Ryan's a Star!

Every year Ryan's company has a convention where their consultants gather to get new ideas and get excited about new products. As a programmer, Ryan doesn't get many chances to be a superstar, but this is a time that he gets to present his department's work for the people that are using (and selling) the software. His work this year included changes that consultants have been asking for  for a long, long time. His announcement brought the crowd to their feet:



My favorite comments on their facebook site said: "Ryan Harper, Director of Technology, HM, you now have a whole room full of BFF's!! Thank you so much for all of the studio enhancements coming our way!!"

and "I think we need to start a Ryan Harper fan club! He had no idea how just one specific change could cause a group of grown women to cry! Lynda said we would freak out and we did! Wow! What an exciting day!"

Ryan has groupies! Fun for him.

They also have a fancy banquet to end the convention, and they invited me to come along. It was a fun chance to dress up and get my hair done (by my ultra-talented friend Raylyn).

Doesn't the back of my head look cool? I should have her come over and do my hair more often!

The thing I loved best about the banquet was seeing how much Ryan is valued at work. His coworkers the consultants couldn't say enough good things about him, and it was fun for me to see that everyone else sees how great he is. Way to go Ry!

Baby Shower Celebrations

My cute friends from work and my ward/neighborhood decided that our new baby needed to be celebrated... and despite my initial opposition to the idea of having any parties in my honor (I'm a much better hostess than guest of honor!) I eventually said yes and embraced the idea. I am amazed at how generous people are and so grateful that so many friends and family members wanted to help welcome our little one into the world.

At work there were all sorts of salads... I ate as much as I could possibly fit and still wanted more. (Of course I left room for cake!)

These cute ladies have been so much fun to work with... and they are great cooks too!

My ward and neighbors put together an amazing shower a week later at my friend Tiffany's house... Olivia loved being there as the Big Sister and helper.

There was a flurry of activity in the kitchen preparing an incredible salad bar... complete with suggestions to make gourmet salads. I regret that I didn't get a photo of the completed salad bar... it was beautiful and delicious.

My friend Jessica is an amazing cake decorator and put together a tower of gourmet cupcakes. I loved their brown and pink decor.

Cheesecake with raspberries!!! I don't think that needs any more explanation. I loved the frames that Tiffany and Jessica put together.

Tiff, Andrea, Marilynn, Amanda, Camie, me, Jessica, Sherri, and Jill--a few others that helped with the shower weren't there yet and didn't make it into the photo... (Sara and Miriam!). I feel so blessed to have such good and generous friends.

I wanted to include a picture of Amanda and her quilt... she is amazing!

Thanks, friends, for helping to celebrate our new baby!

Mixed Feelings

The other night we were trying to explain to Coleman about mixed feelings... Ryan used the example of eating his favorite Girl Scout cookies (have I mentioned that I LOVE Girl Scout Cookie season? Frozen Thin Mints, all the way, baby...). He loves Samoas... and gets to enjoy them all by himself because no one else in our house likes them. He has mixed feelings about eating them though... they taste so good... but the faster he eats them, the faster they are all gone, and he has to wait a whole year to get any more. Someone pointed out too that eating the whole box at once might give him a stomach ache--therefore mixed feelings about consuming Girl Scout Cookies.

My mixed feelings this last week have been about working... my last day was on Thursday and I can't say that my feelings are 50% positive-50% negative about quitting... I am overwhelmingly thrilled to be all done, particularly because the reason I am quitting is because we will be welcoming a baby to our family any day now... but at the same time, I do have a few things that I'll miss about working.

• I will miss speaking Spanish on a regular basis and making our Spanish speaking clients laugh at my accent and attempts at vocabulary, grammar, and all of the other ways that I slaughter the Spanish language.
• I will miss making a difference... even if only in very small ways as I was able to help families with nutrition and breastfeeding.
• I will miss making a financial contribution to our household... even though said contribution went directly to my medical expenses, it still felt empowering to be helping out.
  
• I will miss the fabulous people that I work with--they made working a whole lot of bearable (and even fun on most days). We liked to laugh together and eat together--especially hot cinnamon rolls during our staff meetings on Friday mornings. I think my coworkers will miss having those rolls more than I'll miss getting up extra early to bake them :).
  

Not that I NEED to outline the things I will not miss... but a mixed feelings post wouldn't be complete without the other side of things, right?

• I won't miss leaving my kids (albeit in capable hands) for any amount of time with babysitters... or arranging complicated schedules and assuring that kids are picked up and dropped off in the right place. I have had wonderful friends that have taken great care of Liv and Coleman, but I am so glad that I get to be a stay-at-home mom again and not have to rely on others to make sure the kids are taken care of.
  
• I won't miss the commute... and worrying about whether or not there will be traffic or snow or any other sort of craziness that might make me late to work. I won't miss bad radio and commercials and nothing to listen to because I've exhausted the (very) limited supply of books on CD from our local library. I definitely won't miss the construction zone on I-15 that made things interesting to and from work each day.
  
• I won't miss the stress of work and the occasional "interesting" client that would come into our clinic and cause all sorts of problems.
• I won't miss all the rules and regulations of working for the government.
  
• I won't miss having to wear dress pants or skirts! Hooray for blue jeans and t-shirts and flip-flops.
  
