Settling In (& Getting Out)

Last week was a big week for me. I turned the big 24, I started a new job, and I started to really search for a place to live. My birthday was great, lots of fun. Ann and Suzy came in to Madison and we went out for dinner and drinks, then to the Glass Nickel where Danielle was working. Justin and some other friends met up with us there. It ended up being a pretty late night, and unfortunately I couldn't call in to work Tuesday morning. (Not really cool to do the day before your last day at a job). Oh well, I survived. I even got a nap in when I got home from work. Jordan is so cooperative - sometimes.

My new job is going well so far. Usually I'm panicking my first week of a new job and hating everything, but so far, I feel I will adjust alright. Maybe this is a bad sign? I hope I'm not being over-confident and setting myself up for a big freak out later on. Oh well, not much I can do about it. Of course, a lot of the stuff I'm doing now is stuff that I have a little bit of experience with - scanning, cleaning up and cropping photos, copying and pasting and reformatting text, that kind of thing. I created my first ad on Thursday, that was kind of exciting. It was a classified ad for a trailer. Woo-hoo :)
 
Now the big project is finding a new place to live.  Once our lease is up (end of August) Eve is moving out, and that means we need to find a smaller place that charges less for rent.  Really not looking forward to moving.  I think the amount of stuff we have has tripled since Jordan was born.  I spent almost all of this last weekend going through the classifieds and calling places to get info. and set up viewing appts.  Of course, being me, I had to create a little form and put each ad into that so that I'd be organized.  I think it saves time in the long run, because that way I don't call the same place three times or forget to ask if they have air conditioning or something really important like that.

Packing & Cleaning Are Natural Enemies

Justin and I decided to take advantage of his week off of work to refinish our dining room chairs to match the table. So far, it's going alright. We've got two seats and backs off and recovered, and one layer of stain on the frames. Now we've just got to dismantle, sand, and condition the other two chairs, and hope that we have time to get all three coats of stain and three coats of clear finish on before we have people over tomorrow for a cook out. I don't know what my problem is, but I seem to like to cram as many things in to a few days as possible. Last time we went camping, I had people over the night before, and, naturally, we're going camping on Friday, so we've got to clean for tomorrow night and pack for Friday morning all at the same time. Not to mention the fact that I've got to coordinate two grocery lists, and figure out who's coming Thursday, what they're bringing, and who needs directions to the campsite, etc. etc. etc. Good thing I'm organized :) (in other words, I make lists, and sometimes, I even manage not to lose them).

Randomly

There's nothing like only having a week left at a job to lower one's already non-exsistant desire to accomplish anything work-related while at work.

Could I Please Have Some Mail To Sort?

This has to be the most boring day ever. I can't even scan anything because I've scanned so much in the last week that the memory is full and we have to buy a new hard drive. So I'm reduced to numbering pages of the documents I will be scanning once the new hard drive arrives. On top of that, I'm the only one in the office right now. I'm like a human voice mail transfer system - that's my only function. Funny, we have a phone system that does that too. Why am I here? One good thing, I have so much time to play online that I finally found Lori's online journal, after having lost the address several months ago for the 10th time in a row. Goody gumdrops!

Recycle Or Else

Living in Fitchburg has forced me to recycle. If you put out more than one container of trash you have to pay for it, but you can put out all the recycling you want for free. This used to annoy me, particularly when there were four adults and three children in diapers living in our house. Now that it's just usually the three of us, I've found it's not hard at all to keep the trash level down and the recycling level up. Sometimes we even put out two weeks of trash in our one container. (Since the trash man has been coming earlier and earlier and Justin still insists on setting out the trash Monday morning instead of Sunday night). Recently, I got a free subscription to Organic Style. Now, I've always had interest in wasting less, reusing more, and doing everything possible the natural way, but since I've been reading OS, I've been thinking about it more and more. Did you know that if you take your used print cartridges in to Office Depot to be recycled they'll give you a free ream of recycled paper? I've been taking in cartridges from work as well as from home, and I have enough free printer paper to last me for years. Some companies recycle used cell phones, and Nike recycles used tennis shoes. I've been buying all my clothes from Goodwill lately, mostly because I can't afford new clothes, but I also feel good about reusing what I can. Lydia and I have actually decided to start a business selling handmade stuff made from recycled materials. That way we can keep our prices down and still make a profit, and conserve resources and cut down on waste at the same time. We'll see if we actually make any money :). I have one thing to say to all of you - recycle or else! Here's a list of many places to recycle many things.

Query

Does anyone know of a good (free) online bookmarks website? And what about a website that lists the most useful websites? I'm getting fed up with the internet; it doesn't do what I want it to ;). If you know of anything, just leave me a comment (bottom right corner).

Oh Happy Day

I got my job!!! I'm so excited! I start July 15. No more endless scanning and filing; I'm actually going to be doing something I'm interested in. It sounds like I'll be working primarily with graphics, as well as doing general office stuff, but I'll also get to do some writing and editing. Besides, I've always been interested in graphics. Maybe Suzy can teach me a thing or two.

Justin's summer shut down is coming up, starting this Friday. It will be so nice to have some time together and maybe even accomplish some things around the house. It would be great if we could get our dining room chairs refinished to match the table, especially since I have the great big roll of fabric all ready and waiting downstairs.

