thi s is my last day with chloe and sophie.  scuse me gotta go cry now!

 of course Chloe accessorizes  her princess gown with pirate sword!

 short hair o ni

  silly hat day at elementary school :)

my fridge died today

long live my fridge.  well when i go get one in the morning.  i filled the mostly-dead fridge with ice to save my foods.  maybe it will work.  who knows?

today my little charges started school.  kindergarten for the 5 y.o. and third grade for the 8 y.o.  they did alright.  chloe likes her teacher and has a friend in her class.  soph's nervous about geometry, even though she has nothing to worry about.  she knows about rhombuses and nonagons and such.  glad we watched out TMBG Here Comes the Science videos this summer :)


i'm a really, really good nanny.  last night i watched a new charge named carmella.  she's two and pretty awesome.  she is pretty decent at using the potty which impressed me, and knows her shapes fairly well.  gonna have to do more work with colors because she guesses everything is lellow or pink.  i like lellow.  her mom was very impressed with how i integrate learning activities into fun and active play, which made me happy.  of course i learned this over time.  it is boring to just play with kids, it is better to play with them and teach them stuff.  and if you just teach them stuff they get bored and frustrated, so it is much better to mix it up into a game, and to break those games up with physical activities.

um what else.  i'm getting a new kid.  her name's ava and she lives in the same building with sophie and chloe and she goes to the same school.  three days a week i'm picking her up and hanging out.  bonus for me on the financial side and also in the job-not-being-boring department.

today i saw my friend andrushka and his mom at the library.  he is pretty cool.  he's in first grade now and he likes rockets and space and stuff and he is trilingual which is just amazing and i'm wishing i was even bilingual!  he speaks English and Georgian and Russian.  he also had bright red hair which i like because it reminds me of my niece Annika who is like the light of my life.

henry came to visit me lots this week because he was home from iraq to go to a wedding.  i like him lots.  he is coming back for a long while in about a month so we shall see what's what.

i decided what i am going to school for, specifically. i want to do a master's of science in early childhood education but that job market is the pits right now.   and i am so tired of being desperately poor.  so instead i am going to do a master's in TESOL.
probably at CUNY hunter.

ok time to go to sleep i have to get up early to go to the used appliance store.  and i have to have my wits about me because they don't speak English over there just Spanglish and i don't want to get anything mixed up, especially not features or prices.  i should probably ask the guy to write stuff down in spanish, that's what i did last time and it worked because translating writing is much easier for me than fast speech.

in closing i want to wish everyone a happy rosh hashanah!

master to-do list!

Master to-do list, updated in real-time :)

STUFF I NEED TO DO ASAP! 

a) put handwash items in laundry bucket to soak
b) put regular items in the washer.
c) do the dishes
d)check to see if documents pertaining to FS Re-Certification have arrived i now have one of two
e)switch the wash into the dryers and agitate handwash items
f) go to the gym and run three miles
g)rinse and hang handwash items to dry 
h)put away clean laundry 

i) locate materials for previous applications to graduate school and inventory for essentials such as:

•           1. sealed transcripts from undergrad
•           2. GRE scores order form
•           3. Letters of recommendation
•           4. et. cetera

j)go visit Hunter College
k) go to spinning at 6:30 pm on friday or else lift (arms and abs or back and chest) for at least an hour.

l) re-write query letter according to workshop responses

m) dye your hair

AND STUFF I NEED TO DO VERY SOON!
 
uno) collect all documents pertaining to FS re-cert and photocopy and hand deliver and get an itemized receipt. (deadline in september 25th but do this asap as they suck!!)
dos) clean your room it is disgusting in there
tres) go to the library or your gonna end up with overdues. 
tres y medio) also email emily to let her know which books the girls have overdue, and go online and renew them as well.
quatro) FILL PRESCRIPTIONS
cinco) begin assemblage of documents pertaining to Hunter Application and request necessary letters of recommendation from:

•                    Synthia at Riverdale Nannies
•                    Veronika A. pertaining to nannying AND tutoring
•                    Someone at the New School

sies) acquire passwords and other necessary materials to begin agent search

siete) compile list of possible agents (excel spreadsheet?) and what they request in submissions.  if i don't have excel then make a g-d chart with a ruler and a marker on a big piece of paper.  or see if brian has excel.  someone does.

ocho) send very first query letter to get the g-d ball rolling on this project
nueve) WRITE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE for grad school (500 words)




in the column of really good stuff I already did: 
-request necessary support documents pertaining to FS re-certification
-PAY OFF ACCUMULATED INTEREST OF STUDENT LOANS CURRENTLY UNDER POVERTY DEFERMENT! WOOT GOOD JOB!!!'
sweep the kitchen
  make a really boss to-do list 
send mirmir her medicine

today's my day off, and i'm loving it

but i also love my job. sophie and chloe are awesome, rollerskating is awesome, discussing things with them and their friends is awesome because they have very fresh perspectives.  i love going to the playground, i love making things with children, cooking with them, reading with them. I even like making food for them.   It is pretty sweet.

woot.  i did laundry and took care of my animals and did dishes and mopped the kitchen and stuff!  now i am going to go for a run when my ipod is charged.  i always forget to charge it.  i had a fool's errand i went to the gym, went on the rower for like ten minutes then my ipod died, then i went to my house, realized i left my keys on the machine at the gym, went to the gym got the keys, came  home and now i don't wanna go back.  so i'll go running it's a beautiful day here in the bronx!  i really like living on a parkway because there are so many trees.  (especially ones with flowers ).  alright.  i think ill drink some water the i'm gone :)

NOW rocking with the best

What up oni-ites!

missed me? we're at new web addy but it's the same good stuff.

