Chalk

Like most of the U.S., we have experienced cooler temperatures over the last few days. Sunday even dropped down into the 60s for a little while. Today we managed to stay in the 80s, as opposed to the high 90s that we've had for the past month. Since the cool front moved in, Micah is sporting his new fall clothes. My pint-sized little man is still in a size 24-months. His little 18-month pants fit him all over except in length. I guess he'll decide to eat more than chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and mac and cheese one day.

With cooler temperatures means more time outside in the evenings with less bugs. Dada will be thrilled to not worry about being stung or bitten.

Tonight I decided it was a great evening to bring out the chalk that we haven't used in a couple months.

We love you and miss you, Dada!

Wild Adventure

This morning Tom flew up to Calgary for work. For those of you who are geographically challenged like myself, here's a visual aid. A- is Calgary. B- is Dallas, TX. (Yes, I knew Calgary was in Canada, but I couldn't have pointed it out on a map until a few moments ago when I googled it.) Tom will be there until late Thursday night.

But, on Sunday before he left, we took a family trip to the ...

We went to see the newest exhibit...


Here are a few of the things we saw.

This is a really amazing, trained bird.





We even got up close and personal with a few of the animals.

A little potty humor...

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And, just as I thought we were all getting over 2 weeks of illness, I got a call from the daycare today that Micah had a 101.4 fever. It never fails. Whenever Tom is traveling for work, Micah is bound to have a fever and I have to leave work.

Prayers that he is only teething will be much appreciated. I don't think our immune systems can handle anything else contagious.

Almost Healthy Again

In the last 7 days, Walgreens has loved our financial support. Here are just a few of the items that have littered my kitchen counters all week.

Today has been the first day that all three of us have felt somewhat healthy. Not completely healthy, but healthy enough to enjoy each others company.

Today was also the day that our church held their Cultural Days Festival and Mexican dinner. I forgot my camera, but luckily I had my phone and managed to take a few photos.

Dada helping Micah cut up his hotdog.

Tom and I had really great authentic Mexican dinners.

Some of the performers.

We're planning on making a family trip to the zoo in the morning. Hopefully, I'll return to full blogging duty tomorrow afternoon. Sorry again for being absent all week.

Out Sick

I couldn't go back to work without putting Micah in daycare, and I can't expect Micah to go to daycare and not bring home all kinds of germs.

This week in my absence of blogging, we have all passed around the stomach bug. As of yesterday I thought I had gotten away unscathed, but around 4am this morning I was fully aware otherwise.

My house looks like a tornado picked up the toy box and exploded the contents in every nook and cranny of the downstairs, and I have zero energy to do anything about it.

Tom is currently at the grocery store picking up the weekly essentials. Let's hope he comes home with more than just hot and spicy foods.

I'll be back when I'm feeling a little more energy.

Toodles.

Gone Fishing

A moment ago Tom came in the garage door grinning the biggest, proudest grin I've seen on him in a long time. He asked if I had checked my e-mail lately. I hadn't, so I went over to the computer and saw this.

He finally caught a fish in the lake in our backyard. But, I consider it cheating when he uses this...

...his new fish finder.

I'm still proud of him though even if he had to have a little help.

Is It Time?

This morning Micah came up to me and let me know he had a stinky diaper. He's still not verbal about it yet, but he'll nudge me and get my attention and then point to his diaper. It's enough to let me know.

I asked him to go get a pamper and the next thing I noticed was him dragging out the potty chair into the living room and saying "poo poo".

Ok, so to all of the other mothers out there, is it time to start potty training?

I know boys usually develop the sensory skills a little later and I wasn't anticipating trying to start potty training for another 6 months or so. Especially since I bought 2 boxes of diapers yesterday.

I think he's gained interest in the potty only because he sees other children in his daycare class learning to be potty trained. [Micah is the youngest 2 year old in his class.] At this point I think it's just an interest in something new and not a desire to really do it.

In other BIG news: Micah slept in his BIG boy bed last night until 5:15 this morning. At that extremly early hour, he wanted to get in his crib and Dada let him so we could all sleep in...until 8:30!

Micah and Dada's Trip to Grandpa Deen's House

Since Micah met some of his cousins [and second cousins] for the first time on this trip, I asked Tom to get some pictures of everyone together. I guess I wasn't too specific in what I meant. I was hoping he would take a posed group shot attempting to get everyone looking at the camera or at least facing it. Well, my husband's interpretation of a picture of everyone is this...

