Friday, May 4, 2018

5.4.18 - Random joys for a random day in May

The last week has been rough, with yesterday particularly so. Jack's been really slammed at the end of the semester and I'm left to take care of a lot of different responsibilities mostly by myself. It's a bit overwhelming. Then yesterday Beth was sick and I had the girls. Couldn't get work done. The girls were fussy. Speech therapy didn't go well. By the end of the day I was very frustrated and exhausted. But that's when it started to turn around.

I decided to take one of my cheat days for my current calorie bet with Julie. Jack was on his way home so he stopped first to pick us up a ready-made pizza and a big bag of Reese's. By the time he got home I had (finally) gotten the kids to bed, so I could eat in peace. Man did that junk food hit the spot.

About to feel better in 3...2...1...

Also Dad was up late scrambling to put together slides for a last minute webinar CER had scheduled for this morning. He asked if I could help and I said sure. You'd think I'd be too tired to do it, but actually eating junk food and getting work done uninterrupted made me feel much better. It also helped that the work was mostly graphics-related, which I particularly enjoy, and that it was really immediately helpful to Dad, which I also particularly enjoy. Plus I was able to put to use some of the tricks I've learned more recently with PowerPoint, and it sure made my life easier. I wasn't too worried about the lost sleep because I knew once the webinar was over today I'd have time to take a nap. I can power through that.

I made this image and apparently it was really useful.

Then this morning Jack was able to drop off the girls for the first time in a week, which was a welcome relief. I got up early to help with the webinar slides. I did clock out to help Jack get the girls ready and in the car (and then quickly went and mailed our homemade (Grand)Mother's Day cards), and then got back to it. It was an enjoyable morning because I was very absorbed in the work so the time went fast. As an aside I also had a nice chat with Nathaniel while working on it. Social media really helps me feel connected even when I work from home and rarely see other adults in person. Oh, and I also basically had Reese's and very cold milk for breakfast, haha.


The webinar went decently. I worked on Photoshop graphics while listening to it. Another small joy is my increasing interest and understanding of the companies and technologies Dad covers. I mean I'm nowhere close to his level, of course, but as I piece more together it makes the work more interesting. And after the webinar was over Dad called and thanked me for my help, which he doesn't do that often. I don't believe I need a lot of thanks or validation, but it's still nice from time to time, and I appreciated it.

After the webinar I helped a little with post webinar work but for the most part the staff had it in hand, which is a great improvement from even a couple months ago. I don't have to worry about the transcript or any of the other post-webinar task list because they're trained and can handle it. That's pretty wonderful. Anyway so I did get to take a nap--a luxuriously long nap because Jack picked up the girls and took them with him to run one or two errands. So that was wonderful.

This evening has been great too. First of all it's the first time Jack has been home and awake for any length of time in a while. Even when he is mostly working on school work (as he was tonight) it makes a big difference having him around because I can ask for his help briefly while I do other things or because the girls will play contended in the room he's in even if I leave to do other things. That's how it went for probably half an hour while I video chatted with Mom, and it was a really nice visit.

Tonight I've also had plenty of time to goof around with the girls, including singing "Humpty Dumpty" and "Monkeys jumping on the bed" to Clara as she pretended to fall off our bed over and over. Jane was thrilled to be part of the action and kept bouncing on the bed herself.


After burning a lot of energy, I went ahead and put some videos on for them. For a while they both sat happily eating and watching videos. Then I switched to trains videos and Clara got very excited and ran into the nursery to bring back her toy engine. So I turned it on and set it to run in circles in the living room, and she ran in counter clockwise circles around it and said she was riding it. Jane watched the whole spectacle with a lot of approval. It was very sweet.

While they did that, I sat and worked on this entry and enjoyed the last bit of my 24 hours of calorie freedom by eating tortilla chips with salsa and sour cream and having a diet coke.

[Note 7/31/18 - I never finished this entry and can no longer remember what else I would have recorded, so it ends here.]

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