Maternity Left

Suddenly I only have a week and a half left of maternity leave.

I know I'm very lucky that I got to take ANY maternity leave and get paid for some of it, given the experiences of so many. However, (1) my leave sucks when I compare it to Niall's sisters' over in Ireland and (2) I'm still sad that it's almost over. I've wanted this baby FOR FUCKING EVER and it just seems unfair that I have send him to full time daycare before I'm ready.

I know HE will be just fine. He's little enough that he won't remember, plus he's getting to an age where he probably could do with more stimulation and interesting things. The daycare we're sending him to is local and really nice. On his first day they had a little welcome sign up for him and I do love seeing his little cubby with his name on it and all the cute little things they have there. So far he has been to four days over the last 2 weeks. I go back to work on March 8, so we are easing in. That's all good and fine [weep].

Now that it's mostly slipped away from me, I did not realize how much of maternity leave I would spend physically recovering from Baby Clover's birth. As someone who had never given birth before, I sort of thought that as long as I could avoid the major surgery option of baby removal, the recovery wouldn't be so bad. Ha. Ha ha.
After 43 hours of labor, with two nights of painful contractions that went away by dawn tacked on before that, my body was wrecked by the time Baby Clover made his debut. And I didn't realize it.
It felt SO GOOD to have the baby out and to be sitting up on the bed, holding my wee babe while Niall fed me my breakfast tray that I didn't so much notice the steady increase in pain and exhaustion until WHAM it hit me two days later. My whole body hurt. My arms and legs and back and business district. And I hadn't slept for a week before Clover was born, so I was already starting out sleep deprived.

I just hadn't realized how hard that would all be, even though everybody warns you how sleep deprived and exhausted you will be. It also didn't help that certain family members of mine have repeatedly told me that I have an easy baby. Oh, great! So it's me, then. I'm just a failure because I feel like this is hard.

I think I finally felt mostly physically back to normal after about three months. Clover is four months old now and seems to have started in on a sleep regression (?), but can it really be a sleep regression when his sleep has NEVER BEEN THIS SHITTY BEFORE? He has started waking up about every hour or so and I just want to cry. It's suckey but fine for NOW, but when I'm expected to function at work I don't honestly know how I'm going to do it. It's a good thing my job doesn't involve life or death situations! Oh, wait.

I suspect that he also might be teething because he is drooling all over the place and gnawing on everything.
He has also discovered his toes, which is just about the cutest thing ever.

And he babbles and laughs and holds his head up. He loves his bath and he hates his car seat to the point where he arches his back and scootches down to avoid being buckled. He's a tiny little PERSON with opinions and having him is everything I ever dreamed it could be and more. Going back to work full time is going to suuuuuuck.

night owl, bookworm

Let's see, it's about 2:30PM and I've just gotten up. I mean, I've sort of been up and down all morning-- feeding the baby, changing his diaper, pumping. But right now is when I can call myself FULLY up.
Baby Clover was up nursing several times in the night. He sleeps in a little buzzy chair that's attached to the pack n play right next to my side of the bed, for easy access purposes. He wakes up, I'll nurse him, and put him back in the chair. But last night was one of those nights where he was nursing so much that I would just doze while holding him, which meant that the sleep I DID get was not exactly the most restful.
So then Niall got up verrrry early to catch a verrry early plane for a business trip. And Clover and I stayed in bed, because he is currently still at an age where his favorite things are: nursing, kicking, his hands, and being held. At about 11:30 it was time for his morning nap (I *think* I can say this now- Baby Clover usually takes a morning nap for a couple hours at around 11:30ish. Now that I've said that it'll probably change, right?) so I swaddled him up in a nice cozy blankie, gave him his soother, and snuggled him up on Niall's side of the bed. We both fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later. It was heavenly. And now we're up up. Clover is on his play mat, cooing at his toys and sucking on his hand.
Today is one of those days where I think we'll just be staying in our jammies all day. It's lashing rain (don't you love that expression- Irish people and their delightful sayings) and we've got nowhere we have to be.

Clover is 3 months old, which is apparently the time when I feel it makes sense to start reading to him. He has some delightful board books (such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Jamberry) that we've been enjoying. He definitely likes it, but I'm sure he just likes the fact that I'm talking to him. Yesterday I took my car in to be serviced and they gave me a ride to the nearby mall. There was an actual real life bookstore in that mall, so we hung out in the children's section for awhile. We bought Llama Llama Red Pajama and The Runaway Bunny. And today I went on Amazon and ordered Is your Mama a Llama? (Apparently we're going with a llama theme here), The Carrot Seed, The Happy Egg, and I am a Bunny. I went on there to buy the Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls are Just Born to Lead book, which led me to The Story of Martin Luther King Jr. board book and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters by Barack Obama (those should arrive on the 20th, so I suppose I'll read the book about Hillary Clinton and then Obama's book and then have a good long cry).
I'm planning to buy some more classics like Ferdinand the Bull and Where the Wild Things Are. And I also want to somehow get my hands on that tiny book Juniper by Robert Kraus, which seems to be out of print. It was apparently previously in this Bunny's Nutshell Library collection, but I associate it with other tiny books like Chicken Soup with Rice. And I just figured out why- apparently THAT was part of another Nutshell Library collection, which I have now added to cart. A HA! Any other book recommendations?