...He did manage to get everyone in one picture, but there's no real organization to the picture...

...And these are the only two pictures he took of everyone. I suppose he fufilled his obligation, and I've learned my lesson on being more specific.

This is Cameron, Tim and Ashleigh Brinkman's son, with Micah. They came down to Grandpa Deen's house for dinner one night. [Tom and Tim were best friends growing up.] Thankfully Ashleigh was taking pictures at the same time and got their attention, so we have more than just a few random shots.

In Our Backyard

Either we have an abundance of fungus in our yard or a whole village of smurfs just moved in.

A Milestone

Two of my most prized possessions boarded a plane without me on Saturday while in my husband's arms: my camera and Micah.

Labor Day weekend has become the annual weekend for Grandpa Deen's family reunion in Illinois. Due to a couple reasons, I was unable to attend this year. 1.) At the time that Tom purchased plane tickets, I was still job hunting, and I knew that it would be unlikely that I could take extra time off for the holiday weekend if I had been working. 2.) Micah, now 2 years old, requires his own plane ticket making our travel adventures a little more pricey. So, I stayed home and enjoyed a quiet weekend in Texas alone.

Saturday night marked the milestone of Micah spending the first night away from Mama. Yes, you're probably thinking this is long overdue, and I admit that it was. The prolonged milestone wasn't truly on purpose or for the fact that I couldn't let go. Well, maybe that was a small part of the reason.

Since I nursed Micah until he was 18 months old and he didn't start sleeping through the night until around that same time, I felt awkward asking anyone to sacrafice their sleep to tend to my little guy. Sure, his grandparents wouldn't mind keeping him, but proximity was a problem. Every time we would see Micah's grandparents, the trip would be brief and if we left Micah with them, we would be missing out on visiting with them. So, that led us to where we were last weekend.

In case you're wondering, Micah survived the weekend and so did I. Hopefully, my camera did too. And, hopefully, Tom got some pictures that I can share with you this week.

Tom just texted me and said they landed at Love Field, the airport, and should be home soon. The last 4 days have been long and I can't wait to hug and kiss them!

In other news, I started my new job today. It was 100% better than the last first day I experienced. I'll fill you in on my experiences soon.

Sprinkler Pad One More Time

I picked up Micah from school early today because I didn't have to go to work, and we drove over to the Frisco Commons Park to enjoy the sprinkler pad one more time before it closes this weekend. We were lucky and had the entire playground all to ourselves.

After a couple of days of rain, we had a very nice cool day today. When I woke up and took Micah to school it was breezy and only 70 degrees. It was a refreshing change to open the windows in the house and have fresh air blowing through the kitchen. The forecast for the remainder of the weekend shows highs around 90. I guess the triple digit degree days have come and gone.

Goodbye, summer! We'll miss you!

Big Things Are Happening

Several posts ago I mentioned that big things were happening, and in the previous post I mentioned that I would devote an entire entry to my job. Well, I'm ready to fill everyone in on what has been happening.

On the Tuesday prior to our trip to Mississippi, I had an interview with a healthcare group (I'll leave the name anonymous) that specializes in LTACs, or long term acute care hospitals. The first round went great and I got called back for a second interview hours later. Things were moving fast and by the next day I had an offer. Things seemed fantastic.

When I received the offer and read over all of the details, I wasn't too impressed. Yes, I realize I was once spoiled by Comcast which had many perks including FREE: internet, cable and phone to name a few. I knew going into this job search that I would need to lower my standards a bit.

Here's my Pros and Cons list for the healthcare group offer:

Pros

1. Salary was equivalent to my prior salary in Denver
2. The office is close to Tom's office (i.e. we could carpool and have lunch dates)
3. The high-rise building was attached to the Galleria mall

Cons

1. The office is 45 minutes away from home and when we weren't carpooling we would incur additional tollway charges ($8/day per car)
2. No paid holidays (That's just wrong. They would allow you to use PTO time so there wouldn't be a dip in pay. How generous?)
3. No paid maternity leave. They do honor FMLA regulations though.
4. No small perks (example: Comcast had free soda fountains which made my Dr.Pepper habit more affordable)

I weighed my options, at the time it was my only option, and accepted the offer. My start date was the following Thursday (Micah's birthday).

