Fish Out of Water

It's as if I have a whole new job

I work for a consulting firm, so we all move from project to project and client to client. Depending on the project and the client, you could stay somewhere for years or move around a lot. I've only been at this job since September, and until this week I was working on our main municipal government contract. I worked on two major projects and learned a TON. But a few weeks ago I was told I was going to be moved to a different client - our biggest client, in fact - a large firm in the healthcare sciences field. I was excited because it's always good to work with different people and learn new things, and since those other two projects had basically ended, it was a good time for me to make a transition.

So I started this past Monday, and it couldn't be more different from the old gig. Each of our client relationships has a particular sort of character - at some clients we seem more like consultants, and at others it's as if we work there as part of the staff. This new gig is much more like I actually work there, so it really does feel like I just got a new job again. This week has been all about learning about the project - which is very hard because of constant use of acronyms and abbreviations, as well as a business process that is quite complex. Also I got my new laptop and phone set up, and I have my own cubicle with my name on it. And yes, because I am a huge dork, having my name on it gives me a litle thrill. I've never had my name on an office before!

I am really hoping to make a positive impact on the project and make everyone happy to have me there. I guess we'll see how it all goes!

Success!

I got the job!

Last time I posted, I mentioned that I had been interviewing for a business analyst job. Yesterday I had a third interview for that same job (I've never been through a process like this although I know people who had to go through many more than three interviews to get a job - but for me, this was kind of excruciating!), and today they offered it to me. I took it! I start this coming Tuesday.

I am really excited about the opportunity to work somewhere new for the first time in many years, and at a bigger company with a totally different kind of atmosphere from where I've been for so long. It was definitely time for a change and I think this place will be great. They told me they really liked me and thought I had great potential to grow in the organization, and they thought I'd be a great fit for them.

After the last few rather traumatic weeks, this is a welcome change and a sign of stability and good opportunities. I'll be working hard, but it will be more than worth it.

Making progress

Lots of good news to report! The baby has learned how to flip over from her back to her tummy. For a while she would get her arm caught and shriek, but now she can get all the way over. Sometimes it still freaks her out a little to suddenly find herself on her tummy, but she is starting to get the hang of the whole deal. The other night I went in her room to feed her after I heard her crying on the monitor, and I was totally surprised to find her on her tummy.

Even better is the cat. He has stopped peeing in the fireplace! WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I finally took the advice of covering the pee area with aluminum foil, and I also put down some small pieces of firewood to prevent him from batting it away (though I don't know if he would do that, I just wanted to be sure), and he hasn't gone anywhere near there since. Also the foil seems to be masking the smell of stale pee from before. I do have a pretty good pee-smell-removal formula, so I am going to peel back the foil one of these days and apply some more of that before re-covering it, but at least there is NO NEW PEE. The cat is so much more welcome in my life now. I am glad because it is very hard to find people to adopt an 8.5-year-old antisocial cat who pees in the fireplace. Go figure.

The big girl is pushing all the boundaries lately, and it is quite a challenge for us not to yell and freak out too much. I guess that is what comes with the territory of being 4. But she is having her own little victories, like tonight she shampooed her hair all by herself, without being asked, and she is still the sweetest and cuddliest when she wants to be. Her school year ends on Monday and then the following Monday she starts day camp so she is pretty excited about that. We saw the daily schedule and she is going to be exhausted at the end of each day! It looks like so much fun. I was kind of pathetic at camp when I was a kid, but I was never the little joiner that she is, so I know she's going to have a blast. I am also excited that she is going to learn to swim. I am a lousy swimmer so I'm glad that properly trained people are going to teach her.

So life is good. Totally exhausting, often overwhelming, and in some moments quite trying, but always good. I look at my two little girls and my spectacular husband and wonder how I got to be so lucky. The stupid stuff will take care of itself, I know that, it's just a matter of finding a way to remind myself of that before I freak out and go crazy yelling about something that is ultimately unimportant. The real story is that I am the luckiest girl in the world.

It's Starting!

Hey everybody! This is Cecily, Elise's lucky friend who gets to bring you baby updates.

