I took Friday off cause 1)we should honestly get our birthdays off 2) Benton had "spring holiday" aka Good Friday/Easter Monday off 3) self care. So had a nice lie in, then we as a family headed to the zoo. We are members which means we just walk in versus the long line and got to see the dino exhibits that were spread all over. WE had a nice time. It was a glorious day for being outside. 80s and a nice wind, partially cloudy. We had a loverly time and then had lunch out on the patio at our fave hole in the wall Mexican place (el sur). Then it was home to hang out and I played Stardew Valley for quite a while. I honestly don't remember what else I did but finish Book 15 which was All Systems Red. I then started Crochet and Cauldrons by Nancy Warren.

Saturday was my actual birthday, a full moon and just a heck of a lot of fun. I slept in, had coffee in bed, a ritual shower (washed hair, shaved, exfoliated etc) and then Benton and I ran errands. We picked up stuff for my mom for Easter, I ordered my birthday present from Mom (I got rollerskates Fame Suregrips in black with lLED wheels) at the rollerrink. We also had to get Benton new shoes and he's unfortunately in the largest kid size and the smallest adult size which means its slim pickings. He chose a pair of addidas laceups with sparkly stripes.
They are probably intended to be girl shoes but honestly I'm all about him expressing himself for what he likes. His other option were bright pink sketchers which were ladies size 8. We figure he can get those next since he is growing pretty quickly. I did order him new skates (amazon, along with my skate bag, pom poms etc) which also light up. We had a good time shopping and I bougth myself a pair of croc sandals. I know so weird but look how cute they are! Crocs Tulum It was fun. Then it was home to get ready for my dinner/carousing out with the girls.

( Birthday Shenanigans )

Sunday I slept in a bit and had birthday cake for breakfast. Mel had made Oatmeal Cake . It is like coffeecake and nummy. We then headed to visit my mom (Benton and I) and then we went Rollerskating. Mom was doing okay. She had had a visual egg hunt the day before and gave all of the candy filled eggs to Benton. She loved the fake flowers and chocolates we brought her. They had rearranged her room since the AC vent blew on her bed and she got too cold. Eyeroll. But she doesn't really have much body fat so I get it...its just funny to me. Skating was good. I am out of shape for cardio activities...sighs. But I skated more than I sat down for the 2 hours we were there. I can't wait to get my own skates. I was by the end doing good with my cross overs on turns. It did take a while for my legs to warm up. Sighs. But all good. We got home and played some more star dew valley. Mel was working in the shop and Benton and I were doing some of the weirder quests. I've been having to read the wikis for some help. But this is okay.

This week is busy with work and finance stuff. One other bright spot is I got my promotion. April 30 I will be a principal engineer. It came with more bonus and with a further increase in pay versus the one I got at the beginning of the month. I have no idea why they decided to separate things between merit and promotion cycles? Maybe we get more pay that way? I dunno but I'm happy. Finally making some progress on the career front. This makes me feel better, even if I only just beat inflation on the raises.

I finished up Crochet and Cauldrons last night so I'm number 17 for the year in books. I've now started Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore. So yay!

Well last week was stressful with all of the tech writing I had to do and all of the finance stuff I had to do with work. Working on a proposal for the first time and writing Basis of Estimates for what my team will work on on that next contract. I have real numbers to base it on and that was fun to see how much time and money was spent. (boy howdy)..

I was not feeling good last week. Tummy trouble which came down to we think something in the dairy free pizza Mel made for me or in the new margarine we got. I really cant physically handle flax seed in any form. Ugh. So we need to figure out what it was or it was my Vitamin D was low again? I doubled my dosage over the week and that seemed to help plus actually getting some sun. So we shall see what this week brings. My plans are to move more (I was a typing slug for two weeks) and getting back into gym stuff. My workout partners are also trying to get back into things after finally having a loved one pass away. Its just been stressful.

