Kansas City made spot #8 in Kiplinger’s The 10 best cities for commuters.

Still don’t believe me? Go drive in Denver during rush hour, then try to come back with your complaints about Kansas City.

*My life has changed since I started the Kansas City commute in 2000. Housing is quite a bit more expensive in Lawrence, gas costs have tripled, toll has increased, and I now have to pick up children. Lawrence doesn’t have a market for my career, and given that, I can see myself moving to Kansas City when we do sell our house in Lawrence. If I can’t convince Mac to leave Kansas to live somewhere completely not like Kansas, which has always been my dream.

I’m still in my pjs. I intend to take a shower after we eat–which I ordered instead of cooking–and change into clean pjs. I played games, read a little bit, and so far, have only worked for 1 hour today. It also helped that I worked from home this week allowing me to get laundry completely caught up.

I know I’ll regret it when I have to make dinner this week due to the lack of my Sunday cooking fest, but I need to reset myself every couple of weeks. Now, I just need to work at not being grumpy because the work didn’t get done.

StuDay is fast approaching, and I don’t know what, if anything, I want to do nor do I feel like spending time planning, and when it falls on a Saturday, people usually have xmas-type parties and plans. So, I’m starting to feel “meh” about it like I usually do around this time.

Meh.

My sinuses have been torturing me lately. I’m out of the good pills as well. Boo for dealing with sinus pain everyday.

I finished a full week of work. It is evident to me that I need to take my glasses with me. It has been awhile since I’ve spend that many hours in a row staring at a monitor, well, three monitors actually. I enjoy being back in KC, especially in my favorite part of KC.

I still haven’t successfully laid out a plan for how I’m going to handle making dinner when I’m going to be out of my house almost 11 hours per day.

The Bad
The timer on my slow cooker is broken, and I hate to toss an otherwise functioning appliance. I don’t want a light timer on it because I need it to stay on warm and not turn off, which is what the timer on the slow cooker should do for me if it worked. It is past a warranty replacement, so I suppose an estimate on a repair is in order. I’ll have to call MarBeck’s and see if they fix Cuisanart’s. Until then, no slow cooker during the week.

There are only so many casserole’s I can eat, but it is a nice option for making ahead and popping in the oven to warm up. I need to find new recipes. It is amazing how many of my casseroles involved grains.

Without grains, the easy sandwich/quesadilla option is out. At least for me. Salads will sustain me for a short time.

I guess my big issue is I get tired of eating the same thing over and over and over. I like variety and trying new recipes. It is going to be interesting to see how I change my cooking style and planning.

As for laundry, well the obvious answer to that is to obtain more clothes. Which I’m going out to do right now.

I start a fulltime job again on November 1st.

Jay started daycare fulltime today. Last Friday, I had our last Mom/Jay day. It was filled with lots of fun activities–going to the toy store, taking him out to the noodle place for mac&cheese, and playing Harry Potter Legos. Ada is out of school today, so we are having our last Mom/Ada day. So far we have visited two playgrounds and went on a bike ride/jog/walk. We are breaking for lunch, then we need to run to the store for a quick errand. After we will stay home and make cards and paint until it is time to get Jay.

I took the car in for an oil change, new tires and general maintenance check. Luckily everything checked out okay, which is good since new tires are expensive enough. I have almost all kid things taken care of except sick care for the kids, although my SIL did offer to help out on days she is available, so that takes a load off. Lawrence is coming up with big amounts of nothing when it comes to taking care of sick kids. Policy keeps kids home at least 1.5 days when we are called to pick them up, and Mac and I do not have enough days off to be able to stay home with them. Honestly, I’m really thinking that I need a nanny. Of course, if the nanny is sick and can’t work, then I have the same problem. I’m going to have to look for options available in Kansas City.

I have the rest of this week kid free. I’m sure part of it will be spent cleaning just to get my world in order before I have to go back to balancing work and keeping it in order. I also need to go back to more advanced meal planning again–a week ahead instead of a few days. I’ve slacked off on meal planning. And I need to start delegating because I don’t care to spend the entire weekend catching up on home stuff that doesn’t get done by anybody else.

I had to go pick up Ada from school because she got sick again. She’s convinced that she just wants to be grumpy and cry and sit on my lap the rest of the day.

