Working, working, working.

Ava is 12 weeks old! She can grab things, rotate her Wubbanub monkey around until she finds the pacifier part, roll over both ways pretty consistently, and she is getting steadier while sitting up. She also has my scowl down:

This week was my first full week back at work. I spent three weeks working part time in order to fund some sudden car repairs, so I wasn't jumping right back to full time. It sucked all the same. In addition to the usual stress of the place, I have the added stress of not knowing what's going on and finding/fixing major problems my coworkers created while I was gone. One of the things I hate the most is having to fix other people's mistakes. No one will own to up to the mistake, so I get stuck with it. It's especially frustrating when it's on a spreadsheet that is thousands and thousands of rows long and took me years to find all of the formula errors. Now I basically have to start over with it because they have messed it up so badly. I almost cried when I looked at it the other day. 

It is so exhausting getting up between 3 and 4 am, nursing twice, pumping, dressing Ava and myself, getting her to daycare and myself to work, working 9-10 hours, picking Ava up, driving the 25-30 miles back home, washing bottles and pump parts, nursing her at least twice, making and eating my own dinner, getting everyone ready for bed (I also have two cats that need love and food), and then finally passing out around 10 pm. Thankfully baby girl sleeps through the night most nights, and it is easy to get her back to sleep if she wakes up when J gets home at midnight. I could not do this if she were still nursing every two hours on the dot. We are still trying to figure out a way for me to quit my job, but it won't happen any time soon. 

Baby girl's daycare is just a few miles away from my office, so I spend my lunch break nursing her, chatting with the daycare ladies, and watching the other kids in the infant room. They are so adorable! Besides my kid, I already have a few favorites, and will be sad when they move to the toddler room... The lunch nursing isn't exactly relaxing, but it's one of the few times I get to see Ava awake. J stops by to see her on his way to work also. We miss a lot because we work so many hours and have opposite shifts... Ava is doing well at daycare aside from already catching a cold. She loves everyone, is fascinated by the other kids, and is always smiling and happy. She has a little boyfriend already. He runs up to her every morning, pats her on the leg, and talks to her. She grins and giggles at him. It is just too cute! 

Mommy Groups

My midwife brought up mommy groups at my postpartum follow up on Friday, and suggested I look into one. Now I already knew mommy groups were a thing, and I know there are tons of mommy groups with all different focuses, but do I really want to join one? I am not a joiner. I don't enjoy groups of people, small talk, or even leaving my house. Yes, I could possibly meet some people, Ava could have baby friends, and I'd maybe find new things to do... 

But how in the world am I going to find a group here that won't think I'm a horrible person?! I am probably the most liberal person living in this entire county. I mean, this past election, I'd see those Women for Cuccinelli signs and I would think "HAHA! That's a hilarious joke! Wait.... You're totally not joking, are you...." I am also atheist. In my experience, liberal atheists are not usually welcomed in most groups. Do I bother trying to find a mommy group? I'm not super into groups based on baby wearing, cloth diapering, etc. Are there yoga mommy groups or book club mommy groups? Beer snob mommy groups? General nerd mommy groups where we teach our kids about Yoda, Bilbo Baggins, the Doctor, and Hellboy? Dude, that would actually be a fantastic mommy group... 

Are there groups that meet on the weekends?? Everything happens on weekdays! Doesn't anyone work anymore? Mom and baby yoga classes? Weekdays. LLL meetings? Weekdays. Mom and baby swim classes in the summer? Weekdays. What the fuck, people! I have to work weekdays, and I live/work so far from the city that even an evening thing is out of the question. It would take me 30-45 minutes to get into the city, and then it's over an hour drive back home. 

Ugh. Social interaction is so much hassle.

Maybe?

I'm maybe blogging again. I figure I should do something while I have this little thing attached to me night and day:

Pretty cute, huh? She's two weeks old now (one week old in the picture), and today is the last of three due dates I was given (and the "official" due date so I could avoid being induced). She was two weeks early, and I didn't even make it to the first due date. Now, you would think a 38 weeker would be a small little thing, right? NOPE. She was 9 lbs, 6 oz and 22.5" long. I don't know where in the world she hides her weight because her legs are too skinny for newborn diapers and all of her clothes are way too wide for her... 

I don't want this to turn into a mama blog entirely, so quick update on other things: 

* J has been home for almost a year now. 

* J recently found a job as an industrial welder. It's long hours and a long commute, but he likes it and the pay is decent.

* We bought a house on almost 15 acres this past summer. We're both very happy to be out of the city. The land is all wooded, we have a stream running through the property, and there is a cool little deck thing by the stream where I like to sit when the weather is nice. 

* I'm still at the same job, but am on the wonderful extended vacation known as maternity leave. Or what passes for maternity leave in this country... Don't even get me started on it. I go back January 6th unless I'm forced back sooner. 

