along the journey

Last night when the alarm sounded to get me up to take Baxter out to potty, still in a daze, I couldn’t figure out why our TV remote wouldn’t turn the alarm off. I kept pushing the volume button and such. And then it wouldn’t set the alarm for time to wake up next. I eventually turned the volume dial and that didn’t get the alarm to go off. I figured it out finally, but was still messing with the the remote. Amy woke up and saw me and asked me what I was doing. As I began to come back to my senses I realized what I was doing. I mean I know how to set my alarm practically asleep, and I certainly know how to turn it off in my sleep, but this was ridiculous.

I was turned down for the job that I went for the follow-up interview for on Friday. I am quite upset, but the world goes on. It’s tough. The recruiter said that one of the reasons why I got turned down was because the interviewer told him that I did not work well with little supervision, and that I tend to procrastinate under longer deadlines. The first point with regard to not working well with little supervision, she completely misunderstood my answers to certain questions. I can’t remember what she asked that got me talking about how in Mason the managers weren’t very focused on one team, that they’ve got a lot on their plates and there’s not much direct supervision, and that at the Senate that my manager was in a completely different area of the building. I was at that job for 4 years, making better than average marks on my performance evaluations. I was recommended for the transfer. She asked me how I did with direct supervision, I told her I’d definately benefit from direct supervision, but it’s not necessary. Of course it was an interview, I’m sure I was rambling quite a bit. The second part is mostly true- I do work better under shorter deadlines, sure I’ll procrastinate under a long deadline, but the work will get done and go above and beyond expectations, just close to the deadline. Isn’t that the point of deadlines, an absolute date when something is needed, if it’s way out in the future it doesn’t exactly encourage me to work on it. I don’t know. I may send this to the recruiter and see if he can pull any strings with the job.

I sent an email to the lady we got Baxter from yesterday, basically telling her that we weren’t prepared for the impact of having a puppy in our house, that Caleb is covered in scratches, and that we know that we’ll be unable to provide the care that is needed for him once we’re both back at work. My hope is that there was someone else interested in getting one of the puppies, that wasn’t able to get one because they were all taken. If that doesn’t come through, our neighbor has expressed an interest in taking him, but I’m not too keen on that idea. We love him. We really do, it’s just too much for us to deal with.

We’re taking Amy’s car to get a second opinion with regards to the work that needs to be done to get it registered in Maryland, and we’ll probably have the work done. I cashed out my 401K from Entex and we’re going to use that to pay to get the car repaired and registered, hopefully the truck as well.

Have I said how much I love being a STAHD?!!

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I feel alright about it today. Not sure if Caleb, Baxter, or I was better, or a combination of the three of us, but the day went better. I don’t feel like we need to get rid of Baxter this evening. That makes me feel so much better. I felt like I had failed Caleb, Baxter, Amy, and Diana (the lady that gave us Baxter).

I managed to take Caleb today to get his immunization that he needed at his 6th month checkup. He was so amazing, he barely winced at the pain from the needle. The nurse was surprised at how well he did. Amy has said he always does wonderful with shots, but I got to see first hand today. I really like being so in touch with Caleb and his needs, it’s something that I never realized that I was missing out on. I can certainly understand how hard it must be for Amy to be leaving that.

Both the kids are asleep now and Amy has gone out shopping for clothes for work and I’m bored! At this point Amy would be scouring the house, making sure it was clean before we go to bed for the night, I just can’t bring myself to be that thorough, not this early into the game! I did wipe down the table and stove and sweep the kitchen and load the dish washer this afternoon, even before I left the house for the doctor.

Randomness-

I got a few of theHero Clix figure, and played one game with my friend Chris in Ohio. I really think it’s a cool game, I just don’t have the time to get out to play with others in the game stores. It’s no big deal, but would like to find something other than the computer to do as a hobby. Check out HCRealms for extra information.

Since getting cable, one of my old favorite shows is being re-aired on The-N - The Adventures of Pete & Pete is airing daily at 8pm and 11pm. I’ve got to figure out how to get my VCR recording again, as these aren’t being released on DVD.

It’s my second day as a SAHD . I’m loving it. Every part of it, except the puppy part. I spend so much time trying to keep them from attacking each other, it’s frustrating. Not to mention the housebreaking of a puppy. I feel like I can’t dedicate the time to watching either one of them the way I want to. We may end up getting rid of Caleb.

I mean the puppy!!

Today while watching Caleb he taught himself to spin. It was the neatest thing. He did it over and over again, making himself dizzy even. He didn’t spin too fast, but it was so cute. I love him so much.

Well we’ve picked up our puppy. He’s doing alright, Caleb is super jealous though. Since we’ve been back from Ohio, we’ve done just about nothing, it’s so nice, just to be able to while away the hours. Of course, Amy and I are driving each other nuts, our fuse is short with Caleb, and the dog isn’t helping things much. Life is going to continue to be crazy for a little while. We’ve lined up daycare for Caleb, Amy starts working on Monday, I have a follow-up interview on Friday. I pretty excited.

I got an email from my dad this morning that was so thoughtful, and right on. He felt like he hadn’t taken enough time off from work while we were visiting, hadn’t been there for us. That’s not necessarily true, however I feel like I didn’t spend anytime with them either. The next time we go visit, it won’t be like that. Family time is definately going to come first!