Here’s hoping that I get a full working day on Thursday^*.

*Actually, if I can get her to calm down or take a nap, then I can continue onto the rest of my day’s plans.

I’m currently listening to my typing and a few chirping birds. The silence is wonderful.

However, I do have to spend the day working to get a job to pay for them both to be gone all day.

Now, if only I was able to take a successful nap since I couldn’t fall asleep until after 1:00am and was up at 6:00am. You know, one of those types of naps that people claim make them feel better and don’t involve nightmares. I hear it is possible.

At the end of my last contract, I decided to stay home with the kids with a tentative deadline of one year. I don’t regret it. Although I do regret not doing all the things I wanted to do during this last year. It is difficult to actually do things with small children around. Although I did get to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have or missed due to my overpacked work schedule like: Go to Ada’s school birthday party, be a driver for her pumpkin patch trip, and attend her Thanksgiving meal at her school. Be a driver with Jay’s daycare for a nature trip. Enroll Ada in dance class. Take the kids to the lake for lots of playground time, bike riding and trail walking. Take trips to the zoo. Clean out things from my house, which is now easier to keep clean. Get my kitchen floors replaced. Pick up new photography skills. Perfect some bread recipes. I got to play some games! And help my mother sell her stuff for her move. Spend time in Branson with my grandparents. Pick up sick kids and stay at home with them the mandated extra day without that missing work stress or loss of vacation.

My year vacation is almost up. I put Jay back in daycare two days a week starting today. Ada has been signed up for all day school starting in June, although I just started taking advantage of that. I get to start looking for a job. I get to start planning how to handle the about 5 weeks that Ada doesn’t have school so Mac and I aren’t alternating our vacation just to be home with her, and hence never actually get to have a vacation. I get to figure out how to handle sick days on top of that. I really do want to work because the novelty of not working has worn off, and I need more balance outside of the house. I just don’t want to go back to not having balance with my kids due to working so much, like I was doing.

Here’s hoping I find the perfect job!

Long-term vacation items that I have on my plate include:

• Yokohama for lunch on Wednesday. Sushi!
• Thursday stroll downtown with Ada. Sidewalk sale! I’m always working, and have never thought it worth the cost of a vacation day. I get to go this year!
• Painting outside of the house starts tomorrow. Orange! My house is going to look like a Dreamcicle.
• Putting on new front and deck door. Ours are a non-standard size. Joy.
• Pulling all of the weeds from the front and back planters. OMG, it is amazing how the weeds took over in the one week I was in South Dakota.
• Cleaning the house for the party on Saturday. Mac and Charity’s birthday is the 17th!
• Removing all the stuff in my photography room. It was clean once, and at some point, a bunch of junk got moved in there.
• Painting the kid’s bathroom. Probably blue and green. First I need to peel off that terrible wallpaper. I’ll let Ada help paint. That will be fun. Or something.
• Get rid of all age inappropriate toys and non-fitting kids clothes.

There are about 50 other tasks whirling through my head. I need to get them all into Things and organized.

Also on my task is to get Squanto into shape. Well, at least for the time that I have him. He came to stay at our house while I was in SD. I’m going to keep him until I guess I arrange to take him back to KC. He’s a fatty! I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. It didn’t take long for him to bond with me again. He now follows me around everywhere and does his little happy dance when he sees me after I’ve been out of his sight for, oh, 5 minutes.

We only have one problem with Squanto. James DOES NOT WANT. The scenario goes like this:

Squanto’s Version
Lift head to look at Jay. Why is he pointing and screaming? Is he going to give me food? No? Okay, I’m going back to sleep.

Jay’s Version
Dog just looked at me. No!!!! I can see it in his eyes! He’s plotting to attack me, rip open my gut and wear my intestines as a medal of his conquest and a warning to all other 2-year olds!!!!! I’m too young to die!!! WAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Squanto is a good sport, and is taking Jay’s freak-outs with almost no interest at all. This turbulent Squanto-Jay relationship has come in handy for one issue: Jay’s bedtime. I have a terrible time getting Jay to stay in bed. Now, I open the bedroom door, with Squanto right beside me as always, and say to Jay, “If you get out of bed once, I’m letting the dog in the room.” It’s worked beautifully. He stays in bed.

I hope to get some photos of The Squanto soon.