There are a million things I could post about, if only I had more time.

1. New Job - I like my new job so far. The people I am working with seem pretty nice and very supportive, and so far no one seems ridiculously crazy. There is a little tension that I am picking up in the office, but nothing major and otherwise everything should be swell. I have to park in a parking lot a million miles away and take a shuttle bus to the hospital. It feels like I work at the airport. Also, there seem to be a healthy number of queers in my office, which is a nice change. Regardless, I'm now working at one of the major employers of the area and it's one of those situations where you never leave, you just change jobs sometimes. So I guess I know where I'll be working for, like, ever.

2. Grandma - We went to see Grandma yesterday and she is holding up as well as she can. She is having some trouble adjusting to going from having my uncle stay with my grandparents to having my aunt and uncle start to move in. It is kind of awkward and I don't particularly like it. My cousin, who is somewhat estranged from my family as he can't seem to get his life together and did a lot of shady money things, and his birth family have been spending a lot of time at my grandmother's house and she is not very pleased with that. I'm not really sure how this is going to play out. We went to visit Grandma yesterday and met my cousin's sister, her husband, and their two kids. The whole gang sat in my grandmother's living room all day watching the Sox game while Jen and I (and Punk) entertained their 8-year-old. Seriously, no one ever came out to check on him or interact with him or anything. It was incredibly sad and frustrating.

3. Tonsil - My new health insurance kicks in on June 1st, so it makes more sense to find an ENT in my new system rather than pay a $500 co-insurance. I need to get on that. I hope my new job doesn't freak about this tonsil business.

4. Punk - She is growing in leaps and bounds and impresses me every day with what she's into and what she's doing. She has a bit of a cold right now though, poor thing. This morning I took her to the grocery store and let her ride in one of those carts with the car attachment, and she was so full of glee and excitement. She sang for at least the first half hour straight. It was so cute, but I imagine I will NEVER be able to go to the store without one of those car things again.

5. Day Off - I now have Mondays off instead of Fridays. This is kind of a bummer because Jen gets off work early on Fridays, but it will give her some time to play with Punk too, which is nice. Also, it is nice to still have a four-day week.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm at a loss. Peace!

Here is a bit of what is going on around here:

1. In the next handful of days, my uncle is going in for surgery on his very broken leg, my grandfather is having hernia surgery, and my grandmother is going in to have surgery on her colon and may or may not end up with an -ostomy bag. Since we are a very small family, that doesn't leave too many healthy people to help out.

2. My job just had representatives from the state Department of Public Health spend the last several days doing "focused monitoring" wherein they pored over charts, interviewed all staff, and called parents. They managed to reach and interview 6 parents. 3 of them are MY parents. I only have 7 cases. How is this possible? (Thankfully I am awesome.)

3. We are finally - FINALLY - swaddle-free in 2009. It's like a campaign slogan.

4. I am taking a bit of an internet hiatus, especially with respect to mama boards. I just don't have the energy or the drive right now. I'm trying to "unplug" a bit, and have been enjoying reading the Twilight books in bed.

5. One of my clients gave me some of her daughter's hand-me-downs. I'm sure I'm technically not supposed to take them, but she was going to toss them if I didn't, and umm, they're cute as heck. Even the CROCS.

6. Did I mention that 3 of my family members are having surgery over the next few days? Urg.

7. My house is a disaster, yet I will probably sit in bed and read more vampire trash.

~//~

My grandfather's hernia surgery is Friday morning. He doesn't want my grandmother to be alone because she has been very weak ever since her stay in the hospital. (It's really frightening how quickly she declined.) So rather than get up at 5 to drive to Rhode Island, I will be sleeping over tomorrow night. So tomorrow's schedule is 1) work 10 hours, 2) play with kid, 3) put kid to bed, 4) pack, 5) drive to RI. I am tired already just thinking about it. I don't know how long I will be staying since I don't know how my grandfather will be feeling when he gets home. But I need to be back for Friday bedtime. Rush rush rush.

The only family I have in New England are my grandparents, who are both not well, my uncle, who has a majorly broken leg, my aunt, and my cousin, who has disappeared after stealing his father's credit card. It's going to get very hard to help everyone out, especially when we all live in different places. I love having a small family for the close-knit factor, but it's a real drag when something like this happens.

