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.

Update on garbage

For now, we get to keep our current sanitation company. Yea!

The plan is going to be reconsidered and revamped over the course of the next year.

Entitlement

I would really welcome responses to this question:

What causes an individual to develop an attitude of entitlement?

My first thoughts on this are centering on self-pity and envy. But I'm sure there are more factors involved.

Garbage (in more than one sense of the word)

For the past 12 years that we have lived in Gwinnett County, we have had the choice of several different sanitation companies to use for picking up our trash.

About a year ago, I learned of a plan by the County Board of Commissioners to divide the county into eight zones and award the trash service for those zones to competitive bidders. Initially, the plan was to award no more than three zones to any one bidder. Also important to note, this plan was conceived and put into place by the Board of Commissioners and was never voted on by the citizens of the county AND the plan is for a private, non-governmental agency (non-profit corporation) to run the whole thing. Something I forgot to put in earlier - normally, there is a $150,000 performance bond required for a business to operate and respond to these bids. However, on these contracts, the County upped the requirement to $2M, which effectively prevents smaller businesses from bidding on the contracts because they cannot afford a $2M performance bond.

About a month ago, we received a letter from our new sanitation company, informing us about the terms of the new service. A week or so ago, we received our first bill for the service, which is a few dollars higher than we are currently paying. We will have to pay for the service out of pocket for the first six months, then it will be added into our property tax bill.

Sometime during the process of putting this plan into place, they changed it by reducing the number of zones from 8 to 6. Then when contracts were awarded, only two sanitation companies received contracts, and both of these companies are out of Florida.

In the meantime, two of the sanitation companies that are effectively being run out of business by this plan have challenged the whole thing in court, seeking an injunction to stop the new plan. I just learned this morning that the challenge has been successful and the judge did decide to put an injunction in place against this plan.

I am in favor of the injunction because I am opposed to not having a choice in this matter and I am also concerned that this plan was put in place without being voted on by the citizens of the County. On the other hand, I'm wondering what happens in two weeks - who is going to be picking up our trash? Anyone? Are we even going to still have a trash can (currently provided by the sanitation company) or will that be picked up and we'll be left with nothing?

Trash pickup is something I've always kind of taken for granted and just always assumed would be there. Never gave it much thought. Now the thought of trash possibly piling up and having nowhere for it go is kind of daunting.

Another good reason to move somewhere else!

Some things end...

I just learned this morning that my boss has resigned and is leaving at the end of the month. I will miss her because she has been inspiring and encouraging to me in learning new skills and developing skills further.

At the same time, I am jealous because she is leaving and I am not. I've been looking for other opportunities and will continue looking. And I'm not looking forward to what it will be like there without her. The three Ms are a real pain to deal with, and it will only get worse without her there.

And today was my 8th anniversary with the company.

Not blogging enough

My darling daughter says I don't do enough blogging. Perhaps if she knew what actually goes on in my head, she would be thankful that I choose not to share it all.

Frankly, I have a LOT of negative thoughts that I work really hard on controlling. And a fair amount of anger and frustration. So now tell me, should I blog more, or just keep it to myself?

Feeling frustrated

I'm feeling rather frustrated right now. I think that after Christmas there will have be to some changes taking place in my household. I know I'm "bitching and moaning" but sometimes it's just necessary to vent. So once the holiday is done, I will be moving into assertive mode and straightening out some things. No more "Hotel Moon."

May sound morbid, but....

I've found a lovely piece of instrumental music (an oboe piece) that I want played at my funeral.

It's called Gabriel's Oboe and it's on Amy Grant's "A Christmas to Remember" album. For some reason, I get a little teary-eyed whenever I hear it. It's a beautiful piece.

Catching up

I didn't really post while Nathan was home. It seems like the time just went by so fast. He left this past Wednesday (the 22nd) to go back to Afghanistan. That was a difficult day but I got through it. Tabitha got an e-mail from him, and it seems he thinks his sergeant is going to chew him out when he gets back to his FOB. Apparently his sergeant was under the mistaken impression that Nathan was supposed to leave the States on the 19th instead of the 22nd to go back. And it seems that they thought for a few days that he had gone AWOL. He shouldn't get into trouble because it was on his paperwork that he was to leave to go back on the 22nd but that won't stop his sergeant from giving him a hard time about it.

Kellyn did something interesting one day this week. Jennifer had put her in her bumbo seat on the living room floor. She was doing something in the kitchen (right next to the living room) and when she turned to check on Kellyn, Kellyn was in the floor on her tummy, just looking around. She's not sure how she managed to get out of her seat and onto the floor. She wasn't fussing so she didn't get hurt in the process.

Tara likes to occasionally accompany me to the bathroom, and when she does, she always stands on the scales and proudly announces "20 pounds!" She actually weighs about 27 pounds but it's a lot easier to say "20 pounds" than "27 pounds." She is so funny sometimes!

Kellyn's newest entertainment

The most recent thing that has tickled Kellyn's fancy is a mylar balloon. Michael bought it for Tara to play with since she loves balloons. It has a pumpkin design on it. The other night Jessica's little boy was playing with it and he accidentally tapped Kellyn on the head with the balloon. She started giggling and laughing and just went on and on. It got all of us laughing because she was so cute! She was sitting in her bumbo seat at the time and she laughed so much that she ended up leaning to one side. I wish we had had a camera ready and could have gotten some video of it, but this was one of those unexpected things that happen. She has such a cute laugh. :o)

Football

Apparently, Kellyn loves football. If you change the TV channel to one that is playing a football game, she will almost instantly become transfixed by it. After a minute or two, she will start cooing and babbling while staring at the screen. She makes several different sounds as if she is commenting on the game. It is so cute and so funny! And it will hold her attention for as long as you leave it on. But if they stop showing the game and start showing a couple of guys doing commentary on the game, she will lose interest and look away. We don't normally watch sports on TV but it's worth it to turn a football game on if she starts getting fussy. We plan on trying to get some video of her watching a game. I recommended to Jennifer that she record a game and save it to use for when Kellyn is bored and fussy and nothing else seems to work!

Tara-speak

We've really been enjoying noticing the way Tara's vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds and how well she puts words together. Some of her words come out really funny and sometimes it's amazing what she's able to express.

Two that have stood out this past week:

"flop-flops" - this is Tara's version of flip-flops

"fusser" - this is how Tara says "pacifier" - amazing how accurate her rendition is!

The little girl loves to talk!

Kellyn - 3 month pictures

There are more, but I guess I should let Jennifer post some of them! But since I scanned them, I decided to post a couple. :o)

I've uploaded this for illustration purposes. I have this photo on my laptop as my wallpaper. Tara knows it's there and will come to me and ask to see it. When I show it to her, she takes great delight in pointing out everyone and naming them. She calls Grace "baby Gace" - r's are still a little difficult for her; I've told her that Grace is also her cousin but she hasn't gotten used to that concept just yet. She can say her own name and Kellyn's name. She alternately calls Kellyn "baby Kellyn" or "baby cousin." She's been learning how to say "great grandma" - sometimes without the r's, of course.