Peterson Family Update #69801-C

There are a number of great and wonderful things that I want to talk about, to highlight what my adventures have been for the past while, but I also can't seem to pull them together into a coherent thought stream or otherwise form a coherent blog.  Time to deploy the bulleted list!

• Things are starting to settle a bit.  I'm impatiently waiting for some idea of what our utilities might actually end up being for the month, how we're going to budget any differently that we did previously, etc.  MovingMode! has some necessary additional flexibility in the budget, recognizing that there are always a lot of little unexpected expenditures that are going to crop up, everything from a new silverware organizer to shower curtains to a patch for the wall no one noticed needed it until now.  We have also blown our fast food budget twice over, with as many times we've just decided that making food was just that one piece too many for the day.  But now that flexibility is starting to scale back within normal parameters, as we're waiting to find out what some of that "normal" is going to be.  With our birthdays landing in the middle of this chaos, trying to decide what purchases can be absorbed by that house leniency and what counts as fun money (which birthday money goes into) has been interesting.  

An excerpt of our conversation at work the other day

• Austin was a great time!  I spent Easter weekend with some family that I think prior to that trip we had only traded a paragraph or so of conversation.  As suspected, we seemed like-minded in a lot of avenues, where we could happily talk about everything and nothing and enjoy each others' company. Thank you, Wendy and Jason!
• At my onsite, there was another Skywardian that was there at the same time (hi, Norma!).  We set up to meet for dinner one night, but ended up hanging up several times over the course of our mutual time there.  We caught a movie one night at the Alamo Drafthouse, famed for kicking loud people out of their theaters without a refund.  I did not want to test this policy.  It makes the week go much faster and more pleasantly to have a friendly face nearby but making a new friend is even better.
• Coming to the end of my medical terminology class.  I know that parts of it are paying off when someone mentions a nosebleed and my brain immediately fills in "epistaxis."  On the one hand, sometimes the technical term is unnecessary, a way to sound full of yourself.  It's also the difference between a twenty-four hour clock and a twelve hour clock--knowing the medical term is specific in ways that might not be necessary but could be in certain situations.  Even if the word doesn't necessarily make the situation clearer to a layperson, it does still frame the context of the situation, to a point.  
• Andy and I are still butting heads with our own strategies in getting the house settled--he wants to take intermittent breaks and I want to keep going until the job is done, finding a more complete rest afterwards.  It is slowly occurring to me that one of the traits of being a homeowner is that the work is never really done.  We've planned a prioritization meeting, getting to making the house roadmap, product management in the home style.  Andy introduced me to a program called Trello, where I can drag around the cards and color code them--I've enjoyed making labels like "Long Term," "Elbow Grease," and "Throw Money At It" to help flag priority and what kind of resources the project might need.

• Work has officially swung into the busy season--in fact, I've been in it at least a month and a half early, with how my onsites played out April and May.  I can only think a week at a time once we hit this part of the year or risk feeling immediately overwhelmed.  It's going to be a hard sprint to October, when things might finally calm down for a stretch.  If I keep saying that, maybe it won't be as bad, but for myself I can promise that the summer will go quickly regardless.  For this week, I'm in San Antonio again, but without all of the post-Lasik stuff that was going on last time.  Every onsite has its own challenges--it's just a matter of rolling with punches, kicks, and computer gremlins.  
• We have a new member of the family, with the birth of Keaton Adam Cross.  Both baby and mom are doing fine.  The existential question of "what does it mean to be an aunt?" has not hit yet either.  We will likely not have a chance to meet him until October as it stands, so there's time to figure things out.
• We've started meeting a few of our neighbors in the easiest way--we just took a Sunday afternoon walk and allowed for those little conversations to happen.  Found a few folks that seem like our people.  We also have a neighbor that moved in a week after us that was one of my compatriots at East Bay Camp.  I'm excited to rekindle that friendship.  
• We have had the first folks over in our home for a game night--that has made our home feel more like our home than most else has so far.
• The world keeps turning.