(I’m not doing my own excitement justice with so few exclamation points, I know, but I’m trying not to look as dorky as I feel. )

When Tim was hired by Automattic last summer, it was an eye-opener. I was about to have our second child and didn’t have much time to focus on a career shift at the time, but I knew my position at UMaine had stagnated and it was clear I needed a change. I’d spent the last three years working with WordPress, and I have a long history with web design and development, so that seemed the natural place to direct my efforts.

While on maternity leave, I focused on learning more about advanced WordPress development, particularly theme development, and I started applying to jobs, including a few at Automattic. In an effort to get better at code review, I joined the WPTRT (WordPress Theme Review Team). I also knew my portfolio was weak, so I set to creating and polishing. I built the kind of themes I would use–cute, illustrated, simple–and was thoroughly surprised when people actually liked them!

Tim encouraged me to apply as a Theme Wrangler, but I distinctly recall telling him, “Pssh. I don’t have that level of skill. I just draw pretty things and make them into themes, I’m not a theme developer.”

Several months later, Ian contacted me after seeing some of my themes and asked if I was interested in designing a premium theme for WordPress.com. I sent in another application around that time, thinking the extra visibility couldn’t hurt. When I finished the premium theme, I (tentatively, wincing all the while because I’m terrible a putting myself out there) followed up with Ian about my application, asking for some pointers… and was surprised when the response was positive. Not even three hours later I had a friendly chat/interview with Lance and started a trial contract that day!

I’m thrilled to be joining the Theme Team. Like I said in my previous post, I’ve worked at the same office for about nine years so this is a huge change. But I’m in a unique position because Tim is also an Automattician, and I’ve seen first-hand what’s involved with this type of job. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with my new colleagues for the last few weeks and that’s reinforced the fact that I’m in really good company. The work will be challenging, but that’s what makes this transition so appealing to me–new things to learn, new experiences, and a chance to work on some really cool projects with some equally cool people.

This means Tim and I will both be working from home. Some people look at me with raised eyebrows when I say that, but we’re not worried about this arrangement–we have separate offices (mine in our bedroom, his in the guest bedroom) in case we get sick of each other (haha) and we’ve worked together before. In fact, I imagine we’ll collaborate less at Automattic than we did at UMaine because we’re on separate teams. And I think it will make working almost entirely from home less isolating for both of us, while allowing more flexibility for our family.

And if all that wasn’t exciting enough, this time next week I’ll be on my way to Las Vegas for my first team meetup. I still don’t believe it. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, and I’m eager to meet my colleagues in person, then hopefully get into some semblance of a routine and start the real work of learning the ropes. Wish me luck.

In baby news, Gwen is almost crawling. CRAWLING. I’m not entirely sure when my youngest decided to grow up and be mobile, but there you have it. She’s discovered she can wiggle around the floor on her belly and get into all sorts of trouble–under tables and chairs, tangled in wires and cords, little fingers stuck into baseboard heaters. It’s childproofing time! (Didn’t we just go through this with Ellie? What is it about seemingly-happy infants that makes them heart-stoppingly suicidal, anyway?)

She’s also developed a touch of separation anxiety. Mama is not allowed to leave the room. Hell, Mama is not allowed to be out of direct contact for more than a second, god forbid I put the child down once in a while. I’ve basically given up making her sleep in her crib this week which I’m sure will have painful consequences when Tim gets back, but oh well, Mama needs sleep.

We spent Easter weekend with my folks (they brought their new Roadtrek!) The egg hunt, decorating and baskets of goodies made for a fun time, but I’ve learned my lesson: Three years old is the point at which Serious Candy Negotiations begin. Given a choice, Ellie would have downed the entire basket in an hour. At first I doled out the candy like a responsible parent, letting her have a piece here and a piece there, usually after she’d eaten something more substantial (and by “substantial” I mean a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter sandwich–I’m not winning any nutrition awards these days) but by Tuesday I gave up and allowed her to eat what was left of her Robin Eggs (maybe twelve total) in one fell swoop. I should have saved my energy and done that in the first place. Better yet: Forget the candy, I’ll just buy toys next year. Good grief.

