When it rains...

The transition between late September and early October was a rough one. Many shitty things happened at once, though in the grand scheme of things none were catastrophic and I feel like maybe I don't even get to complain because so many people are dealing with worse, but the fact remains that it was a really shitty 3 weeks. While C was hunting, our beagle got sick. It seemed that he aspirated something, but his breathing didn't improve over the next two weeks. The week C was hunting, I ran out of my meds because I just didn't have time to go to the pharmacy, and when I did go the doctor (for some unknown reason) didn't refill my meds for a year, but only for two months. So they gave me 3 days worth but it was a full week before I got back to the pharmacy. My OCD/anxiety were ramping up.

While my brain was in this state, I got totally slammed with sample processing my first 3 days back at work after the week off while C was hunting. As in 3 9 hour days with only 1 break to pump if any, and like 5 minutes for lunch. One of those days I had 3 blood samples to process- when I've asked in the past that no more than 1 blood happen at a time, maximum two per day, and I got 3 AT ONCE. And in the midst of this, I was informed that I was going to be consolidating my lab space in to *half* of what I've had for the last 8 years (which is ongoing, and the people moving in are apparently not getting what they asked for either and keep asking me for more space which I don't have to give). I was feeling really undervalued as an employee. During this time my dog was not really getting better, but he seemed okay. Stable.

My mom wonderfully was able to watch the kids while I was working late and C had to leave for work before I could get home. On Thursday of the week I was finally able to get my meds. Friday morning, on my way to work, I heard a (seemingly) harmless little "click" and the engine stopped. Of course. It was the timing belt. C came, we towed the Subaru home, and it sat there in the driveway til Tuesday when we got it towed to a mechanic. Fortunately I was able to get a ride with someone else on my floor at work who lives near me for the week we were down to one car, and my mom helped with the kids again. The mechanic informed us that we needed a new engine, the brakes needed maintenance, the power steering boot on the driver's side was torn, and oh, by the way, the clutch needed to be replaced too. The cost of all this? Well, we couldn't get a used car that would last 150K miles for this price, but damn. Not money we really had, but we did get the car back on Friday which was great.

Thursday night we noticed MacGyver was really struggling. He was lethargic and did not finish his food. I called the emergency vet (because, naturally, the regular vet had closed 10 minutes earlier). This earned him an overnight stay, medicine, and some Xrays. We learned that our 11 (almost 12) year old beagle has congestive heart failure, pneumonia, and possibly a mass on his liver (we didn't have $700 more to spend on the ultrasounds to confirm the mass and get a better look at his heart). He did get to come home on Friday evening, and we were all so glad to have him home. He's now getting better every day (and getting back to being a pain in the ass, which is wonderful).

Home!!

And now? Now I'm rebounding, but my soul is exhausted and wrung out. My mental state is muted. It's better this week but I'm still reeling from the ups and downs (mostly downs) of the last few weeks. I just need a break, but I'm treading water to stay afloat at work and there's no end in sight. I just hope the Universe is done fucking with me for a while.

Oh, and another fun note about something that *just* happened: one of the people at work informed me today that she took my desk phone into the cell culture room for my ENTIRE MATERNITY LEAVE. I realize that I've been back for 6 months, and cleaning/sterilizing my phone now is an empty gesture, but what in the ever-loving-fuck. Join me, won't you, in a massive full body shudder? And then this same person just left candy on the chemical bench. Which I've since thrown away, because there are just places that food NEVER goes.


On the upside, my garden (mostly tomatoes) went gangbusters this year.

Praying mantis! From my Mother's Day eggs, perhaps?

Tiny watermelon! We had to pick it early because a rabbit bit the stem through...

Most recent harvest

Edit: Oh, Universe. I see what you did there. PMS on top of everything? Lovely. And now, ladies and gentlemen, my first postpartum period.

