7/24/08-7/28/08

Thursday 7/24/08 – Today my boss called a 15 minute 'organizational announcement' meeting. When we got to the meeting he talked about the history of Capella from the point when he started 3.5 years ago and about all of the things that have changed since he started. He said that Capella has really changed, but he has not – and so he put in his notice last Friday and his last day will be August 1st. I'm not sure yet how I feel about this. Before I started I heard from various people that he was a bad boss and all kinds of negative things. But since I have worked for him he has always been nice to me….. The only thing bad that could come out of this is if my new boss is a jerk of some sort. But a few good things I can think of are that I do not have to worry about the first impression I made on him any longer (the "Hi, I'm pregnant" chat I had on the first day), and I also do not have to worry quite so much on getting up to speed quickly so I don't let him down. In this position there really isn't any training, and I am just learning by watching what my partner does. It is taking me a long time to ramp up because we are not super busy so I have limited opportunities to learn anything. So with my boss leaving, there will be a chunk of time where I do not have a boss and then I will pick up with someone new, and then I will go on maternity leave. So it takes away some of the stress I feel from not knowing what I am doing yet.

Friday 7/25/08 – After work we went to Nathan and Becca Robison's for dinner. We tried out a new recipe and it ended up being delicious! It was eggs Benedict Mediterranean style – with bread, grilled eggplant and zucchini, a poached egg, fresh basil, topped with a red pepper-type hollandaise sauce and a few strips of roasted red peppers. I was a bit scared at the sound of it, but ended up loving it! Jason even liked everything but the zucchini and eggplant – but I think he did not know what the sauce was made of until after he ate it (he is not a red pepper fan at all). After dinner we played a game called Blokus. I thought it was really fun, but Jason was bored – it was sort of a board game version of Tetris but a little different. When we first got there Lijah was really shy for awhile, but at the end of the night he was back to normal – taking all of the pillows off of the couch and jumping around on them. When we left he thought that one of the train toys they had was his now and kept saying 'mine choo' over and over. He cried about the train all the way to the car, the whole ride home, and even while I was putting him to bed.

Saturday 7/26/08 – This morning Lijah and I met Dawn at the beach at Lake Harriet. Lijah walked all the way from the car to the beach – I was impressed because it was quite a hike for a little 2 year old. On the walk he was really excited about all the bikes riding by and all the dogs, he even saw someone running and then wanted to run too! When we got to the beach there were a few ducks hanging out and I got a picture of him with the ducks. As soon as I put his swim shorts on he ran for the water. He had never been to the beach before so I was unsure how he was going to react, but he loved it. We were the only ones on the beach and it stayed pretty bare the whole time we were there. Lijah had a good time throwing mud and playing with his new sand toys. Then a bunch of little girls came over and swarmed him. He really liked going out and bouncing in the deep water with me, but kept a tight clutch on me the whole time. As I expected, leaving the beach was not a fun time because Lijah wanted to stay (so did I, but Lijah needed his nap). Luckily Dawn was able to hold him and distract him while I packed everything up because as soon as I put his dry shorts on he ran back to the water. He refused to walk back to the car, so I had to carry him the whole way back (which is not fun anymore being 7 months pregnant), and he signed 'more' and pointed to the beach the whole way back. But once we got back to the car he was fine and actually crashed shortly after we left. Usually we try to keep him up in the car, otherwise it is harder to get him to go down for his nap – but I let him sleep this time. After Lijah's nap the missionaries came over for dinner and we had sloppy joes and then Lijah and I watched The Spiderwick Chronicles (I thought it was a good movie). During the movie we noticed a big spider right outside our own window in a big web – Lijah thought it was pretty cool.

Sunday 7/27/08 – Not much exciting today…..I was able to take a nap while Lijah was sleeping. But I didn't have the air conditioning on so I kept waking up all sweaty and finally gave up. But then I had an hour to kill before Lijah got up so I went outside and weeded the front garden and watered all of the plants. I really let my garden go this year, but that's ok with me. I figure that the first few years of gardening are pretty much trial and error anyways. I'm at least learning something for when I am able to dedicate a bit more time to my garden (maybe next summer?). I have a bunch of tomatoes just waiting to ripen up, and I had a lot of success with my Cascadia Snap Peas. Here's a list of what I attempted to grow and what is happening with them…..

1. Cluster Grand Tomato & Early Girl Tomato – In back yard in planters - waiting for tomatoes to ripen (3 of each plant)
2. Tumbling Tom Red Tomato – In hanging basket planters in back yard - have had one ripe tomato, about 10 on the plant almost ready to eat.
3. Rhubarb – never planted
4. Munchkin Broccoli & Small Miracle Broccoli – In front garden - big plants but I let it go, the broccoli heads have turned into yellow flowers – Lijah and I like to watch the bees on the flowers more than we like to eat the broccoli anyways. The broccoli tasted kind of bitter.
5. Grayzini Squash – In front garden – the plant is big with a lot of flowers, but I don't see any zucchini growing yet.
6. Gold Rush Squash – In front garden – I see one squash starting to grow!
7. Early Butternut Squash – In front garden – very small plant, not sure it will produce anything.
8. Royal Burgundy Bean – In front garden – got a lot of great tasting beans, but I let them go and didn't harvest them all so now they are too tough to eat.
9. Cascadia Snap Pea – In side yard growing up tomato cages – delicious!
10 - Tom Thumb Lettuce – Planted in flower box planter and ate it once – was great! But I let it go and it all died.
11 - Minnesota Midget Melon – planted, but never came up.
12 – Caraway, Fernleaf Dill, Italian Large Leaf Basil, Flat Leaf Parsley – planted in flower boxes but let it all go……

I think next year I will put ina perennial garden in the front and grow my veggies in planters in the back yard. I forgot to mention that when we were at Celya's last Sunday she gave me two Stevia plants and a tomato plant. The Stevia is used as a sugar substitute so I am going to dry and grind it up once it is ready to be harvested.

Monday 7/28/08 – Today at work it was very boring. I am not quite up to speed on a lot of things yet so it is frustrating not being able to just get things done on my own. When I was interviewing and was offered the job I was very clear that I did not have the technical IT skills and would need training in this area. I specifically asked if I would have formal training in PeopleSoft to be able to get up to speed and I was told yes. However, on my first day I was told that there was not money in the budget and was given some training manuals instead. The manuals are out of context and not very connected to how I need to know the system to be able to troubleshoot and fix errors/issues when they come up. If I had the resources that I needed I could get up to speed quickly. But for now I am just shadowing my partner and just watching what he is doing – which is helpful – but he has work to do as well and does not have time to train me every day. He looked up some trainings that he would recommend that Capella send me to, but I am going to wait until after this week since Friday is my bosses last day, and then have a meeting with our director and lay it all out there and ask again for the training. Hopefully the director will be able to help me out because it really isn't doing the company any good bringing me into this position and then not have me be productive! It's also quite frustrating for me because I like to work independently and efficiently – neither of which I can do right now. After work Lijah and I played outside and took some pictures of the garden. Then we went for a wagon ride – only 4 blocks though since it was humid and I have been pretty sore this week. The last few nights I have been letting Lijah watch me give myself insulin shots. He gets really excited and then very patiently watches me. His favorite part is when he gets to touch my belly where I gave the shot and then stick his finger in my belly button. The only downside to this….now everywhere we are he tries to pull up my shirt so he can poke my belly button!