Too Much of a Good Thing

So, remember when I said I had two job interviews a while back? Well, now I have two job offers. And I'm going through a major identity crises/anxiety attack because of it. I am completely aware of how blessed I am to be given these two opportunities. In this economy I feel lucky to have even gotten interviews. Only now I feel like I have to make the choice between family and career that so many parents must make. So let the whining commence...


Job 1: Part-time cake decorator. 
Pros - part-time, fun, creative, Lily gets to spend time with grandparents, great hours
Cons - not very lucrative


Job 2: Full-time science education coordinator at a place that rhymes with Schmuseum of Schmience and Schmindustry.
Pros - big $$, prestigious, opens many doors for future jobs
Cons - full-time, stressful, evening/weekend hours, we would have to find other child care


These lists are greatly simplifying my thoughts about the two positions. The cake decorator job is the perfect cake decorator job but by not taking the other job I feel like I'm giving up on my future as a science educator/advocate. A big part of me still wants to be involved with science education and I'm worried that the longer I don't do it the less likely I am to be able to do it again. The Schmuseum job is not the perfect museum job but could lead to me getting the perfect museum job. It would give us the financial freedom to get things going on our long term family plans (move to the 'burbs, buy a house, start putting down permanent roots). It would take some of the pressure off Joe to get a job right out of law school, but it would put more pressure on us as a family unit. This next year Joe will be busier with school and we'd have to figure out something fairly flexible for child care for Lily. And I know that I am not much fun when I am too stressed out about work. We're fortunate in that financial matters are not the primary motivator for me going back to work. That would make the choice much easier. 


I'm really conflicted about all of this. Do I pick the job that allows us to have an awesome family life at the possible peril of a possible future career in science education? Or do I pick the job that allows us to start a more financially stable/permanent life but means less time together as a family? Anyone have any advice? I'd love to hear it. 

Cake-tern!

I got a position as an intern at a bakery! For the next two weeks or so I'll be there twice a week decorating real wedding cakes. Then after that I should be hired! The part-time position will most likely be three days a week. Here are a couple of pictures of the first couple of cakes I completed. Talk about trial by fire, my first day I did two wedding cakes, one 4-tier and one 3-tier. The second day I did two 3-tier wedding cakes. This bakery mostly does traditional buttercream, with some fondant decorations. Thankfully they purchase their royal icing roses, or it would take me three days to finish one cake. 

More than anything I'm really excited to work on my piping skills. I've already learned to ice a cake freakishly smooth. This is so much fun!

I'm so ready to be going back to work. For the past month or so I've been in kind of a funk. Maybe it was the heat, but I was really unhappy. I was getting so frustrated with Lily and she wasn't even doing anything that different. I was beginning to feel really trapped. So I started applying places. I've had a couple of interviews with a nearby museum, and maybe that will still eventually pan out. For now though, I'm having lots of fun as a cake-tern. I had a bit of a breakdown before my first day and I had to call Joe for reassurance that I really want to do this. 

This is all possible due to our very generous parents. My mom and Joe's parents are kindly taking turns watching Lily so I can go play with cake. I'm also in the market for affordable child-care as I know they can't do this forever. I'm really interested in a home daycare, or even just a stay-at-home parent who could take Lily part-time. I don't think I could take her to a big day care center. I have no experience in this area, so any and all suggestions are welcome. 

I'm really happy that it's just a few days a week, during regular business hours, and no weekends. It's just enough time to feel like I have my own thing and I don''t feel like I'm abandoning my child to be raised by other people. The people at the bakery are really nice. I like that this job doesn't involve dealing with other people all day. You get your assignment and you just kind of go at it. There is some chatting with the other decorators, but it takes a lot of focus to do things right so not too much. Mostly we just listen to the static-y radio and decorate away. I find it very relaxing. I'm naturally a huge introvert in that I really get energized/refreshed from spending time alone. When Joe was in the National Guard, I really appreciated having one whole weekend a month completely alone. When I was pregnant a wise co-worker warned me about not being able to be alone once you have kids. I just sort of nodded and figured I would find a way to sneak off every once in a while and just sit quietly. Well, in a whole year that hasn't really happened. So it's really nice to just focus on one thing, think about whatever I want, hum along with the radio, and not have to touch anyone. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder is a truer statement than I ever believed. Today, my first day off (in two whole days!), was wonderful. Lily was extra clingy, but I expected that. More importantly, I fell in love with her again. Not that I ever stopped loving her, it was just rough for a while. Today we appreciated each other's company and are friends again. And I'm much nicer to Joe, now. He is amazing and has never complained about my being a horrible crank over the past month, but I know I have been. I like having something that's only mine. I've been kind of jealous as Joe goes off each morning to school or to his summer position. I've missed doing something. I think this whole part-time work thing is good for all of us. 

