Here we go.

Today's our last day in town before we go to India. We've been really remiss about contacting people to say goodbye; unfortunately, both me and my husband have been needing to work at night, plus pack, plus manage an extremely active toddler, leaving us no time for anything else. Which sucks. But at least we managed to call our parents.

I'm getting really excited, though I'm trying really hard to keep an open mind about tomorrow's flights, especially the long one.

Right now I'm at work trying to wrap up and being completely unsuccessful. Our network connection is down, so no one can use anything but the Internet - no network folders, no e-mail, not even the phone in some cases. So, here I sit. Babbling on about how I'm leaving.

Anyway, I hope everyone has wonderful holidays and finds a chance to relax and enjoy. I'll see you on the other side of January!

Abra cadabra.

I always wanted to have a post title that started that way. I have no idea why. And since I haven't had an abra cadabra moment for quite some time (Ta-dah!), I figured I'd just call my post that and be done with it.

The weekend is proceeding well. Yesterday morning was very busy - a trip to the dealership to fix my breaks, another trip to the DMV to get my tags renewed (this particular DMV, unfortunately, is only open the first and last Saturday of the month), a trip to Schnucks to get eggs then a trip to another DMV to finish renewing my plates. All of this was accomplished with Ragsy in tow, and he was remarkably good about it. He only started getting upset toward the payment portion of renewing my plates. So, not bad at all.

Today we've done next to nothing. My husband went Christmas shopping while Ragsy was napping and that was about it. During a late breakfast, I quizzed him about things I'll need to know before going to India. His comments were as follows:

1. In the North, Ragsy will be spoiled rotten. Most small children, little boys in particular, are doted upon, so much so that some mothers actually hand-feed them for several years and just smile at smaller discipline infractions as long as the kid isn't actually putting himself in mortal danger. I've witnessed it firsthand, but thought it might be an anomaly. Apparently it's not. My husband advised that we'll need to enforce standard limits where possible, but some common discipline (like taking things away if he keeps throwing them) is considered excessive. Hmmm... Not sure what to do about that.

2. In some places we're going to visit, during gatherings, the women are separated from the men. In the North where his family tends to have more servants, it won't be to cook or the clean - just to gossip. In the South, women are expected to do more and only eat after the men are done, so I might be cooking and cleaning, which is no big deal - I'm pretty used to that and feel like I should offer even if they say no.

3. I need to decide whether or not I want to cover my head when I meet my husband's grandmother. It'd be the respectful thing to do, so I think I'll take a scarf and decide when I get there. While it would be respectful, they might not expect it, so I'm not sure which I'll go with.

4. I'll be the stupid American. That's already happened to me in several family situations with my husband, so that won't be new. Outside of our country, not many people have a high regard for the American school system (in some cases, that's completely understandable). And since I'm female, that's strike two.

5. My husband will speak for me on many things rather than someone asking me directly and allowing me to speak for myself. In other words, like has happened many times already, my husband will let people know if I eat spicy food, have ever traveled outside the U.S., etc.

I don't have to walk two steps behind my husband or anything like that, but it seems like there are still subtle separations and disparities between the sexes. But I guess such disparities exist everywhere in different forms wherever you go.

Still, I'm glad I had a chance to ask him. I hope Ragsy doesn't come home spoiled too rotten. If he does, it'll be a rough couple of weeks while we re-acclimate. He's a well-behaved kid in general, so hopefully it won't be too much of a difference, though in kids, just a day or two can have a significant impact.

Weekend madness.

The veil has almost lifted - the madness is nearing its end. Every weekend, I enter into a temporary state of insanity. Like my mom, I'm a meal planner. I pore over cookbooks, trying to figure out what's best to make. Unlike my mom, I don't spend a whole lot of time poring (I don't read cookbooks for fun) and I also try to get the most nutritional bang for my buck. Then, each weekend, I get the ingredients and go nuts so I don't have to during the week.

Because we're going to be seeing a lot of friends and neighbors this weekend, I've made dough for several dozen cookies - well, several dozen each of three different types anyway. Gingerbread, pecan sandies and something I made up that tastes like a chai spiced sugar cookie only was made with vanilla cake mix.

I've also made eggplant parmesan and will shortly be roasting a chicken. Then I'll be done. It's remarkable what you can do with a roasted chicken in just 15 minutes. Anyway, the madness is fading and I'm left with...a whole lot of cookie dough that still needs to be baked and an extremely messy kitchen. Blast. Now I have to clean the thing up.

