Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Time to Train
Tomorrow I am off to start my Project Management Training to become a Business Analyst. I will be at the Front Range Community College for 2 days and the agenda is fierce looking. My stomach will be tied in knots I am sure tomorrow morning. I am good at training and applying things that I have learned, but I hate going to trainings where you have to "pretend" and "role play" in front of the class / other participants and then have them analyze you - yuck. It will be interesting to see who else is in this class, lately I have been on the young end of the age spectrum with everything, which in a way, good for me, but it does get intimidating (especially since most that know me, know that I prefer to the intimidator). Slow, but sure, I am still doing training on Crystal Report writing as well and will soon start to write report for the Food Department in Health and Human Services. Learning about inspections and restaurants has proven to be very interesting and I am glad that we cook a lot of meals at home right now. My next training days will be in a couple of weeks and is called "SCRUM" - that word is strange within it self (and no, I don't know what it stands for, yet). I believe that it will tie into the project management training and is a way to deal with processes, which is something I do enjoy, so we will see. So wish me luck and good vibes that I can learn and retain all of this new information as I trudge forward!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Keep on Chewing and Chewing and Chewing
Everyone has heard of the expression, "Don't bite off more than you can chew", yet some time I believe in most people's lives we do it anyway, well, I think my first round has come. The last month there has been so much going on, from one thing to the next. I will try to break out in pieces what I have been up to or what is or has been coming at me.
Work -
Work is busy and continues to get busier. I have worked on a House Bill project for the last 3 years at the county that brings in a lot of money if we pass our outcomes. This year I was not supposed to be a part of the project because I was supposed to be in full swing of training for my new position, well, I am doing the project again this year with help from co-workers. I returned to work from maternity leave to learn that the project that I would normally start in mid-February had yet to be started on at all and now I am scrambling to get it done in 2 months with help, this means though that I have to train and check work from others and try to do some work myself on it as well. We have a month and half left and I am really starting to have some anxiety over this, but alas, there is no time to stress over it now. I have also started training for my Business Analyst position which means I have 6 hours a week that I must train on Crystal Report Writer, some independent study and some with our current report writer and then also squeezing in time with him to work on our current reports that are due. Next, I am being scheduled for numerous meetings for Project Management projects that I will be doing on the job training and hopefully getting into a 3 day class later this month at Front Range Community College as well. In the seven years I have been at the county I have had meetings, but the majority of my time has been spent at my desk doing actual work and being very confident in the work that I am doing, this is an entire new ballgame for me. I have my laptop, so I am pretty much packing it up and taking it to an office to work or to a meeting or to our other office location to work on stuff. I am meeting new people at the county and have determined that of all the BA's I am thinking that I am quite a few years younger than everyone else, but I can deal with that if they can. At this time I have to watch my hours closely as well and complete 15 hours of BA work and the rest of the work week needs to Dept. Specialist work in order for them to keep my from re-classifying to a BA before I am really able to do the job duties and receive the pay. Once my House Bill project is complete I will be allotted some additional hours to train on whatever they seem fit, but I can see from all the trainings that are 2 days or more that my time is going to be sucked up fairly quickly and they didn't leave me much time to travel from office to office. That is how the work aspect of my life is going.
HOA -
The HOA lately has been crazy and started shortly after I took over as president. First it was choosing a landscaping company and having resistance from another board member to go with who we had last year, which ballooned into interviewing 3 candidates, doing reference checks, and having meetings with the board and then finally choosing who we had last year anyway. Now we have a ditch in our subdivision that is entirely out of control and needs to be dug. I have walked this ditch with 5 different excavators and have sent email upon email, phone call upon phone call to them, the board members, our property management company and still need to keep digging for some answers that I need. This is a whole new experience for me and not many people that I have asked for advice seem to really have the direct answers that I want, the main one being, "Are we really responsible for paying for this ditch to be dug ourselves?" I don't see how the city or county or the damn farmer that runs his field overflow into our ditch doesn't have to pay for some of this and then the question to the excavators - why do you charge so damn much to dig a ditch and move some dirt, there are not that many houses being built, you can't be that busy. I am also up against a time crunch because the city is turning on the water and the ditch is going to attempt to start having water run through it and then city has told me I have one year to "fix" the ditch - my question to them "or what?" help me pay for some of it because I know that the people in subdivision can't afford to have an assessment, who knows if we can get a loan and we don't have enough many now to cover all the expense. AHHHHHHH
We also had to do a walk-around with the landscaping company and a couple of the board members are more worried about the damn flowers they want to plant here and there and I've had to put the kibosh on it stating, "we have no money" and we have a serious ditch situation. You can about imagine the crabby husband I have at home leaving him to watch the 2 kids himself to attend meetings and take phone calls. Hopefully soon some of this will settle down and we will be back to meetings once a month and a few emails that I can deal with on my breaks at work or at night.
