- The little black snail died and polluted the tank and gave Simon (the Betta) a fungal infection. So I cleaned the tank thoroughly and added a little aquarium salt. Simon is quickly losing the white patches and getting back to his gorgeous green-blue color. Dyson (the large golden apple snail) didn’t care for all the commotion or the added salt so I moved him to the smaller tank. Now he’s sliming all over the place, but still moving about some. Hopefully after a few days of rest and separation, I can reunite them as healthy critters.
- The Kid starts school next week, entering the first grade. His teacher sent him the cutest postcard welcoming him to her class. I’m so hoping that this year goes more smoothly. The Kid’s behavior has improved this summer, but it’s just him and his brother most of the time, not an entire class of kids. So we’ll see how things go with the new teacher. He is sleeping better since his tonsils and adenoids came out, so there’s that, too. He’s also been working with Hubby on his writing and getting better all the time.
- The Kid is really into cartoons right now and starting to venture into territory I’d rather he didn’t go. I don’t mind Code Name Kids Next Door or Fanboy & Chum Chum, but when he starts getting into the more violent cartoons, I have a problem. I’m one of those weird Americans who would rather my kid see people get naked than people getting hurt/killed (not that we sit around with nudie movies on either, but you get my point). So we’ve told him that anything over a TV-Y rating, he has to ask mom or dad if he can watch. We try to keep an eye on what he’s watching, but it helps that he’s such an incredibly honest kid.
- Boo moved up to a big boy bed! Hubby’s folks had the head/foot boards that match the Kid’s, so we bought them a new frame for their mattresses and set up the matching bed for Boo (his mattress is nicer than ours!). He seems to be doing well with it. There was one rough night where he was up every hour or so, but he seems to have gotten over it. The worst part is that he’s a total wiggle worm at night and moves ALL OVER the bed. He’s already cracked his head on the headboard a time or two and somehow ended up on the floor this morning (if he fell out, he didn’t cry). It’s a happy and sad thought to think that we don’t have a use for the crib anymore, but our little Boo is 2 and a half.
- My job has been sucking lately. Only because I haven’t had much to do. Finally today I got to start a big project creating computer-based training for another girl in our greater department. I was SO happy to be doing CBTs again! Our boss has pigeon-holed us to the point that all I do is system administration for our training tracking system (when I’m not traveling) and my coworker was doing all the eLearning stuff. Lucky, for me, said coworker is busy with other project right now so he was more than happy to pass this one to me! I’m hoping this will help people see there is more to me than just being a system administrator.
- Went to a weekend crop last weekend and finished 22 pages. Not bad for me. Especially since I missed half of the first day when I was trapped in an airport trying to get back home. I’m about a year and a half behind on my scrapbooking right now so I was glad I got any time at all to get a few pages done and catch up with my Scrap Mafia girls. They are about the coolest bunch of ladies I’ve ever known. Even when we don’t talk for months, it’s like we were never apart.
- Speaking of women friends, apparently I need to remember who reads my blog and not be so rude to them on here. I would hope that folks would realize when I’m venting and just doing an emotional dump here, but I also realize that I use some strong words sometimes. So I’m sorry if I offended or angered anyone reading this.
- Speaking of reading, I am slowly but surely making my way through “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest”. This book is very hard for me to get into. I really liked the first two, but this one is slow going and not really keeping my attention. Hopefully, I’ll finish it soon so I can start the new Patricia Briggs werewolf book.
I am so obsessed with my fish. Probably because work is infinitely tedious right now. And there he is happily swimming around in his little tank. Giving me minutes of entertainment before I focus back on more and more data entry.
I haven’t moved the betta over to the new 2 gallon tank yet. I’m letting it run for a few days before I toss him in. I was worried that it might get too cold (Bettas are tropical fish, you know) so I bought a heater for it, but the thermometer I also picked up has read a steady 79 degrees all morning. I think it’s the air vent on my laptop heating it up. I also considered getting a filter, but the tank comes with one (sort of) and the girls at Petco talked me out of it. And no piddly fish flakes for my boy, he only eats freeze-dried bloodworms. Mmm mmm good!
Yes, I know I’m spoiling him.