Not much to say. No time. Way behind.

Still haven't:
-sent thank you cards for birthday gifts nearly 2 weeks ago
-carved pumpkins
-put up fall decorations
-gotten a decent night's sleep.

Yawn. Time to switch out laundry.

Welcome to the first (of likely many) installments of Things I Would Blog About If I Had More Time!

1. I never did write about our trip to Florida, did I? Well, the weather was gorgeous and I managed to only piss off my MIL a couple of times, so I guess that's a win? I wish my in-laws liked me. Bleh. But they like Punk and that is going to have to be good enough for me.

2. While we were in Florida, spring came to the Happy Valley. There are now leaf buds and flowers on the trees, early flowers are up, and second flowers are on their way. We have SO MUCH yard work to do, especially because we never got around to picking up the sticks, acorns, and leaves from the fall. We have three oak trees in the front (holy acorns!) and three maple trees in the back, not to mention an assortment of conifers. We have a LOT of leaves. Ugh. I think we need to call someone. Ch-ching!

3. We are going to redo some of our kitchen to hopefully make our house more sellable someday. We're biting the bullet and paying big bucks to have a dishwasher installed because I think we have the only house in the universe without a dishwasher. We need to get the electrical and plumbing work done. Ch-ching!

4. I would write about Punk's child care experience. I will just say that it is going as well as it could, the provider is very nice and I think we made a good choice. Punk refuses to let me out of her sight after I pick her up, though. Kind of like, "Oh, Mama, I am on to you and I am NOT letting you get away with dropping me off TWICE!"

5. The other day, JAMN 94.5 came through my radio when I was in Northampton and Hadley. It is a Boston station. So weird! I listened to it until it faded out and it has never been back.

6. Yard work projects to come: the aforementioned leaves and acorns, getting rid of all of the crap the previous owners left in corners of the yard, cleaning out a little flower garden area in the backyard, cleaning and sealing the deck and little patio set we have, hanging a little swing for Punk, cleaning up the "landscaping" in the front of the house. I'm tired already just thinking about it.

7. I hate applying for jobs. HATE. But I have applied for 10 jobs this week while Punk has been at child care. I think that's pretty productive. We'll see what happens. I am in denial of having to go to work, though. Bleh.

8. Cinnamon Crunch bagels from Panera are THE DEVIL and I would eat three a day if I could. YOM.

Okay, that's enough for now. xo!

1. Many many big huge thanks to yarnaddict and saldemonium for sending Punk some presents! The bib and the tshirt are really incredibly cute and we were totally surprised! Punk was surprised too but she probably won't get around to telling you. But thank you so much! You didn't have to do that!!

2. We met with a lawyer on Tuesday to get the ball rolling on the second parent adoption and our wills and things like that. While I am infuriated that we even HAVE to do the second parent adoption, that we have to pay money and go to court for Jen to be considered a parent to her own child, I am thankful that we live here in the Happy Valley where same-sex second parent adoptions happen all the time and the process is really streamlined. Which, in the world of lawyer's fees, means cheaper. And cheaper is always better. When we were in Boston, I had spoken to a couple of people who estimated that the adoption would cost $2-$3K. Our lawyer anticipates that it will not exceed $750 here. That is good to know, especially when we have no money.

3. I would like to get my W-2 so we can start to talk taxes. It's time to deduct my kid so she can earn her keep. ;)

4. Does anyone know how to train cats to do dishes? Or laundry? It is the one thing that is seriously lacking in my life - dutiful cats.

(icon especially for prunesnprisms)

Things that are annoying:

1. I have somehow injured the ball of my foot. I have no idea how, but I woke up yesterday morning and it hurt to walk on. But, you know, I have to walk around sometimes. So now it hurts MORE and I am walking on the outer edge of my foot. Which is fine and all, except that I'm paranoid that I'm going to roll my ankle and stumble while I'm carrying the baby or something.

2. The Sears people are supposed to come today to fix our fridge. Our brand new fridge that we bought about 3 weeks ago. Which was broken when it was delivered - the gasket around the freezer is effed and it doesn't close properly. A BRAND NEW FRIDGE. Argh.