The Kids -
Katelynn and Junior are actually falling into place really well. Both of them have an 8pm bedtime and are asleep (or at least in their bedrooms, Katelynn) by 8:30pm and have been staying put and not waking up until 6:30am, thank god for that, I can't ask for more. Katelynn has still been tough and I think she is going to have anger management issues if we don't get them under control soon. Dan and I really need to have serious follow through on our consequences and we are working on it. Junior is a peach, he is either hungry or tired and has really taken to sucking his thumb, when I can I try to replace it with the "paci" but he plops it out sometimes fairly quickly and pops the thumb back in, for now I will deal with the thumb and have a happy little boy. Dan and I did have to have a little sit down and some serious communication when it came to the kids and that we both need to be doing our share, it took 2 to make them and it's going to take 2 to watch them, since our talk we have both been doing our share and have a much happier household. One of the problems is the TV, if it's off we are all great and can really concentrate on what is going on, but once it's on someone gets distracted or plops down and doesn't want to do anything (Dan) and I then lose my cool, which is what I need to work on. Junior will have his 4 month appointment next month and I am wondering if they will give us the green light to start him on solids / cereal and then am wondering how am I going to fit this in?
The Marriage -
Why didn't anyone ever tell me that marriage can be this hard after you throw kids into the mix? Mom, where were you? Oh yeah, you wanted grand baby's. How do you juggle everything else and then attempt to have time for this as well. We have been trying to at least spend a little time together before we continue to feel like roommates, nags, or maids and nannies in the house. I have found a summer bowling league that starts in June on Monday nights that we would like to do, at least I would and kind of told Dan that he needs to go along with it if we want to stay married or figure out something else weekly that we can do together and both enjoy, my point was taken. I have been trying to find a babysitter now for Monday nights all through the summer and have not had too much luck. I am getting a lot of 15 year old's calling and wanting to do it and there parents will even drop them off and pick them up, but I am just not comfortable with someone that young watching my 3 month old and 3 1/2 year old, I mean really, sometimes I wonder if I can handle it and I'm going to trust a fifteen year old that has never had a child, I just can't do it. I had one stay at home mom call and want to do it, but she had to bring her 5 month old with her because her husband works at night and I wasn't comfortable with that either, I wouldn't want to wake up my children at 10 or 11pm and put them in the car to take them home and put them back to bed, I just wasn't comfortable with this either. Hopefully something or someone will turn up in the next couple of weeks and we'll be able to do this. Dan will kill me for saying this on here, but it's what's happening. We both know that we are done having kids, 2 is enough for us and our family is now complete so after discussion we decided that Dan will get the deed done and has his consultation this week with the "snip, snip" doctor. It's funny as the week progresses and the date gets closer, he has some anxiety / nervousness around this and it's just been really funny, at least for me it is, but ya know I did push out 2 children already, so ya ain't getting much sympathy from my end.
The House -
With the new expense of my car and daycare and formula and diapers the cleaning crew I had coming every 2 weeks is no longer. After I let them know I wouldn't need them anymore I pulled out my Scooba so at least I didn't have to actually mop my own floors and the fricken thing is broken. I have been emailing the techs at irobot.com and after many attempts and talks, it's broken and not fixable, shit. I still am on strike from mopping the floor and Dan broke down and did it on Mother's Day for me. I hate mopping and I loved my Scooba. I have been looking on craigslist for one and have made an offer to one lady, but she hasn't called me back yet to buy hers, must not have like my offer?! The scooba's cost $300, but irobot did offer me their out of warranty price of $180.00, it's one without a battery (which my battery works fine) and I am going back and forth and maybe in the next 6 months will go with that offer if I don't find someone else to sell me theirs for cheaper. All in all I have also had to give up some of my anal cleaning and attempting to have a spotless house every night before I go to bed, it just can't be done with everything going on. It took a few works for me to really let go, but I do feel some relief that as long as the dinner dishes are done at night then the rest of the stuff will be fine if some toys are not put away and the floor isn't swept and there may be laundry that needs to get done and so on and so on. I will try to do what I can on the weekends I guess like I assume everyone else does as well.
I am sure I am missing some stuff, but all in all I feel like I am swimming or drowning from one thing to the next, but I am really excited and happy with all of these new experiences and lessons that I am learning and I will keep on chewing, but hopefully not be biting off anymore, my plate is full.
