The Pros and Cons of Working Late

So we've stepped right into busy season at work and I'll be working extended hours as well as mandatory Saturdays for the foreseeable future.  Possible Sundays.  I can honestly tell you the first thought that ran through my head was, "Is it too late to get a weekend job so I can tell them I have to work?" followed by a close second, "What if I taught Sunday School?" tailed by a reluctant, "Yes, I'll be here..."

In preparation of my new lifestyle, I'm tallying up some good old pros and cons:

Pro: 

1. They feed me a delicious lunch every day.  So I'm saving money by not having to pay for my own lunches, and if I can continue to order a salad then I'm being healthy.

2. The workday flies by so fast that it actually feels shorter than when I work 7:30 to 4.

3. The delirium sets in at 4 and the rest of the day is spent in a daze.

Con:

1.  I am home for like 3 hours and then I've got to go to bed.

2.  My laundry is piling up.

3.  Poor J is picking up my slack with household duties.  I tease him sometimes that he's the best housewife ever.  I'm realizing now that he's actually THE best.  He cooks, he cleans, he tends to the pooches, coordinates necessary evils like visits from the Terminex man, the cable guy, today's window installation.

4.  I feel like time is flying by.  These are precious months to me and I feel out of control and like I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be the day before Lauren's wedding.

5.  I'm turning into a whiney baby.  Reference how long my cons list is growing.

In non-work news, my mother's dearest friend Betty Nell passed away earlier this week.  It's been a sad time at the Nickels house and I wish I could be there for my Mom and Dad.  She's been sick for quite some time and she was "ready" as I guess you could say.  When I visited her while I was home, I was shocked at how much she'd changed since I saw her when I was at home this summer.  She's seriously in a much better place now, and there's never been a time I thought I'd say those words and mean them.  The only things that's comforted me about my parents' grief is the day before she slipped into a coma-like sleep, my parents went over to her house and made a big waffle breakfast for her and every one of the gang that was taking part in caring for Betty Nell.  I know they'll be able to cherish that memory forever.  I need to stop whining now and get myself to work.

Home Sweet Home

So after packing up everything we own, a couch being broken (and later replaced) by the movers as it was hoisted up over our balcony, all but one of our fish passed away (bless their hearts), and a few other heart-clenchers of this past week, J and I made it into our new home. So far so good. We love it. We're pretty sure it loves us, too, because it's cuter than ever. The dogs are happy (albeit Leo is still getting used to things. Translation: he barks at things) and they love the balcony, as do we. We worked our tails off this past week trying to get as much nesting in as possible.

Have to admit, it was hard to get myself up at 4AM yesterday for a week away from everything that's consumed my thoughts for the past month or so. I only had to endure a delayed flight from Detroit to Minneapolis which consequently made me miss my Minneapolis to KC flight, which landed me in the Breadbasket at 5pm vice noon thirty. But I was unscathed and luckily, taught well by my father, with luggage in hand since you'd be hard-pressed to catch me checking luggage. Even for a week's stay.

My parents picked me up swiftly, since they had an inkling I might go into shock since it was a crisp 7 degrees here, a sharp contrast from Virginia's 63. Whoa. But they brought me home, fed me, gave me wine, I romped about with Ruby (romp is a funny word, perhaps trampled-on is better--this is the biggest golden I've ever seen!), and watched some hi-def "Cold Case" by the fire with my mom and dad. Bliss. This is what it's like being home for me. Relaxation at its best. Snuggled up inside a warm house, resting above a snow-covered field (J, the back 40 is breath-taking), with my blanket-brandishing father always ready to cover me up, knowing I'm never too far from a nap.

My mother just ran over to Betty Nell's house to take her trash out for trash day tomorrow. The fact that my mother is basically a care-giver to her sickly little old widow friend amazes me every day. My mom is such an amazing woman who gets far too little credit for her enormous heart. We're running around today to help finish her Christmas shopping, and then later my sis and my g-ma are coming over for dinner.

I'll get to see my girls later this week/weekend, but for now, it's about spending time with my family. People who I didn't get to spend much quality time with over my summer trip. Sitting around, possibly playing a game of Mexican Train Dominoes, catching up, and reminiscing. As Ruby snoozes at my feet, I think I can hear my mom pulling into the garage. Off we go.

T minus 70 minutes

We are going to meet our new "Land-chick" at 5:00 to exchange rent checks for keys.  I cannot verbalize how excited I am.

Also exciting happenings of the last 24 hours:

-Joanna (rockstar) found us an awesome house in Napa for Lauren's bachelorette weekend in May.  The excitement continues! :)

-We met our first neighbors last night.  Very nice, they're letting us use the driveway for the big move.

-Had an interesting conversation with J about a certain sparkly something he put in his new safety deposit box at the bank.  A certain something that was hidden in the apartment for 3 months.  A certain something that he showed to Leo, and apparently licked it.  I can't believe a boy who can't keep secrets from me kept this amazing secret.  BUT--then he spilled the beans.

-My mother decided to be amazing and sent us a happy moving gift.  A HUGE box of barbeque from Jack Stack in Kansas City.  That's where the 'rents took us when we were in town this summer and we loved it.  We will have all meals planned for us this weekend which was a huge help, and also delicious.  Plus it came packed in dry ice which was pretty amazing.  Just like the Thriller video.

