Sheep Guarding Llama

United States Scores Extremely Low on World Motherhood Rankings

I was not happy at all when the alarm went off at six this morning.  I was exhausted and felt like crap, but there is a ton to do today so I dragged my butt out of bed and left my snuggly Boston Terrier behind and got into the shower and tried to wake up.

I logged into work and did a little work for the office while also working on wrapping up the DRBD project that I was working on late last night.  That went pretty smoothly and I was able to get into the office physically by just after seven thirty.

Dominica had a really rough morning with Oreo.  After he had two accidents last night he had another one sometime this morning.  Now she has a laundry disaster on her hands.  I walked him before I left the house this morning but apparently that did not really help.  So I had to go get twenty dollars worth of quarters so that she could start doing laundry first thing this morning.

This morning was insanely busy so at lunch Dan and I decided to escape to La Cima.  I ran home at eleven thirty to bring Dominica her quarters.  Oreo was banished to the outside balcony.  The balcony is tiny so he was laying on his little pillow hoping that someone would let him in at some point.  I think that he kind of liked the fresh air and lack of toddler chasing him around, though.  It was a nice day and it is shaded there.  If it had more room I think that he would really like it.

Dan picked me up at noon and we ran over to La Cima.  Lunch was awesome, as always.  Dan got the special guest treatment.  We are hoping that he joins the club this week.

After lunch Dan dropped me at home and I walked Oreo then walked back to the office.  The afternoon was crazy busy again.  What a week it has been.

I got stuck kind of late and did not manage to get home until after six.  Dominica and Liesl had been out shopping so they swung in to the office to pick me up on their way home.  A quarter after six does not sound all that bad but when you consider that I started around a quarter to seven this morning, it is pretty late.

We went home and got ready as quickly as we could.  It was just about seven by the time that we were dressed and able to get out the door to go back to La Cima for dinner.

We met up with Brian in the lounge but skipped drinks and went straight to dinner as Liesl was already pretty tired by the time that we arrived at the club.  We knew that our time was limited and we didn’t want to waste our valuable “happy toddler” time having drinks in the lounge.

It is pasta night and tonight’s special pasta sauce was poblano cream.  It was delicious.  Liesl was pretty restless, though, so we were fighting with her most of the evening and had to spend a lot of time walking her around empty rooms to keep her occupied.  It is too bad that she cannot fall asleep easily anymore while we are out now that she is older or she probably would have just got to sleep and been quite happy.

We headed out around nine.  We went right home and Liesl was asleep before we even got there even though it is just a few blocks away.  I was pretty tired too and was in bed myself by eleven.  I have not been getting enough sleep this week at all.

I have to be in the office early again tomorrow.  I am leaving slightly early to go to happy hour at La Cima before heading home.

Today was super busy.  I was up at a quarter after six and left for the office just after seven.  I sent and read a ton of emails in the interim as well.  Quite a lot of work done before seven thirty.

It is bright and sunny today after the big thunderstorm passed through the area last night.  Very wet today though.  But not so humid.  I’m able to wear heavy jeans to the office still even with me walking in the bright sunlight.

It was a crazy morning.  I was constantly scrambling to keep up with all of the work.  At a quarter till ten I had to run back over to the apartment so that I could do some work from there.  I was there from ten until almost two.  I worked from there, had lunch, walked Oreo and then it was back to the office.

This afternoon was awful as well.  Really busy and exhausting.  We had one of those days where clients kept calling and screaming at us for things that were their own faults too, which is a bit frustrating.  Three times this afternoon we had to escalate a personnel issue to management because it got so bad!  At least we got away without any of the issues being our fault but that only makes you feel so much better.

There was so much going on that even though I started working around seven this morning I did not manage to escape the office until after six putting me home around ten after.

I walked in the door to Dominica consoling Liesl after Liesl had fallen, face first, off of the couch and slammed her face onto the coffee table!  Fortunately I had just missed the horrible screaming and Liesl was calm by the time that she saw me.  She did not hit her nose or else, Dominica felt, it would have been broken.  She hit her right cheek bone and has a pretty serious bruise but no serious damage.  Dominica was icing it when I got there but Liesl was just about done putting up with that.

I did not have much time to do anything before I had a six thirty conference call to be on that lasted until eight.  Dominica and I had been hoping to have been able to have gone out for dinner tonight but it ended up being just a work night.  So we ordered in Chinese from Hunan Dynasty which was a little on the expensive side but really good and different.  Not our normal Chinese take away at all.  We watched an episode and a half of Soap.  Liesl was already in bed and asleep before dinner even arrived.

Then it was time for me to get back to work.  I am working on a DRBD project for a pair of Linux-based SAN devices.  That ended up taking me to around one thirty in the morning when I decided that I just needed to get some sleep and deal with the rest of the setup and configuration in the morning when I would be a little more alert.

I got into bed and discovered that Oreo had had an accident earlier.  What a time to discover it.  So at one thirty in the morning Dominica got up, we moved Liesl and we changed the bed.  Luckily we have a water-proof liner just for this.

