Week In My Life: Wednesday

All this week I'll be doing my best to show you what a week in our life looks like on a day-to-day basis. Come play along by linking up over at Adventuroo. (She's the mastermind behind this.)

As I went to bed Tuesday night, I had a small freakout when I realized I had nothing planned for Wednesday. That is unlike me, but it happens from time to time.

Liam woke me by getting inches from my face and asking me "How's your day going so far?" He's done this a few times in the past few months since he embarked on this mission of finding a different way to wake me each day and I love it. How can you not say your day is going pretty well when you have only been awake for 1.3 seconds??

He said he just wanted to hang around at home today, so that's what we did...mostly. We watched a little PBS as there were a few things I had to attend to for work.

He really wanted to use a new glitter pack that we purchased last week and I really wanted at least 30 minutes out of the house, so I convinced him to take a trip to Michael's for some craft stuff. We tossed one of the never ending loads of laundry in before we hit the road.

As I unbuckle him from his carseat he always tries to steal a sip of Diet Coke.

We picked up a few craft items, none of which went really well with the glitter. A big one I hope we'll get to tackle as a family before the week is out.

We made a dash over to the nature center which is a huge part of our life. We usually go on Mondays for the Preschool Story Hour, but they were closed for the holiday this week. So we stopped by today for a quick visit. We would have stayed longer if I hadn't forgotten a jacket for myself.

Then we started on the turkey craft we picked up earlier, which was a hit. He did really well with the glue, I attribute that to the large amount of crafts they do in school.

Then he stamped with some old gooey markers we found while I put the stamps on our Christmas cards.

Played for a bit before heading up stairs to read some stories.

As luck would have it we both fell asleep, not a good thing, as this meant when I got home from work at almost 11 he was still up and at 'em. Although he did fall asleep in my "nest" which was awesome.

I woke just in time to head out the door and into traffic.

That was my Wednesday, short and sweet. What did you get up to?

Vintage Me: Work

VINTAGE ME is a series I started in June while I was away at the Type-A Parent conference in Asheville, NC and I'm continuing it this week while I am attending BlogHer '11 in San Diego, CA.

My challenge to you? Find the most awkward photo of you and be ready to post it the week of August 8th. I'll have a linky here and there will be prizes for the most awkward winners.

Ahh, yes! I moved to DC at the ripe old age of 20. So I am most likely a very newly minted 21 in this photo (second from right). I worked at the most amazing company. We all worked hard and partied harder. One of our colleagues was a DJ and always got us into this club for free on Saturday nights. Some of the best times of my life.

A welcome party for my second internship. I'm sporting the Midwestern flair (plaid) on the left.

Interpreting for my very first concert, an all day festival less than two weeks after I arrived in DC. My awesome camera got pickpocketed, but I didn't care because the people I was with were so amazing! This town taught me everything I ever needed to know in life. This was the time of my personal revolution.

This was just days after I arrived (DC AIDS Walk). It was an awesome time to connect with some of the movers and shakers at the company and get to see the city.

The woman in the middle let another intern (right) and I stay with her for a week while we figured out where to live. She took us out to Skyline Drive to show us some really gorgeous views.

Here we I am at a Luau party. This would be the party where I mistaken licked what I thought was teriyaki sauce off a banana--it was in fact Sterno. Hello Poison Control, it's me Alissa.....again.

To Infinity and Beyond, yo! A photo from a 30 minute tour of NASA with a very over EAGER tour guide who kept us for 3+ hours. Whoa, dude..simmer down.

Check back tomorrow for more VINTAGE ME!

• Vintage Me: Baby, Baby!
• Vintage Me: Toddler Years (Not Awkward Yet)
• Vintage Me: Elementary School
• Vintage Me: Middle School

Emergency

I've had a sort of unofficial New Year's resolution to wear heels more. Seeing as it's already March, I thought  I might actually get started on it.

Recently I had a gig that required me to wear a suit and I decided instead of the flats that I have been wearing since was pregnant (almost three years ago), I'd deck myself out in a pair of heels that I absolutely love, but have only worn a few times.

Note: (In interpreting when a gig is more than a couple of hours we swap out every 20-30 minutes.)

So I didn't plan to be standing all that long--a perfect occasion to "break" myself back into elevated footwear...or so I thought. Mind you, six steps out my front door I thought "ouch". I should have seen it as the sign it was.

