Update

Whoa! It's been a while since I posted anything. Ok, let's see what's happened since I started staying home.

Well, not a whole heck of a lot. LOL. I decided to jump on the Weight Watchers train yet again...I'm still trying to deal with the fact that I gained back the 50lbs I lost last time and then some. Why do I keep doing that to myself? As soon as I can figure out why I keep sabatoging myself I'll be able to move forward. This time though I decided I need the accountability of the actual meetings so I went back to those instead of just doing it online. This is week two. I lost 5.6 lbs last week so that's a good start. I also joined Curves this past Monday so I will be doing that M,W,F until school starts up and then I'll do it T,TH,SA.

I'll post every week and let you guys know how I'm doing...this is more for me than you though...again, accountability.

1st day home

So my first day at home was extremely busy. This is how my day went. I started my morning at Home Depot and picked up several little things we have needed for a while. Then I made my way over to Dinner by Design and picked up 4 meals from their freezer (they were running a special). Next I made my way to Target and picked up some cleaning supplies and some sunglasses Vincent's needs for a school play. After Target I went to Fashion Bug and got 2 pairs of jeans and a t-shirt. By the time I made it home it was 11:45 so I took a break and ate lunch. I set the timer though because I didn't want to get sucked into watching TV. After lunch I proceeded to do chores around the house. About half way through my ankle was killing me so I took another break and took a cat nap on the couch for 30 minutes (set the timer again). After my nap I finished the chores, replaced the door handle on the back door, replaced the door bell button on the back of the house, started dinner, and started to replace the front porch light. About that time Al came home and tried to help me with the light but their is something wrong with the wires so he has to fix that first. All in all I had a very eventful day. Tomorrow is looking pretty busy as well. I have to go train a couple of people on some things at TNow, more chores, a dentist appointment, and I have to call around and get fence quotes. Ugh...I'm the busiest unemployed person I know!

Update

Ok, you ready for some big news? I resigned from my job...That's right, I quit. My last day will be the 21st. I'm going to staying home for a little while. Oh how I'm looking forward to this! 5 more days of work. I can do this.

On another note, I went and hurt myself yesterday really really bad. Allen and the kids were at Al's mom's house and I was at home with Roxy. I went outside to clean up our back patio from the winter effects of the dog. After I grabbed the shovel from the front step I stepped down to go around back but I stepped directly into a hole and twisted my ankle causing me to fall to the ground. I heard a pop and the pain was intense. I layed in the front yard swearing and crying for a good 5 minutes figuring I broke something. I then realized that I had my cell phone in my coat pocket so I called Al. I didn't want to lay in the front yard while I waited for him so I ended up crawling back into the house. Al came home and took me to the hospital. Turns out it's not broken but I sprained my ankle pretty bad. I have an air cast and crutches and I'm basically immobile. Totally sucks. Still have not broken any bones. Guess I have enough calcium in my diet even with my lack of milk consumption. Must be all the cheese... :)

Waiting...

Tomorrow our payout on our stock options should hit the bank. This is like waiting for the best Christmas ever...or a trip to Disneyworld or...

Bit Literacy

I just started reading a book on Sunday called "Bit Literacy". The premise of the book is that we are all overloaded by technological bits and Mark Hurst presents a solution to overcome the clutter. The book is very easy to read and it's rather small. I could easily finish the book within 2 hours but I've been reading a little at a time to try and retain more. The first thing that Mr. Hurst tackles is your email. He advocates getting your email to zero messages in your inbox at least once every day. His methods are so simple that it made me want to hit my head and say "why didn't I think of that!" He also has a web based "to do" list that he advocates using at www.gootodo.com (stands for good experience to do list...don't care for the name but hey, that's ok). It is a pay service but the fee in minimal at $3/month billed every 6 months. The to do list has some great features but is a rather simple program that it makes keeping it up easy. The best feature that I've found is the ability to email your to do's. For example, if I get an email from somebody on something I need to do next week I can forward that email to 1w@gootodo.com. It will automatically put the subject line of the email as my to do and the body of the email as the notes on the to do. I can basically email whatever time line I need, today@gootodo.com, tomorrow@gootodo.com, 2d@gootodo.com, or a specific day like January29@gootodo.com. When you sign up for the service you enter up to 4 email addresses for the system to recognize.

I started reading the book on Sunday and I implemented the email and to do list changes on Monday. It's been 3 days of using Mr. Hurst's methods and my inbox has stayed empty (what a freeing feeling to not see all those emails staring back at me...) and my to do's get done every day. If you feel overwhelmed in your life by all the bits of information that is flying around this would be a great book for you to read.

I love these things!

Welcome to the 2008 edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun! Copy this post and paste into a new post, change all the answers so that they apply to you.

1. What is your occupation? Executive Assistant for the CEO, COO, and CTO.

2. What color are your socks right now? Not wearing any.

3. What are you listening to right now? People talking in the hallway, the clicking of my keyboard.

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Strawberries

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Um...I've driven a stick shift but would I say I can...not really.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? An attorney

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Did get it sent to me, stole it off another blog but yes.

9. How old are you today? 27

10. Favorite drink? Diet Coke

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? FOOTBALL!!

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Too many times to count.