I have been reading though

30) Rose-red Chain by Seanan McGuire
31) Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire
32) The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire
33) Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire
34 in progress) The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire

The last book is the last book in the series until Sept. So I will have to get off of my October Daye kick and get into the rest of my pile of books. I did fall down a fanfic rabbit whole over the weekend when the Unkindest Tide took a turn I didn't want to read.

This story The Value of Time is intense and wow what a ride. Its also a plausible "fix-it" to Endgame. Cause OMG I'm still angry a year later! Now admittedly my open tabs of fic to read is intense. But that is okay.

So here is hoping to a less stressful week than last week and to making sure to take all of my meds. Cause vitamins are important. I'm also going to try to get a walk or two in. Not moving is also not helping me. But its been hella hot. We've broken records the last week. Ugh.

We've lost a lot of awesome people this year from Rickman and Bowie, to Shanding and Nat Cole.  We lost Prince yesterday.  I think Purple Rain or another album were the first bootlegs I ever got.  My elementary school BFF Kathy Arnold had the tapes and her brother copied things to memorex for me.  I remember buying Diamonds and Pearls for myself and finally got rid of my tapes when I moved to AZ and no longer had a tape deck.  I have memories of belly dancing to Theives in the Temple in Illinois and just in general thinking him awesome for music and expression.  My cubemate has been trying to get tickets to see him for quite some time and when I texted her she was devasted.

So, yeah, listening to Purple Rain now....will probably hit iTunes and buy some more to replace things I haven't heard in a long time.

In house news the new roof is almost done.  @lferion is supervising things while they install the new skylights (the other ones were about shot) and in general being the bestest person ever.

Mel's mom sent him his handwoven, by her, leg wraps. They are a modified goose eye pattern.



The house stuff can be found here:



REalized last night that I want the porch inside ceilings finished before we paint them.  So I suggested to mel that we get bead board and put that up. I think it will look nice.

Things are settling enough on the house that I was able to put some things away in the studio.  This is good. Which means maybe when I get back from KWHSS I'll be having some mojo back.

I desperately need it.

So in the last week I've moved desks at work. It had been 4 years since my last move and now I have my own large cubicle, new fancy desk phone and a lot more space for me and my stuff. I have a lot of desk toys and stuffies that travel with me including an iguana that hangs out on my cube wall since I was an intern at Lucas.  I'm working with a guy I worked with about 8 years ago and he was surprised I still had the iguana.  I'm still figuring out where to park since I've moved across the building and up the stairs.  Realizing that my work building used to be one of the largest buildings in the northern hemisphere when it was built its taking me a bit to figure out the best places.

Additionally, I have stairs to do every day for simple things like going to the bathroom and other meetings. Which is great for me physically but not great for me since my ankle that I twisted after Ari's bday dinner is still tweaking.  But my steps are way up per day so that is good.

Had a great bday weekend with some sleeping in, a faboo happy hour (try 6 hours) with the coworkers for my send off, board game night, a rock concert, antiquing, breakfast in bed and a household meeting.  Good times with the BFF and it was the weekend I needed in many ways. The house being under construction has completely zapped my will to work on anything, including house related things like laundry and dealing with the mess my studio is.  I hope after this week/weekend. It will be done and I can clean and get things settled cause I'm about to the end of my rope on being a lazy ass but man its hard to look at the mess and see where to start. Plus just been feeling icky with allergies and the ankle that the gym has been put off.

We shall see how things go.  I just need to get my butt in gear before KWHSS which is the last weekend of this month.

I've worked a lot, cooked a lot, knitted a lot and had lots of work and home stress.  I'm awaiting the end of the work day and I will be "done" with work for the year.  This is a misnomer as I have a work ethic and will be working on reports off and on.  I have to much to accomplish in January and it needs to be fully documented before the reviews start.  Sighs.

I also have to update my resume for a number of reasons. I put myself in for a technology cohort for futher career advancement and that is part of the processing of the application. The scary part is I can't find a resume that is newer than 2002. I'm sure I did one in 2006 or so but I can't find it.  Will have to see if the old computer still boots up it may be on there.  Sighs.

I have seem to have lost months of time for things this year.  I hope 2016 is better for us and projects etc.