• I won't miss missing school and social and church events because I have to be at work.
• I won't miss early mornings, rushing to get out the door on time and hoping that I've remembered to send my kids with all the things they'll need for the day.
• I won't miss having to come up with a lunch to pack... Triscuits, Laughing Cow cheese, and an apple are good, but I'm done with that. On to bigger and better things on the lunch menu.
• I won't miss crazy evenings, rushing to get dinner made and homework done and piano practiced and every other thing that needs to be done before bed time which always came way too quickly on work days.
  
• I won't miss the puffy feet that I have been coming home with lately.... I know they are pregnancy related, but in the last three days, I've been able to see my ankles and metatarsals. Hooray for ankles and metatarsals!
  

As you can see, the reasons that I am glad to be done working are much more abundant and meaningful than the reasons I will miss it--but I have mixed feelings still the same.

**What's your favorite brand of Girl Scout cookies?
**What kinds of things do you have mixed feelings about?

Re-Entry

After an eight year hiatus of being in the "working world" (isn't that a crock? stay-at home moms are the hardest workers I know...) I have made my re-entry. It's been almost two months and I have a few thoughts on the matter...

The first several weeks were rough. I often thought of the space shuttle and how it loses tiles as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere because of the intense heat. I felt like I was losing my mind and my sanity... it isn't to say that NOW I'm a model of composure or organization, but I feel like we've found a better groove and are in pretty good working form.

My job itself is great. I still don't enjoy leaving my kiddos or being gone... but I like what I do and I feel like I'm doing good for others which makes me happy. I feel mentally stimulated and gratified with the work I do.

Returning to a job very similar to the one I left eight years ago doesn't mean that I have been able to skip the learning curve that comes with new (or renewed) employment... a few observations about that process:

Working (even part-time) doesn't remove any responsibilities or feelings of obligations that a mom has. There are just much fewer hours in the day to complete your list of things to do.

Some things go undone. (So what if my bed isn't made every day, but could the Tooth Fairy please remember my sweet toothless Coleman tonight? He really needs to feel the love and get a dollar or two under his pillow.)

Our computer system at work is extremely dysfunctional... yet I still look like an incompetent fool several times a day... and it really IS the computer's fault.

Many times my incompetence isn't the computer's fault.

My Spanish needs a serious overhaul. My vocabulary about nutrition related topics is seriously lacking. That said, I love speaking Spanish. One cute mom gave me a hug after I was finished "counseling" her.

Some days I feel like I'm sitting down with friends chatting about our kids and sharing great ideas for feeding them and other mom stuff.

Other days, not so much.

Commuting with or without traffic SUCKS.

Listening to audiobooks has made commuting much more tolerable.

David Sedaris is really funny (but has a potty mouth).

Barbara Kingsolver has some very intriguing points about the virtues of eating local organic foods and growing as much of your own as you can (I'll be heading to our farmer's market this weekend and trying with even more effort to keep my garden alive and producing food that our family can eat).

No matter which way you look at it, I didn't pick a great time to start working for the public health department... H1N1 anyone?

(As a side note, if you are symptomatic and believe you have the Swine Flu... please STAY HOME... do not venture to the nearest public health department because you heard they have free TAMIFLU... they don't. Call your doctor!)

There seems to be a never-ending list of requirements for orientation meetings, training modules, and check-off lists of things to know and be able to do. These offer countless opportunities to learn and grow, which have greatly enriched my life. Really. Some gems I've gleaned from this:

The symbol below is an actual chemical hazard warning symbol. It does NOT stand for the song "Ring of Fire" which is permanently emblazoned in my brain, not from the song performed by Johnny Cash (although that's catchy as well) but from Adam Lambert on American Idol. It's especially well known around our house because Coleman hums or sings it for entire days at a time. I'm not joking.Despite it's genuine value as a warning symbol, it still makes me smile when I see it.
In my workplace safety orientation I learned that if you want to be safe around dogs, just make sure you can run faster than your sister (or whomever else you might be with).

Also from my workplace safety orientation I learned that if a bomb threat is called in, I am supposed to get the name, address, and phone number of the person making the threat in addition to the location of the bomb. There is actually a form for this, if it's convenient to fill out.

(Another side note from workplace safety--if you plan to stalk me, please don't do it at my work location, there is too much paperwork involved.)

And finally, a deep thought from a training module on critical thinking:

"Critical thinking is the art of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better...." (Paul, Binker, Adamson, and Martin 1989).

**What do you think?

200th Post

For the 200th time I'll publish a post
With not much to say, just a little boast...

I got a job, oh yes, it's true
A part-time gig at WIC is what I'll do.

I was going to interview at a hospital as well
Timpanogos Regional might have hired, which could have been swell.

Olivia asked, "You'll work at Wikipedia, Mom?"
And Coleman said, "Timpanogos Cave, that's the bomb!"

They are excited to get to play with friends
Re-entering the work force might give me the bends.

I'll be teaching about nutrition and such
and if we go to lunch I can now go dutch.

So many gracious thanks to everyone
For your love and concern, maybe our worries aren't done.

The mess that our economy is in
Has taken it's toll where Ryan's work has been.

His job is still there but hours are cut
And his salary too, it's a pain in the ....

Provident living is a great and wise school of thought
Had we done it better we might not feel so distraught.

We know that we will come out okay
And we'll build our savings for the NEXT rainy day.

We are so very grateful to those who have given so freely
Of time, means, and compassion or even a mealy.

We hope you aren't bored with this silly little rhyme,
We will end it now, it's certainly time.