When is free really free?

PS and I were playing with a keyboard at Costco the other day. She asked if I could play anything, and I responded with the truth: the only thing I can play on the piano is Silver Bells. She was quite impressed with my ability to peck out the first few bars as I sang out the notes ("C-A-G-E, C-A-G-E, E-D-C, A-A-A").

Then she said, "Oh, that's how you do it," and proceeded to play a song that she knows on her violin. The child knows nothing about the piano, but was able to play an actual tune. She also taught herself a few simple tunes by ear on her violin and the kiddie keyboard she has at home.

I played the flute for years (and was very good) and cannot play ANYTHING by ear. And I certainly could not play anything on the piano. I think my child has musical talent. (I did not have talent, Ihad work ethic. I practiced a lot.) She is doing ok, but not great, with the violin--but I think it is because she's just not that interested in it. I think she may have more interest in the piano.

So, last night on craigslist I found a free piano. There were pictures posted and it looks nice enough. The ad said it was in good shape and just needed to be tuned. I am always leary of a craigslist ad, but I think it's within the realm of possibility that someone would give away a piano just to avoid the cost of having it moved.

And of course, it will cost me a couple of hundred bucks to have the "free" piano moved and tuned. I will go see it before I start coughing up cash, but I know nothing about pianos or what to look for. I guess as long as it plays and there are no visible defects it will work well enough for a starter piano.

Cell phone demons

Would you be concerned if your lawyer whipped out this phone? I LOVE this case. It screams something, but I'm not sure it's professionalism. PS said, "it doesn't mean your not a grown up, it just means you're a grown up who likes to have fun."

Perfect Day

Left the house at 7:15 so that I could make it to the office by 8 for an 8:30 meeting with a client. Made it to work at 8:35. (Fortunately both boss and client were late as well.)

Spent all day doing off-site doc review with client.

Broke for lunch and backed into a low concrete wall that was completely invisible from the driver's seat of my ginormous SUV--with client in the car. Am sure client now thinks his lawyer is a crazy woman driver. Have a nice dent in my bumper. (Shhhh, don't tell DH.)

Finish doc review at 6:30 and my head is pounding, drop client off at office at 7:15, make it home by 7:45. Sit down for dinner and spill an entire glass of iced tea into my lap. Possibly ruined suit. (I always change clothes as soon as come home from work, but tonight I was so tired, and dinner was on the table, so I was still in my suit.)

Head still pounding, too tired to eat, go take a bath.

Headache gone, exhaustion setting in.

Last day of summer

The girlies go back to school tomorrow. DH escorted them to Meet the Teacher night on Friday. They were bouncing-off-the-walls excited. PS and TT got the teachers they wanted. SS did not, but the way it worked out is really great.

SS and TT's teachers will be team teaching this year. SS's teacher will handle math and science for both classes and TT's teacher will handle language and social studies for both classes. So they will have the same teachers for all subjects!!! This is a dream come true for a mom of twins, and will make my life much, much easier. They were not doing this when PS was in 3rd grade, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

PS is assigned to the super-cool male science teacher for homeroom. I am thrilled for her because she LOVES science. And this teacher runs the Lego Mindstorm robotics program that PS is dying to be involved with. He told her that she should be a shoo-in since she is such a science nut and was in his science clubs last year. She will also be in the same class as her BFF for the first time ever. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

All of the kids are going to be up for big changes. I think 3rd grade is a big transition year, and PS's 6th grade curriculum sounds very challenging. She is in pre-AP math--I hope that I can still help her!

Of course, the next few weeks will be insane, as we get back into the routine of getting everybody out the door in the morning, and the dinner, homework, baths before a school-night bedtime rush in the evenings. Plus their fall activities, and only having a few hours each evening to fit it all in.

And the forms, my god the forms. Every year I start cursing at the number of forms I am required to fill out. So far it is 14 per kid (42!!!). But those are just the official school district forms. There will be more from each teacher, the PTA, the specials teachers, etc. The freaking forms drive me to cursing every single year. This year I finally got smart and just left the first name blank and photocopied them all, so at least I only had to fill out one of each form.

Now I just need to iron PS's first day of school outfit (why did I let her pick out something that had to be ironed?) and I think we're all set.

Never criticize your husband's mashed potatoes

Crazy day. I had a dentist appointment that made me about an hour late for work. (I had to be fitted for a crown. I have been putting it off for, oh, 2 years, but I am losing my dental coverage at the end of the month, so it was now or never. I've been on DH's health insurance forever, which includes dental and vision. New firm covers the full cost of health insurance, but doesn't offer dental or vision, and it's not worth paying for me to stay on DH's health plan just for vision and dental.)