Potpourri

I've started getting up a little earlier so I can stop at Target on my way to work. It's the BEST. I get my coffee, because apparently that's part of my life now. And then I take a little stroll around the empty, pristine Target which is Ah May Zing.

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I love Sharpies. I wanted to write a whole post about how much I love Sharpies, but that's basically all.

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I went to the doctor for a checkup the other day. She asked me how many times in the last 3 months that I had more than 3 drinks. I say "Maybe three times?" And I got a lecture about cutting back, AND a follow-up email with tips for slowing down and trying to drink less. "Set your glass down in between sips!" Okay, but. Really?

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My sister: "Hey! Where did you get those chips?"
My 3 year old niece: "It's celery."

It was not celery.

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I spend a certain percentage of my job on the phone, and I sometimes have to spell out medication names. And sometimes I’m spelling those medications to people with bad phone connections or hearing problems. I really should just bookmark this page because if I’m in the middle of spelling something I panic and say things like “Okay it’s simvastatin. S as in syrup, i as in impossible, m as in muppet, v as in voluptuous, a as in Appalachian…”

And because my brain is my brain, I ALSO start thinking of even worse ones “P as in phlebotomist” or "t as in tsunami.”

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On a more positive note, I have successfully transitioned to saying “my pleasure” at work instead of “no problem” when somebody thanks me. I always felt a little odd when I said no problem because I feel like it still sounds like “Well this is kind of a problem, but don’t worry, I’ll do it anyhow as a favor.” My pleasure, however, THAT’s customer service.

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I cut my own bangs last night. And now I remember two things: why I don't usually do that, AND where my original avatar pic came from.

missushappenings

I was going to call this post “mishaps” but then I decided the things that happened weren’t ACTUAL mishaps, they were just little stories of some things that went differently than I had expected-- nothing I wish I could go back in time and change. Mis-happenings, if you will. And THEN since they are wedding related items, I decided to call them MISSUShappenings. Get it? Get it? See what I did there?

Moving on.

1. This wasn’t a mishap or a happening at all but it keeps annoying me so I’ll mention it here: When the hell did it become customary to EXPECT there to be a flash mob or a choreographed dance in every wedding? I had several people ask me if we were “doing something fun” like a flash mob or choreographed dance at the wedding.  So the options therefore are either yes there will be one of those things or no there will be nothing fun at my wedding at all. No fun. A non-fun wedding.

Flash mobs can be shocking and fun and choreographed dances can be entertaining, but neither of those things are Niall’s and my style or things we wanted at our wedding. And also, if EVERYBODY has a flash mob, doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a flash mob? Okay I can be done ranting about this now.

2. The wedding started at 2PM. The church coordinator lady wanted me to arrive by 1:45PM and my mom was in firm agreement. Evidently I was supposed to get there early and hang out in a hidey room so there would be time for me to take some deep breaths and fluff out my dress. Which, fine. Except for the fact that at this particular church the door to the offices and hidey room and so forth was RIGHT NEXT TO the main entrance of the church. There wasn’t some back entrance that we could sneak me into, I would have to go in through the front, presumably with people milling around before the wedding. Niall and his sisters told me that in Ireland, the bride is typically 5-15 minutes late. This made sense to me—they can’t very well start the ceremony WITHOUT me, right? So I decided that I would be the last to arrive. I’d leave the hotel in the last trip the limo made and just wait IN the limo outside the church until the last possible moment, then exit it at 1:58 and meet my dad in front of the church. Boom.
This idea threw my mom into such a panic that I ended up caving and left the hotel in the first limo trip and arrived at the church at about 1:20PM. Of course Niall and his groomsmen had just arrived also. Because of course. So my 4 niecemaids hopped out of the limo and ran into the church and to tell Niall to get the hell (sorry, HECK (we are in church, after all)) away because the bride is here and she needs to get to the hidey room! Shoo! Meanwhile, I’m in the limo outside and our priest opens the door, leans in and asks if the limo is going to make a trip back to the hotel because he forgot a book. Next to the priest, Niall’s uncle leans in and starts taking photos of me in the limo. I threw my hands over my face because I was so overwhelmed and annoyed and GAAAH GET AWAY FROM ME, NO NOT YOU, FATHER.
Finally, the coast was clear and I could make my way into the church. I stomped into the hidey room all aggravated because I KNEW IT I KNEW THAT WOULD HAPPEN, so it turned out to be a good thing that I had time to take some deep breaths and fluff out my dress. Plus, the hidey room ended up being a lot of fun. I told my niecemaids that THEY didn’t have to stay in there with me since I was really the only person who couldn’t be seen, but they were all "We want to be with you!" and were so enthusiastic and excited about unbustling my dress and helping me with my veil that it was just adorable.