* I haven't been knitting much because I've been busy and my belly was kind of in the way. It hurt my wrists to contort around my belly for more than a few minute at a time. I'm hoping to get some knitting time in while the tiny dictator is sleeping. I might actually try to knit today! 

Speaking of the sleeping dictator, she is out and the shower is calling my name. 

Vacation!

Since I couldn't get tickets to see Zac Brown Band in March, I decided that a trip to see The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band play at the Outer Banks Brewing Station would make an excellent substitute birthday present. Besides, a $5 concert at a brewery and a few days at the beach will be more fun than spending the same amount of money on a 2 hour concert at a big arena. I found a great off-season rate for a little hotel cottage thing with a full kitchen right on the beach not far from the brewery, so I went ahead and reserved it. It's probably not the best hotel, but I'm sure I've stayed in worse. The Motel 6 in Tennessee with no working toilet and no hot water in the shower is probably the worst. Anything is better than that!

Productivity is Overrated

Holy shit, I'm blogging! The only reason is because I'm bored, but far too lazy to be productive today. I did that yesterday. One productive day every weekend is more than enough. Yesterday I went through five boxes out of the spare room, started a bag to take to Diversity Thrift, filled up a box of crap to have shredded at Office Max ($0.79/lb for shredding that would take me months to do on my own? Well worth the money!), found the outer shell of my jacket, vacuumed to living room (including the couch), imported all of the cds I could find that hadn't been imported yet, found my Kurt Halsey bat print, and did not find my birth certificate that was the reason for all of this productivity. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to have to order one, which will probably take two months thanks to being born in the most populous county in the United States. Wonderful...

I have finished TWO projects in the last week. The first was my Ishbel shawl out of Noro Silk Garden Sock. It needs blocking before I can take a picture. It only took me about two weeks to knit. I had to frog my first attempt because I somehow ended up at the start of the lace bit with 10 extra stitches on one side and 12 stitches too few on the other. o.O I have no idea how I did that... The second FO is my third My So-Called Scarf. The first two scarves were gifts for other people, so I decided I needed one for myself. It's knit out of Malabrigo worsted, and is the softest scarf I've ever worn. I minimized the flaring on the ends by casting on and binding off fairly tightly, and also by added a single crochet border around the whole thing. I need to weave the ends in sometime today so I can wear it this week. Pictures another day when it's not so dreary and dark outside.

The current WIP is a pair of socks. My second pair of Jaywalkers, to be exact. Toe up this time. I haven't knit any socks lately, and I'm getting bored with my selection.

That said, I think it's time for a beer and more Doctor Who. We're going with a dog theme this weekend on the beer front. Thirsty Dog Old Leg Humper, Sea Dog Blueberry, and Flying Dog Dogtoberfest are all in my fridge right now.

Unamused.

I've been bitching and whining about this at every opportunity, so I'm going to do it here too! Something is wrong with the ulnar nerve in my left elbow. It's pinched or trapped or something. Whatever it is, it hurts. My left pinky, ring finger, and that entire side of my hand are numb, I'm having problems gripping things with that hand so I'm dropping damn near everything I touch, doing anything makes my elbow hurt, and I'm going stir crazy because I can't do anything. I've already been to the doctor about it, have drugs for it, and have a referral to an ortho if it stays the same or gets worse in the next 10 days or so, but I'm still going to bitch and complain about it... Knitting hurts. Driving hurts (putting the seat belt on, taking it off, and opening the door is the worst). Watering the veggie garden hurts. Typing hurts (but you see it's not stopping me from going slow with one hand!). Grocery shopping made my hand and fingers burn, go even more numb (didn't think it was possible!), and made my elbow hurt like hell. I didn't even use my left arm! I literally pushed the mini two tier cart around with one hand, and looked like an idiot using only my right hand to pay and load my groceries into the car...

I am 100% not amused with this shit. Next week is my busiest week of the month, and I can't not type and do computer work. I have no one to help me or cover for me. No one in the office knows what I do, and the few times I've tried to train someone on the essential things to do while I'm on vacation they end up getting overwhelmed with it all and having major meltdowns. The office joke is that the GM's don't know what I do every day, but they don't want to bother me to ask because I always look really busy doing whatever it is I do... And it is such a bizarre feeling to have 1.5 numb fingers and about 1/3rd of my hand numb. The gripping thing is a really weird feeling too. I feel like I have a good grip on something, but then I end up dropping it even if I concentrate on NOT dropping it! It's actually a little bit scary. When it first happened and then wouldn't go away, I was sitting in a meeting (in MA of all places...) going "Holy shit, what if I'm having a stroke?! I can't have a stroke in front of all of these people! I just turned 27! I'm way too young to be having a stroke!" One of the IT guys saw the slight panic in my face, and stopped his presentation to ask me if I was ok. I just went "I think so...... But now I'm shaky and don't know if it's from being freaked out because my fingers and hand are numb and won't go back to normal or because I need some sugar. Could someone please hand me a little bit of orange juice??" When I didn't drop, I decided to just ignore it for the moment, but then it got worse on Friday and.... Yeah. It's worse today than it was Friday, so hopefully the drugs will start helping once they kick in. I only took the pain killer last night and started the prednisone this morning. The pain killer makes my knee stop hurting, but really doesn't touch the elbow. Fail. I have a love/hate relationship with the prednisone. It makes me lose my appetite, but my asthma is GONE while I'm on it. It's awesome to be able to breathe like a normal person, but it sucks because I can't eat.

