So, I'm Going into Nursing...

This one is going to be a bit stream-of-conscious-y.  

It seems that I can't do things small.  When I get sick, I don't just get a cold--I get something that will knock my legs out from underneath me and linger in curious ways.  Our household has seemed to similarly stack our life transitions one on top of the other.  I know that past performance does not guarantee future results, but it is weird for, say, also buying our first house AND suddenly looking for a new car, such as the case was last year.  

So it only makes sense in the middle of a pandemic that I put in my two weeks notice for my job.

Okay, to be fair, I have been planning this for literal years.  With many things, I tend to make a decision and then proceed to focus my energy convincing myself to allow myself permission to follow through on that decision, for what sense that makes outside of my brain circuits.  

I've been contemplating going into nursing for some time, particularly to be a wound/ostomy care nurse.  To be in a place where I can so uniquely express that compassion by identification is singing a clarion call that I had been meeting at least in part through this blog and talking with individuals--this gives me a place to take it that one step further.  

And all of that is a highfalutin way of saying I'm ready to move toward a new career.  

SO MANY FEELINGS

I have been accepted to the Mennonite College of Nursing accelerated program at ISU.  It starts in the summer session.  I applied to this a year ago February and found out that I was offered a space in August, two weeks after I had signed all the paperwork for a manager position at Skyward--again, things line up in weird ways for our household.  

Truth be told, I had been offered a place the year before--I wanted to take the leap then, but Andy had just moved into different position at Skyward (once again, timing is weird in our household) and we crunched the numbers.  We ran and re-ran the math in a dozen and a half different ways:  what we found is that by my staying staying one more year and with some intentional pushing, we could be completely done with student loans prior to taking on any new ones, meaning a bit more stability within the uncertainties.  We did it.  We are Millennial Unicorns and grateful.  That we could even contemplate this situation is a privilege.  

It was a risk to turn it down that year--there was no guarantee I would be accepted the next year nor any means to defer that spot.  It would all be back to the strength of my application.  It hurt to turn it down that year, to willingly delay after all the decisions had been landed on, but in many ways we found the timing was right.  I also was able to steadily make my way through the remaining prerequisite courses one per semester rather than the alternative of forcing all four in a short time while also working full time.  So we knuckled down to a year of steadily eating the elephant of student debt one piece at a time, assessing and reassessing our budget for any places to cinch our belts in further (involving switching our student loan vendor for a lower rate and buying a house to at least lower our monthly housing cost), and otherwise squirreling away whatever we could manage to be as prepared as possible.  

My survival voices are VERY upset.  I am leaving a place of relative security so that we can go down to one income and incur more student debt in addition to opening myself to all kinds of new stress (good and bad, but unknown regardless).  The voices wail:  "How could you open up yourself to risk?  What the hell are you doing?"  The point of those voices is to protect me--they are reactive and they are LOUD--but there comes a point where they're no longer productive.  So I have to intentionally take time with those voices, to show the berating, awful din compassion or otherwise help them redirect to a more constructive vein.  It's tiring, at best.

I've played this whole transition close to the chest.  I've told individuals but hitherto made no mass announcement.  I've said before and will say again that preparation against as many plausible concerns as possible is part of how I cope with my medical anxiety and that definitely extends out into our financial situation; whether we can afford my medical needs is certainly a part of that figuring.  We've agonized and re-run the math for every different situation under the sun (unfortunately, we have some real experience with how a crisis can play out and how to safeguard as much as possible against it), and yet there comes a point where we just have to jump anyway.  My hope was just to make the jump from a lower ledge instead of the summit.  

I acknowledge that fear in the same breath I also acknowledge that I am fully confident this is the right next direction for me.  I'm sad to leave the people I work with and will miss them immensely.  I'm so grateful that there were people in my life that made this decision hard in the right ways.  I'm so grateful, too, have the support of those around me.  

And now that these parts are finally out in the open, I can even let myself begin to feel the weight of my own excitement.  There will be many hijinks ahead (and some I may need to catch you up on).  Stay tuned!

I Found a Grey Hair

Andy and I were coming back from a work conference recently, with all of the punch-drunk after effects that implies.  One the way home, everything was a little bit funnier, decisions were a little bit harder, and we were very much ready to finally get to bed.  Adam graciously offered to drive, which at least took the thousands of pounds of high velocity machinery out of my hands and we steadily bore down the interstate for the few hours home.  Energy began to wane for all three of us, so we elected to stop off and take a bio break.

I popped in line for some fast food and Andy stood behind me.  He reached up to the top of my head and announced "You have a grey hair!"  He pulled on the hair in question, confirming it to himself once again.

My response:  "Okay."

And that was it.  Even in my exaggerated state from the events of the day, I felt nothing about this.  Andy could have been pointing out that the particular beige color on the wall was called "eggshell."  Then, I felt that maybe I should be feeling SOMETHING.  I'm supposed to be embarrassed by this or existential dread or something, right?

Culturally, we're expected to fear getting older.  Signs like these are supposed to trigger an evaluation of self image, that particular pang of realization that everything is temporary.  Understanding our own mortality--even as a subconscious push--gives us the impetus to create, to "leave something behind."  We mark history with plaques, stories, and gravestones, afraid of being forgotten or leaving things unfinished.  We mourn the things we'll never to get do and opportunities not taken in lieu of others we did.  The quest to be remembered is a yearning for immortality, that we want to feel our lives had an importance outside of our experiencing it.