Weekly Weigh #10

Well this was a frustrating week. I kicked ass in so many ways, I ate right, I exercised lots. I met my calorie goals every day (actually was 100-200 calories below my max every day) I only got in 7.5 miles, but I did do 2 workouts (Bikini Body Mommy Day 3, and Guts and Butts yesterday). However, I've been horribly bloated (hormones suck balls) and as a result, where I weighed 140.6 on Monday (easy reach of the 130s!!), this morning the scale showed me 141.8. I know that 1 pound fluctuations mean nothing, but not a single ounce lost, and in fact a slight gain this week? Very frustrating. I am not tracking today, because I need a break. My hormones are bugging the hell out of me, it looks like I will have a short luteal phase this month (like 9 days, maybe,  because I'm on 8DPO now and bloated as hell, as well as having been crampy yesterday and the day before). So, last week = ovulation, and this week = PMS. Lovely.

Plus I'm working late today, but fortunately not horribly late (yay!) and I can still make it to meet a new friend at the Christopher Moore book signing. My mommy is back from her stint in Hawaii for the past 2 1/2 years so she's babysitting, while C has a gig. Busy Friday night, yeah?

And Dee turns 3 on Sunday, and has her 3 year checkup on Monday. Her birthday party is next weekend, so I'll post pictures of that when the time comes.

Doldrums

Have you seen the movie The Phantom Tollbooth? You know the part where they're stuck in the Doldrums, not motivated or able to do anything, like they're surrounded by molasses? Yeah. I'm kind of stuck like that. I'm not exactly depressed, but just sort of...stalled.

I can't run anymore for a while. I pulled my soleus muscle. This means no stairs, no walks, no runs until it's healed. Dammit. I am limited to yoga and strength training, which is fine but doesn't help satisfy my need to move, to rove, to think. It's stupid and annoying, and I brought it on myself. Basically, I thought that running barefoot/with minimal support would be a good idea when I got shin splints. Well, yes, it did help those...but then my pronated arches (especially my right foot), further "assisted" by the slope of the sidewalks in my neighborhood, put excessive strain on my soleus. The lower portion and the upper portion were unequally worked, and the upper was weakened while the lower was strengthened and then pulled. The result is stabbing agony after about a quarter of a mile, as well as agony when I kneel/sit on my calves (comfy, generally) or when I take the stairs. Or try to stretch/work my calves (going up on the balls of my feet and lowering back down, etc).

Everyone on my floor at work (except me) hates their job. Yeah. Happy place to be every day. I can't do anything about it, my boss is awesome and theirs...are not. But it's not exactly a pleasant environment, it's very negative. 

I'll get over it, but still. Blah. Back to work, I suppose.

October 3, 2012 - Tea and Computer Work on a Chilly Day

June 11, 2012 - SCIENCE NINJA!

February 9, 2012

There's a tunnel under my work. There's a duckling in the tunnel. Quack?

Hush Puppy does not like peaches. Sad. I usually (in my adult life, anyway) love peaches, and this is the season for them. I haven't been able to finish a peach in over a week. They all taste horrendous, no matter how ripe they actually are. Plus, I really want to taste coffee, but the thought of actually adding anything to my already-bloated and full tummy is kind of repulsive. If only I could just suck on some coffee.

As an aside, I'm wondering if my work is figuring anything out. You know, since I constantly have snacks in my desk and by 12 or 1 every day my belly becomes a lot more prominent than it did a couple weeks ago. Or the fact that during bronchoscopies where I have to be dressed in a hot (literally, they're like plastic bags) gown and mask I've been aiming a fan at my back so I don't overheat and puke and/or pass out. Maybe they just think I'm chubby, and that it's hot where we do bronchs, all of a sudden. We'll go with that. I think it's glaringly obvious that I'm pregnant and have a bloat baby, but then, I'm in on the secret. I don't know when I will tell them. Probably after my first ultrasound, if I can wait that long. Without like puking in the lab, I mean. Hmm. Although I do have to work with some heinous chemicals tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll ask one of my coworkers to mix up the things for me so I can have minimal contact with them. I don't want HP to have 2 heads or anything. Even if that would get him or her a show on the Discovery channel so we'd all be set for life. Birthing that would not be so fun though.

J was very cute this morning, though. He wanted to say goodbye to me and also "luffyou Mama!" and to say goodbye to HP. This involves lifting up my shirt and kissing my belly, and saying "Bye, bee" (bee means baby). Aww.

Whining.

