Damn you, Mr. Peanut!

I just ate the rest of the damn bag like it was nothing. And I have the nerve to worry about my pants being tight.

Oh well, atleast I satisfied that craving for the next ETERNITY.

Chocolate and Peanuty combo: Gets me every time.

Today I just want to eat. Chocolate. Peanuts covered in chocolate. And we just so happen to sell those a measly 2 floors below this one in the Company Store and I am fighting the urge to go there big time. But to be honest, I don't know how much longer I am going to last before I cave. In fact, I KNOW it's going to happen so I might as well just get it over with. I'm so hungry/snacky today. And that's what I want. Chocolate covered peanuts to just pop in my mouth.

Why can't I like to snack on carrot sticks? WHYYYYYYYYYYY?

I've actually been eating OK for the past 2 months. Nothing to write home about - but not like Homer Simpson either. (Mmmm donuts.) I have been doing enough to maintain my weight - but seriously, I need to be LOSING. After gaining 36 lbs with this pregnancy (not to mention the 20 I gained after the wedding), my body ACHES. I'm like a 95 year old when I get up from a sitting position - and getting up from an entire night's sleep is a JOKE. I hobble down the hall to go get my 2 month old out of her crib like I am her great-great-grandmother instead of her young Mom. It's disgusting - and dangerous.

Most women lose most of their baby weight immediately - atleast a whole bunch of it. I can't tell you how many "I'm only 6 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight" posts I saw on the baby board - some girls posted that just a few days after giving birth. At my 6-week check-up, I had lost a whopping 13 lbs and 8 of that was Stella! Geez!!

I don't know what I want to do. Weight Watchers? The Biggest Loser plan? Celebrity Fit Club plan? Maybe I'll try to do a combo of all three? They are all healthy ways of eating. I'm not into the low carb/starvation diets. I don't care how much weight I'll lose - I'll just gain it back. Maybe I can choose more natural foods and count points too. And I REALLY need to get moving again. That will probably help me the absolute most - to get back on that treadmill even if I have to start at a speed of 1.5 miles an hour.

I need to eat and live HEALTHY. That's all there is to it. Treat my body with respect. Weight loss will be like a bonus.

I just need to get serious, get a plan, set some goals, and DO IT. Enough of this maintaining and just existing. I want to feel great and fit into my size 14s and 16s so I don't have to spend any more money on giant clothes.

And what I really want is to be able to wear my wedding rings again.

Well, only 1.5 hours until I can pick up my girl and we can take our daily afternoon trek down the Powhite Parkway with the windows cracked, Snoop's DOGGYSTYLE lightly playing in the background, and Stella screaming her lungs out from the backseat while I am rendered helpless in the driver's seat. Ahhhh, the good times. :)

Office Space

Let's see if I can explain this so you can understand. I'm afraid I must be speaking Chinese here because no one understands what I say here...or they just don't listen or read.

Ok. I am coordinating 7 office moves. For one person to move into a new office, the person who currently occupies that office, must move first. Got it? To coordinate 7 moves which all result in the "domino effect" is a rather frustrating task - but I have got it figured out.

I send an e-mail to those moving. I ask FOUR questions that I need the answers to. I get various e-mails with answers to 2 or maybe 3 questions. Sometimes I get a response back that don't answer ANY of my questions. Which results in my RESENDING original questions. Which I love. Because I think it's FANTASTIC to do everything TWICE.

Anyway.

I'm filling out the paperwork for the moves. Person A can not move until Oct 2. Which means Person B who is coming into that cube can not move before Oct 2 because Person A will still be there. Person C is moving into Person B's office so this means Person C REALLY can't move before Oct 2 because that leaves Person B homeless.

After explaining this to Person C's administrative assistant MULTIPLE times, I get an e-mail from this admin.

It says: "Person C just called me and we can do his move on September 27."

(Now picture my face as I read that one sentence.)

DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE ANY DAMN BRAIN CELLS?

How does anything ever get done? I'm serious. I need an answer.

I'm not used to this kind of stuff anymore after being away for 2 months. I forgot how frustrating it is to try and get a job done when you work with GROWN people who don't listen or read. I want to scream.

But I won't. Because I'm getting paid and I get to go home to my daughter in 3 hours. And my 3pm cup of coffee is only 1 hour away.

