Bunny Love

Our princess showing the bunny some love!  There is no witty story to accompany the photo.  It was just too cute NOT to publish (in my completely biased opinion)!

Purge (the good kind)

A week off...a glorious collection of days when I do not have to sojourn down state to my job, one that I am still not sure if I like.  Well, I like that I get a week off every now and then, so let's keep it positive today, okay?

Yes, so one week off...what to do?  what to do?  Write my novel?  Finish the 3 articles I started (and by started I mean I've thought about writing them)?  Prepare an outline for my idea for a play - the opening scene I keep seeing over and over again in my head?  These are all things I keep saying I will get to - when I have time.  And yet here I am day four into actually having the time, and nada...  Oh procrastination, you cruel, cruel seductress.

BUT I did not loaf around on the couch all week, surfing tv channels and web sites (well, a bit, but I am on vacation).  No, I decided to purge...my clutter.  The junk around my house that just makes me nuts and blocks my ability to feel peaceful in my own home had to go.  So I tackled the dreaded "crap room."  You know, the room in the house where everything you don't know what to do with gets dumped.  Yep, I tore that baby up and threw out 4 huge bags of paper, knick knacks, unused photo albums, questionable gifts (does my mother-in-law even like me?) and pretty much anything else with a 1/4" of dust on it.  

And damn - it felt good.  

I now have a guest room where guests can actually put things in the closet.  I moved a small, formerly clutter-filled book shelf into our bedroom, where it magically transformed a lonely corner into a beloved book nook (complete with reading chair and lamp).   All that on day 1.  

Days 2 & 3 lead me to other rooms of the house.  I disassembled a basement corner where the remains of my product sales business had gathered to commiserate about yet another great idea I did not have the time or energy to keep up.  I cleared out the bottom of my closet, finally discarding all those shoe boxes that I kept because I was going to store my shoes in them (and yet I had 15 empty ones...perplexing, I know). 

And finally, I pillaged the junk-filled secretary desk, the one that when I splurged and ordered it from Pottery Barn I swore I would keep it neat.  Well, it is no longer a $1600 crap cabinet.  It is now a functional workspace - one that beckons me, no pleads with me, to put my shiny black laptop on its clean desk and write that article, book and script.  Yet, here I sit at the dining room table...

I think I'll go catch a movie before I pick up Princess from school.        

Good question...

Just a short post tonight as I am really too angry to think logically or compose eloquently.  But I have to get this one off my chest.

If you don't know the answer to an important question, please ask someone.  Conduct some meaningful research.  Seek out those who did the job before you for advice.   Do not make up information, yes me to death or say you'll look into it and then not.  That does not make you look like you know what you are doing.  In the end, it makes you look like a fool, and it can have some serious consequences for innocent people.  

I always told my students that good students don't always know the right answers; good students know how to ask good questions.

The same applies to colleagues and supervisors...Grrr.

Moving On Up....

To the big girl bed.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the crib came down.  My husband unscrewed every nut and bolt, slowly dismantling it piece by piece.  And I will admit - as I watched I got a little teary-eyed.  

I remember her first night in that crib.  She was 10 weeks old and quickly outgrowing the bassinet I had tucked right next to my side of the bed since the first night we brought her home. I used to fall asleep with my hand on her soft belly so I could feel her breathe.  Her legs, though, stretched to the end of the baby cocoon (the one I once called home when I was a newborn).  So we decided to move her into the cherry crib we had carefully selected a few months before she was born.  On that first night, I sobbed after we placed her in her crib and closed the nursery door.

This weekend she pounced into her Disney princess adorned toddler bed, just the way big girls do.  She delighted in her pink comforter and her Cinderella pillowcase.  She spent all day Sunday finding excuses to go upstairs so she could nestle into her new resting spot.  It was really adorable.

When her first bedtime came, she joyfully crawled into her bed.  "Mommy," she whispered.  "Sleep next to me."  After finally believing me when I said we both could not comfortably fit into her tiny bed, Princess agreed I could rest on the floor next to her.  So I settled into a body pillow on her floor while my baby girl cuddled in for her first night in her big bed.  

As we laid there in the dark, tiny fingers crept to the side of the mattress.  "Mommy, hold my hand."  When my fingers rested on her soft palm, it was as if she was that snuggly swaddled newborn tucked safely in her tiny bassinet again...only better.  There were no tears this time as I closed that nursery door...only warm smiles for my daughter's latest joy.