Anyway, less than a week to go before we leave for India. I'm sad we won't be around for Christmas, but I'm looking forward to leaving town for a while and not having to clean all the time. I refuse to admit to my mother that I wish we were going at a different time because she cries every time she thinks about me going to India (she's laying on a HUGE guilt trip at every opportunity; come to think of it, so is work).

I don't want to a) make her cry more and b) have to comfort her while she cries. God, that sounds selfish. But coming from a family where tears are used as an extremely effective weapon and not necessarily to indicate pain, I'm a little immune. If my mom cries, I hate to admit it, but I feel more annoyance than anything else. I suppose that makes me a terrible daughter, but I can't change the way I feel anymore than she can get over the ingrained response of crying to gain attention. Ah, family.

High as a kite.

I have had so much sugar and coffee today that I think my head will explode. I feel almost as doped up as I did when I took my glucose test when I was pregnant. Only with a lot less rage than I had then.

On a related note, I found out that there's a cupcake bar on Delmar near the Walgreens before 170. They have cupcakes with filling. I had a chocolate thunder cupcake with ganache filling. I don't like chocolate cake, but I like this. Apparently it had more sugar than I've had all month, though.

Anyway, today is good, sugar or no. Hopefully things won't go downhill, but for now, I'm enjoying my sugar high (before an abrupt crash scheduled for, oh, about 3:30) and will continue to do so for as long as possible.

The final countdown.

The final countdown to India has begun - we'll be leaving soon for quite some time, so I'll be on hiatus from before Christmas to the end of January. I keep saying it, but I can't wait to leave the country. My only concern is how Ragsy will fare on the flight. I think he'll do okay, but there's no way to find out except by doing it.

He's doing much, much much better than he was earlier. Thursday gave me the scare of a lifetime, second only to when he had RSV and couldn't breathe. When I went to pick him up at daycare, I initially couldn't wake him up. It was awful having to pull his tiny body off his mat and gently shake his chin to get him to respond. I never, ever want to feel that way again. But of course, I will. I still go into his room at night to listen to him breathe, even though he's finished his course of steroids to open his lungs and all the breathing treatments and is breathing comfortably in his sleep.

He should be fine to travel by the date we leave. Unfortunately, we need to make sure he gets a flu shot beforehand. We'll need to space that out to next week, since the steroid he was on lowers immune functions. I almost wish we could push this trip back by just another month. But it's gotta happen now or it probably won't happen for at least another year.

This trip, while much anticipated, seems to be coming at a worse and worse time, both with work and personally.

Anyway, not a whole lot to say. I should be working, but I've been in meetings all day with another one coming up in 10 minutes, so not enough time to actually do anything. My life the past week and a half has revolved around either me or Ragsy being sick. Work is starting to freak out because they're finally realizing that, yes, I'm leaving the country soon and, yes, my workload isn't going anywhere. Hence all the freaking meetings. Blech.

Just like heaven.

This weekend was scary as hell. My son has a lung infection and is hopped up on all kinds of steroids to clear out his airways. Thursday was almost as bad as that morning we had to take him to the ER for RSV. In some ways it was worse. At least that morning, he was screaming bloody murder. Thursday he was slack-jawed and dead-eyed, stumbling around and unable to walk without falling down because his lungs were so blocked. I've never seen him like that and hope never to see it again. It came on so fast. He was completely healthy when I dropped him off at daycare. No fever, happily stuffing his face while waving me out the door after giving me a huge, sloppy kiss. But that all changed within three short hours. How did it happen so fast? What signs did I miss?

He's okay now. I wouldn't give my son up for the world, but at times like these, I'm really glad I have life insurance. I can't seem to stop myself going into his room while he's sleeping just to hear him breathe. That first night he started doing better, I sat in front of the TV for hours with him in my arms, just listening to him. It was the most beautiful sound I've ever, ever heard in my life - that slow, even, clear breathing. It was the closest to heaven I've been in a long time.

Two down, one to go.

I wound up going home yesterday. It was better for everyone involved. I just hope I haven't infected anyone here at work. Unfortunately, infecting family is more or less unavoidable. I called my husband at work to confirm who would be picking up Ragsy and he told me he was starting to feel nauseated. He said he had eaten a big lunch and hoped it might be that. I told him that he might as well go home now, but I don't think he will. Yuck. I hope he gets over it more quickly than I did.

Anyway, I'm still really lethargic, kind of crampy and generally a bit out of it. I'm just now able to eat small amounts of food other than white toast. I've moved up to chicken and a little pasta. On the upside, it's quick weight loss (which will probably return just as quickly).

