All Hallows Eve…

November 1, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 5 Comments

The night when the veil between worlds is the thinnest, when ghosts and ghouls, pumpkins and skeletons, Queens and Batmen, wander the earthly realm in search of offerings of sugar. This year all the members of our family were up for the evening candy-fest and we hit my parents neighborhood for good treats and their neighbors haunted tricks.

First we carved pumpkins:

Daddy and Monkey showoff thier handiwork — Daddy and Monkey showoff their handiwork

Then we ran the kids through the park in their All Hallow’s finery. (Nana made Monkey the most amazing cloak to go with her velvet gown. It was well received by her Majesty. Otter was supposed to be a pet dragon, but his costume didn’t fit [Darn my really tall baby!!] so we ran out and got a black suit over which we tossed Monkey’s Batman cape.):

Her majesty and the Dark Knight. — Her Majesty and the Dark Knight.

Then we hit the streets for candy and ghoulies. Roby and Heather had a bust reciting “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, and a twitching hanging spider victim in their front yard, along with talking skeletons, moving body parts, and cannibalistic pumpkins. It was a spooky sight!!

Otter had some fun learning the Halloween ropes. By the end of the night he was walking up to doors and gibbering away at people before running off. Of course, he rarely remembered to pick his candy, so his stash is much, much smaller than his sister’s.

Monkey had a blast running all over the town. We met up with some of her friends from her pre-school (completely by accident) and joined them for the candy hunt. They ran all over the place, flying up and down steps before we could even catch up to them. They were often three or four houses down, preparing to take off again before stern parental yelling drew them back to wait for the smaller members of our party.

All in all it was a wonderfull All Hallow’s. We all had a great time.

health

NCS

October 29, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 3 Comments

I had my nerve conduction study yesterday. Man that fucking hurts. I didn’t expect it to feel good, they jam a thin needle deep into your muscle and then tests it’s impluses at a relaxed state and an active state. So they basically stab you and ask you to move. Ow.

All last night I had my hands wrapped in thermapacks, hoping the heat would relax my freaking out muscles. It’s helped a little.

I hope they come back to me and tell me nothing much is wrong. The doctor was very interested in my left arm, apparantly it had some off reactions, but being liability shy she wouldn’t tell me what she thought until she got an MRI and a chance to better review the results.

I am off to soak my hands, they hurt too much for much typing today.

health, Law, Monkey, parenting

Betty Crocker meets Ruth Bader Ginsberg…

October 27, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

After spending two weeks networking nearly every day and sending my information out into the universe I finally got a chance to get several solid hours to work. Unfortunately I spent those hours wrestling with the Lexis-Nexis electronic case filing system instead of writing and researching my Lizard complaint. I need an assistant (and a housekeeper, chef, nanny, paralegal, and personal trainer.) It would appear that mac using attorney’s like myself (a designation I think only makes me a sexier attorney) create really huge documents when we scan to PDF. Gargantuan really.

My 8 and a half by 11 filing was blown up to 30 by 70 inches by the time my scanner was finished with it. Best of all, my filing was rejected over and over again for size. “File scanned in too large” was the error the clerk kept sending back to me. (The clerk may not know how to use a zoom in button.)

So, like any intrepid entrepreneur I boldly Googled “how to reduce the size of a scanned PDF image”. Happily instructions were easily found: Go to the Tools Menu, select Adjust Size. Great! That should be easy!

Oh. You mean the Adjust Size that is greyed out and inaccessible in my Tools Menu. Just great.

Many hours later, after accessing every single section of my HP Scan Pro application and settings several times, I had an 8 and a half by 11 file. (Only when I scan to PDF Image though, not when I scan to PDF anything else.) Of course, then the file was too big, MB wise. Lexis Nexis only allows 1.5 MB per document in their e-file system. My scanner, diligent little assistant it is, would only produce legible copies that were too large, or illegible ones that were small enough.

After much time I discovered I could create a ridiculously large and high quality scanned file, and then reduce it to a slightly more than barely readable state with the Reduce File Size quartz filter option under the Save As portion in the Preview application. (Say that 10 times fast.)

So I e-filed one of my cases today. Finally. Yay.

Then it was off to parent teacher conferences where Monkey’s hard work, dilligence, and generous nature was touted by all her teachers. She is a rock star, she is going awesome in most things and really well in everything else. All the teacher’s love her. We are very, very proud.

Which is why I ended my evening making 36 miniature apple pie muffins from scratch for her class Halloween party. What can I say, I asked her what she would rather have at her Halloween party, candy or muffins. She said both. (I am touched.) Then she begged me to make them. Her Dad added to the celebration by bringing home ice cream and waffle cones for dessert. We toasted Monkey’s educational success with Vanilla Orange Cream ice cream and Java Chip with caramel. Mmmmm.

Now, I am going to bed. Tomorrow I have a particularly painful, science fictionesque medical procedure to endure, and I am going to need my sleep.