Moving forward

I'm happy to report that since my last blog post, DH is back at work. The whole debacle was really ridiculous, but I'm glad things got sorted out. He did miss out on an opportunity while he was on forced leave, which really sucks, and really wasn't fair, but at the end of the day, he's employed and that's what matters, we'll go from there.

After this whole job thing, we've been taking a much closer look at our budgeting and our plans for the future. We want to have a second child, but it would mean another 3 years of daycare costs and little breathing room. We're trying to decide whether we just suck it up and live with the tight budget, or sell our house and move in to something cheaper that would give us more flexibility. It's a tough decision, as I love where we are now, but I'd also like to be able to worry less about the financial aspects of life. Ideally, we need to make a decision before DD starts school in 2016, so we have some time, and no baby #2 would be in daycare before DD was out. 2 kids in full time daycare? Nope!

Anyway, just wanted to post a brief update to my last post. Things are a lot less stressful at the moment, which is really really nice.

Rough couple of weeks

We're waiting to hear on whether or not my husband will keep his job. I won't go in to the details of why his job is in question, but suffice it to say that the last week and a bit has been super stressful, and waiting to find out what happens is really hard. We should hopefully hear by the end of this week, as it stands DH is at home, fortunately with pay. This could go either way. I'm praying he gets to keep his job so that we don't have to move, because without his income, there is no way we can stay here. I am getting ahead of myself though.

I'm home from work today, as DD woke up with a fever, and I stayed home with her even though DH is home because a) I'm super stressed, and b) nothing was going on at work anyway, which also stresses me out. Oh, and my kid being sick, that stresses me out too.

I'm really terrible at waiting for outcomes, I wish this would just happen faster so we can move on and figure out what's next.

My daughter is 2!

I haven't posted on this blog in a really long time. Probably in just about a year. So many great things have happened in my life since then, and it feels good to be able to write that.

When I finished my maternity leave, I had no job to go back to. It left me feeling pretty scared and depressed. In a few other posts on this blog I went through how I got to the current job I'm in, so I won't repeat it all, I'll just say that I'm still in the last job I ended up with, and I'm loving it.

I worked from home contracting to this employer for about 6 months, at which time the company was growing, so much so that they bought an office and have moved some of the staff into it. I was one of them. The new office is only 3.5 kilometers from my house, and I'm happy to be back working in an office. Also, I'm no longer a contractor, I was hired on as a FULL TIME EMPLOYEE in January. This was such amazing news for us, as I really prefer full time work to contract, and I've always wanted to be able to walk or bike to work in the warmer months and now I can! I started biking/running/walking in the fall and it was amazing, I just need this horrible winter to leave so I can do it again. The new location is also great, because my running buddy works two doors down from me, and we have a nature trail that starts right beside the buildings that we run in at lunch in the summer.

Enough about that, now for the really really good stuff! My daughter just turned 2!! We joke around that technically she isn't even 1 yet because she's a leap day baby... and oh only if I could turn back time some days, she's growing so fast, but nope.... SHE'S 2!

We had a party for her on Saturday, and she knew it was her day. My parents got her an outfit with a Tutu skirt and she was so proud to wear it. Whenever someone came in the door, she'd put her little belly out and point at herself saying "me". haha She was so excited and in such a great mood all weekend. She received many great gifts from family and friends, and T and I got her a plasma car. I can't wait for winter to end so that we can get outside with her again. I miss the park, the sun, the splash pad... and I know all of that is going to be even more fun this year since she's actually old enough to do more outdoors.

I just love my baby girl to pieces, and her turning two definitely invoked some mixed feelings. I'm definitely excited that she's growing, but also a part of me can't help but feel a little sad that she's growing so quickly. But I'm more happy than anything. She's a bubbly girl, she's strong and she's full of life and character. She surprises us every day with new things she's learned, or that epic 2 year old tantrum every now and again. haha She brings joy everywhere she goes. She is just amazing.

Here she is, my smart and beautiful 2 year old!

Also, this is a picture of A's cake. I have to put this in here, because I made it entirely myself. I've never done anything like this before, but saw a tutorial online for making a cake transfer on wax paper with buttercream icing. It worked out amazing! I'm so impressed with myself! haha A absolutely loved her cake (as she is obsessed with Dora). She didn't like the singing, or the candles, or dark though... my bad, we probably shouldn't have turned the lights off, it just scared her, and she's already shy to begin with, so the bunch of people all singing at once in the dark... BUT Dora saved the day. :)

Working from home is weird

I started my new job on Monday. Got my home office all set up, new desk, new chair. I went to my work's 'headquarters' (which is the CEO's house), did a couple hours of training, then I went home. I've been home since, and today is the first day I've heard any word from them. They sent me home Monday and just told me to poke around in their files for a bit and familiarize myself... So I've been doing that all week thinking.... Is this a real job? Is anyone going to email me and give me something else to do? haha

This is definitely an adjustment. It's a positive one, but I'm just used to the boss-breathing-down-your-neck approach... so not having that is just a very weird feeling.

