Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Thanks for the notice

The scheduling for my job has been all over the place. Apparently the computer that are in charge of the teacher's schedules aren't working properly. It's a huge pain in the butt.

I just checked my email and found several emails notifying me of some canceled sessions. But, this is how efficient everything is run. I got an email saying my 4:00 session was canceled..... they sent me the email at 6:27! Ahhhh.....

Thankfully I have 12 hours scheduled for this week. My goal is to get at least 12 hours every week, so that's a good thing.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Family visit

My mom and sister just left to head back to Rhode Island :-(

The weekend went really well. We went to the aquarium yesterday. I was nervous that big crowds, lots of sound, and weird lighting would make Ryleigh upset. Nope. She loved looking into the fish tanks and watching the lights reflect on the water. A few times she actually paid attention to the fish as well. And she really enjoyed watching the sharks in the shark tunnel. The only tricky part of the day was when she was hungry and I had to feed her amongst all the people there!

After the aquarium we went to dinner at Red Lobster.... yes, we saw the irony in that. Then we rented a movie and relaxed and talked. It was so nice to see my sister. I'm so glad she finally got to meet the baby! It's just hard not knowing when we'll see her again :-(


She enjoyed being carried around so she could check out all the people and animals. (Her daddy loved showing her everything and telling her about the fish :-)



This was in the shark tunnel. She just sat and stared as they swam past her.




This picture actually came out nice, even though it's tricky taking pictures through glass. I am so glad I have a nice camera to document everything now!!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

My brain hurts!

I went to the Social Security Administration office today. Ryleigh's SS card still hasn't come in the mail, so I went to go get a copy.

On the front door of the building there was a sign that said, "Cell phone use prohibited in the waiting room". So, I stopped, turned my cell phone off, and went into the waiting room. I looked around and saw 7 people on cell phones! One person was sitting directly under another copy of the sign, while talking under her phone... I wanted to take a pic of the irony, but my cell phone was off so I couldn't. Haha. As I sat and waited for 2 hours I even saw the security guard talking on her cell phone. Ahh! Can't people read? Or maybe "prohibited" is such a big word that they don't know what it means!

After my 2 hour wait I got called in. I was asked for ID for Ryleigh. I had her birth certificate. I was told that doesn't count as ID for a baby. The woman told me, "It only proves that she was born, it doesn't prove that she didn't die". Ahhhhhh! So, I asked what a proper form of ID is, and she said I need to get her Dr. to write her name and birth date on a prescription paper. How the heck is a state issued birth certificate not enough ID, but a hand-written name and date is??

What has happened to this country?? It's full of morons!

Learn how to write correctly!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is educated people who use improper grammar and sentence structure. I've seen job descriptions on career builder with tons of mistakes. All I can think is, "why would I want to work for people who can't even write a paragraph correctly? Who knows what else they would screw up".
I'm not talking about a missing comma here and there. That's forgivable. I'm talking about things like your/you're. It's not that hard people! 2nd graders know the correct word to use.

Anyway, an email I got yesterday was particularly bad. Apparently a supervisor that works for Sylvan Online decided to quit her job. She didn't just settle on sending a letter to her supervisor telling him she was quitting. She sent an email out to every single person in the company! It wasn't an accident, she actually meant to do it. But the entire email was full of run-on sentences, improper grammar, and horrible sentence structure. Here's the opening 2 sentences of her email...

I would just like to say that I feel the Educate Online program is a very good idea and has helped many kids with bettering there education. With that said I feel that as a company Educate Online is not doing what they can to give these families and these children the best tutoring available.

I feel like those sentences should be on the SATs, in the section where you need to correct all the mistakes. Seriously, this woman was a tutor!!
In conclusion, I will leave you with a another quote from her email...

I think this program could be great but some changes and I mean changes need to be made.

Ha!

Monday, March 23, 2009

I feel like I should update

I feel like I should update my blog, but nothing interesting has happened.

We packed a little yesterday. We mostly did it to try and make room for when my mom and sister get here. Yes, they are staying in our house. Haha. It should be interesting.

