*Having a "challenging" January- doing the Declutter 365 and Blogilates 30 Day Flat Abs challenges. Sister is doing the abs challenge with me; so is O if you count jumping all over me as being involved. Fun way to keep busy, especially since classes don't start for another 2 weeks.
*Quite cold today! I know everyone is saying it but it's true. I was outside 2 hours ago and my feet are still not totally warm.
*Baby has a cold :( He's in good spirits but I hate hearing him cough.
*Swim lessons for O start on Saturday! I think he's gonna have a great time. Got our bathing suits ready- ugh, I really need a new suit. I have an old Lands End tankini and I hate how it looks. Cuts into my mom stomach in all the wrong places.

- I'm trying to motivate myself to get back into a healthy eating regime. My excuse has been that there's all this food from Christmas that needs eating. Almost all gone now though so my excuses will run out as my need to buy food approaches. Carnitas, black beans and rice for dinner tonight, not terribly unhealthy the way I make it.

- Not cold here at all - or at least, I don't feel it. The thermometer says it's 10C outside, which I think is about 48-50F. I've not had the heating on at all today (working from home) even though I'm only wearing light cotton yoga pants, socks, a t-shirt and a zip-up chenille sweater.

- Lots of changes at work, although a project I'm really interested in running looks as if it's going to take off, if the powers that be agree. I spotted a casework niche, grabbed it and have ring-fenced it as a specialist area for me to deal with. It's not terribly complex in itself, but the logistics of working out where all these cases are in our system is likely to be difficult. But if it all works, I may get some kudos from the boss.

- My car has a squeaky back wheel (so probably brake-related). It's going to the Toyota place next week to be looked at, and I hope it won't be too expensive. Browsing various Prius forums has reassured me it's probably nothing serious, a combination of low mileage, low speeds and damp weather.

- I bought some silicon drops because I had a couple of stuck pine drawers. OMG, amazing stuff. I used it last might, tried a drawer this morning and it nearly flew out of the chest!

* I don't want to jinx it, but my one resolution is going quite well!
* Maddie re-started her swim lessons yesterday. It's really just an ongoing thing, as I sign her up for consecutive blocks of lessons. She doesn't love them, but swimming is the one thing I insist upon.
* Running a race on Saturday and am very worried I will be leaving the house in single digit temperatures.

We're being forced to accept in our department the big boss's autistic son. Even if we needed another person in the department, which we don't, he doesn't do a great job, any college kid could do better and we spend a lot of time correcting his work. He also makes us very uncomfortable, talking to himself a lot and pacing around the block of cubicles and he has just really bad social skills (grabbing papers from our hands before we've finished talking about them, for example).

But I'm a bad person, because I'm not open-minded, or something. Sigh.

Ack, so ridiculously busy trying to catch up at work. Not riding my bike, running or even hitting my daily steps this week, hoping to get there next week. I did cook a lot of healthy stuff over the weekend so the diet has been much improved since Jan. 1 We also leave soon for another quick trip so need to pack up for that.

At 6am Christmas Eve, a freak wind out of the north brought down a large part of one of our 3 big cedar trees. I have been lobbying for several years to get these removed and my wife has finally agreed, since these trees are so landlocked that they will do damage to something whatever direction they fall towards. This time our garage roof was hit, and the corner of our house, as well as the neighbor's car. We were again lucky but on Jan 19 they will be removed and I will no longer stress out before and during wind events.

Then, the following Friday, I am going to Kona, courtesy my wife, who is paying for my ticket. Will stay at my friend's house for a little over a week. It will be warm and hopefully relaxing.

Then return for the PET scan which will indicate whether this series of treatments have done any good, and if so, how much. This will also determine whether I get this other approved treatment.

I have been working a lot of overtime, and exercising has fallen by the wayside, so physically I feel kind of crappy. I've decided the only thing to do is to start getting up early (*groan*) and exercise before work. Every work day. Today was Day One. I foresee a grumpy time ahead before I start feeling better and get used to the schedule.

I'm still looking for work, but getting more confident in my searching, if that makes any sense. I could get a server monkey job in to time flat, but that's what kept me trapped before, even though I was doing other things. so I'm hunting for upper management type jobs. It's starting to get to me that it's taking so long, though. I can only do so much house-wifing, you know?

I've started playing Ingress, a mobile phone based game that my mom calls "Go with geocahcing". It gets me out of the house and walking, so that's helped my winter blues a lot. It's also the first thing my husband and I both enjoy, if for different reasons. So we sometimes go out together and do stuff, which is nice.

That's really rough, Melismata. I hope your boss realizes how inappropriate all of that is. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. It's unfair to his son, too.

