So much to do!

The holidays are a busy time for everyone and I know we are no exception.  Since Thanksgiving was late this year, it seems like the holidays are even more hectic.  There was one less weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas than in previous years.  It shouldn't make a big difference, but it does.

The push to get Phil's dissertation done and turned in put us into survival mode.  Cleaning was kept at a minimum.  Laundry done as needed, but not folded.  Grocery shopping was limited as well.

I do have my priorities though.  Given a choice between folding laundry during nap time or putting up Christmas decorations, I chose decorations.  All.  The.  Way.

That choice, however, left me with a scene that looks like this:

And there's more where that came from.

To make matters worse, this is what awaits me at work:

To be reviewed.

My to-do list is so long, I pretty much need to take this home to review it.  But who has the time?  I'm trying to find a way to dig down deeps and get everything accomplished.

Laundry folded.
House cleaned.
Food made.
Work done.

And there is one thing that will always be at the top of my list...

Spending time with this guy.

If someone can help me figure out a way to get everything done, find 2 more hours in the day, or perhaps ways to have a little more energy, I would greatly appreciate it.

We are almost to the finish line of graduate school!  I just need to keep my head down and priorities straight until then.

I'm a Pro

My professionalism is reaching new heights these days.


As if it weren't enough that I bring my baby to the office...


Or that I nurse him at my desk...


And I'm sure it helps that last week at work, he had a blowout and it got all over the front of my white shirt...


But then I used the term "big-girl pants" in an e-mail about a young professionals event.


PRO.FESH.


At least the e-mail was to a friend.


.......


Alright, back to designing crap.

Don't Get Me Sick

Everyone at my office is sick.  Even Phil was sick last week.

There are maybe 3 of us in the office that are not.

I hesitate to say this... but I am currently not sick.  Oh man it needs to stay that way.

I think it is partially because I am sucking down fluids like it's my second job, eating more vitamin C than my body could possibly need, and going to bed at like 9 every night.  And my excessive water drinking makes me go to the bathroom almost hourly, meaning my hands get washed A TON.

But I am starting to wonder if I should just be working from home.  Since all the sick people who should be home being sick are at work being sick, maybe that means the healthy people should be home?  I don't know, the logic makes sense to me.

It is a constant symphony of coughing, sneezing and sniffling around here.  I'm almost afraid to take deep breaths.  My cubemate has a cough that sounds like Gollum.  At least every minute, one of our drafters starts hacking up a lung.  My boss sneezes like 6 times in a row.  All of their kids are sick with Influenza B and have been passing it around to each other.  It's like a cesspool of viruses.

The other day, some of my coworkers opened up a bag of chips and a jar of salsa and offered to share it with me.  Thanks but no thanks.  I'm staying 5 feet away from communal areas for the next 2 weeks.

Who am I kidding... the only reason I decided to not work from home today was because we are getting Padington's Pizza for lunch today (individual ones.  There's no way I'm sharing communal food with these people right now).  And I can almost NEVER turn down Padington's.

In case you aren't blessed to know what Padington's looks like, here it is:

Tell me that not worth risking illness for.

Random Recap

I put together a list of random thoughts from this week.  I figure it is better than another post where I talk about my feelings.  We'll save that for Monday.  :)  Meanwhile, my husband is earning points toward his Saint-hood left and right.  I can't even tell you what last night's cry-fest was about.  Oh... thyroid hormones.

{Another picture from my walk with Taylor yesterday.}

- Facebook has really just turned into a place to announce pregnancy.  EVERY DAY someone is either announcing they are pregnant or having a baby.  The next person to announce they are pregnant on Facebook is getting de-friended.  I mean business, people.

-  Speaking of which, I am working on three baby blankets right now.  Now that my radioactivity has dropped, I feel like it is safe for me to work on baby-related craft projects.  These people and their babies better love these dang blankets.  If they don't, I want them back.

-  Dawson's Creek is on Netflix now.  It is awesome in a ridiculous kind of way.  It is made even better since I have been reading Suri's Burn Book.

-  I need to find a support group for my addiction to Cherry 7Up.  It is getting out of hand.

