Office Work

Yes, much to my co-workers surprise, I actually made an appearance at the office today.  Due to various circumstances, I hadn't been there in a week.  I was not at all happy to get up at 5am but I was glad when 3:30pm rolled around because I shut my computer off and walked out the door.  When I work from home I have a hard time walking away in the afternoon because I always feel like there is one more thing I can get squeezed in.

Today was a gorgeous day!  Lots of sunshine, temps in the 80's.  Andy and the kids were busy today.  Andy,  Alex, Connor and Ty headed to my parents house to help dad do some work.  Mom and aunt Kathy headed to our house to help Kenzie watch the little ones.  There was a trip to Middletown, DE involved for some of the boys, some grass cutting for another.  The older ones then escaped and headed for baseball practice.  The little ones did lots of painting, drawing, playing outside.

Dinner was started by the time I got home.  Andy took Ty to karate practice.  After dinner, Keari, Adam and I headed out for a walk.  It was a beautiful evening although a bit breezy especially down by the water.  I snapped a few pics of the kids.  Keari is throwing pine cones into the river...which is something that we absolutely must do every time we go for a walk.  Then it was time to head back to get Connor to piano practice.  Connor and Kenzie have a guild recital this weekend that they are practicing for.  Connor is okay with it but Kenzie is a bit grumpy about it. She'll be okay though.  She always does a good job.

Annoyed

Nothing like walking in to work bright and early on a Monday and within a 1/2 hr of being there already have your blood pressure going thru the roof.  I can't begin to tell you how tired I am of people not doing their jobs.  Or actually, maybe I can because I think I've been doing that quite a lot lately.  It seems to be an on going theme.  Which is not a good thing because this is one theme I would dearly love to get rid of.  And it makes me mad that I let these occurrences get to me so much.  I know there isn't a darn thing I can do about it.  I think what is really getting to me lately, is that I know if I was doing this kind of work day in and day out my bosses wouldn't put up with it.  Yet they continue to let us, as their staff, continually have to redo our work due to bad info that we continue to receive for others.   I'm really struggling with how to let this go.  I know it's not good to hang onto anger but I really just can not find it in myself to forgive these guys right now...and that upsets me too.

No job?

Sometimes I really wish I could just quit my job.  Too bad I'm the one bringing home the paycheck.  My quitting would have an adverse effect on that.  But days like today just pluck my last nerve.  I'm sick of dealing with people that are incompetent and I'm sick of my bosses not doing anything about it.  I'm tired of being the one having to constantly come up with workarounds and having things take 3 times as long as it should because I'm trying to get around someone else's screwup and having my management think that it's okay.  And I seriously think that I am just too cranky to write a post right now.

7 Hours

That's how long I was in a vehicle yesterday.  Thankfully it was not a continuous 7 hours but that's a heck of a lot of time to be driving around.  And I didn't really go too far from home.  We had a department meeting at our Washington, DC office so I drove to our Baltimore office in the morning (1 hr).  Caught a bus with the rest of the folks to DC (2 hrs due to traffic).  Spent 4 hours at the office.  Took bus home (2 hrs, again due to traffic).  Stepped off the bus and immediately hopped in my car to drive howe (1 hr).  Headed to Easton for the Parent Appreciation Reception at Alex's school (40 minutes). Returned home from reception (40 minutes).

Too bad we didn't have any free time in DC.  It would have been fun to see the cherry blossoms since this is the time for them.  Our old building used to be in the prime location for viewing the blossoms.  We could walk outside at lunch to the Jefferson Memorial, walk along the water and see all the beautiful trees.  Unfortunately the location of our new building doesn't lend itself to easy viewing.

I was never so glad to work from home today.  :)  And thankfully Andy took Kenzie to her appt in Baltimore so I didn't have to go anywhere near a car today.  I worked some in the morning then took a break when it was time for Adam's nap...he gets just cranky when he's tired.  ;)  Keari, Adam and I watched Tangled during this time.  I love that movie!  Then back to work when Andy/Kenzie got home.

