Making it fun...

Today is Day 2.

Yesterday actually went quite well.  I was able to get into my computer pretty easily.  I'm amazed I remembered my password from five months ago.  I only had 750 emails to go through, and about 99% of them I just deleted without reading them.  I cleaned out my desktop and deleted old files and articles I didn't think would be relevant anymore and tried to organize the files the best I could.  May as well start with a clean slate.

Met with my boss to chat about the upcoming months.  I actually came back during the most opportune week; we are starting the behavior studies for two long-term experiments this week.  I had known back in October that when I returned from maternity leave we would be starting these studies, and obviously that hadn't changed.  So the next few months will be very busy.  Which I like:  I'm tired of sitting and being bored.  Activity is good.  The day to day activity itself is rather monotonous but will be quite long, and hopefully the data will be interesting.  We'll see.  Can't go into much detail though, so anyone reading will just have to sit and wonder what I do.  Ha.

I have been able to find time to pump, which is nice.  I have set my alarm for 5am and pump then.  I get to the gym for a bit, and then come back and shower/get food ready for the day for myself and the girls, and then pump again before I leave.  I have been managing to pump every 3 hours roughly, which is slightly longer than I had before.  But it will have to do, and I may even need to draw it out further, unfortunately.  We'll see. 

I really did miss the girls and Zev.  I'm used to seeing them all day, so it was hard when I came home and only had a few hours with them.  I hope that will get easier.  My boss had asked if I was going to go fulltime immediately, and I'd like to try.  It is going to be hard no matter when I start FT, so I may as well start now.  I told him if it got to be too difficult that I would let him know.  And this way I can still save time for sick days should I need them later.

In terms of taking care of myself, I started another fitness journal to keep track of my sleeping, resting, intake, etc.  I didn't want to turn this blog into that because I'd rather keep this to family and more personal things.  And didn't want to take up space talking about my lifting/eating.  No one cares about that.  I'm just writing it down to make sure I take ample rest and dont' live on cereal forever.  So far it is working ok.  Meals are more balanced and I feel better.

My next goal:  trying to find the joy in all this.  Being back to work has helped my mood, so I do think I'll become more relaxed.  The trick is being more relaxed without being too exhausted.  Because I want to enjoy myself, my husband, my children, etc., and not feel too tired to do so.  And I want to focus on the fun things.  Perhaps planning family activities on weekends to be sure we all spend time together.  And I need to talk to Jason about his schedule once he returns to work.  Being a two income family makes spending quality time with your spouse difficult and by the time Zev is in bed and the girls are fed, we're both exhausted.  There must be another way....