• I have yet to mention (over three months ago) I got an iPhone for Mothers Day. It very quickly became a part of me. I dropped my work blackberry like last weeks girlfriend. So anyways – the coolest part? Nadie bought it the day before mothers day. OK, Mr. McCrastinater…but yet….they came out with a new model around a month later. And LOW AND BEHOLD they allowed anyone who bought the 3G from May 9th on to upgrade for a $20 fee. So yeah…I got the 3GS – it is most excellent. Videos on the fly uploaded to Youtube – not getting shafted by the big fruit company with a newer model right after purchase…oh the delight! And now I really have gotten rid of my work cell and my work is gonna chip in on the bill. Oh the glory!
• We have been talking about getting rid of cable tv for a long time. We finally did it. We are now watching TV via a digital antenna. We only have one. It is actually kind of nice. There was one day when the clouds were interferring, but for the most part it is very hard to tell any difference. And it is FREE! Woo hoo!I have watched a few shows on hulu. We did NOT get rid of the broadband. We are thinking of switching to a DSL provider. We haven’t figured out what we need to do to get our projector up and running on HD from the airways without a cable box, something we must do before the NFL season starts. And we will miss Monday Night Football, the swammie on ESPN. I will also miss Top Chef, Project Runway and various other cable shows. In the long run, though, I am so glad. I am tired of always having the media guide me on how to live my life. At least with the internet I am able to choose my own adventure more freely. I guess. Anyways we got rid of cable
• Zoe is growing so big. OMG – she is getting so big. So long. So strong. So blessed.
• Work is going ok. I have impossible deadlines, but on the other hand I help determine what is ‘ready’ so if the date comes too soon, whatever is complete is complete. My boss has said a few times, ‘Are you stressed?’ Personally…I find it a bit more stressful just being all the roles I am to be, than just this one aspect. I have resigned to a Zen feeling about it, and I know there is no reason to be freaked out. I will have the project at the best point that I can get it to and the rest is out of my control. Sometimes I think the business world thinks it controls much more of what actually happens than it does. What I mean by that is that you can make a project plan and assign hours and priorities and goals, but there is always the unforeseen, and then again there are the ridiculous goals that would never have been met in the first place…God made the world in seven days – but it takes more than three months to build a new, way cool, totally awesome product….oh but we try! and how cool it is to build new, way cool, totally awesome products…

I was thinking a lot about interactions that I have with certain people.

Typically these people are older than me. They are amazing and intelligent people. Yet, I am always getting the feeling that they need you to practically fawn over them for them to share their knowledge.

It is like I don’t deserve their input unless I worship them first.

Can’t we both just be adults? Can you accept that I appreciate your experience and wisdom (I wouldn’t be asking you for input if I didn’t) without all that extra fluff? And, please don’t be rude to me if I choose not to do the worship thing!

I have enough on my hands maintaining my own weak self-esteem, I don’t really have to bolster yours too, do I?

I hope in 20 years I am more adjusted than you are now. (Actually I think I just might already be…)

I am listening to ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ during my commute right now. (I drive to the office three days a week, and it is 45 minutes away…so I ‘read’ my books via my iPod on the way to and from…)
And I know it is so Oprah cliche…but hey, it is making me think, so that is good.

So back to the point…she references how places have a word that defines them, and goes on to say that people have a word that defines them. The word can change with what they are going through, but it should encompass the point of the journey they are on. While she is in Rome she is told by a friend that Rome’s word is ‘Sex.’

So this got me thinking about what my word is right now. My first thought was ‘create,’ but maybe it is ‘kaleidoscope.’

I know that the first year of motherhood can be stressful. I understand that I need to be patient with myself. Over the past few months I have oscillated from deliriously happy to extremely unstable and worried. I know a lot has to do with hormones, but it is also just part of the transition.

I did go back to therapy – because I believe it is my responsibility to work through things rather than just suffering. I will not live like chicken little! The sky is NOT falling!

Still, I do not just wake up one morning and become a different person. It is a process. And at first it was making me kooky, then I suppose I started moving to the next phase. Oh, but I AM becoming a different person. Not entirely someone else…just more than who I was.

I like it.
Actually, I love it.

My job is moving into this new phase where I get to be uber creative. Okay, so it is uber geeky creative – but not in the ‘look-at-this-cool-formula-i-built-in-excel’ or the ‘i-just-spent-35-hours-writing-specs-about-site-security’ or the ‘look-at-my-fancy-SQL-query’…it is a clean slate. It is starting at ground zero and designing something new.
I have spent all of my working life inside a box…a specific platform…going from supporting to training to implementing to managing that platform…but it has always been within that platform. There is creativity there, but mostly creativity with bandaids…doing what we can within the confines of what exists, the path of least resistance…

and now we are making a transition to get away from that box….and it is a paradigm shift for me…but it is fracking cool…

and oh the baby girl…the amazing Zerker…she makes me want to be creative…assuming a new role in life…becoming the momma…means i have to change my view…so if I am changing, I had better know what stays and what goes…

reinvention of self…reclaiming what is me and adding to it…it is awesome.