Her water broke tonight (Friday) around 7 or 8 pm. She's getting ready to head over to the birth center in a couple of hours, after her parents come and get her daughter. They told her that it could be a few days before labor starts, but she tells me that she's beginning to feel some "tightening" down there and thinks she's getting ready to go.

Very exciting! As Elise would say. I'll keep posting when I hear more.

In the home stretch now.....

Today was my last day at work before the baby comes. Even though I will still be working from home, now I have the flexibility to be able to work in bed (courtesy of my laptop + wireless connection, two things I did NOT have the last time I had a baby!), and also nap during the day. I will probably work no more than four hours on a given day, and I am pretty sure this kid will be born within the week anyway. I did bring home a box full of file folders with important stuff to do, and even though I know I won't get to all of it, I think I can still get some stuff done. Tomorrow I have a checkup with the midwife but that's all I have specifically planned. It's nice to be able to have a few days to myself before everything gets all busy and weird and newborn-ish.

My boss and co-workers were all so sweet and nice - wishing me good luck, telling me to go home and get some rest. It was great. They have all been really supportive and sweet, especially as I've gotten bigger, crankier, less mobile, and more sore. They all said they would miss me, and they can't wait to see the baby. It was a nice last day.

It sort of feels like the calm before the proverbial storm now. I keep thinking back to my first daughter - the time I spent at home before she was born (about 10 days from my last work day until her birth), what it was like to realize I was in labor, the hours of labor where my husband was timing my contractions and I was going up and down the stairs between the living room couch and the bathroom because I had to pee between each one, the decision we made with the midwife at 3:30am to go to the birth center, and then the remarkable sight of a brand-new baby at 8:30am.....................it's both a blur and so vivid all at the same time. Does that make any sense? I'm comparing who I was then with who I am now, where our family was then with where we are now, what it's like to do this with an older child, all the things I've learned about being a mom. I think the biggest thing I learned about being a mom is how much I love it! I think that has actually really surprised me. I did know that I wanted kids, but I didn't know how cool they would be. It's also really fun to have this be the big enterprise that my husband and I do together.

I'm all overwhelmed by all this. I guess that means I'm an emotional pregnant lady who needs to go to sleep. On Sunday I had the afternoon to myself and so of course I had to sit and watch Notting Hill for the 8 millionth time - only one of the best movies ever! - and cry and cry at the end when the Elvis Costello song is playing. Love it!

Oh boy, I want this baby to come out. I am tired of being pregnant. Here's to a January birth! Bets anyone? I think the baby's coming on the 30th!!

Private school!

We had the interview at the international school this morning and by 6:30 tonight our daughter had been admitted, to start right after Thanksgiving. Apparently there was one spot left in the three-year-old classroom and they are now holding it for her! We are so excited and so proud of her.

The interview went really well. It's actually pretty informal. The parents meet with the director in one room while the kid meets with one of the teachers in an adjoining room. I think the purpose of the kid interview is to see if the kid is interested in learning and likes to be engaged in things, and the purpose of the parent interview is to see if the parents will be a good fit for the school community. When the director called she said she thought it was a very good match, so I guess they liked us as much as we liked them. We are thrilled. A tad nervous about how we're going to pay for it, but we'll find a way. It's just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

This evening we had cheesesteaks (yummy Philly ones from a place near our house) and then enjoyed a nice toasty fire in the living room while listening to Ray Charles and watching our daughter dance. Then I read her some stories and put her to bed. It has been quite a lovely evening so far. I am really tired after spending much of the day crawling around on the floor at a client, doing a server installation, so I doubt I'll be able to keep my eyes open for much more than another hour. I am SO GLAD the weekend is almost here. Sunday we are making Halloween cupcakes for my daughter's school party. That will be fun! Our good friend J. is helping too so I'm sure we'll have a hoot and a half. And only three weeks left until our vacation, woo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life is good.

