this woman’s work

You are browsing the archives from 2005 May.

She’s branching out! The Shoppes of Artella present…Artist Erica DiPaolo

This is just a bitch post. Here’s my to-do list from yesterday and today with the stuff that’s been done crossed off. It will grow exponentially as my week progresses.

1. Turn in safety article for work.

2. Turn in product write-up for work.

3. Pull out and re-label high res photos for both articles.

4. Upload them to my server so boss can grab ‘em.

5. Contact PR people for missing photos and suggested retail prices.

6. Turn in book review rewrite (that was easy).

7. Sit down with review books to pick next three to write up.

8. Contact PR people for cover art.

9. Start lining up books for themed issue, upcoming.

10. Find expert for article due at end of month.

11. Find three or four people to interview for slice of life color.

12. Consolidate addresses to turn into boss for web site people.

13. Edit column written by other people for boss.

14. Ongoing: Run through work site and do everyday maintenance. (This is the bulk of my job and can take up a lot of time or very little time depending. But it requires me checking in several times a day and any check-in could turn into an hour or more of busywork.)

15. Answer work message backlog.

16. Answer personal message backlog.

17. Laundry.

18. Help Noah sift out big kid clothes.

19. Move Noah’s winter clothes down to basement.

20. Move up rest of kitchen items still in basement.

21. Sort out books for my sister.

22. Sort out books to donate.

23. Get rid of books to donate.

24. Take Noah to dentist.

25. Babysit Noah’s friend (although this is easy — they sit themselves)

26. Call people re., adoption info they asked for that I said I’d do two weekends ago.

27. Clean bathroom.

28. Buy gift for virtual babyshower.

29. Get Brett’s birthday present from me.

30. Get Brett’s birthday present from Noah.

31. Make menu plan for week.

32. Grocery shop.

33. Use up frozen peaches that have been defrosted for too long.

34. Make gingerbread with apples, which are becoming wizened in their old age.

35. Turn in contract for one job.

36. Turn in invoices for articles recently submitted.

37. Get tickets for trip with J.

38. Switch server host since friend can no longer host me.

39. Call about missing part for bread machine.

40. Register Noah for summer class.

41. Follow up with sister re., childcare.

42. Scan through upcoming calendar and compare with inbox for boss to make sure I’m not missing something that I promised to do.

43. Start lining up news stories for write ups later this week.

44. Take Noah to self-defense class.

Is that it? I think that’s it. Madison won’t go to sleep today. She has a cold and wakes back up when ever I put her down because her nose is so stuffy. You know what this means? It means I won’t get any work done. It means I’ll fall further behind on my list of things to do. I used to get mad at Brett for not taking up the slack but then in the middle of one battle, I realized that he’s doing his fair share. He’s behind on the things he needs to do, too. And he takes on stuff that’s living in my head when he can, like he’s probably going to take care of the airline tickets and registering me for a hotel and reserving a rental car. He’s also in charge of most of the summer camps for Noah (the one on my list is a little Sunday thing) and he does a lot of housework. Not to mention that he handles all of our money, which is a job because I’m a contract worker so there’s my quarterly taxes to manage and then he has all of these weird savings plans and college funds and mutual funds and who knows what.

Today I need to start with #41; I have to find out for sure whether or not my little sister can help.

It’s one of those things where maybe she wants to but things are standing in her way or maybe she doesn’t want to and has conveniently found that things are standing in her way. I need to hammer that out with her because I’m feeling pretty desperate.

Off to change a poopy diaper.

Madison somehow found the cell phone and she knows how to work it better than I do. I’m turning a blind eye so I can type really quickly and also finish my coffee. Hopefully our bill won’t be astronomical.

So a couple of white moms of my acquaintance have been talking about diversity in regards to making school choices for their white kids and that’s been interesting. For those of you whose families are white, what are your concerns about diversity? Where does it rate on your scale of importance?

I’ll be frank, this isn’t something I thought about much (except in theory) when it was just Noah. Part of it was that he was really little and we had no idea where we were going to end up house-wise. And then, too, our budget kinda dictates that whatever neighborhood we live in will not be all-white. (Unless we wanted to head way out to the outer suburbs, which we didn’t find appealing.) But there was a time when we wanted to move to a small rural town and my biggest concern about diversity there is that I thought it would be tough to raise a Jewish pro-feminist kid out in the boonies.

My fellow parents of white kids and I used to sit around and lament the lack of diversity at our playgroups but we didn’t know really what we could and should do about it.

So now I want to hear what you think. What are the benefits of diversity for white kids? Is diversity important enough to you that you’d trade off other things? If not, how do you educate your kids about differences and racial awareness? And is it ok to pick a neighborhood that is in many ways terrific if it isn’t very diverse? What about a great school system that is mostly white?

My thinking? People need to go where they feel comfortable and diversity is just one issue to consider when choosing a home or a school. I think white kids have different diversity needs, i.e., it’s not going to be vital to their self-esteem/self-awareness to be in a diverse district.

I don’t want people to feel defensive as they think about this because I don’t think there’s a “right” answer to be a good PC parent and raise forward-thinking kids.

As an aside, my growing up environment was lily white. I don’t know if it hurt me although I’m sure it slowed me down as I work through my own racism. On the other hand, as a friend of mine pointed out, growing up in an all-white neighborhood meant she was without negative stereotypes as well. (We’ve all met racists who say, “Yeah, but I grew up with those people; I know what they’re really like.”

Anyway, these entries have been difficult because it’s incredibly hard to talk about race and risk getting called out. I know that and you know that so let’s all be patient with each other.

I’m less of a Republican than T.? I smell a fix!

Are You A Republican?