As for a health update, there isn’t much to say. I’m hanging in there. I’m down to 8k steps per day instead of 10k because of [insert excuse here]. I think once I’m settled at my new job I’ll be able to get into a better routine. Right now I’m just trying to get through each day without being a total slug. And don’t get me started on the amount of Easter candy I’ve consumed over the past three days… let’s just say I wish my mommy was doling it out piece by piece instead of letting me have the whole basket. I am not to be trusted around Easter candy.

The last month has been awesome and stressful. There’s a host of big changes on the horizon. Probably the most drastic change: I’m leaving the university at the end of April. Having been at the same office for almost 9 years now (if you include my time as a work-study student) this is a little sad, a little exciting, and a lot overwhelming. Where I’m going, that’s a story for another post.

This month has been really creative and productive, which is a nice change from pretty much all of last year.  Yay! I’ve spent a lot of time with my WordPress themes and my camera phone. I decided to get more involved with the WordPress Theme Review Team as a means of learning more about theme development, so I made it a personal goal to try to review at least one theme a week.  Then I picked up some freelance web development work. Then I was lucky enough to land a contract to design a premium theme for WordPress.com (!). Then I decided to build a whole new theme in one weekend, just for kicks.

One thing that makes me happy: That I have the ENERGY to even attempt a schedule like this on top of the usual daily life! But man, it does make it harder to stay physically active. I find myself saying it often: Why do all my favorite things–website design, photography, illustration, blogging–involve sitting at a computer? Oh, if only I could find sports enjoyable! But then I probably wouldn’t be fat in the first place, heh. I need to get a treadmill desk up in heah.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m still keeping up with Health Month and walking/exercising regularly. I’ve also started watching calories a little more closely–not being super strict, just more mindful of my choices. Fitbit is forever my favorite motivator–case in point: my two birthday presents were a Fitbit premium membership from my parents and a (pre-ordered) Aria scale from Tim.

I’m happy to report I’ve officially lost 21 lbs since starting this process back in October. The weight started coming off in earnest about three weeks ago, and every time I step on the scale I’m surprised to see a slightly lower number. I keep expecting to plateau any day now, but for now I’m really happy with the results.

And as part of my reward to myself for another 10 pounds gone, I think I’m going to get my hair done. Not my usual “just a quick trim, thanks” done but a nice haircut and (probably? maybe?) some color. Yes, some color. Because, while I don’t mind looking a bit older than my age thanks to all this premature gray…

That's not the light playing tricks... I'm rockin' it little old lady style

… it’s been this way for years and I’m getting a bit bored. I’m genuinely curious to know what I’d look like as a brunette again.

If you have to ask why there are so many more photos of Gwen than Ellie on Flickr these days, then you’re probably not parent to a hyperactive three-year-old. Most photos of Ellie are nothing more than a blur, because she gives me all of half a second to take a photo, stopping only briefly to yell “CHEESE!” before finding something infinitely more interesting than mama and her camera phone.

Gwen, on the other hand, is mostly stationary… at least for the time being. I don’t expect that to last for long, as she’s discovered rolling over allows her to get from point A to point Toy, albeit more slowly than she’d like.

In any case, I knew last week would be a wash due to Tim’s trip–playing chauffer to the girls meant no walking to and from work, and obviously I didn’t count on having a stomach virus. It was not a good week for exercise. I lost just over 10 pounds thanks to the flu, 5.5 of which I’ve gained back in the last week. But hey, that’s still a net loss of about 5 pounds, bringing the grand to-date total to 16 pounds lost. I can’t say I see the difference, but I feel better.

It’s hard to stay motivated now that it’s colder outside but I manage. This week I tried walking to Gwen’s daycare in the evenings, about twice the distance I’d normally walk in one trip (roughly 1.5 miles), but it’s very cold and a little treacherous due to ice on the sidewalks. On the upside, I’ve found it’s easy for me to walk that far now–that wasn’t the case three months ago! When spring comes it will be the perfect walk to end my workday.