Baby stuff, and kid stuff

This was a totally insane day.  It actually started yesterday when the day care called to say our daughter's eye was red.  Oh dear.  But we were holding out hope that maybe she had just rubbed it really hard or gotten something in it, that it wasn't the dreaded..........PINKEYE.  We figured we'd wait until the morning and see if it was any worse and if it was, we'd call the doctor. 

In the evening she had just gone to bed when she had a - shall we say - intestinal issue that resulted in some great discomfort for her, poor thing.  She finally went to sleep at 10pm - nearly two hours after her usual bedtime.  She also came in our bed to sleep with us a bunch of times during the night, so we woke up this morning completely exhausted and not at all well-rested.  This morning I dropped her off at day care after inspecting her eyes and determining that they looked pretty OK to me.  Bad move.  After I had been at the office an hour or so, the day care called to say not only was that eye red, the other one was too!  GRRRRRRR.  I hate pinkeye - it is the scourge of childhood.

But we couldn't go get her right then because we had an appointment with the midwife for my monthly checkup, and my husband was coming with me, since he couldn't make it last time so didn't get to hear the heartbeat.  We went to the appointment, and not only did we hear the heartbeat, good and strong, we also heard the baby doing somersaults in there!  So all is well.  I'm almost 16 weeks already!  My belly is getting very big and aside from some pretty unpleasant lower back pain, and some general sluggishness, I am feeling pretty good.  I've only gained 3 pounds since my last visit, so that is great.  I am on a much better path this time than I was last time, when I gained 50 pounds during the pregnancy.

Sure enough, though, after the appointment I called the day care and they were like, get your kid out of here.  So my wonderful fantastic mom went to get her, and even took her to the doctor for me so he could prescribe some eye drops.  He also took a look at her derriere and said she just has bad constipation, no cause for concern.  We just need to make sure she's eating more roughage and taking some medicine for it.  So that made me feel better.

I'm super psyched about the new baby coming, and I'm very glad it's not coming until the end of January or the beginning of February because I need some more time to get ready for it!  We did move the double bed into our daughter's room over the weekend and now she is in a real big-girl bed, so the crib can get repurposed for the new arrival.  I am hoping the bigger bed will help her sleep better because then that means we will sleep better too!  I am also keeping all my fingers crossed that I haven't caught pinkeye from her - UGH.  I had it last year and it is such a bummer.  I have had it so many times in my life, just not fun at all.

So mostly I am feeling my usual way: tired, a little overwhelmed, kinda blah, but getting through everything somehow.  I do get to have lots of special hugs from my little girl, and that is pretty spectacular.  I sing her to sleep every night and that is really our special time together.  She is a great kid.  I just wish she hadn't inherited the crazy whining skills that I employed so frequently as a child.  Whining SUCKS!  I'll be glad when she outgrows that.  But the fact that she says she loves me about 800 times a day definitely helps balance out the whining.  My kid is a great person, and the thought of there being another one is pretty exciting. 

Lotsa stuff

First things first.  Alison tagged me last week, so that made me feel very popular.  So I am responding to her tag thusly:

5 things in my fridge:

1. hard-boiled eggs - a great staple for those busy mornings when you don't have time to get breakfast before rushing out the door with the kid, her lunch, my purse, and other sundry necessities.

2. moldy leftover pie crust - yeah, yuck.  Sometimes I forget when I have extra after making a pie.

3. two different kinds of milk - 1% for me, 2% for the kid.  Takes up WAY too much room on the beverage shelf.

4. many jars of capers - we always buy more when we need them because we can never find the last jar we had.  Then months later we find like 4 jars of these things buried in different parts of the fridge.

5. styrofoam container of old leftovers - many nights we are too tired to cook.  We also have a tendency to over-order.

5 things in my closet:

1. wool sweaters - sheesh, I really need to get these to the cleaners so they won't get moth-eaten this summer.

2. muddle of shoes - I can keep my shoes nicely sorted for about a week before it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

3. my violin - before my daughter was born I started taking violin lessons.  I adored them but had to stop because of grad school, the new baby, and my full-time job.  I have promised myself that someday I will take it up again.

4. a still-packed suitcase from when we moved into this house - yes, a year ago.