As soon as I got to my desk, I had messages from two of my big bosses. One of them was an emergency that I had to deal with because he had to be out of the office and the other attorney on the case is on his honeymoon. So that kept me busy all day, plus about a million other little things thrown.

I finally made it home about 7:15, as DH was just about to put dinner on the table. I helped bring everything to the table, and then started serving up the kids' plates. And I might have said, "honey, I think you added too much milk, your mashed potatoes are more like potato soup." He huffed back into the kitchen.

I finished serving the kids and we waited and waited for DH to return with the green beans. When he finally arrived I said, "the hardest part about being a cook is figuring out how to get all of the food on the table at the same time."

Apparently he considered that as an additional criticism of his cooking, and it all went downhill from there.

So, the crazy day isn't getting any better. Maybe I should just go to bed.

Reason # 5,928, 546 why I made the right decision when I left Old Firm

Friday afternoon I was talking to New Boss when Old Firm came up. New Boss said, "Boy, Partner really didn't want to talk to me when I called for references. He told me that my call should be directed to human resources, but I would talk to me because it is you."

I replied, "well, he volunteered to serve as a reference, but that doesn't really surprise me."

New Boss said, "He was very reluctant. If I asked him pointed questions he would answer truthfully, but I could tell he didn't want to."

WTF??? Partner called me and offer to serve as a reference--and yet when I use him, he acts like a total a-hole! I am so royally pissed. First, Old Firm screwed me out of a job, and then Partner could have very well cost me a second job.

Fortunately, I think New Boss does not have a very high opinion of Old Firm, and recognized that the issues are theirs, not mine. Thank god I found New Firm, because I might never had found a job with the bad mojo of Old Firm hanging around.

ihappiness

To celebrate 2 weeks of gainful employment and my first paycheck in 3 months, I finally got my iphone last night. I had been debating between the iphone and blackberry, and since my office runs macs and our calendaring email system is a mac-based system, the iphone seemed to make the most sense. And it's just cool.

I spent too much time last night loading it up with apps. Some not so useful, like the iglowstick, some moderately useful like urban spoon, the essentials like facebook and google mobile, and some that are just freakin' cool like Shazam (DH is pulling out his obscure music trying to defeat Shazam.)

Of course, there are plenty of law-related apps out there. I'm just not sure that I need the Rules of Evidence on my phone. Good to know there out there though.

iphone J.D. specializes in reviewing iphone apps for lawyers, and recently posted a list of reviews in one handy-dandy blog post.

This blog has also done a nice job reviewing quite a few apps for lawyers. The date calc app seems handy--but can it calculate the Monday following the expiration of 20 days? Oh wait--I found a legal deadline calculator specific to my state--woot!

So my phone is becoming all tricked out--now I just need to get the hang of the virtual keyboard.

The bane of youth

Today I met a client with whom I telephone conferenced earlier in the week. He asked if I had been doing this very long. My boss piped in that I had just started with the firm, but that I had been practicing for a couple of years. Client said, "well you couldn't have been practicing very long, you sure don't look very old."

Of course, as a woman, I am always pleased to hear that I look younger than I am. But I'm not sure that my allegedly youthful appearance is a virtue for my professional career. If I had gone straight through college and law school, I could have made partner by now. In fact, a couple of the partners at my firm are my age.

And this isn't the first time that others have assumed that I am a twenty-something. In law school virtually everyone assumed that I was their age. And once they learned I had kids--and how old they were--you could seem them mentally calculating whether I was a teen parent. A few were bold enough to ask my age, and were usually very surprised.

My former boss certainly had no clue how old I was until well after I was hired (and I wasn't about to disillusion him.) And my current boss actually asked how old I was in my interview, and then informed me that I did not look my age. (And yes, I did tell him that he is not supposed to ask age in interviews.)

The thing is, I don't really thing I look so much younger than I am. I don't dress "young." Today I was wearing a cardigan and slacks. I definitely don't have the figure I did at 25. And I don't really think I look younger than friends my own age.

Anyway, the point is that I don't think looking young is helpful to my career. I'm not sure the client I met today would be as comfortable with me handling his case as he would with someone who appeared older. But there is not much I can do about it. I'll just have to prove my competence to gain the confidence of my clients.

P.S. I do not know what was up with yesterday's post. It was a little umm, redundant, or something.

New job: week 2

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks at the new job. I think this week is going much better than last. Last week I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with getting up to speed on several cases at once. At old firm I was finally at the point where I had brought most of my cases up from their infancy and I was very familiar with them. Now I am having to learn a new practice area and get up to speed on 10 different cases all at once.

But I am getting a handle on things and am no longer so overwhelmed. I worked late tonight, but otherwise have been regulating my hours better.

Nothing exciting to write about.

