Whoa

Tabby is still cranky, tired and feverish. She doesn't want to eat much of anything. She doesn't want to be left alone. She doesn't want held. Tylenol + early bed is best right now. Poor kiddo. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

Started bootcamp. Am sore. Very sore. Work is crazy. I was in meetings 90% of today. More of the same tomorrow. Big family things to be dealt with that are all-consuming. Mommy needed a nap today too.

Made fabulous dinner. Now I have to pack up and get ready for another early day tomorrow. Sooo looking forward to a long weekend. Will write a proper post later … maybe even with a photo.

TGIM??

Is it weird that I'm excited for tomorrow? I'm hardly ever excited for Monday. It's been something of a long weekend. Tabby and I had fun at the pool on Friday except that it was 95 degrees out and Tabby had little to no interest in the pool. It had this giant bucket that filled up and then dumped and Tabby was terrified of it and spent most of the time in the sandbox. Where it was hot. And not refreshing. By the time Tabby was ready for bed, so was I.

Saturday was actually a really great day. Matt and I had gym date in the morning. We hung out and did treadmill and weights and then I hit step class. After the gym, we showered and such and met our friends at an Indian restaurant downtown and the babies (all three!) ate their fill of Indian food. Then we went to Mikey's job site (a public housing project) for a quick tour and headed home. Tabby and I got a wonderful 2 hour nap together and then my sister picked her up and she spent the evening at my parents' house. Matt and I had date night. We went to watch Get Smart which we LOVED LOVED LOVED (we loved the original series too). We laughed like crazy. Then we went to the small Italian restaurant down the street from our house. That was sort of disappointing … my pasta was a it over-cooked and the vodka sauce tasted … not like vodka sauce. And our waitress was kind of … off. Oh well. We didn't do dessert there and had wine and s'mores in our backyard at home. We ended the night with a long walk around our neighborhood.

Today just never really … gelled. We met my mom and sister and Tabby at Snooze for breakfast which was fun. Tabby was cranky and tired all day but wouldn't really nap. So we let her nap in the car while we ran a few errands. We realized later she was running a slight fever … she's cutting a molar … and she did finally go to sleep around 7 PM. And it's just about my turn. Continue reading “TGIM??”

Friday! Yay!

Another bizzzzzy day yesterday. Of course. Ran all over town, dropped off dinner to friends, picked up our CSA shares, Tabby screamed bloody murder through a very abberviated visit to Noodles & Co., I bought a new dress at Target (cuz I'm posh like that) and (due to long phone calls with various people) didn't get to bed 'till almost midnight. But I have a very abbreviated work day then I get to go play with Tabby. We have great plans for the evening – NOTHING. Tomorrow nothing is planned either, except date night! With my husband! Hope y'all have a great weekend.

Marisa tagged me (I have a cracky Mutt, know what lychees are and like rodents) for this meme… so here goes. Continue reading “Friday! Yay!”

Bad Blogger.

I really want to tell you interesting things. I mean other than that “I'm really really freaking busy.” But I think my day was vaguely interesting, so you get to relive it with me.

• Woke up to alarm and promptly hit snooze and went back to sleep.
• Went to work. Had safety committe meeting where we talked about hot aerobics instructors (not kidding) amongst other things.
• Next 2ish hours are a blur of email, voicemail, snail mail and plain ol' talking to people.
• Headed out to birthday lunch with officemates at TGI Fridays.
• Went to jobsite where we are building a *huge* fire/rescue training facility. Got the VIP tour complete with orange vest. Wore Crocs on site … spent whole time watching for nails. Very interesting though.
• Went back to office, had hour + conference call with software vendor. Banged head against desk in frustration.
• Zoooomed out of the office and towards home, stopping by Target on my way to pick up misc. groceries.
• Raced inside and changed into workout clothes while Matt put away groceries.
• Picked up Tabby, hit the gym for cardio kick-boxing (Tabby played in nursery).
• Went home, made dinner for us and started on dinner for a coworker (who is going thru chemo) and his family to be delivered tomorrow.
• Ate dinner.
• Raced off to do my “before” assessement for bootcamp.
• Am in the “good to very good” range for everything from body fat percentage, visceral fat, hydration, etc. Yay me.
• Hit the grocery store on the way home to get more lemons because at 4 PM, 1 cup apparently looked like 1/4 cup to me.
• Came home, finished dinner for friends and baked a dessert (Matt helped, thank goodness).
• Cleaned kitchen because I'm slightly OC.
• Finally sat down.
• Wrote this incredibly fascinating post.