3. During the rehearsal, the church coordinator lady had told my dad that once we got to the altar, he would shake hands with Niall and then kiss my hand and place it (my hand, not the kiss) in Niall’s hand. I nixed this because it felt waaaay too much like some sort of barter. “Here is my daughter, you own her now. And also this fatted hog and a small piece of land to till.” No thanks. So Niall and I practiced him shaking hands with my dad and then me giving my dad a kiss and taking Niall’s hand, but we forgot to consider the gigantic bouquet that I would have in my hand, so there was a moment of confusion and fumbling. It’s not noticeable in the video, however. We look totally smooth. This may be the single moment of my life where I feel like "Hey! I might actually BE less awkward than I FEEL!"

4. Just before our vows, the priest accidentally called Niall "Patrick."

5. At the reception, the venue forgot to put out our late-night snacks! This was the one thing I had made clear from the very beginning because I specifically remember being starving at several weddings in the past. I wanted there to be PLENTY of food (and alcohol, but that was already covered with the open bar). At the time I didn't realize that the snack trays never got served because I was having too much fun to notice, but if anybody went hungry during my wedding I reserve the right to be annoyed, because I had PLANNED for there to be snacks. Although, the upswing of this was the several hundred dollars that we (my parents) got refunded.

6. Also at the reception, Niall and I didn’t know how to cut our cake because… well we just didn’t. We ended up cutting the piece too small (my fault, I didn't want a huge piece of cake), so when we tried to use the server to pull out the piece, instead the piece went tumbling down the cake and landed on the table. It was fine, still delicious. But the photos of me during the cake cutting are particularly excellent since I look absolutely terrified.

Haaa

Couch

The important part of this story is that we have a couch. I guess that means you can stop reading now. You’re welcome.

From the beginning: Niall (boyfriend) and I moved in together. Which is a big step! But it doesn’t so much feel like a Big Step because we like each other and he was already spending most nights at my place anyhow, and I was very very ready to not live in my too-close-to-baseball-traffic apartment anymore (side note: everyone told me that baseball traffic only matters during baseball season. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG BASEBALL SEASON IS?).

Anyhow. We told my Catholic parents and then we told his Catholic parents and then we found a place and moved in together. I love our new apartment, for several reasons:

1.       We both live there.

2.       Bowie lives there, too.
3.       Two bedrooms (one is ours and one is spare, but Bowie seems to think one is his).

4.       Two bathrooms (one is ours and one is mine).
5.       Both sets of our Catholic parents are happy for us that both of us live there.
6.       It’s like a mini HOUSE. Well, technically it’s a townhouse. Bottom floor is a little garage, and then you go upstairs and there’s the kitchen and living area, and then you go upstairs again and there’s the bedrooms and bathrooms.
7.       The bay windows.
8.       It has a little patio. With a screen door so Bowie can sit and look out at it.

Or stand and look out at it.

9.       THIS SECURITY SYSTEM.

We're still getting settled, but we did make some grand strides this past weekend. Up until last week, this was how our living room looked: one million boxes of my crap everywhere, my old TV, and two chairs.

You'll notice that Niall had no problem claiming BOTH CHAIRS.

I sent the above photo to my family which had the beneficial effect of my sister piping up to offer us one or two of her spare couches, and then the not quite so beneficial effect of everyone else offering us the contents of their garages.

So on Sunday we reserved a Uhaul. Our rental started at 10AM, so naturally the Uhaul place didn’t even open until 10:30, and then when the place did open another couple cut in front of us but instead of saying anything I just passive aggressively tweeted about it. ANYHOW. We finally got on the road, and by that I mean that we stopped at my sister’s house to pick up the couch, and then back to my parents’ house to pick up some bookshelves (and Bowie)

and then stopped again in San Jose (storage) to pick up some chairs and a coffee table that was my grandmother's.

and then drove to our apartment in San Francisco. We carried the two bookshelves and the coffee table and the chairs upstairs. Then we yanked off the blocks from the couch to make it into a couch with no under before attempting to carry it up the stairs

and around the corner.

And we learned that no matter how much we tried, the couch would not PIVOT.

So we went to plan B which was to set it on fire heave the couch over the back fence and through the kitchen into the living room. We carried the couch back down the stairs, loaded it up into the Uhaul again, and drove around to the back of the house. (We had to drive to the back of the house because, as I mentioned, it is a little townhouse. It’s connected on both sides to our neighbors and ours is in middle of something like 20 townhouses in a row, each with their own little wee patio/yard but only access to said yards if you go THROUGH the houses. The yards all back up to the next street over, which is where we drove. Everybody with me?)

Okay, so. Then we unloaded the couch from the Uhaul and heaved it UP ONTO the fence. I held the couch balanced on the fence for a few very precarious minutes while Niall ran down the street, back around to our street and the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, climbed up on a ladder, and pulled the couch over the fence and down to the other side.