I finished #13 book of the year which was Infinity Bell by Devon Monk.  Then I started Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which is fun and good.

My goals over the break are to finish reading a few things, spend time with the family. Finish a couple of fan fics and relax.

Well, work has been lots of long hours and working weekends. We have a new B&B. Benton turned 3. Billy and Ashley got married. Ronin and Alison got married. Mel and I were sick. Yeah....been crazy.

The good.
Benton's new school has helped our mental state of affairs tremendously. Wow. Benton comes home from school exhausted from a good day, not a trying/frustrated day. He's doing well and learning things and that is really important. Even when we have a rough morning the staff is awesome and smiling and just relaxed about things. It makes me smile. They even got Benton a B-day present! Seriously, they've known him for 2 weeks and got him something perfect! We had a nice night of dinner, cake and presents with a small group of friends of Benton's choosing on his natal day. I think next year though I'm going to go for a nice Sunday afternoon thing cause Friday nights are fraught with challenges. (More in the bad)

Weddings were had. Lots of fun and getting gussied up as my husband's date is good. I did have to go shopping for a spring outdoor daytime affair but dress barn was awesome and my shoes look like they are from the 5th Element. Good food, good times but long days with each wedding.

Benton's bday was good with Pirate Themed cake (black icing fTW!) and good friends. They spoiled him rotten. Pictures of the day are here:
Benton's 3rd Birthday.

The bad...
Timing has just been bad all around with work, SCA and other social engagements. We haven't had a chance to breath. What did not help was my expectations for SCA events and people. I expect certain things and what I should have realized that my expectations are not reality. I missed most of the things I wanted to see at the event due to Benton not dealing well with the long day and me being primary boy care all day. The feast being between courts was odd and my suggestion for next time is to not do that again. It gave a very wrong flow to the event and made things not as celebretory. Hostage dinner theater was not what I signed up for, though unlike a good church where they pipe in the sound in the lobby, I got to see nothing. Sighs. I need to find a modern day baby sitter for long events like that. I should have known better and didn't. My own fault. Though, if you are investing a new B&B there should be standardized items for it and the reading of past reigns would be appropriate in the least. That I think had me irked the most after missing the knighting and only barely getting to see scribe_ari get made premier of the golden quill.

Then Sunday Benton was uber sick and Monday Mel got it and I succumbed to it on Thursday night. I'd hoped to avoid it since my GI track seems to always be way more resilient than the boys but uffdah, not so much this time. So Friday was a mess of us not feeling good. Lots of running to get things for Friday and Saturday and bleah. I didn't get a shower but my house was cleaner, dinner was done, cake was made and frosted and I had some help with clean up but too much stress for a simple dinner. Seriously.


In other stuff...

My foot is finally healed enough to start back at the gym. I'm hitting it Wednesday. The time off has not been good for me or my self esteem. Time to buckle down and get back to being healthy and realistic in my food choices versus what my body can handle. I know what I need to do, I just need to do it and not suck.

Well, today is the 11th of December...I had a huge meeting this AM that I had to field phone calls all through from daycare. But let me back up. For weeks I've been working this huge, huge issue at work that we had to basically fix a harness, update multiple configurations and get people on two continents to agree on something. Today was the big presentation and international telecon and it was intense. Along with that I've been helping my program with planning a big shindig for today to have a big meal and an end of year slide show. So, daycare called. Benton was leaking gooey stuff out of his eyes and he needed to be picked up and taken care of by us and/or the doctor. So in between things I made phone calls but my portion of things took 1.5 hours on teh phone. Mel ended up over text picking the boy up and I was able to finally leave and relieve him to go back to work. So we had lunch, his eyes were kinda goopy but I gave him allergy stuff and hot compresses and we shall see what is up when he gets up from a nap. If he's still icky I'll put the antibiotic drops in but we shall see. He's been down for almost 3 hours...so he's tired but I think we all are.