The snail is annoying me. When I had him at home, he was very active and crawling all over the tank. Since I brought it to work, he’s hardly moved. I don’t know if the betta has been annoying him, if the water conditions are bad for him, or if all the moving around freaked him out, but he’s been hibernating for about a week now. If he’s moving around at night, I can’t tell. He’s not dead, according to Dr. Google, because he’s still in his shell with his “trapdoor” closed and he doesn’t smell bad. But he is an incredibly boring pet and an ineffective algae eater, if he just stays in his shell all the time. I moved him over to the new tank today, so he’ll be in there for about 24 hours by himself. If the betta was bugging him (which I never saw him do), maybe this will give him an opportunity to explore before the betta joins him. I’m also thinking about adding one or two other snails to hang out with him.
Isn’t this just the most exciting post EVER?!! Well, half the women I know are pregnant right now, and since I won’t be joining them any time soon (or ever again), I have to get my “new thing to take care of” fix somewhere.
I bought a USB powered fish tank for work. It doesn’t filter, but it aerates and heats the water a little bit so the fish won’t freeze over the weekend. The kid helped me pick out a gorgeous male Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish). He’s primarily turquoise with a little bit of red, and apparently his fin style is “crowntail” (very long and feathery – kind of like this one). I also got a small Golden/Mystery/Apple snail to help keep the tank clean. He’s a cute little thing. And he doesn’t appear to be popping out any babies, so I think my teeny tiny tank is safe from snail overpopulation. It’s nice to have a pet at work. It’s very relaxing watching them swim/crawl around the tank.
Sooooo, the whole weight loss thing… um, yeah… That’s not going so well. I pretty much gave up once I started traveling for work about a month and a half ago. It’s pretty hard to say no when the company you’re visiting is offering free meals (and entire pints of gourmet ice cream)that are not diet friendly. I promised myself I’d get back on track this week, but I haven’t been 100% faithful to the diet and I haven’t exercised at all (other than walking down to see the fireworks on Saturday). I’m not mentally in the game right now and I need to be.
It doesn’t help that I am absolutely addicted to the Mcdonalds Caramel Frappe and have a buttload of coupons for a free small. There is not much I like to eat at Mcdonalds (aside from their tasty fries!), but those frappes are some good stuff.
Sorry my first post back was so incredibly bitchy. The funk has decended this week and I can’t seem to shake it. Hopefully, it will pass soon.
In other news, did I mention I just got back from the motherfrakking Netherlands?!?! How cool is that? I stayed in a great litle village just a few miles from the sea and took a gorgeous bike ride to the beach one night. I was there for work, but I made sure to make time for fun this time since I was there for a week. On Friday night, I stayed at a hotel near Schiphol Airport and explored Amsterdam Centraal. For those up on your voetbal, you already know that was the night that Holland won against Brazil. Needless to say, there was great merryment in the streets. I’ll post some pictures and video soon.
During my mad travels over the last 3 weeks, I also made a stop in Raleigh, NC and picked up my very first designer handbag (yes, you heard that right: handbag. Not purse. Don’t be hatin’.). I was so impressed with Marty’s story of the stolen bag and the designer’s willingness to replace it for her, free of charge (who does that?!). Plus, the bags are so cute and damn near indestructable, I had to get one of my very own. Unfortunately, the bag I bought is too small for the great wealth of crap I carry around from day to day. Lucky for me, the very awesome Holly Aiken agreed to let me exchange my bag for a larger version when I return to Raleigh later this month since I haven’t used it!
Another exciting (to me) purchase was my new brown work shoes. My old ones were falling apart and I was having a terrible time finding a new pair that was comfortable and looked decent with a pair of khaki dress pants. These little gems fit the bill, with the caveat that I have to put band aids over the bone under my big toe otherwise they rub very painfully on that spot.
In kid news, the Kid smacked his little brother in the mouth with the metal gate that’s between the kitchen and the living room and chipped his front tooth. Luckily they both already had an appointment witht he dentist that week. Boo’s tooth is OK and the dentist filed off the sharp edge, but he’s going to have a chipped smile until his baby teeth fall out in a few years. The Kid has had a bad run of doing things that end up with his briother crying lately. I think now that Boo is getting a little older/bigger, he forgets that he still outweighs him by 50 pounds. I’ve got an older kid off the charts in weight/height and a younger kid below the 30th percentile. Add that to the fact that they’re 4 years apart and you can see that it’s a dangerous combination when they play rough (as boys are wont to do).