This, by the way, is the fence:

Chair for scale.

Then I ran down the street, back around to our street to the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, and picked up the other end of the couch and we brought it into the living room where it will now stay, presumably, forever.

This week Niall is full of energy and I’ve spontaneously burst into tears three times.

BUT WE HAVE A COUCH.

New Year

I think it’s pretty universal that people don’t tend to like blog posts about why someone hasn’t been blogging. But, whatever. This is my blog, and if a gal can’t be insufferable on her blog, then what? There's just nowhere left to be insufferable? Unacceptable. And actually now that I’m about to write it out it doesn’t seem like the long, obnoxious explanation I had in my head: Basically I could never figure out where to start so I just stopped starting. So here I am today because I’ve got to start somewhere with unclogging this bottleneck of words.

I’ve had this New Year’s survey in my drafts folder for… awhile. I just kept half assing answers and skipping ahead and then closing the computer in defeat. I guess I’m feeling more free-form this year.

Last year I felt totally cynical and just plain sad because 2012 had turned out so epically craptastic. So I spent a fair amount of New Year's Eve weeping and then picked myself up, had some champagne, and did my New Year’s Dip with my nieces and nephews to wash away 2012 and I was all set and ready to make a fresh start. Annnnd then I got BUTT MRSA. So I was like, what the hell, Universe? Why would you do this to me? But then I figured it out. You see, the Universe actually wants me to be on the LUNAR calendar. So New Year’s Eve was more of a formality for me, my ACTUAL year began on Feb 10, the year of the SNAKE. I’m listening, Universe. I’m picking up what you’re throwing down.

So. January 31 is coming up, which means I and my Lunar brethren will be turning the corner and welcoming in the Year of the Horse. (I already did my New Year’s Dip, because that’s a family tradition and I’m not going to mess with that timeline.)

Okay, so are we on the same page here? I'm finally going to post my survey, but it's actually not late because I'm on the Lunar calendar.

I’m just gonna cut out the ones I've been skipping over because BOTTLENECK.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
I started suffering from insomnia, mostly related to horrifying nightmares. And as a result I started taking sleeping medication.
Possibly related to this I started liking coffee- caramel mocha frappuccinos to be exact. No, I will never be able to spell that correctly.

I took my niece and nephew on a trip all by me onesie. We visited my other sis and her kids in SoCal and then went to a USC football game. So much fun. And so much spoiling of my nieces and nephews.

I went to South Carolina to visit Sunny and got to do all sorts of fun southern activities and eat delicious things that were either fried or cheese, or fried and cheese. I did get stuck on a grounded plane for 6 hours while flying out there. Not the most fun day of my life.
Speaking of transportation woes, I also took a day-long bus ride from Oregon back to SF. My flight was cancelled because of the plane crash and, strangely, flights to and from tiny towns in Southern Oregon weren’t high on the priority list of getting rescheduled. I rented a car and drove part way, and then I took an 8 hour long bus ride back to SF. Well, actually. I got off the bus to use the bathroom in Oakland and it left without me, so ALMOST to SF.

I went on vacation with my entire family. All 18 of us.

I got MRSA and a needlestick. Thanks, healthcare profession. But I did also get my own office in our new building and got everything squared away for my prescribing license. So it evens out.

I joined Facebook. 

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1- when I was so so SO happy that 2012 was FINALLY OVER.

February 10- Lunar New Year, when I realized that the Universe actually wants me on the lunar calendar, because that’s when things started to turn around.
February 13- Galentine’s Day, which I have decided to start celebrating.

July 19- the day my clinic moved and also the day I was SUPPOSED to go on another trip to Central America with 0peration Rainb0w, with my dad AND my sister who is also a nurse. I asked for the time off MONTHS in advance, but I ended up not being able to go because my clinic moved. So that week was extremely busy and also infuriating.
July 26- my birthday, which I didn’t get off from work because of the aforementioned clinic move. This has inspired me to ALWAYS take my birthday off from work. Because nobody cares it’s your birthday except you! It was actually not SO bad because it was a Friday and my mom took me to lunch and my boyfriend (BOYFRIEND) sent me flowers. July 26 is ALSO the day when boyfriend and I became, like, official and whatnot.
[This sentence is just a filler so there is something between the previous item and the next one. These two dates are too close together for my liking.]

The weekend after my birthday weekend- will forever be remembered as my rapeiversary. August 5 to be exact, but for some reason the weekend, not just that day, gave me a lot of anxiety.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing trauma counseling. I can't believe how difficult and amazing it turned out to be.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? 

Wendy Davis

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jerky dudes. Jerky dude politicians.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, student loans, car repairs, my cat's extensive dental surgery.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
Vacations. Football season. Christmas.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter
c) richer or poorer? Richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercise.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Angst and obsess.

