Thankful

Wow - it dawned on me today that my least favorite person at work will be out of the office most of next week! It ought to be a wonderful week!

Catching up

No, I haven't written in a while, but I'm feeling chatty tonight, I guess.

Exercise.  Michael and I finally did it - we started exercising.  We found a fitness center not too far from home where we can go as often as we want for a very reasonable price.  We started going Monday night and plan to go at least three nights a week.  I like the place because they have lots of equipment, and on the bikes, treadmills and ellipticals, they have video monitors (with Comcast) and you can plug in headphones and watch and listen to TV while you exercise.  We have lots of reasons for going, of course - and one of my big ones is for stress relief.  And speaking of stress...

Work.  Work has never been my favorite place to be - mostly a necessary evil.  But now, it is far worse.  Not only is the workload staggering (and since I work in business development, we're always busy), but now I'm under fire from the president's daughter (VM).  For reasons I don't fully understand, I am being subjected to the same treatment that my friend Kristy received before she left.  VM does not like me - at all.  Everything I do comes under fire; even if everyone else thinks I'm doing a great job, she finds fault.  She tries to invent things and blame me for them.  She gets very jealous (best way I can think of to describe it) whenever her father (the head man) compliments my work.  Not only do I believe she's bipolar, I'm beginning to think she's just evil.

Blended Family.  There's one word for this - difficult.  Even when it's been at its easiest, it's always been a balancing act.  For the most part, we all seem to get along fairly well.  But then there's Jessica.  To hear her tell it - poor little Jessica; everyone else gets more than she does; everyone else is loved more than she is; everyone else's children are our favorites; she has a harder time getting through life than ANYONE else.  At the end of May, she told her dad that she didn't want to have anything to do with him ever again; by the end of July, she was needy again - so she contacted her dad again.  Now, as of last night, we are back to estrangement again - all because Michael would not respond to a particular situation the way she thought he should.  We're both really tired of the continual drama where she's concerned.  Life should not be about non-stop crisis management.  I'm not sure Michael wants her back in his life anytime soon.

Reading.  There is no such thing as too many books!  My latest reading venture has been the "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Johnson.  I am currently reading The Indwelling (book #7).  I have the two books after that but I still need to get the last three books in the series (12 in all).  I have been fascinated by this series.  Along with that, I found a set of CDs - recording of the New Testament - at Garden Ridge for a wonderfully low price; so far, I have listened to the book of Revelation twice, which goes along with my reading very nicely.

Well, I guess I have babbled long enough for one post.  More another day...

Tuesday, July 28

It has been an interesting day.

Seems I'm guilty of certain things just by virtue of the fact that I live in Georgia (even though I have absolutely NO connection with UGA, other than knowing a very few engineers who graduated from that school).

I'm also a proud (and I repeat, proud) member of the CBC (kudos to my dear sister for coming up with that one). We may take applications for membership, but our standards are very high! No paranoia allowed!

Yes, I'm trying to laugh. Given a choice between laughing or crying, I'd rather not cry. I've done so much of it in my life. Sometimes it is necessary but right now I prefer laughter. Helps me get through the day.

What will tomorrow bring? After all, tomorrow is another day...

Dismal days

It's raining and my spirits are somewhat low.

I've been sick since Tuesday evening (stomach flu followed by a sinus infection). Only took one day off and had to be back in the office on Thursday - there's too much going on to miss work (and no one else who can do my job with any proficiency - literally). It's exhausting to work when you're sick. When I go home, I don't feel like doing anything but no one else seems to want to do anything to help out. I refuse to come home and cook meals for healthy people when I've been sick AND working all day. (Started to say "I'm sorry but..." - then I realized that I'm not sorry for feeling that way.)

Then to top off all of that, Michael learned today that he is going to get a 10% pay cut. Yes, we're thankful that we both have jobs but it is going to take some adjustment on our part to get used to less coming in - the bills aren't going to go down by 10%!

I guess anyone who has expected to get anything from us will have to change their expectations.

And my trip next week to son Michael's graduation will probably be the last bit of traveling I get to do for a while. I guess our vacation time from this point forward will probably consist of staying home and working on the house, doing whatever we can afford to do.

Snow in Georgia!

It doesn't snow very often in Georgia - at least not in the part we live in. So here is proof that we actually got snow once this winter. Especially since daffodils, forsythia, and redbud trees have already started blooming. And the Bradford pear trees have started putting out a few blossoms too.

New baby

It has been so different to have a new baby in the house. So far, it's been pretty calm. She doesn't seem to cry much when I'm at home. And I guess since I have a fan running in the bedroom, I don't hear her at night if she does cry.

One of the most interesting things about it is watching Tara adjust to having a baby sister. Right now, she wants to try and pick up the baby (which apparently she has tried several times, according to Tabbie). She also likes to give her kisses and hugs (have to watch and make sure those don't get too vigorous!).

But she also has her times when she wants her share of attention - time in mommy's lap, etc. We've tried to also give her some extra attention to make the transition a little easier. Michael stopped on the way home the other night and got a BIG container of strawberries - Tara's favorite fruit by far. And she's finally learned to say the word fairly well.

Needless to say, it's pretty hard on Daddy to be all the way up in Maryland and only getting to see pictures. I did about a minute and a half of video of her actual birth to send to him plus some other short video clips throughout her first day so he can see what it was all like that day. Speaking of "Daddy," here is a picture they had made while he was home on Christmas break - Tara was supposed to look at the camera but didn't (2-year-olds!)

Waiting on the next baby

We are awaiting the birth of the next baby. Tabitha's baby is due in early February but she is already showing signs of going sooner - the baby has dropped and she has had some irregular contractions. She's also been nesting like crazy.

In order to assure that Tara will be taken care of, she has scheduled a C-section for January 29 if she does not go into labor before that.