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It's about freakin' time, but summer is FINALLY here. I don't know if I'm excited or worried. Much like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aj, I'm not a huge fan of Chicagoland's hot, humid summers. On the other hand, it's finally pool season. Now that June is almost over, it's finally warm enough to take the kids to the pool.
Things around here have been, and will continue to be for the rest of the summer, crazy. The Scientist's youngest brother is getting married at the end of August, and so there's been a lot of wedding-related activities. The bachelor party already happened (a three-day weekend extravaganza of booze), the bachelorette party and bridal shower weekend are coming, then there's a "team-building scavenger hunt" for the entire wedding party so everyone can get to know each other before the actual wedding, and then a day of wedding favor making. Also in there I have a baby shower, MDR has a doctor appointment, there's a zoo trip with my coworker and her family, and at some point we have to go to the Ren Faire because we bought crazy-cheap tickets at C2E2. And all before the end of August. Needless to say, almost every weekend is booked.
To make things even more fun, work has been crazy for the past month or so. I had the big book to finish which turned into a nightmare because the managing editor decided to make a whole bunch of changes at the last minute. We were literally laying out pages the day before it was due to go to the printer. After that project ended, I was immediately put on another project with an even crazier deadline: a 700-page book to lay out in one month. That's creating all the art, doing the layout, sending pages through proofing/editorial/author corrections, making all the corrections, sending the pages to an outside certification group for their approval so that we can link our pages to their certification training, and prepping all the pages for PDF release so that the book can be sent to the Florida board of ed for approval for adoption. Thankfully I've been paired with my company's very best editor. He and I have done many projects before and have a really good working and personal rapport. I think that's why they put me on the project, because they knew he and I work well together and I was his best shot at getting the book done. We have one week to finish all the pages before we want to turn them over to the digital media department so they can prep the PDFs for release. Amazingly, we have everything done except the front matter, glossary, and index (the latter of which take no time to lay out). I only have two chapters' worth of corrections left to do, which I can probably complete tomorrow. So this editor and I are walking around the building like we're hot shit (cuz we are) and I'm blown away by how much the two of us accomplished with this book.
That said, because I've proven time and again that I can crank out really good quality work with few mistakes under insane deadlines, I've now been given another completely craptacular project. As I said to my boss, it's as if I'm being punished for doing good work. ::headdesk::
So what else is up? The family's doing well. Yesterday was the Scientist's birthday, which we celebrated by going to a pool party. Today we're going for a wine tasting. VEE is on her first steps to reading -- sounding out words letter by letter and figuring out what they say. Of course this takes some coaching on our part, but for a kid who's not even four yet I'm quite proud of her. Potty training, on the other hand, is a joke. I'm going to take time off later this summer to do "potty boot camp" with her, wherein I stay home for a few days on either side of a weekend and all we do is practice going to the potty every hour on the hour till she figures this out. Because she's such a tall and big kid she's almost outgrown the largest size diapers they make, plus she needs to be potty trained before preschool in the fall. So boot camp it is. As for MDRE, he's not crawling yet but he's close. He just cut his seventh tooth and we've moved him on to 2nd stage foods. He continues to be a smiley, cuddly little (big) guy and a ton of fun.
Anyway, that's about it for me. I hope all is well with all of you.
Sorry I don't update more often -- just finding time to sit down at the computer and hammer out an update uninterrupted is next to impossible these days. People keep asking the Scientist and I if we've seen a certain movie or watched a certain TV show. We're like, "If we can find more than two hours to ourselves during the evenings it's a miracle. But we can tell you exactly what Daniel Tiger has been up to over on PBS Kids." Every now and again we manage to watch an episode of Daredevil on Netflix, which is making me incredibly happy. I really appreciate that the creators approached the show as a crime drama first and a superhero show second. And how deliciously creepy is Kingpin? It's not as dark and foreboding as the Dark Knight side of the comic spectrum, but it's leaps and bounds more serious than a lot of comic-related shows or movies. That said, I will readily admit that I don't always like my comic shows serious; the lighthearted-yet-earnest approach to The Flash this past season totally worked for me as well. I could go on and on about comic media and how I might be getting burned out on comic movies and how knowing a studio's multi-year release schedule is taking the surprise out of things for me (TLDR-version: I'm currently more excited for DC than Marvel just because I don't know what to expect). But my kid wants me to play with her, so I'm wrapping this up.
Oh, two more things: today I'm wearing this awesome She-Ra shirt, which I love. I've already gotten compliments on it when I went out shopping.
