.: angilou and tucker too :.

LAST DAY!!!!

woo hoo!  my last day is finally here!  at long last, i say goodbye to the company i grew up with...

years at the company: 10.4
rounds of layoffs dodged (until this year): 3
countries visited for work: 5
laptops/pc's i've gone through: 9
life events occured: 2 (marriage and kids)
all nighters pulled: 6
pounds gained (since joining): 28

so, i've had my last meeting, and sent off my last official deliverables.  i may still tweak a couple of things, but i am essentially done.  can you believe it?  i wonder how long it will take to truly dis-engage?  since the main person i am transitioning to was out on maternity leave, i do feel a sense of lack of completion, and may send him a couple of pointers next week.  for the last several years, it's hard to have days where work doesn't cross my mind at least once, and it really has dominated my life for so long.

well, stay tuned.  i'll have to give up an update on my upcoming adventures, entitied "from pajamas to cubicles".  more later...

next to last day!

well, i am down to my next to last day.  i'm still working my butt off, and have meetings up to the last minute.  but then i am home free!!!  i haven't been sleeping that well because i've been thinking about all the things i need to get done.  i wonder how long it will take for me to "disengage"...

brokeback bicycle

this past weekend, meredith and i took up the courageous adventure to go for a bicycle ride - with the kids.  i don't know what we were thinking.  meredith already had her bike trailer attached, so she got the cush job of carting the kids around, while i rode next to her, fancy free.  we went to a park, then biked on to central market, where we tried to eat/feed a little brunch, but really just ended up playing on the playscape.  on the way back the kids were tired and passed out.  owen was feeling really affectionate and put his hand on cal's knee for comfort:

argh

i had the meeting with the coo and my boss today and i thought i'd be home free, but no, i signed up to help out with one more thing.  so, on top of all the transition things i need to wrap up, now i have this mini-project i have to finish.  *sigh*  well, that's ok, because i ONLY HAVE THREE DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LAST WEEK!!!

oh my gosh.  it's my last week at my current company, where i've been for OVER TEN YEARS.  in today's day and age, i think that's pretty rare, especially to stay with a company that is only 15 years old.  at any rate, i am so excited, i can't stand it.  for so long, this place has been my life, and now i get to move beyond it.

the interviewing has really picked up this month, and i interviewed with two places last friday.  both of them were really interesting, so we'll see where they go.  send good, encouraging thoughts my way!!!

i CANNOT WAIT for friday, and fortunately, this week is busy and action packed.  i've got a meeting with my boss and the coo on tuesday (gotta prep for that), and i've got a couple of lunch meetings, and evening an evening get together in the middle of the week.  then, to cap it all off, i am going to the blanton museum opening this weekend!  it's crazy.  they are going to have a 24 hour opening, with activities changing up every 5 hours or so, like yoga in the morning, or performance art in the middle of the night - i've not heard of anything like this before.  as part of my new year's resolution to buy a piece of art this year, i joined the museum as a member, so i also got invited to this "member's only" cocktail party - how's that for hoity toity?

connected!

last month, we installed a webcam and use skype to talk to my parents.  now, several times a week, we get online and talk to my parents in vegas. 

today we ate dinner with my mom, so she got to see something like this:

easter

easter had record high temps, but we still managed to have fun out at the farm.  cal refused to take his afternoon nap, so by egg hunt time in the late afternoon, all he could do was muster up his sleepy pouting face: 

it was an all buy easter as cameron (kelly's son; cal's second cousin), eli (amber and josh's son; another second cousin) and owen (meredith and john's son; cal's buddy from school) also came to the farm.  you can see more by clicking on the pictures on the right. we also had a belated surprise celebration for meem and pap's anniverary - 62 years!!  can you believe it?  they got married on april fool's day. :-)

bun channel and cold pillow?

so, we've mentioned that tucker installed a camera above cal's crib, and we call it the "bun channel".  we check it regularly, and it cracks us up, because he moves around SO much at night, which we wouldn't know if we didn't have the bun channel.  we get insight into all sorts of cal nocturnal activity.

a little background on cold pillow: when tucker was growing up, his lovey was something called "cold pillow" (pronounced coal pillow).  it was something meemo made: a piece of foam with a satin pillowcase around it, and they would put it in the refrigerator, because tucker liked it, well, cold. 

cal's gotten attached to this old throw pillow that we have, and so we started leaving it in his crib.  he likes to climb on top of it and put his arms around it, hugging it while he sleeps.  he often falls asleep on it, and stays there for a while, and sometimes in the morning, he will migrate to the pillow and wake up on it.  when we tell family about this story, we wonder if cal has inherited tucker's cold pillow affinity.

thanks to the bun channel, i managed to get a picture of cal asleep on his pillow.  it's not totally clear, but he's in the lower right hand corner, sleeping on his stomach.  you can see moondrop, his lovey, in the upper middle of the crib, along with his book, which is always there because he likes to read before he goes to bed, and sometimes when he wakes up. :-)

of blinking and broccoli

so, for two days, cal was blinking on demand, and all were amused.  he stopped doing it, but again, today i managed to catch a sequence.  check out the pictures on the right...

five cent in da house

cal put this on his head and walked into the kitchen and i managed to take an unblurry picture in time!  you can see that his nose is MUCH improved.