Quick update

So, do you think a month is too long to go between posts (my last one was on Feb 7th)? I do, and I'm hoping it won't happen again ... or at least not for a LONG, long time.

Speaking of long, I think I'm going to start referring to this as The Long Winter. So the update on the weather is that it is STILL cold most days (had a few snow melting days but for the most part the snow hills on the corners are still making seeing at intersections challenging), and there is no end to it in the current weather forecast.

If you caught the Little House reference...you or your child (or mine if she's on your gift-giving list) might appreciate knowing about the one site that I finally found that carries all of the extended Little House series: http://www.allamish.com/little_house_series.shtml The rest of you didn't know there was an extended series, did you? Yes, the wonderful gentleman at allamish.com even informed me that there are nearly 100 books in said series and Megan informed me that she wants to OWN each and every one of them. Yes, Megan still loves everything that has to do with the Little House books and we will be distributing a wish list for birthdays and holidays until Megan has read all she can about all of Laura's ancestors and descendants.

After a busy but low-key January recovering from holidays, we had a busy February that seems to have disappeared into oblivion now. Most recently, we've been fighting off illnesses and trying to increase our immunity when we are not actually sick.

Megan is on her second round of antibiotics for Strep as she tested positive for it again just a couple of days after finishing her first round of antibiotics. I'm thinking this is sounding sadly familiar. (I remember the same thing happening to me as a kid ... they finally took my tonsils out when I was 16.)

Nessa was doing so great this winter ... until just over a week ago, and at this bleary-eyed moment I wonder if she'll ever be back to her smiley self. Nessa seems to have a virus making the rounds that lingers and lingers and lingers -- fever, sleepy, lethargic at times, and simply not very happy when awake. The most frustrating thing is that the fever comes and goes and at times she has looked on her way to being herself only to have it all come back again. We did take her to the doctor on Wednesday but no strep and nothing else that the family doc could see. I was a little concerned the day she slept 20 hours out of 24 though in spite of the reassurance that it was just a virus going around.

Work is consuming more and more of my time this month -- it is deadline time and there is A LOT of work today before that April release. But the really big news at work is that Friday I met with my boss as well as one of the Vice Presidents in town and I now have a full time position there (there, now being referred to as ECi La Crosse).

This was a challenging transition for me to make personally, but should make for a much less frustrated me at work and since I'm keeping my flexiblity in where and when I work, it should work well on a personal level as well. And really while the salary move should be nice (it's not in the bank yet though ... HR paperwork, yadda, yadda), by far the best part is that I now will have lots of room for professional development. This is what I have really wanted, and I didn't even realize how much I wanted it until I was given the opportunity to go to a conference at the last minute -- I'm now registered for the WritersUA Conference in Portland March 16-20th (http://www.writersua.com/ohc/index.html) . As soon as I actually get into the office to use the corporate credit card I will also again be an STC member (http://www.stc.org/), and my boss has already brought up the idea of my attending the STC conference in June in Philly. There will also be a couple of trips a year to the Dallas/Fort Worth area (ECi headquarters). It seems that there will also be plenty of room for innovative ideas, and that I'm excited about. Of course there is just lots of work to be done in general to get there too. :-)


If you can't wait for me to post new photos here you can always check out the flickr feed as I try to update that more frequently (February photos uploaded) or the Google photos if you prefer.

Think Spring!!!