Garden Bounty

Our garden has been growing like crazy! We literally have tomato trees. Our little raised bed garden in Arizona never looked like this. It's crazy. Here's a picture of Lily checking out our harvest one day when we got back from the garden. She thought it would be fun to smash the tomatoes together. 

Here is a delicious meal I made with all vegetables from our garden, and the meat came from Mint Creek Farm where we are part of their meat CSA program. I made beef kebabs with sauteed chard and onions. The chard tasted better than it looked. 

I've been getting down to the garden about twice a week, and this is a good picture of our typical harvest. At least one zucchini, one green pepper (we might be done with those now, they've been lost in the tomato forrest), a bunch of carrots, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and one or two roma tomatoes. Our roma tomato plant has so many on it that it bent the cage and I'm going to have to stake it up this weekend. We have three Big Boy tomoato plants as well, and there are tons of huge tomatoes on it but none are ripe yet. I think we might be making a lot of sauce!

On a sad garden note, I'm pretty sure we have aphids on the zucchini plants. I'm going to prune them a bit tomorrow, but I'm worried about them spreading to the tomato plants. I bought some organic soap spray stuff, but I'm kind of afraid to use it. Does anyone have any experience getting rid of aphids? They're so gross. 

Hot

We got an air conditioner this weekend. We were going to try to tough it out because we're from Arizona, dammit. Ninety degrees ain't nothin'. There were several things I failed to consider when we decided this:

1) We have a baby. Her body does not deal with the heat and humidity as well as ours. She was sweating so much some nights we woke her up to give her a bottle to keep her from getting dehydrated.
2) We have a baby and I am holding her most of the time. This makes me much hotter than I normally would be. Cranky momma = not good.
3) All of our windows face south. This makes for a glorious winter, and a miserable summer.
4) With all of the windows on one side it doesn't allow for any cross breeze to develop so the air is pretty stagnant even with box fans in the windows.
5) Everyone in Arizona has an air conditioner, or at least a swamp cooler.

So we finally caved and bought one last Thursday. We haven't plugged it in yet because the billing cycle doesn't start until August 1. If we install it before then we have to pay the fee for the whole month of July. We were traveling until Sunday afternoon so it didn't seem like it would be that hard to wait. But now that it's 9:30 and 85* in here, these last couple hours feel long. We'll be going off to bed soon, but we've set an alarm for midnight so we can turn it on ASAP. Only 2 hours and 21 minutes to go...

Radio Silence

Dear Elizabeth, where have you been? you ask. Well, lots of places. We've been doing a lot of traveling recently. Two trips to Minnesota, one to Wisconsin, and a week camping out at my parents' house because they have air conditioning and we don't. During that time I've had two job interviews, it was Lily's first birthday, I've made lots of cakes, and I have a million pictures to share. So clearly I have some catching up to do. But as we're traveling to Michigan this weekend, Missouri next weekend, and then we have friends coming to town. So it will happen slowly. Especially since in the two minutes I've been writing this Lily has pulled out every single one of our DVD's, found a random wire to play with, and is currently trying to eat the metallic thread from one of my scarves. She's so active and mobile now I have little chance to do anything but try to keep her from killing herself. Slowly but surely we'll get there. Have a great week!

Week 28

Ended up at 162. It was hot.

M: skip
T: 2.5 mile run @ 27 minutes.
W: hot
Th: hot
F: hot
S: walk
S: hot

Week 26-27

Between the hot weather and going on vacation, these past two weeks haven't been great for exercise. However, I only gained 1 lb to end up at 164. So not so bad. My goal for this week is to get back on track! The weather forecast doesn't look like it's going to cooperate though. It's already 83*F at 7:30 in the morning, and it's supposed to rain. Gross. Somehow, even in the summer, I miss Tucson weather. At least when it's 110*F there it's a dry heat (seriously), and then there's the glorious monsoon.

M: skip
T: walk
W: 3 mile run, 34 min
Th: walk
F: skip
SSMTWThFS: Vacation in MN. Some walking and kayaking. Lots of lounging and relaxing.
S: unpack/clean/shop