Operation Tubetop

A million apologies for taking so long to update this blog. I've been fermenting. The 3 days leading up to Christmas were madness: shopping, drinking too much, eating too much and a sick kid. I also found a new career prospect: rent me out for your small office parties. I will make sure to ask your boss inappropriate questions and act like I am the opening act of a large-scale concert. Oh the shame. And I will never talk about that again. Moving on. The Kid stayed home on Friday. He had a bit of an upset stomach and he also seemed to have finally figured out that Mommy really really needed a morning at home alone. He's smart... devious... but smart. On Saturday morning, I woke up with a blasted cold. We went to the In laws for Christmas Eve and had some fantastic Syrian food and then I skyped with my family back in Ottawa at night. On Sunday we had German Oven Pancakes for breakfast and cheese fondue for dinner and there were presents and I got some great stuff! The Kid of cour...

Hello everybody! So sorry for not posting for a few days. It has been absolutely wild and the great news is that I have 2 more days of work and then I have 2 full weeks off. I cannot wait! December is always madness; buying presents, giving myself heart palpitations from too much butter, searching for a clean pair of stretchy pants. But this December has been even more crazy! There was the Christmas party at the ambassador's, the sensory friendly movie afternoon at the beginning of December, birthday parties and punsch parties and dinners out, an editorial meeting and so much more. And of course yesterday was the big Santa meet and greet at the Hard Rock Cafe which I will get to in a minute. I'm going to need a lot of downtime this staycation and I look forward to it. Kind of. So let's get started with last Thursday...We very much love the Kid's kindergarten. We can see it from our kitchen and every morning for the past 2 plus years, the Kid has been ecstatic to att...

One week to go and then my Christmas holiday starts! Two weeks OFF BABY! YEAH! I am trying to promise myself that I will take it easy, watch TV, relax, but we all know that is going to be impossible. Man, there is so much to write about! Let's get started!  Sorry, will never get tired of the above gif. The new Ghostbusters was everything and the scene above is quite possible the coolest moment in film for a woman. Anyway... Last Thursday a friend of mine had a going away dinner. I stopped by her place for a quick drink and then we made our way to der Fuchs und die Trauben for the dinner. It was great to see friends, sad to say good bye to a dear friend and of course I over imbibed and so the next morning, I was feeling a taaaad delicate. I made it through the day, went home, went for a run to sweat out the rioja and then made my way to a friend's place for his birthday. There was an incredible spread of cheeses and the toilet had a theme: dinosaur disco. There were dinosa...

Hey y'all! I truly thought things would calm down after our big movie afternoon on Saturday but that was dumb of me. Never ever assume that things will slow down because BAM! suddenly things will be chaotic again... But don't worry, I'm not complaining. Good stress makes me super efficient... sure I have chest pains but that's normal right?! It is Monday night and I am back at home and cozy as cozy can be. I am listening to Frank Sinatra's Christmas CD and I feel like making myself an eggnog martini and giving up my feminist ways... well, not really. But the martini would be awesome. The Kid is running around and keeps running into his room and closing his door. He started this last week and it makes me laugh and laugh. He's 5 going on 15 and I am waiting to find nudey magazines. We aren't sure what he is doing in there and the other day I found myself knocking first which is ridiculous. I PAY THE BILLS! Anyway, we are incredibly proud of the Kid. I was ...

Yesterday was an awesome day: the cinema day for Autism in Vienna was a huge success but I will write about that in the next post. Today is election day in Austria and everybody is a little on edge so instead I will write about fluff because fluff doesn't give me anxiety and heart burn. As you know, I adore cheesy Hallmark Christmas films. They are the antithesis of my life and are complete and total cringe-worthy escapism. You  know there is going to be a happy ending and great hair and I get to do one of my favourite activities which is to roll my eyes with panache. WITH PANACHE! So after doing a Google image search on Hallmark Christmas films, I settled on A Christmas Reunion starring Denise Richards because this cover had what I was looking for... yes... So come with me on a magical re-cap of a cheesy film. We start off with the gold standard of Hallmark films: a montage of something Christmasy. It can vary from a small town decked out for Christmas, ornaments on a tre...

