Catch Up Thankfullness Day3 through 6

Day 3 - What are three things that make you happy in your life right now?

Thing versus people is hard to distinguish, but since I can do people with day 4, I'll stick to things. It's just weird to be this materialistic.  Though I suppose things could be generic and less about things I hold in my hand but rather things like a job. Anyway..

Gwyn is absolutely a thing that makes me happy in my life right now. She greets me every day, she pays attention when I come and go from home, she's always willing to offer a snuggle and a hug.

Even though I gripe and there's been drama, I am very happy to have my job. I love being a scientist. Love love love it. It brings me joy to puzzle things out where I can within the scope of my responsibilities. And even though the fact that I am taking on more roles is due to issues with coworkers, I am gleeful that it's experience I can use to leverage a better job.

Music. Music makes me happy in life. I've got a lot of music that is just what I need right now.


Day 4 - List 5 people you are grateful to have in your life right now. How can you show your appreciation to them?

1st Person: Eric, absolutely and hopefully forever. Sometimes I'm truly amazed at how long we've been together and how well we've built our lives together. There are things I know that I should work on personally that would be the best way to show how much I appreciate him. I know that the foundation of great relationships is good communication and when he helps me out, especially in things that let me go off and do things I enjoyed before kids, I always thank him. Always. And I try to encourage him to find similar things that he can do. He deserves it.

2nd Person:  Kaylee. She's my shining light of hope and curiousity. She has so many questions about the world and she wants to know everything. She is full of joy and energy and soaks in whatever knowledge Eric and I can impart to her. For her, my appreciation is shown by one on one time with her, reading books, just talking about the world. Play is central to how she learns so play I will.

3rd Person: Hazel. She is a spitfire. Her language mastery grows by leaps and bounds and she fit right into our little family like a puzzle piece I didn't know was missing. She loves animals, all animals but Gwyn especially. For her my appreciation is to continue to be the best mother I can be. To offer snuggles, to read to her, to take her out to the barn each day to do chores and let her dump all the grain together because even though she might spill a bit, she's learning and growing and I'm teaching her independence.

4th Person:  I'm gonna cheat here and say my online mom community that spun off of a reddit forum I was on for my first pregnancy. We all have kids around the same age and we really bonded with one another. We created a private facebook group and have been in each other's lives now for over 6 years. I can't imagine being a parent without them. We even have a little symbol, a paper airplane, to represent it all. I show my appreciation for them in little ways. Around the holidays we do a random act of christmas. Members who are struggling submit their needs and those of us who are more fortunate 'adopt' them and send gifts for Christmas. I'm planning to pick a member this year.

5th Person: The endurance community here in Michigan. They have been super welcoming to me and so very very friendly. I can show my appreciation for them by finally becoming a paying member next year, LOL.  But really, I also volunteer, because their events wouldn't run if they didn't have volunteers.

Day 5 - What was/ is the happiest time of your life (so far)? What made you so happy during that time?

There are four moments:
When I married Eric.
When Gwyn came off of the transport truck for the first time (and the second time too because boy did I miss her)
The first time I saw Kaylee and held her in my arms after her birth.
The first time I saw Hazel and held her in my arms.

For Kaylee and Hazel I thoroughly lay blame on oxytocin for that rush of love I felt. It was very very very overwhelming. I loved them instantly. I know it doesn't always happen that way, but it did for me.

I was really happy seeing Gwyn because it was a childhood dream come true. I was getting my first horse that mine, all mine, not borrowed or anything, and it was a horse I knew and had wanted. The second time she came off the truck was in Michigan and it was so happy then because I'd been separated by a whole country while I tried to organize shipping and finding a place to board after our move. I was sliding down toward depression without her and having her back where I could touch and just breathe in her smell was rejuvenating. Even Eric noticed an immediate change in my mental health and mood.

And of course, marriage. Eric is my best friend. We haven't run out of things to talk about yet and celebrating our marriage was so much fun and perfectly us. Nothing went wrong that day. Nothing.



Day 6 - Think of a difficult time in your life, and write the things that brought you happiness during that difficult time.