And finally: HOORAY FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!! I couldn't be more pleased. Love love love love love.
aj, I'm not a huge fan of Chicagoland's hot, humid summers. On the other hand, it's finally pool season. Now that June is almost over, it's finally warm enough to take the kids to the pool.Things around here have been, and will continue to be for the rest of the summer, crazy. The Scientist's youngest brother is getting married at the end of August, and so there's been a lot of wedding-related activities. The bachelor party already happened (a three-day weekend extravaganza of booze), the bachelorette party and bridal shower weekend are coming, then there's a "team-building scavenger hunt" for the entire wedding party so everyone can get to know each other before the actual wedding, and then a day of wedding favor making. Also in there I have a baby shower, MDR has a doctor appointment, there's a zoo trip with my coworker and her family, and at some point we have to go to the Ren Faire because we bought crazy-cheap tickets at C2E2. And all before the end of August. Needless to say, almost every weekend is booked.
To make things even more fun, work has been crazy for the past month or so. I had the big book to finish which turned into a nightmare because the managing editor decided to make a whole bunch of changes at the last minute. We were literally laying out pages the day before it was due to go to the printer. After that project ended, I was immediately put on another project with an even crazier deadline: a 700-page book to lay out in one month. That's creating all the art, doing the layout, sending pages through proofing/editorial/author corrections, making all the corrections, sending the pages to an outside certification group for their approval so that we can link our pages to their certification training, and prepping all the pages for PDF release so that the book can be sent to the Florida board of ed for approval for adoption. Thankfully I've been paired with my company's very best editor. He and I have done many projects before and have a really good working and personal rapport. I think that's why they put me on the project, because they knew he and I work well together and I was his best shot at getting the book done. We have one week to finish all the pages before we want to turn them over to the digital media department so they can prep the PDFs for release. Amazingly, we have everything done except the front matter, glossary, and index (the latter of which take no time to lay out). I only have two chapters' worth of corrections left to do, which I can probably complete tomorrow. So this editor and I are walking around the building like we're hot shit (cuz we are) and I'm blown away by how much the two of us accomplished with this book.
That said, because I've proven time and again that I can crank out really good quality work with few mistakes under insane deadlines, I've now been given another completely craptacular project. As I said to my boss, it's as if I'm being punished for doing good work. ::headdesk::
So what else is up? The family's doing well. Yesterday was the Scientist's birthday, which we celebrated by going to a pool party. Today we're going for a wine tasting. VEE is on her first steps to reading -- sounding out words letter by letter and figuring out what they say. Of course this takes some coaching on our part, but for a kid who's not even four yet I'm quite proud of her. Potty training, on the other hand, is a joke. I'm going to take time off later this summer to do "potty boot camp" with her, wherein I stay home for a few days on either side of a weekend and all we do is practice going to the potty every hour on the hour till she figures this out. Because she's such a tall and big kid she's almost outgrown the largest size diapers they make, plus she needs to be potty trained before preschool in the fall. So boot camp it is. As for MDRE, he's not crawling yet but he's close. He just cut his seventh tooth and we've moved him on to 2nd stage foods. He continues to be a smiley, cuddly little (big) guy and a ton of fun.
Anyway, that's about it for me. I hope all is well with all of you.
Sorry I don't update more often -- just finding time to sit down at the computer and hammer out an update uninterrupted is next to impossible these days. People keep asking the Scientist and I if we've seen a certain movie or watched a certain TV show. We're like, "If we can find more than two hours to ourselves during the evenings it's a miracle. But we can tell you exactly what Daniel Tiger has been up to over on PBS Kids." Every now and again we manage to watch an episode of Daredevil on Netflix, which is making me incredibly happy. I really appreciate that the creators approached the show as a crime drama first and a superhero show second. And how deliciously creepy is Kingpin? It's not as dark and foreboding as the Dark Knight side of the comic spectrum, but it's leaps and bounds more serious than a lot of comic-related shows or movies. That said, I will readily admit that I don't always like my comic shows serious; the lighthearted-yet-earnest approach to The Flash this past season totally worked for me as well. I could go on and on about comic media and how I might be getting burned out on comic movies and how knowing a studio's multi-year release schedule is taking the surprise out of things for me (TLDR-version: I'm currently more excited for DC than Marvel just because I don't know what to expect). But my kid wants me to play with her, so I'm wrapping this up.
Oh, two more things: today I'm wearing this awesome She-Ra shirt, which I love. I've already gotten compliments on it when I went out shopping.
And finally: HOORAY FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!! I couldn't be more pleased. Love love love love love.