it was not quite as hard as my last on-call week. Yippee!!. 

Ok I still had to go to work. Made a few happy people with some of the Valentine's cookies baked on Sunday. 2 emergency calls and cup of coffee later it was already lunchtime. I like when days go by so fast. It means that it's busy and my team and I make good things happen for our installers. Rewarding. Lunch with my boss was nice too. I took some pictures of the walls of snow in the parking lot, scary... Yes it's my boss standing in front of the pile. Afternoon was quiet and I was able to catch up on some long overdue stuff. Like writing technical solutions. And that's sometime in the afternoon that I finally realized it's one of my favorite days in the year:  Fat Tuesday.. or rather Mardi Gras. 

Somewhere in there, I had to squeeze another doctor's appointment, a visit to Home Depot (gotta get a color picked for the dining room still) and a few more odds and ends. I still had to do something about Mardi Gras.Ahh Mardi Gras. When I was a child and even as a teenager, it meant going to school in dress up clothes, eat candy and chocolate. And of course the crepes!! I love crepes. Sweet or savory. So tonight on the way home, I had no other choice than to stop at the grocery store and get some eggs. Tonight everybody was happy to dig in, including my favorite picky eater :) 

Other news on the home front, the new lock got delivered, Yay!! And the hubby already installed it, double Yay!! So I won;t have to be worried about being stuck outside. Oh and I have my own override gizmo too. Lastly, after diner, I slapped a patch of each of the sample colors I picked on the dining room wall for us to look at in the daylight tomorrow. Oh and we won't get snow after all. Or maybe just a dusting. A pretty good day. Hoping for more of the same for the rest of the week. 

Cabin fever

Today I got stuck at home. No daycare !! And with the wonderful weather conditions, no available backup plans. Thankfully my awesome boss doesn't mind that I work remote in those situations. He prefers having me available rather than taking a day off. I was kind of hoping for some fresh air for lunch time but that didn't happen either. The new lock hasn't showed up yet and I was worried I might get stuck outside again, with my daughter in tow and no neighbors to seek refuge at. On top of it, my kid decided to be a brat right around lunch so she was in time out anyway. 

Apparently the lock will finally be delivered tomorrow. That is if the snow expected for tomorrow allows for the delivery truck to get to my door. Yes more snow. Several inches. More shoveling ahead. More ice after. Most of the parking lot in front of my house resembles a skating rink by now... a really nasty bumpy skating rink... Zamboni anyone?  
Actually I slipped and barely avoided landing on my behind several times while delivering heart shaped cookies to my neighbors yesterday. I hate Phil the groundhog and his shadow. Last year we had snow the last weekend of March. I can't do another 6 weeks of this! On top of that, I have heartburn and it's my on-call week. Mpffft. 


I really can't wait for spring. I want sunshine, longer days and pretty flowers. I want to be able to walk bare foot. I want to be outside in t-shirts instead of bundled up in a bomber jacket no matter how cool it looks. Cabin fever.. that's what I have. No prescription for that except BETTER WEATHER.

V-Day

OK, my guy is not much into the romantic stuff. At all. He is into geeky things. So I decided to do stuff with my daughter. First we had a M&Ms breakfast. It is messy but fun ! M&Ms do melt... But I really don't mind when I see my baby so happy . Then there was the coffee. accident. Jumping on the bed when there is a cup of coffee close by = unplanned laundry. 

Stripped the bed linens. And off to the basement again. I probably jinxed myself last night when I said all the laundry was done . Oh well. Slipping in fresh sheets tonight was a nice touch. 

After that the paint bug  took over. I HAD to paint the trim in the dining room. The old color looked so uninspiring and tired. Then the hubby came by and said we should replace the baseboard and the chair rail entirely. OK so I wasted my time painting. Hmm maybe not. Knowing how some of our house projects have dragged on for weeks, this may prove to be be a long haul temporary thing.  It already looks so much better than yesterday :D.