Work -
Work is busy and continues to get busier. I have worked on a House Bill project for the last 3 years at the county that brings in a lot of money if we pass our outcomes. This year I was not supposed to be a part of the project because I was supposed to be in full swing of training for my new position, well, I am doing the project again this year with help from co-workers. I returned to work from maternity leave to learn that the project that I would normally start in mid-February had yet to be started on at all and now I am scrambling to get it done in 2 months with help, this means though that I have to train and check work from others and try to do some work myself on it as well. We have a month and half left and I am really starting to have some anxiety over this, but alas, there is no time to stress over it now. I have also started training for my Business Analyst position which means I have 6 hours a week that I must train on Crystal Report Writer, some independent study and some with our current report writer and then also squeezing in time with him to work on our current reports that are due. Next, I am being scheduled for numerous meetings for Project Management projects that I will be doing on the job training and hopefully getting into a 3 day class later this month at Front Range Community College as well. In the seven years I have been at the county I have had meetings, but the majority of my time has been spent at my desk doing actual work and being very confident in the work that I am doing, this is an entire new ballgame for me. I have my laptop, so I am pretty much packing it up and taking it to an office to work or to a meeting or to our other office location to work on stuff. I am meeting new people at the county and have determined that of all the BA's I am thinking that I am quite a few years younger than everyone else, but I can deal with that if they can. At this time I have to watch my hours closely as well and complete 15 hours of BA work and the rest of the work week needs to Dept. Specialist work in order for them to keep my from re-classifying to a BA before I am really able to do the job duties and receive the pay. Once my House Bill project is complete I will be allotted some additional hours to train on whatever they seem fit, but I can see from all the trainings that are 2 days or more that my time is going to be sucked up fairly quickly and they didn't leave me much time to travel from office to office. That is how the work aspect of my life is going.
HOA -
The HOA lately has been crazy and started shortly after I took over as president. First it was choosing a landscaping company and having resistance from another board member to go with who we had last year, which ballooned into interviewing 3 candidates, doing reference checks, and having meetings with the board and then finally choosing who we had last year anyway. Now we have a ditch in our subdivision that is entirely out of control and needs to be dug. I have walked this ditch with 5 different excavators and have sent email upon email, phone call upon phone call to them, the board members, our property management company and still need to keep digging for some answers that I need. This is a whole new experience for me and not many people that I have asked for advice seem to really have the direct answers that I want, the main one being, "Are we really responsible for paying for this ditch to be dug ourselves?" I don't see how the city or county or the damn farmer that runs his field overflow into our ditch doesn't have to pay for some of this and then the question to the excavators - why do you charge so damn much to dig a ditch and move some dirt, there are not that many houses being built, you can't be that busy. I am also up against a time crunch because the city is turning on the water and the ditch is going to attempt to start having water run through it and then city has told me I have one year to "fix" the ditch - my question to them "or what?" help me pay for some of it because I know that the people in subdivision can't afford to have an assessment, who knows if we can get a loan and we don't have enough many now to cover all the expense. AHHHHHHH
We also had to do a walk-around with the landscaping company and a couple of the board members are more worried about the damn flowers they want to plant here and there and I've had to put the kibosh on it stating, "we have no money" and we have a serious ditch situation. You can about imagine the crabby husband I have at home leaving him to watch the 2 kids himself to attend meetings and take phone calls. Hopefully soon some of this will settle down and we will be back to meetings once a month and a few emails that I can deal with on my breaks at work or at night.
The Kids -
Katelynn and Junior are actually falling into place really well. Both of them have an 8pm bedtime and are asleep (or at least in their bedrooms, Katelynn) by 8:30pm and have been staying put and not waking up until 6:30am, thank god for that, I can't ask for more. Katelynn has still been tough and I think she is going to have anger management issues if we don't get them under control soon. Dan and I really need to have serious follow through on our consequences and we are working on it. Junior is a peach, he is either hungry or tired and has really taken to sucking his thumb, when I can I try to replace it with the "paci" but he plops it out sometimes fairly quickly and pops the thumb back in, for now I will deal with the thumb and have a happy little boy. Dan and I did have to have a little sit down and some serious communication when it came to the kids and that we both need to be doing our share, it took 2 to make them and it's going to take 2 to watch them, since our talk we have both been doing our share and have a much happier household. One of the problems is the TV, if it's off we are all great and can really concentrate on what is going on, but once it's on someone gets distracted or plops down and doesn't want to do anything (Dan) and I then lose my cool, which is what I need to work on. Junior will have his 4 month appointment next month and I am wondering if they will give us the green light to start him on solids / cereal and then am wondering how am I going to fit this in?
