Much to be Thankful for

This week we host the much anticipated visit of the Texas family, AND a return of the parents to our new abode.  Those of us who regularly hang around in WA were pretty pumped about these events, if you can image.  Nana and I would just site round ringing our hands in anticipation of those cute baby cheeks to pinch and the mountains of food that we would be eating.  And this visit did not disappoint.

Noel's family got in on Saturday night.  So I got to host a newly arrived Mom and Nana for dinner before the airport run that delivered the Texans to my house.  Tyler valiantly tolerated us hauling him all around Pike Place Market, and Seattle was in full spectrum grey on Sunday.  At least it was an honest representation of the city.  We also somehow talked Mom into hosting all the cousins for a potluck dinner in Sunday, which was a great excuse to get a ton of adults together to just watch a baby.  It's pretty funny how one little kid can completely steal the show at a dinner party. 

Even though I had to WORK at my awesome JOB, I think Noel and Jessie managed to enjoy themselves while they were here.  I know Tyler got to spend some super bonus Nana time with his Nana and Great-Nana, which would be the Nana Highlight of the whole holiday season if they weren't going to see him in Texas in a couple weeks.  And this was just the build up to the main event- TURKEY DAY. 

Even my mother-in-law came down to dive into the family food frenzy of Thanksgiving.  When you've got that many balls in the air, it seems safe to assume at list one thing is going to come out charred and inedible, but we managed to time every single thing perfectly- steaming hot dishes stuffing, green beans, Brussels sprouts (lovingly friend with bacon), stood next to a tower of mashed potatoes, creamy pools of gravy and the glow of a sweet potatoe pie (a pre-dessert tradition from Jessie's family).  I suppose if you were going to be nit-picky (and I'm not), the one casualty of the kitchen was the bird.  Don't get me wrong, after a day in the roaster, this bird was as tender and juicy as any bird you could dream of.  But to get that 18 pound monster of fall-off the bone good-ness onto the platter, well, it lost just a little in the presentation.  As they inevitably moved/dropped/exploded the bird onto the target platter, Jessie and Noel stood giggling over the "Norman Rockewell Perfect Turkey" in a way that reminded me of the Disaster of The Wedding Cake.  They are so cute.

My mother-in-law lead the charge to bake 3 universally awesome pies on Wednesday night.  I always assume that part of the motivation for cooking so many is that at least one should be ok.  Well, we felt like we won the pie lottery, because all of them were fantastic: sweet-meat squash/pumpkin, brown bag apple and West Virginia Pecan alike.  As Noel said, "I believe this pie is a triumph of human ingenuity and civilization." Wash it all down with a couple gallons of Martinelli's and it was a Thanksgiving for the record books.

Betty revived the old family tradition of going around the table to share something we can be thankful for- and man, I felt like we could go around the table a few times.  Great family, near and far, good health (especially those who just got out of their back braces), meaningful work that PAID us to spend the day cooking and eating, the means to live a comfortable life and share it with those precious people around the table... and this was before we tried the pie. 

Everyone is back on the road again, which leaves Matt and I to conquer the lion's share of the leftovers.  It's just one more thing to be grateful for.

More thoughts on working

The job is still pretty good.  Weirdly, the two people that are supervising me have been out of town, so I continue to correspond with my editors who work off-site by email.  It feels much like the off site version of the job, except that I dress up nice and commute to do it.  This first week has been slow- on boarding, orientation etc are mostly next week, and the project kick off is next week.  This week has been more.... prepare generally for the possibility of writing this course.  The course will be for HS students to prepare to take certification exam for a health sciences career.  This week was so slow I considered whether or not I should get certified in preparation.  I haven't completely ruled out this possibility.

But I work just minutes from Shaoshu!  We had lunch today- how cool! 

I still can't shake this feeling that... it should be harder?  Or I'm not working hard enough?  I think these are the guilty echoes of a science career ignored.  It's hard to let go of this idea that if I really cared, if I'd really tried, I would have found a drug and be too busy saving lives for this stuff.  Objectively, I know it's not about effort, it's about luck.  So now I am at this job picking up on the vibes that my editors are slightly annoyed with my constant demand  for MORE WORK.  Heh, I'm sure we'll all settle into a decent habit once the project kicks off.  Until then, I've been memorizing Rx shorthand and trying to memorize the top 100 most prescribed drugs. 

