Scribbles in the Dark

After a period of several months in which my normal work has been at an all-time low - days on end of doing mostly office paperwork and very few actual client projects to work on - my boss called me into his office last Friday and handed me a whole new set of responsibilities, and I am suddenly incredibly busy. It's a nice change, and very exciting - I feel challenged again, instead of feeling like my skills are being wasted on something a reasonably attentive high school student could do part-time.

The new work is something that was previously the sole responsibility of one of my co-workers - but he handles way more than any one person should, so I'm lightening his load considerably by taking this on. I'll be handling between a quarter to a half of his work - it depends on the week, really, and what projects we have running at any given time. Even at full capacity it shouldn't take up all day every day for me, so I'll still be doing some of the same projects I have been until now - but these new responsibilities are my priority from now on. At the moment I'm still learning the ropes - I have some limited experience with this kind of task from my last job, and more familiarity by exposure with the work I've been doing for my company in the past few years, but it's one thing to be peripherally aware of something and another to be the primary person responsible for it. So I have a few weeks of getting up to speed before they'll cut me loose. Day one was pretty easy, day two was busier but not very complex, and now day three has been a total avalanche of new work! Some things that came up today are things we've never even done before as a company, and instead of taking the reigns and guiding me through it, they left it to me to make the first drafts! It's intimidating, but I'm already loving it!

by Edna St. Vincent Milay

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.

so i'm a parent now, and it's time to retire my trusty little pick-up truck (which loyally took me all over texas and once to north carolina) and get a car with a back seat for sam's carseat and interior storage for his stroller. i really love driving stick in my truck, so my only other starting requirement was to get something with a manual transmission in it.

i thought about getting a full-cab truck at first, but i do need that inside storage space for the stroller if nothing else. my second thought was to get a hatchback - which is very different than a truck, i admit, but they have roomy rear storage and i think they're super cute. they also get far better gas mileage than trucks, which are built for hauling heavy loads, something i don't need to do much of now that we've bought a house and are no longer moving our entire household every year or so.

i looked at some hatchbacks and really liked the mazda 3, but then i started contemplating crossovers as well - a crossover is higher off the ground like a truck and has more seating and storage than a hatchback. the mazda cx-5/-7/-9 all look pretty great, imho, and there are some other crossovers i like the look of as well as the mazdas, and i found some on carmax that were in our price-range too. but then, before i got a chance to test-drive anything, we had a conversation with my dad-in-law about car-shopping, and he urged us to get a minivan.

a minivan.

kill me now.

my dear hubby, of course, bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, and he's now pushing me towards a minivan as well. so i did some research. beyond the sliding doors (which i hate for multiple reasons), it might seem to the casual observer (me) that crossovers and minivans are very comparable vehicles. this turns out to be true in some cases but not in others. minivans and crossovers have roughly equivalent gas mileage - a criterion i'm very conscious of, though it's not a deal-breaker for me. but they differ in a lot of other ways:

-minivans are lower and closer to the ground than crossovers, for ease of loading both children and stuff, and for being limited by curbs wherever you go
-minivans typically have more legroom, and often have one more seat than crossovers
-minivans have somewhere between 1.5x to 2x the maximum storage volume of crossovers (75cuft to 100cuft in crossovers, compared to a typical 150cuft in minivans, as measured when all the rear seats are down); i'm not sure why that is, but i'd guess it's due to the full-size rear-end of minivans that i personally think is ugly
-minivans flat-out do not have manual transmission as an option
-crossovers typically have better traction than minivans, since they typically come with all-wheel-drive, being therefore slightly safer in poor weather conditions

so if i'm getting a vehicle that makes the most sense for our lifestyle, given the fact that we're planning to have at least one more kid and i want to foster as well, then the minivan is clearly the most sensible choice.

the trouble is, i think minivans are ugly, and they don't come with manual transmissions, aka they aren't as fun for me to drive. on top of all that: sliding doors. do not even get me started.

so do i get a vehicle that i don't like - not just that it isn't my favorite, but i actively do not like them - just because it is the most logical choice for my future needs? i feel like if i do, i will hate myself every time i drive it, even when it's being as useful and practical as advertised. is there room for compromise here?

didn't want to lose these links, since i don't have time to do the survey right now:

http://science.time.com/2013/10/22/the-united-states-of-attitude-an-interactive-guide-to-americas-moods/

http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/

~

http://keranews.org/post/dallas-houston-just-90-minutes-bullet-train-could-make-reality
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/09/politics-high-speed-rail/
http://www.texastribune.org/2012/12/03/tolling-texans-impact-trans-texas-corridor-lingers/

http://www.upworthy.com/see-why-we-have-an-absolutely-ridiculous-standard-of-beauty-in-just-37-seconds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cara-paiuk/the-things-they-really-dont-tell-you-when-you-have-a-baby_b_4124262.html

~

ETA 2013.11.17 - http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinabarca/skills-your-grandparents-had-that-you-dont

Dear Everyone Who Is Hounding Me About Unimportant Shit:
(Yes, dear aunties, this includes you.)

I am:

a) nine months pregnant, with all the physical exhaustion and discomfort that entails.

b) dealing with all the last-minute planning and details that are part of being nine months pregnant.

c) two days and counting of being the last one out of the office after a twelve-hour work day.

I'm sorry that I haven't met whatever expectations you have for proper behavior or things you think I ought to be doing or spending money on right now. But frankly, I have no more fucks to give. There are only so many days in a row I can put off things like buying groceries or washing my clothes or (not that this is important) calling my health insurance provider to find out how exactly to add my future child to our insurance plan if he is without a Social Security Number. (Thank you, U.S. legislature, for making my life just that teensie bit more complicated.)

So yes, I'm sorry that I didn't hand-wash my glass when the break room dish washer was running last night. I'm sorry I haven't yet written and mailed thank-you cards for all the gifts I got at my baby shower three weeks ago. I'm sorry I'm not dressed up to your standards because my size-too-big flip flops are the only shoes I own that still fit my feet. I'm sorry for whatever other things I have done or not done that may offend your sensibilities.

Go build a bridge and get the fuck over it.

Sincerely,

~J

http://www.ssa.gov/shutdown/

If my baby is born while the U.S. Government shutdown is still on-going, the Social Security office will not be able to issue a Social Security number and card for him at birth. Without a SSN, we can't put him on our health insurance. Not to mention things like getting a pediatrician or registering for day care.

WHAT THE SHIT, GOVERNMENT, GET YOUR FUCKING ACT TOGETHER.

through a mutiny last night of body and/or brain, i woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep until sometime after 5am. i am tired. so very tired. D:

upside of having amazing friends: had a wonderful baby shower and took home tons of adorable baby clothes and other swag

downside of baby shower: so many new baby clothes, blankets, pacifiers, bottles, etc to wash...

my belly button says hi.

found on pinterest:

I'm not dead!!!! I've just been reading a lot of fan fiction lately... <<---this!

except for me it's more like, "sorry fanfic, i'm not dead, i'm just having a baby!!"