5. a pair of cowboy boots that belonged to the late husband of my husband's nanny when he was growing up - apparently this guy was tiny, and his boots fit me perfectly.  They are gray ostrich.  Not my normal style at all, but so interesting and unusual that occasionally I wear them to work just to throw off my co-workers.

5 things in my purse:

1. a binky, leftover from the binky days that ended over a year ago

2. my way too fat wallet - I need a new one badly

3. my iPod mini - love it!

4. many lipglosses which I rarely wear

5. my super-special-never-can-get-lost house key because it's attached to a key fob that is attached to the inside of my purse.  Love that too!

5 things in my car:

First of all, I am proud to say that since I've only had my car for like a week and a half, I don't think I have many more than five things in it!  Let's see:

1. my ice scraper - you never know!  We could have a midsummer ice storm and I'd be the only one prepared

2. my stupid hands-free phone device that never works

3. my Club which I haven't used in years

4. a car seat, sitting on a towel to protect the fancy leather seat in my BMW (sorry, had to just toss that in for good measure)

5. the leather-bound owner's manual for my car, which I really have to read because I still haven't figured out the windshield wipers yet!!

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Our trip to Williamsburg this weekend

It was AWESOME.  We had such a good time with our friends, we got to meet their absolutely enchanting three-month-old daughter, and we actually picked an awesome weekend to be there because they were reenacting the British takeover of Williamsburg after Virginia declared independence.  Super cool!

We had some really yummy, authentic style meals, including Saturday night's dinner at a candlelit tavern with roving musicians that were so wonderful that my daughter couldn't help herself and got up and danced for like half an hour.  The people at the table next to us kept applauding for her as much as for the musicians.

It was a truly magical weekend.  Too bad the traffic on I-95 in Virginia sucks so badly.  What should have been a 4.5-hour trip took us 6.5.  Oh well, at least we had the awesome car!  The kid was pretty well-behaved too, except for a few moments of frustration, so that was good.  It was fun.

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And, in my final bit of news for the day, I'm pregnant.  Due date looks like it's going to be around the end of January.

Wow.  Two kids.

We just never stop

We bought a building.

We (and by we I mean mostly my husband with a little bit of consultation from me, the silent partner in the business) put in an offer on a commercial building near our house on Thursday and on Friday it was accepted.  We've started our next business deal.  It has office space on the second floor and a restaurant storefront downstairs.  We'll have to spruce it up a little and get some tenants and then we'll be big tycoons.  OK, maybe that last part is a big of an exaggeration, but it's pretty exciting.  We've been wanting to get into commercial stuff for a while because the margins tend to be better than they are with residential, and plus I think my husband just wants to kind of try everything in real estate so he can then pick what he likes best.

In other news, I have continued to exercise every day since I started a week ago Thursday (I have taken one night off).  I started out walking, and then I added a little bit of running, and tonight I did my entire loop running - no walking.  It took me about 15 minutes to go somewhere between half and two-thirds of a mile, so I still have a ways to go before I'll consider myself "in good shape," but I'm getting there.  I can already tell I'm getting better because I wouldn't have been able to run the entire way when I first started.  My goal is to be able to run a mile without stopping, and then I want to run a mile in under ten minutes.  I have to map out a mile-long loop and start trying to run it.  It feels so good to be exercising and moving around.  I feel like maybe I'll start to get rid of some of my flab too!

Right now my husband and I are just biding our time until Aug 20, when we FINALLY leave on vacation for two weeks.  I remember last year we were so ready for vacation at this time, and sure enough, here it is again, August, and we are totally burnt out.  I just reserved our rental car for L.A. - no, I should say I just reserved our rental obnoxious-gas-guzzler - a Lincoln Aviator - but I had to because we have six people we'll need to shuttle around.  What I'm worried about is that after all this time of bitching and moaning about how much I hate SUV's, I will drive this thing and love it.  I guess I'm partially protected by the fact that I'm not in the market for a new car right now anyway, and the price of gas is already so ridiculous that there would be no way I could afford to drive a car like that.  But still - I looked at the picture of it on the Lincoln website and I actually thought it looked pretty cool.  We considered renting a mini-van since that would hold 6 people too, but we decided it wasn't cool enough to drive around L.A.  So a big fat SUV it is.

