TODAY IS THE DAY.

Today is the day I leave my happiness-draining job and move on to something that will hopefully be better for me. I have awaited this day for SO LONG and am really proud of myself for finally moving on, finding another job, and turning in my resignation. I have never left a job for any reason other than relocation, and it feels really good to leave a job because I want, no, need to. The image above is from the legendary movie, Office Space (if you didn't already know that, stop what you're doing right now, go out and buy the movie, and watch it.... now), and is how I wish I could celebrate when 5 o'clock rolls around today. However, I will settle for driving home and pouring myself a generous glass of red wine instead.

Let Them Eat Cake.

Sorry for the lack of updating! I'm considering retiring the Monday updates because they just seem repetitive and, honestly, our weekends are pretty darn uneventful. One of my New Years goals is to get back into my photography and not use my cellphone to take pictures all of the time. There's so much joy for me in taking quality photos with my fancy-pants camera. So far, I've gotten some great photos with my camera. I'll take this opportunity to share some of my favorites taken so far this year. 

Here is Caroline in her adorable flannel shirt from her Auntie Allison. Bald baby problem #4,659: whenever baby is not wearing pink, baby is assumed to be a boy. I paired this shirt with purple pants and pink shoes and Caroline still managed to be called handsome and got a "hey there little fella" from an old man. Oh, well; I think she looks pretty.

Caroline and I had a photoshoot during her favorite time: bath time! These were pretty much the only two images that weren't blurry because she is WILD in the bath. She splishes and splashes all over the place! We call her our little mermaid.

These are some images I took this afternoon. Josh was eating strawberry cake (yuck, disgusting, gross) and gave Caroline some bites. She actually really enjoyed it. We're beginning to think she may have inherited her daddy's sweet tooth.

Let's take a closer look at all of the beautiful blonde hair my little lady is growing. We just need her to grow some in the front, though. She's currently business in the front and party in the back mullet baby!

A [very delayed] Christmas Recap!

Hello, everyone! Sorry for such a delay in blogging about our Virginia trip.

We had such, such, such a wonderful time, despite Caroline being sick almost the entire week. We blame a random, disgusting, germ-filled Hardy's we unfortunately stopped at on our drive to Virginia. Poor little girl's temperature kept hitting 105, then we'd get it back down to a normal temperature, and then  shoot back up. She felt fine Christmas morning, and entertained everyone while opening gifts, and then after breakfast she crashed, the fever came back, and she spent the majority of the day in bed, wearing a t-shirt and a diaper, sleeping next to her daddy. We ended up at Patient's First on the afternoon of Christmas before going to my grandmother's house. Such a great way for our poor girl to spend her first "real" Christmas (last year she was clueless as to everything around her). Thankfully, she's all better now, although she got everyone else sick. Germs are evil, evillllllll.

 

So, I got the negative out of the way; we can now discuss the positive! It was so, so, so good to spend a week at home with family. Due to our sick little one, we didn't do much exciting, but that was actually pretty refreshing! We spent a lot of time just sitting around the house as a family, and that's what the holidays are all about! I enjoyed eating my mother's wonderful cooking, discovering the beauty of a Dos Equis Amber with lime, and the whole family sitting in the living room and actually staying awake during the newest Star Trek movie (my reason to make sure I could stare at Kirk, Spock, and Bones... me likey).

We got to see some of our favorite people while in Virginia! Of course, my Dad, Mom, and Sister, as well as my Grandmother, Aunt Linda and Tom, and Cousin Peter. We also got to have lunch with my Mom's longtime friend, Beth, and her family, which was very nice. We went to see Christmas lights at The Jefferson, which has special significance to me and Josh (it's where we spent the night after our wedding). Unfortunately, right after Caroline saw those lights, she fell asleep in the car seat, and her fever started shooting up, so no other Christmas lights were seen. However, she did adore my parents' Christmas palm tree, made friends with the Christmas lights in the front yard, and LOVED playing with the trains with my dad (by the end of the trip she had figured out how to work the trains on her own, smarty pants), and to a thirteen-month-old, that's probably all the Christmas lights she needed :)

Thanks to my family for a wonderful time! I cannot wait to see my mom and sister later this month while we party together in DC, bwhahahaha! Allison had better have her fridge stocked with Dos Equis and limes, bwhahahaha! (too many bwhahahaha's in one paragraph? no such thing). I get to see a lot of my friends, too, some who I haven't seen in years. It will be FUN!

I'm going to tack on a little bit of the New Year's holiday onto my Christmas post, since my Christmas post is so belated. My biggest New Year's resolution last year was to quit my job. I missed it by two days because yesterday I GAVE MY RESIGNATION. Unfortunately, it's not to stay home with Caroline; that would be amazing, but impossible. I have accepted a new position that I start at the end of the month, and it's a very welcome change. This is the first time I have quit a job for a reason other than relocation. It's the first time I have been happy about quitting a job. I don't enjoy what I do now, and spend 40 hours a week at a job that drains me. They asked me my reason for leaving, and I told them I simply need a change (one person was very supportive, and the other didn't seem to care that I was leaving, but those are the respective reactions I knew were coming). I'm excited for a change that will hopefully make me happier!

That's all the blah-blah-blah'ing for me today! I hope everyone's new year is off to a wonderful start. I can't wait to see a lot of my readers soon :)

Ending this post with my favorite Caroline face EVER EVER EVER.