The Surprise Day Off

The Hump Day Deities were shining on us Wednesday. As soon as I got to work (a little earlier than usual) and logged in to read my email, the power went out. The few of us in the office couldn't do anything but sit around and chat under the emergency light (while everyone else was stuck in the lobby), until finally around 9am they told us all to go home.

I was almost overwhelmed with this sudden and unexpected free day. I should have worked on my thesis. I wanted to spring Eli out of daycare or go shopping. What did I do for almost 8 hours? Clean. I scrubbed and washed around the house all day, and while there is now measurably less dirt and grime in the house, I didn't even get to the clutter yet. That will take another month off. Yet it was disturbingly satisfying feeling the super-squeaky clean tub surface under my toes in the shower. Ya get your thrills where ya can...

I came back to work on Thursday to find out I am going away for a last-minute training conference most of next week. Apparently it's at a pretty posh and scenic location (oh and a good class too), so it should be fun, although I'll miss the guys. Then I have another trip coming up a couple weeks later, and then possibly a long trip right after that (stay tuned). These are all trips I've requested, so I am looking forward to it, but it would be nice to space out the travel a little more - but that's how it goes at the end of the fiscal year. Now that Eli can try to talk to me on the phone it is a little easier to be away. Although after my Toronto trip I think he was convinced that mommy went to live inside the phone.

In cute Eli news: The past couple days have been amazingly mild, so Eli and his friend down the block Hunter (who is 6 months younger) have been playing together in the street in the evenings. Eli's not doing so well with the whole sharing concept, but otherwise it is really cute to see them interact and chase each other around.

Eli's new fascination (besides Elmo) is with babies. He recently learned the word "baby", so now he loves pointing out images of babies. He also loves looking at younger pictures of himself and his buddy Eddie on my laptop, so he'll bang on it or come over if I have it open and yell "Baby!" to see pictures. He also loves his counting book with baby photos.