The Last Day At The Office

Yes indeed, I'm officially on maternity leave. Or sort, anyways. I'm no longer going to the downtown office. I was planning on working for longer, but it's s...l...o...w.... at the office, & really, the atmosphere is not so great, what with the slowness & the layoffs. So I'm better served to be out of there for a while. The doors are open, warmly, in the future, and I'll likely head back, pending child care & all sorts of things that I can't control.

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I am going to be doing some side work for an old boss - I think it's perfect, it's ongoing, fairly low brain functioning, and should be just enough that I avoid making myself a puddle of crazy. And there's always my plan to publish patterns, and oh yeah, the damn internal books.

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The crazy? It's not one of the crazies that look good on me. It's the "Ack, I'm not working, this can't be right, I'm not contributing, so I'm going to hyper stress on being the perfect wife & mother & housekeeper and AGHHGHGHG!" crazy. It's all internal; I know that. I also learned that while I can damp down the volume, it only really goes away when I'm "working". (I know it's work to raise children. I do. However, the crazy laughs in the face of logic & reality.) I've learned that I'm a much better me if I have a little outside work in the outside world. I'm a much much better mom when I'm a much better me. I suspect that I'm also more pleasant and balanced towards everyone in my life, so.

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And speaking of a better me, I deliberately planned to make sure that my last office day was pure awesome (to avoid slipping into dejection or mopiness). I woke up late, had a big breakfast, wore a new bra, took Am to daycare, stopped by my other favorite LYS*, dropped off some knitting, had a lovely & educational gab, then drove to my office. (I parked downtown.)

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Then I decided to really work the "show up late" angle for work, and stopped to get a princess coffee AND exchanged my defective leaky mug for a good one. Actually, I did the exchange first, then got the princess coffee in the new cup. Then I sauntered to the office. I really did. I made a point of sauntering. (I would've worked in a sashay, but my center of gravity has moved.)

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I took like a two hour lunch. I ran errands, and got another bra, because the first one was soooo very comfortable. (It might just be that I'm wearing something that isn't two sizes too small.**) Then I got Chinese for lunch, and packed up all of my office stuff, then talked one of the engineers into carrying it to my car. Normally, I pride myself on carrying my own junk, but like asking for a seat on the c-train, I've relaxed these rules because of belly.

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It was a great last day of work. Now I'm eating strawberries with the odd sneak of red wine, mulling what to pack for Anaheim, and watching my belly rock around. (I'm hoping that the wine sips will balance out the half-caf mocha.)

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*I really love you guys.

**Holy cat, I'm the Grinch Who Stole Boobmas.