Missing

I'm starting to miss work, which is totally unexpected.  I'm starting to think of ways I could have done my job differently, or how I could have improved.  These are things I could never see as I was in the middle of it, day by day, but now that it's all over, I can see how I could have been better, and part of me wants to go back, wants a second chance.

I'm missing people mostly.  I miss my coworkers.  I miss driving to work with Kathy, and having cake for birthdays.  I miss Diane's weekend stories every Monday morning, and talking to Julie and Tamme. I miss asking Tori's opinion and having Caryn come in to my office.  I miss talking to Angela about my clients. I miss being downtown.  I miss going to City Creek and Gateway for lunch.  I miss lunches at the COB with The Hawaiian Haystack Thursday gang. I miss Relief Society with Emily. I miss hanging out at Apricot with Laura. I miss window shopping.  I miss putting on nice clothes and wearing heels every day.  I miss knowing everything that's going on in the city.  I miss the excitement of Outdoor Retailers.

I love Eliza and there is no part of me that would give her up to do any of those old things, even at 4:00 in the morning.  But right now I'm wishing I lived closer to downtown so it was easier to capture those old things.  I wish I could run away to Laura's for an evening of TV together.  I wish I could do lunch with Cary and Kathy and Allison at City Creek.  I miss my old friends and lately it's been harder to be so far away and in such a different spot in life.

My New Job

The decision to leave work and be a stay at home mom was both the easiest decision I have ever made and the most difficult one.  We considered every option, every possibility, money, the commute, daycare, insurance, everything.  If I had been in this position ten years ago I wouldn't have wanted to stay home with my kids. Ten years ago I wanted to be a career woman, I wanted the job and the office and the travel.  I guess getting all of that changed my perspective, and somehow having the job, the office, the travel made me just want family, kids, and to stay home and watch them grow.  But even knowing before I ever got pregnant that I wanted to stay home, once the dream of kids became a reality I still had to make the decision, weigh the factors.  Could I really stay home with my baby girl, or was it just a dream?  

Shawn and I talked over everything, and the biggest negative was definitely the money.  Shawn is in school and will graduate in a year, which will hopefully mean more money.  Could we afford to have me stay home and not bring in any money for a year?  The truth is, at some point I may need to go back to work part time, so the first thing I did was discuss that possibility with my boss.  But, ultimately, what I really would want would be a flexible schedule so I can work when Shawn is home and not have to put Eliza in daycare at all.  And even if a part time position was available, it would mean I would still have the commute, which was one of the biggest negatives about my job.  And let's just be honest here, I didn't exactly love my job, and that's probably one of the biggest factors.  If I loved my job I might be more inclined to go back to work for a year.  I loved the people I worked with, and there were aspects of my job that were really great and fun, but ultimately it wasn't for me and it was getting harder and harder to stay motivated.  I just couldn't see myself dropping off my precious baby in daycare and driving for an hour each way to go to a job I basically dreaded.  But, I was also worried about how I would do NOT working.  I've had a job since I was in highschool, is there some part of me that needs to work?  It's only been two months, and the first two weeks before Eliza came I did get pretty stir crazy in the house, but I love being home with her.  I look forward to a time when I can do a bit more like making dinner and cleaning, so far Eliza is pretty demanding of my time and attention.  (It's taken me a week to write this blog post.)  But I do definitely need some adult interaction, and have started to find my network of fellow stay at home moms to get together with.  

I had a few people tell me to not even think about making the decision until Eliza arrived, to just wait until I was on maternity leave and then decide if I wanted to go back.  So, I researched that possibility and discussed with my HR what it would mean if I didn't come back while I was on maternity leave, and basically, that's a really expensive option.  Sure, you get paid and have insurance for those weeks, but if you decide not to go back, you get to pay back that insurance and most of the salary, so I knew I had to make a decision upfront.  I thought about going back for a short period of time, but then it was the finding the daycare again and the commute and the leaving my baby, so I decided that was also not an option, even if it was temporary.  

