Got my Swaperoo package in the mail! I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. :) I hope Melonie is too!

Testy

Oh man, my eyes were crossing today from all the MATH! The text-book I've been helping to convert to Braille is statistics & I proctored & scribed an algebra test today.


I was running late this morning & left my bottles of pills on the bed & I dunno if I didn't close the one or if the cats just managed to get it open anyways (they have in the past with a different type of child-proof bottle!)but there were pills all over the place & I'm pretty sure I had more than 5 left, but that's all I've found so far. I haven't gotten in all the folds of the blankets yet b/c I've been nursing.
So, I've been meaning to showcase more of my crafts here. Some of my most recent stuff will have to wait until I've sent it to my swap partner. :) Managing my pictures should be much easier once I get my new laptop Paul has promised to get with our tax refund. :) Here's one of my projects I've most recently listed for sale at my Etsy shop. The inside says "Congrats!" and I also have a girl one for sale. I have some others I've been meaning to list, some left-handed Thank-You cards, a Thinking-of-You card & more.
I've been craft-hopping a lot lately. Right before Amber was born I was making a lot of jewelry; since then I've been scrapbooking, card-making & sewing a lot. I've made her two dresses & a few headbands. Well, she's being a fuss-butt, so I better get going. Plus, I found 8 more pills, but can't find the cap!

Surprise!

One of my coworkers announced today that she's expecting. She wasn't expecting to be expecting... this will be baby #3. #2 came as a surprise close on the heels of #1, so birth control isn't too effective for her! She's happy though & past the point that they're really worried about miscarriage from the birth control. I'm kinda excited, another pregnancy in the office right after mine!
I'm looking forward to getting back to the classes. My students keep telling me how much they miss me. They're really sweet. :) I'm kinda liking having this transition period of office work though. Already my to-do list is getting crazy. My boss & I talked yesterday about sending out these letters that we're to follow-up on next week, but put my other projects as priority... ? I'm not sure how to accomplish that, I think I'll just have to take a break from the E-text projects to craft these letters & forms. but I still don't have access to the shared network drive! I got an e-mail today about it, so hopefully it'll be fixed tomorrow. I'm still going to have an access issue, but that's because above mentioned co-worker, for some odd reason, is the only one who can log into this particular program & she'll be out of town tomorrow.
I got my sneak peek on the swap blog! :) It's something fabric-y in teal with an image of flip-flops amongst other indecipherable images on it. That sentence structure was weird, bu I don't want to fix it. I'm up past my bedtime! ;) & just got Amber back to sleep. G'night!
Just kidding. Well, I should go to sleep, but I wanted to share... so much cuteness! Not only Amber in her little pajamas still sucking her lip after I took the nipple away, but also our cat Leela snuggling my husband's knee!
I forgot to swaddle Amber, so this will be an experiment to see how she sleeps un-swaddled. Not very scientific though, we changed another factor & put up light & draft-blocking curtains in her room tonight. She's been sleeping in the swing b/c of her cold. I'd rather have her upright than flat in the cradle. Plus, the cradle gets kinda chilly for some reason.
Now both kitties have Paul! Aw. OK, G'night for real now!

Monday Monday

I caught Amber's cold & I think Paul did too. If she has felt half as bad as I do now, I'm surprised by how happy & content she's been most of the time! I feel rather miserable & it seems like it shouldn't be that bad. It's just congestion, no fever, though now it's the sore throat & lack of appetite that can come from all the drainage too. Bleh. That, and Amber slept all night, about 9hrs actually, so I feel like I shouldn't be so groggy.

I don't want to miss more work. I already missed a day in my first week & still had to pay for the full week of daycare. I really wish they didn't do that. That's why people bring their sick kids in. We can't afford to pay the "tuition" AND miss work!