Matt has been totally picking up the slack on the home font.  My commute takes enough time that he can have a bike ride and make dinner all before I get home - and he does!  I'm still adjusting to this early morning routine, and trying to figure out what to do with my evenings now.  After all the business of getting to and from work, I'd like to enjoy myself, but there isn't that much time left... not that I have anything that MUST get done most days.  I guess this is what it's like for people who work.

We are trying to gear up for Noel-boo, Jessie-boo and Tyler-boo.  It figures I would get a job just in time for them to come- I'm not even sure how much time I can blow off for lunch yet!  Fun will be had though- no doubt!

Fall in Austin

For those of you returning after the last blog entry, yes, Jess did make it back just fine. Tyler seemed quite happy to see her, though he wasn't as deliriously beside himself as Jessie would have liked. Perhaps because it was the middle of the night for him. She picked him up to rock in the chair a little bit, then Tyler got out of the chair, walked over to his crib, and pointed at it. He's a really good sleeper.

Last weekend we went camping. It was a little bit spur-of-the-moment, we got invited out by Jessie's boss to spend a camping weekend out with a bunch of people from work and a whole lot of food. Don't get me wrong. We weren't rouging it by any stretch of the imagination. We drove right up to the campsite. There was no way I was carrying Tyler's travel-crib any appreciable distance, to say nothing of all the other stuff we needed to bring.

Early in the week was pretty cold, so we packed for cold nights. We even got a couple of hand warmers to put in the bed with Tyler in case it got really cold. Of course, this turned out not to be a problem, as it was very temperate most of the time, and occasionally even a little too warm. The main downside of the whole trip was that Tyler woke up on Friday night a little after midnight and didn't get back to sleep until about 3:00 AM. He wasn't fussy or anything, just chattery, and we didn't want to wake up nearby campers. After that frustrating spell, though, the rest of the weekend was great.

We were camping with about 8 or so other families, most of whom had kids in high school, though there was a second strata of a few kids still too young for school, so Tyler had some playmates, though he mostly stayed with us and explored. They had some hammocks set up that spent time between getting napped on by grown-ups and getting swung on by pre-teen boys. There were several different full-sized grills in attendance, including a smoker, and someone brought a flat-screen TV and a portable satellite dish to watch the important College Football games on Saturday. I'm just saying we weren't wanting for much. We joined in the food fest in our own small way. I brought hobo pouches for us to eat on Friday that were delish! Saturday we tossed in our hot dogs along with a lot of hamburgers, side dishes, and other random goodies provided by everyone else. It turned into a buffet.

Tyler liked exploring, as you could imagine. He was very interested in us setting up the tent, and then trilled by being allowed to run around inside it. He ran around with some of the younger kids, but his stubby legs couldn't quite keep up. There was a little playground nearby with a see-saw that we got to ride on with Tyler, he really liked that. And we even went on a short hike on Saturday morning, though we did mostly have to carry Tyler around with us. He still liked looking around, and it was great exercise for us. He also needed some alone time, because there's a lot to take in when you're that young, so we spent some time in the tent with him just reading old familiar books before bedtime.

We decided to head home Saturday night, reasoning that it would be better sleeping for both Tyler and us, and we were just going to pack up and head home in the morning anyway, so we wouldn't be missing a whole lot of campitude. So we put Tyler to bed in his little travel-crib like everything was perfectly normal, then picked his crib up, carried it out of the tent, and packed everything while he slept in his crib next to the car with a blanket tossed over the top. Then we said our goodbyes, woke Tyler up enough to get him in the car seat (and he was an absolute gentleman for the whole ride home) and made our escape back home. Only one night in a sleeping bag and already the bed felt more comfy than I remembered it being before.

I'm super-excited about Seattle. Jess and I have a few things we want to make sure we get to do, though we're keeping the schedule kind-of light so that we don't overwhelm the little one, though he's certain to spend at least a few days in the tender care of Nana and Great-Nana while Jess and I are off doing crazy things like...I dunno...probably learning about history or something.