-  Sometimes I wish I could post more about my job and working with relatives.  But really I can't.  Being a business owner means I have to keep things on the down-low sometimes.  Let's just say that this week I have discovered that what I like to call "Man Logic" is alive and well.  And it is kind of dumb.  Because that $h!t wouldn't fly with any woman anywhere.

-  I read a post yesterday that gave health and fitness advice to ward off diseases like cancer and infertility.  I love the implication that I made myself sick.  Just because you are lucky enough to be healthy doesn't mean that you do anything special that I don't.  And that post isn't the first time that implication has been made.  Next time someone implies that to my face, they may get a verbal bitch slap.

-  Phil refuses to read the Harry Potter books, but he loves it when I read them to him.  So we are starting at the beginning.  But since my reading voice is so soothing, we fall asleep about 3 minutes after I begin reading.  In 2 weeks of reading, we have made it to Chapter 2.  It might take us a while to finish all 7 books.

-  I really stuck my foot in my mouth at work yesterday with one of my coworkers.  I basically implied that she was too old to have babies.  It was an accident and she was a good sport about it.  But it had been a while since I REALLY dug myself a hole.  Here's an example of one of the BEST foot in mouth moments I have ever had:

I was at a city hall for a meeting with one of our clients.  This building happens to be an open air, concrete building.  In Oregon.  And it happened to be raining that day (surprise).  So we were standing in the open hair hall, freezing our behinds off.

Me:  Man it's cold.  I hate this building.

Client:  Oh yeah?

Me:  Yeah.  I mean who would design an open air building in Oregon like this?

Client:  My father.

Turns out his dad was an architect and actually designed city hall.  Of course.  He likes to tell people that story.  Eventually I will learn to just STOP TALKING.

{Baby grapes}

Take your Doggie to work

Yesterday, I took Taylor to work with me.

Since I am a big ball of hormones these days, I have noticed that I am full of feelings.  In addition to getting sad at a lot of things, I have developed a HUGE attachment to Taylor.  I have always loved her.  But now I want her around all of the time.  Tuesday night she ran errands with me.  Wednesday, we went to work together.

She is such a well-behaved dog, that she really doesn't bother anyone in the office.  She watched people walk by and followed me around the office.  She sat in on our staff and admin meeting.  She was such a good girl that at lunch time, I took her to the park.

I was trying to burn off some calories in preparation for gorging myself at Buffalo Wild Wings that night.  Taylor was busy hunting for squirrels.

And we had a mini-photo shoot.  Senior photos, if you will.

Technically, she isn't wearing a leash for these pictures.  We were breaking the law.  Shh!!  Don't tell anyone.

I think she liked it.  (The park, not the photos.  She is a horrible model.  She did decide that while I was taking pictures of the park, it would be an excellent time to poop.  That dog has the smelliest crap.  I'm not sure what kind of ethnic food we have been feeding her but it needs to stop.)

She only barked at one client all day.  And it was kind of under her breath.

I want to take her to work with me every day.  We can make her the office mascot.  I will make her a vest with a pocket for a scale and a pencil.  She'll fit right in.

In case you were wondering, we walked 1.35 miles and my legs were worn out.  From walking.  Obviously, I am ready for a marathon.

Dedicated

Today was quite the day.  I'll get into details more tomorrow, but right now I just need to keep my head down and keep working away.  After working 11 hours already today, I will be putting in another 2 or 3 hours tonight.  The same thing happened yesterday.  Try to hide your envy.

I didn't realize how intense I am about my calculations until this morning.  I got to work and realized that my body was sore.  And not in locations that make sense for sitting in a chair, hunched over my desk.

My quads were sore.

I guess when I design things, I get my whole body into it.  I had no idea I was so FULLY committed to my job.

Now I am off to eat THESE.  I (or Phil) made them again.

My coworkers are MEAN

Let me preference this post by saying that I am currently preparing for Radioactive Iodine Treatment (oral chemotherapy) as a part of my Thyroid Cancer treatment.  To prepare for this, I am on a low-iodine diet (which mean I can eat basically nothing) and can't take my thyroid medicine (I am hypothyroid).  This post does not reflect my normal behavior.