As luck would have it, and that "luck" is always such a fickle guy, I ended up having to park a good half a mile from where I needed to be at the bottom of a steep hill. So, I marched myself up the hill and over to my job whereby I stood for some time as we waited an interminable amount of time for the presentation to begin. Let me just say, it pisses me off when people wait 45 minutes to "give others a chance to show up". What about the people that showed up on time? Show a little respect for their time, no? And, how will you encourage people to show up on time if they know that you'll wait the better part of an hour for people to show up. Anywho, I digress...

I get my sign on, feeling good about my suit, my sexy heels, and then the unthinkable happens. After a brief switch-out the client indicates that they'd like me to complete the rest of the interpreting--and so there I was in heels that were too high for my newbie legs for 2+ hours (after a walk up that hill no less).

Enter the comedy, as I left the assignment and now had to walk back down the hill to my car. I took steps that were a half inch each and could barely count as steps. I looked around, because clearly if anyone had wanted to mug me and run off with my car I wouldn't have been able to stop them.

I saw one of those blue emergency poles and contemplated how much trouble I would get in if I pushed the button and asked for a piggy back ride to my car.

"Hello...Officer...um, yes... I wore my big girl heels and I can't handle them...can you help a girl out??"

The rest of the story...

Last night I posted "Roses & Lilies" hoping for more than one response and one e-mail, but c'est la vie internet.

Here's the deal.

Guesses:

Birthday & Anniversary? No.

2nd Baby: Nooooo.

My husband has a serious car affliction. He loves cars so much that we have to park ours 6 miles from the entrances to restaurants and shopping malls 'lest anyone breathe on it the wrong way. Love you, honey!

Tim has asked me to take off a weekend from work this Spring so that he could attend a car show and then a few weeks ago he saw me writing in work for the following weekend and he gave me a "look". A "Please don't work that day, I kinda already made plans." look. As luck would have it there was a car show that weekend that he'd like to go to even more so than the one the weekend before and couldn't I please bail on the work. He even asked about it again last Saturday.

That same Saturday my colleage was trying to figure out a way to find a sub on the "first" car show weekend. Soooo, to make everyone's weekends I agreed to work her shift on the weekend I had taken off if she could work the next alone with an intern. And, voila both parties are happy.

Tim and his car dudes are so happy that Tim bought me the roses and his car dudes bought me the irises.

I kid you not.

Flowers from men I have never met.

Heh.

Want vs. Wait

Here's the deal folks, I don't walk into my doctor's office with some issue and then try to tell him/her how to do their job because I took one Biology course back in high school a million and a half years ago.

Therefore, I'd appreciate not being corrected by folks who have taken two sign language courses. I understand that somehow in your cute little head that makes you an expert. I mean, 2 classes...whoa Nelly! But, just because you can make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese that doesn't make you the next Martha Stewart.

I was at work last week, when this young fashionista decided that when one of the people in the room asked what the sign was for "signs want" she would stand up and emphatically say that it was "wait" because she took two sign language classes in college and SHE KNOWS. I gently say, "in fact that's the sign for WANT not WAIT" and she gets all smug like she'll correct them all and tell them how deplorable I am once I leave. Whatever, chica...I do this FOR. A. LIVING. I have my entire college education devoted to learning sign language..not a few measly electives. I use it every day of my life, not once every three years. But, clearly you must know better than me.

I'm just saying...(sigh)

(Steps down from soapbox.)

Newspaper

I should have know that my morning wasn't going to be the "pulled together" act I had mentioned yesterday when I walked outside to see our newspaper sitting on the roof of my car.

I was rockin' it out to the "Chicago" soundtrack (hard core, I know) and perhaps accelerating while I belted out the lyrics. I wasn't totally aware of my speed until after I saw the flash of a speed camera. All, I can hope for at this point is that someone was going faster than me. Personally I think a speed camera mounted to an off-duty State vehicle shouldn't really count. If they can't even wrangle a real speed camera, shouldn't I get a pass??

After, I arrived in DC for the workshop I was attending I thought I'd check things over before I went in. Checked my planner for the room location and then realized with a sinking sensation in my stomach that the documents I was supposed to bring along with my laptop were more than an hour away, at home, chilling on my couch with a few of their closest friends.(sigh) I spent 4 hours over the course of the day yesterday compiling things and 2 of those hours were non-stop sorting and bunching things in the appropriate piles.

It turns out, that we didn't really need them to much for the workshop I was attending. Whew. It just leaves me more work this week to do in and around my regular stuff.

And, now it's sunny and fairly warm considering our weather as of late. So, I'm stoked that things are turning around.