moments.

when i was pregnant with ellie and was just finishing up work i was a little apprehensive about how i would fill my days without work.  my work from home gig was really more of a working remotely gig.  i had set hours, conference calls, etc., etc., and had to sort of parent and take care of avery around my work schedule.  it was definitely flexible but i didn't make my own schedule and i couldn't dictate when and how things happened.  all that being said work filled a lot of my days and gave them a purpose.  not that taking care of littles is purposeless but at the end of the day there's usually not concrete evidence that i've accomplished anything.  and i liked being able to look at my list of things to do and see that i had completed things and was further ahead than where i started the day.  i also liked using my brain in a way that being a stay at home mom doesn't provide for.  all of that to say that i was worried that once i was at home full-time i would feel like i hadn't accomplished anything at the end of the day and therefore would start to go a little crazy.  it's definitely taken some time but i can say that i've gotten used to the idea that taking care of these kids is what i do all day and simply ending the day with everyone fed and relatively happy is somewhat satisfying for me right now.  i definitely miss being a part of the working world, using my brain in a different way, and having people value my opinions on things other than how to wash diapers.  however, at the end of the day i feel satisfied.  i've sort of learned to accept the messes and hold those kids a little longer because before i know it they'll be too big for me to hold and i'll be wishing for these days back.

a different type of job.

i quit my job today. 

i made the decision that after i have this baby in november (or december) i'll be taking some time off to 'just' be a mom. i can tell you that this was actually a pretty difficult decision and one that i still hope was the right one for me and for our family.  my current working situation is pretty sweet.  i work part-time from home and come into the office about twice a month.  however, avery's at the point where while i'm working she needs more then i can give her and i knew that when we added a baby to the mix there was no way that we could continue with our current situation.  it's actually pretty easy to work from home with a baby.  at least it was in my experience, but the baby toddler combo would not be happening.  i know there's no way that i could give each kid the care they deserve and still produce quality work.  there are also days where i have to be on the phone a lot and that's pretty much the most stressful situation ever.  i usually have the phone on mute except when i'm talking and pray that avery doesn't start screaming.  there have been plenty of times that she has, but for the most part this working situation has allowed me the time with my daughter and the ability to use my brain for things other than grocery lists and nursery decorating ideas.  it's also allowed me to use my masters degree, something that i paid a good chunk of money for and invested a lot of time and effort in.  

however, when it came down to the choice i really think that this was the right decision for us right now, which is why we made it.  for the record, charlie is looking forward to me no longer working as he thinks it will be less stressful and give us all more balance.  there are also a lot of things that i'm looking forward to as well, like being able to breastfeed a baby without pumping (which is the worst in my opinion), not having that constant stress of trying to do two things at once (although i think that this isn't nearly as bad if you aren't simultaneously working and taking care of a baby), being able to get involved in classes and groups, hopefully being able to get more house stuff done during the week so that our weekends can be spent as a family, and being able to spend my time with my kids.  

i'm a little nervous about what this means for me in the future when i decide to return to the workforce, however i'm being kept on retainer at my current company which hopefully will allow me a little bit of work here and there and keep my skills and resume current.  i also worry about getting bored.  i really do love taking care of avery and things around the home, but if i'm being honest it isn't exactly rocket science and i do like using my brain for things other than building block towers.  however, at this point i cannot imagine working full-time in an office and traveling, which is where i would be in my current career had i not made the decision to cut way back when avery was born.  me traveling simply does not work for our family because of how much charlie travels for work right now, not to mention i have no desire to travel or be away from our family for any period of time.  and right now i don't mind going into the office for a few hours a week but if i had to do it monday through friday i would hate it.  so, at the end of november we'll be starting a different chapter for our family and i'm both a little nervous and really excited about it.    

life update.

and then avery got bopped in the face.  she thought it was hilarious.

