Sunday Post with Berls | Week of June 5th 2022

Week of June 5th 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kim @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

News at Home

Another crazy busy week! But I do think that things are going to be less insane moving forward, at least for a little bit. For one, Kiko will finally be home again starting tomorrow (Monday). His family is super religious catholic, so he’s been with them all week praying a Novino for his nephew’s soul. I know he’s ready to be done and I’m really ready to not feel like a single mom.

Sunday my new desk arrived – I treated myself to a standing desk, since I’m working almost exclusively from home now. I spent 3 hours Monday after work putting it together LOL. But it was worth it! It’s lovely and I’m already enjoying being able to easily switch to standing.

This was my last week in my job at the hospital and it was bittersweet. I can honestly say this is the best boss I’ve ever had and one of the greatest set of coworkers ever. So it wasn’t easy to leave. On Tuesday when I got to work there was a banner hanging over my desk with these sayings (it’s alternating sweet and funny I think):

• Quitter (I mean Congratulations)
• A Truly Great CoWorker is hard to fine, difficult to part with and impossible to forget
• I Guess you weren’t 2 legit to quit
• You’ll be greatly missed
• Clearly you were only thinking of yourself when you made this decision
• Work made us colleagues; conversations made us family
• Good luck finding awesome coworkers better than us!
• There are friends, there is family, and then there are friends that become family
• Wishing you Joy & happiness on your new journey
• Goodbye and Goodluck
• I’m going to really miss texting you from a few feet away
• Wherever your path takes you, we wish you success!

It made me laugh, which was nice since part of me really wanted to cry. They took me out for lunch as a goodbye and also to celebrate my birthday (both were Thursday, but schedules didn’t match up for Thursday). They also gifted me with a $50 gift card, a really nice basket, glass tuperware for my meal prep, reusable plastic bags, a meal prep scale and a meal prep mandolin. Do they know me well or what?!

I worked like a mad woman Monday – Thursday to cross off all the things I wanted to have done before I left and I felt really good about where I left things Thursday. It’s tricky because I’m the only person with my exact job in the whole building (others have my title, but they don’t do anything like what I do). Not that I’m irreplaceable – we are all replaceable! – but it means that transferring my duties meant figuring out who could do my work until a replacement was hired and then training them to do it because they didn’t know how. And my job duties don’t QUITE align with what my job title was, so hiring a replacement will be tricky. She won’t get the right candidates, I’m afraid. So I was extra vigilant to leave them in a good place.

On Thursday my boss – who is always TRIPLE booked – blocked 2 hours on her calendar to take me out to lunch, just the two of us. She had her admin canceling and declining appointments left and right because this was my last day and after 2 years working closely together she wanted to make sure we had that time. We had sushi (yum!) and we both cried a little. After lunch I had a few more things to wrap up. I left about 245 to turn in my key and badge and that was it. I worked at UT Southwestern for 2 years 7 months and under that boss for a full 2 years. Definitely bittersweet.

After work on Thursday I actually had a zoom call witih my new boss. I’ve been a bit nervous because I just don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into, even if it feels like a good move. He reached out Wednesday to schedule a call, which was reassuring. And then the call was SUPER reassuring. He asked me if I would mind coming in to the office on Monday, since it would be a good opporutnity for me to meet some of the team and to get acclimated. I agreed readily, but I do LOVE that he asked since technically I took a job that is remote all but 2 days per month (and Monday is not one of those days). He let me know that I’m one of 4 Jrs starting on his team this month (2 are interns), which makes me feel great — I’m not the only newbie. It also makes me nervous because I feel like I need to be as good as the other 3 (or better). Yes, I’m competitive lol! He told me that my only job for the next 3 – 4 weeks is to be a sponge. Be curious, ask lots of questions. I shouldn’t feel bad that I’m not pushing code. So yeah, that made me feel better too. I can be a sponge. And also, I’m feeling great about him as a boss — he’s making sure I’m ready for Monday, setting clear (reasonable) expectations, and just really reassuring. Still nervous, but I feel better.

Two funny things:

One – I asked him about dress code for Monday and he told me “good question. Don’t wear pajamas.” LOL!! I asked, “has that been a problem.” He laughed and said, “I’d call our dress code business vacation. Basically stay away from pajamas, shorts, tight leggings, and flip flops. Otherwise you’re good.” So yeah, jeans and a t-shirt is A-Ok! Wow, that’s a shift. What am I going to do with all my work clothes?!

