New adventures
First off, for my friends who are going to embark on the parenting adventure later this year - good luck! I just found out that Rena and Dave are having a boy. Too bad they're clear across the country or we could lend them a bunch of stuff! :) Don't know what Karen and Paul are having - Paul wouldn't say last I heard. Oh well - we didn't know until Quinn was born so I think I can summon tha patience to wait!
Next, I have job news. First Eric - he officially gave his notice to CA on Monday and will be done next Friday. This nicely coincided with our planned trip to Chicago, so we coughed up the $100 change fee for his ticket and opted to stay the week instead of just the long weekend (my ticket was purchased with miles so no change fee - yay!). Once we get back (or perhaps while we're there?) he'll start his new job for a brand new company (so new that they're not incorporated yet as far as I know...hopefully soon because we'll need health insurance!) that a friend is starting. It was a big decision for him to take this leap and I know he's worried about it (heck, I'm worried about it!), but I know that he's going to have a much better time than he's been having at work lately. I'm very happy that he's decided to leave his current job. So the short term effects of all this are that he'll be working from home (and we're likely going to drive each other crazy.....) and pulling in less of a salary. So my attention to our finances is going to have to improve (not that it's bad now, but I need to be more on top of things).
Now for my job news. Pending the Standing Committee's acceptance of the Music Committee's proposal at their meeting tomorrow night, I will be stepping down from Music Committee and be hired as Choir Director come Sept. 1. I will only be signing a contract through the end of December because honestly, I have no idea if I really want to do this as a job. The salary is negligible, so the only thing driving this will be desire. But since I've not done this before, the only thing I can do is try! I'm actually conducting the choir this Sunday, so I'm already starting to learn on the job, as it were. I'm also trying to line up some conducting lessons over the summer, because from what I've read, you can really develop a lot of bad conducting habits right at the beginning, so it would be good to have someone to negate that effect. Anyway, it was sort of a spur of the moment decision (I didn't even consult Eric - I mean we talked about it, but I took the plunge without telling him) - if I do decide that I can keep doing this come 2006, I guess I'll have to negotiate with the Music Committee because there is absolutely no way I can go through the whole winter with no vacation (although if Eric is still working from home then maybe we can do all of our skiing midweek...oooooh). But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
Let's see, next is Quinn news. We went to the doctor today to get his rash checked out because it started to get oozy. So I learned that it is not uncommon for eczema to get infected and that we need yet a different kind of prescription cream to combat it. So now we have something else to try, but hopefully it will help. He said that it should start drying up within a few days, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. Otherwise the dermatologist will be our next stop. So anyway, tonight when I read through the directions, I discovered that it would be a good idea to cover the places with gauze after applying this new cream. Ok, so I search out the gauze pads (unfortunately we only have small ones, requiring two to cover the back of Quinn's knee) but can't find any tape. So I decide to use band-aids to affix the gauze to his leg. So picture me sitting in the floor of the bathroom trying to band-aid two little gauze pads to the leg of a squirmy 13-month-old, all the while trying to distract him from what I'm trying to do and trying to get him to stop emptying the contents of the trash can onto the floor! This was not a pretty picture! Well, once I got that done, it was time to get him ready for bed. Unfortunately he has recently wised up about the going to bed routine, so he does everything in his power to try to escape the changing table. And that's on a normal day. Today he's got this crazy gauze and band-aid thing on his leg, on top of a place that is itchy, so he used his usual scratch method of putting his right foot behind his left knee. This resulted in band-aids getting stuck to his right foot and gauze pads threatening to fall off at any moment. So I took him off the table, got everything back into place, and called my mom. What else do you do when you can't figure out what to do? Ask your mother. She suggested wrapping his leg in an ace bandage while I changed him so that way he couldn't get the gauze off. Well, I couldn't find an ace bandage, so I took a red bandanna off of Eric's dresser (why was it there? I have no clue!) and wrapped his leg in that! Since I am typing this now, you can tell that I was successful in getting Quinn all ready for bed, thank goodness! And I called Eric to tell him that he must go by big gauze pads and tape on his way home tonight, so hopefully tomorrow will be a lot easier than the craziness today.
Ok, last is happy homeowner news, which I guess is just a series of new adventures going on all the time! After doing a bit of research I have discovered that the nasty stinging weeds growing all over the place are, in fact, stinging nettles. And boy do they sting! I've been tackling them wearing long sleeves and leather gloves, though yesterday I made an error and picked up leather palmed gloves, as opposed to all leather and got a nasty sting on the back of my ring finger. It was still stinging hours later, which is unusual for me. Luckily I don't seem quite as affected as Eric, who claims that getting stung makes his whole arm feel numb. Anyway, I've cleared out a lot of it, and I think the rest we might be able to mow over the next time the tractor is out (then I can pull the roots up without having to avoid so much foliage. Bleh!
For another bit of happy homeowner stuff - we have some STUPID birds trying to live in our garage. Stupid because I don't think they can get in and out unless one of our garage doors is open. And very annoying because they are sh!tting everywhere! This started last week. I can't figure out if they've tried starting a nest in there or what, but they're certainly not making a mess in any one particular area (though that may be because they've been trapped in there a few times and have just been circling trying to get out). When I was growing up we always had a family of barn swallows living in our garage, but we didn't have garage doors so it was very easy for them to come and go (my parents always put down newspaper under their nest and trained us early not to touch it!). I love to have birds around, but our garage is really not a good place for them to live. Oh, and a totally unrelated tidbit - we also have ants running amok in the kitchen. Ahh, the joys of owning a home.