Ok, I have a lot on my mind, and Anne has a lot on her's too. We had an interesting week of dealing with the fact that Anne is no longer going to be working at Zoar. The breakup, though not perfect, is a reality and we accept that and want to see Zoar do as well as possible on the path it has decided to take. The last thing we want is for youth to think that church politics, positions, or money are reasons for their ministry. Anyway, Anne's position is no longer going to exist (at least as it exists now--and even then it will not be filled for many months). We are continuing with our home-based small-group youth ministry. The idea of working with youth was something that was close to our hearts long before we discovered a position that actually paid Anne to do it officially. We have seen some great positive growth with ministering to/with youth and we will not let a professional change get in the way of those experiences continuing.
We do have the issue of "what now?" What does Anne do to help us with household income (this is a significant issue)? What does she do to keep her mind actively engaged on something worthwhile and challenging?
Where do we go to church?
We are swimming in ideas and enjoying/overwhelmed by our newfound freedom.

I wish I were doing this...I am still doing a "we need it in the morning" job for work. It has been a 18 hours since I started in on this at 7:30am...minus 1.5 hours of breaks/travelling= a 16.5 hour day. Yikes.

An appropriate cap to an otherwise pretty depressing day. I would write more, but I have no idea what I am even doing...it is so much later than I am used to. I still have to wait on a verification before hitting the sheets...and the person doing the verification is still up too. Yuck.

Oh, here is some good news, Joel is blowing raspberries with his lips, tongue, and spit (mainly spit, from the look of his chin). It is his first step toward consonants!

Work and salesman...

I feel obliged to put up a cute picture of Joel, though I am not nearly as cheerful as he is. It was a yucky day of meetings and hearing negative junk at work. Today I was on the dull and frustrating end of my work ALL DAY.
I come home and think there is a Mormon on my doorstep talking to Anne...nope, it is a person from "Cause Marketing Solutions" named David. He was an excellent salesman. I thought he said the coupon book was a $7.50 donation to the nwba (wheelchair basketball), and he hit me up right after stepping out of a 1.5 hour traffic-filled drive home from frustrating work. Anne and I just had watched Murderball at Sal's and I had great esteem for wheelchair sports. So we got one--it was $20. Then I looked at the book--it was a 17.5% donation--a lousy $3.50 went to the nwba!
The charities we donate to are certified at 85% efficient at least...so I actually hunted the guy down and got my $20 back. When I did this, he said "look, I don't want to hear it"--which was kind of rude, but I was taking $5 from the salesman, so I probably deserved the abrupt remark. He did hand me the $20 though.
The breakdown of such "Cause Marketing Solutions" sales is such: $3.50 to the cause, $5 to the salesman, $1-$1.50 or so printing (that is a generous guess) and that leaves a whopping $10 for profit/overhead! I am really glad I got my $20 back! That kind of pandering and guilting for profit makes me angry. I was all prepared to give the darn $20 straight to nwba.org, but now I wonder how good it is to give to a good organization that raises money via a bad organization like that. Oh, the moral questions!!!
Dang, I really wish the salesman really would have just been a Mormon.

What would YOU do? Would you still donate? I feel like I owe a good charity $20 now. Or at least the NWBA a big $3.50. Please help me with this decision!

Joel is getting some very thin cereal almost everyday now. He loves it. Unfortunately, he has been rather fussy with not wanting to sleep lately.
At work, things are polarizing. I am working on a really cool project as well as a really boring set of meetings that will take weeks to end. The cool project involves user evaluations of usability--what I actually went into automotive research to do...and I really hope I can jump on that train.
I am hitting the articles and preparation hard so I can defend within a month.
Church youth stuff is going really well. I am amazed at how cool those youth are...excited, interesting, and curious about their place in the world and their relationship with God. Things are looking quite up there.

Small update: Being a parent is getting even more interesting. Joel decided to grow up yesterday. He now plays with toys and uses his hands well. He eats better. He has attention longer. All of this happened in a single day. I don't get it.

I think I forgot to mention the cool tickets I got for my birthday.

Other stuff: We watched Murderball at Sal's last Saturday. It was a decent movie that exposed a sport I had never heard of: paraplegic rugby. Unfortunately, we will probably be abstaining from the ritual of movie nights at Sal's until Joel is able to handle the schedule change a bit better. We did a 3 day late weekend and it threw the poor kid off kilter. Other junk: we got rid of that awful computer desk and got a decent new one, I mowed the lawn for the first time (man, I want a robomower), and we bought some DECENT curriculum for youth stuff at church. This will make a difference for the program because Anne no longer has to focus on finding curriculum...she can direct now...and know that the curriculum makes long-term strategic sense and has a great message. Now for all of the other aspects of the youth program that reflect something non-ideal. On a great note, Anne and I played with the jazzy band at church services this weekend and it was quite cool. Now for work (before work is about the only time I have to touch the blog!).