Whether this is something that is at the forefront of your mind or something just outside of your peripheral vision, mortality is a part of human existence.  An awareness of it drives some people more than others; ignoring it similarly drives some people more than others.

I'm aware of the lack of permanency in my life, where even the end of a season (whatever "season" might mean in the particular situation) does not bother me--I still have gratitude for the season that was as I move into the next.  I'm not ashamed of my age or a grey hair, even though there is a pressure to feel something about this.

Huh.

Our New Favorite Sport

Andy had a tradition growing up where they would watch a great deal of sports, football and NASCAR being particularly influential forces to the Sunday routine.  My father watched football and baseball in our household, but other than the occasional White Sox game, I didn't tend to watch much with him.  Early in our dating and even into our marriage, Andy tried to get me invested in the Bears, but it just didn't seem to take for me.  More often than not, I'd fall asleep a few minutes in.  I did start paying a bit more attention just by proxy, and then started paying more attention to controversies around the players, including a lot of domestic violence, sexual assault, and a whole lot of ugly that I did not want to condone any further.  When more information about concussions started coming out, how players were literally risking their lives, I was even more turned off.  Hearing stories of how players would take pain killers before charging into the fray felt profoundly unsafe, too--pain is your body's way of telling you to STOP, not just an inconvenience to be ignored.  Andy started pulling away from football, too, over time, but Nascar was still a favorite.  Eventually, though, we had further discussions about how wasteful the sport was, how much waste and pollution was encouraged in two dozen cars going round in circles every week.  He started to pull away from that sport, too.

Well, we have found something now that we both enjoy very much:  Overwatch League.

Game-faces on! (including panda slippers)

For those unfamiliar, Overwatch is a video game.  There are a few different ways it is played, but it is always with a team of six against a team of six.  There's one where it's a team equivalent of king of the mountain, where the team is trying to take charge of the same area that the other team is, there are other maps where there is a team defending points or objects while the other team is attacking, either to conquer that area or escort the object (payload) from one area to the other.  Yes, we are watching people play a video game, and I don't see this as much different than watching athletes play a physical game on TV.  However, it has a few other great things in its favor:

• None of the players are going to be physically hurt.  No one is risking their life and health to bring us this entertainment.
• The players can choose from about seventy different characters, which means that the play is as varied as the different skills of those characters, all with vastly different abilities and powers.  Even when they happen to pick the same characters, there are different strategies to use them.  Additionally, the area that they play in, which map that they choose keeps everything fresh, where strategies that worked on one may very well not work well on another.
• So far, comparatively few of them have been involved in domestic abuse scandals or other major legal troubles.  I am not contributing to a culture that lets celebrities off of the hook from real consequences just because they throw a ball really good (poor grammar intended).
• The sport also is actively concerned with their players physical and mental wellbeing.  
• Our favored team, the Chengdu Hunters, is also wonderfully sportsmanlike, complementary of their opponents while still gearing up the excitement for the next match.  
• The sportscasters will interview players in different languages, live-translating their questions and the players' answers, better representing the wide audience that enjoys the game and the sport.  
• Guys, gals, and non-binary pals can all play together in one team.
• The players and casters can laugh at themselves.  Even in some of the screennames persons have chosen for themselves indicate some of this additional levity.  This might seem very minor, but as it stands, a lot of male sports encourage toxic masculinity in a way that is not quite so extreme here (there are definitely a few players that come to mind that break this trend).  Some of this, I think, is due to the mix of cultures present in the group, but it's such a relief to see aggressiveness in a way that's less threatening.

This is not to say that I don't still fall asleep while a match is going on or that there aren't times when I can't follow the action because of how fast some of these players' minds seem to work, but I can still recognize the skill it takes to do what they do and I look forward to having it in the background as white noise or to actively groan and cheer in turn as my team pushes forward.  

The season has just ended for this year, but it's been a lot of fun to find a sport that both Andy and I enjoy and feel better about enjoying.  

Permanent Changes--No Peterson Baby, Folks

I have made permanent choices for myself before, the kind of elements that leave a lasting effect on the rest of one's life.  There are events you pick for yourself--such as whether or where you seek higher education--and people that you respond to--such as the friends you keep and whom you love--that certainly shape your life and world, all framed by some of those choices, but there is something very different when it comes to making permanent changes to your body.

There are a few situations where my best choice involved surgery, most notably my choice to have a permanent ostomy as my best course of treatment for my disease.  The choice was purely in my court (with all of my doctors, thankfully), and I could have languished a bit longer, but this was the best decision for my quality of life.  I do not regret it.  Still, all of the rationale and logical backing do not prepare anyone for actually scheduling the date.  There's something that hits home there in a way that I still cannot prepare myself for, even after four or five surgeries.  To a lesser extent, there's still that harsh reality that settled in when I made my tattoo appointment and my Lasik surgery date.  Neither of these two examples were as drastic as my permanent ostomy, but the permanence and recognition that my sense of self was going to have to change with it, that is still a lot to process and digest.

In this vein, I have made another permanent choice in my life:  I have decided that I will never complete a pregnancy; I will never have a biological child.

Nope. Not changing my mind on that one.