the title of this post is a bit dramatic but the bottom line is that we survived last week.  it was one of those weeks that feel like they're going to last forever, like you're stuck in a series of wednesdays with no hope for a friday in sight.  things with work were really busy for me. i put in a lot of extra hours and a significant amount of those were in the office, which meant i missed avery like crazy when i was gone.  i swear some days i don't know how work-away-from-home mom's do it.  when i'm gone all day the precious hour or two that i have when i get home from work before avery goes to bed is reserved for hanging out with her and doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever.  we've been pretty behind on the grocery shopping and cleaning the house front.  we even ran out of dog food thursday night and were forced to feed henry milkbones for breakfast on friday (not that he minded).  all i had in mind for this weekend was putting the house back in some sort of normal order, restocking the fridge so that scrambled eggs weren't our only option for dinner and maybe watching a movie with charlie.  we crashed pretty hard on friday night.  i think both charlie and i were asleep by 9.    anyway, i'm hoping we have a bit more balance this coming week and maybe a home cooked meal or two that doesn't involve eggs.  

it's weeks like this that i'm very, very grateful for my current work situation.  i definitely do not take the time i have with my daughter for granted but i think sometimes i forget just how much i miss her face when i'm away from her all day.  thankfully those days are pretty few and when they do come up i know she and charlie are getting some good time together.  i even get the occasional picture and video sent my way, which always makes my day.   

last week at home.

i love the mornings when we go back to sleep after 6 am.

this is my last week at home with miss avery.  i may have cried while filling out paperwork for daycare.  wednesday was fabulous.  avery slept for a 7 hour stretch tuesday night! and then went back to sleep until 6 am and then even took a short nap after that.  it was raining outside, freezing rain which we almost never get, so we stayed in bed for another hour just napping.  i think every day should start with an extra hour of sleep.  

we went to look at more homes.  can this be over soon please?  we finally found a home that we both liked, in a good school district, which didn't need a lot of work.  and then we found out that it was under contract.  just 4 days after it had been listed.  so, we're back to looking at some older homes that need a little tlc.  we'll see.  

i cannot believe that i have to drop avery off at daycare on tuesday.  the other night i had a dream that i was dropping her off and then i couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.  every time i walk by the school it makes me sad.  and i walk by every day.  i get sad a lot.  i know she'll be fine, but i just don't want her to go.  i'm also stressed out about pumping at work and having enough milk for her during the days.  my goal was to make it to 1 year without supplementing formula and i'm worried about making that happen.  i know that a little formula would be fine, but this is something that i really do want.  both for me and for avery.  i was on a conference call the other day and my boss said 'we're so excited to have you back in the office' and i couldn't really say anything.  i know i should have said 'can't want to see you, too' but all i could think was 'it's the last place i want to be'.  maybe it would be easier if i liked my job or found it stimulating, but in all honesty my job is boring.  i spend a lot of time reading regulations, putting together powerpoints, and on conference calls.  and then i worry that a regulator will come to a facility and we'll be fined a couple hundred thousand dollars for something stupid.  

she's thinking, 'just keep walking, dad'.

avery's napping now and we're going to run some errands when she wakes up.  tonight is pizza night, which i started doing about a month ago because i cannot think of enough meals to cook for 7 days a week.  friday's used to be eat at a restaurant night but since our baby likes for us to pace up and down the house between the hours of 5 pm and 8 pm dinners out don't happen much any more.  to be honest, i don't really miss them.  

back to work.

well we've officially survived my return to work and although it wasn't nearly as hard juggling a baby and work as i thought it would be it did make me sad for my return to the office in only three weeks.  charlie had a busy week and wasn't at home at all so when i was working it was just me and avery.  i was a little worried about my conference call on tuesday but she went down for her usual morning nap just in time for the call and slept for 2.5 hours until i woke her up.  i was actually on the phone a lot on tuesday but between the morning nap and just being a happy baby when i was on the phone i didn't have to deal with any 'crying baby and my boss is on the situations', which is good because i'm not sure what i would have done.  i can't say it's good to be back but i can say that if i didn't have to go back to the office i wouldn't mind working.  it's the leaving the baby at daycare that i have a problem with.