BFN this morning. 13 DPO. I got the BFP with J on 13 DPO. I *know* that in theory I could still be pregnant. That we could have been successful. That my cramps and perfect triphasic chart might actually mean something. My only other triphasic chart was when I was pregnant with J. But the fact is that I have gotten 5 negative tests. I know, testing early is not necessarily a good idea. I figured the odds were in my favor of getting a positive. Apparently not. I'm not giving up til I have to, but I'm not holding out any hope either. I just need to stay away from Fertility Friend's chart gallery and be realistic.

I had a couple of spots on the white shirt I wanted to wear today. Couldn't find the Tide pen thingy, so I diluted some bleach and applied it directly. 20 minutes later I had 2 LAVENDAR spots on my white shirt. Discovered as I was buckling my seatbelt in the car. What the fuck. Had to change my shirt.

Driving in to work, I came to an all-way stop. A bicyclist kept on going, didn't slow down and didn't look. Apparently he missed the memo that he's supposed to follow traffic laws too. Asshole. I honked at him, he gave me a dirty look, and kept on going. I found myself hoping he gets hit, and realized that is a horrible, horrible thing to wish on anyone, and amended my hope to be that he runs a stop sign in front of a cop. Or hits a cop.

I feel down and hormonal and awful. I just need to deal with it. It's pretty damn unlikely that we'd have been successful the 1st cycle anyway. There's only a 20% chance of someone my age getting knocked up in a given cycle (when everything is perfect), and it took us 4 cycles with J, so why shouldn't it take at least that many for the next kid.

Dammit. It's only 9:15.

ETA: I made a mistake at work this week. I thought that something we were supposed to ship on 7/20 was supposed to ship 8/20. As soon as I realized it, I set about trying to ship the stuff yesterday, just one day late. Well, I didn't have time to finish before I had to leave in order for C to get to work in time. So I called the person to whom we shipped the stuff, made sure it was okay with her that I ship on Monday because I didn't have time to finish sorting everything out, and it was totally fine with her. Emailed my boss this morning just to keep him in the loop. He sends me an email about how he doesn't understand why things like this keep happening because I am "not busy." Um, what? I've never missed a shipment date before. I get it. I am not putting 110% into this job, but I MAKE MISTAKES. I'm fucking human, people.

Fuck I'm hormonal today. I just want to sit in the corner and cry.

Think This Will Keep Them From Stealing My Mug?

For the second time, someone took my frigging mug that I keep in the cabinet at work. Arg. Irritating. Anyway, I got it back and have now labeled it:

In case you can't read it, it says "Tena's Mug --->Not Yours, Asshole<----"

Maybe that will work. It totally skeeves me out that someone else is using my stuff. Eeech. The mug is now residing in my desk (where I'm not supposed to keep things like that) rather than on the shelf in the breakroom, where I would not have thought I'd have a problem, but apparently the people that work here lack manners.

Smoking is bad for you, Mmmkay?

I went to one of the schools that the show South Park is based on. So I got the "drugs are bad" lecture from this guy (image courtesy of Comedy Central):


This unfortunate man does, in fact, exist, and his name has only one letter different from his South Park moniker. Anyway, he also gave my class the "smoking/tobacco is bad, mmkay?" lecture, which basically consisted of showing us lots of gross pictures of black and tarry lungs, and video of people who'd had cancer and therefore had parts of their faces and necks removed.

Well, I never smoked or chewed (ick!) but that's beside the point. All the nasty images in the world cannot prepare you for the reality. I sometimes come across samples from patients who claim not to smoke, when from examination of the white blood cells in their lungs I can tell that they are, in fact, BIG FAT LIARS. Or small skinny liars. Liars nonetheless. Today's sample takes the nasty tar and ash covered cake.
Can I just say EEW?! That, right there, is 14 million of the most tar- and smoke residue- filled cells I have ever seen. This person's lungs looked fairly normal on the grand scale, but when you get down to it, his or her poor little white blood cells may as well have been tarred and feathered.

Lets think about this for a moment. Your lungs have immune cells in them to keep you healthy. If you drown them in nasty tar, how the hell are they going to catch the bugs that make you sick?! Not very well, that's how.

I'll step down off my soapbox now.

Emergency fax?

We get mass emails on a pretty much daily basis, telling everyone at work that someone is faxing to a wrong number, and that they should stop. Today's wrong number?

