Movement

My job recently moved me from one campus to another in the opposite direction from my house (although roughly equidistant, just a couple of miles closer). My initial reaction to change is often a snap of resistance, but for this move, as soon as I was told, I was like, "All right! Awesome, I'm on board."

My second thought was, "Oh no, Trader Joe's!"

See, my old location was nearly right next to the only Trader Joe's in our immediate area. It was ideal and convenient; I could always just pop in to pick things up for dinner or really good produce for the week. The hubby loves their tea and their "Just the Clusters" cereal.

Now? Now I'm in the middle of a shopping wasteland. There is nothing nearby enough to be convenient.

But that truly is one of the only two significant downsides to this move. The other is that I miss my coworkers from the other location. There are really great people there who I honestly looked forward to seeing every day. How often can you say that about a job? If you can, consider yourself lucky.

But it's not that there aren't good people at the new location. There are - it's just such a different setup so I don't actually get to see them. My old location was small - one building. You saw everyone, all day. Now I'm on more of a traditional campus with more buildings and people spread out all over. It's going to take a lot more effort here to connect with people and build relationships, but that said, I'm up for the challenge.

One thing that's different but cool is that I simply get to move around a lot more. To get to the ladies' room, I have to go downstairs and to the other side of the building (this is how my phone took a tumble on Wednesday). To get coffee or use a microwave, I have to go to another building. To visit classes and talk to them about the tutoring center, I have to go to different buildings. Every day, I have reason to get up and move a bunch of times - something I didn't have before. I like it (especially since it's not winter so going outside doesn't require a coat).

Another change is that I have an office here. Because the space here is so much bigger, there are a few computer labs and several offices, of which I am occupying one. It's just... nice. Nice to have a little breathing room and mental space to concentrate on the various projects I have to do now as a part of my job.

I may not be at this location for more than a few months (it's unclear if I'm staying here or moving back) but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Now if only they could build a Trader Joe's on campus...

An odd one

Today is an odd day. The hubby took Nate to his mom's house early this morning, but I didn't have to be at work until noon so I basically had four hours to myself this morning. I don't even know when the last time was that I had four hours to myself. It could quite literally be two years ago.

So what did I do? I wondered what I could do. I could clean the bathroom, vacuum my bedroom carpet, clean the kitchen and dining room floors, go to the library and read. But in the end I decided I actually didn't want to do anything that resembled work or was out of the ordinary. I wanted to take this out of the ordinary time and do something very ordinary with it. I made myself breakfast, watched TV, took my time getting ready, and ran an errand before work. That's it. Didn't clean, didn't prep dinner, didn't even finish the laundry that was already in the dryer. Just kind of existed in the eeriest quiet I've felt in my home since we've lived there.

I've had plenty of relative alone time there, time when the hubby was out, Nate was asleep, and my brother was in his room. But even then, there's this energy of other people being home. On those nights I kind of trick myself into thinking I have the time to myself, but I don't really. Nate could wake up at any moment and need comforting (this almost never happens, but the possibility is there). My brother could come out into the kitchen for some water and strike up a conversation (this almost always happens).

Today it was just me... well, and the two dogs, who also seemed to relish being home and uncaged. They simply napped in their favorite cushy spots until it was time for me to leave, when they then dutifully entered their crates.

And now today, a day that many people experience as one in which they get out early from work, I have to work late. As with most Wednesdays, I have to proctor an exam, but unlike most Wednesdays, today's may be packed. I usually only have three to five students testing. Today there are twelve scheduled. I may, in fact, work later today than I usually do, depending on how quickly the students move through the exam.

And then there's the matter of tomorrow: Thanksgiving (here in the U.S.). I don't have anything to do in preparation. I was told we don't need to bring anything (and, truthfully, can't afford the excess groceries making something special would require) so... we're just showing up to eat. And.... that's it. It's been years since I've done that.

It's truly an odd day. Here are these things that set me free, from a certain perspective. Nothing to do this morning, nothing to prepare for tomorrow. Yet I am sort of not liking either experience. Well, or it's taking me a while to warm up to liking them. I did actually like lying on the couch watching television this morning and eating English muffins. But I didn't like getting out of the shower to an empty, quiet house. Sure, it made getting ready a lot easier since I didn't have to sneak around hoping a certain toddler wouldn't come barreling into my room and start wrecking things... but it still just didn't feel right. And not baking something like a pie or appetizer tonight doesn't feel right either.