Other than that, I’ve moved a lot of my exercise time indoors due to single-digit or lower temps. Tim is jumping on the “get healthier” bandwagon with me, and we’ve started playing Wii Sports in the evenings (I walk or jog in place between turns). I have yet to convince him to try Just Dance, but someday, someday.

I’m still playing Health Month with success–it appeals to the overachiever in me. Despite last week’s setback, I haven’t had much difficulty following my rules, so in February I plan on tackling 6 rules instead of 3. I worry that I’m upping the ante too much too soon, but then remind myself, what’s the worst that could happen? Plus I’ve built in a bit of flexibility such that I get a free day each week.

One of the things I’ve been pondering is my motivation for continuing this project in the long term… what about it will keep me going after this has become routine? When the weight stops coming off? Or when I suddenly just don’t feel like doing it? My biggest fear is falling off the bandwagon and not getting back on. It’s funny because I’m really enjoying this new routine and you’d think the enjoyment would be motivation enough, but it’s not that simple. I suppose it just goes to show, even enjoyable things require effort.

Part of this means looking at past experiences and examining what caused them to fail, so I can make this round “stick.” A few points come to mind…

• In the past, one failure meant total failure. Broke the no candy rule? Eat the whole bag. Forgot to exercise one day? Stop exercising for the rest of the week. I can’t let myself get bogged down with slippery-slope thoughts.
• I have a tendency to let my actions (or lack thereof) have an unhealthy impact on my self-esteem. How much I eat, what I eat, what I weigh and how I exercise has no bearing on my worth as a person…. except in my mind. A single failure does not mean I am a failure. It’s a necessary distinction if I’m going to be successful in the long term.
• I’m easily discouraged by big goals and I often fail to take into account the smaller steps and time required to achieve more complex things. I didn’t have the patience for “big picture” thinking in my early 20′s, but now I’m starting to understand the value of making small, incremental changes over time.
• I have a tendency to set myself up for failure by being too inflexible. For example, forcing myself to do one type of exercise for a set amount of time every day. This is something I’ve become better at in recent months–finding alternatives when the usual routine falls through or when I simply want a change of proverbial scenery. Allowing the occasional indulgence such that I don’t feel trapped or left wanting.
• And finally, boredom. If my mind isn’t occupied or if there isn’t a short-term goal to be met, I’m less likely to enjoy something, and therefore much less likely to continue doing it. Ever since I got a phone this hasn’t been a problem–there’s always a game to play or a show to watch, right at my fingertips. I’m surrounded by tech–”boring” can no longer be an excuse.

I’m happy to say I’ve reached the point where this new lifestyle is not a huge physical challenge for me. I feel much stronger than when I started this process back in October, and it’s nice to see a noticeable improvement. At some point I’ll want to step it up, but for now I want to continue enjoying the experience without pushing it.

The real challenge is a mental one. Committing to my goals while at the same time accepting the occasional failure and moving past it (better yet, accepting that an indulgence is just that–a worthy indulgence, not a failure!) It’s hard. Getting past that annoying little voice in my head that says “I don’t wanna!” from the moment I get up until the time I go to bed. I suppose what I’m really trying to figure out is where that voice is coming from so I can shut her up… or at least get better at ignoring her.

I am a Capable Adult ™ now, after all.

Well.

Well, well, well.

First of all, his company sent him to Hawaii. Let’s just start there.

Hawaii. In January. That’s not a business trip, that’s a honeymoon. I thought I was jealous about Europe, but Hawaii in January is epic for a person who is used to snow, ice and below-freezing temperatures. Heck, anywhere warmer than fifty degrees is drool-worthy when compared to the alternative. It’s just plain wrong.

Once I got over my jealousy, we got down to the real work of finding ways to make this a little easier on me, the anti-single-parent. Tim made plans to have extra help around in the evenings in the form of Ellie’s two favorite sitters, he cooked and froze extra meals, and since I’m back at work I figured being at the office during the day would offer more than enough opportunities for adult social interaction to keep me sane.

With all those measures in place I thought, “What could go wrong?”

Ugh. That’s a picture of me, looking at my pre-last-week self and thinking, “Self, sometimes you should just shut the fuck up.”