Well, our move to Michigan was rough. We made the decision to come for a lot of logical factors but completely forgot to discount the emotional. I was stuck in my mother in law's house with Kaylee, trying to keep her from breaking everything. It was March and winter dreary and we were on a very busy main road in front with a river in the backyard. We were in a part of the state that has nearly NOTHING to do for stay at home moms. And I didn't have Gwyn.

I started small. I got Kaylee enrolled in a montessori preschool and that freed up time for me to go look at boarding barns.  I started to coordinate transport of Gwyn from Washington to Michigan. I started working out while Kaylee was in school. Or I'd go to the marsh and go for walks. I tried to find the beauty in Michigan. This took significant effort on my part.

I decided to volunteer for an endurance ride in April. I dug the camping equipment out from all of our packed belongings that the movers brought and went off for a weekend alone, in mid April, with a bunch of other horse people. It was the perfect retreat. I was off in the woods, freezing my ass off at night in a tent, but having a brilliant time.

I returned home feeling so much better. Plus I had finally gotten a date from the shippers for getting Gwyn. The end was finally in sight. I made a lot of new friends that weekend that have lasted me through to even now.




Source

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

Work has just been ridiculous lately. I've been effectively working full time hours to try and help the lab stay on track with all of the sample submissions since our supervisor left for a new job at the end of June. We FINALLY hired someone who started at the beginning of September to be our boss but training her has been a trick and a half.

Because this blog is public I really don't want to go into a lot of detail, but it is very frustrating on a professional level to have to train your boss in microbiological basics. And in Excel. And how to save. And the rules of how to name the files so everyone knows where and what everything is.

I've also been adding new skills to my repertoire including taking point on running a proficiency test that is required for the company to maintain certain certifications. We passed. Oh yeah, I'm amazing.

I started my October birthday month shenanigans on September 30 when I volunteered for the Metropark Express. Remember, going to ride in it, but I knew Gwyn and I would not be fit and that wasn't fair to either of us. So I volunteered to be the timer and that was plenty enjoyable! Not necessarily stress free, but it's a fun kind of stress when you're juggling riders coming in and riders going out. It's something I'm good at.

The start in the fog.

Kaylee and I decorated our mini pumpkins that we grew ourselves

On October 6 the Kindergarten and First grade classes all went to the zoo. I took the day off and chaperoned because why the fuck not? I was in charge of Kaylee and one other little girl from her class, A. We had a blast together.

On Saturday we finally relented and let Kaylee set up my old tent in the back yard. She was ADAMANT that she was going to sleep in it that night.

It provided great entertainment for both kids!

We went to the Enchanted Woodland at Seven Ponds Nature Center. In retrospect I picked too late of a time slot (reservation only) but both kids had fun, even if they were ready to crash by the end of the night.

Meeting the coyote

True to her word, Kaylee went to sleep in the tent all by herself. But then we had a tornado warning for the county and we grabbed her and brought her back inside for safety. She never woke up through the whole relocation. Thankfully she understood when she woke up in her bed the next morning and we explained what had happened.

That led to her saying we had a tomato warning. :'D

Hazel being mischevous at my work. I had to work both Saturday and Sunday. But I didn't let it stop me from my plans!

I wore Kaylee out.

I had the Hunter Pace on Sunday (I opted to skip the Hunter Trials on October 1st and go get hay instead since my wasp problem was finally cleaned out).  This upcoming weekend I'm going camping with Gwyn. I'll ride unoffically and volunteer for the endurance ride. I can't wait!

A day in pictures

Hazel wakes up before my alarm. She'll chatter a bit while I snooze, then its breakfast for her. I love these morning snuggles.

Happy baby while I take the morning constitutional.

Kaylee hasn't woken up yet, so time to go get her out of 'bed'.  

Then changing Hazel's diaper while Kaylee actually wakes up. 

Since her pajamas were wet from a minor diaper leak, it's new outfit time for Miss Hazel.

Kaylee hasn't really woken up.

Hazel gets playmat time while I finish getting ready. This includes figuring out what Kaylee will eat so she's not grumpy, getting Kaylee dressed, packing my lunch, packing Hazel's 'lunch' of breastmilk pumped from the day before, getting myself dressed and getting everyone out the door on time.