I don't really know what my job is exactly. I was hired to work in rapid development, but they decided not to pursue the client they were going after, so now I won't be doing that — at least not right away.

Oh well, I really can't complain. It's weird, but it's also awesome. DD's daycare is across the street! I'm in heaven.

Except of course when I leave her in the morning and she has a full on "mommy don't leave me" fit... But by the end of the day she forgets all about it.

Ashley Pants Bananas!

It has been a while since I've done an Ashley update, so here goes!

Ashley is amazing. Plain and simple. She is everything that is awesome in life all rolled up in to a squishable, kissable, huggable little package. She's 14 months old, and she is just the world. Our days are filled with laughter, even when we're exhausted, because she's just such a character, and her personality... she is just so cute! AhhhHHH!!!! :)

She's been walking since she was about 10.5 months old. We took her to San Francisco somewhere around 10 months, and when we got back, she must have been happy to see her home and her floors that she could run around on, because she got right to it. :) Travelling with her was great! We weren't sure how it would play out... long plane ride, 4 hour layover after missing our connection, but she did great through it all! She even adjusted to the time change. :)

She's been saying mama and dada for a while, but right now everything is "Ya!!!!!!!!!" Ashley, would you like a yogurt tube? YA!!!!!!!! Want a bath? YA!!!!!!!! Should mommy eat this chocolate covered decadent thing that will make her fat? YA!!!!!! Ya???? YA!!!!! hahaha At least she's not saying no? She also quacks like a duck, oinks like a pig, meows like a cat, and we think she says cat, dog, all done, thank you, and a bunch of mumbly stuff we can't understand yet. She doesn't need words most of the time, she's pretty good at communicating what she does and doesn't want.

With the nice weather we're having, she wants to live outside. I like that. I also want to live outside. We may attempt a one-nighter of camping at the end of this summer to see how she does.

Okay, on to the pictures!! :) They're in whatever order blogger plugs them in, because I only have a bit of time to do this, lol

Fish face!! I have a book that we read that has a fish in it. Every time I point to the fish, she looks up at me because she knows I'm going to make the fish face. Her favorite face to imitate other than scrunch face.

 This is from today. We had a picnic in the park since it was so nice out.. She LOVED it.

Ashley in her dress that I made her that is made with yarn that is way too thick for summer. :( Hopefully there will be a cooler day here and there before she grows out of it, since apparently it is summer here right now.

 

 Yogurt face. Enough said.

This is Ashley on her first birthday. I'm disappointed that I didn't get more pictures of this day. If I look like crap in this photo, it's because Murphy's law says that I have to get my first kidney stone ever on my daughter's first birthday. I made it through her birthday party (which was AWESOME), and then went to emergency where I promptly given an injection of morphine and an IV drip... and wouldn't you know, the next day, the stone was gone. GRRRRRRRR!!!!! But all in all, it was still a good party for what I could remember through the pain. hahaha

They grow up so fast... driving already.... :) She loves this little car. I used to take her to park on it every day, until one day she didn't want to leave the park, or get on the car to go home, so I had to carry her and push the car. We go to the park in the stroller now so that if she decides to have a tantrum, I don't have to carry her all the way home!

 

 

At the park showing off her sweater. When something is this much of a pain in the ** to knit, you better bet she's going to wear it out the minute I finish it!! lol

 

St Patty's day :)

 

 Her smiles are amazing.

 

She is just so much fun!!!

 

Surprisingly, she doesn't eat the sand. :)

I'm a lucky duck!

So after my last post about my job, or lack thereof, I have some much brighter news. I am starting a new job tomorrow. It has two really great things going for it! One, is that it is a job in e-learning, which I've been doing for a while and love! And two, and the best part of it by far is that it is WORK FROM HOME! :) The company has 18 employees, all of which work at home. They don't have an office, their headquarters is the CEO's house, and that's just how they roll.

I really hope this works out, because how perfect would this job be? No commute, I can walk Ashley to daycare ACROSS THE STREET! I'm in heaven just thinking about how much easier this will be than when I was working downtown, and Ash's daycare was halfway across the city.

Tomorrow is a big day. New job, new daycare, newish career direction.

I'm pretty happy right about now.

The job situation (formerly named "Where do I begin?"

I've been a terrible blogger. I can't believe so much time has gone by since my last post. I don't even know where to begin with updating, but I guess I can start with what has been some of the biggest challenges I'm facing so far as a person and as a parent.

