the girl who has a three day weekend (and a migraine)

One is not caused by the other, I promise.

It just seems fated that I would have a terrible, horrible, no good day at work when I have a long weekend coming up.

First, it was a "but first" day.

I have to get these I-9's finished, but first I better check that blinking red light on my phone and return some calls, but first I better meet with the DOL Investigator, but first I better term someone, but first I better go to my meeting, but first I need to investigate an incident, but first I need to stop and listen sympathetically while someone complains about their performance review, but first I need to stop and listen sympathetically to their subordinate complain about the job he's been assigned, but first I need to go term someone, but first I better get an escort 'cuz he's a BIG guy, but first I need to talk to the owner, but first I need to get back to the office, but first I need to term someone else, but first I better get something to eat, but first I better take care of the dozen notes I wrote in my notebook, but first I better check that blinking red light on my phone AGAIN, but first I need to take care of the background checks of the dozen employees managers have hired despite the hiring feeze, but first I better get ready to go home, but first I better put my desk in some semblance of order, but first I better get those I-9's finished.

ugh.

Then I'm driving home and my cell phone rings. Yes, my cell phone. I haven't had one for about a year and I've gotten along just fine and what happens? The company issues me one. Now I can be reached night and day.

Yay.

Then I get home and the tingling in my scalp that always seems to preclude a migraine starts to intesify. It actually feels like I have bruises on my scalp. And I come home to a house full of boys whose every sentence starts with "Mommy, can I?" or "Mommy, I want..." in the highest pitched tones.

So I take some pills which are always unpredicatable. Sometimes they make me pass out within 20 minutes. Other times they bring the migraine to a terrible climax where I can feel every blood vessel in my head tighten and squeeze until I am literally tearing up and curled in the fetal position bargaining with the Flying Spaghetti Monster to just let me pass out and slip into peaceful oblivian, and other times--such as tonight--I feel oddly detached and energized. I feel the blood throbbing through my head, but it's relaxing, like a massage and the fuzzy blackness on the edge of my vision is just makes everything a little vignette. I tried to sleep, but my mind was restless, so I got up to read. And now I'm here, listening to people set of firecrackers a night early, and I particularly stress the NIGHT part.

So I'm a little grumpy.

At the same time, looking back on the day, it's just so nice to feel the stress again. To have something to do and to feel necessary. Even coming home to the four screaming monsters...they're MY monsters and they love me and need me, and I them.

Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the day finally winding down and giving me the opportunity to reflect, or maybe it's just me being the babbling idiot that I am, but it was a fulfilling day--migraine and all--and it makes me appreciate the long weekend that much more.

the girl who got cozy

I haven't really blogged about it, being uber cautious about mixing work and blogs, but I did finally break out of the unemployment rut about a month ago and landed a really good position. I'm HR Manager for a "Vacation Resort" (i.e. timeshare) and I am enjoying the daily challenges of my new position immensely.

During my job hunt, I was asked one of the standard "Why do you think you'd be a good fit for this position" questions. And I actually formulated an answer I think is perfect.

You see, deep down at heart, I am a nerd. I love spreadsheets and paperwork and filling in forms *just so.* I get a kick out of writing and reviewing policies and training manuals. I adore the minutiae of a finely crafted Excel Spreadsheet. Give me a place to make my mark and it will be alphabetized, indexed, labeled (with computer generated labels--not handwritten), and entered into a spreadsheet for easy reference. So an administrative office-type position totally fits that aspect of my personality.

On the other hand, I am also a "people person." I like interacting with people, I enjoy solving problems for them, and I love the chance to stand up in front of a group of people and give a presentation--even if it's merely to explain the open enrollment in benefits process.

Stick me behind a desk and I'm a happy camper, but if I don't have the chance to actually interact with the people behind the paper, I'll go a little insane and start organizing my paperclips in terms of size, condition, and general shininess.

So HR is a good fit for me I think.