And, yes, that even means that were I to become pregnant despite all of my precautions, I would probably get an abortion.  Here's why:  everyone I have talked to that has gone through pregnancy acknowledges that there were permanent, unexpected changes to their body afterward (pelvic floor, vaginal tears, etc.); I have talked to many women that have felt they could not talk about their real frustrations with motherhood and/or any frustrations they had while being pregnant because of social pressures and/or dismissal of those concerns; I have three qualified specialists familiar with me and my case say, on no uncertain terms, that I would have a high risk pregnancy situation if I was able to carry at all; and most importantly, particularly coupled with that high risk situation, going through a pregnancy would absolutely emotionally destroy me.

I mean that last one in particular.  Emphatically.  It would break down all the things that make me who I am, and I would be in agony for (best case scenario) nine months, let alone the recovery time and the significant period of sleep deprivation afterward.  It would have physically killed me at other points in my disease and my life.  Every time I have something as mild as a stomachache, there is a series of mental gymnastics that I go through, where I'm worried that this is something that I need to address immediately because it is the first symptom of another Crohn's flare up.  Every.  Time.  Now, couple that will all of the weirdness that happens to a body that is pregnant.  No thanks.  I cannot willingly subject myself to something that uncertain.  I think this could easily foster resentment to hypothetical child, too, which is three kinds of unfair to hypothetical child.  Even if all of my Crohn's symptoms went away and did not play "catch-up" after and I had that child here in my arms, nope, I cannot say that it outweighs all of the things that could go terribly, terribly wrong.

**I want to emphasize that these are my reasons, but no one needs to have ANY or all of these in order for their decision to not have children be valid.  Full stop.**  No one needs to ride the monogamy escalator for the sake of riding it.  

I have analyzed my wants.  I have analyzed my needs.  I have analyzed my goals, emotional and otherwise.  A biological child is not in the cards for me.  There's some emotional processing to do with that yet, but this is the right decision for me.  Even harvesting eggs is a process, involving many appointments, shots, and drama.  This is not to say that I haven't had doubts, but I know that I have made my decision in this.  Adoption is not off the table, but I will never carry a child.

What does Andy think of this?  Let's ask:

Andy, what do you think of this?
I think that, I mean, it's your body and your decision and I'm glad to be a part of it.  I do not want to put you at risk.  The choice between a hypothetical child and you living, I'm going to choose you every time.  

So, what does that mean for you?
Well, it means that my dreams need to change.  I dreamed of having biological children, passing on traits of my family and yours, seeing my or your eyes reflect back at me through a child's eyes.  If that's not a possibility, then I feel a large responsibility to see that you're kept safe, that [a pregnancy and/or abortion] is not something that we have to deal with.

What do mean by "large responsibility?"
If I am going to stand by my words and say that I won't put your life in danger, then it is up to me to take steps to ensure that [a pregnancy] doesn't happen.  You have decided that you will not complete a pregnancy; I support and respect that decision.  It's OUR responsibility TOGETHER to ensure your safety.  As such, given the various options available in birth control and their associated risks, the most logical step for me was to get a vasectomy.  It's a simple procedure; it's safe; it's effective; and it's FAR less likely to have complications than any permanent solutions for women.  

I love you, in case you weren't sure.  How was the vasectomy?
I can't say it was the most pleasant fifteen minutes of my life.

Only fifteen minutes?
Yep.  For all of the "oh God I can't believe you're doing that?!" from society/friends, it really was not a big ordeal at all.

Are there any details you feel comfortable sharing with us?
Yes, I am more than happy to discuss anything and everything.  What do you want to know?

How long before you could start walking normally and not like a cowboy?
[laughs and puts on best John Wayne voice] Well, pilgrim, I would say from start to finish, um, maybe a week and half?  The worst of it was certainly over in a week.

What was the worst of it?
The worst of it was feeling like you'd just gotten a "dinger" for a week.  So, any time I had to move/walk it was a careful process.  

After that week, any other noticeable symptoms or issues?
The tenderness goes down more and more each day, but otherwise, no.  To be perfectly blunt, everything functions as expected, normal.  

Any suggestions for anyone considering a vasectomy?
I would say, first off, don't get scared by what other people try to put in your head about it.  It is simple.  It is truly not a big deal.  With a skilled urologist, you're out in fifteen minutes.  It's a simple process.  In regards to recovery, follow doctor's orders, don't take things too fast, and get yourself some bags of frozen peas.  Those will be your best friend.  I'm happy to be a resource for those with questions, too, if anyone needs the gory details.  Depending on how active your job is, you may want to think about taking a few days off, just until the initial tenderness goes down.  Oh, and one more piece of advice is to get some supportive underwear--any sort of wiggle is uncomfortable for the first few days.  If you can "contain" yourself, your recovery would be much more manageable.

Anything else you would like to say about the process?
Make sure you and your partner have discussed the permanency of this.  While vasectomies can be successfully reversed, it's not a guarantee.  Act as though it is a permanent change.  

Speaking of communication between partners, is there anything else you'd like to mention?
["Oh yeah" sound in the back of the throat] While it isn't something that you're guaranteed to run into, many offices might require your spouse to be present or sign a waiver to consent to the procedure, knowing that it will make you sterile.  It was an interesting point of empathy for me, to go in that moment "oh, holy crap, this is what it's like to not have full autonomy over my own sexual well-being."  