I agonized for weeks, months over the decision.  Then once I had made up my mind I agonized over when to inform my boss.  We were going through redeployment at work, and what I decided and when I announced my decision would effect other people. I didn't want to announce too soon and have them let me go before I was ready.  And waiting to tell work made me keep reassessing my decision.  So, I waited until about a month before I was supposed to go on "maternity leave" and then my boss came to me and asked what my plans were for maternity leave and even though I hadn't mentally prepared to have the discussion right then, I told him, I'm not coming back.  And at that moment I was liberated.  My boss was great, very encouraging about my decision being the right one and that he would not hesitate to hire me again.  And my timing was perfect.  The redeployment meant someone else was able to take over my accounts, and I had a month to close things out and transition everything over to them.  And while I miss my coworkers, I haven't missed my job, not even for a second.  Being a mom all day every day is so much harder than my job ever was.  And at the same time so much more rewarding.  I feel a fulfillment in being with Eliza that I never felt in my office job.  I truly feel like this is what I was meant to do, even on the days when she cries and I can't put her down for more than a minute.  I love this little girl more than I ever thought possible.  

I am so blessed to be able to stay home with Eliza.  I know plenty of moms who don't have that option. I also know plenty of moms who don't want that option.  And for me, for right now, this is the perfect decision.  

Picture found here.

I'm Still Here. . .

Well, my due date has come and gone.  I'm still here, still pregnant, still just waiting.  I might have begun the official nesting phase, but personally I feel like it's more because I'm bored that I'm cleaning out closets than because I'm nesting.  So far the kitchen drawers have been reorganized, the hall linen closet has been reorganized, and the cabinet in the master bedroom has been cleaned out, all tonight.  Shawn is even installing a dimmer switch in the nursery as I write this.

If you are friends with me in real life you likely know that I left my job to be a stay at home mom.  I do hope to write a post about that decision, it certainly wasn't one that was made quickly or lightly.  I've been unemployed for just over a week, and part of me still feels like I'm just on vacation and will be returning to work soon.  Part of me is kicking myself that I'm 3 days overdue and I could be working because really I feel great, and we need that money, and blah blah blah.  But most of me knows that work was so hard at the end, just getting there every day had become a real accomplishment.  It's hard to get out of bed early in the morning when you are exhausted all the time, and the hour long commute had become pure torture by the end.

So, here I am sitting around my house spending a lot of time reading one of my favorite books (it's 900+ pages, so it's taking a while) and catching up on facebook, and emailing friends from my office every day.  If I get one thing done from my to do list every day I feel like I've accomplished something. I get tired very easily and have to sit down a lot.

I go to bed every night wondering if tonight is the night, if I'll be woken up with contractions or my water breaking.  And every time I do wake up in the middle of the night I lay there for a moment analyzing my body, trying to figure out what woke me up, contraction? The ever present need to go to the bathroom? A cramp? Just need to turn over?  Every morning I wake up with a mixture of relief and disappointment.  I know it's necessary, but I'm still a bit apprehensive about the whole labor and giving birth to a baby thing.  And don't even get me started on the bringing home a baby and being responsible thing.

I was really REALLY hoping she would come in June.  I really wanted a June baby, and even more I wanted her to be born on June 29, my Grandma Knudsen's birthday.  No such luck.  And now I equally want her to be born on July 4th so she comes and don't want her to be born on July 4th so she doesn't have a holiday for her birthday.

But, there is an end in sight.  After tests and talking with my Dr. we've decided that if she doesn't come by July 10th I'll be induced.  One week left.  I still want her to come on her own, but at the same time am so relieved to know that there is a definite end date.

I've got lots of great posts in mind, and maybe with all this waiting for Baby Girl to come I'll actually get to them.  Is it nesting if it's getting my blog in order?

