Happy Day November 26, 2008

Things that made me happy today:

• Well, it’s Tuesday and I am not at work. I am at home doing not much of anything. Awesome.
• Thanksgiving lunch at Baby Girl’s Mother’s Day Out–small children in construction paper turkey hats. Also awesome.
• Shopping with girlfriends
• 2 pairs of Lucky jeans for $80 total (the one wardrobe splurge I have these days), marked down from $120 each. Coupons and a nice manager who gave me $10 more off because she was about to finish her shift. I didn’t ask any further questions.
• Leaving the dressing room to get a pair 2 sizes smaller than I thought I needed. THAT hasn’t happened in about 3 years. Things still look pretty round in the mirror, so I’m not sure that I quite believe it, but I’ll take it.
• Finding the perfect little tins for $1 each (to hold one of my homemade Cmas gifts)
• Bread pudding at Mimi’s Cafe. Yum. Definitely get the smaller “individual size” portion. The regular size is bigger than my head.
• BG’s hysterical laughter, heard about a dozen times today
• Having Andrew home on a Tuesday night
• Watching Andrew watch “Kick Stick Bottle Ball” on MTSU’s TV channel. From what I can tell, it involves instant replays of very inebriated college students kicking a golf ball at a beer bottle in someone’s back yard, narrated by the drunkest of the crew. He’s been watching it for 15 20 minutes so far. I’m just glad it’s not the city Planning Commission this time. That would bore any sane person to death.

Okay, things are pretty calm around here, so not much fodder for the blog. Have a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving! Tell your loved ones they are important to you, and take time to count your blessings. I know it’s corny, but I have so much to be thankful for every day. I hope I never take those things for granted.

ETA: Does anyone else find it funny that the spell check on WordPress does not recognize the word “blog?” It suggests I correct the word to “bog.” Interesting. Anyway…

You who are cluttered and weary… November 17, 2008

Okay, this is a little premature, but I wanted to put this out there so you can think about it (Mom, are you listening? This is aimed at you, too. Actually, especially you).

We are starting to think about having our first real adoption fundraiser soon (relatively soon, as in March/April). We are planning to have a yard sale (my favorite!) first, with some more creative things to come later, we hope. So, if you need to haul a bunch of stuff from your guest bedroom so Grandma can safely sleep there over the holidays, let us haul it instead of you! We are planning to keep our garage clear of cars over the winter, so larger items are welcome as well. If you are a baker or a crafter (is that a thing?) and have handmade items to donate, that would be great! I promise this will not become a fundraising blog (we are working hard to save/raise money ourselves), but this is a meaningful way for friends and family to help if they are inclined. More info to come as we move along in this process! Until we have more money saved, that’s pretty much the end of the updates, right?

So if you happen to go into a hard-core-decluttering mode soon (J just did–it’s very cleansing), think of us. We’ll be glad to take your donations and put them to good use.

We are planning to pursue a domestic adoption at this time. We are so excited–it’s very hard to wait. If we had our way, we would just run right over to the adoption agency and be put on the waiting list today. We know this is the way we are meant to grow our family. However, we feel strongly that we should not go into debt (use loans, etc.) to start the process, so we are waiting for the timing to be just right. Thank you for your advice and prayers as we work through the maze of adoption!

Well, crap. November 15, 2008

At least it’s going to a good cause.

I apparently donated $60 today to the Sexual Assault Center in Nashville because I totally spaced on a conference I PAID TO GO TO. I am unbelievably frustrated. I paid for this training out of my own money, and it was one of the very few trainings in my 3-year cycle that I couldn’t get covered through my school district. I also needed this specific training before the end of the year because I needed official “ethics” training to renew my national certification in January (a new requirement they just told us about this year). I am soooo mad at wasting the money, too. Ugh. There it is, staring at me on my calendar, color-coded in green for Professional Development (shut up).

I thought about it all week because Fridays are my normal day home, and this week would be different. I woke up this morning and never gave it another thought until 7 pm. Andrew is being his usual helpful self on this one (mocking me). He says, “It’s just money,” which is true, but I am steaming anyway.