So it was almost two by the time that I finally got to lay down and try to get some sleep.  Oreo was restless because we had gotten him up and kicked him out of bed so that we could change the coverings so he was up for fifteen minutes itching and walking around as he does.  I probably didn’t fall asleep till a quarter after two or later.  Pretty crappy considering that I need to be up by six in the morning at the latest.  Not much sleep for me tonight.

Up at a quarter to seven again this morning.  I went to bed really early last night but haven’t been sleeping very well.  Liesl likes to push me out of bed and it makes it really hard to stay asleep long enough to get good REM.

I am working the early schedule now at the office as I started last week.  I worked from Joe and Britt’s house for a few hours until around ten thirty.  Dominica packed up our stuff and got the car ready so that we could leave pretty quickly.

At ten thirty we went up to League City and met up with Francesca, Garrett and Clara at Waffle House on FM518 for a late breakfast / early lunch.  Then it was off to the Grices’ where I worked from the couch all day.

It was a really busy day at the office and really wore me out.  We had been planning to leave around four in the afternoon but I was unable to wrap up with work and did not manage to get out until just after five.

Liesl didn’t take a nap today which we tried to keep her from doing because we wanted her to be able to sleep in the car on the long drive north to Irving.  She did fall asleep very quickly and made it quite a long way while still being asleep.

It is a really hot day today in Texas.  The BMW says that it is ninety-eight degrees outside as we head through the Woodlands north of Houston!  That was around six thirty in the evening.  It was relatively dry and did not feel all that hot but it was most definitely warm.

As we drove north on interstate forty-five the temperature dropped dramatically.  We were able to watch it just go down and down as we moved along.  The lowest that we saw was just south of Ennis where the urban heat of Dallas couldn’t reach and there it was fifty-nine degrees!  A thirty-nine degree drop just driving between two neighbouring cities!  Pretty incredible.

We grabbed dinner at McDonald’s and ate on the road.  It has been months, I think, since we have had McDonald’s so that made a nice change.  Oreo really appreciated getting his favourite French fries.

We arrived back in the metroplex around ten thirty.  It was pretty late and Liesl went to bed after about half an hour or so.  It is good to be back home.

I stayed up for a while and worked on getting another paper done for my class at RIT.  I’m still a bit behind but at least I am making good progress.

I am in the office at seven tomorrow morning as my new schedule goes.  So not a lot of sleep for me tonight but just getting to sleep in my own bed should help a lot plus getting to snuggle with Oreo whom we have not been sleeping with since heading down to Houston.

I am very happy that I am finally up to date on SGL again.  It really wears on me when I am way behind.  Keeping up has been very difficult recently.  I’m doing what I can.

This morning I had a ton of work to get done so we decided that it would be best if I stayed at Joe and Britt’s house until dinner time while Dominica and Liesl would go on to the Grices’ so that they could visit.  Joe had to work today and Britt was locked away studying anyway so it was perfect for me to just hang out in the kitchen with my laptop working.

I worked a full day for the office today.  I also managed to catch up on SGL and get a lot of papers written for my class at RIT.  I am behind but catching up as quickly as I can.  There is just so much to do for this class.  It is impossible to keep on top of it all.

At four thirty I drove over to the Grices’ to meet up with the family for dinner.  On the way the car registered the outside temperature at ninety-five degrees as I went through Bacliff!  I heard a rumour that it was snowing in Upstate New York this past week!

Liesl and Garrett played outside in the little kiddie sprinkler pool for a long time.  Liesl was in her swim suit and would stand in the pool taking a little plastic cup and drinking as much water as she could.  She loves drinking water.

All of that playing outside really wore out the kids.  We had dinner, watched Myth Busters and pretty much it was time to get back to put Liesl to bed.

We will be returning to Irving tomorrow evening.

I had to be up at a quarter till seven this morning which was very early for me.  I am feeling really worn down today.

I was set up in Joe and Britt’s kitchen and working but a few minutes after seven.  It is Saturday so I have my usual Saturday work to do this morning for the Middle East.

As soon as my work was done, roughly around nine, we drove over to Waffle House and grabbed breakfast and then went to the Grices’ to visit.  We are celebrating Garrett’s second birthday today so much of the family from the metroplex came down today for the party.

After everyone left this evening, Emily and I went shopping for Liesl stuff.  We got her a stuffed Elmo that blows kisses (I picked it out, I think that she is going to love it) and a LeapFrog Tag Junior reading kit with an Elmo book and a Dora the Explorer Counting Book.  I also found her an Elmo counting book and a colouring book.  I also picked up an on sale microwave for Dominica.  Now that we know that we are going to be in our apartment for the next ten months we really need to have one.  It is kind of bizarre that our apartment did not come with one.  I hate having to buy the same things over and over again – we are wasting so much money doing that.

After Walmart Emily and I ran over to GameStop and found a used copy of Dragon Age: Origins Awakenings, the big expansion pack to Dragon Age: Origins that Dominica just loves.  Because it was a used copy and I have an Edge Advantage card it was an additional ten percent off making it a pretty good deal.

After shopping it was back to the Grices’ to pick up Dominica and Liesl and then pretty much straight back to Joe and Britt’s house so that we could put Liesl to bed.  Liesl is getting onto a schedule of going to bed by nine in the evening which is pretty awesome.