Anything else at all you'd like to say to the people?
While I've greatly appreciated the support of my confidants and friends, I've more than once heard the phrase "hero" as part of this decision, and I don't feel that it's well-deserved.  Taking care of each other, keeping each other safe and healthy, that's an inherent responsibility in a committed relationship.  All I did was take the best possible step to make sure that happens.  I guess what I'm trying to say with that is men taking responsibility for their part [in pregnancy] should not be such a rarity.  

Thank you for being a wonderful human being and partner.
[uncertain] Thanks.  [brightening] Happy to be in this together with you!

Updates to our Home!

Andy and I are steadily asserting our personality into our home, making changes and venturing into decorations and the like that reflect us and who we are.  We're getting bolder as we go.  It started with a bit of painting.  Then, a couple of adventures in plumbing fixtures, minor first and then something a bit larger.  Those small changes though, definitely encourage me to keep thinking further.

Final Step:  BASK

We cut pieces out of the baseboard and trip of a room to put up a Murphy bed--we finally have a guest bed again!  This is a LOT more than a couple of picture frame nails in the wall.

Hidden bed is hidden. :)

There are two large projects that occur to Andy and I:  firstly, we want to build a closet space in our bedroom.  Originally, the master bedroom was upstairs, but we had a vision for the guest bed space they had in the basement, mainly extending it out and also granting us main access to a bathroom, instead of theoretically sharing it with the other bedrooms.  I especially needed the comfort of the latter.  Building a closet shouldn't be too bad in terms of cost and time, just the deciding and a bit of rewiring before the studs become actual walls.  I think the framing could easily be done in a day, but the rest might be over a few weeks, stretching out as time necessitates.  I have barely considered what color we should paint it.  The idea, though is sound:  we're extending out on a wall that is just dead space right now.  It should work like a dream.  It'll be annoying to do (like putting in 110 individual stencils on a wall kind of annoying) but not hard.  

But the second idea, that's a bit more ambitious.  The downstairs bathroom is a hallway that happens to have plumbing elements.  

Functional but not exactly exciting

We want to extend this out, blowing out the wall just next to that new closet and extending into that room's dead space, and give ourselves a larger, nicer bathroom.  For as much of my life as I need to spend in a bathroom, I want to enjoy this space at least a little bit.  We're thinking freestanding tub and separate shower.  And, yes, we're finding very quickly that if we wanted to sink a lot of money into this, oof, we certainly could.  This is definitely a long term project.

In addition to asking myself what I wanted in this space, I then began to think of my own personal needs in this camp--what would I like to make my life easier?  I want somewhere to keep all of my ostomy supplies and to have sufficient counter space to prep and perform bag changes easily.  Good start, sure.  But can we take it further?

Currently, when I empty out my ostomy bag, I squat or kneel in front of the toilet, balancing as I open the end closure of the bag, and empty it into the bowl, as close to the water as I can to keep splashback to a minimum.  My knees are not going to tolerate that forever.  What kind of fixture or addition could I add to make this process easier?  Springing off of the last blog post, how can I actually design this bathroom for me and my future needs?  Could I retrofit a bidet of some kind at waist height to clear these parts out?  Or maybe another hovering toilet that is elevated on platform that is open on the side?  Maybe a toilet on a pedestal where there are no steps on one side?  I honestly don't know.  We've got some time to figure it out, but I want to put a lot of thought into this.  This is a facet where I don't care about resale value.  I don't have any bathroom in the world that is designed for my ostomy needs--why not create one in my own home?

Any ideas are welcome, folks!

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.  

Holy Crow, we are Homeowners!

Oh, the mayhem.  Oh, the humanity. Things have been a flavor of hectic the last while, here, as we are now officially homeowners and all of the logistical insanity that it means (hence missing my normal post date last week--sorry about that!).

After all of the packing and all of the prep, my day started two Fridays ago at 0330, rolling out of bed at Wendy and Jason's pad in Austin, Texas.  I had a lovely time connecting with family that I hadn't had much of a chance to really get to know until that trip, and Wendy had graciously offered to cart my butt to the airport at 0400--I had returned the rental car the night before to have one less thing to do that morning.  Remembering the adage that "Travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo," I was definitely feeling it as I rolled into Bloomington airport at around 1100.  We immediately went to sign the last of the paperwork, then I went to the office to fill out the last of my work paperwork, and we went to unload the kinds of items we didn't want the movers to move (stemware, the TVs, fragile artwork, etc.) into our new place.

Does it look any different after we've signed the papers, put our car in the

garage, and set a unicorn in the window?

Andy had since that morning already moved a few boxes into the garage of our new home, but we walked through the front door together for that first "official" trip.  ...and I felt nothing except the weight of the work we needed to do that weekend.  But I can't say I'm surprised--act first, feel later is my pattern (whether "later" is ever well-defined is another story).  We made movements from our old townhouse to our new house a couple times over, stopping for an early dinner eventually:  we can walk to Destihl from our house in about ten minutes.  My request at that point was to have something that had both coffee and alcohol, because I could already feel the punchiness setting in.  I did, after all, laugh for about twenty minutes solid when I said "Vitamin D batteries" instead of "D Cell batteries."  We slept on an air mattress in our new home the first night, on principle and happily cocooned in our own blanket.

