It’s Gonna Take Some Time, This Time

I think it’s about time for a journal entry, donchatink? Thought I’d start with a nice title to this entry, from a song by The Carpenters (love Karen!).

Well, it has been a busy 2 weeks for me. After an exhausting drive from Texas to Indiana (Luci drove most of the way, of course), we finally met our destination. Dani wasn’t really that bad of a traveler. She slept most of the way, and believe me she had better sleeping ‘quarters’ than we had, and only woke up for feeding and changing. She wasn’t really that fussy either. Tips for new parents: driving is the best way to get the baby to sleep! :D

Luci and I got there Saturday morning from driving all night Friday. We were so excited that we weren’t even tired after the long drive because we wanted to catch up with everyone. It was really nice to finally meet some of my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. There was an uncle and an aunt that I only knew from old pictures (and they only knew me when I was a baby like Dani). There were some cousins that I haven’t seen in years, and cousins that I met for the first time. I must say, it’s so heartwarming to just be in the midst of family that you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s like going back to the Philippines and seeing my siblings again. Ang sarap talaga (it really feels good).

We had lunch at a park and had some games like Water Balloon Toss and there was a history game about Israel that was very informative. This was also the first time that my dad and everyone got to see my daughter since she was born. We also did a dedication for Dani, sort of a baptism but instead of water, it’s with laying of the hands. It was so touching I couldn’t help but cry, even though I tried to hide it. *sniff* *sniff*

Here’s a nice picture of Dani with a pretty flower growing in my uncle’s backyard:

My family can really be good:

And they can be crazy, too:

On Sunday, we did a family mini-concert in my uncle’s church (he’s the senior pastor there). I have pretty talented relatives, I tell you! Love it. :) They made a video of it in Windows Media format. If you want to see it, I might have to ask permission from the others if it’s okay. After the concert, more catching up with each other, getting to know one another, making lifelong new friends. Good times. :) It’s just too bad we had to leave that evening.

When we drove back, Luci drove for a while but got tired. I think our tiredness finally caught up to us, because when I took over, I was only able to drive 60 miles and I had to pull over to take a nap along with Luci. And what a nap it was: 2 hours! We finally woke back up and Luci drove the rest of the way, while I sat in the back taking care of Dani. When we got home, we definitely crashed, but it was all worth it. The reunion was definitely not to be missed! I can’t wait for the next one. :)

I’m also back at work. Nothing has really changed while I was gone, if there was some changes done, they didn’t affect what I was currently doing, which was cool. Everyone was glad that I was back. Of course, I had to show off some baby pictures. :) I also had my annual employee evaluation done and yay, I get a promotion! Thank God for blessings. :) Anyway, because of work, I have to drop off Dani at my mom’s office to have someone look after her for a few hours and then Luci can pick her up after he gets off work since he works 9 to 5 now. It’s a really good set-up because I only get to have someone look after Dani only on Mondays and Tuesdays and I get to watch her on Wednesday to Friday, then Luci watches her from Saturday to Sunday when I’m at work. Everything works out fine. I just have to keep up with it with my insomnia and all kicking in again.

I was a little bit worried about my hair falling out lately, sometimes in clumps. After searching through the web, I realized that it’s normal for hair loss 3 months after delivery, which is about where I am, and affects about 50% of women and is due to the hormonal changes that my body is going through. Whew! I thought I was going to go bald soon! As this article says, “remember this is a temporary situation and the good news is that as each hair falls out, a new one begins to grow. “ Yay!

My website is down again after another hacker infiltrated it. My fellow moderators and I have decided to take it down for a bit. I have also talked to my web host to totally clean out the files I had in there and recreate the account for me so we could start over. (And yes, backups were done before the clean up.) Hopefully, the site will be back up again in a few days’ time. I’m waiting on confirmation from my fellow colleagues on further steps we’re deciding on. The Geek Staff, you know who you are (check your email, please, and respond as needed), hehe.

Prayers are needed again as we are still in a bit of a financial slump. Being off work for a long time hasn’t helped that much either, even though I was still paid with some of my vacation pay. Just hoping there will be at least a big break where we can catch up to some of our bills. Ah, such is life!

That’s it for now. Good day to y’all.