911.

Thanks for the laugh, unknown idiot at work.

Musings

I need a different career.

I took Friday off, and it was wonderful. I got a ton done around the house, J and I had a blast, the dogs got taken for a nice walk. All weekend was like that, with J and I bonding and doing chores. I felt liberated, happy, and free.

I came in to work this morning, and felt the anxiety building. Crushing me. I feel like a prisoner in my own body when I am at work. Sometimes the cell becomes transparent and I can see right through it, as if it isn't there, but then moments later it's back, the hard surfaces enclosing me in their grasp. Feeling judged, an outsider. Incapable of blending in. Terrified of making a mistake that will make people think less of me, that will make them think I am a slacker. I want everyone to know I get my work done.

I used to want to me a doctor, specifically a pediatrician. Then I realized that just wanting to take care of children was also covered by wanting to be a mom. Next logical step? Just get my degrees in Molecular/Cellular Biology. PhD didn't end up being what I wanted any more than med school, so I got my MS instead. Moved back home, get a job as a lab monkey. Two years later, slightly higher ranked lab monkey, drowning in mucous in her prison cell.

Every day I resent having to work. Joyless Occupational Bondage, as the MK ladies called the daily grind. I know I am so lucky to have a job, and I am glad I have a job, but it takes me away from my son. C is working an overnight shift tonight, so he's gone til 2am. I wish his job could support us without me having to work. I don't want to work outside the home at all. I want to be home with my child, and other children as they come along, but at this point that just isn't in the stars. I desperately wish I could just get a job as a teacher. After baby #2 that will be an option- I didn't want to be dealing with maternity leave while teaching, since I've heard that's a big pain in the ass. The funny thing? I always thought teachers didn't make very good money. Turns out I'd make more teaching than I do now, plus I'd get summers off. Summers off would be better than no time off.

I only need to take two classes. Next summer, perhaps. After C is done with his degree.

Na na na na, Life Goes On...

Today begins a new cycle. Ugh. Which explains the mood swings of the last few days. I am glad I'm getting back on a fairly regular cycle, but I am really not keen on this 10 day LP thing. WTF? I always had a 13-14 day LP before pregnancy, I don't know what's going on with this new thing. Oh well. At least charting gives me 24 hours of warning before my period starts, what with the temp drop and all. Here's the link if you are interested: http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/15d9e6.

In other news, I had my annual evaluation at work. Apparently I rock, but because of budget freezes no merit increase this year. Bummer, but we'll live. Hopefully later this year I can get another promotion, since at that point I think I will qualify for a level 4 peon. That would be nice, and comes with a handsome 10% raise in salary.

I also get to go shopping tonight!!! YAY! Boss Man told me that he wanted me to dress as though I will always be seeing a patient, so no more t-shirts. Boo that I don't get to wear t-shirts to work, but yay that I get to buy some business casual type tops and maybe pants as well. Bonus? Kohls is having a HUGE sale with power hours tonight and everything! Yay for retail therapy! I may still try and swing by a thrift store this weekend, too, but we'll see how much I get. Plus I can get birthday presents for my nephews and possibly my stepdad, since their birthdays were in the last couple weeks and we missed the party.

Things I Strongly Dislike

...currently includes my job. I am bored and not doing a damn thing related to my background today. Ugh. I have wanted to go home since I got here but because I have "stuff" to "do" I can't go til 5.

I wish I could take a sick day to cover depression/anxiety/ocd/lack of motivation, but I don't think that will fly.
"Hey, boss, I am not in a good head space, so I'm taking a few sick days."

*Sigh*

So. Very. Unmotivated.

