We Now Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging

My blog is back and chances are I won't be blogging any more often than I used to. I think of stuff to blog all the time, but when I sit down to post, I find I have absolutely nothing to say. Like right now for instance... I suppose I should pretend to bring everyone up to date.

Since my last post:

We are no longer living out of boxes. YAY! In fact, just the other day I cleared out and reorganized the storage under the stairs. The stuff that previously filled the entire storage space, is now taking up only a small fraction of that. The rest of this newly discovered space is going to start filling up with canned food and other things which we never had space for before. In addition to that, a few weeks ago when the O's were in town for the baby blessing, we finally got the ceiling fans installed. It was about twenty times more work than I was expecting but it was well worth it. The fans look great and of course it's nice to have them for all the fanning-type stuff they do. We also replaced a lot of the lighting fixtures, found a place for everything, and just generally made our house into a home. There are a few things left to do around the house, like finish painting, but I don't know when we'll get around to that, and I don't much care. The house, as it stands now, is awesome. It actually feels more like home than our first apartment did, which is saying a LOT since our first apartment was... well.. our first apartment. If it weren't for Duke we'd probably still be there. Strange how life has a way of kicking you out of your comfort zone. In my experience it's always been for the better so I have nothing to complain about.

Another piece of old news; the promotion I posted about almost a year ago--I got it. Not that time around but on my next time applying. I don't enjoy my job as much as I used to, but that has nothing to do with the promotion and everything to do with the degradation of the work environment due mostly to the gross mismanagement of anything and everything at the hands of our MBA-toting overlords. I feel a Dilbert strip is needed here to fully illustrate my point:

On the other hand, they just lined our pockets with big fat bonuses and respectable raises, so the plans for a coup d’état have been placed on hold...for the time being.

Alice is big news too. HUGE news actually. She's easily the awesome'nest piece of baby that I ever saw. I love her to tiny little pieces (which isn't hard since shes made of tiny little pieces). Carolyn being at home is really great too. We definitely miss having the extra paycheck. Unfortunately, living on my income alone is something that we're not quite prepared to do. But, if everything goes as planned, we should be in a position to do just that in a few months. We've been budgeting our money pretty strictly without killing ourselves over it, and I think it's been a raging success. And by that I mean we've managed to cut our monthly spending by well over a thousand dollars. Which wasn't too hard when you consider the way we were throwing money around before that. But back on topic; Having Carolyn at home is really great. The house is cleaned, the baby is loved, food is cooked, It's just a really nice arrangement.

Working full-time and going to school full time is really starting to wear me down. I think my survival instincts have kicked in at this point and neither my work nor my studies are getting the attention they deserve. I haven't decided what to do about that yet. I think the one thing I have decided is that I will not be taking as many classes in the future. There's a point where you've worked so consistently, for so long, that you start to loose your sanity and your perception of time looses all definition. I have long since passed that point, and I am learning some things about myself in the process. I don't handle stress well, but I also don't handle stress badly. Instead, I just don't handle stress. When I get stressed, I somehow subconsciously prioritize everything that's stressing me out, and then I just drop everything that doesn't fit my schedule. sometimes important stuff gets bumped off my list, but it doesn't matter because I've prepared myself for those consequences and I take it all in stride. That's not to say I don't get stressed or that it doesn't wear me down, but that is the way that I deal with it. I think I'd loose my mind if I didn't.

It's ridiculously late now. I'll post again in a few months ;) Maybe I'll have managed to regain some of my sanity by then.