Oh, and we voted. Got in on the Early voting which was great, because no lines. :) I got to hold Tyler while I made my selections and he watched. He was equally entranced by the touch screen I was using and by all the grandmothers staffing the polling place who kept giving him smiling faces. I think he liked the attention. When we were done, we gave him both of our 'I Voted' stickers and hung out for a while at the playground outside the voting area. He liked that. Yay for Democracy!

-N

First Day on the Job!

Today was my very first day at my NEW job.  It is different than any job I could have imagined myself in a year ago, but I really think I am going to like it there. 

 Although the job isn't what I could have imagined for myself- it is exactly what I figured working in a Seattle office building would be like.  The big big boss has a golden retriever named Cody who loyally follows him around.  Our conference room looks out onto Elliot Bay, the important people's offices look back at the Space Needle.  Seriously, I am down the hall from the Associate Press of Seattle. 

There are about 10 people in our office, with desks and computers and stuff in the office.  Now I am one of these people with a desk, two monitors and even a phone. We've got a break room that is stocked with tea and coffee and leftover Halloween candy.  My manager suggested I might enjoy eating my lunch on the patio (with the unreal view of the bay).  I actually can enjoy part of that vista from my sorta cubicle.  Not exactly 4 walled cubicles, we have long, stair shaped desks that probably could accommodate a dozen extra people.  I don't really feel like I "share" this with anyone, but there are two other people in my bay, I suppose you would call it.Tragically, I have no walls to call my own to hang any time of commemorative anything more substantial that a postcard.  I'm totally willing to give this up for the view.

And the work just picked up where we left off on Friday, which was cool.  I'm diving into some newer stuff (very superficial xml), and being able to call upon the people around me to help out is a real boon.  We are at the very early stages of a product cycle (starting a new class), so I can get the feel for my coworkers before things really heat up.  I've never worked in an office setting before, and I was struck that everyone talked like librarians, very hush hush (I am sure this is magnified by a factor of Seattle).

The downside.... oh, the downside... was the commute.  It took me about an hour to get in this morning.  I left around the time Matt did and easily made it in before 8 am.  But, I wasn't supposed to meet anyone there until 8:45, so I went and sat in a coffee shop full of vintage furniture and sipped tea in the grey Seattle morning light and listened to my podcasts.  I felt very urban.  On the way home, I left just after dark, waited for buses a bit longer than I should have and ended up getting home just before 7.  This is a long day, but really the only part that is stressful is the transfer.  Otherwise I was checking my email, listening to podcasts, playing on my phone... the bus ride was easy.  If I can get an elegant bus route lined up I don't think I will mind so much.  By the time I got home I felt.... excited.  And energized.  I don't think grad school ever made me feel like that, I'm hoping I can hang on to that momentum through the roughness of the winter commutes and/or still enjoy it during the long summer days.

End of an Era

I am sitting at my computer in my PJs, with a big cup of tea and enjoying the rain filtered light this morning.  What I am doing today that is different then most days is that I am not working.  I might get some revisions to handle in the next couple days, but really the days of working quietly from home are about to come to a end.  The "at home" contract is wrapped up, and my REAL JOB starts Monday morning. 

I've already been adapting to the changes.  In the evening, there is not a flicker of guilt that I am not retooling my resume, or prowling job boards.  This has left me with a shocking amount of free time- I'm not really sure what to do with myself, honestly.  I'm on the hunt for hobbies that will adapt well to long bus rides (podcasts?  embroidery? suggestions welcome).  And I'm trying to wrap my brain around the idea of this new life, the new habits, the new trajectory... it's a lot to take in.

I'm going to miss having my "work clothes" be sweat pants.  I'm going to miss being hourly, so I can stop working when I'm done.  I'm going to miss the quick transition form working to being at home where my life is.  But having a job, with benefits, and set hours, in a cool location, with interesting people and projects is totally worth giving that up for. 

Anyway, I have a couple days to myself before this all gets started, so I am trying to wrap up as many loose ends (and finish as much laundry) as possible before then.