Sunday Post with Berls | Week of May 1st 2022

Week of May 1st 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

Sunday – Monday

Sunday I woke up super early, unable to sleep. Well like 6am, which isn’t that early, but it’s the weekend where I’m supposed to be able to sleep in! I’m glad I did though because I had a lot of work to do. I completely reworked my schedule (again! I did this at the start of April too!) and set it up in my google calendar so I got notifications throughout the day to keep me on track. And I have it setup with different versions for Work from home vs office vs weekend days. I hope I’ve predicted my needs marginally well. Then we had a playdate at 10am and Dante did so well at the park! Which has me thinking that maybe the problem we’re encountering on Saturdays is that he’s too tired in the afternoon? I don’t know. Anyway, after our play date I had grocery pickup – thankfully they just load my trunk so I can take Dante (I had 3 stops). When I got home Kiko met me to help bring everything upstairs. Phil and Zach stopped by with some leftover pastries and cheesecake (both in unopened boxes!) from a surprise gender reveal they had just attended (no one knew the couple were pregnant). Then I had our readalong chat, which was awesome as always. Then I did meal prep – I kept it simple because I’m behind this week and I’m eating a lot of leftovers. I managed to get Dante’s pajamas put away and start setting up my BUJO for May. But I actually had to stick a basket of clean clothes from LAST SUNDAY along with my clothes from this week in the closet because I just didn’t have time to put them away. I chose to go to bed over doing all that.

Monday I altered my schedule to do some catch up. Plus there was a huge LOUD thunder storm that woke me at 4:30 and when I was still awake at 5, I just got up and got to work. I finished my BUJO setup for May, did my blogging for the week, and then my work day started. Today is the start of Teacher Appreciation week too – so I had a catering order to pick up from Krispy Kreme (donut holes and coffee) and Taco Cabana (breakfast tacos) – we signed up to host breakfast for the staff today. It went smoothly and thank goodness both places have drive thru pickup since I had Dante. Then it was time to work (from home thank goodness). I had a busy, but productive day. When I was signing off around 3:30 I got a call from the Developmental Pediatrician that that they had a cancelation and I could bring Dante tomorrow! Of course, I took it and now I’m in a panic/nerves/excited – I feel like everything’s about to change and I hope for the better. Then I put away that massive pile of laundry, cleaned bathrooms (behind from the weekend), took Buffy for a walk, took a shower and grabbed Dante from daycare. We finally finished the new batman movie tonight! I liked it, Kiko was lost LOL!

Dante’s table time has also been going really well, but not in terms of words. That’s about the same – a few noises, but mostly just pointing (Which is improvement, though). But I’ve realized that he knows every single puzzle piece by name. I can tell him the name without showing it to him and he points to the spot. Or if I say “lion” he grabs the lion and gives it to me. One smart cookie! We have a big day tomorrow so off to bed!!

Tuesday

Today was so much, but mostly good. I woke up early AGAIN! Kiko was snoring and I couldn’t sleep so I was up by 5am. This has got to stop! Dante started to wake up around 6am but I saw on the cam that he had lost his elephant. I gave him his elephant and he went back to sleep. We got out the door a little behind schedule, but not too late. I just was trying to make sure I had EVERYTHING for Dante’s appointment this afternoon. At 8:30 I had a therapy appointment, which was really well timed. She helped me prepare mentally for the appointment, as well as some practical suggestions. Work went by pretty quickly since I was only there from 9:30am – 11:50am.  Then I picked up my brother (around the corner from work), picked up Dante, and we went to his appointment.

The appointment went fairly well. At first, I got nervous because she did seem like maybe she was going to disagree with my concerns or delay. But by the end, she agreed that we would do a full autism assessment. She did indicate that she’s leaning towards either very mild ASD or actually other delays – including possibly ADHD (which used to be considered ASD actually!). She actually had an appointment for next Thursday to do the eval (thanks to a cancelation). Thank goodness we can get started immediately. She also is going to write up a recommendation to increase his services that he currently is receiving from ECI, so that’s good. It’s a start.

