Day 353: Sick Mama

It seems that the cold has finally made its way around to me because I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a fever. Whenever Tom and LB get sick, I always try to psych myself up to believe that I will not catch their illness, that my mind will triumph over matter and I will remain well. Sometimes this little pep talk works, sometimes it doesn't.

I was probably also more vulnerable this week because I've been feeling stressed about the job market. First, I didn't realize how long each job application would take. Every college seems to want something different, and so I find most of my writing energy is being sucked up by applications. This is not good for someone trying to finish her dissertation. Second, as many of you may know, California is a fiscal disaster at the moment, and on Monday, Gov. Brown announced his proposed budget, which would cut an astronomical $1.4 billion from CA's university and community college systems, including $500 million from the University of California system alone. While this won't affect my ability to finish my Ph.D., it can have some devastating effects on the job market, especially for someone who wouldn't mind staying in California. I worry that there may not be any jobs next year or the year after that . . .

But as Tom, ever the voice of reason, has been reminding me, I just gotta keep "chuggin'" along. It doesn't help anyone if I sit around speculating on what will happen next year. So I psyched myself up this morning, dropped LB off at daycare, went in for my office hours, and spent the afternoon working on job applications and lesson plans at the coffee shop.

LB seems to be on the mend and had a good time at daycare. In the little preschool room of the daycare, the big kids were working on the letter "A." Chrissy said that LB seemed very interested in what they were doing, so she gave her a worksheet to fill in and let her make an acorn. Now we have some lovely new refrigerator art.
LB also graduated into a bigger pair of pajamas. She seems to have outgrown her blue, goldfish onesie. Actually, "outgrown" isn't the right word, maybe "outsmarted." Whenever she wears it now, we find her in the morning with it completely unsnapped, and those little chubbah thighs bare to the world. It is too chilly for a baby in unsnapped jammies. So here she is in her new big girl jammies . . .