I am sitting here, trying to make myself work, but really not feeling it. I'm just so tired and starting to feel melancholy. The urge to just get up and go home is ever increasing but I can't do that. I just want to go home and clean and do homey productive things. I feel like if I really want to stay at home, I should do something about it to make that happen, but what? It's not like we have money we can just start squirreling away. I think I just need to get up and stretch and walk around a bit, so I am going to go walk the stairs down and up once (the lab is on the 6th floor, so it's a little bit of a hike but people rarely use the stairs, so it will be quiet). Also, I hate C's job. It makes my life more complicated when I have to schedule around it, and then can't find a babysitter. Ugh.
***
Walking around was nice. I am just not in the most upbeat mood today, perhaps even slightly depressed. But not "real" depressed, just like...well, about a 6 our of 10 with 1 being "in the depths of despair" and 10 being super happy. I just...well, honestly? I am being stupid and obsessing over my coworkers. I know everyone says "don't let it bother you" but that's really a very difficult thing to do. It hurts to be ignored, even by people you don't especially care for. They haven't told me about lunch once in the last week, at least, and they go without me. I am trying very hard to embrace that time as my own time, to read, or listen in peace to my iPod, et cetera, but it is very hard to push the little niggling hurt aside. I don't like being left out. I don't like being ignored. I mean for God's sake, none of them have even TALKED to me today (well, that's not true, they did tell me when I had a phone call, and the new tech said "Good morning"). I don't expect much, but acknowledgement would be nice. I am feeling so lonely, and I know that partially I have generated my own little seclusion bubble. I am so desperate for connection to another woman, but I just don't know what to do about it.

I don't even like my coworkers that much. We're just in such drastically different places in our lives. The other techs don't have families of their own, and two of the postdocs have families, but their positions seem to create a natural separation. The Chinese postdoc is a very sweet woman, and her daughter Sophia actually is only a few weeks younger than J (I joke that they'll marry someday), and we talk sometimes, but it really isn't the same as a genuine friendship.

I miss my old lab. I really, really do. I had Susan and Paige and Jule, and we were all friends, regardless of our "status" in the lab. There was no drama. We'd go out to happy hour on Fridays, we'd go out to lunch together or even just eat together nearly every day. The guys in the lab were great, and everyone got along. Even the boss man would host a Christmas party and join us in our forays. People's birthdays were celebrated by someone bringing a cake, and I usually made the cake unless it was my own birthday. I miss the comraderie. Paige and I once took a cat she'd found and a chihuahua I'd found to a shelter, just before Christmas of 2006. Paige cried when we had to leave the cat. The chihuahua came back home with me because he was so old I wanted to take care of him til his family could get him, rather than have him stuck in a shelter all alone. We called him Lucky and MacGuyver didn't have a clue what to do with him, since he was so small. I think the dippy beagle was actually more afraid of Lucky than Lucky was of him, size difference be damned. Lucky went back to his family, an elderly man, a few days after we found him.

I went to a movie once with the other women in that lab, it was "Thank You for Smoking" and we had a great time. I seem to think we did happy hour before this because I remember being somewhat tipsy. I miss girlfriends. Jule has 2 kids, she would have been such a comfort to have around during my own pregnancy. And Margaret, and Helena, and Cristy. I miss them, too. *sigh*

This is so pathetic. I really should be working. It's really hard to work when you feel like this though- no motivation. Facebook helps, I suppose, but that's not "real" interaction. It vaguely keeps me in touch with people, but only if those people check it, and use it to keep in touch with me, too.

I did have a fabulous time at book club the other night. We read a silly book, and probably talked about it for 10 minutes, total, but it was so nice just to have some girl time. The other ladies knew each other already, so I was the "new kid" but it was still really wonderful. I am absolutely going back, even if it is far away (30 minutes from my house).

That was long and rambley, but there you have it. I'm going to go count cells now. Get away from this damn glowing box for a few minutes.

Of Dates and Money (or Lack Thereof) and Blessings

As I finished reading Cyndi's most recent entry, I realized that I am also blessed. Yes, C and I are struggling. But we have each other, and my job is not going anywhere unless the NIH gets shut down. C's job at BabiesRUs, well, that's not so stable. As of this week, he is now working a grand total of 7, yes, SEVEN hours per week. A month ago, he was working 15. *sigh* But, we're lucky, because he does have a job. He's looking and applying to at least 3 jobs every day, which is made much harder by the fact that he does not have a college degree since the U screwed up and told him he was all set, but left him 2 classes short of graduating when it came time to graduate. But that is neither here nor there. I am horribly stressed out about money, but at least we have enough to pay our bills, we own our house and it won't go anywhere no matter what (Grandma's the bank for our mortgage, we bought the house from her and she owned it outright. WOOT!), and our car runs.
All this considered though, we are fortunate.
5 things I am grateful for:'
1. my family, the whole mixed up bunch of them
2. my job
3. my friends, however little I actually see them
4. our house
5. my husband, who is such a wonderful father to our son and even though he is having trouble finding a new job and is stressed out, manages to make me feel loved