I'm still hating my job.  Still looking for a new one.  Still despairing of ever finding one.  But trying to be a little more positive - it's not going to be very productive for me to sit around complaining in my head while I'm at work or else the days will feel even longer than they already do.  And I have one very nice thing to look forward to tomorrow: I'm having lunch with newly-no-longer-trapped-in-a-horrible-job Sarah!  That will be fun.

OK, I'm sweating up here and I want to go read in bed before falling asleep.  Ugh, is tomorrow Monday AGAIN?  Boy do I hate Sunday nights.  Good night!

"A Significant Upgrade"

I am sitting on the third floor of my new house, using my brand-new wireless Internet connection to type this post.  It is so hard to even begin describing the past four days of my life.  It has been such a mix of emotions and experiences.  I know I'm being dramatic, but it feels like my entire life has changed.  Along with the insane roller-coaster of Cecily and Charlie's recent house news, it has been a pretty draining couple of days.

On Friday, we were planning to spend the evening getting all packed and ready for Saturday's move.  We loaded up my car with a bunch of paintings and stuff we didn't want to go in the moving truck, but then we ran into Cecily, Charlie and Sarah, who were going to see Batman Begins.  That sounded like a lot more fun than packing, so we ditched our plans and went to see the movie with them.  During and after the movie, we all discovered the exciting news about their house going under contract, and we were all totally keyed up by the time the movie ended.  So much so that, at 11pm, we all decided it would be a very good idea to go see our new house.  They had all seen the outside but not the inside.  So drove out there (a nice 15-minute ride when it's not rush hour) and they all got the grand tour.  Then we were hungry, so we went to Perkins at midnight.  I don't think my husband and I got to sleep until almost 2am.

This rather silly but fun evening left us the next morning with TONS of packing to do before the movers came.  My husband started freaking out about how we were, in his words, "fucked," and how we weren't ready and how he was mad at both of us for not being ready.  Luckily, the best neighbors ever (aka Cecily and Charlie) were ready for this, and had already started getting organized to come over and help us pack.  Cecily single-handedly packed up our daughter's room and the hall closet, and whipped the office and bathroom into shape after we had started them but left them undone and in various states of disarray.  Charlie put together two huge boxes of pots and pans so we could actually cook something once we got here.  Meanwhile the movers arrived and started carrying stuff out.  While they were downstairs taking out boxes, we were upstairs frantically throwing things into more boxes.  It was crazy.

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, Sarah showed up with a McDonald's lunch.  How awesome is that!  There is nothing better than good friends on moving day.  We all recharged our batteries and got inspired to keep going.

Unfortunately, our poor cat was not doing so well.  He is neurotic and weird to begin with, and he does not take kindly to strange men stomping through his house taking things out.  He hid in the basement for the first few hours of the adventure.  When they came down to the basement, he ran upstairs and, my husband later told me, was racing around up there like a cat possessed.  I ended up shutting him into the bathroom so he could relax.  He climbed into a shelf and stayed there for a few hours.

After five hours, the movers were ready to close up the truck.  Not before I almost got knocked out by a branch falling out of the sycamore tree in front of our house!  I was standing under the tree watching the movers pack the truck and drinking a Coke when I heard a loud noise.  I turned around and saw a thick branch on the ground, just inches away from me.  I turned around and found Cecily and Sarah staring at me from the porch, with Cecily yelling, "I thought that was going to whack you in the head!"  Close call.

It took the movers about 2 hours to unload the truck after we arrived at the new house.  They all loved it immediately.  My husband was regaling the boss mover with stories about the history of the house: there is a story (that may be apocryphal but is a cool story nonetheless) that Washington and Lafayette stopped at the house on their way back from the Battle of Brandywine (the house was a tavern at the time).  William Penn was the property's first deed-holder.  A men's club owned the house in the late 19th century and redid the living room in high Victorian style with solid oak paneling, ceiling and floor (it is still there today, and it is gorgeous).  It is also said that this house served as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the 1800s.  It is a house we can be very proud to own. 

