I almost forgot!

Charlie says "HELLO!!"

New Baby

As many of you - all four of you who may or may not be reading this, I had my son.

Charlie showed up on October 16th. If you want more details on delivery of my HUGE child you can ask me. I'll spare the internet of the nitty gritty. My water broke during "Hall Pass" and my heart sank to know I'll probably always have to remember that movie.... We were overwhelmed with joy when he shot into this world and screamed for the first time. Eight pounds nine ounces, he's now at twelve pounds eight ounces and it's only been a month.

The first month has been wonderful, hard, sleepless, surprising, endless, and gone in a second. And now that he's happily swinging in his swing (that is struggling by the way) I figure it's okay to take a second to write...

As always I'm inspired by the women around me. My friend Jenne has a beautiful blog and she wrote about thanksgiving. I was reading Eat, Pray, Love for the tenth time as I fed my son this morning and she was talking about her difficulty with the Gurugita. And I spoke with my Mom on the phone and was impressed with her ability to pick her self up after a series of particularly difficult hits from the universe. These women are just a few of the many that remind me to be better and be true. True to myself and my family.

So when we 'Give Thanks' this year, I will say I'm thankful for my baby boy and my superhero husband, but I'm also thankful for all of the women in my life. These women who have no idea how strong, beautiful and brilliant they are.

I wish I had more time to write but dinner's ready and the boy has grown tired of the circling zoo animals ~ Love you all

It's almost August Already

I just read my last blog post. The second trimester wasn't any more restful than the first. I finished teaching at the high school, walked & cooked at Graduation, finished that grad class took a week off and started that program I've been trying to get into for three years.

Three weeks of 9-3 classes with hours of school work each night and a nursery to get ready, shower lists to make, registries to update.

Last week of class I found out there was a permanent position opening at the high school. I spent four feverish days working on my cover letter & updating my resume and I dropped it off the Monday after class finished.

I got a call that I had an interview - that was this morning.

I got a variety of responses when telling people that I was going out for this job. I don't think I'll get it. Too many good teachers with tons of experience, no Master's Degree, who aren't pregnant are out of work. There are easier options that hiring me. But we'll see.

Also last week BORDERS found out that they were being liquidated. So that job that I planned to go back to, that I love has vanished.

So I have to watch my friends suffer through countless customers being awful to them because things aren't cheap enough yet. If these people would have come into the damn store with a coupon before this happened maybe we wouldn't be going out of business...

The baby is doing well, he's tracking big, HUGE head & a week and a half ahead on his size. Then there is the construction.

We decided to take out the bath tub & tile that was in the upstairs bathroom. Then the sink got very slow...then it stopped all together. I finally got done with school, we took a long weekend went to the shore and then my husband demoed the bathroom.

He removed the tile, that apparently we had really INSTALLED because it was very hard to get out, and then he took a sledge hammer to the bathtub and pulled it out in at least three large pieces.

Then the next night while we were taking a break and watching TV on the sofa, the dog barks at something in the kitchen. Part of the ceiling promptly collapses on her, scaring the poor thing half to death.

After fixing the VERY SMALL leak that lead to that collapse a second leak started about two feet to the right. After cutting down that section of ceiling we found that someone had plastered a washcloth to the old steel pipe in the 1940's and the patch must have come lose in all the commotion so now the pipe from the toilet to the tub was leaking.

I drove to home depot in a dead panic and retrieved the proper do-hickeys and returned to the house. My darling husband was still on the ladder and informed me that said second leak had stopped (it's now 7:30 on a Sunday) and that we would wait to cut the pipe until another day. We cleaned up.

Monday night we ripped the ceiling out of the kitchen, then we cleaned up. Tuesday I pulled nails out of the ceiling, and cleaned some more. The hubby had meetings for work, but we made a lunch time run to HD and picked up insulation for the ceiling which currently opens directly into the eve of the attic.

Tonight we are going to Lowes to pick up our bathtub for the bathroom that is still ripped apart, and I think we might be cutting the pipe out of the upstairs bathroom from the kitchen.

We have a call into the electrician to take out the knob and tube that's running through our kitchen ceiling so that we don't have to deal with it after we put the new ceiling in & we want to put in some new light fixtures.

I shopped online for light fixtures last night & this morning. I went to my interview & then to an OB appointment. I've been hanging out waiting for the electrician to swing by and look at our situation and formulate our plan. At five the starting pistol goes off again...

I still haven't finished painting the nursery... Maybe next week...

Into the third trimester we plummet, house torn apart, sleep deprived and sore from construction...At least we'll have some stories to tell the kid!

Long time other blog...

So I just looked at my blog and I hadn't realized that I haven't posted since December. Quick rundown of why -

- Right around christmas I was made a key holder at my book store job. I started working real full time. I made overtime. In retail. Someone stole our Manager, and we had to do it without killing anyone. We survived.

-After Christmas my supervisor's wife had twins the same week our inventory specialist was on vacation in Alabama. I was there every day for two weeks. Much of my late night worry was not on company time.

- When my key holder position disappeared I was now working "regular" full time. Painful pay cut.

- I found out I was pregnant and got an interview to start substitute teaching in February. The beginning of working two jobs.

-Juggling these two jobs to everyone else's satisfaction was not achieved. Modified availability = EPIC FAIL

- Subbing became two to three days a week... I was barely working at the book store - but now exhausted and sick, cause I'm pregnant. No one tells you what a time suck the first trimester is.

- As I slid into my second trimester I got a job filling in for a teacher leaving on Maternity Leave. Summer Classes and my Book store job along with my personal stake in a number of weddings is all up in the air.

- REALLY ROUGH WEEK

- Told Boss at Book Store that I couldn't work until School is over. He took it really well. As he should have, now he doesn't have to fire me. Oh yeah I finally made my stupid goals for my last two shifts...

- Starting to not be totally exhausted. Grad Class is finishing - HUGE PAPER = PANIC.

**CURENT DAY**

So I'm trying to figure out how to tell my professors that I can't participate in the program that I've been trying to get into for three years. I "think" I'm in a wedding in about four weeks, god knows when I'll get the dress. The doctors office called and I have to come in every two weeks for a check up. ALREADY! I'm not really ready for all of this to be happening. But no one really ever asked me....

Oh Yeah - MY OTHER BLOG is:http://fightpraylove.tumblr.com/

I try to get to it... like everything else...