How have I lived without you?

I know that I have been sadly remiss in not posting over the past few days. Tons of errands, hanging out with neighbors and beautiful weather kept me out of the house for most of the weekend. Cameron and I had quality bonding time on Friday since I had to take the day off as daycare was closed. She is absolutely loving the great weather we've been enjoying in Charlotte. I realized that I only had a few short sleeved tops for her so a trip to Target was a must. I ended up getting some shorts too in both 12 and 18 month. I was just going to get 18 month clothing but the 12 month stuff is still roomy. My munchkin has definitely slowed down on her growth.

Also on the docket for this past weekend? Getting my birthday present. I've been toying with the idea of getting an iPad but I am not an early adopter. Plus the price point was a little high for me. Instead DH and I packed up Cameron and went to the AT&T store to get me what I now refer to as "my precious," my kick ass iPhone. I absolutely love it and have no idea how I juggled a cell phone and iPod before. Of course it makes sense to have both together! I got the high end case for it in bright pink. It was worth the extra $60 buck when you have a toddler. And bright pink was so that DH knows as he plays with it that it's all mine.

The iPhone is super intuitive. And I am not an intuitive person when it comes to technology. Ironic considering I work in technology, no? DH has already uploaded his fantasy baseball application and I added the Weight Watchers point tracker. The photo quality isn't as great as my digital camera but I expected that to be the case. Plus Cameron is in full on mobility mode so she never sits still for photos any more.

Any other iPhone lovers out there? Any recommendations for applications that I can download?

The post where I wonder how WAHM can also be SAHM

In case some of my readers aren't up on the lingo WAHM stands for Work at Home Mom (not to be confuse with WOHM "Work out of Home Mom") and SAHM means Stay At Home Mom. I prefer to be known as awesome.

Yesterday Cameron was home from daycare with a double ear infection. Yup, DH and I thought it might be pink eye but lo and behold it was really the ear infection. My sister was incredulous that we had no idea. "You mean she didn't wake up during the night multiple times?" Nope. That's not how Cameron rolls. But we did know something was wrong so off to the doctor's DH went with Cameron. Diagnosis in hand we decided to keep her home for the day so she would nap better and recover more quickly.

Unfortunately neither of us could take the day off of work. DH's calendar was a bit more flexible than mine but I had about 5 hours of conference calls where I was an integral component. So not only did I have to have my headset on for most of the day, multitasking was absolutely out. It worked out OK but I was pretty stressed for most of the day even with DH shouldering the heavier load with childcare. And Cameron napped for about 5.5 hours total. All in all it should have been a piece of cake but it was still stressful. I could never really concentrate on Cameron when it was my time to care for her or work when I was supposed to be herding cats on my conference calls.

As I lay on the couch in exhaustion catching up on the 8 (!) episodes of Fringe we have saved I wondered, how do the women who work full time jobs also juggle being the primary care giver during the day for their kids? I don't mean freelance work which can technically be managed in "off" hours (although talk about tiring!) but a 9-5 job. I met one woman at BigFinance who told me proudly that she was going to be working at home while watching her 6 month and 5 year old sons. Really? I'm sure that worked out fabulously.

I have an exceptionally happy, long napping baby and there is no way in hell I could do it for more than a day. And that was with DH. I worry that technology has allowed us to juggle too many things. I appreciate the flexibility from BigFinance and the technological tools that allow me to work from home at least once a week. But when I work from home, I work from home. Sure, I might throw in some laundry or run an errand or blog but my time and attention is focused on work.

What do the rest of you think? Totally possible to juggle a full time day job and caring for kids? I assume that it would get easier as the kids get older but I would think that 0-6 is the hardest.

PS - Cameron is doing totally great today and didn't even glance at me as I waved goodbye after dropping her off at daycare. And I am happily ensconced at my desk slogging through email.

Oops! Who knew water could do that?

Duh. I could. I had a slight accident with the digital camera today while splashing in a kiddie pool with Cameron. Need I write that it involved water? The camera wasn't submerged but it did get wet so it is hanging out in a plastic bag with some rice. If anyone else knows of other tricks and tips, please send them my way!

If the rice doesn't work we might need to place an emergency order for another digital camer. I am really liking our camera so I would want to get the same one. Even with the (gulp!) $250 price tag. I just hope either it dries out or we can get a new one before we head out for a wedding on Friday morning. Please send your driest thoughts out to our camera!

In the meantime DH is spending some quality time with some of his old friends. They coincidentally rented a house about 3 miles from my parents' house in Maine. We brought Cameron over for some oohing and aahing earlier and now DH is back to get some drink on. Ah, I vaguely remember those days!

More pictures (I hope!) to come in a few days.

An ode to working from home

While I was pregnant I found myself working from home much more frequently. In the past I worked at home if DH was traveling or I had some kind of errand that needed to happen during the day. But I found the frequency increasing particularly in my last trimester. It was just so much easier to walk down a flight of stairs and start working than haul my pregnant, very large ass to work every day. It started with every Friday and creeped up to 3x a week by the end. BigFinance is very supportive of remote workers. We even have a remote worker program where you get a WLAN router and VoIP phone so everything works exactly like you are in the office. Yes, I geeked out a bit there but I work in network services for BigFinance so I'm allowed. Thousands of BigFinance workers take advantage of the teleworker program and it has saved the company millions in real estate costs. I really think this is the future of work. Now people aren't tied to specific metros - you can live anywhere you want and it becomes all about talent recruitment for companies.