Stomach Bug

Poor Keari was up last night with some kind of stomach bug. She seems to be doing better today although she is still complaining about her tummy hurting her. She also complaining about her knees hurting her. Can't see how those two things are related but I have no idea what could be causing her knees to hurt. I'm getting vision of last summer and so don't want to go there.

My neck/shoulder hurts so badly at the moment that I can't turn my head to the left without getting a stab of pain. This made for an interesting drive home today. Do you know how often you have to look to the left while driving?? Way more than you probably realize.

Mondays are our crazy running around nights with with two dance classes and a karate class overlapping within a 2 1/2 hr period. Hubby offered to do all the running tonight without even knowing I was in pain. How awesome is that?

On the work front, I think I might actually be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have literally been buried in work since November, with January being the worst, and worked more overtime than I care to think about. This month went much smoother and are actually done for the month. To give you a sense of how bad things were, I didn't finish last months work until mid March. I hope to never have a month like that again.

Perspective

I was late leaving work today due to a conference call that ran very late and where one person was being totally unreasonable regarding the request that was being made. Everybody else was willing to make compromises except this one person. As annoyed as I was when I finally was able to leave, I was counting my blessings a few minutes later. I got caught in a backup on the beltway which I assumed was due to an accident based on the firetruck, ambulance and police car that went flying by us on the shoulder. It also told me that it was something that had recently happened. The accident had occurred about 1/2 mile in front of me and involved and overturned car. When I passed the scene the person was strapped to a gurney with a neck brace on and who knows what else. It was a reminder how fast things can change and that usually things that annoy us on a day to day basis are trivial in the grand scheme of life.

By the time I got home, Ty was at Karate class, the older kids all headed off on their bikes, Keari was grumpy because she'd just woken up and Bekah, Taylor and Adam were just themselves. ;) Keari and I sat down to a bowl of cereal for dinner...it was a quick dinner of bagel bites and left over pork chops/mashed potatoes tonight because Andy had been out clothes shopping with the kids this afternoon. This is a picture of Keari in one of her new dresses. She's loves dresses...we might actually have a girly girl with this one. ;)

The bagel bites were nowhere to be seen by the time I made it in the house and I'd had pork chops/mashed potatoes for lunch so cereal sounded like a good thing. Then of course we had to have a brownie for dessert. By this point, Ty and Andy made it home and instead of going for our normal evening walk, the girls wanted to go swimming. I took Adam in for a bit...he absolutely loves the water and kept trying to get me to let go of him. He didn't seem to understand that if I didn't have my hands on him that he would sink under the water. The mosquitos finally chased Adam and I out but by that point the older kids were back and invading our space. ;) They are still out there having a ball although they are all going nuts at the moment because a horsefly is attacking them. I do believe that we made a good investment in getting the pool all those years ago.

No progress

Today was a very unproductive today where I actually thought I was making headway but in reality didn't make any progress at all. I'm hoping that they are able to fix all the issues by tomorrow so that I actually have some work to do...I hate driving all that way and then not be able to do anything. Well, there is stuff I can do but the important stuff that have a deadline of Weds and Fri, I'm unable to work on at the moment. And they've been trying to fix the issue since 8/1 so I'm not optimistic at the moment.

And Andy's day was just as bad in a different sense...he spent the entire day running kiddos all over the place. Ty had to be at Karate camp at 9, then it was back to the house to pick Tay up for a drs appt...and hour later, it's back to the house only to turn around and pick Ty up from camp. Then it was time to take Connor, Kenzie and Taylor to piano...which took an extremely long time today...which I think is good because they must have been going over a lot of things today but I thing at that point hubby would have liked a short lesson so he could get back home for awhile. Somewhere in there my sister arrived to help Alex do so pt on his shoulder...my mom also showed up. Soon after getting back from piano, Ty needed to head back for his regular Karate class...I took him so hubby could have some home time. After class, we headed home for dinner, then Andy, Keari, Adam and I took a walk along the river. It was a gorgeous evening..not hot and muggy like it has been but I'm thinking this is only temporary as they are talking about temps in the upper 90's for the next 2 days.