Overwhelmed

It's been one of those weeks and it's only Tuesday.  Yesterday was one of those days that when I got home from work I told Shawn that I just wanted to cry.  He looked at me and said "Go ahead and cry" but he face looked more like "Please don't cry, I won't know what to do if you cry!" Today was one of those days that I said to Laura, let's just run away.  She asked where I wanted to go and I said, I don't care, anywhere but here.  I'd be satisfied with Park City or Logan. (They are other cities in the state, I don't think that really classifies as running away.)  Ugh.  I feel so overwhelmed at work, so behind.  And the behindness is overwhelming the overwhelming feeling.  And last week I had a week that was a perfect catch up week.  Until three urgent project got dropped on my desk, and then one of the behind projects came to a head, and I didn't get anything else done.  So, this week I'm even MORE behind, more guilt for being behind and I just want to stop and run away.  I just want to ignore all the behind projects and start completely fresh.

So, I stopped today and yesterday.  I surveyed my office and got that overwhelmed feeling, but I decided to meet it head on.  Instead of plopping non-urgent tasks and random papers in piles around my office I confronted those piles.  I went through all of those papers and I threw most of them in the recycling bin.  I organized the others and I cleaned off my desk.  And I started to feel a sense of ease.  A sense that I can indeed get caught up.  And tonight before I left work I sat down with my "to do" stack and I went through every item, and I created a To Do List.  And for the first time in weeks I feel like all that work is manageable.  I can do it.  And what's more, I'm kind of excited to do it.  I love to do lists, I love crossing off items.  Even though it's already been a long week I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow and walking into my clean, organized office with my to do list.

North Carolina

I love to travel.  I love visiting new cities and learning how they work.  I love shopping in new cities and visiting restaurants.  I love maps and travel technology.  I love apps that help me find a place to eat.  I love using technology to find my favorite store in a new city.  And this is a love that Shawn and I share, we both love to travel.  We love to visit new countries and learn about new cultures.  But something changed in my love of travel when I began to love Shawn.  I know that they say that love can grow, but in some ways loving Shawn made me love travel less.  The problem is that now when I do travel I want to travel WITH Shawn.  I want to share new cities and new experiences with him.

I was in North Carolina for work last week.  Try as I might to convince Shawn to take a week off of work  and come to North Carolina with me, the romance of sitting in a hotel for a week by himself while I worked didn't convince him to join me.  Nor did the awesome hotel with an indoor waterpark.  And the week I spent in North Carolina was one of the longest weeks of my life.  It had nothing to do with the meeting I attended, or the person I traveled with, or the appointments I had.  It had everything to do with being away from Shawn.  I wanted to be able to share everything with him.  I wanted to sit at the table at night with him and tell him about my day.  I wanted to hold his hand while I fell asleep.  I wanted him with me to laugh at the strange pictures on the walls of the hotel.  I wanted to explore with him.  

But while I hate traveling without him, I love that we live when we do and have the technology available to us.  I can take pictures and immediately send them to him.  I can text him or email him about things that make me laugh.  I can call him at night easily.  And the best invention we found this week was face time from Apple.  When I travel for work I can take an iPad with me and I LOVE using facetime to chat with Shawn at home with our MacBook.  I loved being able to show him my hotel room. I loved seeing his face.  And that's what made this week bearable.  

Highlights of the week:

1) Staying at the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, North Carolina.  It felt like a strange place for a meeting since they really cater to families, but the staff was amazing and the meeting went really well.  The water park looked like a lot of fun, and I would definitely stay there again.  And the little kid inside of me really wanted to go buy a magic wand and participate in their Magic Quest.  

2) My travel companion would not agree with me, but I loved our second hotel too, the Blake Hotel in Charlotte, NC.  I thought the lobby was swanky and loved my room and the view of the city.  I didn't like that it didn't have a gym but you had to go across the street to work out (which I didn't do).  The staff was also really amazing and friendly.  Is that a North Carolina thing?

3) The three hour drive each way from Charlotte to Raleigh.  OK, driving for 8 hours in a car with a colleague in one day isn't exactly what I would call fun, but I loved seeing the drive from Charlotte to Raleigh.  We didn't take the main interstate, but our Garmin sent us a less direct way that took the same amount of town.  We drove through the town Pittsboro, and I fell in love with it.  I want to go back and stop in this town!


Next time I'm in North Carolina I'm taking Shawn with me.  And I'm glad the next trip I have planned is a trip with Shawn to DISNEYLAND!