While driving across Arkansas on the Thursday a week before my start date, I received a call from another recruiter. He wanted to know if I would be interested in a position in Little Elm, the community where we live. The commute would be no more than 15 minutes from our house and only a few blocks down from the gym we go to. I bounced around in the car with excitement as he told me all about the opportunity. When we returned to Texas after visiting in Mississippi for the weekend, I had an interview with the company in Little Elm. And, on Wednesday, the day before I started my other job, I had my second interview. Things were moving right along until I found out that the company I was interviewing with needed to post the job internally for a period of time before they could truly consider me for the position.

So, I tried not to get my hopes up, and I went to work for the healthcare group on Thursday.

This is, by far, the worst first day of work I've every experienced. (Mind you that I have only had a hand full of jobs and please don't think I'm being a snot about the working environment I'm about to describe. I wouldn't wish this for anyone, and I'm sorry if you have to put up with this type of job everyday.)

First off my access card didn't work at the gate to the garage. Some nice gentleman got out of his car and walked over to the box and swiped his card so I could go through and quit holding up the line.

Once I made it up to the office, the director of finance met me in the lobby area and walked me around the floor. He wasn't sure where I was supposed to sit nor did they have a desk for me. [Dear employers: if you are extremely eager for someone to start working immediately, at least have a desk for them when they show up]

A half hour or so later, the financial analyst that would be training me showed up and found a desk for me down the isle (about 30 yds)from everyone else. On the up side, it had a window. I put my purse down and tried to get settled in, well, once the analyst pulled up a chair she found for me. The chair was missing a wheel and leaned to one side. I thought to myself, "it can't get much worse...can it?". The analyst showed me around and introduced me to some very sweet people. One jokingly said, "I bet you thought things would be fancy around here since you're working in the Gallaria." Another said, "We're just short of having port-o-potties around here." I was then told about the sewage problem they experienced several months ago in the break room that led to everyone taking the day off to avoid the fumes. The break room was gutted as a result to the problem and was still gutted when I arrived. They had heard of no plans of remodeling. I made a mental note to self: "don't drink the water".

While I was walking around getting to know everyone, the IT guy brought a laptop to my desk to hook to the old, giant monitor that looked like it had been sitting there since 1995. It was a slow computer, but it ran. Afterall, it was only missing one key on the keyboard...the ENTER key.

There were many other thing that happened that day that made me feel less and less comfortable at the job [I cringe every time I think about how many hands I shook that day knowing that there was no soap in the ladies bathroom Thursday or Friday], and I had made up my mind that I wouldn't stay there very long. If I didn't get the job in Little Elm, I was going to keep looking elsewhere.

Although, things started to improve this week: my access card started working in the garage, I got a chair with all of the wheels, and I got a new keyboard; I was still more interested in getting out of there.

Today, I received a call from my recruiter about the Little Elm job and they have extended me an offer and want me to start on Tuesday following Labor day. I'm THRILLED! I accepted right away.

I only had one problem. I had to quit the healthcare group job.

I called Tom, who has been in Houston since Tuesday and will be there until tomorrow night, and discussed the news and made a game plan. I did minimal research on the internet and found a resignation letter that met my situation. I copied and pasted it into Word, printed it out, signed it and walked over to my boss' desk.

The scene:

Me: "Laura, I have something I need to talk to you about. I have decided to leave [anonymous] healthcare group."

Laura: "Fine." (snatches resignation letter and tosses it to the side of her desk)

"Badge. Get Out. Bye."

Me: (Holding back laughter with a look on my face expressing disbelief) "OK"

I gathered my things and walked out.

The End.

I had fully prepared myself to explain that I appreciate the time and effort they put into training me and that it just wasn't working out, but I didn't get a chance. Oh well. Knowing now how she reacted, I am positively-without a doubt-glad I left. I have no regrets. I just couldn't believe how immature she acted. I would never want to work for someone like that.

Let's liken the situation to a couple of 5 year-olds for fun.

The scene:

Me: "Laura, I'm tired of playing at your house and I'm ready to go home."

Laura: "Fine. Give me back my toys. Get out. Bye."

The End

See any similarities?

Let's hope she decides to grow up one day.

On the bright side, I'm excited about my new job and I can't wait to start. It even has perks: I can wear jeans every day, they cover the cost of my gym membership, and they have fresh fruit baskets delivered every week instead of having vending machines. I think things are going to work out just fine at the new job.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend. Mine just turned into a 4-day weekend!