The kids are constantly complaining about being bored but something sure tired them out today, at least the girls, because within 5 minutes of them laying down all 3 were asleep. I should really head that way myself....

Back to Work

The first day back to work is never easy but I guess today could have been harder. I was in training from 11 - 4 today so really only had to work for a few hours this morning. I'm in training again tomorrow, then off for two days, then work from home on Friday. Guess I'm kind of easing myself back into the work world. LOL

I could have done without the traffic on the way home. I was already running late because the training let out later than I normally leave...then I ran into wire repairs on one of roads that was left over from the storm that came thru yesterday...then hit a big backup at the bridge. I'm not sure what caused it but it tied me up for almost 40 minutes. I just missed getting Tyler to karate class but I did go over to watch after Andy dropped him off so he could come home to make dinner. Tyler got his first invitation to test for his next belt this Friday...should be fun to watch.

Clutz

I should have known that it wasn't going to be a good day when I tripped going my front stairs on the way to work. I then proceeded to trip walking down the hallway once I got to work. I was careful when I walked down the stairs mid morning and made it down without incident. I then took another walk down the stairs mid afternoon without mishap. But wouldn't you know it, when I was leaving for the day, on the very last set of stairs before reading the garage, I would trip. Thankfully I was being cautious and had my hand on the railing otherwise I would have ended up on the landing in a very ungraceful way. As it was, I ended up kind of upside down and in the process scrapping my shins up pretty good and twisting my back and neck something awful. Needless to say it was a painful ride home.

Last Week

This is my last week off from work. Hard to believe it's been almost 12 wks already. I'm not looking forward to going back into the office. While I do miss the interaction with some of my coworkers, I really hate the travel but what are you going to do...it pays the bills. Of course, my hubby would say that I can do my job from home so there's no reason to go into the office at all. This is mostly true but the VP, while a very nice guy and would do just about anything for me, is still of the old school that thinks you need to be physically in the office to do your work. I was able to get another day at home out of him so I'm up to 2 at home and 3 in the office so I can't complain too much. That's more than most people in my department get. But I sure will miss being able to get up at a reasonable hour, roll out of bed and walk to my computer to go to work. Next week, I'll be up at the crack of dawn trying to stay awake while driving in the dark again. Blech!

No More Work

To bad it's only for the rest of the week. One of these days I won't have to worry about going to work but not anytime soon. Of course, if I'd known we were going to spend the whole day cleaning the house, I probably would have reconsidered staying home. I think I would have worked less if I'd gone to work. ;-) We did get alot accomplished with the house, though.

Alex and Connor spent the day in Baltimore with their church youth group helping to feed the hungry. I'm sure how impressed they were since they were relegated to trash duty...but they were there helping and that's what counts.

Do Over Day

You sure can tell that today was a Monday. Started off with me getting up late because someone who shall remain nameless was playing with my alarm and switch it from FM to AM. My alarm went off but played static instead of music so I didn't hear until about 15 minutes after it had started going off. Luckily I heard Alex roaming around upstairs because he also had an alarm clock problem this morning. In his case, somehow the time on his clock got set an hour earlier than it actually was so he ended up getting up at 5 instead of 6 like his clock said. Hmm, that clock fairy was busy. ;)

Then I get to work this morning and discover that a database I was working on last week was missing all the current months data. If I didn't have hard copies of the reports in front of me, I would have thought I'd imagined doing the update. Turns out I wasn't the only one missing data. They did a server update on one of our drives over the weekend and mistakenly loaded an old backup copy of the server. Needless to say that caused some trama this morning but we were able to get it worked out.

Then this afternoon, I finish converting a report into a database...done all the balancing etc, so it's ready to get turned in. I go to rename the database and end up deleting it by mistakes. Ugh! I just couldn't believe I did that. Luckily, I had a back up from Friday but I had to redo all the work I'd done today. Was able to get it recreated by the time I left today.