Movers started at around 0715 the next morning and made swift, cheerful work of it.  Thankfully the rain held off until the end.  My folks came up and the four of us set to cleaning up the last of the dregs and things we wanted to move ourselves while the movers were managing all of the heavy lifting.  We managed to clear EVERYTHING out of the townhouse by the beginning of the afternoon.  My folks left; Andy's folks came in and took us on a Lowe's run for all those weird things like rakes, paint samples, and other goodies to get us started.  That night, we plopped into our own bed in its new space.

Tulips out our bedroom window!

Day three, Andy and I woke up and started managing the remainder of the pieces we needed to make waffles and prep for the unpacking party.  Filling our home with friends made it feel more like home than almost anything else had to that point.  We had a lot of hardworking help, which included two dedicated bodies cleaning the entire kitchen and unpacking it, assemblers, organizers, painters, sleuths of the great cord mystery, and all-around schleppers of things.  Thank you all for helping us tackle a number of projects and speed up so much of the unpacking progress.  We appreciate all of you for being present and for those that were present in spirit.

Kick-ass claw-foot recliner

Monday and Tuesday, I had all kinds of ideas for what I wanted to tackle and get done--ultimately, my body gave me a firm "you need to sit down before I make you" at a couple of intervals, which led to more than one nap under protest.  At least on Monday we were able to let in Merry Maids to do the final cleaning of the townhouse for us--very glad we budgeted in that expense, for sure. It definitely helped not to have to worry about that one more step.

Feelings so far include first and foremost gratitude for all of the support we've received.  I cannot thank you all enough for your presence, your hands, and your kindness.  Other than that, I'm finding weariness from the work we've done, a bit of relief in checking things off of the list, an itchy feeling surrounding the components left to do, some excitement over a small piece here or there (those glimpses of "what will be" shining out), and an acknowledgement that a lot of this is going to hit hard later, once there has been enough time to process what the hell has happened and what it actually means.

ThunderPix says "...hi"

Product Management at Home

Andy has officially been a Product Manager at Skyward for a year now, and it's been a good and interesting transition for him.  His perspective on the part of the company that he's left (the one I'm still in) is a common source of discussion for us--we talk a great deal about the differences in the culture between departments, perceptions of the unnamed "other" in those departments, and how a lot of those components are an interesting kind of different.  New jargon has made its way into daily conversations, too.  I mean, I had heard "User Story" or "Use Case" before, but its frequency in our conversations has increased dramatically.  

When Andy is looking at improving part of the product or if I run into some kind of an issue, we write it up, the first part of which is the user story.  This is where we give context for the situation.  It's not a "X is broken; fix it" or "the way you have to fix this is through these specific steps."  Instead, it's a scenario, the "as a secretary, I need to be able to do X, Y, and Z."  Then, the next step is explaining the hardship, how the situation is affecting you in that hypothetical role.  If there are more angles, relevant history, or important notes about that situation, those details get added in later; if I have an idea for a solution, I put that in subsequent sections, rather than insist it's the only way to fix it.  From there, persons like Andy can take a look at that situation and find a solution that meets the needs of that scenario, keeping in mind the full context of all users and how other parts of a proposed solution may or may not affect other components and asking more questions from users as necessary to get that full picture.  

At work, I have started to think about clients' service calls in this light.  Very often, I ask someone a question about their concern and I get the litany of the whole history of the question, which can start with "well, years ago we used to do our scheduling like this but now we have a completely different way," and I try to find a nice way to say "that's not relevant to what I'm asking you today" and steer the conversation to what is happening right now and where they're stuck.  If the client tells me "the report has to have X number" or "the report has to look Y way," I instead direct the conversation to what the current problem is again, trying to get a grasp on what they're really trying to accomplish, rather than any prejudices on how one thinks it should happen--I might have a completely different feature or report that will meet those goals better or faster.  Now, I break every call down into four questions:  what is showing incorrectly, what should it be showing, how do we know it should be showing that value (state rule, local policy, compared to this other screen, etc), and where is it showing it.  With those answers, I can get any problem moving in the right direction.  If someone cannot tell me one of those answers and/or demonstrate it with screenshots, then we keep digging until we have that sorted out--maybe it's confusion on how X screen actually looks at data or we cannot find anywhere now that actually shows the original concern because someone has already fixed it.  

Another important concept has been what I've labeled as the skateboard approach.  If the client's user story is that they need to be able to get from Point A to Point B, they could be insistent that they need a Cadillac.  Well, another client one swears an old VW Beetle is sufficient, another says a Nissan would be great because it's like their old system, and another still says they need a train.  They all have the common goal of moving a body from Point A to Point B.  It's not worth my time to make a train if a car will do, let alone arguing about the module of car.  No one is moving from Point A to Point B if they're waiting for a car that everyone but one group is going to be disappointed it.  So you start with a skateboard.  Is it where you want to be ultimately?  No, but at least in the meanwhile people start moving.  Then, the skateboard gets revamped to a bike, the bike gets a motor.  It is not the final goal yet, but people are moving and in the meanwhile, we are gathering additional data on what the final design might look like.  The mode of transportation will eventually evolve into the average that meets the most needs.  In short, the point is that a solution gets things started and can be improved upon later, rather than expecting a magic solution to immediately be enacted, complete and perfect.  

