Television and Babysitting (but not at the same time)

Matt and I almost got Direct TV last week. Actually we signed up for it but changed our (my) mind before the installation guy came. We've been without cable for a few months now and it's really not horrible. I've always been a TV junkie though, so it's quite an adjustment for me. We have a converter box and an antenna in the living room that allows us to get most local channels. NBC comes in the best, and CBS and FOX are pretty good too. The spanish channels always come in crystal clear, but sadly it's pretty hard to watch PBS. The girls love videos though, and we have quite a stash of Disney flicks among other things.
The things I miss the very most about cable are channels like HGTV and TLC among others. I also really miss the DVR and watching my favorite shows whenever I want to! Fortunately my favorite programs are available from their network websites or Hulu the day after they air, so we can catch up then. It wasn't very enjoyable to watch them on my old computer, but I think the new one will have a nice bright clear screen for watching shows. We also are able to watch several TV shows and movies instantly through Netflix on the computer, so it's not like we're without media.
In fact, I've pretty much replaced my TV addiction for an internet addiction. :) I really enjoy reading blogs and Facebook, and I find myself sucked in far too many times a day. I have been doing more reading lately, and I'm hoping to do more when I get my Kindle. I'm hoping that will eventually cut down on the clutter around here as well.
Cable is so expensive in our area (maybe everywhere?), but Direct TV has a really good intro offer, and full price is even cheaper than cable as far as I can see. We talked about it and thought it would be worth the price and we would really enjoy it! I can't argue with that, but I started feeling buyer's remorse as soon as I signed up. I thought about it more and really found myself seeing things and thinking things that led me toward the decision to unsign up and be content with what we have! Not that I don't miss it. A lot. :)
For now we're going to save what we would have spent. It feels a lot better to have money in savings anyway. Although we're nowhere near our goal, we have a little breathing room... a very little. It felt really good to be able to buy a computer when mine died.

I'm not sure if I've actually mentioned this on the blog or not (or maybe I have a lot, but I just can't remember!), but I'm in the middle of a "career" change right now. :) I'd been working part time at the church up until James was born. Then we had a (really mutual) parting. It was their idea, but I think it was for the best, all around. So for the first time in all my havings of babies, I didn't have to go right back to work with them. I cannot tell you how delightful that's been! (Way better than cable :) ) And becuase of some nice people and circumstances, I've been able to keep the girls in MDO/preschool even though my income isn't coming in. Guess what I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I drop off the big girls, then James and I have 5 hours to ourselves! Talk about bonding!! I still feel a little guilty about it; I've always used that time for work! And in a way, I still do, though it's a different kind. I work on my parenting; I work on my house. It's nice.
I was on the lookout for some part time work as soon as I found out I wasn't continuing at the church. I wanted to be able to be with my kids at least most of the time. My schedule at the church was pretty ideal. I considered a few things, in no major hurry since I wouldn't want to do much before the new year. Then something fell into my lap. Well, first Matt actually got a little raise, which is amazing since they never give him raises! (That sounds wrong. His former boss never gave him a raise, but that wasn't his fault.) So with some budget cuts on our part and the little raise, we were okay for awhile! It feels good to know you're being watched out for, you know? These little things that happened really made me feel that leaving the church (as an employee) was the right thing to do! One thing I really want to be able to do though is keep the kids in the school up at church. They love it so much and I know it's good for them.
Back to the thing that fell into my lap: an old friend who moved back to Kingwood contacted me about watching her son while she works!! I am so excited about this. He was born in May, so he's in between my little ones, and I think this has the potential to be great! I know it will also be HARD WORK, but a different kind of hard than previous jobs. He's going to start next month. I won't have him every day or even the same days all the time. His mom is a PA downtown, and his dad is a student. I'm so excited to be able to help them (and me) out. I'm going to continue to put the girls in MDO/SLC this semester, and that will ease me in I think. Some days I'll just have the boys. Some days I'll have my three. Some days I'll have all four. :) We'll see what happens for the future. I'm excited to be able to save this money for when we need it. And as life happens, we will.

Clearly I needed to ramble. I haven't been writing much and I really wanted to get this on the ol' blog. In my head it was shorter. :)
The new computer will hopefully come in today. That combined with the girls going back to school this week should result in some blog posts with pictures!

More Musings

This afternoon Joanna's teacher called over to the office to tell me to come watch Joanna sing karoke. Isn't that wonderful?! I got to go peek in the window of her classroom and watch her belt out "Twinkle Twinkle" in the microphone -- love it!!

I'm just about finished with another week of work. Today was just one of those busy days where I couldn't quite get it all finished during MDO time. I just have a couple of loose ends to tie up, and I'll be up there later for Sola Gratia practice anyway. I need to load the Media Shouts onto the computers, organize my printed bulletins, and fold The Vine bulletins. Should just take me a few minutes, and the girls will be at home with Daddy!

