Starting sometime in October, I plan to take on a new role at work by becoming a trainer. I’ve debated training for a while now and finally decided to take the plunge once the training manager told me he needed some more trainers. Maybe 3-6 shifts per month, I will work flights with a trainee and trying to teach him/her as much as I can within a limited amount of time. Technically the trainee is dispatching with my license, so officially I’m responsible, but the trainee is doing most of the actual work under my supervision. All but one of the incoming trainees have dispatched before, so they mainly need to learn our software and policies. There’s only one other trainer on the midnight shift, so I plan to focus on the quirks of our shift since it’s very different from a day or afternoon shift. Pray that I can be an effective and helpful trainer.
Observations from a new momma – the 7 week edition
1. Zantac is a wonderful thing. Brenden is doing much better – now he only cries at normal baby things – like dirty diapers and not wanting to be put down.
2. My mom made the coolest nursing cover up thing – it even has a pocket!
3. The cover up thing has given me the freedom to take B out in public for longer stretches. There was a time when I thought I would never be able to leave the house for more than an hour. That really limits your options.
4. Nordstrom’s at the Galleria has a great family room for feeding. So does the Cedar Hill mall – and most Dillard’s have really nice seats in the women’s room, too. I think I’m going to know about all the rooms at my local public places, like I did the bathrooms while I was pregnant. You could name a store and I would know where their women’s room is!
5. Sitting in the nursing room at church is a weird experience. It’s usually empty, so I’m experiencing corporate worship all alone. And a lot of people don’t realize that the “mirrors” are actually windows, so I see lots of people fixing their hair.
6. Brenden has started smiling for real, and he even laughs in his sleep. However, his default look is still very serious.
7. He’s looking more and more like his dad – down to the default serious face. Especially when they are both asleep.
8. Tonight I’m going to women’s bible study and Andy is going to the men’s, so B gets to experience the nursery for the first time. I’m trying to remember all the little things that annoyed me while I was working in the nursery so I don’t do them.
9. He’s still not sleeping through the night – I think we’re a long way off from that. But he only usually wakes up once in the middle of the night, which is nice. I’ve started watching a lot of the Food Network at 3 in the morning.
10. The boy is LONG – he’s wearing 3-6 month outfits already, just because the other ones are too short! We couldn’t button the 0-3 onesies anymore. And it seems he’s about to go through another growth spurt since he’s eating so often.
11. He really wants to roll over onto his stomach, but he hates tummy time. This could get interesting!
12. I’ve been trying to go through his toys and see what he likes, but nothing has sparked his interest. He’s more interested in the curtains or the changing table. Go figure.
September Rants and Raves
RANT: If the weather people and city officials call for a MANDATORY EVACUATION due to a hurricane and warn of CERTAIN DEATH to those who stay, and you decide to ignore that order, don’t expect the rescuers to rescue you. You deserve to be ignored, but the rescuers won’t ignore you because they understand the concept of grace. I’m sure they want to slap you, though.
RAVE: Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter against the Astros and came within one walk and a hit batsman of a perfect game. I remember seeing the end of Nolan Ryan’s 7th no-hitter against the Blue Jays on TV when I was a kid. The replays of Zambrano’s feat reminded me of Nolan’s glory days with the Rangers.
RANT: On a few websites, such as apartmentsratings.com, people can post and read reviews of apartment communities. Sounds great, right? There are two significant problems, though: 1) Those who take the time to post reviews are generally unhappy enough to want to complain, meaning that the reviews have a tendency to make the property sound worse than it really is. 2) There’s nothing to stop unscrupulous employees of competing apartment communities from posting fake reviews, and supposedly it does happen. Other rating sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Hotels.com have the same problem.
RAVE: Facebook is one of my favorite sites because it does a great job of keeping me connected to my people, both the ones I see often and old friends whom I haven’t seen in years. Through Status Updates and other posts, we can see what everyone is doing throughout the week or even the day. For example, thanks to Facebook I know my friend Rudy from Irving is going to the Cowboys game Monday night, my high school friend Scott is thinking about angels in Boston, and my friend Tamra in Keller hasn’t had her baby yet. If you’re not on Facebook, I HIGHLY encourage you to get onboard. Jenny’s mom did recently and already has over 100 friends, many of whom she thought she might never talk to again.
GUEST RAVE FROM JENNY: Food Network cake challenges rock! So does dinner with friends! Our small group plus some other friends go out to eat every Sunday after church. The dinner schedule is on my site.
Microloans You Can Provide
For a variety of reasons, including poor performance and disappointing changes in their policies, I decided to sell my eBay stock and give the money to someone who needed it more than eBay or I did. I debated what to do with the money for a while. Finally I gave most of it to fund microloans through WorldVision, one of my favorite organizations. Microloans, as the name implies, are small loans given to people in developing countries who run very small businesses or want to start new ones. Recipients of the loans generally are part of a group that shares ideas, supports its members, and cross-guarantees the loans. They also receive training in business management to help them use the loans most effectively. Due to their support, training, and strong desire to succeed, they repay the loans 96 percent of the time. I imagine that’s higher than a typical bank would get and certainly much higher than I got from my Prosper.com borrowers. Instead of returning to the original lender, the repaid loan stays in a fund and then goes out to another borrower, making microloan programs almost self-perpetutating. Microfinance is a fantastic idea that is changing lives all over the world. I encourage you to get involved! Skip one dinner out this month and use the money to help change someone’s life instead.
New Navigation
I geeked out on WordPress plugins and found one to upgrade the navigation. You can now mouseover the page links above to show links to any subpages I’ve created. For example, if you mouseover About Me you’ll see a link to the Professional subpage. Not all pages have subpages. Give it a try and then comment to tell me what you think or if you have any problems seeing the links. I also moved Brenden’s page under the Family page.
Reagan Pics
Here are some new pictures of Reagan!