This felt like an incredibly long week. I have been battling a cold so I guess I have been feeling worn out ergo feeling like it has been a long week. The Kid was off from Monday-Thursday (he too had a cold) and today he went back. I am sure it was a bit of a shock to his system to have to wear pants and actually follow rules. This afternoon he has a 2 hour session with two therapists and fingers crossed it goes well. After work I am stopping for a quick gluehwein at Karlsplatz Christmas market (my first of the season!) and then heading home to make dinner and wear pyjamas and try and not freak out about tomorrow... because tomorrow is the big movie theater afternoon event thing! Dun dun duuuunnnnn. I am sure it will be great and I hope there is an awesome turnout and is it too early to start drinking? Besides the big event, it will be a pretty quiet weekend. I hope to be able to do some crafts, watch a Hallmark film so that I can rip it apart in my blog and of course, stare at our...

Hello Wednesday! I was off work yesterday because the Kid has a cold. I dropped him off at Kindergarten on Monday and 40 minutes later, they called and said he was coughing and he had to be picked up. He was fine most of the day but at 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday, he was awake and ready to partay. Luckily around 8 a.m. he fell asleep for a couple of hours and I could snooze on the sofa. The Nanny came in the afternoon and I was able to meet a couple of friends for a late lunch at Cafe Wortner and then a quick drink with another friend at Cafe Gitarre and then onto the Beaver Brewing Company for an 80's tribute night. It was a fun fun evening and at one point, 2 friends pulled me to the front to sing Jesse's Girl with them and my real life nightmare came true. I am not a singer and I am not a performer. Ok, yes, there have been a couple of karaoke episodes but on both occasions I was pickled. My somewhat hazy memory seems to recall me saying "No no no. I do not do Karaok...

So yesterday's post was "Rah! Rah! Opening the center in 4 months! ZOMG!". The last two nights... I have not slept well. I have woken up in a cold sweat, imagining bankruptcy.. or even worse. I have spent the last 48 hours whipping out my calculator and trying to sort out how I was going to raise enough money by April and it wasn't looking great. Now, I am an optimist and I believe things will work out... but raising the amount of money I need in 4 months, while definitely possible, is a little too ambitious even for me. I tossed and turned and this morning at 3, (just an hour before the Kid came tearing into our room screaming and kicking with a fever.. sigh.) I finally came to the conclusion that I need a later deadline. It was a hard decision for me and it broke my heart, but I have to do this right. Risks are good but not when we have to pay for rent, childcare and therapy. It's not just a situation of tightening our belts (is that the right idiom?) but ac...

Sup sup Wednesday? I think you can gather from the title of this post that I am kind of freaking out just a little ittle bitty bit. OMG! YOU GUYS! The past year has been a labour of love. I have been slowly but surely building up the Autism in Vienna Facebook page, bombarding strangers with my concept of an autism center, and sobbing off and on. I am now officially a Verein thanks to a friend who helped with the statutes and I am now looking at a real life actual location. I saw it a few weeks ago for the first time and last night, I was back but this time, with my board members. We met with the couple who owns the location and it was all business. Yes, I can be business-y. We looked at two different floors and then discussed the rent. I laid out my plans for the center and how to raise funds and hopefully sounded business-like and shit. They made an offer which would be ridiculous to refuse and if all goes to plan (and I don't throw myself off a bridge) then we should be up an...

Hello Sunday evening! I just got back from a great long walk with the Kid. It is slowly becoming our thing. Just the two of us walking around the neighbourhood, taking in the sights and me just talking to him about everything even though I know he doesn't really know what I am saying. He is awesome on the walks; his eyes light up and he makes a happy sound once in a while. He stops when I stop, he walks faster when I do, and he is just a joy. These walks give me a sense of normalcy and it is the one time of the day I don't feel like I am a mom of a special needs kid... I am just a normal mom, taking a walk with her little boy. My only wish is that one day he starts speaking and then he can finally say "Dammit, woman! Shut it! You are a neurotic ball of stress and angst. And by the way, he's just not that into you." Heh. Friday after work I headed home and we decided to try and take the Kid to a Christmas market. It has been a couple of years since we have been...