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
Um. Amazingly, yes. Who saw that coming? NOT ME.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Parks and Rec, Chopped, Dance Moms, Sister Wives, Monk, House Hunters. Yikes, that’s a lot of reality TV.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
 No.

24. What was the best book you read?
The Rook, Divergent

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
There was this one morning when I got up and plugged in my speakers and discovered that my computer had been playing Thrift Shop on a loop for 24 hours.
That's 885 plays.
I have since adopted it as a unit of time. 885 macklemores = 1 day. So there are 37 macklemores in an hour. Okay? Good. Glad you're coming with me on this.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Now You See Me, Catching Fire, Pitch Perfect, Frozen

32. What kept you sane?
Vacations, medication, treats, caramel mocha fraps, texting, reading, hot baths, my friends, doing good deeds, twittah, shopping, my job, going out, staying in, bad reality TV, liquor, inappropriate jokes, my family, trauma counseling, going out of my way for other people.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jennifer Lawrence.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Marriage equality. Women's rights. Human rights.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. 
Staying in is a perfectly reasonable and lovely thing to do.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn

Potpourri: Recently

Today marks one month since I started my new job. And can I just point out that from an external perspective of someone who perhaps doesn't know me that well or read my blog, it might appear that I graduated, took my test, and WHABAM had a job within days. I'm thinking of reframing my memories and living in THAT reality. Because I am still pretty excited that I have this job.
This is my last week of training before I go solo with my responsibilities next week. I am nervous. I told my sister that and she said "Eh, don't worry. In six months you'll feel like you've been there your whole life."
Thankssss.... ?
I really like my job, so far. There are some quirky things about it that I particularly enjoy and since I'm not going to talk about my patients (hi HIPAA!), I'll share them:
- You can't eat anywhere except the conference room and there are usually people working or having a meeting in there. So a couple times a day I open the door, step in and stand there awkwardly eating my emergencheese (the cheese sticks I carry in my pockets for emergencies. GET IT? Emergencheese for emergencies!). People sometimes ask "Uh. Did you need something?"
- There is a passcoded, locked door that opens to, no joke, a six foot drop into the street. It's not a loading dock. It's not an exit. Or, at least it's not an exit NOW. It might have been one at some point when they were planning to build stairs.
- My office is the size of a stall shower. I actually like it. It's more of a nook. It doesn't have a door. With a six foot drop or otherwise.

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I went to Hawaii. HOT TIP: If your best friend says "Hey, I wanna go to Hawaii in March. You should come." You really should. Evidence:

The cool thing about the time difference is getting to the beach at 7AM when it is EMPTY.

We are SERIOUS about our sun protection. I don't stay this lily white by accident.

Gabey liked the pool best.

We snorkeled. I had to forcefully talk myself down from having a panic attack because SNORKELING IS FUCKING SCARY what with all the listening to my own heavy loud breathing and seeing the sandbar drop off into giant chasms and having to adjust my mask in the open ocean and swim back to shore AGAINST THE TIDE.

We got the feeling that people thought we were a couple on vacation with our adopted son. Because the first thing you think when you see two women and one kid together is never, 'Ah. They must be friends.'

I found a flower THE SIZE OF MY HEAD.

We swam, we lounged about, we got lost in our books, we loosely supervised Gabriel at the pool while he made friends with other kids and turned into a fish, we had fancy drinkies, we ate lots of chips and salsa.

I'd say that about sums it up.

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Last weekend somebody asked me what I would buy if I had $500 to spend at Target. "Only at Target, though." he stipulated, as if that might slow me down. "Groceries!" I said, "New sheets! Nice towels! Bins for organizing my things! Packing tape! Wait... this makes me sound really boring. I don't care! Laundry detergent!" Best game ever.

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Unrelated to any of the above: I bought myself a jackelope for Easter.

I got it from a flea market! Just kidding. It's from Modcloth. Sigh. That would have been the MOTHER of all flea market finds, wouldn't it?

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I've found that I can basically get one productive task done per day after I get home from work. One day is cooking. One day is laundry. One day is vacuuming. One day is paying bills. One day is buying groceries. Today's task was blogging.

Worky Weeky

First week at work and GAH. Work is hard! Not just the work itself. But it's been about four years since I had one of these all day every day full time all year long jobbers and, oof, it is taking some getting used to.
I am the tired.
I don't know how you people do it.
That's right, I said 'you people.' What of it?

So uh. How's about I just post some photos of the outfits I've worn this week and we call it a post?


Monday:

Pants: Uhh Ross maybe? Or maybe a thrift store ages ago? Can't remember. Shirt: Marshalls. Cardigan: Target. Scarf: Timberland. Glasses: Zenni Optical.

Monday was Orientation day, in the main building of the Large Institution that umbrellas my Smallish Clinic. I was orienting with a whole crew of new employees, some medical, some not. So it was a lot of general information about policies and HIPAA and unions and safety. And they gave me a gym bag.

Tuesday:

Pants: Marshalls. Shirt: Marshalls. Cardigan: Target.