On February 13th (give or take a day), I went back to work. I applied for a senior graphic design position with an Advertising firm, and after jumping through many hoops, I got the job. The catch was that the employer actually hired two people (myself and another guy) for the same position (although he kept us both on freelance terms, so not actual employees), but didn't guarantee a position to either of us. He basically had us competing against each other, and there was no competition from the get-go, I was never given a chance to show what I could do, the other guy was. From the day I started there, the other guy was working on actual design projects, I was given production work (aka: plopping text in documents that were already designed). The entire time I was there, that is all I did, so at the end of it all, there was no opportunity for me to really 'shine', I never designed anything.

Last Friday I was "laid off" due to lack of work. Work had slowed and I knew the end was coming, however, the real reason I was "laid off" was because there never was a possibility for me to be hired. As I was packing up my things the morning he laid me off, he basically accidentally revealed that he had no intentions of truly hiring me in the first place, he just needed someone to do production work while they were busy.

Though I could sit here and say that going to work for this a-hole was a gigantic waste of time, it really wasn't. He's a douche for 'leading me on', he could have just told me that there was no chance for a position, but that he wanted me to work contract, and I would have been fine with that, and not been hopeful... but I digress. I choose to look at the POSITIVE side of having gone back to work.

Being off for a whole year with my daughter was wonderful, and having to go back to work was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. The first two weeks of leaving my daughter in daycare (even though she was in a wonderful daycare with my aunt), I bawled my eyes out EVERY SINGLE DAY after I got her home and she went to bed. The hours of this job were crappy, and we only have one car. I wasn't getting home until 6, and DD goes to bed at 7. I was seeing my baby 1 hour + the car ride to work in the morning, when DH would drive around the whole city dropping everybody off (our daycare was across the city) just so that I could spend time with her. I felt like a horrible mother, a horrible person.... the whole experience was just HORRIBLE.... BUT...

As time wore on, things got better, I adapted, we all adjusted in to a schedule, DD was super happy at daycare, and thriving.. doing so well.

Now that I'm home again, I still can't escape a mother's guilt. Now that DD is home with me all day and we can't afford to even put her in daycare part time (because she really loves her daycare friends), I feel bad because all she has all day is me, and I know she must miss her little friends. I feel like her being with me will impede all the learning that she was doing with the other daycare children. I teach her, and I bring her to the park, and I try to give her all the things she got at daycare, but it's hard to find other children for her to play with. We have a really shoddy bus system where I live that only runs at peak hours, and we only have one car which DH takes to work because he works pretty far from where we live. I'd love to find a playgroup somewhere to take DD to a few times a week just so she can play with other children.

The other thing that I feel guilty about is being depressed around DD. I'm not happy about the job situation, but what is worse is that I have a great resume and portfolio, and I've applied to a million jobs and am getting nowhere. I only lost the job I had last Friday, but I've been job searching since January. I'm not trying to 'toot my own horn' here, but it's never taken me this long to find a job... EVER. My industry is in the toilet right now though, and everything is contract. If I try to work for myself, I just don't know if I can make enough money. If I take on jobs that I need day-time hours to work on, that means I'd have to put DD in daycare, but I can't work while she's running around, and that means that I need to make at least enough to pay for said daycare, and in general the whole working for myself thing just scares the living daylights out of me.

That being said, as I continue to job search, I'm thinking more and more of what my backup plan is going to be if I just can't find anything in my field. Do I go work at the grocery store evenings and weekends so I can care for DD during the day and never see my husband again? Do we sell our house and move in to something cheaper so that we can live off of one income and I do... ????? Do I attempt to start a home day-care so that I can care for DD and make a living at least until DD goes to school, then go back to school in three years to either update all the skills for my industry (which will hopefully be in a better state in 3 years), or change careers altogether (even though I have no idea what else I would do)? Maybe I stick with doing part-time contracts in the evening/weekends and hope to hell that I can drum up enough business to keep us afloat?

Though I have some faith that I will find something, or some solution eventually, living in limbo is hard. I was well-adjusted to being at work again. The initial was crappy, but by the end of it, I had the hang of it. I know that it will all work out again, but I'm in a mourning period... One that has continued since I was laid off from my job before my parental leave. I still miss that job, it was so perfect, and now I'm back to dealing with the horse poop that is job searching in a very tough job market.

Okay, so I've gone on and on about this job thing. Wow. I'm sorry, but I guess I really had/have a lot on my mind about it. I hate to sound all 'woe is me', and I hate that I use the word 'hate', and that I'm so negative when I'm trying to be positive. This is definitely not the best version of myself, and I am really glad that DD is young enough not to understand any of it. I am as happy as I can possibly be with her, and she reminds me every day of why the things in life are worth fighting for.

ETA: Since this post became all about my crappy job situation (or lack thereof), I have aptly named it so that I can put all the happy things with happy pictures of my beautiful girl in a happy post. :)