No. You can't have the last 2 minutes of your life back. Sorry.

Interesting and Maddening Things

• Matt's tire was slashed a couple of weeks ago. So far as I know, the perpetrators were not specifically out to get us or anything … it was a “crime spree” through our picturesque Truman Show neighborhood by some bored-nothing-to-do brats. I would smack them around if I only knew who they were. $200 later, it is fixed. My lust for punk* blood, however? Not fixed.
• Matt works for and we get our health insurance through the nation's largest non-profit HMO. Overall, I find it to be pretty good. But there is one thing I absolutely HATE about my dealings with them: getting Tabby's monthly perscription of antibiotics for her urinary reflux. There are a couple of ways to do it, but what usually ended up happening was I'd go down to the clinic, wait in a line to place the order, wait 40-50 minutes for her name to appear on the board and wait in another line to pick it up, then spend another 5 min waiting while the tech went to find me the dispenser cap and a few new syringes. $7 + an hour of my time. So I transferred Tabby's perscription to Target … where we are at least once a week. I told Matt I didn't care if it was 4x more expensive if I could just not lose that hour, I would be so very ham-dappy. Transferred it, and 15 minutes later they had it filled (dispenser cap built in, 2 syringes in the bag) and it cost me $4. And the people rejoice!
• My parents are taking everyone to Hawaii in August, which will be amazing, but means a 7 hour flight for a 17 month old. The doc has already approved a bit of Benedryl to encourage some sleepiness, but I am busily planning in flight activities for Tabby as well. I've found her a cute MP3 player and I've got some Silly Putty and plastic farm animals and crayons set aside, but I'm sure I've got more hours to fill. Any suggestions??
• I ordered some company-branded swag recently. Two wicking polo shirts for active sort of stuff. I ordered two colors one of which was orchid. I didn't look at the swatches, largely because they don't really mean much. But I clearly should have because the orchid I envisioned was in the pink family. The orchid I got, however, was in the orange family. Sherbet orange. Broncos orange. OFFENSIVE orange. Ok, really not that bad and really, I don't mind orange. But near my pasty German face? Awful. So now I'm just hoping that someone else at the company wants a wicking polo in orange … err I mean Orchid.
• Tabby just put herself to bed. Again. Waved 'buh-bye' to mama. Sheesh. I know where I'm not needed.

* Note, I use the epithet, “punk” here to indicate a juvenille delinquent and I am not supposing that kids who listen to punk music and aspire to the punk lifestyle are bad eggs. It could have just as easily been some jerk football player jock preppy type. Or hell, it could have been the little old lady who lives down the street (not likely, since I don't think she has the upper body strength).

The Summer of Hilarious and Implausible Tan Lines

Yes, another extremely busy weekend has passed me by. 'tis sad, but true. What'd we do, you ask? This … and that. Errands, like always. We got our second CSA share on Thurs evening and now we have so many greens I have NO CLUE what to do with that they're about to spill out of the fridge. After work today I'm hitting the library to pick up two cookbooks that deal with farmer's market cooking. Hopefully that will jumpstart my imagination. Either that, or I'll be eating nothing but salads all summer.

Saturday we went to a family friend's wedding party. I call it that because they got married in Hawaii and this wasn't wedding or reception, but a shindig afterwards to celebrate. We had a very nice time … it was at a historical house with large grounds surrounding it and Tabby got to run amuck to her heart's content AND eat wedding cake. Really, does it get any better than that?

I actually put on make-up before the party which happens, literally, only about 10x/year (if that). So imagine my surprise when yesterday she took my blush brush out of the drawer in the bathroom and started brushing it on her cheeks! She repeated with a lipstick on her lips! It was sooo cute and really made me realize that I've got to be super careful what I do in front of her because after ONE TIME of seeing me apply makeup, she mimicked. Yikes. That's pressure, folks.