It seems clear that I have a new normal, one that involves a rambunctious toddler and lots of time in the kitchen. Both of these renew me and provide invaluable perspective on life, even if they both involve the occasional bouts of frustration, and even disaster. An outing to the movies last week (which I'll have to write about another time) started me thinking seriously this week about my personal time - what I do with it, how I feel about it. Today I felt progress; even though my new normal is a bit crazy, running in circles, covered in flour, I love it - and now I'm slowly beginning to take back a tiny bit of me and remembering how to enjoy that, too.

Why I love Tuesday nights

Tuesday, you see, is my Hump Day.

(For the record, I actually hate the phrase "Hump Day" but that's mainly because of all the usually dumb and gross jokes people make about the phrase. The concept itself - the day of the week that feels like once you cross it, you're closer to the end - is fine by me.)

For most people, Wednesday is Hump Day. It's the middle of the week and once you're done with it, you're closer to Friday than you are to Monday. Makes perfect sense to me. And my Wednesdays are long days; I usually go to bed late the night before and then work 9am to 8pm on Wednesday. So it's not that Wednesday is a light day.

It's just that Tuesday carries more weight. I have a short work day, and in my opinion, those are actually harder than long days. I do much better when I have a long list of stuff to do, but ten hours to do it in than a shorter or even moderate list of things to do and only a six hour day to work it all in. On Tuesday I work from 9am to 3pm and then dash into the city for grad school.

So not only do I tend to have a crunched Tuesday schedule at work, I need to be prepared for my own classes. My homework must be done and I need to be on top of any research I should have done. Up until last week, I was doing well. This week I'm a bit behind, but not in any way that's terrible. But it's a lot to juggle in my mind and after I leave school Tuesday night, I have a whole week until I need to face another Tuesday, so Wednesday always feels so much lighter.

Also, the hubby has off Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I know he's home with Nate and those are two days I don't have to worry as much about what Nate's eating, his naptime, etc. I also don't have to drive him to my mother-in-law's or worry about getting to work late or running out of work in order to pick him up and feed him dinner. In short, Wednesdays and Thursdays involve a lot less running around and mental juggling than the other days of the week and, so, heading into them after the mentally full days that Tuesdays are is always relaxing (relatively speaking, of course).

And I refuse to do any work when I get home on Tuesdays (which is usually between 9:30pm and 10pm). I eat a light dinner, catch up on a little TV, and go to bed.

... and then start the whole roller-coaster week again the next day. Wednesdays and Thursdays are lighter, but Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all busy days, full of work and full-time parenting as the hubby works. Tuesday night between 10pm and bedtime is the closest thing I get to a little weekend and I look forward to it every week.

For what it's worth Friday

For what it's worth...

1) I like the new Facebook and I think I'll like it even more after the new "timeline" profiles become available.

2) However, I dislike Facebook overall for moments like the one I had today where I read a post and comments about partying that went on when I was in high school, naively convinced that only the "bad" students drank, not all the popular kids, all the time. Apparently I was pretty wrong. So there's hating being wrong and there's the 17 year old inside me sad about never being invited to anything ever. (And there's the sadness at recognizing at my wise old age now that it was probably because I was a prudish know-it-all. Oh, and knowing that sometimes things don't change much.)

3) I have spent the past two days working intensively on a newsletter for work and it's at the point where my right eye will NOT STOP TWITCHING. I'm hoping it stops at some point tonight.

4) I got 50% credit on my first homework assignment for grad school. So there's that.

5) R.E.M. broke up this week and I did more crying that day than I'd want to admit to most people, but I'm okay now. Still a bit sad and deflated, but okay.

6) I have gotten so many emails from my boss this week that I'm hearing phantom "pings" of new email, kind of like when Nate was an infant and I'd hear him crying when he wasn't. (That still happens sometimes, too.)

7) I feel like I'm on the edge of making some significant changes in my life/to my life. It's hard to describe, but I feel like I'm at the tipping point of a maelstrom. Some things require changing and some things I want to change, but it's feeling pretty big. I'm just hoping I have the drive and commitment to actually do it. I've been constantly thinking about this quote of the day from the other day:

"To change your life: start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions."
~William Jones

I think I want to make myself a little card of that and put it in my wallet because, really... Self - start NOW, do it! No exceptions! Isn't that what we all need to tell ourselves sometimes?