In other news, Mom just called to tell me about their adventures this morning. She told me that she got brave and decided to pack the baby up and actually leave the house to run some errands. Good for her!! But she waited dangerously close to feeding time to venture out (Lesson #1: Never try to run errands until immediately AFTER a feeding.) They went to the post office and to the grocery store - and Stella was rather fussy and loud most of the time. They got in the car to come home and Mom was chanting "We're almost home! We're almost home!" They got home and Mom ran the few bags of groceries into the house first. They have an alarm system so she was rushing to cut that off before the police came...and then turned around to rush back to the car to get screaming Stella.....

....and she fell. Big time.
And she skinned her knee up real good.
And peed on herself.

Just typing that has made me cry laughing. NOT that she hurt herself. I have this HORRIBLE habit of laughing when people fall. I have always been this way. Someone could fall and their leg could be twisted around backwards and I would ask them if there were ok through gutteral laughs. I truly can't help it!! But then add the PEED ON HERSELF to this story and I am rolling on the floor.

And FYI - she's fine. The baby got fed.

And I'm going to check myself into Tucker's if anything else annoying happens at work today. I think visiting hours are until 8pm if you want to swing by.

Day Two - Worse than the First

Ugh. I made it through yesterday with flying colors! I didn't even go to see Stella at lunchtime because I called Mom and they were doing great and Stella was sleeping so I decided to stay here and catch up on e-mails (I only had 796 of them...seriously, I was pleased.)

I left here at 4:59 and 59 seconds and was OUT THE DOOR. (Very unlike the FORMER Stephanie - I used to stay until 5:30 or 6 or even 6:30 sometimes.... Never again!) I got to Mom's in about 7 minutes (my new commute after October 21 - Awesome!) and my girl had taken over the living room! haha! Bouncey Seats and toys everywhere! Mom was exhausted but in a good way... It was great. I fed Stella before we hit the road to go home - and we made it home by 6:30.

And then it hit me. There was SO much to do! Dinner, dishwasher, laundry, mail, etc... Stuff I would do at my leisure on maternity leave was all now piled up. AND I hadn't seen the girl ALL DAY LONG so I wanted to hold her constantly - and she didn't want to be held. She wanted to sleep. So that was really hard. It was hitting me HOW MUCH time that work was taking away from my time with my daughter.

I was sitting on the couch and I looked over at her in the swing and she was wrapped up like mummy all the way to her neck (she likes it that way) and she had somehow managed to turn her head around to the side so she could look at me. She just sat there with her neck craned looking at me...and I cried and cried and cried! :) What a goober I am.

This is just really hard. But a bazillion other working moms have done it and survived and I will too. The real lesson in all of this is that I need to start playing the lottery and/or my brother needs to hurry up and get filthy rich and give me some money. (J/K Matt)

Anyway, work pissed me off already too. I had only been here a few hours when I was told by a manager in another department that it had been discussed that since I wanted more responsibility (I don't recall saying that...but anyway...) that I would start supporting that department IN ADDITION to my VP boss. And that the current admin in that department would be giving me some of her responsibilities to take on.

Excuse me but W.T.F.

That admin doesn't do shit anyways! I am not stupid and I can see the future - I'm going to get the SHIT work of that department that she doesn't want to do and they are going to call that "a development opportunity" for me - all the label making, binder stuffing, copying, and shredding. What a joke! Even though I am a grade higher than this other person, SHE is going to be giving me duties?!?! While she goes around, cube by cube, and talks people's ears off all day.

So, normally I would have been through the roof about this. And don't get me wrong, I am mad and irritated and angry and TIRED.... BUT at the same time? I. Don't. Care.

I don't care!! Give me whatever. I'll clean the freaking toilets. I just want to go home at 5pm and be with my child. I don't care about this place and my "career" anymore. The more you care, the more you are just shot down. I've been here 5 years and I have learned that much.

STELLA is my career. Whatever happens here can irritate me (because it's just not fair) and then it's gone. I have to let it go. Nothing is going to change. As long as I am in an administrative role and I am good at my job, I am going to get shit on. Because no one wants to deal with the admins who are BAD at their job, now do they? They just let them sit there and get paid as much as me, and in most cases, MORE than me....yet I'm doing all the work.

Shoot, maybe if they give me all the work and I do a BAD job at it, I'll get a promotion!!!! That seems to be a recurring situation here too.

I'm going to stop talking about this because it's making me miss my daughter even more - as if that's possible.

The reason I know I'm back at work?

Because the damn cleaning lady has already talked my ear off about 400 times today.

Count that as the #1 thing I DID NOT miss while on maternity leave.