Concepts like these have started making their way into how we manage our home.  When Andy and I run into a problem, we'll ask one another some shorthand of "what's the user story?" which is another way to say "what is the actual problem we're solving for?"  The person bringing up the concern has a moment to consider the real root of the problem.  

For example, in our townhouse, Andy and I would trip over each other in the kitchen all the time.  Counterspace was a hot commodity.  We were mutually complaining about this frustration.  The use case broke down into a "we need to be able to move efficiently in the kitchen without impeding the other" with additional notes identifying specifically "we need more counter space."  Then, we started talking about potential solutions--the key difference here, though, was that we did not go in with any expectations that these solutions were going to fix the entire problem.  We made suggestions knowing that these were things we could try and modify as time went by.  This included ensuring that appliances were put away to optimize space, the first skateboard.  We added to it a buffet that had additional drawers and counter space--getting into the bike stage.  We were still tripping over one another, but there were more spaces at least to spread out a bit.  We talked about how to take turns, but that didn't seem feasible when we were only home at lunch for a short time--added feature of the bike was removed.  When we started looking at houses, how much counter space was there was certainly on my mind--this will be a very drastic change to meet the needs of that problem, but it is definitely going to help!

This has worked for emotional situations, too.  I can bring up a concern to which Andy will ask me what I really need in that situation.  I convert it to a user story.  The user story format allows us to continue from a safer vantage point, still addressing very real, emotionally-charged concerns but acknowledging it for what it is, as something that needs to be addressed, and not assigning blame.  Then we can talk more about the background as necessary or what affects other aspects.  Then, as a team we start thinking about skateboards.  We're not expecting it to solve the whole problem, but we're actively trying things to address it, opening the door to discussion and modifications later.

We're going to get a lot more practice yet as we move into our first house at the end of the week!

Peterson Family Update #691-E

I don't have a clever title yet again for this one.  This is a statement of being kind of piece today, because I'm genuinely finding it difficult right now to be creative in the midst of all other things.

• We're still plugging along.  We're almost completely packed, weirdly enough.  It's getting to the odd scraggly bits, where there's not enough to comprise a full box of one particular category, so they start to blur a bit, just to get them in a box and out of the way.  By this point, too, we're tired.  That means that our discretion in what we're keeping gets fuzzier and the tetris-ing skills start to slip a bit here and there.  We've managed to purge out a LOT of stuff--if I had to put a number on it, I would say around 20 garbage bags worth of stuff that we've donated, pitched, or sold.  Effectively, that means we've also unpacked that much stuff.  Now we're set up to value more of what we have and organize things in our new house in such a way where everything will have a clear category and home to return to. 
• I am warming more to the excitement as we go--sorting out some of the details makes it more real for me.  By contrast, Andy feels that it's less tangible in some ways because we're hammering out some of the larger ideas and it's out of the dreaming state in some ways.
• We've started listing out a bit what are some of the unexpected benefits of our new place.  For example, we can actually have a dedicated silverware drawer at our new place, instead of retrofitting another space to work in that capacity.  Woo hoo!  I expect this to turn into its own blog post as we work things out.
• If all goes according to plan, we should be pretty much done with packing at the end of this week.  Just in time for Andy and I to hit the road for work.
• Onsites on this particular subject that I will be teaching are always a flavor of interesting, so while I'm looking toward the adventure with some anxiety, I'm also excited for the adventure and for spending some time with Jason and Wendy in Austin, Texas. We were spitballing a couple of ideas the other day, and I'm excited to see how things come together.   If there are any "must sees," feel free to mention them.
• At the same time I'm in Texas, Andy will be in Pennsylvania the first week and then in Wisconsin the next.  He'll at least be coming home for the weekend, but that definitely accelerated our packing agenda.  

We're getting there, though!

• So as we're already tackling many, many details of finalizing the purchase and moving into our new home, we received word that our car is officially totaled.  On the one hand, it was better we find out this way than taking the word of the first assessment only to be screwed over later.  It wasn't the news that we wanted, but at least it was an answer.  
• Now we're hunting for a new car in addition to all else.  Having lost a week with the erroneous first assessment (long story), Andy and I came to the idea that we either wanted to put something together in a week or wait until after the house--there just wouldn't be much that we could do from out of state or otherwise take many phone calls in the middle of presenting.  
• On the whole, anxiety is ebbing and flowing in some interesting ways.  I'm oscillating between feeling like I've actually got a good handle on things and then feeling completely unprepared and inadequate the next.  I trust that everything is going to work out--I really do--but in the same breath, I'm trying to ensure that anything that can be prepared in advance is tended to as best as it could be.  Any preparation that I can do beforehand is, theoretically, less that I will need to do when my energy is limited upon my return on that Friday, where we immediately turn around and start moving some of the things we don't want the movers to move into our new space (and my plane will leave at 6AM, meaning I want to be there by around 4AM).  My energy reserves are expanding, but I know better than to assume they'll still be there.  
• At some point, I'll be able to make that flip, to go from "Prepare ALL THE THINGS" to "Things are what they are now."  Soon, but not yet.  
• Also on my mind is the knowledge that Busy Season at work is coming up in short order.  I do not relish the idea of starting into that already tired.  This means that once the house is squared away, I will only be able to think about a week at a time out.  
• On the plus side, Hawaii is at the end of it in October. 