Tuesday was my first day in my actual clinic. I wore the same cardigan as Monday, because apparently I have a cardigan hole in my worky wardrobe. I also wore the COMFIEST SHIRT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. It is loose and flowy and would be perfect for concealing the early stages of a pregnancy, should I ever have that need. On Tuesday it just concealed the early stages of eating too much.

Tuesday was also the day I learned that my clinic isn't as strict about certain things as the emails might have led me to believe. While the Large Institution has very specific dress policies, apparently at my clinic I can decide if I want to wear scrubs or businessy clothes. And they're not in a huge hurry to get me the uniform scrubs, so I can just wear the ones I have for now, if I want. I can also combine my break time and my lunch time into a sinfully long forty five minute stretch.

Wednesday:

Pants: Marshalls. Shirt: Marshalls. Cardigan: Marshalls. Sponsor of this post: Sadly not Marshalls.

I made Wednesday's pic a full-lengther so you can appreciate my shoes. I guess they maybe don't look as cute as they are in person, but they are indeed nice looking. And their nice-lookingness is also accentuated by how ridiculously comfortable they are. Ridiculously comfortable. They're also the perfect height, both in terms of heel (not TOO high, because come on), and in terms of, uh, whatever you call the top of your boots? They cover my ankles entirely and you can't see my socks, even when I sit down and cross my legs (this is a huge plus for the gal who likes to wear white athletic socks with everything). They're Aerosoles 'Motorcar' boots and I can't be bothered right now to find a link for them, but I bought them online and they are on sale now.


Today (Thursday):

Scrub pants: Dickies from some scrub store. Scrub top: Thrift Town. Thermal: Target. Sad-looking kitty: Bowie.

Yeah. I gave up on the whole businesswear business. Totally overrated.

Tomorrow: Purple Scrubs.
Also: Galoshes.

It has been rainy this whole week, which was fine when I was wearing my businessy clothes and Motorcars, but not so fine when I decided to wear my scrubs. So I wore my galoshes for the tromping through the rain from my car to work and then switcherooed into my sneakies. It was kind of annoying to carry something in addition to my purse, my satchel of important paperwork, and my lunch bag, so tomorrow I'm going to do the same thing, but this time bring my all the crazap I need to carry in my NEW GYM BAG. I need to start calling it something else, though.... Sneaker Bag? Worky Bag? I don't want people getting the wrong impression that I actually use the gym bag for the GYM. Just like I don't wear Yoga Pants, I wear Lounge Pants or Apartment Pants, lest I give anyone the mistaken impression that I actually do yoga in them.

Potpourri

In celebration/preparation for my new job, I went out and bought some new professionalish worky clothes. I figured that I would probably be wearing business casual plus a lab coat to work since that was what I had worn in most of my clinicals.

And then I found out that I'm actually going to be wearing scrubs to work.
So I went out and bought some cute new scrub tops... and then I found out that actually my workplace will be providing me with 5 sets of scrubs when I start and I'll have a 'scrub allowance' each year. Perhaps I need to quit going out and buying stuff before I have all the information, but, really, is that any way to live?
I was a teensy bit bummed at first, but I've made my peace with the idea of essentially wearing pajamas to work every day. And if I'm ever feeling like I want to dress things up a little I can always wear cute shoes or fun glasses. Plus, full disclosure, the new scrub tops that I bought were actually from the thrift store and only $3 each, so it wasn't a huge loss. I'll keep them, because I might need them someday.
AND I won't have my new scrubs for at least the first couple of days at work so I AM going to wear my new professionalish clothes on those days. Which means they're basically paying for themselves, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

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I also bought a new hat. I LOVE how it looks on my accessories shelf:

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I also bought a new wireless mouse. On a related note, can somebody come over and make my wireless mouse talk to my computer? I've gone as far as I can in terms of following the directions, and now I'm stumped and they're still not speaking.

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After leaving my recent clothing purchases on the table for about a week, I decided that it was time to make some room in the closet by culling my pantular wardobe. I've been going through and getting rid of all the pants that refuse to zip and fit me like this:

There are a lot of them. Apparently it's been awhile since I've needed new worky pants.

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Also in the spirit of doing things I've been putting off and soon might not have time for, I got a haircut. I went to the esthetics and cosmetology school because it is only $25 and I had been before and liked it. And they didn't shame me when they found out that I hadn't gotten a haircut since last January.
Here's the before:

And after:

Yeahh, I guess it doesn't look like a HUGE difference. Mainly the bottom picture just looks like my hair has been combed. You'll have to trust me that they took off about 4 inches and I'm feeling rather lightheaded now. Literally, I mean: my head feels lighter.

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My pre-employment chest X ray (which I had to get to prove that I don't have TB) said that my heart is "unremarkable." RESPECTFULLY SIR, I DISAGREE.