We also went hiking (just 2 hours this go-around), and running and tried to go to the pool. But big fat rain droplets started falling upon us as we arrived and so we went home. Tabby was so tired she could hardly stand up and she went to sleep BEFORE 5 PM last night. I had no idea if it would be a nap or a full night's sleep and I wasn't surprised when she woke up around 6:30. We hung out for a little while and then she wanted to go back into her room … I tried to read her a book, but about 2 pages in, she pointed to her crib, so I brought her over and she pointed again. I laid her down in it and she waved 'buh-bye' to me. I didn't hear from her again until 6:30 this morning.

Oh yea, we also had the most amazing breakfast EVER.

UPDATE: My mom reminded me that she's seen grandma put on makeup probably a dozen times before. So … clearly not the first time to see blush in action, but she did remember where I kept the makeup paraphernalia after only one iteration.

How DO I do it??

Saturday night, as I mentioned, I met up with my moms group. Most of the moms in the group are stay-at-home moms and the subset that I met up with that night, with the exception of one (who works about 10 hours/wk), were all SAHMs. We had a decent amount of time to chat before the show and it was weird, but most of the moms seemed to think that being a working mom (especially one with varied interests and a balanced-ish life) was impossible (or the next-door neighbor to it). And while I agree that it ain't easy, it's certainly not impossible. So I've been reflecting since then … how do I get things done? Here's what I've come up with:

firstly, I have an amazing “support system” – a term which seems inadequate to describe Matt and our family and friends. Matt is a completely hands-on dad who pulls his weight with Tabby and household chores and is incredibly supportive and respectful of my need for time to get a few things accomplished. My parents and sister and extended family are thrilled to babysit while Matt and I have a date or just come over and watch Tabby so Matt and I can garden. And, for example, when our babysitter was off for a week, everyone from our friends to Matt's brother (who's still in college) pitched in to watch her for us so we could work.
the kind of job I have – I have a great job and a great boss where I am free (within reason) to create my own hours … I need to be there most of the work week during most of the day, and sometimes if a big project hits, I'll be at work late for a few days, but I can also take work home sometimes and pick and choose my hours somewhat (as long as I meet my 40 hours for the week) to cater to the other arenas of my life and beyond that, I am able to get a few personal things done at work … I'm not talking egregious expenditures of company time for my personal crap, but I can get a few moments to make a phone call, send an email, update a list, take a deep breath, etc. without a cute little girl climbing on my lap Continue reading “How DO I do it??”

Good Stuff

• that's where we hiked on Sunday … worth every step, I think
• miss Tabby woke up before I left this morning and I got loads of baby kisses and some snuggles … makes your day
• finished Eat, Pray, Love … great book, very enjoyable and interesting
• my swim suits from Athleta showed up … and I actually like one of them! and it's not even the one I thought I'd end up liking
• we watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night and enjoyed it very much
• the Sims 2 has a new expansion pack coming out in late August … apartments! nevermind I haven't even touched the game in over a month … I must have it
• Tabby is talking up a storm! mimicking things we say and coming out of left field with this and that and cracking us up … she learned to say “papa” just in time for father's day
• I'm loving Cozi, a family calendar and list site … incorporates mobile text alerts and email reminders … pretty cool
• did y'all hear there's going to be another Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie??
Super Smash Brothers is pretty fun
• tomorrow the garbage men are going to take away a ton of crap that we hauled to the curb tonight

Hunde Muede

Bah. Somehow half of my photos didn't upload to flickr yesterday and I do not have the energy to do anything about it right now.

All the hiking really caught up to me today. I could hardly drag myself out of bed and I was practically nodding off at my desk. I came home and took an hour-long nap (probably could have done longer) before I went to pick up Tabby from her sitter's. The hike must have gotten to her too since she took a 2-hour nap (practically unheard of for her).

We took the way easy way out with dinner tonight and made pigs in a blanket … using vegetarian hot dogs. I still have no idea what's in them but I'm not so worried about the answer … hehe. Fortunately, we have a pretty laid back week without many demands on our time. I'm anxious to get some time to relax and get a few things done around here. Laundry for example.