I bought stuff from someone off of Craigslist for the first time. Actually, it was kind of interesting. This old woman died and her daughters are selling all of her stuff. This woman was a collector. She collected apple decor and dolls. I wish I could have taken a picture of all the dolls she had! Two full rooms of dolls. Both rooms had shelves along all the walls, and all the shelves were full! One of the daughters said they had sold about 1,500 so far and there were still thousands left! She also had tons of apple decor. I bought a spice cabinet and a couple of wall decorations. Even though I settled on an Americana theme for my future kitchen I figured a couple of countryish apple things would be okay too, especially since they were so cheap!

I cannot wait to move!!!!

Friday, March 20, 2009

The subconscious

I need to preface this story by saying, don't worry, everything is okay!

We spent the early morning hours in the ER. Ryan's blood sugar went low again, so we had a fun time of him having a seizure, and fighting off 5 EMTs as they got an IV in his arm. We went to the hospital, and they released him after he had something to eat. He's all good now. His sugar was 54, which actually wasn't too low, but for some reason it still brought on a seizure. Anyway, that isn't the story.

While completely unconscious, with the EMTs surrounding him, Ryan was on the floor, looking under the bed for something. We couldn't understand what he was doing, but he kept fighting off the EMTs when they tried to get him up. It wasn't until someone asked me if we had any weapons that we figured it out. Since he had no clue what was going on, he got scared that there were strangers in our house, and he was trying to get his hunting bow and arrow. He was trying to protect me and Ryleigh!

When they realized he was reaching for a weapon they quickly forced him onto the bed. People with low blood sugar can get very violent. I call Ryan the Hulk because he gets this superhuman strength and can fight off several people at a time. So, as 5 EMTs were holding him down so they could give him an IV he kept yelling, "Just let me get Ry". He was still completely unconscious but all he wanted to do was get the baby to make sure she was safe from all the "strangers" in our house.

The subconscious is a pretty cool thing. I think it's amazing that Ryan's basic instincts for survival kicked in even though he was unconscious. And I love that his first thoughts were to protect his family, and especially to want to protect the baby. In a weird way I find it kinda romantic. His love for Ryleigh is so deep in his mind that even when he can't understand anything else he knows he needs to protect her :-)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Funny?

Now that I work only online no one ever asks how my job is going. True it's the same thing over and over again. I see the same lessons, and all the kids pretty much struggle with the same things, but that doesn't mean I don't have funny stories.
So, even though you didn't ask, here are some funny anecdotes

1. All the kids mispronounce my name. They call me Ms. Weeber, with the long e sound. Just the fact that they can't even read my name correctly shows that they are really lacking in their phonetics skills. It's good I'm here to help.

2. For some reason when I talk into the microphone it distorts my voice. Half the time I end up having a very deep voice, and the other half of the time it makes me sound like a homosexual man. It's pretty funny... especially when the kids always ask, "your name is, Ms. Weber?". They get so confused. And I have a really hard time not laughing at it myself.

3. The students and their parents don't realize I can hear everything that's going on in their house, and I mean everything. I once heard a dad tell me student to just quit working because he didn't have time to wait for her to finish her session so they could go out to eat. The other day I was privy to an entire conversation of about 4 females swearing up a storm. I also hear siblings fighting all the time. You might be amazed at what comes out of these kid's mouths.

So, even though I'm just sitting at home, at my desk, my job can be somewhat interesting at times. Maybe I'll start making a list of all the stupid answers the students give me for my next blog about work. :-)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

disregard my last post

My last post was about how we're figuring out the whole working, parenting thing.... Well, things are about to change. Due to a change in the whole way Ryan gets paid he has decided to become a driver instead of a CDI. Well, he's a driver's assistant because he can't actually drive the trucks. But he'll be out on the road making deliveries.
It's good because he'll make more money than he would with the stupid new changes they made to his pay scale. It's bad because he'll get home later in the evening which means we have to figure out what to do with my work schedule. He'll also have to work on Saturdays, but he'll have Mondays off. So we will now have to shift our weekends a day later. It won't be too bad until we decide to go away for a "weekend" if I continue working on Mondays.
We have to figure it all out... hopefully it'll be a good thing

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Making it work

This week I finally got a lot of teaching hours...well only 2 yesterday, but 5 today, and I'm scheduled for 5 tomorrow, and 4 on Thursday. It's good since we have the impending 2 months of paying 2 rents ahead of us.
But seriously, I need to give major props to Ryan. It's tricky because just as I'm "going" to work he's coming home, so I prepare dinner, and he has to finish cooking it, then he needs to serve it to me because I am bound to the computer desk. He also has to take care of the baby while cooking dinner. Which, considering she hasn't really cried in the past 4 hours that I've been working, tells me that he's doing a good job of it.
We truly have to work together in order for me keep working part time in the evenings.
It's hard not getting to see him when he gets home from work, but it's worth it to not have strangers raising my daughter!! And I'm sure it's hard on him to not be able to truly relax after work, but I'm so glad he doesn't complain.
And in a way I feel like I'm lucky. I know a lot of other moms that complain that their husband doesnt really take part in raising the kids. Well, Ryan is definitely a big part of Ryleigh's life... I guess it's a bit of a blessing in disguise.