-J took the babies to the dog-spa today to get their nails professionally trimmed down in honor of our wood floors.  He then brought them home and Pedi-Paw'd them by himself.  The dogs have lost their battle against the Pedi-Paw.  We win.

I'm getting ready to unplug my computer now.  Which means silence until further notice.  Wishing my people an amazing weekend!  

Craigslist

Since I found our new condo on Craigslist, it's been my favorite website.  I've been trying to sell our couch (sorry, Cass) since we're having our new ones delivered to the new place next week.  We've had a few serious-sounding emails, but no one's followed through.  So guess what I did tonight?  I put it in the free section.  

And as the dogs as my witness, I'm sitting here crying.  Because the first person who responded to the ad just wrote me back after telling her she can pick the couch up tomorrow night and said this: "thank you and god bless you Mrs. Stacy god will give you what you ask for and I thank you." That was all it took for me to lose it a little.  AND THEN--I believe it was the 25th email responding to the ad, tells me he's a deaf single father who just needs a nice couch for his children.  I wrote him back and told him he's #2 in line if #1 fails me.  I don't care if he's lying; he won me over.  I also just got another email that merely said, "God bless."  

Bottom line, I might start posting all of my toss-aways on the free section.  I just hope it makes someone's Christmas a litttle cozier.  I, along with the dogs, will miss napping on it.

Miss Mary Lady Bird Johnson

Or as J and his Sigma Nu brethren would call her, Maria Juanita Desantos.  J is a silent reader of my blog, as much as he would never leave a comment showing so.  The other day he made a comment (in-person) that I've never written about just Mary...or as I sometimes call her:

Lady Bird Johnson

Mary Lou Retton

Black-Face Mary (or BFM)

Hoochie Mama

Mary is a real dog.  She does real dog things like swim in lakes, eat an occasional deer leg, and comfort you when you have a bad day.  I had a girlfriend stop by last week, very stressed out and crying.  Leo was panicky and on alert by her tears.  Mary sat by my friend, occasionally stretching her long neck out to touch my friend's leg, prompting an under-chin scratch, to which Mary closed her eyes.  She does things like wriggle like a 6-month-old puppy when we come home, despite her age of 7 *though she doesn't look a day over 5.*  She has perpetually stinky breath, but I'll always let her lick my face...because that might not be something Leo takes pleasure in, but all Mary wants out of life is to lick your face.  I sing to her a lot more than I talk to her because I like to think she digs it.  Sometimes I wake up and she's standing right by my side of the bed, waiting for me (because she knows she's got a 95% chance of me waking up before her daddy).  She sighs when you hug her too long.  She sighs when she's frustrated.  She sighs when Leo runs up and snatches her toy.  She's changed the way J and I talk, since she along with Leo (collectively known as "The Babies") are usually one of the first things we catch up on after a long day.  "What are the babies doing?"  "When did the babies last go outside?"

When we took them to the doggy psychic for my birthday this year, Mary told the psychic that she worries about my health because I tend to cough a lot.  She (Mary) also wanted to tell me that she worries a lot about something happening between J and I that would shake up her happy household, because she's never been happier than she is now.  And coming from a formerly free-roaming Tennessee country dog that used to take herself to J's university's cafeteria and perform tricks for pizza crust, that means a lot to me.

A few more reasons I love her:

She's got human eyes.  They know.

She enticed Leo to do this.

And she let's us do this. 'Nuf said.

Struggling at juggling

Yesterday my balls came crashing down (that's what she said).  

I've been juggling lots of things.  My job getting more insane by the minute.  My upcoming move.  My car needing to go into the shop for the second time this weekend (DON'T ASK.  It's another post in itself).  My outside of work design stuff.  My semi-serious insomnia.  The phrase stretching myself too thin means a little more to me now.  It was inevitable that when yesterday's news of mandatory overtime for the next two weeks made its way to me, I'd just meltdown.  And I did.  And I chose to do it in my boss's office.

Yes, that's right.  I cried at work.  For about an hour.  Luckily for me, working in a building of a bazillion men, I have a boss who is a female.  And she's emotional.  And she let me sit in her office, behind closed doors and rant and rave and cry and bitch and moan.  And she gave me what could possibly be the best advice for a super duper stress puppy like myself.

"What can we fix right now?  Nothing.  So instead of looking at it like a big heavy rope, let's take it apart.  Let's unbraid it, strand by strand.  What's the first thing we can fix?"

Such amazing advice for me.  She also said she knows my tendencies to take on the world, and feel the need to handle everything myself when really I should delegate more or simply say no.  So last night after getting home from the gym, I took the night off.  I didn't pack.  I didn't work on Lauren's Save the Date cards (in fact I post-poned my tele-meeting with her until tonight), I didn't answer my phone.  Instead, I ate a Greek salad with my boyfriend and watched Atonement, sitting amongst a wall of boxes that he packed yesterday while I was at work melting down.  I guess if you're going to have a quarter-life crisis it's nice to have someone to pass some of your balls to.  

Impulsive Nellies

Last year, J and I exchanged Christmas presents at precisely 2AM Christmas morning, since technically that made it legit.  I think I waited until his birthday to give him maybe one present, and I know he couldn't wait to give me any of mine.  We're impulsive.  We want it now.  We're Veruca Salt.  We want to lock it all up in our pocket, it's our bar of chocolate.

What's my point?  We're moving in on the 13th, not the 15th.  The countdown: 12 days.