I still hate my job. But I'm coping a little better today.
I made a modified Cobb Salad for dinner last night, and it turned out much better than I'd expected. Penny loved it -- she especially liked the avocado, which was a new food for her -- and even Alex ate most of the bits and pieces I put in his bowl! (He got the meat and cheese and egg and avocado and orange bell pepper. I knew better than to try him on broccoli, cucumber, or lettuce. I flat out forgot to put tomatoes on the salads, too, or he'd have eaten that as well.)
Anyway, it was fewer points and much more filling than I expected it to be, and Matt and Penny were both so enthusiastic that I think I'll be trying to make it more often.
After dinner I went to book club, and we had a baby shower for Becky, which was fun.
Reactions to the book (Waiter Rant) were mixed, but we enjoyed talking about it and the experiences it reminded us of, so I'm calling it a success. (Books I suggest are not always such good picks.)
They're even taking a chance on another of my recommendations (The Graveyard Book) for our October book. Though I think that hung on the fact that Heather -- who we tease for never liking the books -- said she'd already read it and loved it, and had moved on to M Is for Magic and Coraline and wanted my suggestion for other Gaiman books to try. Since Heather wasn't part of the book club yet when we did American Gods, I suggested that. (It got pretty mixed reviews from the book club, too -- it's kind of an in-joke that the books I suggest are going to be about as far as you can get from chick lit and other usual "book clubby" books, and that our opinions on them are going to vary pretty wildly.)
Today, Matt's taking Penny down to Chesapeake to have a long play date with Jess. So they took Alex to school for me, and I got to work most of an hour earlier than usual, which is nice. (It's especially nice if they end up staying down there for dinner, rather than fighting the traffic to come back, and I have to leave a bit early to pick Alex up.) Penny's been excited about this for a week, so I hope they have a fantastic time.
Next week, I'm taking a day off to take Penny to the beach, which I'd promised to do this summer. I figure I'll just take her to Yorktown beach, which is more river than ocean, but it's not all that different an experience (deep salty water, sandy beach -- the waves are smaller, but she's six, for petesake). That way, if the novelty wears off after only an hour or so, we haven't put in an hour and change to get down to the "real" beach, and we can go do something else -- go shopping, or visit my parents, or something. The key (for me, anyway) is to get in some one-on-one time with Penny, because as fantastic as she is with Alex, he does eat up a lot of attention, and I think it'll be good for her to get some time in the spotlight.
And somewhere around the middle of September, Matt's taking a week off. One of his stated goals for the week is to work on cleaning/purging the house, and then imposing some organization on what remains -- especially the kids' stuff. I'm all in favor of this plan, so I plan to take a couple of days (or a day and a couple of half-days, or whatever I can wangle, given my work schedule) to help him out. Which won't be very relaxing, but it might do a lot for my state of mind.
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