I walked into my office yesterday morning and a wonderful aroma hit my olfactory senses.  When I turned the corner to go into my office, I saw them.

Breakfast sandwiches.  Ham, Sausage, and Bacon Egg and Cheese breakfast sandwiches.

And seeing (and smelling) these could not be avoided.  Let me show you the proximity of these sandwiches to my actual office (as in where my desk is):

There is no avoiding them.

I know people bring food into the office quite frequently, but I didn't expect them to bring something so aromatic and then put it RIGHT NEXT TO my office.  The entire office smelled like cheese, bacon, and sausage.  One of my coworkers said, "I can't smell them."  I wanted to reply to that with, "That's because you still have sausage grease on your face."

I didn't say that.

I did, however, several completely inappropriate almost reactions to this:

1.  I almost started crying.

2.  I almost took all the sandwiches and threw them in the garbage.

3.  I almost took all the sandwiches and threw them on the floor while stomping my foot.

BUT I DIDN'T!!

And anyone who has gone through this low-iodine diet without Synthroid/Cytomel knows that is no small feat.

Needless to say, I think my hypothyroid symptoms are starting to sneak up on me.

Monday Funday

I made it through my first day of the week pretty well.  I felt like taking a nap at around 1:30, but I didn't!  So we will count that as a success.  I even managed to get some (one) thing finished on my to-do list.

{The boss said I HAD to make a to-do list because he knows my thyroid-less brain is not remembering everything I need to get done.  Most everything on this list needs to be done by Wednesday}

Here are some fun things I heard during my day wearing the boss pants:

1)  "This is pretty simple. You'll probably be able to do it."  Gee thanks for the vote of confidence.  PS - I do all of it anyway, simple or not.

2)  "How much will that cost?  Please initial that estimate."  Well considering the fact that you just told me the project was SO SIMPLE that even I would be able to do it, it will be costing you more.  And having me initial the estimate made me a little nervous.

3)  "We were supposed to have that last week.  When can you have that done?"  Please refer to my to-do list.  You are now at the bottom of it.

4)  "You have a fax from the boss."  I thought he was supposed to be on vacation?

5)  "You have a fax from the boss."  Ok he sucks at being on vacation.


Here's to a Terrific Tuesday!

This Week

The weekend went by WAY too quickly.  Maybe it is just because I am really not looking forward to this week.  My boss is out of town, which means I am the engineer in charge.  And even though I have been a full-fledged engineer for over a year, the idea of making design decisions completely by myself is a little daunting.

{Story Winery in Plymouth, CA.  This is where my boss is right now.  AMAZING Zinfandel.  That's my unedited picture.}

It will be fine.  I actually know what I am doing.  Weird.

But I have a lot on my plate work-wise, even without having to answer other people's questions.

Plus, I am not 5 days into the prep for my RAI and I am starting to subtly see the side effects of low thyroid hormones.  The ones that concern me the most are the lack of focus and the tiredness.  I know I will have to work pretty hard to make everything is done correctly and quickly which probably won't be helping the tiredness.  Apparently it is fairly common for people to not work when they are preparing for the RAI, so we will see how this goes.

Eating also takes a lot more focus than it used to.  And while I knew it would be a challenge, it has surprised me just how hard the diet really is.  I think the main challenge has been that it started all of a sudden.  You can't really ease into it.  But I am starting to get the hang of it.  It has kind of made me feel like a fatty though.  I never realized how much I was attached to food.  There are several Dr. Phil and Biggest Loser episodes devoted to dealing with this.

And I don't know if it is the thyroid or just stuff in general, but I find I get sad a lot easier.  And blogging has kind of made it worse.  It is easy to get caught up in comparing my blog to other blogs.  Followers, comments, etc.  It feels like high school all over again and I would NEVER sign up to go through that again.  Sometimes I feel like I constantly have to self-promote myself to get followers when in reality blogging is just a good way to make connections with people.  It has kind of bummed me out lately.

All this to say that I may not be posting as much for the next week or so.  Who knows how I will feel after this week.  I hope I won't lose followers and readers, but I know it is possible that I will.  I'll do my best to post regularly, I promise.