Doing Well

Did you miss me? I know only about 4 people stop by here any more but I gotta put something up for you guys every now and then.

Things have been going surprisingly well lately. I'm doing well in my grad courses but they do take up a lot of my spare time. Luckily, I had some PTO I had to use or lose so it allowed me to get ahead right now. I'm busy writing papers, which I found can be really tedious. But you do what you have to.

Things are going well on the career front also. To make a long story short, I was asked to relinquish my old role as Desktop Support Manager and instead take over the role as eSupport Supervisor. I'd been "filling in" for that role for about a year. I don't want to make it sound as if I had no choice in the matter, but the alternative was not in my best interest. However, as I always say, the Lord puts me where I need to be when I need to be there. Now that a few weeks have gone by, I've realized that my old job wasn't the best fit for me. I'm having fun again at work and enjoy doing my job again. Certainly there's many challenges and the stress of performing to expectations, but my new boss and the director are actually supporting me in this new role, which makes a big difference. And I'm back to direct customer support, something I didn't realize I'd missed until I started doing it again. I found I really enjoy getting my hands dirty, so to speak. I pity my staff as they really have no idea what they're in for. I beleive the team needs to make changes to become better and am going to challenge many of the things they've been doing up to now. And I know they'll be able to do what I'm asking them because I'm going to be doing that myself. If I can do it, so can they. They think I don't understand their challenges, but I'm going to show them I not only understand, but I can overcome them by focusing on the customer. You just watch.

The wife and the boys are doing well. It's kind of odd to have them both in middle school now. Christopher is getting to be the age where he's too cool for whatever room he's in. He's certainly too cool to acknowledge his little brother in the hall at school. They're both still busy with school and after school activities. Wrestling season starts up soon so Ellen will be running her little butt off going to meets. Good thing I got her a GPS. Halloween was a blast. Both boys went out with friends and afterwards they all converged on our house to trade candy. They'd all dumped their bags into piles on the floor and franticly tried to switch out candy the didn't like for the really good stuff. It was kind of funny, if a little loud. After the trading was done, we promptly confiscated the boys' candy bags to put on our highest closet shelf to prevent them from eating 9 or 1o candy bars a night while "going to sleep". Which is exactly what happened last year. They're on a strict one candy with lunch, one candy for treat a day regimen. I know, we're so mean. Oh, and Ellen and I get to raid their stash whenever we want.

Other than that, not much new going on. Halloween was Grasshopper's birthday so he's 11 now. We have the family party this weekend. He's looking forward to cake and presents. As always, it will be pretty crazy until after Christmas, when I'm sure we'll get a 3 or 4 day break before it all starts up again. I'll keep in touch.