I hope my accesses & stuff at work are all working as they ought to. It's been so annoying. Friday, they had my e-mail working (though I lost all my archived items, contact lists, etc) and the shared network drive with all the DSS (Disability Support Services) stuff was there, but I got denied if I tried to open the folder inside it. When I first went back, my personal network drive had been wiped too, but that was the first thing they restored. :) I just hope the shared drive works. I can hardly do anything without it & constantly have to have my co-workers logging in for me.

Sorry for the whiny post. I hate being sick! I was doing so good too!

Should be sleeping...

My hubby's down in the basement roleplaying w/friends. My snot-nosed kid is asleep in her swing & I've been reading blogs & not going to sleep like I ought to.
I'm really glad my mom came up to watch the baby so I could work. I'm also glad Amber (my daughter... I just decided I'm going to simplify & use names!)didn't get any worse, other than she kinda puked on me tonight, but I always get nauseous when I've had a lot of drainage, so that doesn't surprise me.
I actually got ready pretty quick this morning & even got some crafting done waiting for my mom, but there were a few other prep things I could have been doing. I took her to the daycare to show her the pick-up procedure & pay our bill (ouch) and then went to work & let her drive my car & kid back home.
Even with how early I got ready, all that took so much time that it was still after 10 when I got in to work! So, I didn't write down for myself when I left for lunch & I can't remember for sure, but I think I took about an hour between eating & then pumping milk. So, I only worked 5-6hrs, but still more than I could have with Amber at the daycare. Paul (my hubby) picked me up after he got off work.
I was kinda surprised, I finished the project my co-worker gave me to do, which she wasn't sure if I'd even get half-way done with it! I didn't do much else, but I still feel pretty good about exceeding her expectations. :)
i work in disability support services at a community college. My position has me working with a new program for adults with intellectual disabilities, but since I came back from my unpaid maternity leave I've been working in the regular offices to help them get caught up on some things before I can go back to the specialized classes where I'm usually the classroom assistant.
My project today was "zoning" text from a textbook someone else had already scanned into the computer. This is one of many steps to get the textbook transcribed into Braille for one of our visually impaired students. "Zoning" allows the ABBYY program to read the text so it can be reformatted into a Word document. Someone will still have to go back and correct all the mistakes. Like if it read part of a picture as text, and, since the book is statistics and the reading program has a hard time with mathematical symbols, they'll have a lot of those to correct. Then it all has to be converted to Braille, printed & bound.
Tomorrow we're going down to my hometown (just an hour away) to see my sister's last school play. She's not in it, she's a stage manager or something, but it's Little Shop of Horrors. :) I'm going to take my maternity clothes down so Andi (my best friend) can try them on & use what she wants to. She's about 6 months along with #2. Her son will turn three this summer. She's expecting a girl, so we're really excited about our girls being so close in age. She came up to visit during my last week off of work and we went shopping. her son got in some big brother practice with Amber & made his mommy proud! :)


Alright... I should have gone to bed over two hours ago. Goodnight all!

Long Friday

Well, having the day off yesterday was kinda nice. I did get a fair amount of crafting done. My daughter's temp went up a little, highest I measured was 100F & her normal tends to run a bit high. Poor kid's so congested though! :( She's learning to despise the nose sucker & kleenexes.
She has always tended to spit pacifiers out & to prefer the cylindrical ones over the orthodontic ones, but last night she definitely was making a game of spitting out the orthodontic one. She kept spitting it out so it'd fly & then she'd giggle & flash that big gummy grin! Daddy & I played this way with her for a while & teased like we wouldn't give it to her, which ended up not being very conducive to bedtime. I got to bed a little over an hour later than I usually do. She slept for about seven hours & I just now fed her & she fell back asleep.
I know I'm lucky she sleeps so well, I'm very grateful, but I've also already gotten used to it, so when she sleeps like a more typical 2-3 month old, it throws me off more than it did when she was a newborn and doing it every night.
She's awake again & such a wiggle-bug! Love those smiles. :) Just needed a binky.
Well, my mom's coming up to watch her today so I can go to work & make up some of my hours. Two downfalls - we're paying for the full week of day care anyway & have to go in & pay our first bill today, and the offices close early on Fridays, so I won't be able to make up all my hours.
I hope she manages to stay healthier after this! I know it's not likely in daycare, but we can't afford to keep paying the full week & not using it, but I also don't want to perpetuate the germ sharing.
I just checked my work e-mail & it's back up & running, but all my old e-mails, contact lists, etc. are gone. Hopefully, that means my other computer accesses have been restored as well though.
Tonight, like most Friday nights or sometimes Saturdays, my husband & friends will be getting together to do some role playing. I've been thinking I should try to make my crafting get-togethers coincide with roleplaying. I wish the guys (& one female friend) would be a little more consistent or at least not change their plans at the last minute as much as they have been.
I don't like the Friday night games either, because they don't get started until around 7 usually & they stay up until at least midnight. A lot of them are on a completely different schedule & we're the only one with a kid, only a couple of them are married & both spouses from one of the couples play.