The week before Tim left, my dad was admitted to the hospital. Nothing seriously life-threatening, but it’s rare for anyone in my family to have a “hospital-serious” illness, so that was concerning. Tim considered canceling his trip but we decided against it. We expected dad would be out in a few days, no worse for the wear, so no need for Tim to stay home.

The night before Tim left, the baby was inconsolable and refused to sleep for more than an hour at a stretch until about 3 a.m.–a rare occurrence for our Gwen. Tim’s flight left early so neither of us got much sleep, starting the week off with a bang–or more accurately, a snore.

The night Tim left, I backed our van into a lamp in the Target parking lot. I know I’m not the best driver, but I usually have the wherewithall to avoid hitting giant, well-lit inanimate objects. I’m blaming sleep deprivation. Thankfully the van itself was not harmed, save for a scratch, and everyone was fine… but I haven’t hit anything with my car since I was a teenager with a learning permit. Embarrassing much?

Monday passed without incident, and this is probably the only time in my life where I will rank a Monday as one of the best days of the week, because it was all downhill from there.

I woke up at 2:30 Tuesday morning to Ellie’s frantic sobbing. I ran to her room to find she’d vomited all over her bed. Her first stomach flu! Lovely! She continued to be sick throughout the day and I did my best to console her in between loads of laundry.

Oh, so much laundry.

That evening I remembered just how contagious the stomach flu can be… so instead of eating the lasagna I’d heated for dinner (one of the meals Tim graciously prepared before he left) I had a few bites of raspberry Jell-O and stuck the lasagna back in the fridge.

Good thing, because I spent most of Wednesday either in bed or the bathroom. I won’t go into the gory details; let’s just say the “I Can’t Keep Anything Down” Diet worked its magic and I lost over 10 pounds in 24 hours.

Ellie stayed home and watched episode after episode of Dora the Explorer, with the occasional break to play games on my iPad, and I tried to wake myself up once in a while to make sure she hadn’t strangled herself or burned the house down around us. I only caught her playing with a lighter once. Parenting WIN.

We even spread the love to one of our sitters, who had to cancel on Thursday and Saturday due to illness. Go Team Sick!

While all this was happening, my father had to be transferred to a local hospital for further tests–again, not super serious but not the quick in-and-out procedure we’d hoped for. More stress.

On Thursday morning I was feeling better but not 100%, so I stayed home from work. My mom (who stayed with us while my dad was in the hospital) offered to take the kids to school, and that’s when we realized I’d left one of the overhead lights on in our van for three days. The battery was dead and my mom had to call AAA for a jump.

Meanwhile, my darling husband is posting photos like this on Facebook:

He has some nerve, but karma is a bitch. On Friday, his flight out of Hawaii was delayed due to mechanical failure. Apparently the plane was fully boarded and on the runway, ready to take off, before they noticed a problem (because that’s not scary at all!)

Tim called me from a hotel in Honolulu to let me know this–and then had to run to the bathroom mid-conversation to vomit. Apparently that stomach bug was strong enough to follow him across 48 states! After some fancy finagling with his flight schedule he arrived home on Sunday morning, only 17 hours later than planned. Given our luck, I’m just grateful his plane didn’t drop out of the sky.

What do we do when Daddy isn't home? Play the "Stuff On My Baby" game, of course!

Thankfully things have settled down a bit since he got home. Life is mostly back to normal, with the exception of my dad still being in the hospital (he’s recovering from surgery and doing very well!)

As for the whole traveling thing, I was really hoping the third time would be the charm… unfortunately this was the worst trip of them all. To think, our family hadn’t even had so much as a bad cold since winter started–to get hit with the stomach bug from hell, on top of my dad being sick, on top of car issues and flight cancellations… gah!!!! When it rains, it pours.

What life lesson do I take away from this experience? I’m not quite sure. Part of me thinks chaining Tim to the house is the only viable solution, but he’s not having it (and I’m sure his employer would take issue with that). I could take the Positive Spin route and choose to forget the negative stuff entirely–after all, Tim got home safely, I lost ten pounds, everyone is still alive.

