I love being married to a teacher.  I like getting to take days off that he has to work, but the kids don’t have school.  I will have to figure out what we are going to do today because part of me has to be responsible and get ready for my brother, SIL and my niece’s arrival tomorrow.  The other part of me says “fuck it”, they are my family and could care less if everything was perfect.  We will see which part of me wins.

Tonight, Garbanzo and I get a night out.  For Valentine’s Day, he bought tickets to go see NPR’s What Do You Know, a radio quiz show.  We sorted out the babysitter situation thanks to a poor college student who is willing to come up for today and tomorrow to watch the girls.  I like Ms Panda.   And, I remembered to call my brother to let him know that we wouldn’t be home, and not to scare the crap out of Ms Panda when he gets here.  “Bull in a china shop” is a good phrase to describe my brother sometimes.

March is going to be a good month for Garbanzo and me in terms of getting to go out sans kids.  This weekend, we have the tickets to the show.  Next weekend is the school auction which means the kids will be taken care of by someone for the night.  And the weekend after is the taekwondo school overnight, and we already have our night figured out for that night too.  It is a very nice change from the past few months.

Work ended on a good note (in case you couldn’t tell from yesterday’s picture of the day).  I love working with smart people.  I am currently spending way too much time with one of the Supply Chain experts out there.  We were paired up because he is analyzing our supply chain issues, and he needed data – that’s where I come in.  He has taught supply chain at a state university in the Pacific NW, and his love of knowledge sharing is evident.  When he leaves, I will know more about supply chain than I ever thought possible – including how to analyze the data to figure out what is truly happening.  And, outside of the annoying coworker, our team is shaping up to be highly functioning again.  Makes going to work rather pleasant again (as long as you ignore the rumor mill, but that’s another post).

I got my blood test results yesterday and “everything is normal”.  Guess the doctor and I will have to discuss this when I have my follow-up visit in a couple months.  My boss was sharing with me that she has been down this path before where they were sure her thyroid was underperforming, yet they could not get the tests to agree with the symptoms.  She found that diet and especially exercise really helped.  I guess we’ll see how, if at all, exercise makes a difference.

And, speaking of exercise and diet, I have had at minimum of 3 people every day this week ask me if I’ve lost weight.  I always find statements like this funny because they usually tack on, “because you look great!” to the end of that question.  Why does this amuse me?  I always want to ask if that meant I looked like shit before?  I mean, is that what they are really implying by qualifying their question with the “you look great” comment?  And the voice of surprise doesn’t exactly help either.  It reminds me of when I was pregnant with DJ, and some people at work would ask if it was “planned”.  They stopped when I finally responded “oh, so you’re asking if I was careless? Is that what you mean?”  I’m too much of a smart ass for my own good.  But, in this case, I thank them, say yes, and answer their question about how I’ve done it with “there was no magic, I just stopped eating too much, and started exercising.”

Have a good Friday!