Down

• Haven’t had much free time this last week but other than that, things have been going well.
• Jaeger is gone for the weekend to Lincoln for a wedding. Hope he has a good time but still miss him.

Ups

• The major part of the upgrade at work has been successfully completed. Now there’s just a lot of clean-up. The upgrade prep started 7pm on Wednesday night. I had misjudged how long everything would take so didn’t get to bed until after 3am. Unfortunately, I had to be up in Greeley by 7am to start the actual upgrade so got less than 3 hrs of sleep. It was a very long day at work. However, our core ILS system was back up within my estimated time frame. Jaeger picked up Calvin for daycare and also got takeout so all I had to do at home was eat and watch Calvin for a little bit before he went to bed. Then I went to bed and got 9 hours of sleep. Upgrade day 2 was much more relaxed. I still worked 10 hrs but it was easier since I had a full nights sleep the night before. Once again Jaeger took Calvin to daycare and picked him up in addition to getting a takeout supper. Based on the last couple of days, I don’t think I’d mind working full-time again if I could have takeout every night. The only downside is the guilt I would feel over having Calvin in daycare all day (which is silly because there is no consensus in the research community that a high quality daycare is worse than a stay-at-home mom).
• I can now read library eBooks from Overdrive on my iPhone! While I was waiting for some of the systems to be upgraded on Thursday, my Google Alert found an article about How to read public library eBooks with DRM on an iPhone. I didn’t have time to try it out on Thursday but managed to sneak some time on Friday to verify that the Bluefire Reader really does work. This will be a great way to provide reading material during my extended time away from home around Christmas.
• Since Jaeger was gone this weekend, I decided I should get a babysitter to provide a little break yesterday. Sarah, one of Calvin’s normal babysitters, was available and came at 5:30. Originally, I was thinking about going and watching a movie but nothing spoke to me. So, instead I went to Borders, our closest major bookstore, with the intention of finding a good book and then snuggling down with a hot drink. Normally, I first read all my books at the library before deciding whether or not they are worthy to buy. However, I decided I would be bold tonight. An average paperback book costs less than a movie ticket anyway. It turns out I was in luck. N.K. Jemisin’s newest book, The Broken Kingdoms is out. I had read her previous book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, in one sitting. I approached the second book with a little trepidation as it is not unusual for me to love an author’s first book and not the second. However, I was equally enthralled by this one. I read at Borders till it was time for me to go home and then continued reading at home until midnight. Not a particularly good sleep strategy considering my prior week but I don’t grudge any minutes I lost.
• I got Calvin to nap today! For the last couple of Sundays Calvin has been refusing to nap. Today Calvin didn’t seem particularly interested in napping but I was. When it was nap time, I put him in his crib and then sat in the rocking chair in his room. With me in the room, he didn’t seem to mind being in the crib but he wasn’t interested in sleeping either. However, he seemed happy enough to play in his crib that I started snoozing in the rocking chair. Every so often I would open my eyes and he was still awake. I kept trying to convince myself it was a lost cause and I should just get up but by the time I finally woke up enough to do so, he had decided to go to sleep after all. It took him an hour to go to sleep but he’s now been sleeping for 2 hrs. I have this feeling I should wake him up so he’ll go to sleep tonight.

Calvin Moment

• I was on the potluck team so we went to potluck at church yesterday. Not surprisingly, Calvin charmed everyone there. Potluck is at an awkward time for Calvin’s nap so my plan was to take him on a stroller ride during 2nd service so he could nap and then come back and catch the tale end of potluck. Those involved in potluck preparation were downstairs in the basement and they helped wear Calvin out. One of the men chased Calvin all around the halls with Calvin laughing hysterically the entire time. It’s good that Calvin’s such an extrovert. I’m just not sure where it came from.

Simplification

• Since the upgrade, I haven’t done much simplification. However, I did go through my books Tuesday and week out the ones I don’t think I’ll ever read again. Ended up with a fairly good sized box. I scheduled a pickup to have both those and the piano books I had weeded previously taken away.