today we are thankful for.....

Today is Thanksgiving (I can hardly believe it, this has been such a busy and full year, it feels like it ought to be about June)! We have so much to be thankful for this year starting with the newest addition to our family, baby Sarah Elizabeth, born June 2, 2011, who is happy, healthy and growing right on track. We are also thankful for her big brother, Jackson Case who is 3 and a half and getting taller, leaner, smarter and more fun with each passing day! We are thankful for a home over our heads, two good jobs (and mommy's newest endeavor as her own boss), and we are thankful for all of our friends and family near and far that play a part in our lives each and every day! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We are especially thankful to have family to spend this Thanksgiving day with. Normally we are just together as our immediate family unit for Thanksgiving but this year Jon's entire family including Mimi, Papa, and all of his siblings and their families made the trek to Florida and we are fortunate enough to be spending the Thanksgiving week with them all on beautiful Siesta Key Florida! The weather has been about ten degrees warmer than normal this year which is a real treat since we have 5 little ones 4 and under with us! Here are a few shots from this week, more photos to come when we get home...the internet is a bit slow here so it takes a while to upload photos.

Happy Thanksgiving to all:)

Breakfast with Santa

It has been BUSY these past few weeks. Last weekend after I completed the last week with my firm and was fully moved out of my office, we had a full weekend complete with Festival of Trees, Harvest Festival for our church, and then Breakfast with Santa on Sunday morning! Jackson was very excited to see Santa and SB tolerated the whole ordeal fairly well. She did not cry, but was really not too sure what to think about the big man in the red suit. Here are some photos!

the sign

I forgot to add in my last post, that the sign that I made the right decision to leave the firm and to move forward with the health department came after I started the position and was meeting with the Director of the Environmental Control office to talk about the pending matters and while sitting in her office (and this is NO joke), I looked around at her diplomas on the wall and thought I was seeing things when I saw that she received a B.S. from none other than BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY. Seriously, I must have had a crazy look on my face or something because she turned and looked and then I asked her 'did you really go to BGSU"??!! That is just NOT a diploma I come across down here and even more peculiar is that I got my Masters in Public Health in part from BGSU! So.......whether you call it a sign, an omen, a God wink.........it was certainly SOMETHING.........what are the chances that I get a somewhat random degree from a somewhat random school and end up working thousands of miles and about a dozen states away from where the school is at and end up with the person I work with everyday in this new position having a degree from the SAME school??!! It is just too much to be a conicidence.

The other sign that I made the right decision was that the attorney that had this position before me had it for TWENTY FIVE years. She participated in the interview process and is actually the mom of one of the other associate attorneys I know in town from another firm.......it was like she was handing me a gift with this position.

Exciting announcement!

I am excited to share that after just over 6 years of practicing, I have formed my own law practice, Law Offices of Jennifer D. Peshke, P.A....website is presently being created, stay tuned for that!

I have been extremely busy and under a tremedous amount of stress over this big decision over the course of the last 6 weeks, but after much thought and deliberation, I made the very difficult decision to leave the firm where I have been for the past 5 years and step out as a solo practitioner to form my own practice. Yesterday, November 18, 2011 was my last day as an employee with the firm and I worked VERY hard over the past few weeks to do what is required of a lawyer leaving a firm. It is not as simple as just packing up your personal belongings (in this case I had an entire office which has been my home for 5 years so it took me an evening of packing to move). Besides the move itself, there are a lot of bar rules and regulations to be followed to ensure continuity and to avoid abandonment of the clients that I worked with. I also had to work with the firm to decide who was taking what clients, etc. It was also just very hard from an emotional and mental standpoint as the people I have worked with (12 employees total including me at the firm) became like a family to me and have been a large part of my life for the past 5 years......but, I had an amazing opportunity that allowed for me to have the time and ability to open my own practice and affords me to have more income, the time and flexibility I need with my young family right, and the ability to structure my practice as I want to so I felt the door was open and I had to go, (kind of like a person that is dieing being drawn to the light........no choice but to go) chances like this don't come around often in life.

