I'm avoiding the inevitable - I have to do some work in a bit...hopefully not more than an hour's worth. Ugh. I knew it was going to start soon, but after the day I had today I couldn't put it off any longer. The evening working shall begin. Lovely. Oh well, I knew that it would be the reality when I took the position. It's good to be busy, but right now things are a little too busy for my taste.

 

Jay is on his final business trip to Seattle. He's leaving Microsoft at the end of May to join a start up that was started by an acquaintance from Cornell. He is really excited about the whole thing although right now he's working two full time jobs so he is stressed. Anyway, he's in Seattle. He left very early this morning and will be back Saturday morning. Claire is helping out with Kate - I brought her to Claire's at 7:15 this morning so that Claire could hang out with her and delay her arrival at daycare for a bit. We'll do that again tomorrow. Friday I need to take Kate to the doctor for a follow up check on her ears (she had two ear infections the week my mom was here, no wonder she was crabby!) and then I'll take her to daycare myself. Wait, this isn't about me and Kate, it's about Jay. He's in Seattle, and I hope he has a good time. He has so many Microsoft friends (9 years with the company after all), and he doesn't have much time to visit. I wonder what he'll think when he gets on the plane to come home. I honestly think the move away from Seattle was harder on me last year than it was on him, and I attribute that to the fact that he knew he'd be back on a regular basis for business trips. Now here we are, the last trip, so who knows when he'll be back there? We constantly insist that we will be regular visitors to the city that we love, but will it really happen? Man, I hope so. The finality of him leaving Microsoft has re-opened the wound for me. I got a bit upset last night while we were talking about who he's going to visit. I don't know, I just need to deal with it. I feel like Virginia is home now, especially considering that we both have jobs and have bought a house, but there's still such a strong draw to Seattle and all of our wonderful friends...

 

OK, that's it for now. Oh, and just for information sake - my space was taken down two weeks ago due to a photo of Kate from when she was 2 months old (naked on the changing table). When that happened things got funky and my previous post never showed up on anyone's 'what's new' page. Hopefully that's all fixed now!

It’s 7:30, and I’m sitting in Starbucks eating a scone and having a wonderful latte. I haven’t slept well for the last two nights, and I’m feeling the pain. I really wanted the day off from the gym, but today of all days is not the day to make the commute during rush hour from my house. The pope is in town, and the Mass is this morning. 40,000 people have to be at the stadium at 8:00, so you can imagine what the highways look like right now. So, instead I tried something different. I got up at 5:30 (oh, the pain of it!) and drove to the gym simply to shower. It felt a little ridiculous, but I did avoid traffic nightmares and still got my day off from working out. And, bonus points, now I’m taking a little ‘me time’ to relax and finally blog. Granted I would sooooo much rather be in my cozy bed, but that’s just not a possibility. I’d love to sleep in this weekend – maybe Sunday…

 

My mom is still in town, and I feel so spoiled. I come home at night and dinner is waiting, Kate is fed…ahhhhh. Unfortunately Kate has been sick since Monday afternoon, so my mom’s trip has been consumed with taking care of a moody, feverish toddler. It has worked out great for Jay and me because Kate wouldn’t have been allowed at the daycare since this whole thing started. I’m hoping that she doesn’t have a temp today so that she can go in to daycare tomorrow. If she does have a fever I’m going to have to call them to clarify the sick policy. I know some daycares have a 24 hour with no fever (without medicine) policy, but I don’t think that is the case for us. Certainly the paperwork doesn’t read like that. Anyway, my mom has been a godsend this week given all that’s going on. She’s leaving tomorrow morning, and it’s going to be a rude shock to be back on our own.

 

Kate has definitely bonded with Nonnie in their few days together. It’s been like night and day – Sunday evening we weren’t sure how Monday afternoon ( the first time my mom would have her alone) would go since Kate wasn’t being all that friendly toward her, and Tuesday evening Kate cried and carried on anytime Jay or I tried to take her away from Nonnie. *sigh* I guess this is part and parcel of having someone else take care of your child – especially when the caretaker loves your child and isn’t just a random third party. I’m sure that Kate knows the difference! Last night was better. Kate and I went outside to play for a bit, I gave her a bath, and when we said goodnight to Nonnie and Daddy there were no tears or leaning out of my arms.

 

Tuesday night I brought Kate to bed with me very early in the night – in fact, I’d only been asleep for 20 min or so, but I woke up totally out of sorts. I was tired that my brain just said, bring her to bed. So I did. We both spent a good amount of time awake overnight, but it may have been better than being snatched out of sleep by the sound of crying. Last night Jay was in the bed, so bringing her in with us didn’t seem like the greatest idea. After being up a handful of times, though, I’d had it. I was so tired, I just wanted it to end. So, into bed with Mommy and Daddy. It took a little while for her to fall asleep – it wasn’t until we took off her pjs and left her in her onesie that she fell into a deep slumber. I’m hoping that tonight will be better. This bug she has should be easing up, so hopefully she’ll get some good sleep all on her own. With this kind of sleep this week, though, I just know that she’ll be sleeping all weekend as she tries to recover from being so overtired.

Oh, one more quick thing before I head to work. Claire, my mom, and I went to the design studio on Saturday to pick out all of the finishes for the house, It was a lot of fun, and it was so nice to have them help me run through the various combinations of choices. We ended up upgrading some things more than I had planned, but I know the house will be beautiful and the cost isn’t that much different. As everyone keeps saying, we’re not going to be replacing our kitchen cabinets anytime soon, so we should get what we want. I need to set up a time for Jay and I to go in and finalize the choices, hopefully late next week.