I could use a little boring for a while.  I'm still not juggling all of the different pieces I feel as well as I should be, but I'm trying to remind myself to show at least a bit of the grace I would show someone else.  

At least Sprinkles is mostly packed

Peterson Family Update, #687-C

Hey, all!  It's been a busy kind of time, which means another listicle.

• Paperwork is rolling forward still with the house (see final picture of this blog post!).  Andy is a beast in the best ways getting all of these details squared away.  Barring unforeseen disasters, we should be closing at the end of April.
• A few people have reacted to our happy news of our first house purchase with a wink, suggesting that we needed the extra room for a family.  Please stop this and/or resist the urge.  It's not okay.  See this older blog post for details.
• This is the first time in my life I've had complete control over what the walls look like and the freedom to make any changes we want--I'm honestly paralyzed by the number of options, which is honestly better for our wallets at this point.
• I'm so excited for Andy to have a dedicated music space.  It does my heart a happy (and his, for that matter).
• Work has me slated for several onsites coming up already, including a couple of sites in Texas, San Antonio and Austin areas, specifically.  As per usual, there'll be a couple in Chicagoland at some point, too.  These are before the summer busy season even kicks off.  I have a feeling summer is going to FLY.
• The Roys went on an adventure in Florida last weekend, going to Universal Studios.  It's been a long while since we've had a family vacation.  
  
  
  

  

  Epic Superhero-Landing is Epic

  
  
• Physically, the trip was definitely a triumph--I could not have been able to keep up with anyone just a year or two ago.  That's some lovely validation.
• We had some good laughs, formed some fun memories, and were plenty sore by the time we made it back home.  There were moments of hangry and tired, but definitely glad we could spend some time together.  
• Andy managed to acquire two more unicorns, winning them in a crane game at Universal, no less.  Our "collection" is getting out of hand in some adorable ways. 
  
• Andy's job still suits him very well, naturally with its own joys and frustrations.  But coming up on a year in this position, he knows what he's about and can have some better perspective on the impact he's having.
• With the house hunting and a few other mitigating factors, I've been emotionally eating like woah recently.  On some elements, it's been very freeing to look at a menu and consider what I feel like eating today rather than what I'll have to fudge to fit my macros.  I can still make some choices within those confines that are better but without piling the guilt terribly high.  That freedom and grace toward myself has been a welcome break.  And that's the way I'm framing it mentally, per my brother's wording:  "you haven't fallen off the wagon; you're just taking a break."  Well, with vacation time over, it's time to get back to work.  
• I'm taking a Medical Terminology course currently.  This class has the science aspect AND the wordy-nerdy aspect.  I'm enjoying it immensely and affirm again how nice it is to have a structured academic activity as part of my routine again.  Eyeing taking a nutrition class in the fall and seeing my habits through a new lens.  
• Found out what happens if I don't cycle out my ostomy supplies in the car often enough--one of my bags basically melted together.  On the one hand, better to find out through the way I did, which was trying to cycle it out at home.  On the other, I'm a bit anxious to think back on how unprepared I was if there had been a real emergency.  Official emergency supply refresh schedule will now be implemented in earnest.
• Andy and I are taking the opportunity of buying our house to more closely scrutinize our budget--if we want to pay off my student loans faster, what can we decrease or eliminate?  Our mortgage will be less than our rent, once all the moving in parts are complete (and any post-move in "first house purchases" are resolved).  We want to leave room, too, for saving for those inevitable expenses that come up.  It's nice to discuss these components--while I appreciate that Andy trusts me with most of these decisions, this renewed interest and teamwork in that process certainly feels good.  
• Andy and I both got our hair colored to something a bit more red.  I have some purple streaks as well, just as something fun to peak out every now and again.  I'm thinking next time I might go all purple with some red streaks, but we'll see.  With my onsites, my company is okay with me having colored hair and it is more widely accepted as a whole, but I don't want it to be a distraction when I'm trying to come into a site as an authority.  
• Went back in for a check-up on my eyes, post-Lasik.  Seems that we'll need to go in for another swing.  Naturally, I'm part of a very small percentage that needs this, because I can't help but be special, it seems.  I'm not upset by this at all--I would have been furious if they insisted that what I'm at now is "meh, good enough."  Significant improvement, for sure, but there's just a bit more to do yet.  Looking forward to that in another couple months.  A stroke of luck, though, is that my brother's old glasses were in the right ballpark (startlingly so, according to my optometrist), and he has graciously lent them to me for a month or two.

And the world keeps rolling on, folks.

Adventures in House Hunting

Through a lot of discussions, arguments, and spreadsheets, Andy and I have come around to the decision that we could start looking for our first house.

This started with a literal bombardment of Zillow pages from Andy, with "What do you think about this?" and "Look at the kitchen on this one!" and a number of other things.  I felt overwhelmed almost immediately, to say the least and we had a discussion about the right way to approach the process that would meet both of our needs.  Eventually, we came around to a thorough conversation of identifying what features we really wanted in a house, what were our dealbreakers and what were our "it'd be nice if it had X, but it's not necessary" features.  This was all compiled into a mean spreadsheet that gave each possible house a point value.  Then another round of math came, sorting out what our budget might be to best meet our goals.