the moby wrap has allowed me to get a lot of work and things around the house done.  she's sleeping in it right now.  i went ahead and used a gift card to order the actual 'moby'.  the one i've been using has been great but it's too short, which is getting to be harder as she's getting bigger and it's really stretchy, which means that she ends up about a foot lower than where she starts out.

valentine's was more than low key this year.  charlie didn't get home until 5ish and by the time we finished working he wasn't in the mood for grilling steaks so we ordered chinese food.  turns out it was a good thing because on wednesday i asked him just to cook the steaks so that we'd be able to eat them eventually and we ended up running out of propane after about 5 minutes.  we tried to bring them inside and cook them in the toaster oven but all that happened was that the house filled with smoke so we ended up throwing them out.  cooking fail #524. 

she passed out pretty early on v-day.  charlie was upset because i dressed her in 'girl clothes'.  just wait until she starts wearing dresses. :)

and no we, or i guess i should say i, still haven't made a decision about where we're going to live for the next 10 years or so.  charlie is officially in the 'stay in colorado' camp and has been for the past few weeks and therefore is 'leaving the decision up to me'.  awesome.  i do miss my family a lot and would love to have them be able to be closer with avery and i don't hate the east coast like most people out here do.  we had friends over the other night and it turned into a 'lets bash d.c.' session, which gets exhausting.  i get it, colorado is awesome, the mountains rock, there's lots of traffic in d.c..  none of things are helping.  regardless of the traffic back east it's still where our families are.  and regardless of the fact that our families are back east i still think that our family is going to be better off in colorado.  it has nothing to do with the mountains or the skiing, but with the fact that our lives are easier out here and both charlie and i will be home more and therefore will be able to spend more time together and more time with avery.  i could potentially land a job that allows me with as much time as i get with her now, but i have no idea.  charlie will definitely be gone more simply because the d.c. market is much busier than the denver market.  so to sum up, i still have no idea what to do aside from convince everyone that they should relocate to colorado, which would solve all of our problems.  

work.

i have about 2 weeks before i start back to work and i'm not at all ready for it. when i think of dropping my baby off at daycare i start crying, which is one of the reasons that i try not to think about it so much.  i have sort of irrational worries that when she's there she'll be crying and no one will pick her up for hours, or she'll be hungry and they won't feed her or change her, etc..  when i'm thinking logically i know that we chose a good place with a good reputation and good people.  however, when i think about the ratio of 4 babies to 1 adult i know that there will be times that she doesn't get her needs met since there's really no possible way for 1 person to attend to 4 kids at once.  

i know that i really have no choice and i need to just stuck it up and make the best of it, but i haven't quite gotten to that point yet.  

i haven't started pumping and honestly the only reason why is that i'm sort of in denial that i won't be able to be the person to always feed her.  i'm also a little worried that once she starts taking a bottle she'll want that exclusively which would sort of break my heart since i absolutely love feeding her.  also, i would really like to make it a year of exclusively breast feeding and i know if she decides to only take bottles it would make this a pretty difficult goal.

i'm also not in love with my job. i know, who is, but it makes it harder knowing that i'll be sitting in a cubicle doing boring work and counting down the hours until i can pick her up.  i realized this could be partially resolved by finding a job that i'm actually passionate about but i don't really know if this even exists.  i think work will always just be work to me.  i got an email from my boss a few days ago and it just reminded me of how boring my job really is.  

mostly though, i just don't want to go back because i know that i'll miss her like crazy.  i mean i miss her now when she's sleeping.  i wake up in the middle of the night before she does and look forward to her waking up so that i can hold her.  making it 8 hours a day is going to be hard when 4 hours when i'm sleeping is about my max right now.  

i know i should focus on the positive things, like the fact that i have a job, i'm going back part time at first and therefore the transition should be easier, and she should only be in daycare 3 days a week.  i just wish my time off wasn't going by so fast and even though it has, she still seems like such a tiny baby to me, which makes it harder to imagine dropping her off with strangers for an entire day.

