I can't believe it

No, it's not "I can't believe it's not butter". I can't believe how fast Sadie is growing. It's crazy. I haven't weighed her at the breastfeeding center for quite some time, not even at home on our junk-o scale while holding her, then getting back on the scale without her (still scary) and doing the math. Well, I decided to tease my brain a little and did the math. Holy cow - after doing it three different times, I still got the same answer. She's at least 16 pounds and had at least one reading where it was 16.5 pounds. (I'd like to note that my scale is a piece of junk, isn't very consistent, and only displays weight in half pound increments. It's very finicking so if your feet are exactly centered or you are standing slightly leaning forward or backward, you get a different answer every time. Annoying, I know.) Can you believe it? 16 pounds! We joke that she has finally surpassed Red as being the fatty of the house... but then I weighed Red and he's in at 17 pounds. He still keeps the title of Fatty of the house... for now.

Also, Sadie has been gnawing and drooling buckets on everything in sight and/or within reach. It doesn't matter if it's your hand, her hand, or Blue's tail, if she can get she will try to eat it. She's getting really good at eating solid foods and loves trying to chew the spoon in half. A few of her favorite foods is bananas, peaches, and "apple oatmeal" - mixing the single grain oatmeal with 100% apple juice. It's so funny when you give her the first bite and she's not sure what flavor to expect. The expression on her face screams "What are you doing to me? What is this? Ew. Ew. Ew. Oh. This is good. I really like this. This is really good. More! More! More!" Then you can't shovel the food fast enough from the little bucket or jar to the spoon to her mouth before she tries to steal the spoon from you or starts eating her hands trying to get that last little bit off of her face into her mouth. As if the world will end in two seconds and there will be no more yummy food. ... Crazy girl... But she's the best and we love her to pieces. Even if she tries to attack us with her one tooth that is poking through the gums on the bottom in the middle.

Cubes are so depressing.

I feel like a caged animal. Cubicles are not my thing. I don't mind a small office - and I mean small. You could stick me in a broom closet for all I care. I miss my beautiful office in downtown on the thirteenth floor with door and window and gorgeous view and beautiful modern furniture. How many offices do you know that have black hardwood floors in their entrance/lobby? But being sub-contracted out to another company for a while, I'm in a cubicle. I don't do cubicles. So mass produced and impersonal.

Well, I can at least change that last part. I decided to decorate my cube a bit and will continue to do so with small odds and ends here and there as time goes by. But for now, this is what I have. What do you think?

It was cheap to do to - $10 in fabric and some sewing pins/T pins. Easy cheesey. And it looks really nice. At least better than the ugly gray faux tweed on the rest of the walls. I know it needs to be ironed a bit more, but I don't feel like taking it down right now to do so. The wrinkles will eventually work their way out. But for now it at least adds a pop of color and some interest in my otherwise boring cube.

Metal!

I would like to welcome everyone to the side of me that most people don’t know, and if they do, they don’t know very well. I wouldn’t say that I’m ashamed of this side, but it’s definitely been low key for the past few years.

I’m a metal head.

I love metal.

I’m not talking the physical metals, but the music. It deeply intrigues me. So technically profound. Most people say it’s just beating the drums really hard, thrashing on a guitar or bass, and lots of screaming. But it’s more than that. So much more. Here’s a view for you – could you play a metal song on guitar? How about on drums? Or sing/scream one metal song? Could you play through an album? Could you last through an entire show? Welcome to admiration. It’s fricking nuts how these artists put forth their talent(s).

I agree that metal is not for everyone. I also state that I am not fond of all types of metal, but I will give them a good listen. It’s one of those things that I’ll take if given, but not particularly as for type of things. But, man, can a few good metal tunes in a row really turn your mood around from sour to fuck the world to ah, that’s much better because I just drove home and left everything behind while double bass pedaling the floor near the brakes while on cruise control going down the highway while screaming some good lyrics. That’s what metal brings for me.

I am not particularly for the Satanic side of things, but I will listen to what people have to say. It’s a free country with free speech, so give people the minute they all deserve to voice their opinions and beliefs, regardless if those opinions or beliefs coincide or completely contradict your own.

So I invite everyone to maybe take a few minutes and do some research on iTunes or Rhapsody or whatever method you use to get your tunes to find some metal and give it a try. Believe me, not all metal sounds the same. So give a few different songs and different bands a try. Be careful though, you just might like it.

Long time, no post - well, really just too stinking busy

Hello, blog. I'm Jenni. Remember me? I'm not surprised if you don't. With holidays, parties, drinks with friends you would never have dreamed drinking with (more on this later), lack of sleep, watching Sadie grow like you couldn't believe, sort of changing jobs, gearing up to start job number two at the same time, lack of sleep, new PS3, Guitar Hero games, making dinner, lack of sleep, planning for my brother's boot camp graduation, cleaning the house, Six Flags, finally taking down the Christmas lights and decorations, working out at least 3 one-hour classes a week, ... oh, did I mention lack of sleep?
Let's delve into each of these topics, at least for a quick blurb about most of them.

Holidays - enough said. Family and presents and planning events. Always fun and more often than not leaves you winded after everything settles down.

Parties - Christmas parties and birthday parties out to whazoo. And all over Timbuktu. We've been everywhere from Aledo to McKinney. Some were good, some were really loud - but that's just that particular circle of friends. Oh, and baby showers! Lots of babies! I know two to three women about to burst in the next three weeks, and another friend is due in May. Crazy.