Winter Holiday Potpourri

I say Winter Holiday not to be politically correct, but because there were two (for me): Christmas and New Year's. Well, and Kwanzaa. I always wish people a Happy Kwanzaa on December 26th; it's the first day, you know.
Anyhow!
I had a really really lovely visit with my family over Christmas. After recent endeavors, I'd been in need of a palate-cleansing couple of weeks of just good clean family fun. And family fun there was. We did all sorts of outings, eatings, and hangin at my parents' house. The kids got together and built a rather elaborate jumps course in the back yard, where they spent HOURS pretending to be horses and, well, jumping.

Most of them have Nintendo DSs and a couple have Kindle Fires, so it was quite nice to see that their favorite thing to do was playing an outdoorsy running-around-together game. There were only a couple spectacular crashing falls. And sometimes one of them would yell "Refusal!" and then skitter sideways, giggling.

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My nephew got a remote control helicopter for Christmas. It looked like this one (but I suspect it was a cheaper version).

Two of my brothers in law held and impromptu competition to see who could fly the helicopter, hover it, lower the grappling hook, and pick up the basket better. One of my bros in law flew the helicopter right into the wall and then hovered it over a vat of gravy as the rest of us, as though in slow-motion, yelled NOOOOOOO and tried to save the gravy. And my other bro in law flew the helicopter directly behind him, into the living room (which is full of breakable knicky knackies and decorative ceramic items), and impaled it in my mom's antique Japanese screen above the piano.
"That's an OUTSIDE toy," said my mom.

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I wrapped some of my gifts in Flip & Tumble bags, and some in pretty scarves from the flea market. I thought they looked very festive.

My sister was teasing me about my Hippied Out San Franciscan Eco Friendly wrapping paper and I told her I couldn't hear her ALL THE WAY UP HERE ON MY HIGH HORSE.

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I went out with Jenny and a couple of her good friends on New Year's Eve Eve. It was probably my favorite New Year's celebration of recent memory. Because: whenever I have gone out on ACTUAL NYE I've always come back semi-disappointed. It has always felt like it should be a bigger deal and more FUN than it really was. And it's hard to find a bar that is cool but that isn't overly crowded or charging a ridiculous cover. And it's a pain to get there and to get home afterward. Anyhow, going out the night before solved all of those problems-- it was lots of fun and I didn't have unrealistic expectations, it wasn't overly crowded or expensive, and it was easy to get there and get home. We had a fantastic time and Jenny managed to make some guy who was trying to hit on her cry. In her defense, he did have a chin-strap beard. A CHIN-STRAP BEARD. One of the international signs for douchebag.

On actual NYE I spent the evening at my parents' house, eating Chinese food and playing board games with my nieces. By midnight I was in a bubble bath, book in hand.

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I have finally found a game I can beat my nieces at. Good old TABOO! Every other game they wipe the floor with me. They have this one game that's about the states and capitals and whoever has the most cards at the end wins. They all end up with fifteen or so and I'm over here with my sad four little cards. They even beat me at Fact or Crap and they didn't even know how to pronounce most of the historical occurrences or famous people that the game references.

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After New Year's, I took a two-day road trip with my sister and her kids to help her move into their new house. After many hours of (me) driving we arrived at the house to find that there was no hot water. My bro in law was out of town, but he kept sending his friends over to 'fix' the water heater, which involved them doing things like... flipping the circuit breaker while I watched and exasperatedly thought I TRIED THAT. WHAT ELSE YA GOT? Other things I tried to get the water heater to work: flipping the circuit breaker multiple times, breaking into my bro in law's tool box to find a wrench and opening the panel on the water heater and pressing the red reset button, glaring at the water heater, cursing at the water heater. Two days of this and then we finally had a professional come out. He did a satisfying amount of work on the water heater-- yanking out hunks of metal and scary-looking charred bits-- so my sister and I felt justified in having a professional come look at it instead of just waiting for her husband to get back into town on Friday (aka, the day before the weekend, when they probably would have had to wait until MONDAY to have a professional come out).
My sister also ordered a new fridge, which arrived on Tuesday. The delivery man heaved the thing all the way from the truck and into the kitchen and then he told me "Oh. It's not gonna fit." Apparently my sister and I neglected to incorporate the baseboards into our measurements of the fridge's space. I had no way of reaching my sis or her husband (they were both at work) and the delivery man was about to leave me with a fridge standing in the center of the kitchen and an extension cord running to the wall, AND there wouldn't be anyone to accept the delivery of different fridge on a different day, or pick out a new fridge for that matter, since they live in a wee tiny town and stores tend to close early. So I made an executive decision and, well, nobody needs to know what may or may not have happened to the baseboards but let's just focus on the fact that the fridge fits now. It FITS.

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I participated in Doing My Best's Crappy Day Present Exchange, which was super fun all around: I had fun answering the survey questions, I had fun shopping for my little gifties and sending them off, and I had fun receiving CDPs and opening them when I had a crappy day. Apparently I was not so good at chronicling the buying, wrapping, sending, receiving, or opening of the CDPs like a good little blogger, but FUN. It was fun. And I still have one CDP that I'm holding onto for a particularly crappy occurrence.

