Joys In My Life

Meet the newest member of our family! It's a piano that has sat in my in-laws house unplayed for the past 30 years. My DH and his musician/music teacher friend, G, rented a truck on Saturday and picked it up. DH fully dusted it and replaced the fabric that was on the bottom panel. I think it looks fabulous! It doesn't sound fabulous right now, but his friend is going to call a piano tuner for us and hopefully by Christmas we'll have G playing carols in our front living room! I tease G as our front living room is becoming a music room like his. They have a piano and a whole bunch of other instruments he plays/teaches. Our room now has a piano, guitar and violin. Phoebe plays guitar and violin right now. She also has memorized a small song on piano already, although she's never had lessons. I always wanted to learn to play piano. Now's my chance!

I'm working hard at looking at our finances and where we can shave things off so we can save more money. We do have three kids to try to put through college now! As part of that, I'm going to work on my weekly menu planning. BTW, the Baked Chicken Nuggets recipe is from one of my favorite menu planners online. We've tried this recipe before and it's a big hit with grownups and children alike. Sunday Matzo Ball Soup Sushi Crusty bread Monday Cheeseburgers French fries Green beans Make sushi for my lunches and turkey pot pie Tuesday – ice skating night Turkey pot pie Salad Wednesday – CYFF night Homemade Chicken nuggets Baked sweet potatoes Spinach Thursday – ortho appt Sausage, pasta & tomato sauce Salad Make pizza dough Friday Pizza & salad Saturday - leftover night

BTW, the funny thing about my fast "Gotta Go" is that we'd been waiting for my DH to get done working (he works from home) so we could leave. The whole car was already packed. He had to trust us (Niki and I) that we didn't forget anything and we were running behind as we were waiting for him. I typed the fast "Gotta Go" as he walked in the room and said, "Let's go. I'm done." and I had to rush off. I'm hoping to have some cool updates of the kiddos and how other things are going. Right now I'm leaving the office. I had to go in today and I'm glad I did. Some things popped up that seriously changed some announcements I had. Wish I knew sooner, but live and learn.

Things are getting a little better, still busy, but better. It's funny a friend yesterday when we were getting coffee at work made a comment that we're always doing something. It's funny, but true. Life just keeps getting busier. Last night I made 2 pecan pies, cranberry sauce and chopped 9 lbs of onions and when DH got back from taking Phoebe to ice skating class, he chopped 3 bunches of celery. Today, we made sushi rice (for an appetizer). Gotta go!

I think this title sums it up. I've been working a lot. I've had the cold the boys gave me and it threw me for a loop. My father-in-law had heart surgery and is now doing well at home. I've still been swamped with taking care of work and babies. There's so much other stuff I want to do. Go out with my husband. Spend non-distracted time with Phoebe! Do my nails. Take a long hot bath. Write on my blog! Work out! The last one is the most important as I was doing so well with working out in the summer that I looked and felt great. I miss that. And going into the milestone 40th birthday this coming March, I want to go into that looking and feeling my best again. So it's back to the elliptical machine I go and I need to do some yoga. Maybe if it's not too cold out, I could take some walks outside. But I need to get rid of this head cold. My nose has been like the water works and yesterday it was giving me a sinus headache. Thankfully, none of that to...

It's been quite some time and there's been good reason. Home is great. Boys, Phoebe and DH are all good, but work is outrageously crazy. We've been under threats of layoffs since my last post. But of course it was all rumor and speculation. It finally sort of happened last Wednesday. They didn't lay anyone off though. The people they were going to let go are all in a pool of people that are looking at the current job openings in the company for another opportunity, while still being in the office. What's worse is that my boss is on that list and they gave me all his direct reports on top of the 8 people I was already managing. Then they also reduced my boss's overall team by 4 developers, reducing our ability to make things happen. So they are now looking at me to come up with a new organization for our team. I'm also putting together the list of processes we have to run every month, week and day and the list of new projects we currently have. I...