OK the beige still has to go. Really. I was itching to go to Home Depot but I decided it was more important to bake cookies with my young assistant cook. 

Off to the kitchen. My little one was so happy to pour the ingredients in the mixing bowl and see how butter, sugar, flour and eggs combine in dough. She insisted the cookies should be pink so a few drops of food coloring later, we had pink dough. She, of course, had to taste the result. Yum!! Then she helped making heart and butterfly shaped cookies and to decorate them with M&Ms, She didn't even poach that many in the process.  

See our productions below

Once baked we promptly distributed some around the neighborhood. 

Oh and I treated myself with a looooong hot bubble bath without interruption !! Yay! Oops I forgot about finishing the taxes. I still got plenty of time though so I don't even feel bad. 

When everything goes as planned

So yesterday I had the firm intention to do as little as possible beyond laundry and a bit of house cleaning this weekend. I was doing great until about noon today. Then, I pushed the dining room table to be able to sweep. That's when everything changed. On the dining room wall, a couple of stains I cannot scrub off because it's a flat finish paint had been nagging me for months. 

For months, my OCD devil keep whispering to me: "Come on, you know you want to fix that", "This is ugly, it MUST be taken care of". For months I kept the OCD devil in check because of my terrible back pain. "Not a good idea with a bad back", "Not today, I'm so tired".  So I ignored the stains. But something has changed. I went to the doctor's about that back pain. And by the miracle of prescription medications, the pain is gone, barely a sore spot now. And I have been sleeping so much better lately that the same number of hours make me feel more refreshed in the morning. 

So this morning there was no pain, the soreness from the snow shoveling all but gone, and I felt I had some energy even before my first cup of coffee. Back to the dining room table and the sweeping. I pushed that table. And the stains were screaming "Neeener Neener". And the OCD devil "Look at those ugly stains, DO SOMETHING ALREADY". OK. Off to the basement. I know there is a bit of that paint color on one of the shelves downstairs. Yep. There was some paint left. Except the bucket was not properly sealed and it's all dried up now. Mpff! Gotta go to Home Depot for those stupid stains!

I look again at the shelves. There are a bunch of buckets of paint there, left overs from various house projects. Let's see what would look nice in the dining room. This room is the first one we repainted when we bought this house 5 years ago. We were broke so we only painted above the chair rail once the ugly wallpaper was gone. A color matching the paint below the chair rail. The result: beige + beige (OK technically it's "Camel" and Vanilla Custard" on the Behr color palette...) . I am not a beige person. I'm a colors person. My husband usually likes tamer colors than I do. But sometimes he is a bit more daring. He is the one that picked the color for our bedroom: "Red Jalapeño". 

For almost 2 years, we have been trying to decide which color to repaint the dining room/living room. And each time, it stopped at looking at paint chips. Can't agree on this one. Well now it is TIME. I'm deciding. Grabbed a bucket of "Lemon Pound Cake" paint, roller, and brush. March ! By the time the hubby pokes his head downstairs, I've painted the stains away.. and most of the north wall of the dining room. And miracle, he likes it. Great. 


Ahem .. not so great actually. Because it does not work very well with the color of the trim, and exceptionally badly with the beige above the chair rail. Time for some more paint chips. And I thought I would avoid a trip to Home Depot. Bad OCD devil!!!

Return to normal .. almost

After this crazy past week today was a normal day. The roads were in much better shape and if you set aside the snow mounds that impair visibility at most intersections and a few snow/ice/slush patches. It was kinda nice to sit down at my desk, with all the little things of the regular work routine, and the accessories that make everything smoother: Second monitor, full sized keyboard and ergonomic mouse, telephone with headset, and last but not least all the friends that make the day go by faster and their brains to pick and help get issues resolved. 