DH has worked from home for 4 years. His company (and my old company) SmallResearch was very cool with this as a few other employees worked remotely. DH just needed to build a business case and and make sure that they already had a tax ID set up in the state. Not a problem for Virginia when I was in business school or for Charlotte since there were already a few remote workers in NC. SmallResearch also pays for our phone line and Internet connection. Pretty good deal for us and them since it's cheaper for DH to work from home than taking up a desk in an office.

Technology has really enabled me to take advantage of working from home. I can forward my work phone to my Blackberry and VPN in to all required systems. Yes, VPN is now a verb, don't you know? My Bluetooth headset also allows me to be hands free just like when I am at work.

I have decided to keep working from home one day a week. It is something that I very much look forward to and think I am much more productive with my time at home. The best part is that it makes my evening juggle so much easier. I don't have to pack a lunch or think about what I'm going to wear to work. And it knocks off at least 90 minutes of getting ready and commuting time from my day. That's a lot of time! True ,I wear sweatpants and don't style my hair but video conferencing isn't the norm yet!

There is also the benefit that I can be more creative with lunch and perhaps throw some laundry in if I have a few minutes. I can also plan out dinner a little better in terms of defrosting stuff and maybe even get a walk in. Well, that last one hardly ever happens but a girl can dream, right?

What about the rest of you? Do you work from home all the time or occasionally? What do you like the most about it? Are there any negative aspects?

New camera: Canon Powershot SX110 IS

Good news and thanks for the advice! The drastic drop in temperature coupled with a lot of yanking resulting a wedding ring removal. It is staying safely in my jewelry box until after I give birth.

DH and I went to Best Buy last weekend and purchased a new digital camera. I had a very old Canon Powershot (approximately 5 years old) that was taking pictures very slowly and the view finder started getting static. Having seen the multitude of pictures new parents take we decided to invest in a new camera. I had a few recommendations to get a SLR but given the high price point and the fact that we are much more "point and click" people we decided to go middle of the road with a Canon Powershot SX110 IS. If we find that we want to upgrade we will do so at a later date. The cost was $250 for the camera, probably the same as what my old Canon cost 5 years ago. It's amazing how technology changes so quickly!

Before I get to the camera itself, let me say something about Best Buy. It turns out that with Circuit City now out of business they basically have no competition. As a result they have halted their commission sales for cameras and other high end technical devices. So what does that mean for the average consumer? A whole lot of nothing. Yup, I had to actually ask someone to come over and open the case so we could get to the cameras. And if we had any real technical questions we were SOL. I did a little browsing at Target a few weeks ago but they were even more incompetent. Looks like lack of competition will mean the consumers suffer.

Anyway, back to the new camera. Here is what I particularly like about the features:

• 10x zoom capability
• Continuous shooting mode
• Pet/kid mode - specifically designed for capturing wiggling pets or kids
• Pop up flash - I can manually raise or lower the flash as needed
• Huge view finder
• Manual focus if I want it
• Compatible with my old Canon cables
• Movies (although that's pretty standard these days)
• Intuitive self-timer - one button push to set 10, 20, 30 or 1 minute timer

The only drawback is that it comes with a tiny memory card and the 512 MB one from my old camera is too big (size wise) to fit into the memory card slot. So we'll bite the bullet and pick up a 2 or 4 gig card this weekend.

Here are a couple of photos from the new camera.

This is the world's largest pillow.

Aren't I so cute? It's too bad my mommy and daddy won't be taking as many pictures of me once the baby comes.

I will always be a good guard dog.

eBooks - friend or foe?

Those of you who know me know that I am an avid reader. In fact, I'm not sure avid is a strong enough adjective. Voracious, perhaps? I can't go anywhere without something to read. Preferably a book but a magazine will do in a pinch while waiting in line at the post office or at the nail salon.

For my honeymoon, 2 weeks in Hawaii required about a dozen books. And I think I ended up buying a couple more because I ran out. Books are an investment to me. I typically re-read books because I read so much fantasy and authors are constantly continuing a series. Robert Jordan has 10 books out right now and I will re-read all of them before the final book in the series comes out (and it's the final book only because he's dead). At 500+ pages a book, that's a lot of reading! I think I've re-read some series as many as dozens of times.

I visit the library constantly to reduce on book expense and have been known to frequent used book stores and Amazon Marketplace (particularly for hardcovers). I could spend hours in Barnes and Noble but find they are somewhat lacking in the Fantasy/Sci Fi area. Online is typically how I purchase my books these days.

DH and I had a contractor build 17 feet of bookshelves in our "formal living room" which has now become the library. I'm sure it will eventually be the baby's playroom but for now, it's all mine. I've done a decent job filling the shelves and will probably have them all filled in a couple of years. DH gets one small section of shelves for his books. And I've taken them over with old MBA text books. Sorry, dear!

Library built-ins, in progress. They are complete now but this was the only picture I had handy. It's small because Snapfish now requires you to pay for full size downloads! What a rip off!

I read an article recently about Amazon's Kindle product. Apparently the small niche for eBooks is growing. There are quite a few advantages to eBooks. Weight alone of all my hardcovers can overwhelm my luggage. Not to mention the valuable clothing space they take up! They are also significantly cheaper than the typical $25 I spent for a hardcover. But despite those advantages, I'm not sure I will ever go the eBook route. I love the feel of books. Paperback, hardcovers, big, small, there is always room on my lap for a book. I wonder how that will fit with a baby too???

How about the rest of you? Should I be more open to the eBook trend? Are we going the Star Trek route when Kirk is viewed as "quirky" because he reads real books rather than computer screens?