The baby has been squirming and wiggling and seeming to want to bust out through my belly. That method of egress has pro and cons. Sorry to put that image in your head but it's my every day reality right now... Part of the waiting that is funny is that I feel like every time we go grocery shopping we're "stocking up" for the big event - like Hurricane Glenda is about to hit us (and no that's not the baby's name...you can cross that one off your top 5 list). But then another week goes by and it's time to go grocery shopping again and I think "ok, what are we REALLY going to want or need when the baby arrives..." I've forgotten things that were even on my list for the past 3 weeks now and hopefully tomorrow will be a different story.
It is my theory that our very considerate daughter was waiting for my grant application to be done (signed, sealed and delivered) before arriving. The grant was finished today but not before the following also happened:
1. Co-worker calls and says we finally heard back with answers from the EPA. (we've been waiting over a week for these answers)
2. Great! I'll swing by work after having a lovely lunch with my husband. (spicy thai food to get the baby moving?!)
3. As we go to download things from the internet and our common files...the financial software update for the gift shop/ticketing causes our server to shut down. Awesome. No printing, access to files, internet or email. No one knows when things will be up and running again. But we only have 15 minutes of work left on this bad boy of a federal maze! Honestly. The timing.
4. Ok, plan B. I'll go home - fill out the forms on-line and then when I'm done print them and run back to work.
5. Forms filled out. Emailed to myself and a few others. But our printer is saying "Your new printer cartridge (the yellow one) that you just bought and installed is faulty and I'm not going to let you print even in black and white until you meet my very high maintenance ink needs"...ai. It's cool. I have a bunch of errands to run.
6. I finish my errands while waiting for a call from work to say that everything is right with the technology gods. While in the process I discover a car wash close to our house that will vacuum out your car, wipe every surface and lovingly clean all parts of the outside for about $20. That sounds like heaven. Sign me up. Maybe things are starting to go my way.
7. Back at work and after a bit of technological tweeking to get my documents to work on a co-workers computer (mine of course has already been taken apart for someone else to use this summer)...and some signing, scanning and assembly of digital and (4) paper copies it is finally done!
When I go back to work at the end of the summer - we'll have $135,000 to our name to build a new exhibit about aquatic invasive species. (I know... very sexy...) Halle-freakin-lujah! Thank you EPA and President Obama for helping little ol' GLA teach peeps about the Great Lakes. And thank you to all those who asked again and again over the past 6 months about how this project was going. I appreciate the support.
If anyone ever is writing a federal grant and needs a support group. I'll bring the snacks.
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