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Bowie is an indoor cat all around, but for some reason at my parents' house he THINKS he wants to go outside. Maybe it's because he sees the birds and whatnot, maybe he's jealous of the other indoor/outdoor cats, who knows? But I can tell you that he doesn't ACTUALLY want to be an outside cat because (1) he currently lives like a king and I'm certain he doesn't want to give that up, and (2) whenever he does get out he mostly hides under the porch.
The kids have gotten better at keeping the doors closed, so Bowie hasn't gotten out at my parents' house in a year or so. On the day that I was about to leave he apparently snuck out the one screenless open window in the house and I didn't even REALIZE it until two of my nieces ran into the house and shrieked that Bowie was outside, headed for the ravine. We all leaped into action; the kids grabbed flashlights and ran out to corral Bowie before he made it to the (full of coyotes and poison oak and who knows what else) ravine, and I stomped out to front door to get my sweatshirt from the car because if I was going to be hunting for my cat all night, I was at least going to be WARM. I got my sweater out of the car, turned around, and THERE WAS BOWIE just sitting under the open window (I think he had run away from all the shouting and flashing lights). I took a flying leap at him, missed as he ran into the bushes, but did manage to bruise up both my knees and twist my ankle. He ran out of the bushes, toward the porch (of course), and I grabbed him by the tail.
As a poison oak precaution (and the girls' reward for helping retrieve him) Bowie got a bath.

Maybe that'll learn him to STAY INSIDE.

Potpourri

This weekend was incredibly fun. On Friday afternoon Jenny and Gabriel came over and we hung out while we waited for Gabey's dad to pick him up. We watched my favorite Christmas movie and Gabey played with some early Christmas gifties I gave him. He was sweet and good and patient but his dad was about three hours late, which is an awful long time for a little boy to wait in a tiny apartment with next to no toys. Which means that my house transformed into a Justin Bieber-ified video watching/dance party space, as usual.
And Jenny caught these videos of me... singing?



Please take note that my cat is nearly the same size as Jenny's child.

And then we spent approximately twenty minutes attempting to pronounce the word anemone.
And then we went out! And the night was filled with shenanigans and tomfoolery, as per usual.


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I spent Sunday at my parents' house, hanging out with some of my nieces and nephews and decorating their Christmas tree. It was the culmination of two solid weeks of me burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, so I spent a good amount of time sitting on the couch, handing ornaments to the kids and vaguely gesturing where I thought they should end up. My mom got out her ballerina Christmas tree topper that she keeps in the cabinet with her fine china and my brother in law climbed the ladder (my parents always get a really tall Christmas tree that has to be lashed to the ceiling beams) to put it at the top.

Bro in law: Here?

Me: Higher!

Bro in law: Here?

Me: Higher! It has to be higher than the mime!

My dad: Wait. Why... is there a mime on the tree?

Me: Lucky [10 year old niece] put it there. Is it really an ornament?

Lucky: It was in the box with all the decorations....

Me: But... why was it there? It's creepy.

My dad: It is sort of creepy.

My mom: It's an ornament! Everything becomes an ornament eventually. You sit still long enough, you end up on my Christmas tree.

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I am currently making a batch of my tortilla soup. I found a variety of semi-gone-bad ingredients in my fridge so it's really not a question of IF I will get sick, but of WHICH ingredient will be the culprit. Will it be the partially-gloopy cilantro? The hard, stale tortillas? The shriveled onion? Only time will tell!

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I realized the other day that I have a post on this site titled Balls, and a post titled Wangs. That's... a lot of innuendo for a site that rarely mentions intimate relations.

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A movie that I surprisingly enjoyed, despite being exhausted and, er, dehydrated and the fact that I don't generally like primates? Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

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I'm getting kicked out of my apartment sometime in the next few months. This isn't a surprise, nor is it a totally unwelcome occurrence. I've lived here for three and a half years and that was the approximate deal. I have loved living here, though. I love my apartment itself. I love that there's a courtyard with a hot tub that I can use to coax guests to come visit me. I love that I have a parking spot. I love that I never have to buy boxes because the cardboard recycling dumpster downstairs is usually full of them. This will come in handy for moving, methinks. Hopefully I will have a job before I move, but if not then maybe I'll take my sister's advice and move closer to her. I have an interview on Friday, though. Shhhh, don't jinx it.

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The coming weeks will be satisfyingly Christmassy; full of buying toys for the tots, Christmas shopping, Holiday Tea with my mom, and Daniel's Christmas party. And I basically invited myself to see the Nutcracker with a friend of a friend. I plan to drink champagne at intermission, to help conversation flow a bit more freely and because I love champagne.
Oh, and I also went to Amber's Ugly Sweater Christmas Party last weekend.

The sweater I'm wearing is actually a sweatSHIRT. That someone intricately puff-painted and then... cut the sleeves off? For some reason?