So how did I get to this point??? About 5-6 weeks ago an email came across the local bar association's email to everyone in the bar that is a member and the email stated that the Environmental Control office at the health department needed and attorney for their hearing board. The position required an attorney to work in the office at the health department with the environmental control employees for a minimum of ten hours a week and consists of a variety of public health law issues. Since public health is my background as I received and MPH along with my JD, I was instantly interested. I am our Hospital District board attorney here in town so at this point I thought this would be just another board client that I could pick up and I was not even thinking this would lead to me leaving the firm. I contacted the person the position stated to contact and we spoke a bit about the position and I became even more excited as I learned that I could work the hours ANYTIME around my already existing schedule during the work week and that I would have a nice office provided to me at the health department and support staff as well as anythign else I would need to do my job. I scheduled an interview and had an interview the following week with the Director of the health department (who I knew from working with the Hospital District) and also the Director of the Environmental Control office.

The interviewed about 6 attorneys in town and about a week after the interview, I got the call and was informed that I had been selected. The only problem was, this position would require me to become an EMPLOYEE of the state of Florida Department of Health. Because it is a public position, I had to be a W2 employee, they could not retain me as their attorney and become a client of the firm. I knew that this posed a problem with my current employment situation with the firm but the compensation and the schedule with the health department was so good, I decided to accept the position adn present it to my boss after the fact for discussion.

After much back and forth with the firm, there was no good solution that they could match so I ultimately just decided to leave the firm. My Hospital District client had to vote at a public meeting to disengage my employer and to engage my new firm in order to keep me as their counsel and they did just that, with a 7-0 unanimous public vote this past Thursday night to retain the Law Offices of Jennifer D. Peshke, P.A. as their counsel! So.........I am giving the extremely abbreviated version of this story but my taking a leap of faith with all of this worked out and slowly but surely all of the cards fell in to place. The Health Dept. position combined with my existing client, the District gives me the base I need to make a decent income and also affords me the time I need to set up my own practice. I am excited to start on this venture and to reap the benefits of my own hard work and educational background for the benefit of my family! Besides my two big clients mentioned above, I've already got two client meetings set up for the week after Thanksgiving for estate planning and this is with NO advertising or website up yet. I am feeling a bit discombobulated since my office is still in boxes and I am currently searching for permanent office space to rent so I will work from home the first few months to get an idea of my cash flow and expenses before signing a lease and selecting a location. I've got my insurance in place, business cards and stationary ordered, I have had a business phone line put in, I have a P.O. Box, bank accounts for the company in accordance with the Florida Bar's rules so in a short time, this is really working out. The kids will still go to school and I am going to sit down and set a schedule of sorts for myself ( I can't operate without a schedule) but they won't have such a long day and if we have to go to the doctor, or if I want to pick them up early, I can. This is going to be SUCH a breath of fresh air for our family which is MUCH needed on many levels. THe pace of the last 4 months has almost killed me so I am looking forward to this change. Please keep us in your thoughts as we make this transition!! For everyone who has seen that commercial (it is some insurance company commercial) where they show people taking pictures of them watching the sun rise on the first day of their retirement, I think I will do the same thing, but it will be a picture of myself with the sun rising on my first business day as my own boss!

Tuesday Tuesday

Well it is Tuesday........day 4 since I started bootcamp and things are going well! Surprisingly since I have asthma, I can really run, during the fitness test yesterday at the crack of dawn (remember I am doing the 5:30 am class) we did about a half mile sprint and I came in first........but lets not talk about how WEAK my core muscles are...those same people that I whipped in the cardio run outside, make me look like a child when we do things like push ups and other crazy things like burpees and mountain climbers and wall ups.........this is the stuff that I hate and need to work on the most. I have no problem going to the gym and jumping on the treadmill to run a few miles but make me do crazy strength training exercises and you have me. That is the beauty of bootcamp though, it pushes you to workout your whole body and to do things you would not subject yourself to without a trainer and a group around you.

