New Glasses

I went shopping for new glasses at the end of February to burn through all of my FSA I would be leaving behind at my old job.  I got a couple of fun pairs and a practical pair, plus a pair of sunglasses (no pic of those).  I still wear my old ones too (bottom right).  I will probably never get lasik.  I love glasses too much!

Girls’ Weekend

I have a secret.  I have online friends.  I mean, I have a lot of them.  We have a lot in common.  At least I think we do.  Or they could just be really good at making up personalities that I like. 

Right after I was laid off in February, I did this crazy thing and went to a get-together.  Many of them are local, but a lot of people flew in from elsewhere.  One of them is a former coworker (didn’t know that until she found my makeup picture and came to my office!) and one of is a former school mate from Mines (didn’t know that until I met her at the get-together!)

I had the best girls’ weekend.  We went to a drag show.  I took them to Red Rocks and a local brewery.  We went shopping for fascinators and had high tea at the Brown Palace.  We had a big party where we danced, and talked, and drank, and played Cards Against Humanity.  I was surrounded by a huge group of strong, smart women who I admire and respect.  It was perfect.

I would post all of our amazing pictures, but privacy is something we all value so I won’t be posting any.

Hiatus Explanation

Most everyone has probably noticed that took a hiatus from blogging.  I have been crazy busy, but the primary reason is that Google and Microsoft don’t like each other.  I have always used Windows Live Writer for all of my blogging because Blogger’s interface is the suck.  Well, Microsoft stopped supporting WLW a few years back and Google updated their security protocols in May of this year and WLW didn’t comply.  This meant that WLW would not connect to my blogs. 

Blogger’s interface is so bad and I had zero time to blog, let alone figure out a techical solution.  Blogging must be easy, or I won’t do it.  For a short time in November I found a workaround that allowed me to publish once to my ballet blog using WLW.  Now that I’m on vacation for a couple weeks, I thought I would start catching up on blogging.  Nope.  It broke again.

I had time today and I found a solution – WLW has now become open source and the volunteer coders have updated Live Writer security protocols (now called Open Live Writer or OLW, or mistakenly called OWL) so that it will connect to Blogger.  Yay!!!  I think I’m back in business with blogging.  And I have the time to catch up!

Life Shifts

I have felt a changing undercurrent of sorts in my life for nearly a year.  It started with an internet friend losing her daughter in a very tragic way.  The grief I felt for someone I barely knew was surprising to me and my world shifted a little bit.  Last summer I planted pink and purple flowers in all of my front yard gardens in her daughter’s memory.  It was a way to remind me to slow down because life can change in just a blink of an eye.  Then my mom became ill and passed away near Mother’s Day.  I found myself feeling like I had just put down a book I didn’t know I had been reading for 34 years.

I took 6 months off from learning anything new for the last part of 2014.  And in January of 2015, I came home from work and announced to Chris that I didn’t want to be an engineer anymore, nor be the sole earner in our family.  He asked what our life looked like and I told him I didn’t know.  He said, ‘Ok, we will figure it out.’  Within 6 weeks I was laid off from my job that I loved so much. 

Serendipity, I suppose.

Although we had recently streamlined our monthly budget, had savings, and I was given 3 months of severance pay, my industry has slowed down considerably and there was the real possibility I would not be able to find a job without moving out of the state.  We feel like Colorado is our long term home and we had a strong desire to stay put.  With the urging and guidance of an amazing friend, Chris and I decided to kick off serious business planning for our future business and foundation.  (I’m purposely being vague since we aren’t ready to put everything out there yet.)  It felt good to be dreaming big and planning the next 10 years of our life together.

During our planning I was still looking for the next job that would keep me interested and excited, in case we couldn’t get our own business off the ground in time.  Another amazing friend offered Chris a job doing home inspections.  The pay would give us some extra time to build our business in case a job for me didn’t come through, plus Chris could have flexibility, work for a good business owner, and learn something new.  Seemingly overnight, I  became the stay at home parent and Chris became the working parent.  Huge relationship dynamic shift for us.

I forgot the kids at school one day.  And we all ran out of clean clothes because I genuinely forgot that Chris couldn’t do laundry while working 50 hours a week.  To be honest I didn’t really enjoy managing the household or providing for my family in that way.  I had always wondered, but now I know for sure.  Chris has missed being with the family every day:  picking up the kids from school, taking them to practice, having dinner together.  The timing worked well for Chris to finish up the training he needed to do, but I really, really wanted to be back working.  And just like that I was offered a job at the end of Chris’ training.  Serendipity indeed.

My new job is something I’ve never done before – a start-up company.  It’s an incredible opportunity at this point in my career, something that holds my interest and gives me something to be excited about.  I feel lucky to be in this position and with both of us working, we have greater flexibility in how we build our company and foundation.  If truth be told, I really just want to run the foundation part, which is likely several years out so this aligns with me continuing as an engineer for a little while longer.  Our goal is still to start something of our own by year end, but manage growth because we can, not because we have to.

We are still dealing with the transition of me going back to work, Chris also working, as well as continuing to make progress on our business.  The kids are adjusting the fastest.  They continue to remind me to just let life work itself out when I feel overwhelmed with all the change.

Stretch Marks

Charlotte:  Mommy, why do you have wrinkles on your stomach?

Me:  They are called stretch marks and sometimes women get them when they get pregnant.

Charlotte:  Why?

Me:  Because the skin stretches so much.

Charlotte:  That’s kind of weird.

Me:  I agree.