Am I making any sense? I'm feeling a little crazy lately.

And my eye is still twitching.

But I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Not quite done with the fun...

Day 27

I tried a new recipe: lasagna rollatini (no pictures because it just doesn't photograph well, but trust me it is yummy). This is my weekend thing now - Nate naps, I bake/cook for the next couple of days. It works out well. This recipe was particularly fun because I wasn't sure I could successfully roll lasagna without having it all break or having the cheese ooze out the sides - but I made it work!

Day 28

I tried a new (to me) chocolate chip cookie recipe. It involves a little more work than any other recipe I've tried (there's a whole "whisk and wait three times" part) but, man, are they delicious. I can see why this recipe is so popular. AND it uses melted (browned) butter, which means if you're like me and always forget to leave the butter out to soften, it doesn't matter!

Day 29

I taped students together for a "human caterpillar" leadership exercise. Nothing quite gets any educator work-related tension out like taping students together and then laughing at them for half an hour.

Tomorrow... Day 30!!!

My go-to shoes

As I started reading more personal style blogs, I noticed that many of the bloggers repeated their shoe choices... a LOT. I was seeing the same 3-4 pairs of shoes every week. I thought this was odd. These are fashionistas - don't they have entire closets devoted just to shoes?

Maybe they do. If they do, though, they still wear the same ones a lot - just like the rest of us, I realized! I own more shoes than I use. Some are occasion shoes - necessary for interviews, weddings, and other events that only come up sometimes but need particular sartorial options. But more often than not, I find myself using the same shoes over and over again, completely neglecting others.

Lately, these have been my go-to shoes:

source

I have worn these shoes at least three out of five workdays a week for the past two months, mostly with dresses, but sometimes with cropped pants. I love Blowfish shoes in general, but there's just something about these (purchased in 2008, maybe?) that I just love. They're holding up well, too (phew!).

Realizing that I was reusing the same shoes repeatedly just like some style bloggers do made me feel better about doing it. I love these shoes and they suit my days perfectly. Why add variety just for the sake of variety? If the t-strap ain't broke...

Do you have any go-to shoes? Or a go-to scarf, shirt, pair of earrings, etc?

Monday, err, Tuesday Five Countdown

This weekend and yesterday were so busy that I did not get to do this countdown or any of the other blog posts I've got floating in my head.  But it's my countdown so if I want to post it on Tuesday, I shall do so.

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. My mom had knee replacement surgery yesterday and everything went perfectly.  She's in a lot of pain today, but that's to be expected.  I'm just glad the surgery went well.

2. My student loan check came last Monday so I was able to pay off some creditors, pay the rent, and make sure we're all caught up on bills.  It won't last forever, but it's a tremendous help right now.

3. The hubby was away Sunday night and all day Monday and the dogs were actually good the whole time (read: no "accidents" in the house).  This constitutes a minor miracle and I was incredibly grateful for their behavior.

4. Nate. Being home alone overnight with Nate and the dogs was hard, but it helped having Nate there.  He's small company, but he's the best company.

5. I love having friends who have known me for years and can laugh with me at how different I am now from how I was ten years ago.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Job hunting.  The hubby needs a FT job and that's a tall order these days.  I just keep looking, looking, looking for him.

2. Tonight's dinner.  I'm making The Pioneer Woman's Beef Stew with Beer and Paprika, but minus the beer.  I'm so in the mood to cook something yummy.

3. Pants.  Stacy and Clinton (you know, What Not To Wear) actually said something on their show last week about pants held together at the waist with a safety pin and how terrible that is.  Probably 3/4 of my work pants are held together with safety pins at the waist (AND need a belt AND are saggy in the butt).  I need new pants.

4. Cooking.  I feel like I'm between cooking phases; I've mastered following recipes and even adapting them a little to my own preferences and experimental wants, but I cannot think abstractly about what to make for dinner or look at a store full of really good ingredients and think about what I could put together without still missing a component.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Write and post the three blog posts I have on my mind that I want to do.

2. Finish my damn homework.  I'm going to do poorly in my classes at this point.

3. Buy pants.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Job hunting.  I know a few people who have been out of work for years.  YEARS.  The idea of the hubby being out of work for years makes my heart lurch with nervousness.