13. Pets? 1 Boxer (dog) and 3 cats

14. Favorite food? Pasta

15. Last movie you watched? Children of Men

16. Favorite Day of the year? Don't have one.

17. What do you do to vent anger? Depends, yell, clean, stew in my own thoughts.

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? Barbie

19. What is your favorite season? Spring

20. Hugs or kisses? Kisses

21. Cherry or Blueberry? Cherry

22. Do you want your friends to email you back? Sure, although this isn't email.

23. Who is most likely to respond? Shelly

24. Who is least likely to respond? Megan (she already did it)

25. When was the last time you cried? Today

27. What is on the floor of your closet? Which closet? Bedroom - clothes, a violin, books, shoes, wrapping paper...

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that is on this list? Shelly

29. Who is the friend you have had the shortest that is on this list? ?

30. Favorite smells? Rain, anything that's been cooking in a crockpot all day.

31. Who inspires you? Don't really know. It's because of my kids that I quit smoking and stopped biting my nails.

32. What are you afraid of? Getting old

33. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? cheese burgers

34. Favorite car? This is hard. I always wanted a red Jeep Wrangler but now...I don't know.

35. Favorite cat breed? The nice ones

36. Number of keys on your key ring? which key ring? Home & Work: 11.

37. How many years at your current job? 8 years.

38. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

39. How many states have you lived in? 1, only Illinois

40. Do you think you're funny? Sometimes

The Right Place at the Right Time...

I have been dying to write about this but because of the confidential nature I was not going to take a chance but the announcement was made this morning. My company has been purchased by TicketMaster. What does this mean for me? Well...all of those stock options I was granted 2 years ago have to be cashed out...at a profit of over $26 a share! As soon as the deal closes I will be getting a 6 figure payout! OH MY GOD! Al and I have already made plans for the money. I'm paying off my debt. That's #1. That alone is huge. I won't have student loans, a car payment, credit card payments...nothing except my mortgage!!! Then we are setting 3 months salary aside as emergency money. We will finally have money for the "what ifs". Then we are buying College Illinois plans for the kids. If you don't know what that is it basically means that we are pre-paying for the kids college education. They can go to any Illinois school and their tuition is completely paid for. They can also go to an out of state school but they will only pay what they would pay for an Illinois school. We are choosing the 2 year community college, 2 year university plan. If they want to go to a university for all 4 years then they will have to come up with the difference. Next on our list is a list of improvements for the house. I will finally not be embarrassed to have company over. We are going to replace the flooring in every room of our house, get a new furnace and air conditioner (currently they are about 28 years old), repave our driveway and front step (they're crumbling), repaint our living room/dining room (I really hate the color we originally chose), fence in our backyard (Roxy will get to run free!!), pay my father-in-law back for the money he loaned us for the down payment on our house, replace my disgusting stained sink in the kitchen, re tile the bathrooms and get rid of the dumb surround stuff they put in, get a large plasma HDTV, and finally a PS3. Best part? We'll not be living paycheck to paycheck anymore because we will actually still have money left over each month! Oh the stress relief! I'm so excited I could cry.

Never would I have ever imagined that I would be here after 8 years. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen when I went in for that interview so many years ago. This was just a full time job that I needed to survive since I was leaving college.

I put in a lot of overtime, hard work, determination, and put up with a lot of crap over those 8 years but I would not have been here if it had not been for Megan. So Thank You Megan for getting me this job 8 years ago.

Asperger's Syndrome Support Group

I went to my first Asperger's Syndrome support group last night. It was amazing! Even though I've been reading a lot over the last couple of months and I know that we are not the only ones with this it still feels like you are alone. Especially when you look around and see all the "normal" or as they say in the support group "neuro-typical" children. But almost immediately that feeling of being the only ones was gone. These people, these parents knew exactly what I was talking about. They got it. They understood. They had suggestions and advice that comes from trial and error. The group last night was composed of 4 women that have teenage boys with AS, a man that has an 8 year old they suspect has AS, a man that has a 13 year old girl with AS (very rare, less than 20% are female), a man that has a 13 year old that has autism, an older gentleman that has a 20 year old with AS, and finally a man in his late 20's that has AS himself. It was nice to see an adult with AS because he was able to vocalize some of what he feels and why he acts certain ways. He was explaining that to him it's difficult to make eye contact and listen at the same time. He has to focus on one thing at a time and if he tries to do both he has breaks in his concentration. He feels he listens and comprehends better if he doesn't make the eye contact. That made sense in my mind. Since so many of them have older children it was nice to hear how they developed over the years so I know what to expect. And to be honest it's not a pretty picture... These people even stayed an extra hour to talk with me. One of the things that came up was disciplining. I asked what they do to punish unwanted behavior. Most said they take away stuff that is important to the child...I explained that I do that but it doesn't seem to phase Vincent. He doesn't like it but it doesn't seem to get through to him. They all agreed it didn't work for them either. That's refreshing. I also was asking about what battles to fight and what not to fight. Where does Asperger's end and just normal bad child behavior begin? I don't want Vincent to use AS as an excuse but I also don't want to punish him for something he can't control. The advice they gave was that if after trying normal discipline and it doesn't work then it's probably the AS. I also signed up for a parent training seminar on Disciplining in the Home for AS. The class is taught by a psychologist who has AS himself and a son with AS. That's in Feb so we'll see how that goes. Overall I'm excited for the next meeting. This was definitely a lot of help.