Last weekend was pretty fun. Mel and I had been getting the house setup for us to have the Hrafnheim Yule. I was basically on my feet for two days straight cleaning and polishing and cleaning. I did manage to go to the street fair and do some awesome xmas shopping and introduce Asteria to the street fair. But our house is now most awesomely clean. The yule was awesome. Well attended and good food and drink. We welcomed Aeryn as a new memeber and did our challenges for the year. I have to finish up things from last year but my main goal is my new outfit for Crown. There was good times and the clean up was very minimal since our peeps rock. lferion stayed till way later chatting and plotting with us. It was so nice to just sit and not work on projects.

Monday was crazy getting ready for today and I hit the gym. I've been really good and going 3 times per week for a bit now. I've been working on running in my new shoes and I want to get better at the rock climbing wall. I'm going to try to get up to 5 mins on it. Other than that my projects have been working on the blanket for Ed and Candace and working on a raven for a hrafn cloak. I have to finish those up this weekend but other than that its all good. I am looking forward to getting my studio cleaned and back to making stuff. And to clean my studio I need to have a marathon of gift wrapping to get a box sent out to family. Crazy but true. Going to work on that tonight. I'm very glad to be getting off of work soon...I want time to work on my stuff...and enjoy the holidays.

So speaking of holidays...the tree has turned out really well and Benton is in love with it. Every time he comes into the family room and the tree isn't on he asks to get it turned on. He's also been really good with it and only just touched the ornaments. We shall see how he does with presents. But that it tomorrow. Today I leave you with Benton and the Tree:

Not sure why I haven't been posting anything other than fan fic....mostly because my day to day stuff is uber busy now and when I'm not in meetings I'm on telecons and when I'm not in telecons I'm working on reports etc...so not a lot of time to just read and write. I'm 500 articles behind on my reader and weeks behind in comic reading as well. Bleah.

So, since Halloween coronation and southern happened. Coronation was a bit different than usually done. It was in BTY and outside. I know that next time we do it it will be different but the weather was gorgeous. Benton was uber cute and did really well all day long but never took a nap. He did escort Mel and I down the aisle for our oaths or an order call, I'm not sure what but it got the "ahhhh" from the crowd when we went up. One big surprise was that I was awarded the Commander of the Pilgrim of the Desert. I'm the 9th recipient of the award and wow was I blown away at receiving it. Thomas was hella sneaky about giving it to me as well. He had called up the Commander's of the Fluer de Solei and they inducted Shoshana into it! YAY! and then he asked me to herald in the pilgrim's in my field voice which I did not realizing what was happening. I think I actually swore which had Thomas laughing. Ivan and I also got a queen's cypher/ King's Sigil...I'll have to go look to see who got what. Our chookies were tour shirts that scribe_ari had done the design work on and that was pretty darn cool.

Southern Crusades happened right after Coronation...we had a really, really good time. I was able to take Thursday-Monday off and I managed to clean my house top to bottom before I left since mel had gone up for set up. It was so nice to do the cleaning and I put the comfy sheets on the bed (snuggly micro fleece flannel) and had a really nice drive to site. It was hot when I arrived and most of the region had a record high that day. The guys had most of the tents set up by the time I got there and I got our tent organized and ready and we all got dressed in medieval clothes in time for a really tasty spaghetti dinner. There was lots of mead and fighting all weekend. I did good minus the last part of the day on Saturday. I took two stout gut shots and that had me reeling. I was still thinking that I might have a hernia or two and I was very much feeling it on Saturday night. Sunday was pretty crazy and sore too. But it was a good weekend. Another surprise was that mel and I got inducted into the Order of the Sable Harps of Mons Tonitrus. It was a great honor and Baroness Juliana spoke of how we've traveled down to their A&S for 7-8 years to judge and have taught in the Barony etc. The funny part was Ivan was tearing down camp versus being at court. LOL!

We had a really nice time and Benton was very happy to be pickedup from Mary and Andrew's house when we got home. He had a really, really nice time and got to go to the zoo and out to breakfast etc. I was very, very happy that they were able to watch him and that gave mel and I a really nice weekend.

