New Beginnings

So after several weeks of being just "Daddy"; attempting to enjoy my time off; and doing some assistance to some of my friends who are consultants, I'm going back to work. I've procured a Senior Planner position with a new nearby city and will start on Monday October 13th.

The best thing about the job was that I didn't even go looking for it. It found me. The Director talked to a friend of mine (who I now owe dinner to) and called me up. We talked on the phone, in person several times and I was offered the job prior to the job being actively advertised.

I'm extremely excited to go work there for several reasons. First, it's relatively close to the house, the meetings aren't long affairs like the previous two jobs, and I'll be working with some really great people with a new set of talents that I can learn from.

Without the support of Meredith, my family and the multitude of friends I've recently found more time to enjoy, I couldn't have made such a transition. I've found much more connection to my kids and a deeper appreciation for Meredith's responsibilities for them. I also hope she has found out that I can be a better Daddy and keep the housekeeping to the bare essentials.

We've had a great couple of weeks even though all of us have had the bout with the sniffles. Two weeks ago we had Meredith's niece stay with us for several days as her flight back to Houston was cancelled due to Hurricane Ike. Her parents were without power for several days. She was able to go back the following Thursday in a newer Honda that her Dad bought from my father. 

Then last weekend, they're family came up for the weekend to go to Six Flags. We enjoyed all of the rides and had a great time, with the exception of a half an hour looking for a lost cousin who was safely found.

This past week I reformatted a 200+ page Unified Development Code for the City of Schertz for a friend of mine who needed the original document to flow better.  It was a nice tranistion work to get me back into the mindset of planning and it helped retrain me in working with some of the more subtle aspects of MS Word. 

Yesterday we went to the State Fair and Alexander had his first encouter with cotton candy which he ate with gusto, but didn't fall into the trap of getting it all over himself. We sat in our usual spot watching the Vita-Mix guys for about half an hour and received inspiration to restart our smoothie regimen.

Today we're going with our friends to pick apples (a particularly fall event) and perhaps to the Southlake Oktoberfest where Me and My Monkey will be playing this evening. Tomorrow we're going to go to church and then possibly decorate the house for Halloween.

Hey, I told you it was going to work out didn't I?