3. Oh, and the Sears people? They gave me a window of when they will arrive. Would you like to know when that window is? 8 to 5. 8am to 5pm. Are you effing kidding me? Can you be a little more vague? "We will come on a day that ends in Y."

Things that are not annoying:

1. My grandmother is 85 years old today! We had a little get-together at my aunt and uncle's place yesterday for her and gave her a picture of the punk. (She'll be getting flowers today.) We ate lobster and shrimp and birthday cake and it was quite delicious. Happy birthday. Grandma!

2. Leah and Colleen, and eeka and Molly, and the Morganator came over on Saturday for a little BBQ action, which was really nice. It was incredibly humid and we don't have A/C (sorry, guys) but it was nice to see them and chat a little bit.

3. The punk is a super cute baby.

4. Jen got up this morning and made a whole bunch of bottles so I didn't have to. Now I'm set for the day. That is awesome!

1. Jen and I went downtown to meet up with freedumryde today. We had some delicious beverages at Haymarket and then late lunch at Viva Fresh Pasta. My food (cheese tortellini with a sauce of 1/2 tomato, 1/2 alfredo) was the serious YOM. Good times.

2. Jen and I set out on the tedious task of finding me something to wear to (don't laugh) a black-tie wedding reception in two weeks. I thought I was going to die, for real. But I ended up finding this sparkly freaking GOWN and it's quite nice... and stretchy enough and the waist is high enough that unless something really wacky happens should still fit fine in two weeks. Best of all? That bad boy is a size 10!

3. But I still hate the mall.

4. Totally had sex today for the first time since I was about 6w pregnant. Which was NINE WEEKS AGO, people! *dies*

5. This means, of course, that it's been about a week and a half with no bleeding or spotting to speak of. Still scared to jinx anything, but it seems over after that major bleed-out at 12w.

6. Jen got a new shirt for the wedding, too... and she's going to wear her fancy black suit and she will look teh sexxxxxxxxy. Hot.

7. Former coworkers come tomorrow, stacy will be in town tomorrow, catching up with Eryn & Amy for a bit on Monday, and best of all, NO WORK! Awesome.

Had IUI today. Most painful one yet. I guess she had a tough time getting the catheter in. (Ouch) Had cramps and spotting. Suck.

So tired. So so tired. Must go to bed.

I've done two home visits this week. This whole week! And my visit tomorrow (after group) got cancelled. Whoops. No productivity this week.

Did I mention tired? *dies*

It's National Coming Out Day. I'm coming out to say that I still find boys cute. It's also Neal's birthday. And my nephew, Logan's. But not mine, even though I got a happy birthday phone call today AND a gift certificate from my Mom. <3 <3

I'd like to think that if I were a Big Brother houseguest, I would be clever enough to be in Chilltown. I just adore them. They completely and utterly crack me up. I think Boogie would totally dig me in a nerdy kind of way. Yeah.

I watch back episodes of Real World and Real World/Road Rules Challenge on Comcast On Demand. This is how I watch pay tv programming without paying for the channels. We have Digital Basic cable ($10) but have access to all of the Expanded Basic On Demand. It is a scam and it is Teh Awesome. We actually only have the Basic Cable because it gets us $20 off internet. You do the math.

Today was the most useless day at work. I had my playgroup and then NOTHING else. I waited around and did paperwork until my 2:30, and then I got a call that my 2:30 was cancelled. So I sat around the office and gossiped until my 3:45. I got to my 3:45 and Dad said Mom and Kid were not home.

I salvaged the rest of my day. It went like this: Call siercia. Con her into meeting me at Wollaston Beach after picking up Hannah. Play with Jenn and Hannah on the beach. Watch them eat fried mushrooms. Head home. Realized My Jennifer ate the leftover pizza I was going to have for dinner. Make toast with peanut butter. Binge on grapes. Watch trashy television: Real World, Real World, BB7, RW/RR Challenge, RW/RR Challenge. Feel brain turn to mush.

I did my shot after BB7. Man, that's getting old. Those yellowish bruises on my pasty white belly skin sure are SEXY. I can't wait until Dave Navarro can do his business.

Bloodwork and ultrasound tomorrow. Hopefully good news.

I love Chilltown.