This Old House

Is there such a thing as doggie gas-x? Seriously. TOBY'S dog, Elvis, needs some bad. I'm dying here. This dog is the bane of my existance. I can't stand him. He's getting fixed this week and I really hope it changes him and I start to love him. The good news is at the new house, he can live in the garage and I won't have to deal with him. This sounds awful! I am such an animal lover but this dog plucks my last nerve. ANYWAY.

This weekend was a hugely productive one and I feel fantastic about it. Whew!!!! Yesterday, the front porch was painted. My mother-in-law came over and helped and was a painting fool. We did the railings and the picket things which was a pain in the arse...and Toby did the floor and all the high parts and the trim... Today, Toby painted the facial boards on the front and back and primed the entire deck by himself. (Stella and I took naps.) The rest of the projects that need to be finished are managable so I feel like I can breathe again.

I get to REALLY pack this week. My goal is to pack most of the house minus the things we really use. My MIL brought tons of moving boxes over yesterday so there is no stopping me this week!! I packed some last Friday but quickly filled up the 5 boxes we had on hand....

This is do-able! I might even survive this move.

THEY ACCEPTED OUR COUNTER-OFFER!

So, things are back to rolling again and I can breathe for another few minutes until the NEXT hurdle.

We really need to get our butts in gear and finish working on this house and I need to PACK.

Whirlwind City

Even on days I don't have THAT much to do....Time flies and I realize I have done nothing. It's amazing.

We do live in Whirlwind City lately. House proceedings are continuing and are INCREDIBLY annoying and frustrating. I'm still just walking on eggshells, hoping this does not fall through.

We had the inspection on this house last week. We had to be out of the house so it was just the inspector and the potential buyers here alone. When we got back, the house was trashed. They had tracked mud on the carpets - there's an actual mud footprint in the bedroom and on the $2,000 rug in the living room (that was a gift! Like we could afford that!) - and there was 10 million leaves all in the house. AND they left the door unlocked. Who knows how long it was unlocked?? Not pretty. I thought Toby was going to have a coronary.

So he's not too happy with these inconsiderate people. So when they came back to us yesterday and asked for $3,500 to put on a new roof, Toby wasn't exactly happy to oblige. First of all, the roof is fine. It's old but it's fine. It is not an emergency by any means that the whole dang roof be replaced. So we countered back with giving them $1,500. GOOD LORD I HOPE THEY TAKE IT.

I just want this to go smoothly and to move into the new house. I want to be on that side of town since I grew up there and EVERYTHING in my life is over there. Family, friends, work, doctors, hair salon, everything! And besides, I love the house!

So, please continue to keep us and our house situation in your prayers!!

Miss Stella is wonderful. We are having so much fun with her. For one, she's so freakin cute - I could stare at her all day long - and sometimes I do! She's getting a personality already. She's starting to make more noises besides just crying...and she's moving around and being a wiggle worm. She's also going to be a drama queen, I think. If she doesn't like something, she does this fake cry/squealing sound that is hysterical. And then she stops and looks at me and smiles. Stinker!! She's started smiling up a storm and it just melts my heart. She LOVES her "Daddy Time" in the afternoons. She lays with Toby on the couch every night after dinner and is such a good girl. By the end of the afternoon with me, she's starting to get restless and fussy - but as soon as Daddy gets home, she's happy as can be.

I feel like she is so grown up already!!

I go back to work on September 19. Say some MAJOR prayers for me that day. I really don't want to spend the entire day in my cube sobbing into a kleenex.

I'm just going to miss her so much!

I can't wait to live there!!

Pictures of our new house!!!

Good Bye South Ridge - Hellooo Northside!

THE HOUSE IS SOLD!!!!!!!!!!

It was on the market for less than 2 days.

We had one showing Friday night...and then SIX on Saturday. Mom and Dad came over and helped us tackle some projects that have needed to be done for 3 years but hadn't...and then all of a sudden had to be done ASAP....so we got to work on those things. But we kept getting interrupted and had to pack up the baby and get out for showings. The phone was off the hook "Someone would like to see your house at this time." It was ANNOYING because we kept getting interrupted but it was also a good problem to have...and I only had to live like that for one day - some houses stay on the market for weeks and months.

We wrote the contract for the NEW house this morning and will deliver it later today.

I'm in shock. But in a good way. This new house is just the cutest EVER and the location is a DREAM and I am counting my blessings like a Madwoman.