Two – If you know me, you know I HATE Apple products. It’s both (1) the company – I find them pretentious and unnecessairly expensive & uncooperative, (2) the product – I think they prioritize asethic over user experience and as a proficient Windows user their product is actually much harder for me to use, and (3) I cannot STAND the propaganda they have so effectively sold masses on that the product is in some way safer (I’ve been exclusively Windows until December 2021 and never had a single problem that Apple claims to superiorly protect people from, so I call BS). So that background is just to set the stage. My brother, Zach, and I have been speculating on whether Walmart would provide me with a Windows or an Apple laptop. I’ve been hoping for Windows (I am capable of working on both of course – my bootcamp I completed on a MacBook). Phil thought maybe Windows because Developers really don’t do artsy stuff and thus could work fine on Windows and Zach is such an Apple fan boy that he can’t understand why they would send me anything else. Well Thursday talking to Ryan (new boss) I finally got the answer. “You should get your laptop Friday. They’re going to send you a shitty Dell. Not even a good laptop when your job is literally Tech! So bring it with you Monday and we’ll get it switched out for a MacBook.” Y’all I was so close to having a Windows machine!! LOL! That said, I did get my laptop and yeah, it is a shitty Dell. Not all laptops are made equal and this one is defnitely inferior (I hate Dell in general honestly). So ugh, I guess I’ll be on a Mac.

Thursday evening I came home to roses from Kiko and Dante and also Kiko got me a new desk chair! I’m all set for the new job!!

Friday I took off — partly for my birthday (thursday 9th), partly to refresh before starting new job, and partly because Dante had his ABA evaluation in the morning. I took Dante to the ABA center we’ve selected at 9am for his evaluation and it went really well. I could tell he felt comfortable there and with them, which was nice. They are going to recommend he get 30 hours of ABA therapy with them to insurance – which they will file with our new insurance company next week (I should have the info Monday or Tuesday). They let me know they only had one concern in regards to insurance. Apparently the Developmental Pediatrican’s office did not use the preferred assessment to diagnose Dante. Some insurance companies won’t accept the assessment they used. However, they said that the fact it was administered by a Developmental Pediatrican, rather than a Neurologist, a ECI Center, a School, etc. will be in our favor because that is the preferred referal source. And they said that the fact we’re switching from BlueCross BlueShield to Atena is a good thing in this regard. Atena is typically easier to work with and faster. That said, even if things go well, we’re probably looking at another 4-6 weeks before insurance approves everything. Man this is not a small process is it?

Anyway, after that I dropped Dante at daycare and then my friend Melissa picked me up. We had made plans to spend the day together. She took me to Sundown at Granada – quickly becoming one of my favorite spots because they have $6 Old Fashioneds starting at 11am and their food is yummy too. The staff is great and it’s a really relaxed environment. We were there from 12 – 3:30 – my brother took an Uber/Lyft over and joined us when I was like 4 Old Fashioneds in 🙂 and he brought pie (my favorite dessert). Then we went to do an escape room and my friend Stacy met us there. We technically did not make it out. HOWEVER one of the pieces was not working correctly and they had to manually override it when they realized we had solved it and it just didnt’ open like it was supposed to AND they gave us an inaccurate piece of information. Had both those parts been fixed, we would have made it because we almost made it anyway with those mistakes. And it was fun regardless.

Friday evening we watched The Lost City on Paramount Plus (hilarious!) and then Franky stopped by with his girlfriend Helena. They came pretty late (9:30) but it was really nice to see them. They brought cupcakes and a golden snitch book light for my birthday. So sweet. We got to bed super late though and I woke up tired Saturday. I had an eye appointment at noon (gotta use up those benefits before they expire at the end of the month!) so I can order more contacts. And then Kiko was on call and getting tons of calls so I rushed home. Dante and I went to the pool and had a great time. He didn’t nap though… which combined with his going to bed late last night, resulted in a grumpy boy around 6pm. He was hungry too (despite eating like ALL DAY) so he was tired an hangry. not a good combo. Got to bed on time tonight and hoping he’ll be in a good mood come morning.

Wow, what a week! I’m exhausted writing it all out – -hopefully I’ll get back to writing nightly this week!

Blog News

My HOPE is that I’ll be back to blogging this week. Between bootcamp being over and the stress of wrapping up the old job behind me, I think things will be better this week. BUT I am also starting a new job, so we’ll see how things go. My goal is to get posts written for the week today but I have lots to catch up on, so we shall see.

I’ll try to have a real blog update next week with challenge update, FitReaders, etc.

How was your week? What are you Reading?

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