So many of my titles are boring and similar, but I've never been good at short and snappy. :-)

A student loan payment for AS hit, and $85 went to principal. $2055 down, $135 to go on the April goal. That may go up soon, because my paycheck was much higher than calculated. Since I don't know exactly how much each will be, I estimate low. For instance, I calculated this last pay period as if I'd only get paid for the days I worked, even though I had some short-term disability coming, as well as some PTO to use. So I'm moving my budget around a bit and may come up with an extra principal payment to the credit card.

I also put some of it aside for the UK trip. I swear the other day I was able to find a trip for under $3300 with travel insurance, but recently I've only been able to find fares for $3390 without, so more like $3650 with insurance. Yikes! I think before I wasn't calculating AA's fare, and maybe some nice deal got snatched up in the days between searches. Because now the fares have been holding steady for a week. And yes, I've checked from different computers, not logged in to the travel sites, to make sure they aren't jacking up the price because of my browsing history. ;-)

On the upside, the tix I'm finding are ideal times, nonstop flights, and I would only be able to save less than $200 total by losing a day (either by different takeoff date or long layover). There are no redeye nonstop flights so I don't even have to consider that.

On the downside, consider this head-scratcher: A friend told me she got a United Airlines trip to Bulgaria, with layover in London/Heathrow, for $1000 per ticket. Yet when I search on United's Web site, I cannot find any nonstops to London/Heathrow. But I know they go there nonstop, because that's where my friend's layover is!

Anyhoo.

I'm overall tired but extremely happy with life today. Working two days per week has been really good, because it gets me acclimated to leaving AA with someone else. Even though I'm relieved to not be taking care of her alone 5 days a week, the maternal instinct is pretty strong and I'm a bit agitated by the end of the day, rushing home to see her! So good to get used to this before we start sending her to daycare 5 days a week. And knowing she's with NT is a comforting thought. (He's been absolutely loving his two days per week with her!) But he spoke to our daycare lady, and it sounds like she's really excited to have an infant again. So I think AA will be in loving hands when she goes there. We're probably taking her to meet the daycare lady this weekend.

My HR at work is being typically dumb. They've always said they would only use currently accumulated PTO for my parental leave. Then, they send me a calendar that uses up ALL my leave for the year! I have to request them to save me some for my fall trip, and suddenly they can't do that (even though the HR lady called me to ask my preference of using my PTO just days before). But they said I could take the pay now, and an unpaid vacation in the fall. You better believe I'm getting that in writing from the highest level before I book $3650 worth of plane fare!

Also in the same calendar, they had me coming back to work a week earlier, which scared the bejebus out of me because I'd booked our Va. trip for that week. E-mailed them and it was just an error. I'd sent them my calendar and reiterated my dates countless times!

Then, they've always promised me a schedule of paycheck amounts. Now, they say I won't be getting one. Which makes it very hard to calculate my budget for the rest of the year and see if I can afford things like the screened-in balcony or hire a lawyer/financial planner/tax professional, let alone when I can expect to pay off my credit card debt or begin contributing to charity.

In addition, I noticed on my last paycheck they STILL hadn't taken out childcare flex spending, so I checked and it's not showing up on the HR site that I opted for any, even though it was on the same form as enrolling AA in my healthcare--which they have done. I e-mailed a top guy in DC and he said he'd "get right back to me on that"--that was Wednesday morning, and no further word so far, even though I e-mailed him again today.

I'm so sick of having to hold their hands and tell them everything 50 times before it's done right. Yes, I know my situation's a bit more complicated, but they give every indication of understanding me the first time and then just don't double-check their own work, so it's riddled with errors! I guess as a proofreader it bugs me even more.

But, other than that, life is very, very good. AA pretty much sleeps through the night with one feeding halfway through, which isn't too bad really. And, she has begun to smile at us sometimes--real ones, not just in her sleep! It's unbelievably charming. She can also control her head much better and spends more time awake and calm, just looking around. In other good news, NT only has 5 more weeks of class, then he's done until the fall! That will help the level of tiredness and busy-ness in the household immensely. I feel nearly recovered from the surgery--I'm not going to start doing ab exercises or anything, but I can take walks, carry AA for long stretches, sit up in bed, twist sideways and bend over without having a setback. I only take Ibuprofen occasionally, and my last Vicodin was a week ago--and that was after a very active day, and was more of a nice-to-have than a necessity.

With things going so well, we're talking with certainty about AS trying to get pregnant next year! Two is our goal, so if all goes well, our little family should be complete by 2012! Well, unless we get a doggy someday when we move to a real house. ;-)