It’s late Sunday night, I just finished a peanut butter sundae from UDF. I love these sundaes, I’ve never found a place that makes them this way, scoop of hard packed vanilla icecream with actual peanut butter sauce on top, the sauce is what makes it great, it tastes like peanut butter, the only reason I know it’s not just peanut butter is the way the stuff pours. They store it in these water bottle type containers, and it just pours onto the ice cream. I love them. Before stopping at UDF, Amy and I watched Men-In-Black 2. It was an alright movie, it wasn’t hilarious, but there were some laugh out loud parts, over all I was satisfied. My mom and Dad watched Caleb this evening. I’m sure their loving having him around, I just wish that we could spend more time with them, silly me scheduling so much stuff, wanting to see so many people. Prior to the movie, Amy and I had dinner at Cody’s Cafe, with Jay and Lissa from Know Theatre Tribe. I really miss working so closely with Jay and The Know, I still maintain their website, which is out of date now! Jay told me I need to place a call to some semi-professional theaters in the Baltimore area, get back into the scene. That’s certainly one thing I’m hoping to get a chance to do during this transition, is nail down a theater that will employ me, part-time- doing whatever they want me to do. Hopefully not commuting to DC will help accomplish that.
We went to VCC this morning, it was great being back there, my brother and his girlfriend and her daughter went with us. It was nice to be with family too.

Little updates on the rest of the weekend:
We slept most of yesterday, Caleb included, I think he’s wiped out not being in his own bed as well! My brother had a bunch of his friends over last night for a cook out- there was only one couple there that didn’t have kids. This is really odd for my brother, but it’s kinda neat. At least none of the kids are his!

Friday- We hung out with our friend Melanie and her boyfriend Aaron. We met Melanie when she was in MCP’s -Importance of Being Earnest. We’ve been great friends since. Friday evening we went to my neices birthday party, and were supposed to wind the evening up by visiting with our friends Ann and Dennis- but we never connected. This really upsets me. I may actually cry if I don’t get to see them this trip. I almost cried when I called them on Thursday to let them know we’d be coming into town and would like to meet with them. I miss them greatly.

Well enough of my rambling, Dad’s getting Cable internet tomorrow through his ISP… I wish we had the option of going with a local ISP for our broadband, but alas, we’re in the mega-grip of corporate America- DirectTV or Verizon are pretty much our only choices!

Well, Amy and Caleb and I are in Ohio. We’ll be here for the next week or so. We decided sort of last minute to come out. After getting the car stuff taken care of yesterday we left last night around 8. We made it here around 4:30. It’s not a bad drive. This is a tough trip. Lot’s of “What ifs” happening… it’s easy for that to happen at this transitional time. I’m hoping that after being here for a bit that it’ll help my depression.

Well we’re off to get donuts with my sister, we’ll try to keep updates coming! As if anyones interested.

7/5 is officially my last day at work. So on Monday I need to figure out how to file for unemployment. We didn’t do hardly anything yesterday, we went to Amy’s aunts house and went swimming for most of the afternoon. Today we slept in quite a bit, and then we had cable installed. So we’ve got cable now. We dropped one of the 3 non-working cars off to be looked at so that next week if Amy and I need to go seperate ways we’ll be able to. I had a phone interview this morning, the guy was basically calling to let me know exactly what the job would be, making sure that the description wasn’t lost in interpretation. No different from what I was expecting. I’m supposed to havea real interview sometime, wednesday or thursday of next week. We’ve no plans for the rest of the weekend really. Amy’s brother Jesse should be coming to visit a bit, he’s got a follow up appointment at Bayview, something about his skull not healing properly.

While the guys were here installing cable, I decided I would clean out the car. It’s been smelling really bad lately, and we couldn’t think what could be causing it. So as I was cleaning out the car I found a tupperware container that had remnants of sauce or something in it, it was pretty moldy. Those things have been known to stink pretty bad. So I was finishing up, and I reached under the drivers side seat and I felt something, sort of felt like a stale piece of bread. I reached further under and pulled out a steamed crab. The last time we had crabs in that car was when we got them on Memorial Day. I remember that I had dropped a few and thought I picked them all up. I’m so glad that I found that crab, it would’ve gotten so much worse!

It’s no so easy, this dealing with it stuff. Amy’s been pretty honest with her feelings with regards to our whole situation, and it’s all pretty accurate. We’ve been so blessed that Amy’s been able to be at home with Caleb as long as she has. I’ve really been too sick to really be tuned into Amy’s feelings this past weekend, and of course it’s all coming to a head now, and I’m still sick. I love my family. I want nothing more for them to be happy, and will honestly do what it takes. It’s true we have been making it, but I don’t want to just make it. I want to live comfortably, I want to pay the bills, early even, and still put away $100-200 a month. I want to be able to take a week off, without pay, and still be able to get by. Do I really think this will happen, without an act of God, no. Do I think this might happen in the near future, with an act of God, definately.

In spite of my sickness, my weekend started out wonderfully. Amy and I had an excellent night to ourselves, we dropped Caleb off at her mothers. We had dinner at a nice quaint little mexican restaurant called Holy Frijoles. The food was excellent, my only complaint would be the size of the restaurant- it was tiny. I mean there’s no way they could have more than 25 people or so. It was good. We ended up browsing a cheap bookstore and had awful cake while we fudged our way through a game of chess. I really did enjoy the evening. I’m blessed to have such an awesome wife.