How sick is sick enough?

I think my stomach is going to explode. Or I'm going to throw up. Or both. Unfortunately, I'm stupid enough to be at work right now, something I'm sure no one appreciates. I know I don't like it. Still, I sold my soul the moment I let work know that I needed to go to India for four weeks around 1/1. Since most plans implement on 1/1, it's a huge deal and I'm somewhat surprised they're not screaming more. I know they're not happy.

Which is why I'm here. I can take a sick day for my kid - he can't drive himself home after all. More importantly, being sick is probably scary to him. But I can't take a sick day for me unless I'm really, really sick. But I don't know how sick that is. I had a fever last night. I'm freezing my butt off right now, so I might still have one. My stomach, back and hips are cramping. I should probably leave right now, but I can't get people to stop talking to me long enough to reschedule anything.

I'm really looking forward to meeting my husband's family, but I wish to God I weren't taking off for so long.

It ain't product if you don't reorg.

I'm relatively certain my team is going to reorganize again. Given that they reorganized twice while I was on maternity leave and have reorganized another two times since July, another one would just be par for the course.

The reason I suspect this, you ask? Well, aside from the tightly-closed door meetings and various evolutions of our products, requiring more and more resources and specialization, we've all gotten a mandatory meeting invite for next week, along with a team building meeting for the following week and the week after that, a "social event" that also involves team building. So, yeah, something's afoot.

Of course, every time the group reorganizes, we all get mildly paranoid and/or annoyed. We inevitably worry about the future of the team (including our jobs or who we'll be reporting to next) and the products then we all get annoyed when we realize that nothing's going to change - we just got freaked out for nothing. Not that I want a good reason to freak out, but come on. Enough with the political BS. Oh, well. I guess that's part and parcel of working on a federally-funded program. More political BS than you could shake a stick at. Ick. I hate BS.

It's not light if you eat 10 of them.

I've become reasonably decent at making healthful foods or at least less bad versions of non-healthful foods. Unfortunately, I've made some chai shortbreads that I know are only 50 calories a shortbread and can't seem to stop eating them. I've probably had at least five. I want to lose six more pounds before I go to India, so I'll have to rein it in, otherwise, it'll never happen.

My husband and son are off Christmas shopping. It'll be interesting to see if they come home with anything. I feel a little bad since I practically kicked them out; however, it's nice to have some time to myself. I took care of Ragsy most of the day yesterday while we were meeting with our broker, then again when we went out to lunch and yet again when my husband conked out on the couch. Then it was my morning to get up with him this morning and my husband was only waking up as Ragsy was going down for his noon nap. I don't know many adults who could get away with sleeping until noon any day of the week unless they were deathly ill - either I'm a huge sucker or my husband is relatively lucky.

We look at sleep totally differently. Nighttime sleep is a necessity, but I like to get by with as little as possible during the week (when else am I supposed to get stuff done?) and eight hours tops on the weekends. Naps are a huge luxury, something I do only if I'm very, very sick or got less than three hours of sleep the night before and don't have to work. My husband, on the other hand, sees all sleep as something you need. So, his three-hour nap yesterday? Well, his theory is that he wouldn't have slept that long if he didn't need it. Same for sleeping until 12 p.m. this afternoon. My view is that if I have three hours with which to sleep in the first place or if I'm free until noon, there's no way I'm spending that time unconscious. All the more reason for me to get up as early as possible - I'd better be up and making the most of it because God only knows when I'll have that much uninterrupted time again to do, well, anything that doesn't involve cooking, cleaning, childcare, laundry or fitting in a quick workout.


Oh, well. Today I've spent a bit of my free time eating (damn cookies) and need to spend more of it writing and running. Oh, yeah. Then there's the cleaning I need to do, the laundry and I need to finish cooking for the week....

Speaking of vomiting...

Okay, okay - after this post, I swear I'm done with the barf talk. However, I just called daycare to tell them that my son was sick and not coming in. I told them what was wrong and they started apologizing right and left. I don't get it. If there are a lot of young children together all day and one gets sick, of course, all of them are going to get sick. That's just the way it works. I'm not mad about it - I certainly don't like being covered in sick, but I also get that that's what happens sometimes with young children.