At lunch, rather than getting lunch with the crew, I went to buy an extra shovel and some ice melt (weather forecast does say more snow Monday night :( and we are running low on supplies). A quiet afternoon followed, nothing on fire, the case load on low, a good friday except we were all stiff and sore from all the shoveling. Mind you, we lack mechanical snow removal equipment since this area only gets 15-20 inches per winter. After an uneventful commute back home, time for some more digging. Weekend is laundry time, so to use the dryer I need to dig out the dryer vent. Murpf ! But I have 2 load out of the way already.. 3 more to go. 

Now enjoying the olympic games opening ceremony, while chatting on IM with a Canadian friend. It's very beautiful, very serene with just enough zing to keep me awake. Exactly what I need tonight.This poor body needs some rest. This poor brain needs some rest too. I need to make time to treat myself with a bubble bath (sans kid for a change).

So here are the final plans for the weekend: laundry, taxes, a bit of cleaning, a lot of sleep and a whole lot of not much. 

Such a smart kid!

Today the office was open with liberal leave and I worked from home again. My hubby started digging our cars out and I helped him out during lunch and after the workday was over. At the end of the afternoon both cars were freed from the snow and ice. Did a quick inventory of the food supplies and made a shopping list for my hubby who had offered to take care of replenishing the groceries. Nothing extraordinary until the s**t hit the fan in spectacular fashion. 

A little over a year ago we replaced the front door of our house with a energy efficient (and draft free) door and decided to go keyless: We got a all in one lock and deadbolt keypad technology marvel. No key! Well not unless you count the little override gizmo that came with the lock. No key is cool... no keys is awesome, no fumbling for keys when you get home arms loaded with laptop bag, groceries or say your 3-year old kid kicking and screaming because she doesn't want to go home... See where I'm going ? 

As my hubby was leaving to go to the store I went out without a coat to grab some soft drinks from the trunk of my car since I was going to get right back inside. The hubby locked the door behind him out of habit. Kid is watching a movie in the living room. I grab the drinks, turn around, get to the door, punch the code and push the handle, the door doesn't unlock. No matter i thought, this happened a couple of times, I'll reset the lock position and punch my code again. And again. And again. Try 5, I'm getting nervous. Hubby has been gone a few minutes only, I grab my cell phone out of my pocket and call him. Voicemail ! Ack!

Miracle though: I look around and notice my hubby got stuck on the unusually narrow access road by another car trying to do a U-Turn. I know he's got the override gizmo on his key ring. I just got to get to him before he gets un-stuck. So I walk as fast as I can on the ice/snow/slush mix that the parking lot/access road is covered with. Thankfully, hubby sees me and wait for me, hands me his keys and drives off. I turn around, get the the front door, try the keypad once more for good measure ... still nothing. Time to override the lock. I stick the gizmo in there, turn it, push the handle down. Nothing. Now my daughter is on the other side of the door calling me. PANIC MODE ! My 3-year old is locked inside the house and I'm locked out on the front porch, with 25F out and no coat. Not good at all. 

Maybe I'm not maneuvering the gizmo properly. After all it's the first time I had to use it. Cell phone, call the hubby again. Voicemail. Wait 2 minutes. Voicemail again. Now I'm starting to suspect he left the house without his phone. Wouldn't be the first time *sigh*. Little voice behind the door "Mama". Breathe in. Keep cool. What to do next ? Thanking myself for insisting on getting an iPhone, I lookup the lock's manufacturer on the internet and call them. I quickly explain the situation and tell them I'm not able to open the lock with the keypad or the override tool. They walk me through a couple of procedures - no luck. The lock is totally jammed! PAAAAAAAANIIIICCCCC!!!!!!!!! I've been out there almost 20 minutes now! I'm not really noticing the cold though.  The guy on the phone tells me I should break a window to get in then board it up with plywood for the night. Woot! It's below freezing and the temperature will dip under 15F overnight (Did I mention the manufacturer is in California - duh). This is NOT an acceptable solution.