At this point in my pregnancy I feel so relieved when I finish up a week of work. Each week I really do hope that the baby will come before I need to start another week of work. Not that I mind the work (I enjoy it!), but I hate to start and not be able to finish, you know? Right now though everything's in place for other people to take on my duties if need be! I'd also love to do all my work next week as well. Really. :) But maybe not the week after. I might need to be rolled around at that point.

I'm hoping I can do more than listen tonight at rehearsal. Last week really tired me out, and I did more breathing than singing on Sunday morning, I think! Sometimes I have to stand up just to get enough air to sing. Unfortunately I sit on the front row. And also I generally have to go to the bathroom every time I stand up. Not a super-productive rehearsal, eh?

The Women are singing at the Rotunda in Austin in December. I'm not sure it's realistic that I'll be able to go, but I want to learn as much of the music as I can in case it does work out. And I love Christmas music!

My mother has gotten Matt and me completely and totally, utterly hooked on this TV show called Fringe. I think most people haven't even heard of it, but it's WONDERFUL. It just started it's 3rd season, but I wouldn't recommend starting there. My mother totally enabled us by letting us use her Netflix subscription to watch seasons 1 and 2 over the last few weeks. And yes, that'd be about 45 episodes in really just a few weeks. (Yup, I checked; we got the first one around the 11th of August.) I did say we were addicted, right? There were three episodes to a disc in the first season, and four episodes to a disc in the second season. There were many evenings we watched three in one night. I so should not be choosing TV over sleep. :) Well, last week or the week before we upped the Netflix from one disc at a time to two so we could "catch up" to season three. It just started, and we were able to quickly watch through the end of season two on DVD and watch the first couple of episodes of season three on Hulu. All this rambling means that tonight is the first episode of Fringe that we could watch while it's actually on. That is if I was going to be home. So even though I won't choose sleep over Fringe, I will choose choir practice. If we had cable, I'd tape it, but the chances of the connection remaining good for the whole hour over the antenna aren't good. And it would be terrible for the tape to fuzz out in the middle! We're better off waiting until tomorrow and watching it on Hulu. But it will be a long day. :)

Puny Joanna

Yesterday was a school/work day for us.  I was hoping I’d get out a little before the girls so I could have some home alone time.  But I really had too much work (and that’s okay!), so I stayed the whole time.  A little after noon, Joanna’s teacher came and got me – Joanna had thrown up a little.  I fetched her, and we had “take your daughter to work day!”  She drank Sprite, she colored, she helped me carry things around.  She seemed to be feeling basically normal.  I could tell she wasn’t quite herself, but the vomiting was a fluke.  Maybe she’d gotten hot on the playground and drank too much water too fast.

I’d convinced myself she was fine until she almost fell asleep on the way home.

And all she wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch a movie.

And after a little snack (of goldfish inside an ice cream cone), she totally crashed.

She shifted around a little bit but fussed when I tried to take away the cone!  She was snuggling with it.  :)

She slept until after Daddy got home (not quite sure how long) even in the noisy living room, but still went to bed at a decent time too!  We checked her temp and it was 100.5.  She doesn’t usually run high fevers.  She also said she hurt “all over her body” so she got some Tylenol and perked right up!.  She also slept until 7:45am – ahhhhhh…

She was tuckered out!  But she seems really back to her normal self this morning.  Yay!

Working girls

This summer the girls have been coming with me to work more often than usual.  It actually hasn’t been miserable. :)

I have several wonderful people who’ve been watching them for my Tuesday meetings.  I think I could probably have Joanna with me for those if needed (and maaaayyyybbee Natalie for one of them by herself), but it’s so nice to go and concentrate and enjoy adult conversation for a couple of hours instead.  :)  Most Wednesday mornings there is a nursery available, and in a perfect world that would be enough time to get almost everything done.  Sadly, the copy machine does not live in that perfect world.  Either it or the server has been down more Wednesdays than not.  :(

So we often find ourselves going up to the church on Thursdays or Fridays (or both!) to get the printing started.

Joanna loves getting the bulletins from the machine and putting them in a bin for me.

She is actually a very good helper.  Sometimes she acts a little crazy and messes with stuff, but mostly she listens and stays with me.  I praise her a lot for that behavior.  And she usually gets a little sucker.  :)

This one though… Oye!  It’s a good thing she’s cute!  It’s totally the age, but she is all over the place!  The last couple of times I’ve gone up with the girls, I’ve devised a system that works pretty well.  It is: Natalie + stroller + sucker = about 15 minutes of work time for me.

She just sits in the stroller, licking her sucker until it’s all gone.  She LOVES it.

I don’t try to get much done with them in tow.  It’s mostly just getting the bulletins started printing.  We then leave and come back to check on them later.  My wonderful coworkers also help by pulling them off the machine for me and calling if something goes wrong.  All my computer work gets done either during nursery time or at home.

I’m really looking forward to September, especially if the girls are healthy.  I’ll be super-huge, but Natalie and Joanna have preschool/MDO on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Can you even imagine?  On weeks that they’re both healthy and they’re are no holidays… bliss!  Of course Little Man is coming to mess with that system.  :)  Hee hee.  Then we’ll have Mommy/son alone time.  That will be really cool.