After the appointment I took Dante back to daycare and Phil home – where we went over everything with Zach. Also, I got an email today from a connection at Sam’s Club Zach had connected me to and I have a — idk, interview? pick your brain session? — with him tomorrow at 5pm. So we spent some time prepping for that.

Then it was time to get Dante, Dinner, Table Time, clean up, etc. I’m currently behind schedule because Kiko was asking me a ton of questions being indecisive about his doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I swear, sometimes he’s more work than Dante LOL! I think he landed on going to the doctor (which I’m taking him to). Hoping I’ll get to bed on time despite all that…

Wednesday – Saturday

The remainder of the week was a whirlwind! Let me see if I can hit the highlights.

Late Tuesday Kiko ended up deciding that he didn’t want to go to the doctor, which was much better for me. So, Wednesday he had me schedule an appointment with the doctor he really wanted to see – he had been feeling sick, but felt better so wanted to cancel, but also wanted to get a doctor established. Her first available appointment isn’t until June but I think it’s a good choice because she speaks Spanish so he can go without me. He also wanted to look and see if he could find another doctor that speaks Spanish that might be available earlier. So I printed a list from insurance website for him.

Wednesday evening (5pm) I had that pick your brain session with Director for Software Engineering at Sam’s Club and it went AMAZING. We talked for over an hour. It was a casual conversation, he asked me lots of questions about my path to development, why I like it, what my goals are, etc. We even talked about teaching a bit and how much I loved it, but also how impossible it is to sustain a living. Then he gave me a chance to ask him a bunch of questions. He gave me a lot of really great advice. When I asked him what he would do if he were in my place right now, he paused for a bit and said something to the effect of “Honestly, exactly what you’re doing. You went and got yourself the marketable skills. You are leveraging your contacts – getting someone like Zach to connect you with someone like me, who has the ability to get you in the door. So, let’s see what we can do.” He told me he had a position that wasn’t posted yet, but that he was working on getting posted that he wanted me to apply for!!! My brain definitely shouted HOLY SHIT at least once. I didn’t expect that. I knew he had high level positions available but that was it (Because this one wasn’t posted yet). He told me that he remembers well what it’s like to be in my situation, where you just need someone to give you a chance, and he hopes he can give me that. Y’all…. if I land a position with Sam’s Club right out of the gate… like wow!

By 9pm, I was well and truly freaking out. I don’t have a portfolio yet. I’m not done with bootcamp. I don’t have a portfolio project in React or React Native outside of what we’ve done in bootcamp. Is this an amazing opportunity that I’m not ready for?! I messaged my last instructor and asked him what I should do. He said don’t waste my time on a portfolio site – that’s boring. Make a stupidly fun project STAT. By Thursday I had an idea and during my workday I messaged him with my idea. He said it was too complex. He basically fed me an idea – I tweaked it with the help of Phil and Zach, but my instructor was like “look, this will be an amazing interview piece and you can do it quickly.” Thursday afternoon Phil made the wireframes/mockups for me with some input from Zach and I got started coding.

Friday and Saturday I went down a rabbit hole working on the portfolio project. Thank goodness I had this week off from Bootcamp. I had to work on Friday of course. And I still took Dante to the park on Saturday. And we still did table time. But every spare moment has been on this project. I hit a wall two times where I actually messaged my instructor thinking I couldn’t figure out something and walked away from it (or went to bed). And lightbulbs came on thanks to the break and before he could offer help I had solved my own problem. As of 9:30pm Saturday I have built the web app with the exception of the parts I will learn in this next part of bootcamp. Not only am I really proud of it, but it’s a major confidence boost that I did know how to work through it and build it. So I feel like I’ll be okay when an interview happens for that position. Doesn’t mean I’ll get it, but at least I won’t feel like the opportunity was too soon. And thank goodness I got this all done before bootcamp resumes tomorrow.

