January Update

There hasn't been much to share so I haven't posted anything much as of late. I was on reserve duty the first two weeks of January.

We visited with my Mom last weekend. For those wondering about her status, she is doing about the same. Her speech isn't entirely clear. And, she still has limited use of her right hand. But, she can move about independently. So, for that, we are grateful. I'm thankful that my Aunt and cousins who live nearby to her have been able to keep an eye on her and assist her as needed as I have not been able to be there as much due to the distance we live away from her and due to work.

I spent the majority of last week in Marietta again for business. I won't bore you with the details but it was one of those trips where my hotel accomodations were frustrating. I had one problem after another with my room and got very little sleep. The work days were long too. I was exhausted by the time I got back home late Thursday night.

So, after three full weeks of not being at my civilian job, I returned to my office on Friday to a laundry list of things that had piled up and, of course, everything is either due yesterday or needed right now. I don't think I ever shared here that I was selected for a promotion in my civilian job late last year. While the pay increase and promotion became effective November 23rd, my duties and responsibilities didn't kick in until January 1st...while I've been out of the office. It is a new position and I have a lot of work to do to get some basic processes in place. In the short term, things are going to be busier than ever and stressful. I'm hoping that it will eventually taper off some towards the later part of 2009. That may be me being hopeful though. My new position entails being the fleet software lead for an airplane. For now, I will just be happy to have a little less business related travel. (I'm sure Jeff and the girls would like that too!) I also enrolled in Air Command and Staff College. It is the next level of education required to make my next rank in my military reserve career. It is the only box I haven't checked to be promoted. So, my New Year resolution was to get it done this year. It is a requirement to make the next military rank. It is a nice to have box filler on the civilian side. So, you can say, it "kills two birds with one stone." I'll be doing that work by correspondence. Now, I've just got to find the energy and time to do the tons of reading required.

There are a few events coming up in the near term on the home front....Jeff's 40th birthday and Anna's 6th birthday. I've got to get in gear and get some planning done for those two events. We already bought Anna's birthday gift. She and Rachel both wanted to get an I-touch. Rachel bought her own with her money that she saved from birthdays and Christmas, etc. Anna didn't quite have enough to buy one on her own. So she contributed what she had from her piggy bank and we kicked in the difference explaining that it was an early birthday gift. She wants a Winnie the Pooh cake for her birthday so I've got to figure out an appropriate design for that....as well as Jeff's cake.

We haven't planned any RV trips in the short term except to go to Disney for Anna's birthday in February. Other than that, we are discussing a long trip this summer traveling up the East coast to attend our cousin's wedding in WV. It provided us the opportunity to possibly plan a trip through D.C. and other areas that we've been wanting to visit as a family. So, we are going to begin making plans for that.