2. The dogs.  They were so good yesterday and now today they're bad again - and Oreo is being bad now, too, not just Buster.  It's a major inconvenience.

One Random Thing

1. I went to Trader Joe's to pick up bread to go with tonight's stew and saw they have this:

As I am currently obsessed with all things mint-flavored, I was super psyched to try it.  It's only okay, but I think that's because I was hoping it would taste like a liquid stick of gum and it's much milder than that.  Also, I think it would be better cold (I'm drinking it room temperature).  I bought two so I'll stick the second one in the fridge and see how it goes.

Did you do a Monday Five?  Let me know :)  (Or do a Tuesday or, heck, even a Wednesday Five if you want!  Live boldly!)  ;)

Monday Five Countdown

Monday comes way too quickly when you're working six days a week, but here we are again.  Let's get counting...

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. My and Nate's health.  I have so many friends that are sick right now and/or their kids have some kind of general winter ailment.  Life is stressful enough for us right now; I'm glad that we don't have to worry about dealing with a sick baby or parent who has to miss work.

2. Buster has been relatively good.  Not perfect, but relatively good.  I think, in time, he won't be such a daily headache.

3. My job.  It's not perfect, but it's there, it's fairly secure, and I don't mind being there every day.  If I didn't have Nate, I wouldn't even think twice about working six days a week.

4. Grad school starts this week.  The intellectual stimulation there benefits all the other areas of my life.  When I have schoolwork to do, my brains just turns on more in general and I get more clear-headed about a lot of things.

5. I'm almost out of sugar.  I'm grateful for this because otherwise I would have made these cookies yesterday and would have been eating several of them every day this week.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Money.  It still sucks so incredibly much.  I was actually thinking of writing a post detailing the ways it sucks so much right now but it was just way too depressing and embarrassing so, fret not, I won't be writing that post.  But my brain is being eaten alive by money issues.

2. My work schedule.  It's so irregular that my brain is constantly whirring, trying to remember where I have to be when.

3. The floors at home.  They are so gross with all the snow/salt/random winter residue being tracked in.

4. Our PSE&G bill was such a nightmare this month and now it's so cold that the furnace can't keep up with the wind chill so I'm really worried about what the bill will be this month.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. I swear to all that exists, I need to move that Christmas stuff to my parents' house.  I'm tired of looking at the boxes of Christmas dishes and bins of Christmas decorations.

2. Laundry.  We still don't have a working dryer so I have to air dry all our clothes, which means one load of laundry takes a whole day because I only have one drying rack.  I don't actually mind this all that much, to be honest, but it just means I really need to stay on top of the laundry because there's no catching up if I fall behind.

3. A more positive attitude.  I was not happy last week and I'm tired of it.  I felt much happier (if not actually more positive) yesterday and it felt good.  I want to hold onto that.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Our schedule.  I hate it.  The hubby and I are rarely home at the same time.  We don't have family time together and the only couple time we have is when we go to bed at night.  It dawned on me this weekend that we haven't had a date night since Nate was born.  For the record, he's 8 1/2 months old today. Not one single night to ourselves in the past eight and a half months.  We don't get to see our friends and we don't even have time to ourselves, individually, but we really need to work in some couple time.  The lack thereof is really beginning to take its toll.

2. Nate's sleeping.  He went from being the baby that never woke up at night to being one who does wake up sometimes (it feels like once a night, but I haven't been keeping track so I don't know if that's actually true).  I keep reading that it's very normal for this age, which is only vaguely comforting when it's 4am and I really want to be sleeping, not sitting in the glider.

One Random Thing

1. Yesterday morning Nate woke up at 5:50am after also being up at 1am and 2am so I decided to just bring him into our bed and try to snooze a bit - and it was easily one of most wonderful things I've ever experienced.  I absolutely loved lying there next to him, seeing him when I opened my eyes.  I don't think I slept much because I was nervous, but he did doze and it was better than being in the glider or being on the sofa.  I really think that if we had the bed arrangement for it, I'd be very tempted to co-sleep.  It just feels so right, which is surprising to me - I would've never expected that of myself.

(P.S. I just want to ask you one more time: did you know there's a Bookish Penguin page on Facebook?  You know you want to go over there and like it.)

So, what's going on with your five this week?  Please share - I really love to see other people's lists.



7 Quick Tuesday Takes

Thanks for all the support on my Monday Five post and my Living Out Loud post.  It really means a lot.

