Has it really been 10 days since I last posted?
Geez. December is absolutely flying by! I miss my LJ girls. In case no one has noticed a pattern, I tend to disappear for a week at the end of a month/beginning of the next month due to the chaos I go through in my job to financially close out each month. I hate when I get out of touch! Although from the looks of it, everyone must be getting pretty crazy with the holidays, because I'm only a few pages behind on my friends page instead of the usual 10+ pages of posts that I miss during financial close. Anyway...enough rambling. A whole bunch of totally random updates:
- I've received several beautiful Christmas cards from my LJ buddies. Thank you!!! Yours will be on the way very soon. :) I have 165 cards to send and not one written - this is so unlike me. I'm looking forward to cuddling up tonight with my Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD and getting to work!
- As of the Educational Psychology exam I completed today at noon, I am finished with Semester 2 of my MLIS program! It feels sooooo good. I honestly love my classes and am still so psyched about a career in school librarianship, but it is much harder than I anticipated trying to balance grad school, working full-time and being pregnant along with all of my household and social obligations. It is so nice that tonight I have NOTHING else to do except write Christmas cards.
- We already have our reading list for my next semester's Young Adult resources class, and I have 10 books to read before January 9th, so I can't totally put school out of my mind for the next few weeks. Luckily they are all young adult books ( =easy reading), and I've already read several (The Outsiders, Catcher in the Rye, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants...) It should be a super fun class, but I am a tad nervous about getting behind when Noelle is born. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!
- I received another totally unexpected $1500 award at work the other day. I think they are trying to boost my ego to get me to come back quickly after maternity leave. ;o) Again, I was so touched by the way they presented the award, and all of the extraordinarily nice things that all of these executives had to say about my work. I sent them all a thank-you for taking the time and effort to reward me, and I got this e-mail back from one of the Macy's project executives:
Lauren, you are ever so welcome. You need to understand, it is I that admire you. Your dedication, knowledge and financial expertise has greatly helped me personally grow as well. You need to understand how much we appreciate all you do and when we can have IBM support us enabling us to provide monetary awards to our leaders - it is rewarding to all! Thank you for everything you do!"
I thought that was particularly meaningful coming from someone who's been with the company for 20+ years and who makes more in her Christmas bonus than I do all year...I mean, to say she has grown because of peon me. It's touching too, because Andy is so proud of me. With both awards, he called his whole family and I could hear him bragging about me on the phone to them. Overall these awards have been good on both our bank account and my self-esteem.
- I had my 30 week OB appt yesterday and my doctor told me I am "batting 1000." Such a relief after my last 13 lb weight-gain disaster. I only gained 2 lbs, my blood pressure was 110/62, Noelle's heartbeat was strong at 156 bpm, and the measurement of my belly was right on for how far along I am. He was pleased. I am still feeling well, but carrying around the extra weight and swelling is starting to wear on my energy. It's tough getting in and out of bed and up from a seated position and in the mornings my hands are so swollen I can't even use a pen and can barely open a door knob. Still, I can say I am loving being pregnant. I'm starting to think about how excited I will be to have Noelle here, but how much I will miss having her growing and moving inside me. It really got me thinking when I was looking at the pictures of oh so handsome Miles, Oliver and Linus! Pam's babies are only a month or so "older" than Noelle so I figure that this little creature in my belly actually looks like a real baby by now! Craziness. Maybe that sounds really stupid....
- I took about 5 things from my shower back to Babies R Us and got a 65$ credit! Yippee. I think everyone gave me either a pack of washclothes or a baby blanket of some kind with their shower gifts and I felt like I would be able to bathe and swaddle every baby in Pennsylvania. We are running out tonight with my 15% off coupon to get the crib mattress, which should barely cost us $50 with the credit. One more major item I can cross of my list.
- Christmas is here! How did that happen! Andy and I have something every single evening from now until December 22nd when we leave to spend Christmas with my family in Ocean City, Maryland. Sunday I am hosting a cookie exchange for 20 women that I am really looking forward to. Our house is teeny tiny, so I don't know where everyone and their cookies are going to fit, but I love having guests over during the holidays, because our house is the perfect winter house. It has such a ski lodge / chalet feel. I couldn't get a picture that wasn't blurry and still showed the lights of the tree, but wouldn't you just love to curl up w some cocoa and Christmas cookies by a fire in this room? I think it's the stone floors, pine paneling and 18 ft fireplace...