Drinks with friends you would have never dreamed drinking with - let's just say this. Church youth group chaperone/mentor figure. The same guy that married Thomas and I. His wife, him, and a friend we've known since high school and our youth group days. All playing Texas Hold'em in our dining room, taking back beers and Crown & Cokes, then playing a bit of Guitar Hero till four in the morning. Fun stuff. Odd, but awesome all at the same time.

Sadie - that should be all that I have to say. But I will elaborate because she's a monster (in a good way). She's definitely teething now that she has two little tooth buds sticking out of her gums - one up and one down. Weird. Most people say teeth come in in pairs, but we'll see. She's focusing, reaching, and grabbing everything. She's talking like a bad auctioneer. She holds her own bottle, for the most part, and makes feeding her extremely convenient. She's trying different flavors of "real" food - well, baby purees, but close enough. She's had bananas, applesauce, and squash. Yummy. She knows to start making noise when you pat her mouth to make her go "whaa whaa whaa whaa" everytime you pat. She has the coolest pacifier leashes that I bought from a store on Etsy.com - OhMyMommyClementine. Sadie has three leashes wth skulls and crossbones in black/white/pink, pink/white/black, and brown/pink/white. Awesome. Last note - holy crap she'll be five months old next week!

Sort of changing jobs - I "started" work this past week. See, I got hired on to one company to be subcontracted out to another. Well, the project was a little behind at the second company, so I did a little work at my parent company. This Monday I started at the second company as a contract employee representing my parent company. No more 13th floor office with door and window and beautiful view of downtown.... now into the land of cubicles. But it's not too bad. Haven't done much there in the past week because the project is still a little slow, but it should pick up in the next week or so. (There's only so much time you can spend doing "research" on the internet without getting insanely bored.)

Job number two - This time last year, it was job number one. But now it's number two. Yay tax season! No more crazy 60 hour work weeks while growing a bun in the oven like last year. This year I am working only Saturdays at the tax office. That's what happens when you work somewhere else 40 hours a week like a normal person. We'll see how it goes. Oh, quick mention, I think it's awesome that the tax office is going green - we've set up scanners and now only print one copy of the return for the client while everything else is digital copies. Unless you've been there, you won't understand the massive amounts of paper and folders and time to pay someone to file all that will be saved.

New PS3 and Guitar Hero - I'm lumping these two together because it's something that Thomas and I have been talking about for a while and finally got as sort of a Christmas present to ourselves, and a birthday present to Thomas. Tons of fun playing an hour or so the past few nights.

My brother's boot camp graduation - My brother joined the Air Force and is in boot camp for eight weeks. He graduates in the middle of February and we'd like to go to the graduation ceremony. My mom is going too. Trying to get details of when the ceremony is, getting my mom's flight figured out (fly to DFW or just to San Antonio?), hotel, travel time for Thomas, Sadie, and I by car, getting that weekend off from work, etc etc etc. Lots of planning, but we're definitely going. I wouldn't miss it for anything.

Six Flags - We went with a few friends to Six Flags last week for one of their birthdays. It was fun. The weather was really nice. Thomas and I decided to get season passes in hopes of entertaining ourselves for the rest of the year with no excuse of why we couldn't get out and do something. Here's an interesting about Six Flags - it was Thomas and I's first date, before we were even dating. Quick background story - we met in high school at band camp before school started for the year. Thomas came up to me and introduced himself (that took guts back then). A few days later after more camp but not getting to know him too well (because he played drums and I played saxophone then), he asked if I wanted to go to Six Flags with him. I asked my parents and they said ok. That was the beginning of Thomas and me. Now, we've been married for three years and have a crazy nearly five month old daughter. Nuts, huh?

Working out - I guess you can call it a New Years resolution, or at least close enough. I've been going to workout consistently for the past few months, minus a few oddball weeks in there. Heck, I was even working out twice a week consistently when I was pregnant up to 38 weeks along. I have found that the easiest (for now) way to make myself go without fail, and to get Thomas to go with me, is to go to some of the classes the gym offers. We've both put the classes into our phone calendars so we know for sure we need to leave work and get going. We've done yoga, mat pilates, and a cycling class together. Other classes that I like going to are Body Works (a dumbbell workout set to music) and Step. Fun stuff. I like the changes that going is making for me - having a "regular" schedule/routine of something, getting away from everything else for at least an hour, getting more in shape. Too bad it hasn't shown squat on the scale yet, but I think I'm in that weird change out body fat for muscle phase where the scale doesn't reflect because muscle weighs more than fat. We'll see.

Last, but not least, but definitely the least of - sleep. I've been sleeping like crap lately. I can't figure out why. Probably just stress. And Sadie is teething, so about four days out of seven, she wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to chew on something or is hungry again. I can't sleep in past 8:00 am, if that, because my body won't let me. (Word of warning to those who want kids - kiss sleeping in goodbye - once they are up, you are up too. At least until they are old enough to occupy themselves with some toys in the morning on their own.)

Ugh. Enough yip yapping. (And scrolling back up, that was a lot of yip yapping.) On to my weekend tasks of laundry, dishes, cleaning the house, working out, and maybe, just maybe, taking down the Christmas lights and decorations if the weather permits. Oh, sleep? I gave up on that.