So this new position is organizational nirvana for me. This company was without HR for about three months and prior to that had gone through three HR Managers in the space of a year. It's a little discombobulated and I'm up to my eyebrows in my element. Add to that the fact that this company (and all of its employees) is generally VERY HAPPY to have me there, and, well, we'll just say that being appreciated for the work that HR is can be quite intoxicating. Especially given the dichotomy in attitude about HR between my prior employer and my present.

The only downside to being appreciated and included is the meetings. I've never really had to use the calendar function of Outlook before as any meetings that came up were usually so few and far between that simply writing them on my page a day was sufficient. Now I pull it up every day. My whole day is blocked out in little segments of allotted time. One organizational tool that is starting to intimidate rather than thrill me.

Take tomorrow for instance: I go to work at 8:30 and my office is off property (although a mere 2 min away by car). I have a 10 o'clock meeting on property and then have allotted from 10:45 to 12 to set up in my site office to receive employees to take care of a paperwork compliance issue. From 12 to 12:30 I walk the property for my daily meet n' greet with the employees to remind them that they have HR again. Now, normally, I would think that my compliance meeting would be sufficient, but there is another meeting on site at 12:30. When that is over, I'll grab lunch and go back to my office (off property) to check email and phone messages. At 3, it's the weekly Staff meeting, which should end about 4. Then I can go back to my office and figure out something to do with the next hour and a half and leave around 5:30.

So a ton of metings, but not much work getting done.

Luckily, tomorrow is an extreme example, but the past two weeks it's seemed like I didn't start "work" until about 2 in the afternoon.

So today was a nice change. I actually was in my office for the majority of the day. It felt good. I can see my desk again and I made a dent in the piles. Barring the time to actually fulfill my compulsive need to organize everything, I've resorted to piles with sticky notes on top, file drawers with sticky notes for future organization, and stapled packets with sticky reminders of salient points and tasks buried within.

Post-it threw up in my office.

Oh! And I have a PaperMonkey! So she has been given the task of alphabetizing and labeling and sorting. Some of the piles are her assignments. Slowly but surely, I am restoring order to this little cubicle that is all mine.

So, knowing that tomorrow will be a royal pain in the patootie, my last task of the day was to set up new assignments for my PaperMonkey tomorrow. The clock was inching inexorably towards five, and I thought I'd cut out at the actual closing time. But, I just wanted to finish one more thing. At 4:54 the controller (who is always there well past me) packed up and announced he was leaving as the sky was getting ready to unleash the SPCA. I thought I'd be ok as I only had about ten minutes left on my little project. At 5:06, I shut everything down and heard the thunder. Between 5:06 and 5:10, the threatened thunderstorm reached its full potential. I looked out the door, realized that the wavy green blob thirty feet away HAD to be my van, even tough I couldn't make it out through the sideways rain. At that point I called home, turned my computer back on and worked for another hour until it stopped raining--or at least let up enough that I could drive instead of row.

I was warned about the tendency for the street in front of the building to flood, but the term "flood" seems rather mundane a term for the ravaging river sweeping tree limbs, construction cones and the occasional Ark along in its wake. I took the prescribed alternate route which only required a small outboard motor as opposed to a Coast Guard escort and eventually made it home.

I was late, I was damp, I was chilly from having to run the defogger (while being damp), and I was TIRED. So I decided it was a night to get cozy and, ignoring the lovely lady lumps of chicken in the fridge, I went to my go-to meal for damp weather.

Yep, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

Of course, what I thought would be a simple meal, ended up with me being tethered to the stove for about 45 minutes endlessly slathering white bread with margarine and adding slices of processed cheese food as the kiddos snarfed them down and demanded more.

Even Eli got a sandwich all to himself and a sippy cup full of warm Campbell's Mmm-mmm Goodness.

Each kid (except Eli) had two sandwiches each (lovingly cut into dinosaur shapes with my special sandwich cutter--cool, huh?) and a cup of soup for dunking. Aramis had another two sandwiches, Eli and I had one each. Of course, I could have eaten more, but by the time everyone else had placed their order, i had gone through an entire loaf of bread and most of a package of cheese (a big one at that!). So I was left making a sandwich out of heels.