So to make myself feel better, I'm watching crappy tv shows and making potato soup in the vitamix for dinner. I had a lot of things that I was planning on doing this weekend, but all of them result in more pain. It sucks. I'm bored. I'm the type of person who has to be doing something all the time. I can't watch a movie without doing something with my hands otherwise I lose it. I ended up reading for the majority of the day, but my nook ran out of charge and I was getting fidgety anyway. I wonder if the new Doctor Who will be up on Zune late late tonight or tomorrow....

New Toys, New Place, and Evil Sickness

I swear the whole state is sick right now. The flu is ripping through my office, J has been sick with the creeping crud for a few weeks, I had a stomach thing Monday, and now I've got the creeping that J had. Awesome. I was supposed to work all weekend, but couldn't do anything yesterday. Hopefully I don't fuck anything up today.

In other news, we're moving!! YAY! We found a great little 3 bedroom house with a fenced in yard in a good neighborhood. Rent is a good price, there are two HUGE trees in the backyard, J can have his veggie garden, I can have a library/office/yarn room in one of the bedrooms (I have my eye on the littlest one that's right off the kitchen), all electric everything (no gas or oil bill!!), washer and dryer included in a mud room attached to the kitchen (the mud room is huge!), big kitchen, hardwood floors, a driveway, and a locking shed. No garage or dishwasher, but that's ok. We sign the lease tomorrow. The neighborhood is super quiet, people aren't afraid to park nice cars on the street, about 3/4 of a mile from a library (the ebooks are compatible with my nook!), close to the 295 (which means a quicker commute for me whether or not we move warehouses), close to a recreation center (I'll have to look into it, but I see they have a pool, which would be nice to walk to if they have adult only swim hours), and close to the airport. No buses roaring through the neighborhood, no bright shiny LED signs lighting up my bedroom like it's daylight 24 hours a day, no clubs nearby, and no people right up next to me (the houses have a decent distance between them). Love.

My mother sent me two housewarming gifts for the new place even though we haven't moved yet. 1) A Vitamix and 2) a friggin' Dyson vacuum! I've used the Vitamix three times this weekend. I love it. It's amazing. It just pulverizes anything you put in it. I made a smoothie from kiwis, a pear, lime juice, lots of honey, and ice in about 10 seconds. The ice went POOF!! And then I had frozen smoothie goodness... I also made raspberry soy milk (but I blended it too long so it got foamy), and soup. The soup is what made me fall in love with the Vitamix. I made a baked potato soup with cheese and bacon. The potatoes and bacon were cooked ahead of time. I threw everything into the Vitamix COLD, turned it up to high, and then 5 minutes later I had hot steamy soup. I'm honestly a little scared of the thing. Anything that pulverizes potatoes and makes about a quart of molten lava soup in 5 minutes should be feared. I want to make the avocado tortilla soup recipe that came with the Vitamix next. I also need to make ice cream this week before J leaves. You can seriously make ice cream in a few minutes in this thing. Freakin' amazing!!

Oh, and the Dyson. It shipped yesterday, so I will report back after I've been able to re-vacuum my carpet. It's actually a carpet and hardwood floor model, so it probably won't suck quit as much as the Dyson Animal, but it should suck better than my crappy $30 vacuum! And I so mean "suck" in the good way that a vacuum should... I can't wait to take it to the interior of my car. First thing I'm doing on the first warm weekend after we move is cleaning my car. I will wash it, vacuum it, windex the interior windows, clean all of the dust and crap out of the crevices, and finally get all of the broken glass out of the back from when my car got broken into.

I have read more books this year than I did all last year. I've completed the Hunger Games series (crack on paper, I tell you), two of the three Parasol Protectorate books (about 60 pages from the end of the third), and..... I read two other books, but I can't remember what they were. The sickness is invading my brain! I love my nook.

Right. Back to work.

HEY! I can add a "house" tag now!! This is exciting. It's been nearly 10 years since I've lived in a house.