Anyway, I guess some parents were furious because it was going around. Unless they were careless with the food and that was what cause him to get ill, I really don't mind - I don't see how they could control it any more than they are now by sanitizing the heck out of everything, which they do regularly anyway. Is it truly common to get mad at this? If so, it seems ridiculous to blame someone else for a virus spreading unless they're just letting kids play in each other's gak. Ewwww... Okay. Once more, I feel dirty.

I feel dirty.

I just had a first. My toddler woke at 5 a.m. this morning (no, that's not unusual). He seemed upset and my first thought was, "Ugh. What's it gonna take before he goes back to..." then my second thought was "Shit! What do I do? Which way is the bathroom again?" He woke whimpering, then crying, then began the ominous burping. Uh-oh. And copious amounts of barf - amounts I never before suspected possible.

By the time I managed to get him to the bathroom and turn the light on, he was on his last heave. My husband came along and helpfully mentioned, "Hey, he hardly got any on the floor." That's probably because he and I were wearing most of it. So all that was left was to sit him on the bathmat, strip him, wipe him up and change his diaper. Then I got to get clean. Even though I've showered already, I feel like I could use another one just to get that smell out of my head. Ick.

I've gotten lucky so far, given that this is the first time he's vomited. Even luckier, he hasn't done it again yet, but the day's hardly even begun.

Stupidly, I can't help but be a little proud of myself since I didn't throw up, too, even though I was covered in it and I also didn't freak out, just kept rubbing his back, murmuring, "I bet that hurts, but it's okay. Almost done. Almost done. There you go - good boy." Within a half hour, he was feeling just fine, though tired. I think he was most freaked out by the barfing and more than a little annoyed about us taking his temperature (low-grade fever). He's asleep now.

That was really disgusting. I feel dirty. Worse, I'm sure my husband and I are just ticking bombs ourselves now. Good thing we didn't have plans with friends this weekend.

Thanksgiving.

Ugh. I just realized I desperately need to add links to my blog so I can find my friends easier. But I'm lazy and just haven't done it yet.

Anyway, on to Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was good. We had a few of my husband's friends over plus my mom, who was sane for the evening. We all ate, drank and made merry. Ragsy was adorable and sweet until I had to put him to bed, of course, when he turned into a screaming little rat. But that was ok. He tends to do that at night. He's still cute even when he's a screaming little rat. As long as I keep my cool, it doesn't really matter.

The weekend as a whole was satisfying, though I got really, really stir crazy Saturday. My mom is a homebody. Meaning, she's content to sit in the living room at my house and sew for hours and hours. She always has a TV on, which is a nasty habit, especially when we're trying to discourage our child from getting too accustomed to TV. Whenever she visits, the TV is on more or less from the time she wakes to whenever she goes to bed. Which is funny because she doesn't actually watch it - she just talks constantly over the din. I think that she's kept it on so much at her own house for company/background noise, that she hardly notices it when it's on but feels weird when it's off because of the quiet. She's admitted before that she hates the quiet - it makes her uncomfortable.

Anyway, when Saturday rolled around with me exhausted (apparently it's fun to wake at 3:30 a.m. and scream periodically just as people are falling asleep - fun for Ragsy, not for me) and mom was trying to carry on a conversation with me when I was in another area of the house, trying to watch my kid while my husband worked, I finally got annoyed and grabbed Ragsy and left. I was a bit miffed (though somewhat pleasantly surprised) when mom opted to come with me to the Magic House. I liked the adult company, but my mom is a bit of a snob. If you've met her, you probably know that she doesn't like crowds. She also doesn't like children (except for Ragsy). Why she wanted to go with us to a crowded children's playhouse, I'll never know, but we weren't there more than a half hour or 45 minutes.

Whatever. We managed to tire the kid out and my husband and I got an unexpected gift: my mom offered to sit with Ragsy while we went to dinner. Alone. It was absolutely wonderful. That, combined with our decent Thanksgiving day, more than made up for any ills the weekend may have brought.

So, is there a point to this post? Hell, no. Am I babbling? Hell, yes. Did you read this far? Ha ha!

Work.

Work today is, as I expected, a complete wasteland. There are four of us from our combined team here, which is both good and bad. I'm not sure if I feel more or less motivated to work than I normally do. Although, I'm finding it almost as difficult to work as I did Wednesday, given that my husband keeps calling me with questions like, "Andi, I can't find Ragsy's hat and gloves. Where are they." I tell him where they are, he thanks me, hangs up. Then calls back two minutes later. "I can't find them. Are you sure they're there?" Gah! I can't really do anything from here but make additional suggestions. "Have you checked his clothing drawer? How thoroughly did you go through the hat drawer?" and so on.