Also on Thursday, Franky stopped by with Helena (his girlfriend) with a bouquet of roses and bag of candies — a surprise Mother’s Day visit! He obviously will be with his biological mom for Mother’s Day, but it was so sweet of him to make time to come by and bring the flowers. They stayed for dinner and we had a nice time chatting and Dante showed off all he’s been learning in table time.

I’m hopelessly behind for the week ahead now though. I haven’t ordered groceries yet, I haven’t meal planned, I haven’t done laundry, I haven’t blogged, I haven’t cleaned…. so for Mother’s Day looks like I’ll be working my ass off… because I’m a mom and I really can’t afford a day off lol!

Blog News

Last week on Because Reading

• [3 May] Tell Me Something Tuesday: The only one?
• [5 May] First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost ★★★★
• [7 May] #MyTBRL 2022 ~ Halfway to Halloween
• [8 May] Sunday Post with Berls | Week of May 1st 2022
• [8 May] The Sunday Post ~ How did all those books get here!!! ~ Week in READview! 2021

Challenge update

This week I finished:

I’m participating in 7 Challenges, plus the Goodreads Challenge, this year. Here’s how I’m doing.

1. COYER Seasons & COYER Community 2022 –
   1. Winter – 22 books (final count for Winter)
   2. Spring – 20 books
2. Bookish Resolutions – This was a challenge that Michelle used to do without me and she took last year off. This year we’re bringing it back together. Details on post, but basically I’m setting 5 “bookish” goals for the year: Here are my goals:
   1. Blog ahead at least 1 week. If I get posts written today, I’ll be good. We’ll see.
   2. Keep a blogging planner.  I’ve been keeping up pretty well with this actually.
   3. Visit & comment on 7 posts a week. I did some visiting earlier this week, but did not keep up at all.
   4. Reply to comments each week. Well I did earlier in the week, but yeah the end was a mess.
   5. Review books before starting a new book/on the same day – just no. LOL
3. The Backlist Reader Challenge –  22/50 books
4. 2022 Audiobook Challenge –  41/75 books
5. 2022 Library Love Challenge –  15/24 books
6. 2022 Finishing the Series Challenge – My goal is 5 series.
   • In Progress:
     1. Mine by Cynthia Eden- read book 4 this year, still need to read 5 and 6. (Currently reading #5)
     2. Amos Decker by David Bald Baldacci – read books 2-4 this year, still need to read 5-6 (#7 expected later this year)
   • Completed:
     1. The Ivy Chronicles by Sophie Jordan – read books 2 and 3 this year, finishing the series.

FitReaders (hosted by Jen @ That’s What I’m Talking About & Felicia The Geeky Blogger)

My big goal for 2022 is to lose weight every month. I’m not setting a specific number goal; I just need to make sure I’m going the right direction (down) every month. I will weigh in on the last (or first) day of each month only (so I don’t get too attached to the scale).

My goals for this week were:

1. 100 oz of water daily – Saturday only.
2. Eat prepped meals / VVFP meals – I did well, only a few meals were off plan.
3. Snacks on plan – this I strayed a bit further, but nothing disastrous.
4. No soda  – I had a soda on Friday but that’s it.
5. Exercise 3 days – Only 2 days.
6. Sleep 6.5+ hours– only Friday night so far. My sleep was shit this week.

Weight gain/loss for the year so far:

• +3.9 pounds Feb 1.
• -3.0 pounds March 1 (for the year, so total loss for Feb was 6.9 lbs!)
• -3.0  pounds April 1 (for the year, so no new loss in March, but no gain)
• -7.0 pounds April 30 (for the year, down 4 pounds in April)

Added to My Shelf

Haven’t had time to go through my new arrivals from Tantor. Other than that, no new books.

How was your week? What are you Reading?

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