I had two main rules--the move must lower our monthly bills by a reasonable amount and we had to purge the house before moving.  I absolutely refused to unpack something and have us both question why we even brought it with.

Well, with so far six bags of items donated and a lot of paper recycled, we're working through that purging goal, and with a couple of meetings with some loan officers we had an idea of what our budget should tap out at to meet our monthly goals.

And then a fresh bombardment of Zillow links, but this time the search could be more focused, changing the question from "what do you think of this one?" to "should we include this on our list of things to see?"

Our realtor had taken care of other members of our family before, and it was good to have that trust pre-established, meeting her on a wintery day to start off with five houses up for contention, including three that we had sent her and two that she had found.  We've seen a few more since then with her.  Here are some of those stories.  Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.

• House 9.812, aka "The one with the murder closet," two story home that had a nice fenced in porch and a couple of bathrooms.  Main area upon entry and kitchen had been recently updated and seemed true to the photographs.  We began to realize immediately, though, that all photographs are set in such a way to make the room seem larger than it is.  Upstairs was comparatively tiny.  Then we went to the basement.  A radon pipe was placed in front of a cabinet, so that it would only open a couple of inches.  There were nails visible from the floorboards when you looked up.  To the right, there was an oddly shaped door.  A door with questionable stains and age.  A door that would not open.  This door was promptly dubbed "The Murder Closet."  I do not want to live in a house with a Murder Closet, where surely something would crawl out of it and possess us in our sleep.

  

  Walking around with my internal Vincent Price monologuing...

• House 10.432, aka "They tried their best" two story, connects to a busy street, which could be less than fun at certain times of day.  There was a lovely skylight in the kitchen and cool bar piece with stonework in the basement.  The rest was done in earnestness but no expertise.  They tried.  By golly, they tried to update things.  But, well, there were a lot of obvious flaws, such as windows that didn't actually fit, sloppily cut holes around ducts, carpet that wasn't fit properly, the list goes on.  Even the closets were consistently put on backwards.

  

  Not a picture from the exact house, but this kind of stuff, yo

• House 3.666, aka "Doom basement" was a ranch style with a good size backyard.  Definitely a "grandparent" home, in the sense that it needed some updating in a few places, as though someone had lived here for years and years and changed nothing in that time.  It was billed as having two bathrooms, but the one in the basement, well, it was not what I would have called a full bath--it was a cinderblock shower, like what you'd see at camp, with a single light bulb and a sad, isolated toilet in the corner, and a giant washtub sink.  The rest of the basement had a rocking chair with--I shit you not--a framed 8x10 of a clown just outside of a basement door that had a chain lock on the inside, like a front door chain lock.  The only think in that room was a rusty pole.  Vincent Price started setting the stage again in my head, that someone was tied to that pole and then the attacker went out to clean off in the cinderblock shower while evil grandma rocked in front of the room while holding the clown picture, and I was ready to leave very quickly.

  

  Something like this, but my memory might be exaggerating a bit

  Maybe.

• House 7.219 aka "House of the sun worshipers" was a split level with a beautiful backyard, with a screened in porch that had skylights and a fan, a brick patio, lights, and a pool.  The previous owners must have loved their backyard and probably practically lived in their backyard.  The inside of the house, though, had been...neglected.  It was a weird floor plan, particularly in the basement where the ceiling took an awkward angle near one of the walls and the tiny hallway to go through to the bathroom, and just a solid meh from us.  The garage had a side door attached to it where there was an unfinished but heated and airconditioned side room.  We could not figure out the purpose of this room at all.
• House 9.230, aka "It's a relief to see something plausible" was a ranch with charming white brickwork at the fireplace.  The cabinets were older, but painted a very fun green that matched the right level of quirky for me.  A LOT of built in shelving.  Basement was vast but finished.  Wish it had one more half-bath or an ensuite bathroom, given my particular needs.
• House 4.320 aka "Andy's first love" was a two story that had a wide, open communal space, spanning both levels.  Andy made the mistake of falling in love with this one, since it apparently went the day after we came to see it.  The basement was awkward as hell, with a random, wide bar making the space feel tiny.  It did have an ensuite bathroom at least but I had a hard time seeing what we would place where.  Was I secretly relieved that it was off the market?  Yeah, a little.  We also invoked a new rule--don't fall in love with anything.
• House 8.723 "Scentsory overload" was an L split level.  The siding was new and a fun color so it looked very sharp outside.  Going into the garage, it was clear they were smokers.  Upstairs was not so bad, but entering the basement, the air freshener was completely overwhelming.  I'm not sure if they were trying to cover something or if the smoking had dulled their sense of smell where they couldn't tell how much they were using.  Either way, a quick scan of the basement later, Andy and I knew it would need some serious updating and popping our head into the furnace room smelled like gas, and I was feeling lightheaded and wanted to leave immediately because my body was certain it was being poisoned.  That basement invoked a fight-or-flight response for me, and it took about twenty minutes to calm down.  Hard pass.

There were a couple in there that were unremarkable, in the sense of "it's a nice little home, but not for us" or we weren't willing to do the necessary work of updating that particular space.  Yet for all that adventure, we did end last weekend with this:

Assuming all goes according to plan, we're home owners, ya'll.  :)