Very irritating. And now my concentration is a little bit blown, especially since I know I'll be getting out of here in a mere two hours. I think I'll go shopping. I know, I know. Brave. I'll have to fight with the hordes of people who've been shopping since 4 a.m., who are hungry and spoiling for a fight over something silly like a stuffed Tickle me Elmo. Fortunately, Ragsy's only getting one gift from us this year, and I'm not getting it for him today.

All I need to get are demitasse spoons for my mom, a cup of coffee for me and then I'm outta there. Unless I want to dally to enjoy a few minutes of freedom and relative quiet. Well, it won't be quiet, but at least no one will be talking to me!

Blessing or Curse?

I have yet to figure out whether my son's insane waking times are a blessing or curse. On the one hand, waking up at four a.m. is hard as hell. Especially when it takes an hour and a half to convince a babbling toddler to shut it and go to sleep. On the other hand, once said toddler goes to sleep, I get a very few precious moments of me time. If I could be guaranteed that kind of time every morning, I'd happily get up at 4 a.m. almost every morning. Almost.

However, it's the uncertainty that gets me. For example, I began writing this around 6:15 a.m. this morning. My little one had been asleep for almost an hour, I had had an opportunity to have a pretty decent breakfast and was looking forward to some time spent venting and babbling on my blog while glugging some coffee. But it was not to be. As luck would have it, as soon as I put my fingers to the keys, I heard a loud and incredulous "DAH! Dah dah dah dah....Door?? Go DOOR? For BAH?" over the baby monitor. Then crying when he realized he was alone. Blast. Scrap that plan.

Still, those moments I do get in the morning are like a weird guilty pleasure. Perhaps it's because they're so hard-won. After spending more than an hour putting the kid back to sleep, I feel like I need a few moments to do a victory dance at least. You know, before passing out again.

Ah, well. Tonight is my husband's night, which means he gets up with the little one. Unfortunately, since my mom is in town after today, Ragsy is back in our bed since we're short a mattress and he doesn't agree that he can sleep in his crib. He'll agree for about two hours, then stringently disagree. For about three hours. It's just not worth it. I value my hearing too much. Regardless, it's not much of a night off when you have a 28-pound kid slung across your neck (why, oh why doesn't he do that to my husband? Why must I routinely have my airway cut off while my husband sleeps peacefully, unencumbered, on the other side of the bed? Or alternatively, with Ragsy tucked sweetly against his shoulder?).

There is truly a reason kids are this cute. So you don't really sell them to the gypsies.

Blargh.

I'm all bleary eyed and sleepy. What a dreary day. I used to love days like today, because it wasn't necessary to actually demonstrate any energy - I could just lay on the couch all afternoon like a lump, drifting in and out of naps. But this is better. Even if it's harder, it's better.

I know I was just whining about my family, but my son is awake and I can hear him making lion sounds in the kitchen with his dad. Both are incredibly cute.

Ragsy has been learning new words like crazy and refining his use of existing ones. He's adjusted his earlier negative, which sounded like "nenenenenenenene" to actually sound like a no. A very loud no, repeated over and over and over. Especially in public places when I'm trying to hold his hand to prevent him from racing into the street.

I was joking with my husband that this must have happened around 3:48 a.m. this morning. He wasn't doing this yesterday. The reason I say it must have happened at 3:48 was that our son usually wakes for about a half hour to an hour around 4 a.m. even after we've climbed into bed with him. This morning was a trifle earlier than usual (3:47) and, since I've completely stopped interacting with him at that time other than to rub his back, he went back to sleep within about five minutes. But not after he popped his head up, yelled something incoherent that might have been an "Aha!" and promptly passed out again. Only to wake up and yell "No. No. No nononononono!" when I suggested it was time to change his diaper.

Good grief. This is worse than when he pointed at my chest and yelled "boobs!" the other day. I really hope that was a fluke and not deliberate.

Gripe.

I wondered how long it would take before I'd start griping on my blog about this and that. It only took, what, four posts? So, my gripe is as usual about my home life. Funny how the people you love most are the ones that make you the nuttiest.

So, my husband has been talking a lot about providing me more time to write more on the weekends. In other words, the idea is that he'll take over more of the childcare (which I do the bulk of) and allow me to write some more. Which is great. As a published writer, I don't want to get completely out of practice, and I thrive when I have time to write. But so far, my husband's promises have been mostly talk. And when I do get time to write, it's not nearly as much as I give him to tackle his own pursuits, you know, like sleeping 'til noon at least one day on the weekend.

