Kidproofing: Floors

We had a great weekend over here. It consisted of visits with good friends, Olive Garden, froyo, church, lounging, and our first step in Kidproofing:

We even moved furniture to shampoo our carpets! 2+ years, 3 roommates, 4 dogs (not all mine!), and a cat since the last cleaning... yuck. I hope we don't have to stay at this place much longer, but the thought of Carter learning to crawl on disgusting carpets made me purchase a Hoover SteamVac.  We purchased it for about $150 (free shipping) from Walmart.com.  I'm not sure how much those RugDoctor thingy-ma-bobs cost to rent, but I figured in the long run it would be good for spot cleaning, rugs, upholstery, etc.  I actually put the thing together so obviously it wasn't very difficult to assemble.  The water tank didn't need to be emptied very frequently which is a plus, and the carpets only took a few hours to dry. While I don't see a huge difference in the appearance of the carpet, the dirty water tank was absolutely filthy.  

I feel better now.  And all of our furniture is back in place now, thank goodness. And since I like to keep it real, I will admit that my husband did all the work while I did this amidst the mess:

I hope everyone had a great weekend and that you are all lounging around instead of being at work right now.  As for me, I am participating in Fantasy Football for the first time this week (Team HoneyBooBoo for the win!) - wish me luck!

Nursery Peek

39 Weeks, 4 days... 3 days until the due date!

The Perils of Maternity Leave

I never understood how controversial maternity leave can be until I was faced with asking for it.  I've been at the same employer in the financial industry for 5 years and can probably count on my two hands the number of sick days I have taken.  I consider that pretty good given that some of my coworkers call in "sick" when they see a snow flurry.  Even when I had weeks of paid sick days saved up, I've always been one of those people who would feel guilty for getting sick and came into the office anyways.  

The time came recently for me to ask my boss for maternity leave.  Given that I am moving a few hours away to be with my fiance, I highly doubt I will return to this particular job.  At least not for a while.  My benefits allow for 6 weeks of maternity leave during "pregnancy and childbirth".  Since I'm still a full-time graduate student and my due date is literally in the middle of finals week, I figured I would ask for the entire 6 weeks, so that I could get the end of the semester off to focus on school, just to be safe.  My contract ends at that point, so since I won't be able to use the leave after the baby is born, I figured I'd use it beforehand.

My boss was not pleased.

In fact, she was very displeased.

As I expected, she proceeded to explain to me that she worked up until a day or two before her due date ("I worked on Friday and had the baby Monday.  And that's in addition to driving two hours a day to work.").  Well I'm sorry, superlady, but I've decided that I'm entitled to this leave and I'm going to use it.  Of course, I kept that part inside and calmly explained that I was still a full-time student and needed to focus on graduation given that only two of three teachers were willing to work with me if I needed to postpone assignments, finals, etc. due to my pregnancy.  Working 20 hours a week in addition to school, baby classes, and appointments would be a lot to continue juggling.

Long story short, after much awkwardness and guilttripping, she said that she would "support" me in what I wanted to do.  Yet I still feel bad.  What is it about using your maternity leave that makes others look at you like a failure?  Oh well, I'm taking it and I'm going to enjoy having a bit of downtime before the baby comes, because Lord knows I have a ton of nesting to do... and I need to finish this...

The "pretty corner" of our nursery that is currently 102 miles away at my fiance's place

Anyone else had similar experiences with maternity leave arrangements?  

Declutter & Organize in 2012

One of my favorite things to do around the house is declutter and organize.  Is that weird?  I'm not always the best at it (and may or may not still have several clothing items from high school), but when I'm in the mood, it makes me feel refreshed to see the "trash" and "donate" piles grow.  Something I stumbled upon within the past month was this 2012 Declutter and Organize Calendar from My Simpler Life.  I haven't followed it day-by-day, but it is helpful when I am a productive mood.  For example, the task for January 18th was "Get rid of expired medications." I thought this wouldn't be much of an issue until I went through my cabinet - it went packed-from full to this:

Let's just say I had medications that expired in 2008.  

Anyways, I wanted to share this calendar in case anyone had a New Year's Resolution to get more organized or to clean up their home.  Or just wanted to satisfy their inner clean freak.  Good luck!