Speaking of C...while he was taking me to work this morning (after his whopping 2 hour shift), I mentioned that GoodTimes has a new pumpkin cheesecake spoonbender, and that we could probably go on a super cheap date and have a spoonbender and go to the dollar movies or something for under $10. We both admitted that it would be a lame date, but realized that we have not been out on a date since our anniversary which was 4 months ago. And we have only been on 2 dates since J was born, the other one being for our birthdays. Yeah. 2 dates since January. Of course, this defines a date as "without the baby." C tried to tell me we'd been on one more recently but I had to remind him that it doesn't count if we bring J. I need a date with my husband, to reconnect with him. Screw the movies. I just need to be able to do nothing with him, or go on a walk, or something, just the 2 of us. Something that doesn't require much money, since, as C is so "fond" of reminding me, we are poor and getting poorer.

Blessed. I am blessed. I must remember how many people are worse off than I am.

What a pain in the ass

I don't know what to do. I am supposed to work M, T, F approximately 9-5, and W and Th I come in later because C works those mornings and I stay with J, so I end up working about 11-7. Which *seemed* to be fine, but lately every week on either W or Th or both I have sputum to process or a bronch to collect samples from at like 8 or 9 in the morning. So I have to find a sitter for J, which is a pain in the ass, because none of our family is really very close by (at least, none that can babysit, my mom is close but works 50+ hours a week), they are all 40+ minutes away from our house. The closest is my older sister, but she is 40 minutes from our house and about 30 from my work, so my commute time about doubles. She's great, but I cannot drive that far more than once every few weeks, so it's insane to try to use her as our emergency sitter every frickin week. We could put J in daycare, but what's the point for 3 hours at a time? Also, if we had to take him to daycare a couple days a week, there goes everything C makes, so therefore defeats the purpose of him having a job.

I am just so fed up with this bullshit. I need a new fucking job but there's nothing closer to our house that I am qualified for, and we can't sell our house in this market and even if we could we wouldn't be able to afford anything else. This institution claims to pay within the average range for technicians, but that's a load of crap. We looked on the state's website, we get paid in the 10th percentile. Yep, they sure love their research bitches. I could earn 40% more at another place doing basically the same job if I was willing to have an hour long commute, but I'm just not willing to spend 2 hours a day-minimum- driving instead of 1 to 1 1/2...I also can't quit right now anyway because I am indispensible. I would have to train my replacement, which would probably take a couple months. In the meantime, our money is all going to pay our bills, we don't really have enough for all that plus gas and food.

Oh, and C didn't get that job we were hoping for after all. And Sarah Palin scares me, and she gives Alaskans, women, and hunters a bad name.

Yeah, I'm just having a fan-fucking-tastic day. Is it 5 yet?!

Yay for Fall!!

Happy October! It is a lovely, albeit warm (like 80 degrees...) autumn day, and I am stuck in the lab. I have a lovely view of downtown Denver from my desk though, where the leaves are just starting to turn and the mountains are slightly visible through the haze. I took a picture with my phone, but I don't think it will turn out terribly well. I am posting it anyway though.

See? Kinda craptacular picture, but nicely represents my view...I think...

I just got off the phone with C, he may have a full time job lined up at a law firm doing clerical work. Paying 20-50% more per hour than he makes now. This would mean that I could cut down my hours to 4 days a week, and we'd only have to put J in childcare (boo!) 4 days. Hopefully with my mom's friend part of that time, maybe my older sister could watch him another day, and we did have a potential in home caregiver that would cost $110 for 2 days a week...I love when things start to work out!

Poor J, though, is cutting all 4 of his top incisors at once. There are actually tooth shaped bumps, where you can see that the teeth are just stretching the gums, so he's absolutely miserable. I really hope they pop through soon, he comfort nursed for 2 hours this morning, so I got nothing done at home before leaving for work.

Argh!