It is also, in my husband's words, a significant upgrade.  We looked around the kitchen and laundry room and realized that those two rooms together were the same size as the entire downstairs of our old house.  We calculated that our master bedroom alone is half the size of our old house.  This house is at least 3,000 square feet.  It is awesome.  YAY!

Cecily, Charlie, Sarah, my parents, my grandmother, and our daughter (who had spent the duration of the move with her grandparents and great-grandmother) all came over after we were all moved in.  We ordered pizza and everyone relaxed and ate, and looked around the house.  My family had never seen it, so they went around oohing and aahing.  It was awesome.  We were so tired, but so happy.  Our daughter took one look at it and yelled, "I love my new house!"  She got so excited that she started running laps around the coffee table in the living room.  We couldn't stop laughing - she must have gone around 50 times.  Sarah said it was better than TV.  It was so sweet to see her so excited and happy.

Yesterday she woke up at 5am.  It was another exciting day.  Our cable TV/Internet/phone service was hooked up, our new bed was delivered, and I went back to the old house to pick up some stuff we had left there, including the cat.  He was so stressed out that we decided to let him have one night to himself.  When I went to get him, he was still really anxious and upset.  He wouldn't let me put him in the cat carrier so I just put him in the car loose.  Bad move.  He decided he needed to sit on my lap as I drove.  I was every stand-up comedian's worst nightmare - that clueless lady driving down the street with her cat on her lap.  I tried to make him put his head down so no one would see him, but it was hard.  At one point he went to the back seat and sat on my daughter's lap, so that was a relief, but then he came back up front.  He finished the ride squeezed in the back seat between her car seat and the huge camping cooler I had also brought with me to get food out of the old fridge.  When we got home, he went straight up to the guest room and hid under the covers.  He only just came out about an hour ago, and that was only because my husband got him out.  Now he's actually prowling around up here while we both sit on our computers.  He looks a lot less freaked out than before.  I do hope he'll use the litter box soon.  I'm not interested in finding cat poop and pee on my 273-year-old house.

OK, so now I have to rave about our new bed for a little while.  OH MY GOD.  It is the most incredible bed I've ever slept on.  Now, mind you, we had been sleeping on a double bed (yes, a full-size bed, the smallest multi-person bed you can get, the size that's one size bigger than twin) that had a 6-year-old rather low-end mattress on a platform frame.  Not the most comfortable thing in the history of the world.  So I decided to go all out.  I got a queen-size Serta Perfect Sleeper with pillow top.  OH MY GOD.  It's like sleeping on a bed of soft, fluffy clouds.  Bliss.  I want to go to bed now so I can go be in it!

We are still pretty far from being all the way unpacked, but we're making steady progress.  Mostly I keep looking around at this wonderful house and getting such a warm, happy feeling that we were able to buy it.  I'm so proud of us and so happy to be here.  And I can't wait until Cecily and Charlie move to our neck of the woods too so we can have our neighbors back!  Granted, they won't be down the street anymore, but they'll be right nearby and we can get to know our new town together.  The instant I walked into this house, it felt like home.  That's how you know you picked the right house. 

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So now that I've moved, I can turn my attention to the next exciting, amazing thing happening in my life: my sister's wedding, this very Saturday.  Yay!  It's about 3 hours away from here, so we'll be driving on Friday morning and we'll be away all weekend.  I cannot wait - it's going to be so great.  My aunt made a dress for my daughter, and I have a cute dress to wear too, and it's just going to be wonderful.

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The final bit of news is that we sold both of those houses that we were building.  That did not go off without some drama, but the good news is that both houses have been sold and we have our money.  I am so proud of my husband's hard work in getting those houses built.  He is already looking around for the next piece of land to develop.  I am mostly thinking about vacation at this point!!

Time to go unpack some more boxes, and then collapse into my fantastic new bed.  Mmmmm, pillow top.