Weekend Warriors

I am so happy that in 11 minutes I get to go home for the weekend. I'm SO ready!!

Tonight, our old neighbors, Heath and Julie, are coming over to see the house and to hang out.

Tomorrow, I plan to hang around the house, maybe run a few errands. We need a coffee table and a coat rack to hang on the wall. I wish we lived near Ikea.

Sunday is PACKED. My friend Cyndy and her husband Aaron will be delivering our living room furniture in the morning!!!! (We bought it from them - it's nearly brand new, Lay-Z-Boy reclining couch and chair.) Then at 12:30 is Jacob and Cayden's 5 year birthday party all the way out in Studley. We need to be back at the house by 2pm because there are TWO neighborhood halloween/pumpkin carving parties that I want to stroll Stella to and I want to meet new neighbors. Then we have to be back out to the Innsbrook area for my other cousin Jacob's 7 year birthday party. Shoo!!

A lot going on....but it's all going to be fun. And I'm sure I'll have a ton of pictures to show for it.

My hand hurts

from signing my name 10 trillion times.

WE CLOSED!!

Procrastination

I just spent quite a few minutes editing this blog and adding fancy fonts and colors and pictures. (Blogger has added a lot of new features so hopefully I'll be able to include more pictures in my blogs and not have the issues I had before.) I have no business playing around online as I have plenty of real work to do. But I feel anxious and stressed today and I'd rather zone out on Blogger instead of working on Game Plan for my department. So, there.

We closed on our South Ridge house last night at 4pm. The ONLY reason that even happened was because my Mother-In-Law is a ball buster and she called our buyer's lender and threatened lives if someone didn't fix the mess immediately. (She's big in the mortgage industry and knows everyone...and it certainly worked in our favor.) If it was not for her, we might still be UN-closed this time next week! So, we hope to close on our new house today. But I still do not know what time because NO ONE BOTHERS TO CALL ME. Toby has a job that he can't just get up and go run an errand. But this HAS to be done today. The sellers (who are nice as can be) are getting frustrated because they need their money ASAP and I'm frustrated because I want this done and I'm sick of trying to smooth things over with the sellers and trying to explain to Toby that "yes, this is important that we get this done" and blah blah blah. It's just a mess and I will never move again. Do you hear me? Never. Again. (And if I try to start talking about moving again, someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat.)

Miss Stella is teething. This is not fun. Poor baby. Poor parents. She gets really upset at nighttime - usually between 6pm and 8pm. On Monday night, I thought her head would explode off her body from all of the screaming. The next day I bought some Baby Oragel - Nighttime Remedy with EXTRA pain reliever. So far, this stuff is worth more than gold.

Other than the teething, she is a happy, happy baby who smiles all the time and is starting to laugh outloud and coo and "talk" to us. The Granny Nanny (Sandie) and Grandpa (Wayne) have taught her to make raspberries/blow bubbles with her lips. She imitates me and Toby when we "air kiss" her. I'm convinced. She's a genius.

In OTHER baby news (as if there is such a thing - haha!)

My friends JJ and Erica are having a girl! Molly June. I adore that name and I adore them and I know they are going to be amazing parents and I wish they lived closer so I could play with them and Stella could play with Molly.

But it's ok. It will just make their Richmond Visits even more special.

Ok. Game Plan calls. And the Closing Lawyers have not - so I guess I need to harass them. Again. I love paying people to NOT do their jobs.

Rig-a-ma-roll -- Did anyone else's parents say that?

We're moved!

But we're not closed! And that is giving me anxiety.

The buyers of our South Ridge house must have picked the world's WORST lender because they were still trying to verify the girl's employment last week when we were supposed to close on Friday! Hello???? OUR lender had been finished with us for over 2 weeks. So anyway, LONG story short, we did not close on our house on Friday - which meant that we could not close on the new house on Friday because in order to close that, we need the proceeds from the first house and GOOD LORD I hate this real estate mess.

SO to make matters worse, the awesome interest rate that Toby and I got for our loan on the new house EXPIRES today at 5pm. Yep. So that means we lost it. And it costs us money. AND the sellers of our new house need their money ASAP because their new mortgage is due tomorrow and they are going to be late with it if we don't close............ So. I feel like a big jerk even though none of this is my fault. But you know me - I like to take on guilt unnecessarily.

Other than all this mess and people (real estate agents, lenders, etc) lying to me, I ADORE the new house. I just feel guilty living in it until we close. I guess I need to get over that, huh?

I will update with pictures soon. It is the cutest house ever.

Now that all this rig-a-ma-roll is over (I am so old. I just said "rig-a-ma-roll.") I will be able to blog more about LIFE and the exciting every-day happenings of the Creekmore family. Like Toby letting Stella lick the Cool Ranch Dorito powder from his fingers when I wasn't in the room...and the after-effects that lasted for 2 damn days.

Happy Fall, Ya'll

It's October. I love this time of year! I do wish that I wasn't so frazzled right now so I could enjoy this time by hanging up fall decorations and getting ready for Halloween...but instead, I'm caught in a rat race and in the middle of a move. NEXT year will be my year to really relax and experience the season how I want to! In my new house!

Currently, here are my days:

Get up at 6. Take shower and get self ready. Wake Stella up at 7. (yes, she sleeps through the night and I have to wake her up! Don't hate me.) Change, feed, and dress her. (This is my favorite time of the day - she is so happy and smiley.) Get in the car. Take the HELLACIOUS drive on Powhite Pkwy to Mom's house which usually includes standstill traffic and a screaming baby who does not like the car to stop. Drop Stella off with the Granny Nanny. Drive to work. Work 8:30-5:00. Leave at 5 on the dot! Go to Mom's. Check food status of Miss Stella. Feed her if it's about time so I am not trapped on the Powhite with a screaming HUNGRY baby. (It's a given she'll be screaming at the toll plaza when the traffic is jammed...) Get home around 6:45 or so. Dinner, dishwasher (load and/or unload), laundry, spend time with Stella (bath, pjs, feed, etc...) Put her to bed around 8:30 or so......Go to bed myself soon after.

Repeat 5 times, Monday-Friday.

This weekend HAS to involve lots and lots and lots of packing. Because if it doesn't, we are up sh*t creek. I have packed a lot - but in the wise words of my friend Cyndy - when you think you have packed 90% of your stuff, you realize you own 200%. Or something like that. We have a heck of a lot of crap. That's what it means. And I need to pack it up to move it. And that's a b*tch.

I've been dealing with moving stuff - cutting utilities off and on...It is during this process that I learned that Verizon is the DEVIL and I will do my best to never deal with them again.

We move on the 18th and I truly can not wait. I'm looking so forward to MANY things - more storage! Toby's garage! my scrapbook room! Granny Nanny next door!

It's going to be wonderful.

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.