Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Moving along

After our first week of school, daycare, and work;  we all took turns getting sick.  However, other than that, we are adjusting pretty well.  Audrey loves school and being with her friends again.  Meredith does not love daycare, but she is playing and calm when I pick her up everyday, so that is a start.

I am enjoying reconnecting with old friends and colleagues at work as I try to find a project that I want.  I am trying to stick with international public policy, but not the exact same project.  I would like to expand my perspective and work with other agencies.  I basically have one week left of looking for my dream project before the utilization gremlins come out to get me and I will be more or less assigned. 

Friday, September 07, 2012

Week one back at work

This week has been rough.  Apparently, I was so focused on getting us personally ready to go back to work for me, school for Audrey and for Meredith to start day care; that I forgot about making sure our house was ready to support those efforts.  So Audrey ran out of clean undies by day two, milk was gone by day three and the one freezer meal I had made was eaten quickly. 

Luckily, my job has *not* been the stressful part.  Right now I am not on any projects, so I just go to the corporate office everyday and work on all the company requirements that used to make my life miserable (because I did them late at night on the last day they were due as I never had time for them during the workday).  Now, it gives me something to do.  It doesn't seem like as much of a pain to download, learn and understand random computer programs when that is your entire job instead of last-minute late-night adventure.  I have also been reconnecting with old colleagues, updating my resume, and looking through open positions to try to find something that fits.  Eventually, I need to actually be a profit earning employee.  Embedded into this mix has been losing my badge, reconfiguring my computer and all kinds of other little issues to make the days more interesting.

School for Audrey has been wonderful.  Audrey loves the magic of childhood.  She was excited to reconnect with her friends and she has already made some new friends who love princesses as much as she does.  Unbeknownst to me, she brought a miniature magic wand to school yesterday and 'the princess club' buried it in the school yard during recess for the fairies.  She also left something under her pillow last night for the night time fairies (like the tooth fairy) to get while she was sleeping.  If I would have known I would have put something there instead for her. :)

Daycare is going less well for Meredith.  She likes playing and she has been taking short naps at the appropriate times, but she isn't fond of drinking from a cup for her milk and she is luke warm on their food.  One of the other kids bit her arm the second day.  And she cries like crazy when she finally sees me at the end of her day - like all the built up frustration and anxiety of a long day all comes out at once.  To top it off, she is sick with a fever today, so I am home with her this afternoon.  Ryan stayed with her this morning, so I could go into the office.

This week felt crazy and frantic, like I have too many things to keep track of, and not enough brain power, sleep and organizing power on hand to do any of it well.  I backed into a parked trailer at Meredith's daycare and I keep physically dropping things (computers, phones, my badge, keys, etc).  It is as if I am both physically and metaphorically juggling more than I can handle.  I am sure it will all smooth out and calm down.  In fact, I can already feel myself thinking through household stuff in a different way (I froze two quarts of lentil soup after we ate some for dinner yesterday, so that I will have a few healthy dinners on hand).  Little things like that will start to add up and things will start to run more smoothly.  I have to keep reminding myself that it will just take some time and patience (and a few deep breaths) and soon things will feel more calm again.