NOT me! not yet anyway :)

<

much to report. still working out like a fiend, mostly at the bronx house. lately started in with swimming laps and my body is getting pretty proper. weight lifting like these a stronger woman than i'd ever thought i'd be as well

Highlights of recent weeks have bene the completion of the rough draft of my first novel: Three. It's good, people, and it's getting great. And it's finally getting done!! so that's pretty amazing.

In employment news I got some new kids to watch after. This is fantastic because as much as I told everyone I was ready to hang up my nanny hat and get a grown-up job I really live a much happier, if poorer, life. richer in spirit. my girls are fantastic. ages 7 and 4. they are bright as all get out and remind me of me, reading like a much older person reads. they have great imagination as well. Tomorrow will be the first time I do a full shift, picking them up from daycare and a elementary school and then looking after them until their mother or father get home in the evening. Should be fun I had a blast playing with them on Friday.

Speaking of Kids...

I want to let everyone know that there is a really wonderful Disney movie out right now. It's the called The Princess and The Frog. It's a musical comedy set in the beautiful city of New Orleans. The voice actors and animators did a great job on this one but it really the score which sets it apart and evokes the magic of New Orleans and the Bayou.

I went with Ewaen, and being Nigerian, I don't think he's ever heard Zydeco music before. I fell in love with it when my sixth grade english teacher, Mr. Link, (who was also the town's volunteer fire chief) introduced Buckwheat Zydeco to the class and I was blown away. So, anyway, the movie was great musically, with all the jazz and zydeco going down. Voodoo was portrayed in a fairly even-handed manner, with a bad "shaowman" and a good "mama adee" in the swamp. This was the second most female empowering "princess" movie, after Mulan, but it was a way more entertaining. And to see a positive strong black female role-model on the big screen for mainstream viewing is a pretty cool thing in my book.

Well I have plenty more to tell you but I am tired and I have full day tomorrow, starting @ the gym at 9:00 am with Terrell, who is trying to hit a certain goal by his birthday and since we work out together I am suffering along this crazy regime as well! but it gets results so there we are.

I hope you all have good night!

i babysat for a kid who thought verizon wireless was the capital of minnesota

hai guise.  ut ohs.  I have bed bugs AND one of the bed bug bites got really infected and UGHGHGHGH.  my room is in shambles.  brian is the best roommate and we spent the morning tearing the room up and vacuuming the shit out of everything and throwing away two thousands lbs of rubbish.  i am not a tidy person, no not at all.  i am extremely uncomfortable in a tidy room as a matter of fact, and will often festoon hotels and offices i spend time in with random bits of flotsam and jetsom just to keep myself at an even keel.  now my room will be clean, at least for a bit.  but how to get rid of these bastardos?
apparently even the neat and tidy in my city are falling prey to these horrible little devils.  my kingdom for a can of DDT.  i don't intend on breeding so it can mutate my chromosomes 'til the cows come home just save me from g.d. bedbugs already!!  and the bite i have that is really infected, well they cultured it and we will have to wait and see if it is MSRA and or what.  i'm on 200 mg of Doxycycline a day and of course it makes me feel disgustor. I hate high dose antibiotics.  I was on them for like a month when I had lyme disease and it was just terrible.  Why do I always have miserable yucky bullsh*t ailments?

WHINE.  well anyway we do have a wee bit of GOOD NEWS!!!

I mostly found a job.  It's in the same building where I worked the majority of the last three years, Solaria in Riverdale.   I like it.  The doorman are cool and i like the fitness room.  and my russian children live there.  i love them.  here's a picture of the little russian girl i was spending everyday with.  she's the blondie.  over the time i was with her she learned to read and add and subtract and multiple and divide and beg change for ice cream and hula hoop and run fast and climb trees.  i like her.  i like being a nanny.  i hope the baby is a good baby

the new kid is (i think) a boy and he is definitely eight weeks old. i sit for  them for the first time this week. they have a dog and his name jackson and he is very cute and he barks a lot.


what else... ok me and brian cleaned my room two million billion degress from dirty and i sprayed poison of bed bugs everywhere.  now i'm eating lunch.  then i start forty thousands lbs of laundry.



Dittocat is home!!! my little prince is curled up beside me once again. he was covered in ticks and very skinny upon his return (from a month long sabbatical in upstate new york) and the ticks are sorted out now and he's attacking the cat food and resting a lot. good to have him home.

i cleaned the turtle tank and bought the turtle food.



i went thrift store shopping with SIS1 and got a bunch of cute stuff! specifically a new long jean skirt, a red cardigan that is adorable, and a black silk victorian high collared shirt with small lacquered buttons up one shoulder.