Sept. 1, 2013

Whew - I finally have a moment to sit and write. What a crazy past couple of months we have had. I'm not sitting because here is nothing left to do and I've checked everything off my list, it's more like my body said, "yea, you're done" and gave me dizzy spells this morning - so I won a nap and an afternoon on the couch, resting. I get it, I've been pushing too hard. Not enough sleep, lots of work, lots of go-go-going. I'm thankful for this moment and the relaxation, although, my mind is racing with all of the things I should be doing/want to be doing. Here's some of the things we've been up to...

My work has been insanely busy lately. I manage a program and have one staff member reporting to me. She has been shipped off to another one of our programs for a few months, which means I am left to work both her job and mine. In addition, we've been up to our elbows putting together a proposal to continue my program for another two years - the proposal was submitted Friday afternoon and fingers crossed, I will be working here for another couple of years!!! (although, I have got to do something about these 12 hour days)

Speaking of work, my company has invested in a number of employees, working to gain our PMP (Project Management Professional) certification. In order to take the exam, we need to have a certain amount of Project Management experience, logged training hours etc. My company hired an organization to provide us with a project management training seminar, which is AWESOME - but it also meant two trips to Portland, OR. I spent a few days in Portland, came home for a week and spent a few more days in Portland. I got to spend time with some of my co-worker/friends. It was a great time, with lots of learning, but I missed my family SO much, I always do when I'm gone. 

As most of you know, Mark finally got a full time teaching job, working as a Second Grade teacher. SO EXCITING! But it also means that we needed to sort through the previous teacher's MANY, MANY years of teaching supplies and try to make his room his own. He picked an ocean theme (perfect to represent our previous years in Florida). During that week home from Portland, I'd spend all day working and then head over to Mark's class and help him until late at night, getting him classroom set up. By the time open house hit, it looked amazing!! Now he's been teaching for a couple of weeks and doing a great job!

The day after tomorrow, the kids go back to school. I find it unbelievable that Gage is going to be a sophomore, Drake in seventh and Cora is going into 4th. Our kids keep growing into these awesomely amazing people, right before our eyes. I'm a proud mama and so excited to see how this year goes for them. I'm sure that they will do great. Drake and Cora are going to be students in brand new buildings. We were able to tour them this past Friday - and they are AWESOME...with air conditioning and everything!!! This summer has been a bit of a whirlwind - Cora had her concussion and most recently had her tonsils and adenoids removed (just a day or so before I left for my first trip to Portland). I worried so much about her while I was gone - but she is a very strong little girl. She healed up nicely and is back to her old self. Gage and Drake have transitioned from boys to young men over the summer - they have both grown leaps and bounds. Gage is already taller than me and Drake is getting close. Crazy.

This summer we've had the awesome fortune of eating much of our own fruit. We've had black caps galore, our first apples (EVER!), a few handfuls of peaches (AKA the most delicious peaches I've ever had!), a pear is hanging on the tree, nearly ready for picking and all the remaining trees are healthy as can be. We even have a number of baby lemons growing on our lemon tree - which I cannot believe, since we just bought it and replanted it in the spring. We've enjoyed strawberries (after we realized the damn turkeys were eating them all, before we could get to them). It's been a great year for fruit.  Soon, we'll be harvesting walnuts and it looks like some pecans too!


Finally, let's talk chicken...those little b!t$#es are holding out on us. We should be getting eggs, we've provided them plenty of daylight and outside space, we've built in lovely nesting boxes, that get ignored, I mean, that's cool...we'll just keep feeding you ladies. We'll go capture you when you escape your yard area and want to discover areas of "Narnia"(the wooded area near our house). You just hold out and not worry about giving us the eggs...because ya' know...it's not like it's your purpose on our farm. Grr...Hopefully soon.

Hope all of you are doing well in blogland. Rumor has it that Fall is coming soon...you ready?