i'm trying to get better at blogging and taking pictures.

i swear.

i do it for me, really, so that when i look back i can remember what the heck was going on in my life, as in, the every day stuff. i mean we all remember to bring the camera when we go on vacation or celebrate the holidays, but sometimes the regular stuff doesn't get quite the same attention. and although life has been busy lately, i don't want it to fly by too quickly.

especially since it's fall now. at least it's trying to be fall now.

last weekend charlie ran the boulder sunset triathlon.

it was 90 freaking degrees and it was his first race.

i was pretty proud of him.

here he is before the swim, super nervous.

i didn't get a lot of pictures and i will say that i should have brought the zoom lens.

in other news, i cut my hours back at work which has allowed me to have a bit of a life, be a good student, and occasionally grocery shop and vacuum the floor.

it's also given me enough time to actually walk the dogs again, which is good for my thighs, my sanity, and the dogs of course.

we also said goodbye to some of our friends this weekend. :(

they moved out to colorado around the same time we did but decided to move back to be closer to friends and family.

as much as i totally understand the friends and family part, we're going to miss them.

there was lots of pumpkin beer and jack daniel's involved in their sendoff.

i also bought henry a halloween costume.

he's a rabid squirrel.

he's not that crazy about dressing up as an animal he usually is in pursuit of.

(i realize this may throw me into the category of "crazy dog lady", however i still believe that "crazy dog lady" is better than "crazy cat lady")

for some reason this picture reminds me of the wolf in little red riding hood.

"my grandma, what big teeth you have".

except henry doesn't eat kids. i promise.

so i guess i'm staying. (for now)

first, em. i owe you a huge phone call. does this weekend work?

school started for me this week and i'm definitely missing my carefree summer days. it's going to be tricky trying to find a balance between work and school and sanity. i'm trying to work a deal out with my boss right now as far as my hours go. hopefully, we'll come to an agreement that will work for everyone and still allow me 8 hours of sleep and night and some time to study.

although i purposely avoided all engineering classes this semester, i went the other direction and know will be spending all of my time reading and writing papers.

i keep telling myself that i have 8 months of school left.

just 8 months.

charlie and i have been debating about trading my car in.

now, i'm seriously one of the cheapest people ever.

spending money stresses me out like nothing else.

i freaked out when i bought a bike.

i freaked out when we bought a computer.

of course i'm freaking out about a car.

the biggest reasons right now for getting rid of my car are:

1. it sucks in the snow and winter. now that i'm no longer a teacher i don't have the luxury of being off work when it snows.

2. we have two large dogs (which don't fit in my tiny car).

3. when we drive to the mountains, which happens pretty often, my car can't make it up the steep grades so well.

4. if we ever have a kid there's no way i could fit a kid, all of its crap, and the dogs in the car.

oh, AND i just found out (like 2 hours ago) that my car was recalled. congratulations toyota, you suck.

of course the recall thing sucks for me if we decide to keep OR get rid of the car.

i did have a great visit with my parents (and for a very short time, my sister) two weeks ago.

they recently adopted a kitten and a year-old chocolate lab.

meet clayton.

(don't let his sweet face fool you ... he's a lot of work!)

and winston (churchill).

pretty sure my sister named this guy after her high school.

sub day

last thursday and friday i took off to spend some time with my dad while he was in town.

as much as i like taking off work i always get the worst sub reports when i get back.

things like "so and so called me a b*tch" or "half the class stormed out and didn't come back"

this week was no exception.

the note i got from the sub on thursday was long and included:

"thin blond girl, pretty, kept yelling at me"

"girl with betty boop clothes wrote on chair with marker"

"Bob took off without permission"

lucky for me i was spending my time out on our patio and didn't have to deal with any of it.

the cats have decided that the entire reason we bought patio furniture was for them.

weekend & the future

i cannot wait for this weekend.

