Interestingly, my co. has a "Mother's Room" on each floor specifically for this purpose.

We don't even have a Lady's Room!

(Only 10 people work here. But still!)

We may move offices this summer, and I'm going to petition the operations team and the HR department for a mom's room in the new space, because it's absurd that we don't have anything like that. When they replaced all the walled conference rooms with glass ones, they must have been smoking the bad crack.

We don't even have a Lady's Room!

Neither do we. But we do have the Darth Vader bathroom....

I can't wait till we get into our new space. There's all kinds of cool rooms. Plus, a bar with a pool table!

Harkening back to the mortgage thing, Tom and I decided to take out a 5 year ARM after a lot of thought and running of the numbers.

We decided to go for it because: the rate was quite low; we have a 2/5 protection, which means that it can't raise more than 2 points per year and it caps at 5 points more than our intro rate; we have been consistantly paying $200 extra toward the principle, so that's an extra $12K off the principle by adjustment time; we should be able to ditch the PMI by then, which frees up that cash; and the liklihood is that we will both be making more money in the future (this has already proven to be the case halfway through the intro rate). My student loans should be paid off by then as well, so it should all even out.

I do sometimes beat myself up about buying into the whole "must buy a house to be a grownup" thing at the worst possible time, but then I realize that I love my house, I love my town, I love my neighbors, I love my yard and have been extremely happy here.

We had an attorney and house inspector and buyer's agent through the process- it was still terrifying and overwhelming as well as savings-draining. Ah, savings. I miss you SO MUCH!

windier than Chicago I've heard

Chicago's nickname of "The Windy City" actually was given by a New York columnist back in the late-1880s/early 1890s who was sick and tired of hearing Chicago boosters talking up the city while campaigning to get the 1892 World's Fair.

Although, we do get nasty winds--the one known as "the Hawk" usually comes in a fast-moving front from the west.

I hate open space work floorplans, and I'm not terribly thrilled with cubes, either. That's one of the perks of being a full-time employee of the Evil Empire: they try to put people in offices, and really try not to make people share offices unless they absolutely have to. I love having a door.

Someone sent me an email whose text was pretty much just "J". Given her name doesn't have a J in it--what symbol might she have been trying to send that my browser's not showing? Smiley face? Heart?

I miss my door, my window, and my easy access to good coffee and food (moved from Santa Monica to Culver City).

Smiley face, ita. I know Outlook sometimes turns smiley faces into "J"s.