It is a nother busy week and a week from today, we will be over on the gulf side of the state in Siesta Key relaxing at the beach with Mimi, Papa, and the Ehrmin and Burrow families.........Jackson said "all of his people" will be there...then he said what about Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Megan........that made me sad, we hope to see them in the spring for a visit, but at least he is realizing he has one BIG family out there!! Never mind that he thinks Ohio is "up in the sky" since we have to go up in the sky on the airplane to get there. I've tried showing him a map etc. but he just does not get the concept yet. I know he will be excited to see everyone next week and so will SB! Jon and I have been in high gear these past few months with work and life and we are looking forward to some time to relax with everyone.

Happy TUesday all...off to a meeting with one of my clients.

stuff

It has been one heck of a week.........I'm actually suprised I made it through the week to even begin to talk about it. More on that later. Thankfully today was Veteran's day and I enjoyed a day off with Jon at work and the kids going to school for a shortened day and I had TIME TO MYSELF to get a few things done for like the first time in nearly 6 months. However, life is a changing in our household and for the better so hopefully VERY soon there will be more days in our little family's life like today and all of the crazy messes that I see all throughout our house (kids closets, and toy bins, etc., photos printed but not in albums etc. ) will soon be resolved too and I won't feel like we are such an utter and total DISASTER.
I started some holiday shopping today, hit the gym this morning for a good workout and also got my hair cut, colored and eyebrows waxed.......phew, I'm a new woman!! I did all of this in a matter of about 6 hours.......now that is what I call a MOM!!

Tomorrow at 8am I start the bootcamp orientation...this rivals the crazy tv workouts we see on the biggest loser and then for the next 7 weeks I will wake 4 days a week to workout at 5:30 am but I will do whatever it takes to get the last of this pesky pregnancy weight off.......consider yourself lucky if you are natrually thin, life is really not fair but then again, things that come easy ususally are not worth it. I don't think people appreciate their thinness if they don't know what it is like to be fat, or to work to be thin. I think it is more genetics than anything..........after the bootcampe I am taking SB to a baby shower with me and JOn and Jack are going to an air show........... Happy weekend all!!

the little things

Our life has been SO CRAZY and fast paced these past few months, that I sometimes take great, little things for granted....like how CUTE Sarabeth and Jackson are, or how great this baby phase is, even though I'm sleep deprived about 99% of the time!! Last night I realized at 4:45 that it was picture day for the kids at school on Tuesday. Thanks to Grandma's advanced shopping, Sarabeth has not one, but TWO pretty party dresses for Christmas so she has her outfit for picture day, but I had to scramble to find something that fit Jack. We found nice grey trouser dress pants that Mimi gave him last Christmas (they will fit for this Christmas and for picture day) and a nice gap white collared shirt, but I was in need of a sweater vest or sweater to pull his look together. I also needed dress shoes, but that is another story...I never found them so he will have to wear tennis shoes, oh well!!

So, since TJ Max was the closest store to my house selling clothes, I whisked SB into the car yesterday afternoon and off to the store we went. I popped her into the bugaboo and we whipped around the store...this stroller has amazing turning radius and is not big and bulky, very nice amidst the shopping racks!! We ended up finding a green sweater for Jack so they should each look nice and festive for the photos and then we hit the grocery store next door for a few quick items. While at the story we ran into 5 people we knew and along the way, complete strangers kept admiring Sarabeth and even the bag lady and check out lady were carrying on an entire conversation with me as we checked out about her, and talking about their own babies when they were 5 months old. It's the little things in life, I tell ya.

It is amazing how the presence of a sweet, smiling little baby can make complete strangers stop and want to talk to me, or can make older women smile knowingly at me, or pause to say how beautiful she is...........I know every mother with a small baby experiences this but we forget and sometimes don't take the time to appreciate this phase and then it is GONE! So, tell me what "little things" in your life have stopped you in your tracks lately to make you think a bit! I think my new year's resolution is going to be to try REALLY HARD not to worry so much about the big picture and just live in the moment so I don't miss out on these little, but really good things.