Other than that I've been reading a lot of Dresden Fanfic and not working on projects. Sighs. I'm annoyed with myself but honestly I've been a bit tired and on the edge of sick enough that I have not enough energy. Bleah. I have lots to do and no gumption. I did hit the doctor the Tuesday after southern and its not hernias...its probably really, really strained muscles. Additionally, I have a nodule of valley fever still left in my lungs from who knows when and everything else is okay. The muscles I will be going to PT to help with that and will hopefully get it scheduled for next week to start that.

Last friday mel and I dropped Ben off at daycare and then we saw Glenn and then went to see Skyfall (which was AWESOME) and had a nice lunch at the Polish Cottage before going antiquing and shopping. I picked up Vibram Fivefinger's shoes for running and general wear. I've been needing new running shoes and I've been thinking about these shoes for a while and finally just went and tried them on. They were on sale at Summit Hut and that was awesome. I really like them but have not had a chance to use them on the treadmill yet. Hopefully next week.

Benton has had some issues with biting again. It seems that things are only okay when he's binky'd which is not what we want. He's also been fighting something sniffly for a few weeks like me and he's cutting his incisors. One of the 4 has finally poked through but the others are still sub surface and he's in pain but not complaining just biting. Sighs. We are keeping him home for the Thanksgiving holiday. He's been uber snuggly and I know he needs more sleep but work has been crazy. So, the holiday will bring lots of sleep for all of us.

Other than that not much is going on. Life is not exciting which is okay. I'm not a fan of interesting times at all. But hopefully I can get well and back on track with things and start making things again. All good.

Well, its the last day I'll be home as a mom with the boy on Maternity leave. Monday is the holiday and mel will be home. Tuesday I go back to work. I'm rather ready for it now. I've started to annotate my life for the boys benefit even if he's not in the room. Yeah, the crazy has started to set in. Its gonna be a rough few weeks as we get into a routine but I think we are ready for it. Well, I am...not sure if mel is but we shall adapt.

Figure I should get things done today and to do that the best way I know how is a To Do list...haven't had one of those in a while.

( To Do... )

So, yup, got a list and I'm gonna work on getting it done.

Well, I think we have finally settled into a routine of sorts with Benton. He's been getting to bedtime by 1030pm at the latest. Its taking different things depending on the night but he's been sleeping good and that is a good thing. 6 hours of sleep before I have to feed him and then another 3 hours before he's up again. That is good. I think I'll be able to handle the schedule when I go back to work and that is important. Plus mel said he'd be getting up with the boy to help me too so we are both equally sleep deprived. Lol.

Yesterday I had big plans to run errands and those were pushed off due to the cable being crappy. We've had on and off tiling of the signal for a bit. But yesterday it made watching TV impossible. So I called it in. The tech was there in about 2 hours and after doing a very nice job troubleshooting he proved it was from the line to the pedestal out in the alley. They replaced our cable box though since it was aging and he said that the line techs would be out soon. The line tech arrived about 530pm and said they had found a break in the insulation to the line on the pole in the alley which they had been looking for for a while. It was under a sleeving that attaches it to the pole before it goes underground thus it was hidden. He "bandaided" it and the line folks would be out to replace the line in the next 48 hours during the night. The cable has been working great and the internet is also back to much better. I have to say, the customer service from COX has been excellent and its why I'm still their customer.

I made waffles for the first time last night with mel's professional waffle maker. I had some fail on the batter which was possibly caused by my inability to whip egg whites up to stiff peaks by hand. Our hand mixer died a long while ago and I didn't want to drag the kitchenaid out to do it and I probably should. I told mel to get me a hand mixer for Mother's Day and well, I found a nice one for really cheap on Amazon this morning and ordered it.

Once the boy wakes up I'll be getting us ready to head out to errands and then I'll get a work out in with a DVD. Had a good walk yesterday and did an ab work out and I can feel it today.

Looks like my first day back will be May 31st. Not sure if I will be working half days that week to get into the groove but I'm going to vet that with my boss to see if he's good with it. It might be half days with half at home too that week so Benton can slowly work on daycare. We shall see. Its getting close now.