Eh, that’s not my style.

Instead, I’ll say this: Sometimes, no matter how well you plan or how positive you are, life is just plain crappy (literally and figuratively in this case) and the best thing you can do is put your head down and keep going. It sucks, but you’ll get through it because you have no choice.

And it’s going to take a lot of effort not to be an anxious wreck the next time Tim says the words “business trip.”

Oh, Christmas. You are fast becoming my favorite holiday again. There were a few years where I wasn’t so sure about you and your glitter-filled tripe, but throw two little ones into the mix and suddenly I’m all about Santa.

I think we did better this year about not overloading Ellie with presents. Her big gifts were a penguin backpack, a Duplo zoo set and a box of art supplies. “Santa” tried to think creative & practical. But I think the gift that put the rest to shame was from my brother, aka “Uncle J”, who found the coolest play tent ever. It’s now taking up most of Ellie’s room and serves as a home to her ever-growing collection of stuffed animals:

The rest of the family was spoiled as well. I’m proud to say I got everyone into Fitbit! Tim surprised me with an iPhone, something I’ve always wanted but could never justify given our budget. Now that he’s traveling and I’m walking more, it makes sense to have my own phone (and it means I can more easily torture my Facebook friends with photos of my kids, muwahahahaha!)

We also spent a day with our “surrogate family,” Tim’s family friends who we call Nana and Tom. They sent us home with a ridiculous amount of yummy food and gave Ellie a Little People school bus (among other things), which she hasn’t stopped playing with since:

As far as keeping up with healthy habits over the holiday, I only cheated a little. There were two days during which I missed my 10k steps because I was either tired or too busy with holiday stuff. I also stopped tracking my food, but I don’t feel like I overindulged or ate differently than usual. I’ve been a lot more active thanks to one of my presents, Just Dance 2. All in all, I think I made it through the holidays without overdoing it, so I feel really good about that.

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way: We had a baby!

I spent most of the first nine months of 2011 gestating this cutie, and as such, 75% of the year is a blur. But yeah, she’s pretty awesome. I can officially remove “Have a home birth” from the life list, since Gwen is most definitely our last child and, once again, the home birth didn’t work out. In retrospect, I’m not disappointed with either of my babies’ births. The experiences were just as powerful and life-altering despite having taken place in a hospital–and I got two amazing kids out of the deal so I can’t feel bad about that!

In July Tim started a new work-from-home job, putting his WordPress expertise to work at Automattic. While this isn’t my accomplishment to share, it’s certainly had an impact on our family. Prior to this we worked together in the same office for several years, but he quickly realized he couldn’t keep up with both workloads and resigned from his position at the university in August. The new job also means more travelling and that’s been difficult for both of us. So far he’s been to Montreal and Budapest, and next month he’ll spend a week in Hawaii (the stinker!) Despite those challenges, I really can’t complain–his new schedule offers more flexibility than the university could, the benefits are excellent and it’s a significant step up in his career. We’re still figuring out how to navigate this new world, but I have a feeling it will get easier as time goes on.

I had my gallbladder removed shortly after Gwen was born. Although certainly not something I wanted, in one sense I’m glad it happened. It was the wake-up call that allowed me to take a critical look at my daily habits and take steps to better myself. I bought a Fitbit which motivated me to start exercising and monitoring calories again, and after just a few weeks I feel ten times better about myself and my abilities. It’s a careful balance between doing the work and becoming obsessive about it, and while I don’t always win that mental battle, I’m getting better.

Creatively I don’t have much to show for myself. I’m not feeling the illustration bug, my shops have been dormant most of the year, and I have a few ideas for photo shoots but it’s too darn cold outside and there’s not enough room in our house. Meh. I did spend a few months teaching myself about WordPress theme development and crossed off “learn PHP” from my life list, so that’s something!