We have an appointment with the Kid’s principal and one of the teachers tomorrow. We had the school administer some additional tests to see if he could be accelerated to 2nd grade next year. Really, I’m not sold on him skipping grades (even though socially he does do better with older kids), I just want the school to formally recognize his “smarts” and teach him accordingly. It was ridiculous that a kid who reads on a 4th grade level (according to the school) be teached the basics of the alphabet and letter sounds for an entire school year. I want him taught on his level and to be challenged (more than just once a week in the gifted program), whether that’s in 1st or 2nd grade.
I’ve got a few other things I want to talk about, but I’ll save that for another post!
I don’t know if it was the dose of Lex.a.pro I missed or the fact that I’m on the rag or that I was recovery from jet lag (just returned from the Netherlands) or a combination of all of the above, but I have been cranky as all get out for the last few days. And the one thing that was really eating at me was that it looked like my husband had not planned anything for our wedding anniversary (Before you jump on your high horse, I plan everything else in our lives. And I mean EVERYTHING. It’s not unreasonable that I expect him to plan our anniversary and Valentine’s Day dates). It was last week (June 30th) and since I was out of town, we just exchanged emails to commemorate the day. I thought I would come home to dinner plans or at least a card. I had picked up a very romantic card at the Hallmark in the airport and had written a near paragraph of sweet nothings in it.
I came home to nothing. No card, no plans for dinner*, nothing. So obviously I was a little disappointed. The longer the weekend went on, the more disheartened I felt. Finally I posted a comment on Facebook, hoping for a little support for my girls. One of the moms from Hubby’s playgroup posts “”Aww, cut him a break. As the wife of someone who travels, it is exhausting being a part time single parent.”
To that, I say “FUCK YOU.” First of all, how lazy is she, that she’s too exhausted to pick up a card?!?. Secondly and most importantly, my husband knows exactly how much I appreciate him and what he does for our family (in fact, I wrote just that in his anniversary card!). And as someone on the other side of the fence, let me tell you just how stressful it is to be the sole breadwinner for a family of four. Let’s talk about how “exhausted” you’d be if your spouse lost his job and you had to be the one working 40+ hours for the financial support of your family, knowing that if you lost your job your family would be without food, clothing and electricity (or feeling completely ashamed to you ask your family/friends for financial help). And we all know it’s nice to get a break from the family now and then, but let’s consider the ‘joy’ of traveling away from your kids for 3 weeks straight, only coming home long enough to give your spouse a break before you hop on another plane, or spend 11 hours in an airport, sleeping on the floor (in a puddle no less), because another flight was canceled.
Instead of taking my kids to playgroup, I spend my days in front of a computer in a cubicle. Instead of tucking my kids in at night for the last 3 weeks, I could only talk to them online or on the phone. I don’t deny that being a full time parent is stressful, exhausting and sometimes downright irritating, but don’t think that a working spouse’s job isn’t just as stressful, exhausting and downright irritating. And definitely do not imply that I don’t appreciate what my husband does. I have the utmost respect for stay at home parents and I also know that I would take on that exhausting job in a heartbeat.
*Turns out there were plan for a dinner date next weekend, he just didn’t tell me until I complained. Apparently, in addition to making dental appoinments, teacher appointments and renewing the Zoo membership while I’m traveling around the world, I’m also supposed to be psychic.
Hi! Remember me? No? Yeah, me neither. But for those who still read this site now and again, here’s what’s been on my mind lately:
- Been thinking about going public with this site. Well, it’s not private by any means, but there is a certain amount of anonymity from many of my friends, family and coworkers. I think I might write more if I knew people were reading and more people who knew me were reading, not random strangers. A lot of the bloggers I’ve friended on Facebook share links to their new posts there and I often wish I could do that. I don’t really talk about anything ultra confidential and I definitely don’t talk about work since the fiasco at my last job, so there wouldn’t be any harm in sharing my current posts (on the rare occasion I write one) with the folks who know me. However, there are archived posts where I vent about my family and friends that I’m not sure I want them to read. I wish I could password protect part of my archive without having to go post by post. I’ve been writing since 2002. That’s a lot of posts. Still, it’s something to consider.