My next door neighbor, Al, who is out shoveling and happens to be a policeman notices something is not quite right. He walks up to me and while still on the phone with the lock's manufacturer who is telling me there is yet another way to open the lock other but a locksmith has to do it, I quickly explain the situation to Al. I need a locksmith NOW. Al runs back to his house to lookup one. "Mamaaaaa!"

Now is the time to explain a very import detail. We are a bilingual household. My mother tongue is French and I speak exclusively French to my daughter. So she is learning French and English at the same time. Side effect: she speaks both at the level of a 2-year old rather than a 3-year old. Communication is a daily challenge. I'm not too sure of how much she actually understands versus what the figures out by context. As it turns out, my kid is much smarter than I give her credit for. And I know she is very smart. 

So I'm there on one side of the door, and she is on the other side. Suddenly I think kitchen window... it's on the front of the house, no matter the heaps of snow in the front yard. I can get there. And if I can get my daughter in front of the window maybe I can get her to open it. There I am in front of the window, calling my daughter and knocking. And she gets to the window. "MAAAMAAA!!!". As calmly as I can, I show her the window latch and tell her to open. She understands the idea and started pulling on the latch. Halfway. I insist on it,  showing her again that she needs to lift the lever all the way up. At last the latch is open!. Now I got to get the window screen out of the way. Too tight a fit to do it without damage. Well too bad for the screen. I grab my husband's key ring and tear the screen open, at last I have enough grip to yank it out of the frame, And I'm now able to slide the window open.  All I have to figure out is how to get in. It's kinda high up and narrow, and there is all this snow in the way.

Al is back from next door. Gotta love a 6-foot tall neighbor that is in the force and in shape. For Al, climbing there is no challenge. He give me a leg up and my baby girl can sob in my arms.. and I can break down too. Al is the best! Al rocks!! I'm finally feeling the cold. 45 minutes. I'm exhausted. It's over. Well almost. I call back the lock's manufacturer. He's overnighting a replacement of a newer model. As I hang up with the guy, my hubby walks in. Now I can melt down. I didn't cook diner. We ordered pizza. Al and my baby girl are the best :) 

 Al, the hero of the day

Enough with the white stuff already !

It's official, the record of the most snow accumulation for one winter season in the area, was broken today. Over 75 inches  (1.90m) recorded at BWI airport and 79.4 inches (that's 2 meters) in Columbia MD. I grew up in the south of France where snow is an once in 2-3 winters event. Not getting used to this... nor do I want to. 
To have an idea of how much snow I'm talking about check this out: Snow timelapse and the local weather report

On the plus side shoveling is excellent exercise. Except it is really not fun at all in blizzard conditions like today's. This afternoon we tried to start the big dig again, thinking it would be smart to get started before sundown when the temperature dips even lower. The wind was making our efforts laughable. Half of each load was flying right back where we didn't want it. Wait a minute.. I didn't want ANY of it. Hmm that may be an early symptom of cabin fever. Anyway, after 45 minutes of complete misery, we gave up. Almost 10PM now and the wind is still going strong. I hope it dies down during the night. It will be rough enough to plow in below freezing temperatures. We don't need the wind chill to make it worse. 

Right now odds are not good for a safe commute to work. Call me crazy but I value my life too much to venture in pitiful road conditions for anything less than a dire emergency. Considering just taking the day off... The digging is already a job by itself.  Will re-evaluate in the morning. 

To end my day on a positive note, my daughter was awesome today. She played quietly even though she has been stuck indoors for days. One minor meltdown - quickly addressed by daddy. She even ate dinner, even though it was something new and not on her "acceptable foods" list. We ended the day cuddling and that felt great. Once again she saved the day :) 

State of emergency

Yesterday the state of Maryland was under state of emergency due to the exceptional snowfall . Like many other in the area, I was snowed in. 300 yards away from the somewhat plowed street and the access road buried under 3 to 4 foot of snow. My options to go to work were to walk (a 6 miles/2-hour option in ideal conditions and oh yeah we are in the US so most of the roads do not have a side walk and it would not have mattered anyway because who would care about plowing the sidewalk, nobody walks in the US right ?) or to find a ride ( imagine the odds of getting a taxi or to convince a coworker to give me a ride on a day like this in a place that last has seen this much snow over 50 years ago). So I whipped out my laptop and worked from home. 