between sleeping in, drinking multiple cups of coffee, 70 degree weather, i'm excited.

of course i'm not excited for the mountains of school work i have to do on saturday.

but at least i get to spend sunday drinking beer in the sun and watching the rockies play.

lately, i've been pretty overwhelmed with everything.

not so much what's going on right now ... but what my life's going to look like in 2 months.

i'm trying to knock some credits out of the way this summer (or switch programs), but it's hard when you go to a school that offers about 4 classes in the summer.

i've decided to do an independent study this summer, but that involves finding an advisor that's willing to take on my project. this is also hard when you work 8-4 and by the time i could get down to denver everyone's left for the day.

i also have no idea what "work" is going to look like next year ... or in june for that matter.

i've been trying to make a lot of contacts & am practically paying people to look at my resume, but i just don't know.

i like where i am now, but if i stay for next year (which i don't even know if it's an option at this point) i'll have to go back to school for my teaching degree. i don't really know what working full time, getting my masters, and teaching certification would look like.

i'd probably turn into a totally crazy person.

sometimes i wish charlie was in school with me ...

he looks at the weekends for playing and i look at them for getting school work done and cleaning the house for the week.

it's getting hard to find time to spend together ... by the end of the day or week i'm happy just to collapse on the couch with a movie or have some friends over and he wants to go skiing all day or go out in denver.

have i mentioned that i really, really hate going out?

i'd rather hang out at our place or the bar on our block. the idea of getting dressed up, paying money for parking, and a stupid amount of money for a beer that i have at home, and then having to stay up past midnight is just so not my thing ...

hopefully, i can use this weekend to catch up on school work, write some of my term paper, clean the apartment, play with the dogs, and hang out at the rockies game. oh, and maybe figure out what the hell i'm going to do in 6 weeks. *sigh* is it wrong to wish that this was a time where something could just fall into my lap? like a permanent job (that i want)? or free money for school?

ok, i know i've posted this before.

but really, he's adorable. and makes my day so much better.

updates

... i *gulp* think i like my job. i know, i know. when i started i couldn't stand it. it was hard, no one was nice, every day was a battle. everything was broken ... and on and on. but, you know what? that's life. things don't always work. not everyone is born into a family that has money and can provide for them. people lose their jobs, their houses, their family ... it sucks, but it's real. the kids i teach, have no dilusions of what reality is, and they may not always "put school first", but they can't. i like working with kids everyday who have "real" issues and problems. who need and deserve scholarship money. of all the places i've worked at, this is a place where it really matters that i show up every day. i'm going to be sad to say goodbye in may.

... it was thundersnowing this morning. really, april? what happened to the sun?

... i was so upset that duke won last night. aside from the fact that i always root for the underdog, i hate duke.

... i really should start cooking more. i don't know how much longer we can survive off of chicken noodle soup and peanut butter sandwiches.

... if i don't hurry up and book a hotel for our anniversary weekend, we're going to end up going to boulder for the day and calling it a trip.

... i'm pretty excited for the weather this weekend. high 60s and we're going to the rockies game on sunday. last year we went to a game opening weekend and it was snowing.

... i've got to go hiking this weekend. although, i don't know how to break it to charlie that i don't want to ski on the last weekend of the year.

... i've been dreaming about a beach trip this summer. my only hope is if my parents decide to rent a place & invite us, dogs and all ...

getting ready for some more of this ...

last week...

sometimes i wonder if i look this mean when i'm at work ...

i definitely don't have the threatening ruler, that might be overkill

... i kicked 4 students out of class

... i was called a fucking asshole (for not thinking it was cool that a student wanted to spend class texting and not do any work)

... i had a paper airplane thrown at my head

... i was given a lovely drawing of a marijuana leaf and a joint (just in case i wasn't sure what he planned on doing with the leaf)

... i heard the word "fuck" an uncountable number of times

... i had a student throw chairs across the room and then break the legs off of a third chair. awesome.

seriously hoping this week is slightly better...

(photo credit)