Sarabeth is 5 months old!!!

Phew, where DID the month of October go........it was a VERY busy one, the busiest I think we've ever had with lots of fun fall festivals and Halloween activities and with life in general. Sarabeth is now 5 months old, amazing. She can sit upright quite well with the assistance of the Bumbo seat (how did I survive without one of these for Jackson, I don't know)!! Her favorite place to sit in the Bumbo is on the counter in the bathroom looking into the mirror and at her reflection and mine while I dry my hair, brush my teeth, put on makeup, etc. as we get ready to start any given day. She also likes to sit in her Bumbo and join us at the dinner table as we eat, or she will sit alongside any activity I am doing with Jackson, like a puzzle on the floor, or playdough at the kitchen table.......I always wondered how I would get on with two kids and she is such a joy and just makes it SO EASY. She is such a joyous little presence in our lives and for the most part, is just happy and content to be along for the ride for whatever we are doing as a family. She rarely cries or protests and is a pretty decent sleeper too. The 4-5 month sleeping was not her best, we've been up more often and finally gave in to starting rice cereal at dinner time to line her little belly a bit more so we were not up every 2 hours. I went through a 2 week spell of that and it was CRAZY. It is hard to think and function as my job and life demand on barely any sleep and the cereal has helped a bit with that. She likes the cereal and will wiggle in anticipation as I stir it up and get ready to feed her. It is quite a mess though so we always follow her cereal meal with a bath. She loves her bath and kicks, smiles, and squeals the whole time. She continues to love nursing and I love the instant comfort and peace it brings to her little being. She still has her wild crazy hair from the newborn days, but some of it has fallen out and what is growing in on the sides and back seems to be quite a few shades lighter. Her eyes are big,bright and STILL BLUE. I think it is a very safe bet at this point to say we have a blue eyed girl! Sarabeth, we love you and are enjoying each day with you and love to watch you discover the world through your own little eyes. I love how you love your big brother, and how he loves you...yesterday he told us proudly at dinner that you were his "buddy". I hope you will always be buddies:)

Trick or treat and baby playdate

Another week has come and gone, and luckily, today is Saturday! We had a chilly night last night with temps in the low 50's and awoke to cool temps this am. The sun is shining though and by mid morning we were in the upper 60's approaching mid 70's for a daytime high. Not a bad fall Saturday down here! Jackson and Jon headed to our storage unit this am to reorganize it and put the Halloween gear away and start to haul out some of the Christmas stuff. We're not putting it up yet, just getting organized. The unit is still near our old house so we make the most or our trips there and back. Meanwhile, this morning, Sarabeth and I had a mommy/baby playdate with my friends Melissa and Erin and their babies Hope and Hayden. All three babies were born within 3 weeks of each other so we always have fun when we get together. We all also have 3 year olds, so our lives are very parallel right now and its easy to relate to them on so many levels. After our playdate at the park we snapped a few quick photos of the babies and then strollered across the street to the local farmer's market. I bought a small bag of kettle corn for Jack, fresh Florida orange juice from a local grove, and homemade guacamole.....yum. I will have to eat the guac fast as NEXT SATURDAY STARTS SKINNY CLAUSE BOOT CAMP. I am both scared and excited. Scared because I've done this before and I know how hard it is (and I've never done it this soon after having a baby or while still nursing, but I will manage) and also excited because I will work hard and this should get me down at least one pant size and 10-15 pounds by Christmas! Since we are not traveling this year, I figured why not do it as I want to shed the rest of my pregnancy weight asap.

Look for a 5 month post all about Sarbeth later on, she turned five months this week, which I can hardly stand, or believe!! Time goes too fast but I still enjoy her more and more each and every day.