Hello, My Name is Angela!

I've gotten a ton of emails asking about our "unfortunate circumstances" (sorry to those I have not replied yet)... Anyway, I had to make our blog private due to a crazy woman at work. I had been getting hits on the blog from an ip address associated with my work for about a month on days when I wasn't working. As it turns out, a woman at work who has intentionally been messing with me since we moved here from DC was reading my blog (I actually walked by her cubicle and saw our page up). So, I just wasn't comfortable leaving the blog public. Seriously, though, this woman was the one I was referring to when I blogged about intentional sabotage and credit stealing a couple of months ago. Since then things have gotten even worse with her at work. All of our management went on vacation over the holidays and put me in charge of our group. Well this woman (I'll just call her Pia) threw a complete tantrum when she found out and refused to come to work while I was in charge. This actually hurt. I have never had anyone intentionally sabotage their own career just to not have me supervising them. All of it is really strange, because there is no reason for all of her ridiculous behavior. It's not as if I boss her around or anything. I don't boss anyone around. I was appointed supervisor just to make sure that everything was handled in our manager's absence. Oh well. Everyone has been back to work for several weeks and things have cooled down. Pia is on probation, and things went swimmingly while I was supervising over the holidays (and that is even with a huge satellite failure from which we are still restoring services in Africa). My management said that I rocked it out, so I'm happy that she was not able to do any further sabotage to me by her protest.

In the real world things are going great. My girls really kick butt. Leigh (The Bean) recently gotten her report card for the first semester and she got all A+'s. She also recently took some type of assessment test which put her reading at a 5th grade level and her math skills at a 4th grade level. I think that is fantastic considering she hasn't quite made it through 2nd grade. It makes me so proud, especially considering that she is also so social. I was so different at her age. I did very well in school, but was so shy that I had only a few friends. Leigh is known throughout her school and no matter where we are in town kids from different grades call out her name to say hi. She also gets invited to birthday parties constantly (which is getting expensive, I really miss how in Virginia most parties were 'no present' parties). One party, she was the only girl invited.

Meron (SweetPea) is doing fantastic. She is so snuggly and sweet (most days) and is doing really well in pre-K. She is learning how to write her letters and is learning to pay attention during class. Her teacher is really pleased with the progress she has made since the beginning of the year. I'm really excited because she is just so smart. I mean shockingly so, sometimes. I think once she feels comfortable at school, she will excel. At the moment, I don't think her academics are quite as important as the social aspects, and I am happy we seem to have chosen a school which focuses more on that.
Just in the past two months we've made it past the button pushing stage with Meron (I mean this literally). Our electronics are now relatively safe even if we are not in the same room (we lost a couple of DVD players due to Meron's button pushing activities). Meron has even learned how to use the computer and go to a few of her favorite web pages (anything associated with Disney Channel). She absolutely loves this and I think it gives feelings of independence and accomplishment when she does it.
We had been planning to put Meron in dance classes starting this month, but have decided to wait a little while longer. She is very outgoing and talkative around our family and friends, but around others she is very shy. So shy that she really shuts down and will not participate in acitvities. We feel that she needs to gain some more confidence before sticking her in a tutu and telling her to pay attention to the stranger/dance instructor. We are going to keep working with her on these type of situations and hopefully she'll be ready for dance classes in the summer.

Doug (Money Miser D) has been working on quite a few paintings lately and has been doing a ton of work with Leigh's school. I am not sure how he keeps track of all of the school's activities and organizations, but he does. He is also constantly greeted when we are out around town. Sometimes I think people must wonder "Who is that woman with Doug and his girls?"