- I think I may be perimenopausal. I’m only 33, but I’m really starting to wonder. For the last week or two, I’ve been having hot flashes, really bad acne and terrible mood swings. Clearly, my hormones are f***ed up (and I’m NOT pregnant). So I made an appointment with my OBGYN in 2 weeks to find out what is going on with my body. My prediction is he’s going to want to put me back on the pill. The last pill pretty much negated the lovely effects of the Lex.apro so it will have to be something else. I can’t afford for the anxiety to get worse right now, especially since…
- Work is crazy busy! We’ve reorganized and I’m taking on a completely different role. However, I’m still doing a lot of my old job too, which means I’m twice as busy as before. It’s making me feel VERY anxious and irritable. It’s not hard work, but it’s very time consuming and there’s A LOT of it. Plus, all of my coworkers are being stretched to the limit, too, so we’re all anxious and freaking out a bit. It also doesn’t help that our boss is a bit of a control freak (something I’ve told him to his face so no worries if I go public with the blog).
- My cell phone contract is up in 2 weeks and I’m debating if I want to get a better phone and keep my current plan, get a better phone for my hubby under my current plan, or get a pay as you go phone and plan. I never call anyone and I get very few calls either (for an extrovert, I’m very introverted) so it doesn’t make sense to pay for 500 minutes a month that I never even come close to using. However, I would like to be able to access Facebook and check my email on my phone, which I can’t do now. Do you have a NON-smartphone that does that?
Random updates for those who might still be reading…
- The Kid has officially been slapped with the label of “gifted”. This means he’s bussed to another school for the all day gifted program once a week. Mrs. O (the gifted teacher) is awesome with him, challenging him and yet remaining firm when he gets out of control. She reported back that he has an IQ of 132, for whatever that’s worth. I’m just glad he gets a chance to get out and learn HIS way without being held back in the areas he excels. I’m not saying these two things are related, but his behavior has improved remarkably in his regular class since he started the gifted program. Imagine that!
- Boo is just as smart as his big brother, in his own way. The moms in playgroup are jokingly accusing him of “showing off” when he starts spouting his huge vocabulary (like “Skeleton!” at the Science Center). Even people at the grocery store today were commenting with amazement on the 21-month-old shouting “Quesadilla!” in the ethnic food aisle. He recognizes at least 90% of the alphabet and has started counting objects up to three on a regular basis. His two loves right now are Sesame Street and Max & Ruby (Max is a bad little bunny!). I do believe that Sesame Street contributes a lot to what he knows. The Electric Company (original) taught the Kid to read. TV isn’t all bad.
- There’s a pretty major change a-coming at work, but I can’t talk about it just yet. It’s a good thing though and I’m excited about it. An opportunity to get back to some of the things I’m most passionate about. I’ll be give more details in about 2 weeks.
- I wore a dress to work yesterday. No, seriously. Stop laughing! Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is no photographic evidence.
- Two things I really want to buy when I get some money: a dressy coat and some knee-high black boots. These things may or may not be related to my former dress wearing. And the fact that I’ve bought more jewelry in the past month than I ever have before. I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?
- OMG, I got so fat in Vegas. Well, technically I was already fat, but eating those huge meals and sitting in presentations all day did not help. I came back and started 750mg of Met.formin XR twice daily. This should help me lose some weight, if only because I spend half my time on the toilet (TMI!). I’m still not dieting really, but I am working out on the elliptical 3x/week. I do well with eating at work: I eat a sensible breakfast and lunch and don’t snack in between. However, once I get home I eat a carb-laden dinner and inevitably cap the night off with chocolate or ice cream. And weekends are just a wash since I forget to work out and just eat whatever’s handy throughout the day. I’ll get there, but right now I’m slowly easing into the lifestyle changes.
OK, so apparently my hubby is deciding to keep his brilliant observations of our kids on his playgroup forum instead of sharing with all of you. Sorry, that’s just the way he rolls.
And since I’m all boring now that I’m medicated, I don’t have much to share anymore. I’m entirely too mellow to get all up on my soapbox and rant about politics or crazy news stories. I’m enjoying feeling sane, but it does make for a boring blog.
So work is good. I’m a busy little bee trying to implement our learning management system for about 150 people and their hundreds of documents. It’s tedious work, but it keeps me busy and it keeps me connected to my customers, which is very nice. I’m moving cubes next week (again). It’s just up one floor, but I’ll have lots of storage space and a whole wall of windows. Yeah, it’s a view of the parking lot, but it’s SUNSHINE! (When there is sunshine to see.) It’s in the lab area and that’s a little disconcerting, but I know you all will tell me if I start growing a fifth limb or third eye.