 

OK, with that my 20min of ‘me time’ is over. Work has been really busy this week and it’s all going to culminate today. Getting a jump on the day would be a good idea…

Pat and Duane came into town last Friday and left this morning, and I was barely online in the time they were here. We had a really nice visit. Saturday we showed them the model house (I should say 'showed off' - we're so excited!), and then Pat went with Jay and I to the 'design studio' where we get to make decisions about cabinets, flooring, counters, fixtures, mantels, etc. etc. etc. So Saturday was busy but fun. Oh, and it was my birthday!  We postponed the celebration to Sunday since Saturday was so packed. Sunday was much more relaxed. Pat and Duane accompanied Jay to Costco and Wegmans to get food for our big dinner and that trip took awhile so I had a long time to myself while Kate napped. It was a nice change of pace - it seems like just about everytime Kate is asleep these days Jay and I have something to accomplish. Anyway, we had a great dinner and a nice day. I went to work on Monday and Tuesday, so I didn't get to see them very much. That was pretty sucky, and I guess that's how visits will be from now on. I get 12 days of vacation (and luckily the week between Christmas and New Year's is additional paid time off) which isn't horrible but it's not a lot either. This year especially I'm going to be really careful in using it because there are so many construction meetings that have to happen on weekdays. Anyway, I wish I could have had more time with Pat and Duane, but it was great that they made the trip down to visit. They, of course, loved seeing Kate.

 

My mom is coming down on Friday, and I'm putting her to work. *lol* Not really, I just really need help making all of the design choices for the house. She, Claire, and I will be spending most of Saturday working through the list of things to decide for the house. Jay has opinions about these things and I'll run my decisions by him, but he doesn't want to be involved in all of the hypothetical conversations about style, etc. It's going to feel good to make these decisions, but I'm nervous about how much it will all cost. We didn't build enough into our offer for the upgrades we want to do, so...cash out of pocket. Eek. We're definitely planning to show a lot of restraint in things that are relatively easily changed in the future...I don't want to think about all this right now, so I'm going to stop writing about it. It's overwhelming.

 

OK, I have to relate a funny story before I head to bed. I met a trainer at the gym this morning and when we were first talking he asked how old I am (to figure out my max HR), and my mind was totally blank. I said 29. Where the heck did that come from?!? I said it and then a few seconds later said, no, that's not true, I'm 31. I have no excuse for that - sure, I just had a birthday but I wasn't 29 the other day, either. Too goofy! The trainer thought it was pretty funny, needless to say.

 

Oh, ok, one more thing. I think Kate is getting molars - one on the bottom right side of her jaw is right at the surface. I think it's pretty ridiculous since she still only has 4 teeth up front...someday she'll have a full mouth of teeth, but man it's hard to imagine!

 

 

I got to work a little earlier than normal so I thought I'd take a few minutes to relate my day yesterday...

 

Work was crazy. I'll just leave it at that - it was really busy and a lot was going on all day. I was right in the middle of it all.

 

It rained most of yesterday afternoon, so when I left work I knew that there was a chance traffic would be worse than normal. Over the last few weeks it's gone both ways - sometimes rain has no impact, sometimes it slows things down. Once it slowed things down a lot (that was the 1hr45min trip home). Yesterday was the worst yet. Augh! I knew within 10min that there was no way I was going to be able to get Kate by 6:30 when the daycare closes. I called Jay on two phones, texted him, and sent him an email saying that he had to get Kate. No response. I called Jay again on both phones, still no response. Our home number wasn't going to the answering machine, so I was pretty sure that he was on a call (his meetings are all via phone), but I was annoyed that he wasn't taking the call waiting. We have caller id, and I never call in this timeframe. If I'm calling repeatedly, there's a reason. At 6:15, when I was still in Maryland, I was starting to panic. I had already called Claire but she wasn't home as I had suspected, so our back up plan was out of whack and I still hadn't heard from Jay. I was really desperate, so I had my mom (in Rochester) log onto our mom's group message board and get me the info from one of the mom's, Alice, who lives close to the daycare. She was wonderful in agreeing to get Kate although highly amused that I was asking her - Kate has never met her! Ay. I just had no idea what else to do because obviously I wasn't going to be able to make it, Jay was AWOL, and Claire was out. AY. A few minutes after I talked with Alice Jay called and said, I just got your vmail, I'm going to leave right now. What?!? Alice is already enroute! So he called her house, her hubby called her, and everyone agreed that since she was already in the daycare parking lot she'd bring Kate to Jay. How nice is that?!? Apparently Kate was very quiet and just looked at Alice everytime she spoke to her. *lol* Once she saw Jay she started crying, the poor kid was probably utterly confused.

 

OK, that's my amusing story from yesterday. I owe Alice now in a big way - thanks again!!!!

It’s driving me crazy to not be posting to my space! All day long I think of things that you all might be interested in hearing and that I want to share, but I just never have the time. I’m just so pooped by the time Kate is in bed, and all of my energy after that is needed to work on the various house-related issues that we have to deal with. I really hate that it’s almost 8:00 by the time I have a moment to myself in the evening because around 9:30 I’m starting to get things ready for the next day before I go to bed. That’s not a whole lot of time to get much of anything – or nothing at all would be nice sometimes – done. I know I’m taking the mornings for myself by going to the gym, but really, I don’t think that makes much of a difference. Right now I get up at 5:30 and get to work at 8:15. Yesterday (my day off from running) I got up at 5:40 and got to work at 7:50, and that was just a simple get ready for work and battle traffic morning. So, to sleep in ten minutes and get to work 25min earlier or to get up a few minutes early and get a 45min workout in…the choice seems straightforward and not really that selfish. Anyway, my point is that I’m never on my computer because I have so little time to myself…

OK, enough venting. It’s time to get to work. This has just been bugging me.