Three of my list items had to do with the kids–make their Halloween costumes, make Ellie a birthday cake (I didn’t bake it but I decorated it, so I’m counting this one) and take them to Santa’s Village–so it’s easy to see where my focus was this year. However, Tim and I also took our first “long” trip away from Ellie in April to see Iron & Wine in concert (something I never wrote about due to pregnancy yuckiness) which was fun. And I visited my extended family in North Carolina for the first time, crossing off another state on my “visit all 50 states” goal.

Overall, I would say this was a banner year for personal and family growth, not so much creativity. That’s an acceptable exchange, though. I’ve devoted many years to creative pursuits, so it’s only fair that other things come into focus for a bit. As the kids get older I will have more time to spend with my projects, but right now it’s all about them. Seeing how much Ellie has grown and then having our second child has made me keenly aware of just how fast it goes by.

Next year I’m looking forward to more of the same–more introspection as I get closer to my thirties and more time spent enjoying my family. I’m hoping to travel a bit, too–nothing crazy long distance, but now that we have a bit more disposable income I want to get out of the state occasionally!

Happy new year, all!

But December is also the month we discovered Gwen would be joining us, which is a story I never told here because I was too busy hibernating for the first part of this year. Now is as good a time as any!

Last year at this time we were actively trying to get pregnant–something I never want to do again. Not that the process itself isn’t, uhh, fun, and not that the result isn’t worth the effort, but (in typical Caroline fashion) I can’t do something without getting obsessed and I’m the least patient person you’ll ever meet. I’m Miss “If I can’t do it right the first time I don’t want to do it at all.”

In other words: I may maintain an adult exterior but on the inside I’m still five years old.

So I’d spent the two months since I stopped taking birth control in typical obsessive fashion: Sobbing unattractively every time I peed on a stick. Buying pregnancy tests in bulk and taking them every day, even when I knew I’d get a negative result. Charting temperatures and tracking fertility signs (ladies, a litmus test: If you can utter the words “cervical mucus” and your guy or gal of choice doesn’t run screaming the other way, you’ve picked a good one.) Examining false positives under different light sources at a thousand different angles. Reading fertility message boards and learning the acronyms (TTC! DTD! BFP!) all the while convinced we’d never get pregnant, I’d never be able to have another baby, I’d have to go through all sorts of painful procedures and exams and on and on and on.

Let me reiterate:  All this over the course of two months. Two months. Some people go through this for years, and I don’t know how they do it because I’d have imploded with anxiety by month four.

I’ll also remind you that Ellie was a surprise. A big surprise. We weren’t preventing, but we also weren’t expecting anything to happen for a long time. I’d convinced myself over the course of the last two years that she was a miracle, and repeating that miracle would take nothing short of, well, another miracle.

Anyway, Christmas came around and I promised myself I’d have a nice time with family and try to forget about the pregnancy nonsense for a few days. Well, mostly. I was still taking tests obsessively but I was determined not to be mopey about it, and on that front I succeeded. We visited my parents, spoiled Ellie rotten for her birthday and all was well.

On Christmas Eve I got the stomach bug that had been circulating and spent most of the day in bed feeling feverish and trying not to puke. I took a pregnancy test just for the hell of it and thought maybe I’d seen the faintest of faint pink lines (if I held the test upside down while jumping around in a counterclockwise circle three and a half turns), but I’d been seeing false positives for weeks. In keeping with my “No Stressing on Christmas” mantra, I didn’t get my hopes up.

Ellie woke up at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, refusing to sleep, wanting to cuddle. So in a bleary state of exhaustion I thought, “What the hell, I’m up” and decided to take another test. This time the faint pink line was not so faint… hmm. So I tried another brand of test (see the part about me being obsessive) and the second line was blatantly obvious. I did a happy dance in the bathroom, then crawled back into bed and tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep for the next three hours.

Before Tim woke up that morning, I put the test back in its foil sheath and wrapped it in green tissue paper. I stuck a bow on top and snuck downstairs before the rest of the family, placing the test in Tim’s stocking so it would be the first “gift” he opened–and when he did, his absolutely perplexed look was priceless. His first words to me were, “You mean… it’s over???? Thank god!!!”

Oh, no, my dear. It’s just beginning! Proof:

(Hard to believe someone so laid-back came from someone so insane, isn’t it?)