Menu Planning: Week 1

I have made it a goal to plan out our meals on a weekly basis, so I don't get frustrated when the day starts drawing to a close and I STILL haven't decided what's for dinner, and so we're not tempted to just go out to eat. Last night, I came up with a tentative dinner plan for the week:

Monday:

Chicken Piccata served over pasta
Salad

Tuesday:

Black Bean Soup (new recipe!)
Corn
Watermelon

Wednesday:

Chicken Teriyaki
Stir-fried vegetables
Rice

Thursday:

Tacos with meat, rice, vegetables, beans, etc.

Friday:

Alfredo
Salad
Bread


Of course, I might make a few modifications. We just finished dinner, and it was really nice not stressing about it all day because I already knew what we were having! I'm optimistic that this will work out for us :)

So, what do I do?

I don't know how many of you are curious about what I do at work, but I'll tell you anyway.

My job title is "Marketing Assistant". One of the main things I do is look for blogs and other websites to put a banner ad on, contact the website/blog owner to see if they are interested in having our ad on their site, and go from there. Essentially, I get paid to surf the web, which is a pretty sweet deal. But I make sure to only do work-related web surfing. I waited a long time to get this job; I don't want to lose it over personal web surfing! But it's not like my web surfing is boring. That couldn't be further from the truth; it's a lot of fun.

One of our main advertising targets are food storage and emergency preparedness blogs. There are only so many of those that we can generate a lot of traffic from, so I've been branching out in my blog/website search. I don't know how much information I can share because I signed a non-disclosure agreement and I don't know how many of you are going to start rival food storage/emergency preparedness companies ;)

I do other "administrative" duties, if you will. My department is pretty new, so we are working on getting things organized. And because I have a background in writing/editing, I am often called on to edit things, whether it be articles to go into magazines, letters, website articles, etc. I have also done a little copywriting.

So, that's what I do and I really enjoy it. It's not a lot of pay, but it doesn't matter that much to me. I'd rather do a job I love and get paid less than work at a job I HATE and get paid more.

Adjusting

Yet again, I haven't updated much. Oh well.

Work is good, although I'm still trying to adjust to it. I know, it's pathetic, because I only work five hours a day when there are people who work a lot more than that. Then again, I was working zero hours before, so I guess anything is an adjustment at this point. I also don't really see much of Stephan during the day because he leaves for work before I do and then he goes to class about fifteen minutes after I get home from work. So instead of blogging, I actually try to spend evenings with him when he doesn't have a huge program to do.

There's also trying to keep a house clean. Yeah, that's become quite the challenge. I can't spend as much time on housework as I did before, so now I have to do it in smaller pieces. Like, putting in a load of laundry right before I head out to work; procrastinating the bigger chores until the weekend; doing some chores before going to bed; and of course, delegating more chores to Stephan. He's been very helpful around the house lately, for which I am truly grateful. He did help around before I got this job, but he's been even more helpful now. It makes life easier for everyone involved.

Then there's cooking. I'm loathe to admit that we have been eating out more than we usually do and buying more convenience foods. I am making sure that this is temporary, especially since I do work for a company that promotes provident living :)

So....I guess that's all for now. This has been a boring post. I promise more interesting ones in the future.

Introducing...

My current guilty pleasure:

This blog

For those who already frequent this site, you're probably thinking, "You've just found it now?"

I've actually been visiting it for a few weeks. I just happened upon it in my blog-stalking (don't tell me you don't do it too).

For those who haven't visited it before...

Don't take it seriously.

Who are you?

I have to say, I have been enjoying my little live traffic feed. It's interesting to see where my visitors come from.

However, I'm interested in knowing who exactly reads this. Now, I'm not too worried about stalkers because I know you can't find this blog in a search engine and I don't share that much information anyway.

So, if you could post a comment telling me who you are, even if you are just casually stopping by, please do! I like knowing who my visitors are.

And apologies for the lack of updates as of late. I just started my new job last Friday and I'm adjusting to the new schedule that comes with it. So far, I'm really enjoying it. More details to follow when my energy levels are more stable.