Happy Thursday!

Today actually is an anniversary for m hubby & I, it's the 4th anniversary of the day I proposed to him. :)
We had dated from his last week of college until sometime the next spring when I went to Europe. I had met this other guy at college before I left & started dating him. He proposed to me at the beginning of the next school year. That relationship ended on Easter Sunday of '05, my senior year of college. I started visiting my now husband and we started dating again on my birthday (Aug 27th) and by Valentine's day of '06 I knew he was really the one and bought him a ring.
It had to be shipped. I don't remember what the date was when I received it. I was failing my one semester of grad school at the time and had a big test that day (though it was in the one class I did ace) and I had the little yellow slip from the post office saying I had a parcel to pick up. I am amazed at how well I did on that test b/c I was all butterflies & could hardly focus with that little slip of paper under my notes! When I got the ring I hid it and started planning my proposal. I had originally thought to wait until his birthday in mid-April, but I was going crazy waiting.
I am a quarter Irish & love the color green & St. Patrick's day. One of the receptionists at school suggested I do it on St. Patty's day. Well, I decided to include our friends, and St. Pat's day was a weekday that year, so I had my "St. Pat's day" party the next day.
My hubby helped me set up for the party. I was so nervous my tummy was getting upset. He was confused, it wasn't like to me get that worked up about a party with these friends, but he didn't think too much on it. We both get tummy troubles easily.
Our friends came over, once everyone was pretty much there & settled, I pulled him away from the couch (there was a coffee table in front of it) and into another chair & said my little prepared speech, got down on one knee with the ring held out & asked "Will you marry me?" Even though we'd been discussing it & I knew the answer, it seemed like an eternity before he said "yes!" The video shows that it wasn't that long. :P

Yesterday was a decent day. Amber & I were all dressed in green, my socks & her bib said "Kiss me I'm Irish" and our carseat is even green!
I did have a hard time focusing at work & for quite a while I was the only one in the disability support area, so I had to stay in case someone needed help. I accomplished almost nothing in the last half of my work day. My appetite was waning too. I felt a little emotionally off. I don't know if it's just a delayed reaction to going back & putting my daughter in daycare or general post-birth/nursing hormone craziness or maybe something's off with my antidepressants, but I definitely was not at 100%. My computer access is limited. I was gone long enough that I'm no longer in the system & have to push the paperwork through to get it all back. With everybody else gone, I was stuck unable to do much. My boss had logged me in as her so I could, but the video I was supposed to be working on wouldn't play (needed to restart the computer, couldn't do that b/c I couldn't log in as her again... couldn't e-mail the video b/c it was too big, etc) so I just kept e-mailing my hubby, taking short walks, trying to work on other things & just plain zoning out.

Now I'm not even sure if I'm going to make it to work because my daughter has been all snotty. She sounds like an old man snoring. She doesn't feel feverish & she slept alright, but she definitely seems to be fighting some sort of bug... Three days in daycare & already she's sick! Ugh!