It's been an interesting week. My dad, Linda, and my grandma were here last weekend for a quick visit. It was a nice weekend, and I was so happy to see my grandma. She lives in Wisconsin, and I never know when I'll see her next. It's actually worked out to be every year for the last three years, but that was after a few years of not seeing her at all. She stayed with us, and I was glad to have her around. She's 79 now and in great health but you just never know about how things will go. Anyway, it was a really nice weekend, and it was great fun showing off our new house on Saturday.

 

Things are going well with the house, by the way. As of last week we had a foundation, so we're hopeful that the framing will get started in the next couple of weeks. The weather has been dreadful, though, so things have repeatedly been delayed to allow for the ground to dry up a bit. I think we're probably 1 1/2 - 2 weeks off schedule at this point. I've never been one that cares all that much about the weather forecast, but I'll tell you that I'm paying attention these days! The weather really impacts the schedule until the roof is on, and we're nowhere near that point. I've stopped by the lot on my way to work a few times, so between those visits and our weekend visits we've taken a lot of pictures. They're on two different cameras, but once they're organized I'll post the progression. Jay and I are so excited about it, and I'm spending more time daydreaming about decorating as the reality of a brand new and nearly empty house sinks in. Very fun indeed!

 

Jay took Kate to the doctor last Thursday for an ear re-check, and the doc said she was totally healthy. Kate had a great weekend with no indication that there were to be problems...then Monday morning she woke up at 5 with a 99 temp. Not high enough to talk about, but unusual and worrying nonetheless given her recent recurrent ear infections. That afternoon the daycare called to have Jay pick her up early because she had woken up from her nap with a 101.5 temp. We were so frustrated - what the heck was going on?!?! We knew she couldn't go to daycare on Tuesday, so we booked the back up care that Microsoft covers. That worked out great! Jay had booked Kate for a physical (18mo ) yesterday morning, but instead it turned into a sick visit. The doc (same one as last week) said she either had strep (RapidTest was negative) or hand foot and mouth disease (a few confirmed cases at the daycare). Just great...but the thing was that she was not feverish anymore and had a great day. By the time I got home yesterday evening I was totally unconvinced that she was sick at all. However, since the doc had made those suggestions we thought it was best to keep her home again today. Again we used the back up care, and ignoring the fact that there were some issues with timing this morning it again worked out great. It's clear, though, that she is NOT sick, so tomorrow she'll be going back to daycare. Jay rescheduled the physical for Friday morning so we'll see what the doc has to say about all of this. I'm of course glad that Kate is feeling better, but it's weird that she was sick on Monday and had so much inflammation in her throat on Tuesday at the doc's. Who knows...

 

Work is going really well for me. I'm enjoying my position and getting to know my co-workers. My boss (Sarah) is really happy with the work I'm doing, and I feel like I'm actually being pretty effective. My technical background is really nice - Sarah has a totally different background (public health) so between the two of us we can cover a huge breadth of topics. The other project manager that worked for Sarah was fired last week (ugh!), so I've been moved to a different project (check it out here) - one that's much higher profile and much more important to the company overall. It's exciting yet daunting because it's so complex, but it's great not least because I'm getting to really work side by side with Sarah. We are two peas in a pod, I swear; we were laughing the other day about how well we get along. I think we're a good team, and it's so nice to like her as a person as well. We have a new person starting on the 2nd, and it seems like he's going to be great. Sarah also has a new boss (the Chief Commercialization Officer) who is fantastic and is clearly going to have a huge impact on how we do our work, so we're both excited about having him around to help mentor us. I'm so glad to be working - as difficult as it's been for our family to adjust to it's definitely been the right decision for me and for all of us, really.

 

OK, that's it for now.