Eeeeelectricity.

We got it back in our house, but it's missing other places. A small percentage of New Yorkers are still without it in their homes.

And I seem to have none with my new "coworker."

I was just sitting down today to try to figure out a way to post my blogs to Facebook without the new nanny seeing them. You see, we spent last weekend cooped up in T's mom's house together and the Lord tested my patience with people I dislike.

I was able to be courteous and sweet-ish. I was able to make small talk and smile. Then our house was cleared for us to come back and I was the first one to run out the door to the car yelling, "I'll clean it! I'll clean the whole thing! Please! Let's just go!"

New Nanny friended me on Facebook over the weekend. It was one night when all the parents of our kiddos were out and we were sitting in the only sitting room in that house and I had my little baby snuggled on my arm and she was talking, which makes my ears bleed.

Stop.

I'm being too mean.

Quick, say three nice things.

She's developed a good relationship with her kids, even if I don't understand how.

She has clean hair.

She is a pretty decent dresser.

Ok, so, talking, waiting the night out, poor girl has been without power for nearly half the time that she has lived here... Me, trying to find a way out of the conversation so I could go to bed.

She sent me a friend request from the other side of the room, while I was holding my phone and clearly using Facebook. I had to accept.

I have a policy about not being friends with people on Facebook while I am working with/for them. I have made exceptions in the past, but I find that it is all around healthier to keep cyber-friendships limited to when I am not actually working with/for the people I tend to mention most.

I don't often say bad things about people on Facebook.

I'm not one of those girls (teenagers) who gripes about people who have "wronged" me or irritated me that day. Aside from the kids, I try not to mention any people (except my siblings) in a negative way online, at all. But I am not friends with my boss on FB, and I love her. I try to wait until after I am not working with people anymore, and then we can be online friends. It's just a matter of privacy, which, like I said, I have made exceptions for in the past.

That all being poorly said, trying to explain that to someone I genuinely don't like seemed like too big a cop out, so I accepted. I spent the next ten minutes taking down links to my blog, which, no matter how anonymous, would clearly explain to New Nanny how I feel about her.

I took down the links, stalked her a little and went to bed.

In the morning T asked me how the night went. Knowing and sharing my aversion to New Nanny, she specifically asked about that part of the weekend.

BIG SIGH.

I explained.

Only slightly better than I just did for you.

So, Sunday we were clear to go back into our house and clean it. Monday T's sister got power back and they all went home. Monday afternoon, T's mom let everyone know how tired she was from hosting them and went off the grid for a while. That lady is such a beautiful person. I love her.

Monday afternoon, T's sister had a conversation with her new nanny about something that could have only come from me; something I had seen on her FB page that was inappropriate and T had then seen for herself in our following conversation. I don't know how it went, only that New Nanny's response was to unfriend me.

Haha.

So, I no longer need to hem and haw about how to hide this blog from her.

But I did get a little perspective.

I did not do a good enough job being the light and the salt this weekend.

And I may have been too harsh here, taking anonymity a bit too far by using a public forum as my personal ventilation system. There's always a slim chance that someone I don't expect to read this blog might read it. I need to bite my tongue, or fingers or whatever.

And maybe I should have said something to New Nanny about the scores and scores of photos of the kids and their house, and the insides of their house, and the in-depth descriptions of the layout of the house and the kids real names all being on FB. I could have saved her an awkward conversation with her boss, but I still don't know if that would have been my place. I wasn't even going to say anything to anyone, but T's mind seems to be in sync with mine so she right away asked about photos on FB.

But it blows my mind a little that this needs to be addressed. This girl has no discretion at all. Remember when she met someone online in her first two weeks and invited them over to the house? Did I tell you about that?

It happened.

You just don't use the Internet so freely and casually. It's not smart. It's not safe.

I don't know how I should have handled my part, I just know I didn't do it right.

Another, less worrisome sigh.

 I have my privacy back.

And I think I will stick to my guns about that rule from now on.

Another thing I am going to be more stubborn about: listening to T's mom.

I do love her and she's so nice and so helpful and so giving, but sometimes her way of doing things really screws up my day.

She likes to give the kids little treats all the time, which is her rite as Grandma, BUT when we were there for the entire weekend the sugar high started to get to me. If the kids are bouncing around a room full of crystal, the solution is not Oreos. It's tranquilizing darts.

And when I am freshly showered and clean and dry, the best way to bathe J is in the tub, not in the shower with the door hanging open while I lean in and he screams about not wanting to take a shower. He wanted a bath, I wanted to give him a bath; I should have listened to myself that time.

But it was after the whole New Nanny fiasco and I was second-guessing myself about everything.

Anyway, we're home again.

Monday, the most wonderful cleaning lady in the world came over and helped start really cleaning the basement. I had the kids, so I didn't do anything except try to keep my sanity.

Tuesday, I was able to do laundry. I washed all the sheets and towels and cleaned the kids' rooms of the final layer of dust and soot. I opened all the windows and aired out the whole house, which is good, because a couple hours later the baby was diagnosed with croup and his prescription is fresh air.

Later Tuesday night, after a full day of following the contractor and his man around to make sure they painted the entire wall this time, E fired the contractor. This team was truly awful.

They painted only the worst parts of the walls and tried to blend it in. They installed two new outlets that don't work. They didn't sand the walls but put up the baseboard and there are very visible gaps in it. They damaged the new floor. All this in addition to already having damaged the counter tops, installing a new door that doesn't close properly, and doing severe damage to one wall and never fixing it.

Enough was enough. The bulk of the work was done, clearly details are not their forte, so E let them go.

We spent the night cleaning up the dust in the kitchen and carrying things back into the room to make it usable again. The foyer feels enormous without that table in it. And I have never been happier to see this stove, which I loathe. The new one has not been settled on and ordered yet.

The dishwasher has seventeen jets, T wanted me to say that.

The fridge comes a week from today.

My room is clean and functional and I began putting my things back into it last night.

I sprayed a silverfish to death with bleach on the far side of the basement before going to bed.

I made a shopping list for today and planned the last of my Christmas shopping.

It was an all-around productive night that didn't end until nearly one AM.

I heard the kids discover the kitchen this morning. They were wild with excitement. I laughed because they were happy, and also because I didn't have to deal with them, and then I went back to sleep.