Frustration

Sorry for the recent radio silence. The last week has been more than a little annoying. Greta came down with a rather unpleasant cold, and she was out of day care more than she was in it. I then got said rather unpleasant cold. Job-searching productivity down the tubes. Then we got slammed with snow. Blah, blah. Then our Internet was out most of the last two and a half days.

I spent a couple hours yesterday morning at an internet cafe Panera, and then I decided that was for the birds. After you've gotten used to a cushy corner office, you can't sit at some table with dried who-knows-what on it from who-knows-when while you try to fight the overwhelming urge to pee because if you went to pee you'd either have to leave your laptop with your entire life on it out in a public place or take it into the bathroom (ew) and risk losing your food-crusted table while you're hopped up on coffee you didn't want to buy in the first place. And since the one and only positive thing that popped into my mind as I was sitting at a table with tears in my eyes, getting told I was being laid off, was that I would now I have time to paint my kitchen, I decided to paint my kitchen! I painted the ceiling yesterday and then put a coat of paint on the walls. So far it seems to be a tricky color and may need a few coats, but I will be sure to post pictures when the new kitchen is ready for its unveiling.

What else? As I mentioned, I haven't been very productive about the job search this past week. I will say that there are a couple solid tentative plans in the works, so I am not feeling super stressed right now. I have a lot of good people looking out for me, so I know this is temporary and that I need to enjoy this first break I have had from work since I started working at 15. I know it will be over in the blink of an eye (in the grand scheme of things). I will say the feelings associated with being unemployed are still...unpleasant. I went from saying, "I was laid off last week." to "I was laid off earlier this month." to now needing to say, "I was laid off last month." (Stupid short February.) I know why, but that has been a hard transition in my brain.

One more thing. It's almost that time of year again! Greta will be turning four later this month, and we're having two small parties this year so we made two invites. We took many pictures of Greta and luckily got two good ones. I thought people might enjoy some of the outtakes.

This is my personal favorite. Supastar!

Cutsie Tootsie

It was so unusually sunny we were stumped. Most of the pictures were waaay overexposed. Oh, she is doing "karate moves" here.

Princess Crooked Crown

Fran