So I'm frustrated. I feel like I not only take care of all the cooking and most of the cleaning, but sometimes I feel like I have two kids instead of one. They both complain when I ask them to help me out; only I'm able to convince one of them (my son) to do give me a hand a lot more easily than I am the other.

Anyway, it's just irritating. But it's something that's been a constant battle since our little boy was born. I suspect that, until our son is able to take on some household chores, it will continue to be a battle. Then we'll find something else because that's what happens when you live with someone. There's always something to argue about and, chances are that unless that thing goes away, it's the same thing over and over.

But at least it's predictable.

Focus.

I am having the hardest time focusing today. Maybe I should go for a short walk soon. Hopefully that'll redirect me back to what I'm supposed to be doing. But I can hear so many people (okay, one very, very loud person in particular) yammering - practically yelling - nearby on the phone, people keep stopping by to ask me questions and when they're not stopping to ask me questions, I'm getting phone calls. It's frustrating to set my mind to start working on something, then get constantly distracted.

Anyway, if I go away for a while, I might be able to reset myself a little. Or find someplace to hide so no one can bug me. But who am I kidding? It's a sunny Friday. Even though it sounds like we have an auditorium full of people over my right shoulder and my desk seems to be a revolving door, it's pretty low-key in here.

On a more positive note, I got a compliment today. It doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy. But I've been trying to lose weight, with moderate success and apparently it's showing. It's always incredibly satisfying when someone notices something good you've done. Now if I could just get that extra 20 pounds to fall off my ass, we'd all be good.

Birthday.

Today is my birthday. I am 32. I remember thinking that was absolutely ancient and now it blows my mind that some day my son will think the same thing.

I'm happy today. I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in my life when I was a little girl and realized that I accomplished everything I wanted to and then some so now it's time to set some new goals. Or to start doing what I've done already and re-commit myself to doing it better than I have before.

Birthdays are much better days than January 1 to set personal goals. For me they're much more meaningful - a more accurate yardstick for what I've done. But that's just me.

Quiet!

Quiet is extremely underrated. And there's rarely enough of it. I love the benign chaos that reigns whenever my family is near, but I also long sometimes for the long times of complete silence that I used to enjoy before our son was born. I would never undo what I've done so far, my son, husband and all my friends included.

But, as the holidays approach and more and more family come in to visit and I'm expected to go into some alternate warp holiday drive because my son must, must enjoy Christmas, I wish more and more for the quiet. My mother, in particular, makes me wish for that. She doesn't like silence, probably because she lives by herself in a fairly large house. Whenever I visit her, there are usually at least two TVs blaring - each in different rooms - to break up the quiet. Then when she comes to visit me, our TV gets a workout and our son gets his fill since we don't let him watch TV otherwise.

Perhaps it's a failing of mine, but I find the TV to be the biggest hindrance to thinking, speaking and sex. When you're mesmerized and sitting on the couch, it's hard to engage in meaningful talk.

Anyway, that's my soapbox speech for today - everyone shut up and get off my lawn!

Virgin Blog

Ahhh, a virgin blog. So pure. So innocent. Not for long.

Okay. That's a lie. I don't actually have much to say. But whatever. I'll make it up as I go.

Let's see. I suppose I should at least introduce myself to my blog before I completely deflower it. I'm a thirty-something woman with an 18-month-old son and a husband about the same age (as me, not my son because that would be creepy).

This is actually my second blog. I have another one that I write frequently that friends read to keep up with me, but since this came along with my gmail account and it's nice to have a work-safe outlet (theoretically safe anyway), I decided to start typing away.

I work in healthcare product management, something I never in my wildest dreams expected to do. When I was little, I expected to be an archaeologist. Hah! When I realized I'd be eating velveeta for the rest of my life and living in a tent in South America while my husband was here in the States, I decided I'd stay here instead of getting my PhD. Funny, I feel like I got the better end of the deal.

I still stay in touch with my archaeologist friends, though, and once in a while get reprints on documents I created as a field archaeologist.

Regardless, I got to stick around and practice my other childhood dream, which was becoming a writer. So I freelanced for a couple of years, started to get some money and also became a modestly well-known erotica author (what? sex sells better than anything else). So that worked out well. Anyway, one of my corporate clients hired me and here I am - still writing, but working, too, plus raising a family and doing whatever else it is that I do. And that's more or less it for now.

I'm working on a couple of pretty large government projects at work, so I should probably get back to that, delightful as it sounds.