Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

So, hotel living is not all it's cracked up to be. I don't think it's cracked up to be much, so that's saying something. I mean, there is the "free breakfast", but Paela hasn't thrived in an environment where routine is nearly impossible and until yesterday wasn't eating much at any meal. The cat, of course, thinks our "new home" is much too small and needs more things to see. And we wish we didn't have to eat out for so many meals. Ah well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, as the saying goes.

We are glad to have Camilla and Victor in the area to give us a break from hotel living and all that goes with that. Paela loves to see "be-be" Cameron, and tries to offer him books and toys. I don't think she's caught on that newborns don't have the grabbing thing figured out yet. Yesterday we went for a lovely walk by the pond near their place. The weather was excellent and Paela loved seeing the ducks and dogs and other "be-be"s that walked past.

Wayne and Paela spent most of their time apartment hunting during the day, and when Paela went to sleep for the night Wayne and I would line up more places for them to visit the next day. They probably saw 20-25 places in the course of a week. Thankfully, they got to borrow Camilla and Victor's GPS unit. (After getting lost trying to find the first three....) Most of the places they saw were either dumpy, not deleaded, not available for move-in until June, or all of the above. Wayne took me along after work to see exactly four places. We quickly eliminated the major apartment complexes because we're tired of living in such big places [and they almost double their rent after the first year]. Finally we narrowed it down to a really cute little duplex in Arlington, or a not-so-cute duplex in Bedford. We're going with the Bedford place. Hopefully we can make it look cuter with our stuff in it! It is cheaper and closer to work (about a mile and a half). And we can move in Saturday instead of waiting until June. Those are the three main reasons. Being sick of the hotel after only a week definitely played a role in that decision!

Wayne and Paela took only a couple of short breaks this week. One to check out the mall play area (too rainy for outdoor play), and another to take Star to the vet. Obviously the first break was more enjoyable. Paela wanted to go down the slide again and again and again. And she did.

Late in the week we decided Star's paw was just not healing like we expected, and took her to the vet for testing. The paw with our care had at least been looking better...not so raw...but it had leveled off and was no longer improving. The vet did some (pricey) tests and determined it was a bacterial and yeast infection. Now with medicine in hand, we're hoping Star improves quickly and can move on to watching the window for birds. 

And I kept "busy" at work. The first week of work is always slow, though this particular first week was slower still with my boss sick for all but Monday. I did find people to chat with about their projects, and set up most things with HR and other various errands, but by Friday I was trying to get creative in anticipating what things I might need to set up on my computer eventually. Hopefully soon I'll have my own projects to keep me busy. There are (amazingly) still a few more HR things to finish setting up (like a phone...), but eventually all the details will be ironed out.

Here's to the last week in a hotel. May Wayne find time to focus on writing up his thesis, may Paela find interesting things to play with, may Star heal quickly, and may I find a phone for my desk.