Contemplate picking today's outfit from the load of clean laundry waiting to be folded. Decide against it. Resolve to fold laundry after work.

Everyone is in the car!  I don't have a set start time on Fridays but I like to be out the door between 9 and 9:15.  The earlier I get to work, the earlier I can leave.

Space shirt! 

Hazel isn't asleep, she just doesn't like rain.

I top Hazel up and the kids are begging me to put her in the bouncer. Hazel is very popular. Everyone wants to play with her.

I decided to 'dress up' today.  An amber pendant necklace (with insects!) and some matching ish earrings. 

The drive takes about 50 minutes. Eric wants me to go to Costco on my way home to get cat food.

I'm at work! I drop my lunch bag in the freezer so it stays cold and head back.

Clock in!  I have to punch in a number, they do not have my fingerprint programmed in yet.

Immediate tasks: Plates that I innoculated yesterday are finally dry. They go in the bell jar with a candle to consume all the oxygen. The bell jar gets labled with the Lab ID and the date it gets taken out.

Then put into the incubator. All of those black plates? Those are all testing for Legionella. 

I can't get into the excel file where we log new samples yet (only one person can edit it at a time) so I decide to do some research on a funky bacteria I've seen every week on the floor sampling of the clean room. Turns out its Bacillus mycoides and it's a soil bacterium. This means a few things. 1. The current cleaning procedure is not sufficient 2. The current steps being taken to minimize contamination are not sufficient or not being followed. I bring this up to my lab manager and discuss it with the facility manager. I've seen this problem before. It was solved with SporGon and sterile mops. I feel awesome.

I also feel some letdown and check it out in the bathroom. Good thing I have spare breastpads because I forgot to put some in this morning and have suffered the consequences.

The lab log is finally usable so I log in the new samples and assign them IDs. Then I take two to work on. I will be in charge of following them through to completion and writing the report at the end. Here I've prepped for more Legionella analysis of water samples.

Then its lunch. As a part time employee I have 30 minutes of break. I spend 15 minutes eating and 15 minutes pumping. This company is good, they have a nice private space for me to do this that's not a bathroom. I browse reddit while I pump and try to think about Hazel cuddles for extra oxytocin boosts of milk.

Good boobs!  This goes into my freezer chilled lunch bag and I go back and finish the samples and get them set up. I was going to try and browse a lab supply company for some parts that we need but the network needed to be restarted so our computers had to be turned off. It was not back up by the time I left.

4 hours later... Time to go home.

And it's raining decently hard.

Greaaaat. I do stop at Costco and then head to pick up the girls. It only added about a half hour since I was only getting a few things. 

The video is loud, but I love her reaction when she recognizes me.

Then a short drive home and unloading the truck!

Hazel is pretty much ready for a nap and we snuggle a bit.

When I'm able to escape the tiny one, Kaylee gets some one on one and snacks. Eric comes home shortly after and gets glomped on by Kaylee.

Hazel wakes up and seems cold. I'm cold. So I bundle her up.

We demonstrate for Nana's facebook friends that the happy smiling baby isn't always happy and smiling. No babies were harmed in the taking of this picture. 

After I make myself dinner (Eric and I have decided that we're fending for ourselves) I take over Hazel duty. She's hungry so I get comfy on the couch.

Kaylee watches Episode VI 

Hazel takes another nap, much to my surprise. I am trapped.

I play some Clash of Clans. War is about to end so I need to get in my final attacks. Hazel wakes up and is still acting fussy and hungry so I get ready for bed and put her in more appropriate pajamas. Eric handles Kaylee. I'm pretty much in bed for the rest of the night and entertain myself with Hulu and Netflix. I'm watching early ANTM on Hulu and Criminal Minds on Netflix.

Once I'm able to escape I grab a snack and set up with the laptop to browse the internet and write this.  Hazel will likely fuss in an hour or so, I'll feed her then, try and move her to the crib and pass out myself.

Ta da. A day in the life.

Note: In the winter this day would include an evening barn visit to feed. There's no point to grain and I know they have plenty of fresh water, so horses were fairly hands off today.