Busy as a one armed paper hanger

I have been going and going since Monday. Had to do grocery shopping Tuesday and run around paying bills.
Today I had lunch with my youngest tween daughter. She sits across from 3 boys and next to her 2 best friends. I had no idea that boys could talk about such weird things.
The conversations went from where they want to go to college. One boy said he wanted to go to another country for college and for the others to guess where it was. His buddy said "Is it the International School for Primates?" This caused huge laughter and for the monitor to come over. Then it changed to can a cow give birth to a pregnant calf? Then to could a woman be pregnant with a pregnant baby? And then finally to a talk about the movie Hellboy and the character with the little arm and huge rock arm. It was VERY interesting.

Oldest daughter has a doctors appointment tomorrow. She is still spacing out in class and forgetting to do homework or getting distracted while doing classwork. I am going to talk to the doctor about what other alternatives we have. I really don't want to up her meds again. The school has been really good about helping her but I am going to see if they have a tutoring program for her.

My husband has gone back to school to finish getting some of his tech certifications. Mainly his Cisco certs and his Microsoft certs. He has over 10 years experience between the military and civilian, but has always lacked the certs. His job is really irritating him lately. More than usual. He's been there 5 years, has gotten pretty good raises, but it is him progressing in the company that has been lacking. He's been promised promotions by the owner and others, only to be shut out when they hire someone else and then expect him to train them. He is really good at his job. Too good sometimes. Good to the point to where they don't want to promote him to another position because they will lose his hands on skills.
So he has been slowly putting out some feelers to see what is out there. We really would like to move somewhere warmer, some place that doesn't have a snowy winter. I just don't like to see him being taken advantage of like he is at his job. He comes home ticked off because of someone who was promoted above him screwed something up that he had to clean up. In his job, they host websites and host servers. Like major companies. He gets to build the servers to host websites. He makes sure they don't go down. And if they have sensative data that it is secure. It is almost a 24/7 job. Very draining on him and us.
Know of any good systems administrator jobs? I can send you a resume.

Hi. My name is Procrastination.

I swear I mean to keep up with this, but this past week and the few days before it have been so busy and overwhelming. By the time I got around to even thinking about typing up a blog, I was 1) Too tired to care
2) The tween terrors were home and demanding attention and being nuisances of themselves
Or 3) I had to go clean something.

We've started having issues with OldestTween. She was diagnosed with ADD last school year. She started on meds and was doing great for the rest of the year, pulled up all her grades to A's and B's. Now come this school year, her grades started off good, but are now either close to failing or outright failing.
I talked to all her teachers, then took her back to the doctor, she upped her meds slightly, then I made a meeting with all her teachers and her counselor. Something had to be done before she failed 6th grade and ended up in the same grade as her sister.
So her teachers all tell me she is a joy to have in class, that she is very very quiet. SO quiet that you would only know she was there if you called on her.
Want to know what the problem is?
She isn't turning in homework. She gets a big fat ZERO for all the assignments she doesn't turn in.
I felt like such a colossal failure as a mom then. I mean homework, that stuff you do at home! Something that a mom and dad are supposed to oversee. I must have seemed like a nut as I stumbled over words trying to explain that I check her agenda every day, that I ask if she did her homework. Always getting a yes from her. She does do it, I watch her do it. But there are times she forgets it at school or forgets the textbooks she needs. She knows we have the rule that she is old enough to be responsible for her homework, that it is her job not mine to get it together, remember her books, etc...
I even started questioning that. Asking the teachers if I should be on top of her more. I was so relieved when they told me that I was doing it right. That she is old enough to do her own work without an adult reminding her constantly.
So they did put her on a 504 plan. She gets to go to her locker 15 minutes before school is dismissed to get her books to bring home. And instead of a different binder for each subjects homework, she has one. And she can turn in everything to one of her teachers instead of turning it in to each individual teacher.

We are still struggling. Like last night, she has had all weekend long to do 2 math worksheets, she did part of them, but then come last night I checked and she had only done half of one. And I just lost it. We had a her listening, me yelling session. I was just at my end of trying to get her to take responsibility for her own actions, for her homework. I told her if she didn't do her homework, including all of the missing assignments and bring up her grades to at least a C in everything, that tumbling would be taken away and she would owe me the money it cost to enroll her.
But if she did bring up her grades, I would add cheerleading to her after school activity.

I am really hoping that she can turn this around NOW and not later, because school just gets harder.

Between this and her going through the I am a almost teenager and know everything I am either going to go bald or grey.

Busy busy busy

I honestly do mean to keep up with this blog. It is one of my goals to blog at least twice a week. The girls are back in school. OldestTween is doing after school activites, YoungestTween is just busy all the time.
OldestTween has ADD, only been diagnosed since the first of the year. She brought up her grades from Ds & Fs to As & Bs. But since she started the new middle school, she has started having problems, not turning in homework on time, forgetting books and assignments at school. So today we are off to the doctor to see what we need to do. The school is acting so-so on the matter. Her teachers all love her, say she is the most polite student they have ever had, she is a joy to have in class. Right now, she has a D in Math and Communication Arts. School has only been in session since August. Talk about exhausting, trying to get her to do homework after school, help around the house. It is all drama constantly. I'm about to pull my hair out!

And I have been just exhausted lately. Just tired. I've started taking an iron pill and some ginko biloba to help my memory. Don't tell me that I am just getting old?! I'm only going to be 32 next week. And in my book that is not old.
I think I need a day off. Away from the drama of 2 tweens fighting over who took whose clothes, brush and jewelry, and doing the mounds of laundry that seem to mulitply overnight.