C is a musician, a bassist more specifically. He plays jazz, usually, but can play other genres if he so desires. Anyway, he was in the process of working with a local singer in trying to get a small group together for gigs, probably by next summer. If this were to work out, 10 gigs a month would replace my income and I could stay at home part time, and cut back my hours at work to half time(ish). Well, it turns out the singer isn't going to be able to do it after all. On top of it, we have no money. What else is new, right? Yeah...so we're going to try everything we can to get some money to make it through this month, but that's what we do every month. I am going to sell (hopefully) my MK inventory to another MK consultant, which will help somewhat, and we're going to sell our entertainment center. Between all this, somehow, we are going to pay our mortgage. Hmm. Not sure how that's working out, but I guess we'll manage. We are very fortunate that our mortgage is financed through/by my grandmother, since we bought the house from her, so payments are more flexible than they would be with a bank. I am just really frustrated and stressed about all this right now. But hey, at least my meds are working so I'm not fighting off a panic attack as well.

I'm also really not so thrilled with my job anymore. I mean, the people are okay but I don't really have any friends here. Well, I have one friend. I really don't have many friends in general, at least not that I see on any sort of regular basis (like more than once or twice a year...). It's really hard to have friends and do stuff with them when you live far away from them, when you are the only one with a kid, and when most things friends do cost money (i.e. shopping, dining out, meeting for coffee, etc). But I digress. My job is really not very interesting. I process samples that come from people's lungs, one way or another. I listen to the other people in the lab bitch about things that I have no interest in, or make plans with each other for the weekend, or whathaveyou. I feel isolated. I know they aren't doing it on purpose, but my part of the lab is naturally isolated; I work on human samples, and with our research clinic, and the rest of the lab does not. They have other projects and collaborators, and they have a different boss than I do. So there's sort of a natural division there, and I know that nobody is consciously pushing me to the periphery, but I really does feel that way. I miss my grad school lab, we all got along great and had a blast together. Of course, I don't miss anything else about Seattle, but that was a big thing. I am now in such a quandry, because I need the money from my job, and I need something close to my house (which my current job is not especially, but it is the closest job in molecular biology that I could get), and we need insurance, but I am not happy at my job. I could get a higher paying job elsewhere (maybe) but it would mean spending 2 hours a day commuting instead of 1.5 hours a day. I want to teach, but that requires getting certified, which requires classes that cost money (though my work reimburses up to $2000 a year for full time employees to further education) and I don't want to teach while I am actively having children because I've heard maternity leave is a pain, and pumping is near impossible to manage while teaching. *sigh*

In happier news, J started crawling yesterday! I was at work and missed it, of course, but I will see it soon.

Idiots

I had to send a sample to a central processing center in Kansas, because I have to prove to the company that I am trained and know how to process the samples for their studies. I sent this sample, on 5 kg of dry ice, on Monday. It arrived in Kansas, and they promptly forwarded it to...Quebec, Canada. Why? Because they are stupid and do not read the shipping labels addressed to them. Now I am trying to track down the person who called me from the pharmaceutical company in Quebec (she didn't give me her contact information, and I didn't catch her name when I spoke to her) and tell her to throw away the sample, not ship it back to us. Ugh. What a pain in the ass. This study is SO not worth it. But that's why they pay me the big bucks (as my dad would say).

I do NOT need this stress right now. My meds have been adjusted to 75mg sertraline instead of 50 (yay, I hope). I am in the process of finding a psychiatrist (since my midwives have about the same amount of expertise as a GP, so they can't do much more for me) and waiting to hear back from my insurance about what they cover regarding mental health care,. I know it will be a $40 copay, but I don't know how many times I have to make the copay, etc. It ain't gonna happen if I have to make a $40 copay twice a month or something, we just can't afford it right now. We actually can't afford anything right now, we already overdrew our checking account with our mortgage payment and we're maxed out on one credit card. We're desperately trying not to use the other cards, since we're trying to get rid of our debt. We actually had PB &J for dinner last night. When I called the bank Tuesday to find out if they could/would lower the rate on one card, they pretty much told me that they can't do anything, and that nobody will help us until we've defaulted on our payments. Nice. So, all you people out there in our shoes, where you know you're heading toward financial trouble, just keep on truckin because no one will help til you're already totally screwed. Awesome.