…who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~Confucius

Well today was the day. After being with my current company for 12 years, I’ve given my two weeks notice.

While woodwindy (woodwindy) was wondering if we were moving to her neck of the woods, we’re not. We’re staying where we are, *but* I will be working in Philadelphia, so I guess that’s technically close enough.

This is the best thing for my family right now. I’m moving to a much larger company, and with that comes stability. The economy has really hurt my current employer (a real estate developer), and we’ve seen several years of decreased cash flow. This has affected our annual reviews, our year end bonuses, and our profit sharing. We’ve also had a round of layoffs starting last year (which incidentally coincides to exactly when I started getting serious about looking for another job, and then another just two weeks ago.

So while their future doesn’t look so bright right now, I think the future for me is much better. I’ll be receiving an increased salary and be part of an executive team for the first time. Sure, I may wind up working harder, but there will be benefits from that hard work. This change once again opens the possibility of a larger family, or a larger house - just two of the things I thought I had put behind me forever in the current economy.

Who knows where the future will take us, but today is about change. Certainly not on the same level as the Presidential change and the change in our country, but to me, change that is much more important.

Current Mood:  ecstatic

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My wedding ring is once again upon my finger. No more phantom limb syndrome. We picked up the rings last night, and Jean is wearing hers again after 3 years.

We had a nice dinner at Don Pablos to celebrate a big change in our lives - forthcoming. I’ll fill you in when the details are all flushed out.

By the time you read this, have you voted yet?

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I got married 7 years ago. On that day, I put my wedding ring on. I haven’t taken it off, with very few exceptions (notably dropping a dresser on my hand while moving - and having the ring stop the dresser from breaking my finger against the stairs ~~ very The Abyss). Now, I’ve been without it for 3 days and I keep thumbing the empty spot and wondering what’s missing.

My ring is very similar to the picture, with black enamel between all the knots. Consequently, the enameling between the knots is kind of worn, and actually has come off in a few places.

Jean’s ring has always been a tight fit. When the kids were born, she stopped being able to wear it at all. So she’s been ‘naked’ for over 3 years.

This weekend, we went to a FSMom hayride in DE, and decided to head down early and stop in at Robbin’s Delaware Diamonds, where we got the rings, and have both of those things taken of.

We had to get hers resized from 6 to 6.5. The stretching wouldn’t have been too big a deal, except that it also breaks the enamel. So they took both of our rings and sent them off for an estimate. 1 resizing, and 2 reenameling. Could take a few weeks, but we think that the total cost may be less than $75 - money well spent.

Jean is looking forward to being able to wear her ring again more than I am to make mine look nice, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do both.

I’m thinking about hitting some singles bars this week to try out my new found freedom…

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The kids are just a pile of talkative recently. Connor has alot to say, although we still have trouble understanding him. I would say we’re about to about 80% understanding of what he is saying. Now whether others understand that much is yet to be seen (heard). Maybe Jean’s comprehension is a little higher because she works with him everyday, but it’s still not where I think it should be. Alia enjoys singing and knows the words to dozens of songs. They are both into imaginative play and direct each other to play parts, such as the princess, or the rescuer, or the bad guy.

What’s great is that they are moving in the combination of thoughts and phrases that are culled from previous conversations and are putting it all together.

Yesterday, they came to visit me at work as part of our recent car fiasco.

When they came in the front door:

Me: Connor, say hi to Marie.

Connor: Hi Marie. This is my sister Alia.

When they came back to my office:

Me: This is where I go everyday when I leave you guys and go to work.

Connor: This is a nice place.

When I showed him the pictures of themselves on my ‘keep my happy’ wall:

Me: Connor, who’s in the pictures?

Connor: That’s us.   <- Note the use of the of the plural pronoun. Usually he identifies himself and Alia separately, so it’s nice to see the combo.

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I’m sure that Jean (ownedbytwins) will give us a much longer and detailed summary of our wonderful family weekend. But, before she does, I thought this article was apropos, considering that we visited the PA Renaissance Faire for our first time this year.

I ate a pickle on a sharpened stick. I still have my eyes.

CROWNSVILLE, Md. (AP) — An Anne Arundel County fire official says a 10-year-old boy seriously injured his eye at the Maryland Renaissance Festival when he accidentally stuck a skewer in his eye.

 

Full Story

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= Sunday July 27, 2008 =

Me: *Yawn*

Alia: Dad, you yawn like a hippopotamus

Me: *blink*

She’s been able to say the word hippopotamus since very early. Who know why.. is it easy for kids to say? Does she like the hard syllables? I have no idea. She pretends she is one during her bath at night (sometimes she’s a seahorse or a mermaid). But that comment yesterday caught me totally off-guard. Couldn’t believe she made the comparison.

As an aside, you should be able to see the images now on LJ. It was brought to my attention by delbruc that my image links were always broken when it was cross-posted. This wasn’t a problem with the images, so much as the fact that I blocked all hotlinking from sites other than my own, as I was having bandwidth stolen. So I added LJ to my list of exceptions in my .htaccess file and now the images display as they should.

Surprised no one else mentioned it, but then it could be that no one actually reads this crap, figured I was incompetent and couldn’t post a picture correctly, or assumed the network was having trouble (but only, and always, when they read my posts). I’m guessing it was #3.

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If you’re going to raise geek children, it’s a good thing to have geek friends.

Saturday was the twins 3rd birthday party. The first present opened was an Imaginext  Pirate Ship by Fisher-Price

It has Pirates.

It has ZOMBIE Pirates.

I mean, come on.. how much geekier can you get than that? I’m sure it was easy for Mike and Sam to actually pick this item out, because, truth be told, Mike is a 3 year old himself. He was as excited about playing with it as they were.

Connor took one look at it, opened one of the accessory packs (a skeletal shark) and decided he didn’t want to open any more presents. He had the one he wanted.

The ship has ‘action points’ on it, allowing for things like raising the anchor, or firing the cannons. You put the pirate in the appropriate place and turn it, and then the magic happens. Very cool indeed.

He played with it all night Saturday, and all day Sunday (except for the time when Alia had the captain and they were fighting over it). I’m sure, even as I write this, he has his ‘Captain Hook’ fighting against the zombie pirates.

Last night, Alia wouldn’t eat her meatballs. But, when the two-headed dragon chariot decided to eat the ‘dragon food’, she was right behind him. Finished the whole plate. That didn’t give the dragon the strength needed to survive the onslaught of the zombie pirates though.. At this point, whatever toy Connor is holding is the one that wins.

I soon got mauled by two children snarling and growling at me, pretending to be the dragon. No sympathy from the wife, who sat there chuckling that I brought it on myself.

I did, of course, and that makes it all the better.

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I just brought these guys up at the Brooks’ party on Saturday, so it reminded me to go check out their site for new missions, and lo and behold!!

In honor of my father and uncle, I present the latest Improv Everywhere mission, Human Mirror.

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