Our weekend with Karlye went well. She and Jordan spent most of the time either copying each other or fighting because they wanted to do the same thing at the same time. At least this way maybe Jordan will learn to share. They even went to bed at the same time with no trouble. I was so relieved, since I was afraid they would keep each other up. Between grocery shopping, lunch with Lydia and Brandon and the boys, a trip to the park, a trip to the zoo, and Justin's softball game, we had a very busy weekend. Jordan looks a little worse for the wear since he fell into the bars at the zoo with his face, took a digger at the softball game and split his lip, and is covered in eczema which is very slowly getting better (since I've been covering his entire body in ointment at every diaper change).

Big Changes?

I can't believe it - I may be on my way to getting a job that would actually make some use of my English degree. My job now isn't exactly dead-end (my boss wants to send me to tax school and accounting classes), but I have no interest in a career in accounting. So, if I ever want to fulfill my dream of becoming a free lance editor, or even of getting a decent job in publishing once Jordan is in school and I can work full time, I'm going to have to move on to something that will give me some practical experience. Luckily one of our accounting clients runs the newspaper in Belleville and told one of my co-workers that he was in the market for a new employee. She told me, and I contacted him, and after a very long time and a lot of unanswered phone calls I finally have an interview. Supposedly, he thinks I'm overqualified, which doesn't bother me at all - better over than under, and he's not looking to hire anyone until August, which is fine with me too. That way I can relax and enjoy the summer without learning a new job (and having those "working" dreams that I always get for a week when I start a new job). So...we'll see how the interview goes (if I can find a sitter).

In other news, it looks like Justin's daughter Karlye is going to start coming over every other weekend, which is exciting. It also means that we need a place for her to sleep, and as luck would have it, Lydia and Brandon just got new beds for the boys and are giving us their old toddler bed. I got a little manic on Monday and decided to move all of the furniture around in Jordan's room by myself. I even managed not to really hurt myself moving the dresser, so I was pretty proud of myself, considering I'm just about the clumsiest person I know. I think it will be really fun for Jordan to have Karlye around, and they certainly seem to get along well. They haven't spent much time together yet, but he already knows how to say her name (it helps that "car" is his favorite word).

Birdies and Bananas and Crackers, Oh No!

Well, we got a fire going, no problem. It did rain a little bit at night, but it was nice and sunny in the morning. Justin grilled our steaks perfectly, using a technique he learned from a show about cowboy cooking on the Food Network, and our s'mores were definitely melted. And Jordan slept just fine at Grandpa's, which is a miracle, considering he hasn't slept anywhere but his own bed at home in a year.

We took Jordan in for his 18 month checkup on Friday, and I feel bad, because the doctor asked us about how his talking was coming along. He asked if he was putting two words together yet, and I said no, and he asked if he was saying any words yet, and I said a few, and named the three he's been saying since his nine month checkup. No sooner do we get in the car than Jordan says, "oh no", and I remember that he's been saying that for quite a while, and that he also says another ten or fifteen words I completely forgot about. Oh well. I'm so busy chasing around after him, I don't know how I can be expected to remember everything he knows how to do. He's growing up so fast. Last week he said "birdie" for the first time, Saturday he said "banana" and yesterday he said "cracker". "Car" is still his favorite word, and has been for about three weeks. When he first learned to say it, he wouldn't even eat because all he wanted to do was sit on the floor and play with his cars.

Camping Chaos Ensues

Camping is supposed to be about getting back to nature, roughing it, and all that, right? So why is my list of things I have to pack for our one night camping trip this weekend three pages long? I can't even blame it on the baby, because I hardly have to pack anything for Jordan. He's going to stay with his Grandpa Jake, and all I really have to pack are his usual diaper bag items plus a change of clothes and his musical bedtime turtle. It's too bad food doesn't grow on trees (at least not where we're going) because edible things make up the majority of my list. Let's just hope all the recent rain hasn't made it impossible to get a decent fire going or we'll be eating a lot of raw meat, cold stew, and unmelted s'mores.

Rain, Rain, Go Away and Other Wet News

Well, naturally, it rained all weekend. So we didn't go to Festa Italia or Bratfest, although Justin did manage to squeeze in nine holes of golf on Monday. We had Memorial Day dinner at my mom and dad's and I ate way more than was good for me, as usual. In fact, we all weighed ourselves when we got home, and I weighed the most I've weighed since I lost my pregnancy weight (not that I lost all of it, but that's not the point, is it now?). Somehow though, I did manage to lose five pounds overnight (it's like a train-wreck - once I weigh myself I have to keep checking, there's just no stopping). You might ask what I was thinking, weighing myself in the first place, and I actually have a very good explanation. Jordan really loves to pull out the bathroom scale and stand on it. So Monday night, we were getting him ready for bed, and I took off his diaper and took him into the bathroom to practice sitting on his potty-chair. After he was done doing that, he pulled out the scale. So we weighed him, and then I guess we thought it would be fun to weigh ourselves. So that's how that came about. After that, we brushed his teeth (using two toothbrushes at once - one for him and one for me), and then he ran around in the living room for a few minutes. He started to look a little squirmy, so I took him in the bedroom to put his diaper on. I was just getting the diaper out when I hear this really loud splashing noise. I turn around, and sure enough, he's peeing in the corner behind the door. Then he bends over and sticks his hand in it to splash it around. I couldn't believe it. He'd been sitting on his potty-chair not more than 5 minutes earlier, and nothing. Then I'm 5 seconds from putting on his diaper and he pees on the carpet. I thought it was hilarious, but Justin was not amused.