So the next time you see Ryan give him a big pat on the back :-)

P.S. Ryleigh passed her hearing test today :-)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Let's go Red Sox, let's go!

Ryan acheived the nearly impossible. He got me tickets to a Red Sox game. No it's not at Fenway (which would be totally awesome). It's a Red Sox/Phillies game in Philly. Which is still pretty cool. I went two years ago when they played here too, but not with Ryan. So it'll be a lot of fun to watch our teams go head to head against each other. We got to do that when we saw the Flyers play the Bruins.... but I am not nearly as passionate about hockey as I am about baseball.

It's nearly impossible to get tickets because you can't just buy tickets, you have to enter to win a chance to buy them. We've entered before and lost. :-(

The only question is, who does Ryleigh cheer for? She already has a Phillies onsie, which I bought as part of my hey-honey-I'm-pregnant present to tell Ryan about the baby. And, she does live in the Philadelphia metro area.... but I want her to be a Red Sox fan! She can cheer for the Flyers, and the Eagles, and the Sixers all she wants, but when it comes to baseball, she needs to cheer for Boston.

Maybe we'll just leave it up to whoever wins the game. Haha. If the Red Sox win she'll be a fan of them, if the Phillies win I guess I'll let her be a Phillies fan. But we'll have to wait till June for the results....

Friday, March 13, 2009

Very Nice

Today was a refreshingly nice day. I had lunch with friends, did some window shopping, got a hair cut, and went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. Yay for friends!

It was also nice because I ran into 3 parents whose kids were in my class at Goddard. It felt so good to tell them I wouldn't be returning because I don't have to work full time anymore!! Yay.... and they seemed sad I wouldn't be there and said they'd miss me, so that made me feel good.

I also saw several friends that I haven't seen in a long time, so it was nice to reconnect with them a little.

Cayla is a much happier person after she's had good conversation and good company!

Why are hints so hard to get??

Lately I have been trying to hint to my wonderful husband about how tired I am. I've been trying to leave subtle hints that I would love to be able to take a nap. I figure, if he decides to offer to watch the baby so I can sleep then he'll look like a really sweet guy, instead of me telling him what to do which just makes me look pushy. So I've been saying things like,

"I'm so tired I can barely see straight"
"I just want a couple of hours of continuous sleep"
"Last night when I woke up to feed the baby I was so tired I could barely stand up"

To me those seem very plain and obvious. I'd really like to know what goes on in his head when I'm saying that. Maybe he just thinks I'm whining and complaining? I know he works long hours full-time, and I only work part time, but still, even part-time workers need sleep occassionally!!

So, I know he reads this blog, so maybe he'll pick up on the hints now. :-) Haha.

The only bad part is, even if he takes the baby and stays downstairs with her, as soon as she starts crying I can hear it from the bedroom and it wakes me up. ::sigh::
Everything will be so much better once we move!! Ryleigh will be in her own bedroom and then I won't wake up at every single little cooing sound she makes during the night. Last night she went 5 hours between feedings... but I couldn't sleep because she was wide awake in her crib just playing with her hands or something and making little noises.

I wish I could sleep like a rock like Ryan.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A big lesson

Every day I get bored sitting at home, so I try to go out somewhere. Whether it's walking around the mall, browsing the aisles of Target, or heading to the dollar store so that I can actually afford to shop.
Today I wanted to go to Barnes & Noble, one of my favorite places to go. But when I looked at Ryleigh she was nice and content and I didn't want to leave and ruin that. Most of the time if we're out and she's in her car seat and stroller she will sleep non-stop, thus messing up her feeding schedule and her sleeping schedule. (Not that she's really on a schedule, but she gets all out of whack).
So, now I'm starting to realize that one of the great sacrifices of being a parent is staying at home all day, doing nothing, just so your baby is a little happier. It's pretty rough and I don't enjoy it.... but I enjoyed all the smiles Ryleigh gave me as we played together on the floor :-)

I'm slowly getting the hang of the whole mom thing.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Hiccups

I took more video footage of Ryleigh. I know how exciting the last video I posted was (haha), so I'm sure you can't wait for more. I taped her while she had the hiccups.... sorry she's not more active yet.