Okay...I think that's it??? Not sure??? I am off to catch-up with all of you!!!!
- I've received several beautiful Christmas cards from my LJ buddies. Thank you!!! Yours will be on the way very soon. :) I have 165 cards to send and not one written - this is so unlike me. I'm looking forward to cuddling up tonight with my Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD and getting to work!
- As of the Educational Psychology exam I completed today at noon, I am finished with Semester 2 of my MLIS program! It feels sooooo good. I honestly love my classes and am still so psyched about a career in school librarianship, but it is much harder than I anticipated trying to balance grad school, working full-time and being pregnant along with all of my household and social obligations. It is so nice that tonight I have NOTHING else to do except write Christmas cards.
- We already have our reading list for my next semester's Young Adult resources class, and I have 10 books to read before January 9th, so I can't totally put school out of my mind for the next few weeks. Luckily they are all young adult books ( =easy reading), and I've already read several (The Outsiders, Catcher in the Rye, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants...) It should be a super fun class, but I am a tad nervous about getting behind when Noelle is born. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!
- I received another totally unexpected $1500 award at work the other day. I think they are trying to boost my ego to get me to come back quickly after maternity leave. ;o) Again, I was so touched by the way they presented the award, and all of the extraordinarily nice things that all of these executives had to say about my work. I sent them all a thank-you for taking the time and effort to reward me, and I got this e-mail back from one of the Macy's project executives:
Lauren, you are ever so welcome. You need to understand, it is I that admire you. Your dedication, knowledge and financial expertise has greatly helped me personally grow as well. You need to understand how much we appreciate all you do and when we can have IBM support us enabling us to provide monetary awards to our leaders - it is rewarding to all! Thank you for everything you do!"
I thought that was particularly meaningful coming from someone who's been with the company for 20+ years and who makes more in her Christmas bonus than I do all year...I mean, to say she has grown because of peon me. It's touching too, because Andy is so proud of me. With both awards, he called his whole family and I could hear him bragging about me on the phone to them. Overall these awards have been good on both our bank account and my self-esteem.
- I had my 30 week OB appt yesterday and my doctor told me I am "batting 1000." Such a relief after my last 13 lb weight-gain disaster. I only gained 2 lbs, my blood pressure was 110/62, Noelle's heartbeat was strong at 156 bpm, and the measurement of my belly was right on for how far along I am. He was pleased. I am still feeling well, but carrying around the extra weight and swelling is starting to wear on my energy. It's tough getting in and out of bed and up from a seated position and in the mornings my hands are so swollen I can't even use a pen and can barely open a door knob. Still, I can say I am loving being pregnant. I'm starting to think about how excited I will be to have Noelle here, but how much I will miss having her growing and moving inside me. It really got me thinking when I was looking at the pictures of oh so handsome Miles, Oliver and Linus! Pam's babies are only a month or so "older" than Noelle so I figure that this little creature in my belly actually looks like a real baby by now! Craziness. Maybe that sounds really stupid....
- I took about 5 things from my shower back to Babies R Us and got a 65$ credit! Yippee. I think everyone gave me either a pack of washclothes or a baby blanket of some kind with their shower gifts and I felt like I would be able to bathe and swaddle every baby in Pennsylvania. We are running out tonight with my 15% off coupon to get the crib mattress, which should barely cost us $50 with the credit. One more major item I can cross of my list.
- Christmas is here! How did that happen! Andy and I have something every single evening from now until December 22nd when we leave to spend Christmas with my family in Ocean City, Maryland. Sunday I am hosting a cookie exchange for 20 women that I am really looking forward to. Our house is teeny tiny, so I don't know where everyone and their cookies are going to fit, but I love having guests over during the holidays, because our house is the perfect winter house. It has such a ski lodge / chalet feel. I couldn't get a picture that wasn't blurry and still showed the lights of the tree, but wouldn't you just love to curl up w some cocoa and Christmas cookies by a fire in this room? I think it's the stone floors, pine paneling and 18 ft fireplace...
Okay...I think that's it??? Not sure??? I am off to catch-up with all of you!!!!