I HATE space cadet moments. I am so anal-retentive-organized because I am so distracted, not because I am naturally organized. Sometimes information just gets deleted from my brain. Ahhhhh. Anyone want to come over and present to me on ethics?

You know those cool highlighters… November 13, 2008

with the Post-it flags built in? Guess how many of those little sticky flags come in each pen. No guesses?

Baby Time November 13, 2008

I am too tired to write anything meaningful, so you get some photos to make you smile. Here ya go.

While the boys were having guy time (or something, not really sure what they were doing up there), I got to hang out with Baby Girl and Micah. Can I just say that I am not sure about this whole “more than one kid” thing? BG was a dream and went right to bed on time, leaving me to play with the little guy. There is no WAY that would happen if they were both mine, right?

Typical BG:

After getting that clearly wired child into bed, I started to work on Mr. Micah. It’s possible my timing was just right, but he was ready to drift right off. Magic baby carrier+ snuggly chubster = Snooze City.

First, a lot of this (Micah indulged me while I tried to readjust to having my own crappy camera after borrowing my dad’s awesome one):

equals   success!

(Dude, pretend that mirror is clean, that I have makeup on, and will someone please teach me how to Photoshop my upper arms so that they are skinny? Eeek.)

(Also, I just realized that when I asked Micah’s daddy if I could put his pictures in the blog, I didn’t exactly mention he was in a pink, flowery carrier. My bad).

There is nothing like the satisfaction of getting a baby to sleep, I swear. Nothing like it.

Irony at work November 6, 2008

I don’t usually talk about work on here (mostly because most of it would be confidential–and boring to anyone outside of the special education vortex world), but I think anyone in an office environment can relate to this one.
I moved from a school-based office (very nice digs) to the Central Office this year, and hilarity (or at least irony) has ensued. Just one example: I have been trying since August 1st to get a voicemail account. Not even an actual phone (we get all our voicemails through the email system), just a virtual voicemail account so that parents can call me directly. Now, I know that all our brilliant techs are insanely busy at the start of a new school year, so I was very patient. I also waited about a month to get a laptop, my scoring software installed on said laptop, and an office (or a desk, which is what I eventually got). I was assigned a desk in a neighboring office while my office was getting a phone installed with a corresponding voicemail account. It is now November 5th, and I have yet to get a phone, that desk, or a voicemail account. I and my supervisors have checked on it about 1,000 times, to no avail. I’m cool–I just set up my laptop on the nicely offered spare desk and got to work. I share the phone with the other psych (because she’s nice) and the department secretary writes my messages on paper and puts them on my desk (yep, it’s 2008, folks). I can access my user drive and computer virtually from any computer in the world, but phone calls are beyond the system’s current capabilities. Awesome. I haven’t made much of a fuss because I’m out at schools most of the time anyway, and I can still get my work done in a round-about way.

I say all this to make you appreciate the irony of what I found when I arrived at work. There is now a permanent name plaque with my name on it installed on the door of my “temporary” office. I’ve never had my name on my door anywhere! Now, if I wanted to have my name put on the door on a cool official-looking plaque, I would have no earthly idea who to contact to request that it be done. I would have suspected that a request like that would take an average of about four years to be completed. There is an entire department dedicated to phone issues, but I have no idea who is in charge of installing names on office doors. Maybe I should find out and politely ask them to hack into the system and set up a voicemail account for me.They are quite efficient, apparently.

 

Blast from the past November 2, 2008

Oh, my. I am not sure who exactly dug this up and sent it via the wonder that is Facebook, but we just received a link for video footage from Plaid at the Air Canada Centre, circa 1999. Plaid is one of my husband’s former bands from way back in the day (I like to use that phrase–shut up). This will probably only be priceless to those of you who know my husband, but it is so great! Here’s all you need to know: Andrew has blond hair, and so does Allen. Of all the songs these talented guys had, I’m not sure why this one is the one that is preserved for all time, but…I’ll let you know if the others can be found. This looks like the actual video feed from the conference, so it all must be out there somewhere. This is the year before we were engaged, two years before we married. Be still my heart.

Andrew is the bass player, far right. The one with blond hair and black eyebrows. No, the OTHER one.