Holiday

We've never taken the kids on a big vacation, for several reasons, I guess. For one, the cost for 5 people to travel anywhere becomes astronomical very quickly. When we were living on a single income, most trips were simply out of our budget, so we tended to stick close to home. We've visited all the major cities in out state, but now it kind of feels "been there, done that." We've wandered out of state on a couple of occasions, renting a beach house for a week over spring break, and a cabin in the mountains last summer with all of DH's family. But we've never done a big, grand vacation with the kids. Number 1 on our list is Disney. I've been promising the kids for the last two years that we would someday go to Disney World.

Last fall Disney was running a great special that made a vacation very affordable, so I booked us for June. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons (humongous tax bill, quitting my job, MIL receiving cancer treatments and not wanting to leave the state) we had to reschedule. I went ahead and rebooked for December because I figured it would be the easiest time to get away no matter where I was working. But the cost went up about $2k.

Given the number of financial hits we have taken lately, I really did not want to spend nearly $5k on this trip. But I poked around in the online trip planner and found that we could get back down to our original cost by changing our resort. Yea! It looked like our trip could still happen.

Then, last night, I was reading the Disney boards (yes, I'm that girl) and saw a banner ad to save 30% off room reservations. I followed the link, booked our exact trip and found I could save over $400. A quick call to reservations this morning, and the discount was applied to my existing reservation. That will cover our gas. (There is no way I can afford to fly all 5 of us out there, unless rates REALLY drop--unlikely over the holidays.)

So we're set and I am slowly chiseling away the cost of our trip. Hopefully, this will be the first of many big family vacations. One of my favorite pastimes is planning vacations--it would be great if we could actually start taking them.

In an ideal world, I would like to take a big trip every two years, with a smaller trip in between. Of course the problem with being a lawyer is that you finally have the money to travel, but finding the time is a whole new issue. Fortunately, I have noticed at my new firm that several people are taking long (2-3 week) vacations this summer.

Enjoy the silence

So I guess my posting has slowed now that I have rejoined the ranks of the employed.

My week started off slowly, with a little bit of thumb-twiddling. Now my desk is covered with projects and I already feel like I'm behind. I have worked later than I would prefer nearly every night this week. It seems that the lawyers there come in fairly late and stay really late. I don't want to look like a slacker my first week in by leaving when the clock strikes 6, but at the same time I'm not sure how this comports with their assurances that I would not be putting in nearly the hours that I was at old firm. But I am in earlier than everybody else, so hopefully I can maintain a more regular schedule once I've settled in a bit more.

I've already been given a case to call my own, and I'm being added as a second chair on a couple of others. I'm being sent to a conference in November. (I have my choice of attending it in Boston, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Denver or Nashville--suggestions??) And next month they're sending me to a luncheon for women in my new industry (which is really not a female-oriented industry).

It is very, very different from old firm--which is definitely not a bad thing, but there are some adjustments to be made.

Overall, I think it is going well. I am happy to be working again, and I think I am doing ok with learning my new practice area. I know enough about the basics that I can concentrate on the details. But boy am I tired.

First Day in the Office

I have moved from a mid-sized firm in a big shiny building downtown, to a smallish firm in a smaller shiny building not downtown. In one of my interviews with another firm, someone asked me how important it was for me to remain downtown. I responded that it was not at the top of my priority list--which is true, I could not care less about the "prestige" of working downtown.

When I walked in on Friday, I was given the tour and shown to my office. They told me that my computer was all set up and that I could start figuring it all out. I looked around, saw a monitor and a little box that looked like an external hard-drive, but no computer. Hmmm, that's odd. But I hit the keyboard, and indeed, my computer was functional. Turns out that little 8" x 8" x 3" box was the computer. The mac is very intuitive, and I think I'll adapt quickly.

Later Big Boss and two of the junior partners took me to a nice Italian place for lunch. I may have had the best manicotti in the world. The lunch was very relaxed and comfortable--which surprised me, because I am generally tense at business lunches--especially at places with excessive numbers of forks.

Throughout the day, everyone in the office came by and introduced themselves--I was at my old firm for 2 years, and there were still people I had never spoken with.

But how is this for bizarre? I was fiddling around with the screensaver and wallpaper, when I clicked on the "photos" folder--and found my facebook profile pic. How the heck did that get there? I certainly wasn't facebooking on my first day on the job. DH says he has a program that hooks into his outlook and searches the net for photos of his contacts--so I guess that is a possibility. But my work computer doesn't use outlook, and I didn't see anything like that in my email program (not that I was looking).

I also wouldn't be surprised at all if they googled me and found my facebook profile (it's locked, but you may be able to see the picture). But why would they do this on my computer, and why would they save the profile pic? Very strange--I will definitely ask IT guy about this next week.