Yesterday, It took the contractor until 4PM to cut a path through from the street to my house and this morning, I was able to get to work. Most of my commute was on a layer of snow rather than bare pavement with quite a few ice patches. I got quite the scare a few times seeing other cars dangerously swerve and barely avoiding having an accident. Not exactly ideal. And apparently much better than yesterday. Here are the remarks posted by some of my colleagues about their trip to work yesterday : 

 "What a stupid idea it was to open the office today. I nearly killed myself on 100 about 3 times when the right lane would randomly disappear."

"Slid through Pointer Ridge, then almost blew through the intersection for 301 even though I was going about 7 mph I couldn't stop! How is it possible there is still so much snow on a major road? WTF? So, I came home"

So I was really shocked to find out that my company is looking into docking 1 day of vacation from anyone that did not make it in the office yesterday, regardless of whether they worked from home or not. Not exactly a motivational move, and also not the first time something of this sort happens. I've never worked for a company where wielding the stick seems to be the preferred method to manage the employees before. Even in this gloomy economic climate, I'm debating what to do about my job. 

And there comes the cherry on the cake: 

New round of snowfall started this afternoon and we are expecting another 8 to 20 inches depending on which forecast you believe in. Left work at 5:15 PM, got home at 6:30PM (yes for just 6 miles). Found on my front porch, a letter from the HOA board of directors that made me mad. In a nutshell it said that since our snow removal contractor doesn't have equipment to handle such a heavy snowfall (nor did he get in gear soon enough to rent it ahead of time so they were all gone to people that have better planning skills), we should only be piling snow in our front yard and other grass areas (we already have piled it 6 to 10 foot high) because really we shouldn't put any in the parking lot. What a bunch of BS. The HOA board of directors hired this contractor rather than a bigger company not because of the cost but because the smaller contractor made landscaping prettier. Frankly I don't care whether the 3 patches of grass we call common grounds are not perfectly groomed. I'd much rather not have to break my back with snow removal because of the HOA's contractor has inappropriate equipment. Heck I'd happily pay extra not to have to deal with this situation anymore. 

Done venting for the day :) 

On the plus side, I worked most of the day with a very nice customer and my daughter ate meat tonight. And it wasn't even that difficult to convince her to try. That kinda offset an otherwise crappy day. 

Yes for real stuff !

Interesting day for 3 reasons: 

Firstly, the snow removal contractor finally showed up today with the proper gear. After 3 days we are finally un-buried ! Our neighbors 2 doors down and farther away from the main street aren't so lucky. The snow removal effort has not yet freed their vehicles from the snowpack. I expect the rest to be done tomorrow, just in time for the next announced snow event. We are expecting another 16 to 20 inches between tomorrow evening and Wednesday night. What an exceptionally crappy winter!

The sidewalk is finally "walkable" and the walkway to my house is de-iced

But what an exceptionally great neighborhood too. That's the second part. Everybody was on deck helping those that needed it the most. Very cool! I love my neighbors. We have a wonderful synergy going on: every one is happy to use their professional skill to help the neighbors. And when the snow hits, the brawn. 

My neighbors taking a well deserved break

Lastly, and that is the coolest part of my day, my beloved daughter did eat her bowl of soup. Veggie soup, home made by mommy mind you! A small victory over the peanut butter on toast and the fries. Ok it was carrots soup, so not green. But it was veggies, real veggies, real food !!   A small victory in a year long battle but still: Hoooray !! That really made my day.