A little bit about me... Okay, probably more than you needed to know...
Okay....basics...My name is Stef. I'm a mom and a wife, a Diabetic, and trying not to be such a mess all the time!
I spent my youth in rural New Jersey (which most people don't believe exists), on a farm, no less. When I went to college, I took almost everything I owned and moved out to the "big city" of New Brunswick. It was about as far (in terms of culture) as you could get from my tiny, one-blinking-light-in-the-center-of-it hometown. I spent the years after college scuttling around the state and ended up living or at least visiting almost every nook and cranny of it. And I loved it! But...while I had an okay job, I wasn't making much money, and my husband, who was working on finishing his PhD, wasn't either. I ended up hugely pregnant and about to give birth as he was about to defend his dissertation. But babies don't have a schedule and our baby girl was born 3 weeks early and 3 weeks before Daddy could defend! Shortly after her birth, and after his defense in September, Daddy was offered a really good paying job. The only hitch was...we'd have to move to Texas. Moving to Texas was something that we'd thought would happen, but since we'd talked about it forever and it hadn't happened yet, it sort of felt like it never would. And then all of a sudden, it was going to happen. And soon too! We had only 2 months to pack up and head out, and Daddy was expected in Houston the first week of January. We decided I would stay in New Jersey an extra month to get the house packed and ready to sell. But again, things don't always go as planned and the one big thing we were forgetting was our new baby! I did end up staying the extra month, but not without a lot of heartache and Skype calls, picture messages showing off the weather, and...not much packing or cleaning getting done. Luckily we had a moving service paid for by Daddy's new company to help us pack and ship everything out! The first week of February I headed out with my then 6-month old baby and one of my best friends in my car with the few belongings I had decided to keep with me (including diapers, our vacuum cleaner, and 2 of Daddy's favorite orchids--the others had to be given away). Poor Daddy had been sleeping on an air mattress surrounded by cat toys for a month at this point (our first baby, a tuxedo cat named Darwin, had gone with him when he drove down in January, but that's another story...) and was certainly ready for his family to join him! This was the winter of 2013-2014. Many of you will remember the crazy "polar vortexes" that kept swinging through. If you were in New Jersey, you'll remember about 10 inches of snow falling every week, then melting from temperatures that then soared into the forties or even fifties! In Texas, they experienced ice and lower-than-normal temperatures and lots of car accidents! I remember thinking that when we got to Houston, I was expecting it to be hot...but we were not so lucky! It was chilly, even freezing over night. I was seriously disappointed. But things warmed up quickly, and we started to settle in to our new apartment in our new city! We've been in Houston for almost a year now. We are still in the same apartment, but are just starting to look for houses. I want to share more of the stories to fill in the gaps above, and share what life has been like going through such a huge move: our families, the things that we have to deal with in our new jobs, how I've survived my Diabetes, newborn and growing daughter, and weight issues through all of this, and how I'm trying to clean things up so it feels like home around here instead of just an in-between dumping ground. We're doing pretty good, although there are always ups and downs! I hope that if you're in the middle of or thinking about a big move, that you can take some of my "lessons learned" experiences and maybe save yourself a headache! Read along as I share my thoughts and daily struggles at our new home in Houston! |
What we're up to these days...
In New Jersey, I worked as a high school science teacher, mostly covering Earth and Environmental Science classes for freshmen and sophomores. It was fun. The kids were a blast--everyday was different and I was getting to share my knowledge that I feel most people (a lot of adults my age) seemed to never have learned. I will tell you right now that I covered evolution, dinosaurs, and climate change. If any of those topics bother you, this isn't the blog for you...I'm both an Atheist and a graduate from Columbia University with a Master's degree in Climate and Society. Between my graduate degree and being a high school teacher, I worked a little under a year as an environmental consultant. Wasn't the worst job, but I would say it was rather depressing....so let's move on...
I'm currently a stay at home mom. I always feel like I want to write "just" a stay a home mom but every time that word almost gets written I have to stop myself because you know what?! It isn't a "just" kinda job! It's a lot of work and doesn't end at 5pm! Usually it's more like 10pm, and that's only if I'm lucky enough to have a baby who sleeps all night long (lately there's been a lot of waking up around 2 or 4 or 6 am...I'm not happy about it!). It is often a source of debate in our home about what constitutes a "full time job" and I'd like this opportunity to tell everyone (including the people in the House on Capitol Hill who voted recently that 30 hours isn't full time) that being a mom who stays at home and takes care of the house and EVERYTHING ELSE is probably the only true full time job. But I still disagree with their vote on the 30 hours thing... :)
My hubby works as a nannopaleontologist. For those of you scratching your head, let's play Break-Down-the-Word! Nanno = very very small. Paleo = very very old. Ologist = someone studying the science of something. So, to put it all together, he studies very tiny living organisms that are very old--fossilized coccolithophorids, to be exact. And, hate him if you want, he uses this talent to help oil companies find oil reservoirs by using specific fossils--a process known as relative dating through index fossils. It's a complicated subject for non-science folks, but hopefully I will talk about it more soon and it will give you a little more detail and understanding on the topic. Anyway, he does his job mostly by heading out onto rigs in the Gulf of Mexico (hence a move to Houston) and is often gone for a week at a time (or more). So I try to keep busy with my little one and get familiar with as much of this new city as I can!
I'm currently a stay at home mom. I always feel like I want to write "just" a stay a home mom but every time that word almost gets written I have to stop myself because you know what?! It isn't a "just" kinda job! It's a lot of work and doesn't end at 5pm! Usually it's more like 10pm, and that's only if I'm lucky enough to have a baby who sleeps all night long (lately there's been a lot of waking up around 2 or 4 or 6 am...I'm not happy about it!). It is often a source of debate in our home about what constitutes a "full time job" and I'd like this opportunity to tell everyone (including the people in the House on Capitol Hill who voted recently that 30 hours isn't full time) that being a mom who stays at home and takes care of the house and EVERYTHING ELSE is probably the only true full time job. But I still disagree with their vote on the 30 hours thing... :)
My hubby works as a nannopaleontologist. For those of you scratching your head, let's play Break-Down-the-Word! Nanno = very very small. Paleo = very very old. Ologist = someone studying the science of something. So, to put it all together, he studies very tiny living organisms that are very old--fossilized coccolithophorids, to be exact. And, hate him if you want, he uses this talent to help oil companies find oil reservoirs by using specific fossils--a process known as relative dating through index fossils. It's a complicated subject for non-science folks, but hopefully I will talk about it more soon and it will give you a little more detail and understanding on the topic. Anyway, he does his job mostly by heading out onto rigs in the Gulf of Mexico (hence a move to Houston) and is often gone for a week at a time (or more). So I try to keep busy with my little one and get familiar with as much of this new city as I can!