6 Yrs and 4 Mo!

CET are 6 years and 4 months old!

I've been working for 3 weeks now (albeit the first two weeks were very sparse bc of the snow)! I'm back doing cancer research only with a different lab this time. I really thought 6 years off would have really hurt my chances of getting hired anytime soon. I only applied to 6 or 7 positions and interviewed with 2 and of course was hired by the last one I interviewed with (yay!). I was pretty selective about the positions I applied to. My biggest priority was that it had to be part time (no more than 32hrs/week). I do not know how you would find a good work/life balance with two full time parents, it would be so challenging! Positions of this type are hard to come by since most want full time employees. Thankfully I found the perfect position, I can pretty much work as much or as little as I want so long as I average a certain amount per year which should be pretty easy given my schedule with the kids. Plus its very exciting and interesting work and I've been really enjoying challenging my mind again! Phil drops the boys off at school in the morning so he starts work an hour later than before and I pick them up after school lets out, so it works out perfect. I guess it's on to our next chapter of life, should be interesting!

As you can imagine I will be much busier than I have been so expect regular but less frequent blog updates, I hope you understand!

Snowpocalypse 2017

Last Tuesday there was snow predicted in the forecast and I figured we'd get a light dusting and that would be that....

Tuesday night we were all shocked to see it had snowed a significant amount!

Come Wednesday morning it looked like this!
It set a record for snowing so much in 24hrs or less, over a foot. 

Oh and I started a job this week too!
What a great way to start a new job...
My second day commuting to work via a sky tram. 

Triplet snowmen

So the problem is that it hasn't gotten above freezing since it snowed and all the streets and sidewalks are now covered in 6 inches of ice. There are maybe two snow plows in the entire city and they seem to only care about the freeways because you'd think that 6 days later at least all the major roads would be plowed, but no. My first week back at work in more than 6 years has been a disaster! For example, this morning I spent an hour waiting for the bus to go into work. It never came (well I think it did eventually but not for me and it was probably so full I most likely wouldn't have been able to get on). I didn't want to risk hypothermia so I just went back home. I also don't have proper shoes for the snow and my aging rain boots just aren't cutting it anymore. This is the 4th time it's snowed this season (thank you global climate change) so the kids have missed 8 school days so far and it's supposed to snow again tomorrow morning so it might tick up to 9 days before this is over. The kids have not had a full week of school since November! And we haven't been to meeting or service in ages. It is mayhem, we risked our lives on Saturday getting to the grocery store so at least we now have a nicely stocked fridge. It rains a lot here in Portland so it's not usually something I get excited over but let me tell you, I've never wished for rain as much as I do now!

Even the kids are over the snow, they're so bored at home they've resorted to doing things like this....haha!

And The Survey Says...

The boys are at a really funny age where everything they say cracks me up. So when I saw this little survey floating around on social media I couldn't resist doing it with the boys.

Three little monkeys jumping on the bed!

I surveyed them all separately so one wouldn't influence the other.

1. What is something I say a lot? T: clean up,  E: ?, C: stop

2. What makes me happy? T: love, E: making us clean, C: stop (as in the act of stopping)

3. What makes me sad? T: hitting, E: Nene (our cat) to be dead, C: when nene is dead....yes all these things would make me sad : (

4. How tall am I? T: 30, E: 3 R2D2's tall, C: 35....I think Eli's answer was influenced by something Caleb said (see below). 

5. What is my fav thing to do? T: watching your fav tv show, E: stay home, C: Pet Nene...I do really like doing all these things : )

6. What is my fav food? T: cereal, E: pancakes, C: mami cereal (ie granola)...yeah, I don't think so!

7. What is my fav drink? T: beer, E: juice & wine, C: wine...yup!

8. If I could go anywhere, where would it be? T: the store, E: the store, C: the beach....I can't disagree with any of these unless store means grocery store (which is probably what they mean).

9. Do you think you could live without me? TEC: all said NO....awwww, the feeling is mutual!

10. What is my fav tv show? T: that show you always watch (30 rock), E: that show you always watch (30 rock), C: Liz Lemon (as in a character in 30 rock)...the boys nailed that one in the head!

11. What is my fav music? T: waka waka (as in this one song by Shakira), E/C: ?

12. What is my job? T: house, E:?, C: cleaning up...in preschool (age 4) their teacher asked them the same thing and they answered "looking at the computer" which the teacher said is what most kids with stay at home moms say, hahaha! This is so true though, blogging, online banking, ordering stuff we need because I don't want to drag all 3 kids to the store to get, ha!

13. How old am I? T: 30, E: 34, C: 35...wish Caleb wasn't right, haha!

14. What is my favorite color? T: red, E: purple, C: pink...you're all wrong!

Caleb lately has been really funny and a lot of what he talks about revolves around his reading buddy, the most influential person in his life right now (each kindergartener has an assigned kid who reads to them once a week). Hudson is a 5th grader that has really taken to the boys and will often play with them after school. Very seriously Caleb has said:

"My reading buddy is really good at climbing but he's not that great at reading." Hmmm, I did see him climb to the top of a basketball hoop, haha!

"My reading buddy is this tall (shows me with his hand), that's 3 R2D2's tall."

"My reading buddy is 20 years old and is in high school." He goes to the same school as the boys and is 11. 

Caleb is full of these great one-liners and I need to do a better job at writing them down, there are so many I have already forgotten about!