Not Enough Hours in a Day

Sorry I've been MIA for the past several days. I've missed you! Lots and lots going on in the Attila house these last couple of weeks.

First of all, we're all back to school. Little Guy is doing great. Knock on wood.

Big Kid and I started classes last week, and let's just say that it's been a page out of Mother Murphy's Law book. Anything that could go wrong did, and came with an extra helping of raisins and Pepto.

Luckily, I didn't have to deal with the dreaded Admissions Lady this time. We both got registered, our books came on time, and everything looked great to go.

We started reading our textbooks a week before classes, because although Big Kid processes information better in print, he's a slow reader. I was planning ahead and thought we'd get a jump on classes to make everything smoother.

It's hard to give him a book and say "read!" without being there right beside him (Look! A Butterfly!), so the two of us spent an hour or so a day out on the back deck under an umbrella, reading about police procedures and law and mainlining iced tea.

I arranged our physical classes so that we could take them on one day (which would be Thursday). That way we only have to travel into the city once a week. We're each also taking a class on the Internet as well.

Anyway, about an hour before it was time to leave for the classes on Thursday, I pulled up our registration account to make sure I had the room numbers down correctly.

One of the classes was gone. Totally gone. I called the school and found out that the class had been canceled due to lack of participation a few days earlier. Nobody notified us, or even dropped us an email.

Which kind of pisses me off, because they sent me 3 emails reminding me to pay for the damn classes in the first place.

And since Thursday was the last day to "Add" classes, we had an hour to find Big Kid a new one (because I still had to drive to the city for my class), or he wouldn't qualify for his health insurance.

AAAAAIIIIGGHHHHHH!!!!

There were no more Criminal Justice classes at that particular campus on that day, so we had to sign him up quickly for another Internet course. Which had started 4 days earlier. And the local (at least most local to US) campus bookstore didn't have the textbook in stock.

AAAIIGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Big Kid's first assignment for that class was due on the next day. Read 2 Chapters, watch about 4 hours of Forensic Crime shows (reality and drama) and write a 3-page essay comparing and contrasting real life with fiction.

AAAAAIGGGHHH!!!

Luckily, he was able to get an extension from his instructor, Hubby drove into the city to the main campus and got the textbook, and Big Kid was able to complete the assignment by today. But it completely threw him for a loop and into major panic attack mode, so I spent several days holding his hand, stuffing his face with Key Lime pie, keeping him calm and on task, as well as helping him organize his notes in a coherent way (which is an allowed accommodation---except for the pie part, I think).

We went to the doc for a med check on Friday. As I said a few posts earlier, the doc had started him on a different kind of med last month for Big Kid's ADHD. It's not traditionally used to treat this, but the results have been absolutely amazing. The doc had given us a month's worth of samples, because it's relatively new.

The kid is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He doesn't have that cross between "zombie eyeball and Charles Manson" look he's come to have when he's on his bi-polar meds.

He's focused, he's calm, he's natural and he's pretty damn funny. Over the last couple of years I've forgotten how truly sharp and witty Big Kid is. He's really a joy to be around. Most importantly, he's not manic. There's no nightly rebound with depression or rage. It's been a month without any huge outbursts.

Sure, we've had arguments (there is no magic pill to cure "asshole", as we say), but instead of escalating, he's been able to get control of himself in the very early stages and discuss things rationally.

The only problem is that since this medication isn't normally used to treat ADHD, it might not be covered under our insurance. And it is very very expensive without it. We could do dinner and a movie twice a month as an entire family for what this stuff costs.

The doc prepared us for the fact that there might be a fight over it, but since we've tried every less expensive treatment on the market first, we had a good shot at getting it approved.

And we did. Whew!

Why am I feeling so financially stressed about this? Other than that I am notoriously cheap?

On top of paying for two college educations (with books), we decided to buy an office building.

Yep. After a month or so of negotiations, our business bought a building in a historic mining town (active mine and active casinos) farther up in the mountains to open an additional office. It's been a HUGE back and forth with the seller---how much would we need to put into the building to rehab it---needs a new roof for starters, how much was he willing to go down on the purchase price (hell the seller inherited it and has been trying to sell it for 2 years).

We've had to get estimates, surveys, inspections, etc, but finally signed on the dotted line last week.

My brother (who did our kitchen and bathroom) is scheduled to come down on Wednesday with a crew to start renovating the place. Hubby has been busy hiring and training staff. I've been busy using my contacts to find crown molding, flooring and other stuff at close to wholesale.

We'll have one office space for our company, one office to hopefully rent out, and a large spiffy conference room we hope to "timeshare" with some of our local companies who do business up there (like realtors) who don't actually have offices in the town but might need a place to have a presence.

I need a nap.

How's your last week or so been going?

xo