Needless to say, it wasn't a very good day and I'm really hoping that tomorrow is better.

Father/Daughter Dance

Kenzie and Andy are off to a father/daughter dance at church tonight. Kenzie is so excited about this and has been talking about it for weeks. It will be fun to hear what she has to say about her very first dance.

Kearsyn had her 4 month check up the other day and is doing well. She now weighs 14lbs 1oz and is 23 inches long. She's gaining weight again now that she's no longer on her eating strike during the day from last month. Stubborn child! I think we're going to be in trouble when she gets older. LOL

I finally got all the data run from my programs...only took me 15 days when it normally takes me 2. Yikes! Of course, there are a still a few small issues that we are finding but we're cleaning them up one at a time so that hopefully we'll get them all and we'll have a smooth month next month. Hard to believe I'll be starting the process all over again in 8 days. Ugh!

Ski Trip

Alex left last night for his very first over night event with his youth group. They are going to spend the day skiing, snowboarding or tubing...whichever activity they chose...at Roundtop today. Alex chose to try skiing. They left last night, spent the night with their sleeping bags in a church up there and then were hitting the slopes early this morning. The camping in the church was good because it saved on expenses...they got to sleep at the church for free so only had to provide money for food last night and for the activity today. I'm anxious to hear how he did as this will be his first skiing attempt. I'm sure he's having a blast right about now. =)

Andy and Kenzie are down in Trappe for her Saturday softball practice. She's discovered that she loves to pitch the softball so we'll see how much of that they are doing today. I logged onto work for a little bit to get some programs started that take about 5 hrs each to run. Thought I'd try getting a jump on things so I'm not waiting around Monday morning for the data. I'm already running about a week behind getting this particular data updated so hopefully this will help me catch up a little. Now I'm off to try and clean the house a little.

Hope all is well with everyone out there and hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I'm able to get back here again. ;)

Stressed Already

I've only been back to work 3 days and I'm already feeling stressed. I came home today with the worst headache...actually still have it so why I'm trying to type right now is beyond me. I know the headache is work related. I think everyone thinks I can do everything all at the same time. I had a couple of things that I knew needed to be worked on when I went back but I've other assignments given to me that are cutting into the time I need to spend on the other items. Plus they are all due Monday or Tuesday next week. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get it all done but I can only do so much so I'm really trying not to worry about it but the headache is telling me that subconsciously I am worried.

Kearsyn has done pretty well with drinking from the bottle during the day up until today. She's even been super grumpy with me since I got home so I'm not sure what's up with her today. She didn't even really want to nurse when I got home which is so unlike her.

Kenzie had her first softball practice for this year. Trying to coordinate getting me home from work in time to get her to practice on time is a challenge. Thankfully there was no traffic today so I made it without a problem. She hasn't been complaining anymore about her ear hurting her so the medicine must be working.

I'm so incredibly tired it's not even funny. And I'm so looking forward to the weekend although that's going to be somewhat messed up cause Andy, Alex, Connor and Kenzie are going on a White House Tour Saturday morning and need to leave the house by at least 7am (edited to include the word House since hubby so nicely pointed it out to me. LOL). I had to pick Connor and Kenzie up from choir last night and was falling asleep in the car while I was waiting for them to finish up. I'm hoping Kearsyn goes to sleep early tonight...she did 10:30pm last night which was nice but was then up at 4:30am because she was hungry. After feeding her and getting her back to bed, I just stayed up as there was no sense in me going back to bed then.

My sister is still trying to get over to finish up Christmas with my parents...they went to her DH's family for Christmas and they couldn't come over last weekend because her DH had to work. I have a couple of things here for them that I completely forgot about when I gave them their other gifts. That's what sleep deprivation does to you. LOL They were going to try and come over this weekend but mom was saying something about wanting to go over to their place to check out their most recent renovations...Megan, they're currently doing bathroom renovations but they are doing them themselves. I think I'm going to just end up meeting her for lunch one day...she's works close to where I do and we try to get together for lunch every couple of weeks.

