Finally Working from Home

So one of Emerson’s little friends in her class gets regular therapy. The therapist does is in the classroom, and Emerson has really grown to like her a lot too. She came by today for the first time in a while, and Emmie was excited to see her. She was asking me questions about where the lady’s sister was and her “big girl friend” (whatever that means?), but she couldn’t focus on taking a picture until she came over and gave her a hug. It was really sweet!

And you guys, I’m finally teleworking!!! This is Jeff’s eighth week at home, and I’m just now starting today. It took forever for my State Department to order and receive and set up new laptops, but I got it late yesterday afternoon, so I got all set up and started at home this morning.

It’s tricky trying to adjust to one small tablet-style laptop (it really is a large tablet, with a touchscreen), when I’m used to my desktop with three giant monitors as well. Calculator below included for scale… I was also issued a State cell phone – a FLIP phone – so I could forward my desk phone to the cell phone, and wow that thing is a dinosaur.

On my  mid-morning 15-minute break, I took a few minutes to throw a pork loin in the crock-pot, cut some rosemary from the bush in the front yard, and dice up an onion, then season it all for dinner tonight. Oh and then I also chopped up the rest of the red potatoes from my produce box, and stuffed those all around the pork.

Jeff had been working at the dining table for the last couple of months, but he moved his work set-up to the front room today, so that I could work at the table and spread out with all my paperwork and such. So we’re not working right next to each other, which is probably good anyways. We had planned to take our lunch break together, but when I stopped working to eat at noon, he was in the middle of something and couldn’t stop. So I ate and watched an episode of “New Girl” and then read my book for a while, with the windows & screen door open. So nice!

For my afternoon break, I sat out on the front porch and shucked fresh corn cobs (from my box of farm-fresh produce) for our dinner tonight. What a life! Hahaha

Emmie had a good day at school today, with all her little boys! (She’s literally the only girl in her class still coming to school these days, with like 3-5 boys every day.)

My first day of teleworking actually went pretty good, and I enjoyed getting to do things and just be home during my breaks. I hopped in the car at exactly 5pm to go get my girl, and after getting back home, I put the corn in the oven, and then did some baking! It had been a while since I baked anything, so tonight I whipped up another batch of banana muffins, and added some of the blueberries we picked a few weeks ago. (I froze about half of them, so they’ve lasted well since then.)

I was feeling proud of myself, and feeling fancy, so I “plated” the pork-loin and potatoes in a platter, instead of just serving straight from the Crock-pot. Now, it may not be very pretty aesthetically, but it tasted great! (I found a few of those mini cobs in the freezer, so I threw those in with the fresh cobs too, because Jeff is obsessed with corn.)

And apparently, Emerson might be obsessed with corn like her Daddy!

And ooooooh-weee these muffins came out perfect! So soft and sweet and delicious!

My friend Abby texted me videos today of her daughter Caroline (who is 4 years old and one of Emmie’s church friends) going pee on the potty, with her encouraging Emerson to go too. We were hoping it would help motivate her to go at home. And even though she loved the video (we watched it probably 15 times), she still didn’t pee on the potty.

She even told me in the middle of bath time that she wanted to sit on her Minnie potty (the insert we put on the big toilet), so I partially dried her off and sat her down, but she still didn’t do anything…

After bath time, she asked to go back out in the tent again (her and Daddy had been playing out there for a while before dinner), so I told her we could read her bedtime books in the tent, and then head back inside for lullabies and prayers. She was very into this Star Wars book tonight, and was asking questions about the princess and her mask and Chewie and the robots.

I got the dishes washed up after getting her laid down, and had a couple of muffins for dessert while they were still warm. So yummy! Time to hang out and rest now…