The kids are doing well. Everybody is healthy at the moment (*knock on wood*). My little geniuses are blowing my mind every day. The Kid is reading full on chapter books now (he’s read the entire Magic Treehouse series and the Captain Underpants books, he just started the My Teacher is an Alien series). Baby Boo can recognize and name at least 3/4 of the alphabet. He’s speaking in 2-3 word sentences and repeating every other word we say. It’s amazing how their little brains just soak everything up! Needless to say, I’m very proud of my smart little guys.
OK, enough bragging. Here’s a little something I saw while Boo was watching Sesame Street the other day. I like how they kept so much of the original song lyrics and changed it into a great little kid song. Plus, it’s cool that Jason Mraz is so comfortable singing with the puppets.
There was a lady at work that I had met for the first time just over a month ago. She was new to the company and needed my help with accessing our time tracking system. She was very nice and professional. We didn’t talk about anything personal, but I immediately liked her. I liked the way she treated me and her staff with friendly respect.
She was out of the office for about a week because of illness. When she came back, I ran into her in the hall. I noticed she was having trouble breathing, but assumed she was just in a hurry or had climbed some stairs. She said she was feeling better, but the doctors were still trying to figure out why she couldn’t breathe well. I told her that I hoped she felt better and we went our separate ways.
This morning I got an email stating that she had passed away. She was only 46. I don’t know what took her life in the end, but I know she left behind a family. I know that they had just moved to St. Louis for this job. And now she’s gone and they’re going back to Kansas to bury her. She was only 46. I saw her walking the hallways one week and the next week she was dead.
I don’t know why, but her passing really bothered me and I’m not normally a sensitive person. To think that someone could be gone that quickly and at such a young age. No prolonged illness, no drawn out hospital care. She was sick and then she was dead. It’s a very scary thought.
So I blatantly begged for post ideas on Facebook and one person suggested “What you dreamed to be when you were 10 years old”.
I’ve gone through several “dream jobs” throughout my life and none of them were corporate training specialist. When I was in Kindergarten, I wanted to be a beautician (we didn’t call them ’stylists’ back in 1981). I was totally in love with my Aunt Brenda’s long, thick chestnut hair and would spend hours playing with it when the family was together. And since my mom had gone to beauty school, I wanted to, too!
I don’t remember my career aspirations in grade school. I flirted with the idea of being a writer at one point and actually wrote several romance books (over 100 handwritten pages each). I even contacted Silhouette to find out what I need to study to be a writer and they provided the requisite form letter response. No one ever really encouraged my writing, mainly because the only person I let read them was the pastor’s daughter at my church. She wrote Transformers fanfiction while I wrote smut and then we swapped stories to critique. We were 12.
In middle school, I started reading a lot of books on multiple personality disorder (it wasn’t dissociative identity disorder in my day, whippersnapper!) and decided I wanted to be a psychoanalyst. I assumed incorrectly that the world is full of MPD sufferers just waiting for a 13-year-old from O’Fallon to unite their personalities.
When I was in high school, I found the theatre and decided I wanted to be an actress. Or a hair and makeup designer. Or a director. Or all of the above. I didn’t really have a preference, I just wanted any excuse to be a part of that world. Until you’ve been a part of a theatrical production and the dysfunctional family that develops, you won’t understand what I mean. It’s one of the few places in my life, throughout high school and college, that I really felt I belonged and perfectly comfortable in my own skin. Which is really very telling since I was often portraying someone else.
Then as I entered college and changed from a fairly big fish in a small pond to a very tiny fish in a much bigger pond, I realized it’s really hard and really disheartening to audition over and over again and not get the part. So instead of being an actress or director, I decided to be a drama teacher. And that’s what I ended up getting my Bachelors in: Secondary Education with a Speech and Drama specialty. However, public schools suck when it comes to the fine arts and after one year of teaching, I decided that wasn’t the life for me.
So here I am. Being a training specialist allows me to act and to have the limelight from time to time, but it also takes advantage of my leadership and communication skills. Plus, there’s quite a bit of creativity needed to do what I do. This may not be the job I envisioned as a child, but I enjoy it. I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. I still think variety is the spice of life so I’ll always be taking on new things and moving my career in a different direction. Who knows where I’ll end up.
