Almost there…

photo-169The first tomato is almost ripe! And by July 4th this time, not Halloween, like last year. The heirloom varieties we planted last year were tasty, but I am just not that patient. I also have a row of carrots sprouting. Has anyone grown them before? When are they usually ready for harvesting? (I live in southeastern Pennsylvania).

In other news, the Mosaic manuscript is getting there, too, though since it has not been professionally edited yet, I would put it in the green tomato stage. I had my 9 individual chapters. At the end of last week, I put them into one “full script” file, and I have been working in that. It helps to be able to move back and forth and try to maintain coherence between chapters. I’ve been spending a lot of time on it, but sometimes giving something a lot of mental space helps you see what it still needs. The whole childcare discussion came out of that realization. I also saw that I claimed there was no typical night, but didn’t provide any evidence to back that up. So I went back to my numbers, and looked at two adjacent day sleep totals. Some 22 percent of logs show a 90 minute gap or more between Tuesday and Wednesday on sleep. That’s what I mean by no typical night!

In other, other news: NicoleandMaggie has a post on taking a break from mommy blogs. Or at least the anxiety producing ones.

5 thoughts on “Almost there…

  1. Enjoy your tomato! I’ve come to terms with the fact that my yard is just too freaking shady to properly grow tomatoes.

    So, I just mooch off of my parents’ garden, which happens to reside in full sunshine. Fortunately, they always plant more tomatoes than they need, so all is well.

  2. Hmmm… when we grew carrots several years ago I feel like they were ready mid-summer (this is in Southern Wisconsin).

    I always find it interesting to come back to a manuscript (mine are papers, not books) and re-read after a break. There are always parts I cringe at and think, “This really needs to be better,” and parts where I think, “Man, that was actually pretty good. I really like that.”

    1. @Chelsea- pretty much my experience too! (not the carrots – the writing). Sometimes I feel like a genius. Other times… well, good there’s time for editing.

  3. What’s killing me right now is childcare… I am on the cusp on getting a promotion to qualify for “mosaic” status, but… at the same time as I’m being offered more responsibilities at work, my husband is starting a new job, we are moving, AND my kids have been sick for 3 days straight so we have been having to do lots of shuffling to cover childcare since I can’t send them to their normal (wonderful) full-day preschool and full-day babysitter. My husband and I have split the sick days equally but it’s been really challenging due to the pivotal spot we’re both in with our jobs, it just feels like we shouldn’t be missing work. And now I’m questioning whether I should accept these new job responsibilities or “lean back” while my kids are still little (4 & 1).

    1. @Sarah – I’m sorry to hear you’re going through a rough patch, though congrats on the promotion and your husband’s new job. Transitions are always stressful. Moving is stressful. It would be stressful if you didn’t have sick kids. That doesn’t mean that either leaning in or leaning back is necessarily the right decision — totally your call based on how you feel — it’s just to mention that perspective helps and this week will not last forever.

      But this might also be an opportunity to rethink the childcare situation. I have a post earlier this week (you might have just been reading that but commented on this one) on childcare. The downside of daycare is sickness. I’m guessing your infant goes to a group babysitter, right? If it were in your home your sitter would still be able to care for a not-horribly-sick child and would be a back-up for preschool. It might be worth looking into the part-time childcare + au pair idea that other people have been mentioning. I mean, if you’re moving into a bigger house… 🙂 Or in any case, trying to find a retiree with during-the-day availability who can do some back-up care and evening care for nights you all need to work late.

      I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with people on this issue. One of the things that makes people feel they can’t “have it all” is that they’ve under-invested in childcare, and hence have made life more harried than it needs to be. I assume this is both to save money, and also because the larger cultural message is that we should feel bad as parents for using childcare. Ergo, using less of it shows we are better parents. But then we shoot ourselves in the foot. We’ve engineered our own disaster. It’s kind of strange. People don’t feel bad about needing a car to get to work. They don’t settle for a car that breaks down one out of 5 times they try to get to work. I mean usually — if we’re talking people with some degree of disposable income. Most people recognize that would be penny wise and pound foolish.

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