The girl who defied all odds Part 1

This is something I don't talk about very often for various reasons, the main one being that I don't want to present myself as some sort of martyr and have people feel sorry for me. But I have been trying to reconcile this for a long time, and feel that writing about it will help me accomplish this.

I have mentioned a few times here that I didn't learn to talk until I was 3 1/2 years old. This is the story behind it.

My parents thought I would be an early talker because I said my first words as a seven month old baby: "Ba ba da da" (translation: Bye bye dada).

As the years wore on, I was developing every way a normal child should, except at age three, I still wasn't talking. Since at that time, the experts said that if a child wasn't talking by that age, it was time to seek medical attention. Thus began the series of specialists and medical tests. Not to mention I had my first eye surgery around this time too (I was cross-eyed).

Some specialists didn't even take a good look at me before (incorrectly) diagnosing me with autism. Others performed silly tests on me (giving me blocks and then pretty much taking them away from me, for example). There were also those who would snatch me out of my mom's lap for examination. Since I pretty much thought that they were kidnapping me, I gave them hell, for lack of a better term.

I got a series of bizarre diagnoses, that I was an emotionally disturbed child (with autism) who would never lead a normal life and would be institutionalized by the time I was a teenager. Of course, my parents didn't believe them, despite being told they were in denial. They continued on.

Then there were the tests I went through in order to qualify for Katy ISD's Special Education services. One of them was a verbal IQ test. Needless to say, I bombed it because duh, I couldn't talk. There were also ones that the speech therapist and Special Ed teacher at my zoned elementary school did. They both said that I was doing everything normally, except talking.

As an act of desperation, my mom took me to my pediatrician: Dr. Fotouh. I personally think this should have been the first stop in all of this, but I digress. My mom told her to pretend that she didn't know us, and that she (my mom) had brought in this little girl who wasn't talking. Dr. Fotouh consented, and performed a physical exam on me.

I believe that during this exam, a hearing test was performed, and I wasn't doing well on it. Gasp! I couldn't hear! She took a look inside my ears and found the worst ear infection she had ever seen in her entire career. The diagnosis: multiple ear infections.

Further hearing exams confirmed an 80% hearing loss in one ear and 50% in the other.

Now, why hadn't there been any kind of complaint from me of ear infections? Surely I must have been in pain! I had had these infections for so long that I was basically used to living in pain.

After the diagnosis, I was pumped full of antibiotics. Now the natural living folks might cringe at this because most ear infections are viral and do not need antibiotics. I had multiple ear infections, which are bacterial, thus necessitating the antibiotics.

My hearing improved as the antibiotics started working, and I started talking to a limited degree.

When most kids went to preschool, I went to Early Childhood. What's Early Childhood, you say? Preschool for special needs children. In other words, I was in Special Ed. Yes, you read right. And I did ride one of those little school buses that the Special Ed kids rode. I also started what would be several years of speech therapy, to help me catch up with my peers if you will.

I would later become a poster child for Katy ISD's special education program. I was the first child with verbal IQ test scores as low as mine to start mainstream Kindergarten ON TIME. A later verbal IQ test would show that I had an "above average" IQ. So yes, I defied many odds.

Of course, how I was treated throughout my time in Katy ISD, is another story, and this post is already long enough as it is.

I should conclude by saying that the experts have reduced the requirements for "talking" age to two. They changed it while I was going through the testing procedures at age three.


To be continued....

No more Miss Nice Girl (or Missus...)

I've always been the "nice" one, letting the self-centered, mean people have their way, pretending I don't care and that I'm happy being ignored.

I'm tired of it, because the nice people put up with a lot of garbage. For once in my life, I want people to listen to me instead of me putting up with everyone else's crap. I want my voice heard. But maybe the fact I was speech-delayed makes people forget that yes, I can talk. And I do have opinions. Pretty strong ones too. But I know my opinion is not the only one.

I'm not asking to be the center of attention, all I want is to have a voice in SOMETHING. I want to feel included.

No more Nice Laura.

Yes, you better watch out.


The end.

P.S. Stephan always listens to me and lets my voice be heard. He's one of the very very few, close to me anyway. Even out of family, he's one of the few who really understands me and acknowledges my feelings.