Yep, nothing better than a heel sandwich on a rainy day.

the girl who invites you to "Family Day"

Today started as a normal day. Wake up, get the kiddos breakfast, pop in a DVD to keep them occupied, make coffee and go sit on the porch with the laptop to really wake up.

At some point today that changed. It became "Family Day," a new official holiday for this clan.

And what sparked this? The Max and Ruby DVD I put in for the kiddos. Apparently, Ruby decided to throw a party for her family and the episode dealt with all the things required for the perfect party. Well, Zack got it in his head that he was going to do the same thing. While I groggily refilled my cup o'Joe and reminded myself that staying up into the wee hours scrapping was going to take its toll on my diurnal clock (go ahead, look it up, Princess), Zachary was corralling his brothers into tidying up the living room (!!!) and then decorating it with various blankets and stuffed animals.

He was making up games and creating a schedule of events. He was having his brothers create invitations for Mommy and Daddy and making sure that even the Luvvies were invited.


In short, I have a party planning prodigy on my hands.


Here is the schedule of events, complete with timeline!

Unfortunately, the party was just about to get started when some friends stopped by to play. I could see he was clearly torn, so I told him to go ahead and play, I had to go grocery shopping and we'd do the party tonight.

While I was at the grocery store, I was inspired by the marked down baked goods. So what if the cake is a day old? It's half off and I was in the mood to celebrate! So, I got us a cake and had it piped with the following:


The Baker gave me such a smile when she handed it off to me!

Ok, we have the makings of an official celebration now, don't we? After all, if it's written on a cake, it's cause to celebrate! lol!

So after unloading the groceries, we got down to the First Official Martinez Clan Family Day Celebration.

It started with Arts and Crafts:


We're making headbands and Macaroni necklaces out of ribbon from my stash I threw in the Kids' Arts and Crafts box.


Check out the tongue action! He is soooo is mother's son! (Seriously, it helps me concentrate!)

After Arts and Crafts, we had "Make Your Own Pizza." English Muffins (Mom and Dad used French Bread), some Pizza Sauce, Turkey Pepperoni (don't tell them, they'll suddenly decide what was fine when they didn't know is now disgusting), and olives. I made each kid a plate with two English Muffins split and spread with sauce, and then gave them another plate with cheese, pepperoni and olives. Completely on their own, they made faces!


While the pizza baked, there was dancing to Radio Disney and a lesson on how to "juggle" tissues courtesy of Zachary. I wish I had gotten pictures of that, but I was busy in the kitchen cleaning up the pizza mess and unloading the dishwasher. I peeked through the pass-thru occasionally and nearly busted a gut a couple times!

Next was dinner and a movie. Spider-Man 3 to be exact. I got a commentary from dh throughout the whole movie about what actually happened in any of the various comic incarnations and what was unique to the movie. Quite an education. I did marry a Geek, ya know.

After the movie, cake and ice cream. The boys argued for candles and I was happy to oblige. We all blew out the candles together, and even relit them since Matthew was a beat behind and was upset he didn't get to blow any out. Six family members, six candles.

And lest you think Eli was ignored in all of this family fun, Zachary made him a ziti bracelet, which turned into a teething ring, he was served a (naked) english muffin of his own with his dinner, and he got to taste cake for the first time. A good warm up for his birthday in just over two months from now. (!!!)


Actually, I think he did pretty well, considering. He managed to actually navigate most of the cake to his mouth with minimal (for an almost 10 month old) icing smearage.

After getting hopped up on cake and ice cream, the kids took their baths, got cups of our traditional nightcap of "hot foamy milk," (warm milk, flavored with vanilla, frothed by our improvised cappuccinno maker, and sprinkled with raw sugar) "Kiss, Hugs!" (our traditional name for tucking in) and nighty-nights all around.

How cool was that?

At the end of the night, I cuddled Zachary close and thanked him for making this such a special day. Mother's Day is next weekend, but I feel like it came early for me tonight.

I'll admit, these past couple months have been tough on me emotionally. I haven't had any luck in the job market and constantly worrying about the fall out of that has made me quite moody. However, it has given me so much time with my family, and today was a celebration of that.

So here's to the start of another great Family tradition, thanks to my wonderful son.