The Marriage -
Why didn't anyone ever tell me that marriage can be this hard after you throw kids into the mix? Mom, where were you? Oh yeah, you wanted grand baby's. How do you juggle everything else and then attempt to have time for this as well. We have been trying to at least spend a little time together before we continue to feel like roommates, nags, or maids and nannies in the house. I have found a summer bowling league that starts in June on Monday nights that we would like to do, at least I would and kind of told Dan that he needs to go along with it if we want to stay married or figure out something else weekly that we can do together and both enjoy, my point was taken. I have been trying to find a babysitter now for Monday nights all through the summer and have not had too much luck. I am getting a lot of 15 year old's calling and wanting to do it and there parents will even drop them off and pick them up, but I am just not comfortable with someone that young watching my 3 month old and 3 1/2 year old, I mean really, sometimes I wonder if I can handle it and I'm going to trust a fifteen year old that has never had a child, I just can't do it. I had one stay at home mom call and want to do it, but she had to bring her 5 month old with her because her husband works at night and I wasn't comfortable with that either, I wouldn't want to wake up my children at 10 or 11pm and put them in the car to take them home and put them back to bed, I just wasn't comfortable with this either. Hopefully something or someone will turn up in the next couple of weeks and we'll be able to do this. Dan will kill me for saying this on here, but it's what's happening. We both know that we are done having kids, 2 is enough for us and our family is now complete so after discussion we decided that Dan will get the deed done and has his consultation this week with the "snip, snip" doctor. It's funny as the week progresses and the date gets closer, he has some anxiety / nervousness around this and it's just been really funny, at least for me it is, but ya know I did push out 2 children already, so ya ain't getting much sympathy from my end.
The House -
With the new expense of my car and daycare and formula and diapers the cleaning crew I had coming every 2 weeks is no longer. After I let them know I wouldn't need them anymore I pulled out my Scooba so at least I didn't have to actually mop my own floors and the fricken thing is broken. I have been emailing the techs at irobot.com and after many attempts and talks, it's broken and not fixable, shit. I still am on strike from mopping the floor and Dan broke down and did it on Mother's Day for me. I hate mopping and I loved my Scooba. I have been looking on craigslist for one and have made an offer to one lady, but she hasn't called me back yet to buy hers, must not have like my offer?! The scooba's cost $300, but irobot did offer me their out of warranty price of $180.00, it's one without a battery (which my battery works fine) and I am going back and forth and maybe in the next 6 months will go with that offer if I don't find someone else to sell me theirs for cheaper. All in all I have also had to give up some of my anal cleaning and attempting to have a spotless house every night before I go to bed, it just can't be done with everything going on. It took a few works for me to really let go, but I do feel some relief that as long as the dinner dishes are done at night then the rest of the stuff will be fine if some toys are not put away and the floor isn't swept and there may be laundry that needs to get done and so on and so on. I will try to do what I can on the weekends I guess like I assume everyone else does as well.
I am sure I am missing some stuff, but all in all I feel like I am swimming or drowning from one thing to the next, but I am really excited and happy with all of these new experiences and lessons that I am learning and I will keep on chewing, but hopefully not be biting off anymore, my plate is full.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Junior - 3 months
Hard to believe that 3 months has gone by already and I have been back to work and into the swing of things. Junior is now weighing in at 14 lbs. and has the new nickname "Tank". He is an unbelievable little guy. He has such great head control already and is smiling and giggling. He has now been successfully sleeping through the night for 2 1/2 weeks and mommy and daddy couldn't be happier! Although he doesn't sleep too much during the day, he has taken to taking little cat naps and if we're lucky he will sleep for an hour, but at that point it still feels like he only slept for 15 minutes. Katelynn is still doing really well with him and hasn't felt that he is too much of a competition to her. Junior is sucking down 6 oz. of formula at every feeding and as long as he has a full belly we see the happy boy! Both kids are now getting ready for bed at the same time so this has probably been the biggest adjustment for Dan who always had bedtimes off to do his own thing. So at 8pm we take both kiddos upstairs and I start with Katelynn and get her all tucked in and to bed and then walk across the hall to Junior's room and take over feeding him the rest of his bottle and off to bed he goes. They are both getting up around 6am / 6:30am and Dan is "on duty" in the mornings. Katelynn is pretty easy because we have always let her watch a quick show while we run around the house, so he turns one on for her and then changes, dresses, and feeds Junior and then somewhere in between getting myself ready for work I get Katelynn dressed and do her hair (which is much easier now!) and we are out the door by we hope 7:15am. It's been nice to have our nights back and I can get a load of laundry done, some bookwork or have a beer with the hubby. I have had to let loose a little on having my house as clean as I can and am just letting certain things be. I had to do this for my own sanity. We are really enjoying our times with the kids and are so glad that it's warmer out and having even been taking family walks around the neighboorhood at night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)