That's about it from here...same old stuff. ;)

Sleepy Head

Wow, guess there wasn't much need to worry about Kearsyn today. She slept from midnight until 10:30am. When she finally woke up she gulped down 2 oz in no time and then over the next 3 hrs, drank 5 oz more and then fell back asleep from 3 - 6pm. She got up and nursed like crazy and is now back asleep again. I'm thinking she's going through a growth spurt with all this sleeping she's doing here.

5am came really, really early today. I wasn't at all happy when my alarm went off. Thankfully I had gotten everything organized last night so I didn't have to do too much thinking when I got up this morning. I made it to work okay and everyone was very happy to see me. I even tried to do some "real" programming work today although it took me awhile to figure out where I'd left off. A coworker and I have to have a discussion about rewriting a portion of the program but I wasn't up to doing that today...luckily she wasn't either...so we'll tackle that tomorrow. Since I'm still nursing, that means I have to pump while at work. I went down to the nursing moms room this morning only to find out that it's no longer there! Ackk!! Not a good thing. They've been doing renovations throughout the buildings for the last couple of years and finally made it to where the health and safety office was. That office got relocated but they didn't put in a new nursing moms room when they did the relocation. We do have single handicapped bathrooms on each of our renovated floors now so I do have a place to go but it's a pain to have to pump in a bathroom...especially when there is no chair in there. The things we do for our children.

The next couple of days are going to be crazy because the kids go back to choir practice and Kenzie starts her softball practice again. Neither of those is normally a problem but with having to fit in two nursing sessions at work that extends my day so that will make it rough trying to get everyone to and from stuff on time. I know it will work out somehow...it always does.

We'll actually get to meet the kids new pediatrician sooner than we thought thanks to Kenzie's ear infection. She's go in for a recheck on 1/11 although I feel kind of weird taking her in when she wasn't seen there to begin with for the infection but I guess that's what happens when kids get sick over a holiday.

Ear Ache

That's how we rang in the new year last night. We went to Safe Harbor church's new year's eve party last night and were having a great time up until about 11pm when Kenzie starts clutching her ear and has tears running down her face saying that her ear hurts. How in the world a child can be happy go lucky one minute and in excruciating pain the next is beyond me. We stuck it out at the church until the new year and then we went home and got some motrin into Kenzie. Maybe this was a bad mommy moment, but I figured that even if we had left at 11 to go to the urgent care center the chances of making it before they closed at 12am were slim since we would have packed everyone up, gone home to switch vehicles then headed across the bridge to the urgent care place. And I wasn't at all looking forward to being out on the roads that late on New Year's Eve. I figured the motrin would do the trick until we were able to get in to be seen today. We got a 1:20pm appt this afternoon and sure enough she's got an ear infection. Poor thing...not the best of ways to start off the new year. Hopefully this isn't a sign of what the new year is going to be like.

Today is my last day of maternity leave and I'm in a very blah mood because of it and having to drive through the fog and rain to the urgent care center earlier hasn't helped any. :( Tomorrow I have to get up at the unspeakable hour of 5am to get ready to go to work. I'm so not looking forward to it and if there was anyway to avoid it, I sure would. Unfortunately we kind of need money in order to pay the bills although I think eating and having a place to sleep are highly overrated. LOL Andy would just say that I should talk to my boss about telecommuting but work isn't into that at this point...maybe at some point in the future they will be.

I think it's going to be an extremely long day for Andy and the kids tomorrow since Kearsyn still does not like eating from a bottle even though she's been getting one every day for over a month and a half now. Hopefully she'll catch on soon. Makes me very sad to think she's going to be so upset while I'm at work tomorrow.

Nothing exciting happening on this New Year's day...the kids are being bums, either watching cartoons or watching football games. Andy's doing some laundry. Kenzie's playing pool. Pretty boring around here. Hope things are more exciting elsewhere.

Happy New Year everyone!!