Sunday, March 8, 2009

The cure for lonliness

Friday night I was feeling so sad. I didn't reallly socialize at all during the week. When Ryan gets home from work we usually have dinner and then sit in front of the tv for the evening. It drives me crazy! But try to be understanding cause he works all day and is tired and needs to relax in the evenings. So, I live for the weekends.

Friday night rolled around and when we found ourselves going grocery shopping and then heading home I was pretty darn upset. I need socialization. I crave it.

But thankfully I got cured of my lonliness the rest of the weekend. We visited our 5 nieces and nephews in Cape May. We had fun chowing down on giant 2' hoagies, watching Hosanna chase one of the horses around, and watching Hadassah ride Lion. It was also nice to introduce Ryleigh to the rest of the cousins..... but they had a hard time understanding that Ryleigh can't do everything their baby does. :-)

Today at church we were asked to go to lunch with 4 other couples, so that was great socialization, especially since one couple is expecting their first baby. We got to show them that just because you have a baby doesn't mean you have to be a hermit.

Now we're heading over to a friend's house for burgers and game night. We had a game night last week and found that the 6 of us enjoy competition. Ryan and I won in the Newlywed Game last week.... let's see how well we do in Trivial Pursuit!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Not what you'd expect

Tonight we went out for dinner with the wonderful gift card Ryan earned for reffing salao. We went to Five Guys for burgers, and 99 for dessert. Yum yum.... I definitely ate too much! Afterward we wanted to walk around somewhere to relieve the extremly full feeling in our stomachs, so I suggested going to Home Depot.

That's right, my closet full of clothes and shoes might make me look like a total girly girl, but really I have a lot more interests. For example, Home Depot gets me so excited! I dream about building my own house, and creating wonderful landscaping, and a beautiful backyard. I love looking at the model kitchens, and the doors, and the lighting. Designing houses is kind of a hobby, except I only get to design them on Sims.

Todays trip was more exciting than usual because we were planning on what to do with our backyard once we get it. Patio sets, fire pits, vegetable gardens, flower boxes, lighted walkways..... oh the possibilities....

Healthy Baby

Ryleigh just had her 1 month check up at the doctor's. She is 8lbs 7oz now, and she is 21in long. I forget what her head circumference is. But the doctor said she is in the 25 percentile for everything. She was in the 25% when she was born, so she's growing pretty well and the doctor said she is proportional.

She also had a shot today :-( My poor baby. But she had it easy this week. Next time she needs 4 shots. That's not going to be fun.

So, despite what Ryan says, my baby is growing well and is not a porker!!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

You are my sunshine

Ryleigh is definitely the sunshine in my life right now, but I miss the real sun! I need to feel the sun on my skin. Right now I think I'd even take a sunburn just so I feel warm for a change.

I'm so glad I will have a backyard and a porch to lay out and get a tan this summer. After living in dorms, apartments, and houses with open backyards where everyone can see you this will be a nice change.

Ryleigh hates being cold too. She definitely takes after me in that aspect... too bad we can't convince daddy that keeping the heat at 70 isn't going to send us to the poor house... instead me and Ryleigh just have to cuddle under blankets all day.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Snow bunny

Ryleigh's snowsuit is absolutely huge on her...





But I think it's okay because she's more interested in trying to eat the snowsuit than enjoying the snow.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Helpless

I know I blogged about how well things turned out for my sister.... well, she got some news, she can't start her military training until August, which means she doesn't get her money til August, which means she is basically going to be homeless.

She's all the way across the country, unable to come home because she has weekend training every weekend, and she can't just quit the military. She has no money for rent, or food, and with the poor economy she can't find a job. She's in serious need of some help. Please, please pray for her. My biggest fear is that my sister will end up on the streets. I would do absolutely anything for my sister, but when her biggest problem is money and I don't have much anyway, it's kind of hard to help. All I can do is pray for her, and pray that someone in our family will let her borrow some money.