Decisions decisions

This must be the year of making hard decisions, and then having those decisions ultimately not matter, or not making a hard decision and then wondering if you should have, or making the hard decision and worrying it wasn't the right one.

Dilemma One - I've just decided to hold our 10th anniversary party here instead of the fabulous La Jolla home of Neil's stepmom's friend because it was becoming apparent there were communication problems. I don't need any last minute surprises. So, now I have just heard that everything is on, that there are no problems with the site, but as I should have suspected, my step-mother-in-law is trying to change the time we start the party which will just lead to many other conflicts. I should have remembered this from planning my wedding. So, I am sticking with this decision. My house isn't fabulous and it really isn't in La Jolla, but at least I only have to answer to me.

Dilemma Two - According to The Schedule, I am supposed to get knocked up in late December or early January. There are many reasons for the timeline, the most importantly being I have to pay for private insurance so I can use the same ob/gyn I had with Hayden and I need to wait until the end of the year to opt out of my current insurance. Also, Neil will have graduated by the time the next one arrives, and I shouldn't have to work once he has changed jobs. The dilemma is two-fold. First of all, December and January are approaching far, far too rapidly. The idea of another baby scares me. I don't really want to get huge and fat again. I don't really want to have my abdomen hacked apart. I don't really relish the idea of not sleeping for three months. I just don't feel ready yet. On Friday, I realized that I was about two weeks late. This isn't that unusual, but Neil thought I should take a test. So, after a really bad night of sold out movies and wasted time, I took the test. I had two miscarriages before Hayden was conceived, and I probably took twenty or thirty pregnancy tests over that time period, so I am quite familiar with how they work. As soon as I set the thing down on the counter, both windows turned pink and what looked like two dark lines appeared. My immediate reaction wasn't at all like my previous ones. I said "Holy Shit" out loud, and ran out of the bathroom - t e r r i f i e d. Neil started trying to tell me the test was defective; that the colors weren't right, it was absorbing weird. Anyway, the test ended up being negative, but it scared the hell out of me. I walked around the rest of the night with such an adrenaline high, you would have thought I walked away from a car accident or something. Which makes me question if I will ever be ready for the next baby. I know (I think) that I want another - maybe I just need more time.

Dilemma 3 - This is already the longest post I have ever written, so I will simplify this one. Neil has one more year of graduate school. Neil's company has screwed him over for the second time this year. Neil has had it. He thinks it may be time to move on now, instead of waiting until he graduates. He has an interview for a job that pays a lot of money but requires a lot of hours, and working one night a week until midnight, and working one weekend day a week. It's with a big company - a well run, profitable company. I could stop working. Good benefits, etc. But that year with Neil working 60 hours and going to school could be too much to handle. He got an email last night from one of his professors (school doesn't start until September) warning his students about the difficulty of his class. He sent sample calculus problems and recommended students do not take three classes at once if his is one of them (Neil has to take three), and that students who work will be at a huge disadvantage. So, what the hell? Do we coast until May with a company treating Neil poorly after all these years of being the best they'd ever seen, or do we move on and accept the ridiculous schedule?

Momentous

Today, Hayden (a.k.a. the pickiest eater west of the Alamo) ate strawberries! This is a huge deal because it is one more food I can add to his diet (if you can call it that). I don't know how, but the boy is sustained by:

plain pasta
cheese
grilled cheese sandwiches
plain cheese sandwiches
plain bread
cheerios with rice milk
pancakes
toast with cream cheese
rice
french fries (baked ones)with ketchup
soy "chik-patties" (cut up into strips to look like french fries with ketchup)
grapes
bananas
mandarin oranges, peaches, and pears (only out of individually packaged plastic tubs - will not eat freshly diced fruit)
crackers
pretzels
granola bars
spaghettios
sometimes vegetable soup
popcorn

...and now strawberries!

I have offered him strawberries too many times to count. Usually, he just refuses because they look weird. But, today he ate them all - like four or five! Next week, we move on to kiwi fruit.

Tahoe

We just returned from ten days at Lake Tahoe. We stayed at the beautiful Hyatt Incline Village in a Lakefront cottage. It was fantastic. We biked a lot. We did nineteen miles our last day there. Hayden loved it.

I have worked an average of 45 hours a week for the last three weeks straight. I am supposed to leave to go on vacation tomorrow night. Now, the best case scenario for me is to take the laptop with me, work, and send files back to the office via internet...during my vacation!!!! Worst case scenario means we have to shorten our vacation...for work!!!

This is way way way way way way way out of hand. I can't believe this is really my life right now.