Busy, busy, bees

Last Monday was Jillian's first birthday. I can't believe it's been a year with as quickly as she has grown and changed in so many ways. For her birthday, Garrett bought her a little John Deere handheld tractor that plays a couple of sounds. She opened that along with a few other gifts we received in the mail. She loved everything! We are still working through reading all of her new books. Sadly, after she ate dinner and opened gifts, she was not feeling well due to side effects from her antibiotic for her ear infection so we postponed the cake until Tuesday night. She enjoyed it and was completely wound with energy for a over an hour. Then she crashed with exhaustion.

The business my Bio department has right now has slowed quite a bit over the past couple of months. I've stayed busy with a couple projects but a number of others have struggled, working on random tasks like repainting mass spec shelving and doing other odd jobs to stay busy. Last week I was informed that myself along with two other coworkers have been selected to work full time for at least a month, probably longer, for the Pharm Analysis group in our company starting November 1. They signed a big contract for a project that requires more staff than what they currently have. They have a separate lab and do things very differently than what I do in my Bio department. I was a little nervous about this change. Then, my perspective became a bit more enthusiastic after Monday afternoon. Three people were let go from the Bio group. It's always hard to see that happen and again, I am very thankful to still have my job. Today I have started training for this new challenge. They are offering weekend work with compensation that I am tempted to go for. After talking with some people this morning, it looks like I will be doing this work through at least the end of the calendar year. It will be a big change and feel fortunate they have chosen me to help.

Jillian had tubes put in her ears yesterday morning. By the end of the day she was back to her normal energetic, happy self and slept relatively well last night. I sure hope they help keep her ears clear. We really don't like that she's been on antibiotics almost constantly since July. She has six teeth now, working on the seventh. Her bottom four incisors have broken through and the outside two incisors (not K9s) on the top. She looks a bit like a vampire. For the past week I could see one of her top front incisors trying to break through and it's taking a while and I believe causing her a good bit of discomfort. All the rest have come in without much complaint. She's on whole milk now and doing very well with it. She's also eating up a storm. I didn't grab the cable to connect my phone or camera to the the computer so I'll try to get that done soon and share more photos.

Take care.