– I installed Gimp and Inkscape (Free photo editing and illustrating software) and am teaching myself how to use them.
– I played around with scrapblog one weekend (hence the new header for the blog).
– I made a new lanyard for my work ID badge out of girlie ribbon belts.
– I got some cool new shoes (they match my new lanyard – haha).
– I made a notebook by covering the binding of a scrapbook paper tablet with a brown paper bag and am using it to take notes at the office.
– I cut bangs in my hair! I have been thinking about this since december.
– I bought a bass guitar and I am learning to play it so I can play bass when I jam with some friends next month. I am a singer and I have ‘talked’ about getting a bass guitar for ten years. I had guitar lessons in college and used to play in church. My bachelors is in Math and Music…I am not getting any younger. I really want to do it. I think it would be k*ck*ss if I played bass and sang in a band. We will see if the band happens. We WILL jam though, and that will be fun.

All of these mods…I keep feeling like a Kaleidoscope. Like things are switching to a new cool view…they may change again..but I am holding the lense and watching things as they change…it is beautiful.

The lense is my marriage. The lense is my daughter. The lense is my vocation.
And it shifts and it brings different colors. Not everything is easy, but it IS beautiful.

I keep thinking of this song:
My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold
Tapestry – Carole King

And I made this with Gimp….

Hello ICLWers!
This is my first ICLW. It is pretty cool to get to know more bloggers.

As for a little bit about myself and where I am on the journey….

I am married – almost 4 years. I affectionately refer to DH as Nadie.

I have PCOS. We tried to concieve for three years, one of them with medical help before getting PG. I blogged during our TTC time at http://unsimpleprocreation.blogspot.com.

We now have a 3.5 month old little girl. I call her the Zerker. She is freaking amazing.

This blog is about my life unfolding…assuming the role of a mother, loving and caring for my husband, moving into new areas of work, my relationships, spirituality, things i find interesting, basically whatever I feel like…welcome to my world!

Beebles is a nickname some of my friends gave me in college. My email address was bbell for a long time (until I got married and my name changed!) and it was way more fun to say beebles.

I have a post forming in my head about kaleidescopes and the space I am in right now…will try to post by the end of the week.

Now I gotta get to work…

I went back to work on Monday.
The Zerker is being cared for three days a week by a friend (T).
I will work from home the other two days. I am sure that will take some figuring out, but I do feel blessed to be able to do it, for a while at least.

During her first week I went to visit a day care and see if we were interested in taking her there. We decided home care was best, plus T is a super mommy and I know she will treat Zerker like her own.

That first week I came home sobbing thinking of someone else watching my baby. And, while I love her so much I want her around every minute, I also know that we can’t do that right now. So going back at 6 weeks is not the worst thing in the world.

I have been going a little crazy the past few weeks, and I think going back to work will help distract me from that. I think if I had planned on staying home fulltime for a longer period of time I would have been able to get involved in more things (especially after the six week mark) like mommy – baby gym stuff or volunteering or all of the other cool stuff that mommies and babies do, but since I knew I had to go back to work I couldn’t get involved in all that stuff. So these weeks have been fabulous for the Zerker and I getting to know each other, but I have sort of lost my normal get up and go type of personality and I need to get off of the couch.

Having such a short amount of time at home has made it seem like this week was when our real day to day life begins. This is the life we have been waiting for.

And I sort of feel like I am setting an example for the Zerker (although I know she is too young) to show that you can find some balance, bring home the bacon and fry it too or something like that. Please note that I am not dissing SAHMs at ALL. Becoming a mother to the zerker and staying home these weeks has only increased by admiration for SAHMs of the world.

If I waited longer then it would probably be harder on both of us, especially the Zerker. Going now gives her a chance to get used to T and not having me there 24-7from an early age.

I figured I would be a mess all day on monday (the longest I had ever been away from her was about an hour), but really, I wasn’t. My boss is super cool and wants to ease me back into my work (actually he wants me to transition to something else which is freaking awesome) so I am not overly stressed this week and next at work. For the first time in a long time when I was going home I was excited (sort of like waiting to check and see what Santa brought you or what was in your easter basket or whether you got the part in the play or made the dance team)…driving home I didn’t drive too fast, but I wanted too…I wanted to race to Ts and give the Zerker a big hug.

ANd when I got home monday night I just kept her with me nursing for hours until I started to fall asleep. I didn’t want to even let DH nuzzle her. I will get over that! I didn’t realize how tired I was until DH was tired too and it was too late…so I do have to pace myself.

Today I work from home. Since I am pacing getting back into things there isn’t a whole lot to do, so I was able to take a nap with Z (really needed it) and give her a bath (she hates it – i had to nurse her a bit just to calm her down after that…). I have a playmat here in the office along with her carrier and a bouncer. Right now though she is in my er.go.baby.carrier…. (Did I tell you friends that I got one???I love it!)She was nursing while I was working at first, but I didn’t like how her head was and she was falling asleep anyways so she is just snuggled up to my belly/chest while I type/work away.

She is starting to wake up…so more to come!