Good luck, danf!

You have inspired me to do the 30 Day Ab Challenge, too! Of course, I also need to continue dieting or I'll just end up with toned abs under a bunch of fat. Sigh. Losing weight is tough but I'm done having babies, so no more excuses.

My boss just retired, and my new boss used to be my coworker... I'm hoping that things essentially remain the same under her rule.

I constantly feel taken for granted and sleep-deprived. I know this is pretty standard when you've got two little ones, but I miss the time before this when I didn't get annoyed or hurt nearly so easily. I know that more sleep would solve a multitude of problems, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards until the baby is sleeping through the night (she's almost there, I think.

My dad went on a date today. It's been an appropriate amount of time since my mom died, and I want him to be happy... But it's so weird...

I sadly but respectfully disagree with melismata and lysdexic. The man has autism. He's still a person deserving of respect and dignity. Every single thing is hard for him. Things that we can do without thinking, ever, are a huge challenge for him. This is probably why he's talking to himself. He's got a thousand things to remember and he's trying. Can you give him a speck of credit for trying? Instead of looking at him like a "lawsuit waiting to happen" or a sub-par worker who annoys the heck out of you, can you try to be someone who maybe smiles at him and says hi? He knows you don't want him there. Trust me, he knows. But he's still there, trying.

I'm sorry to rant. But I'm unbearably depressed by this. My son is only 8, a skinny little kid with autism in a baseball cap with a shy hopeful smile, and I fear the hostile world that awaits him.

Hurray, amro! Feel free to FB message if you want to be accountable; my sis and I text every day.

Nothing much new happening here: I've been in dialysis since last October, and that remains my 3-day-a-week routine. I'm pretty much limited to my online activities anymore, and I'm a little bummed by that.

Not much happening, pretty quiet now that the holidays are finally over. It's cold as heck here so I'm just staying inside and watching Netflix when I'm not working.

Best wishes danf!

I visited a bunch of friends over the break between holidays and everyone was sick with various things. I came back with a cold and a norovirus and spent 5 days locked up in my hovel, needing to clean, put things away, get the year started; but all I could do was visit the bathroom. Sicknesses are cleared out now, heh, except the cold.

I fear that my main part time job may be getting thin on upcoming projects. I signed up for a plan under the ACA based on hoping to make enough money to qualify, so potential lack of income has me concerned.

Hopeful that this year will be a good one!

*thinking of you, pjern*

Not much happening here. On holiday and have my kids with me, which is pretty awesome. Having to desperately watch money at the moment, which is not so awesome. Overall - OK, I guess.

Back from the babymoon in Morocco! It was really interesting, and I liked Marrakech a lot. It wasn't a super relaxing vacation until we just decided to stay put in a fancy hotel for the last 2 days, but it was good to go and it was definitely something we will not be able to do for a while because of the impending twins.

I have a bunch of dr appts coming up, today I had a cervical check and everyone was oohing and ahhing over how great my cervix is. Apparently it is long and that is good? It's weird to have a body part that I've never even seen that apparently is everyone's favorite.
There's a lump in my armpit that I have to get checked out next week and I am a little nervous for. I guess it is pretty common to have extra breast tissue develop in random nearby places when you are pregnant, so we are hoping that is what is happening and that it isn't something more serious. It hurts a bunch and has for months so my other hope is that they can remove it or tell me how to fix it so I can put on deodorant without wincing.

Otherwise the pregnancy is going well, I have never been so suddenly and violently hungry in my life. It comes on all at once, usually with or in addition to nausea and heartburn and it's a whole mess of bodily feelings that are all quite urgent. Doctor said this is all normal esp with twins and that it is ok that my morning sickness and heartburn etc haven't gone away yet.

Work is sucking and they switched my job again, but I am not letting myself get caught up in it as much this time. Just gotta do the work for a few more months til I pop, then I can try to fix my path and reassess once I am back after mat leave.

Your gyno will show you your cervix with a mirror if you ask.

I had to get a new health insurance plan and it's been like something out of Kafka. I filled out the form saying that I wanted automatic payment and it was apparently lost, which I didn't know until I got a letter saying that my policy was cancelled. I had to make a payment by phone to an Indian call center and it wasn't until yesterday that the pay site was reinstated. Today I got a bill in the mail for the amount of my old premium, which is 2/3 more than what I was quoted for the new policy.

I'm sorry, Kangaroo, I didn't mean to give the impression that I'm against Autistics in the workplace. There's autism in my family, too, and I know from experience that putting someone in a place they're not ready for causes trouble for them and the people around them. At a minimum, the boss could have provided some education to the staff, and coached the son on proper boundaries when interacting with people.