Update: the hubby had a good meeting with a temp agency yesterday and might find out about a potential position today.  This agency has been good to our family, employing the hubby before, as well as my mom and my brother.  Fingers crossed!  And there's another good lead that I'm hoping for, so I'm feeling more positive today about our situation overall.  I have this gut feeling that things are going to work out not just okay, but really well... eventually, at least.

And now, 7 for Tuesday:

1. I do not understand why students, upon entering a computer room, will leave if the one computer they wanted isn't free even if there are several other available computers.  I just don't get it.

2. This morning I had on my coat and my hat and was putting my gloves on when Buster peed on the floor.  Really?  Really, dog?  You couldn't wait TEN MORE SECONDS?  I wanted to punt him across town.

3.  Nate's wake-up time for the past week has been 6:45.  Why, Nate, why?  It used to be 7:15, which seriously feels so much more reasonable than 6:45.  (And he has a cold now, aw.  He is a big booger bomb.)

4.  I mixed in some hot chocolate mix with my coffee at work this morning (all free).  It made for a really nice treat and a welcoming way to start my day at work.

5.  I have several Pioneer Woman recipe attempts that I have to post about.  I am totally dedicated to posting something about that tomorrow (possibly even with pictures!).

6.  I want to make a vision board.  The visual space around me really affects me (clutter makes me crazy - I literally have trouble thinking straight in a cluttered space) so I think looking at a vision board every day (even passively) would have a positive affect on my personal journey, hopes, ambitions, and achievements.

7.  There's a student at work who was sick and lost all her hair, but now it's growing back in and she has this really adorable super short hair style.  Possibly to compensate, she's accessorizing with really great earrings and scarves lately and looks so incredibly adorable that it makes me want to cut my hair short and wear big chandelier earrings.  I find it really beautiful that in the midst of something difficult, one can find something new for or about themselves.  I think she looks more beautiful now than she did last year (and I'm happy that, while I don't know details, I did overhear that she's fine now).

Monday Five Countdown - send good vibes, please

The Monday Five Countdown is back (I skipped last week) and is in dire need of lots of good webby vibes being sent this way today.

I don't talk much about my or the hubby's work because 1 - I don't ever want to jeopardize employment and 2 - I find talking about most people's jobs boring anyway.  But I will just share this, long story short: on Friday the hubby went to work to find out the store he worked at was closing immediately and the owner is filing for bankruptcy.

No warning.  No idea how this happened.  Now really, really screwed - and coloring absolutely every thought I have in my head, so this Monday Five is going to be clearly slanted toward my current worries and fears.

If you want to play along, do the countdown at your blog and then post a link to your site in the Linky at the end of the post.  I could really, really use some links to cheer me up!

(If you don't have a blog, feel free to do your Monday Five in the comments!)

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. We have a roof over our heads and heat.  Even if we can't pay other bills, we will find a way to make that one.

2. We have food for Nate.  We'll live on Ramen if we have to as long as he has what he needs.

3. My car is running (today, at least - who knows about any other day, but I am extremely, astoundingly grateful for every day that it runs).

4. Buster has been better than I expected him to be.  He hasn't been perfect, but better than expected is okay for now.

5. One of my coworkers is putting the hubby's resume in for a job at my school.  I don't know what his chance of getting the job (or an interview) is but I'm really grateful that someone is willing to put it in for me, outside the normal channels.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Money (duh).  We are close to severely screwed right now and I pretty much have trouble breathing without worrying.

2. Nate developed a bit of a cold overnight and I'm really hoping 1 - it doesn't get worse and 2 - we don't end up with something.

3. If the hubby finds a full-time job, we need to figure out full-time daycare, which we are not ready for and possibly cannot afford.

4. Christmas.  Having zero money means trying to figure out how we're going to get a tree and pictures with Santa.  I really, really (REALLY) hate the idea of Nate's first Christmas not having a tree or a Santa picture.  It is breaking my heart.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Make it through one day without crying.

2. Clean the floors.

3. No extraneous grocery spending.  Minor, minor essentials only.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Geez.  Everything.

2. Christmas.

One Random Thing

1. I did have everything on hand in the house to be able to make two of The Pioneer Woman's chicken pot pies, so I have super yummy lunches to look forward to this week and didn't have to spend a dime for them.

What's going on with your five for today?