Good to see your face again...good to see you

Okay...obscure song lyric this time, but it is late and I'm tired. Neil Young always come to mind at these times of night.

It has been awhile and I feel like I need to catch up, even if just to remind myself what has happened in this whirlwind of a summer so far.

1. I got laid off. It sucked. I freaked out.

2. Freak out lasted 3 days and then I got an offer on a job I applied for a long time ago. They were slow in offering, but it was actually a good thing. I can't say much more on why it was good that I got laid off instead of just leaving. You are all very smart. Just saying.

3. My new employer is WGU, Western Governors University...and I love it. I love getting out of Network Marketing and out of Utah County. Change is good. The people are awesome, the work is hard and challenging and it has been awhile since I have really felt challenged to better myself. Better yet, in 6 months I get to go to school at a ridiculously cheap rate and get the teaching degree I always wanted. Or Marketing. I haven't decided yet. I always wanted to teach highschool despite the fact that I hated my highschool experience and teenagers drive me crazy. But I don't usually go by logic for my life decisions.

4. WGU let me wait 3 weeks to start, so I had about a month of awesome summertime with my kids, and we fit in a lot. We went to Oregon to visit Rand's brother and had a great time. Heidi, if you are reading this, you are amazing and we had the best time. I relaxed, rested my back and had a blast. We went to Cannon beach (think end of Goonies) and we had great weather, played in the sand, and found huge intact sand dollars at low tide. Collin was taken out by a crazy rogue wave, but the sand dollar was worth it, I'm sure. We are still finding sand in his ears and other places.

5. Maura turned 8, despite my explicit instructions to remain 7. She also formed a band. She may correct me later, but I think they are called "Breaking Through Highwires" or BTH for short. There are three members and a manager (older brother of founding member) who gets to make all their decisions. This could end badly. For now they go in the backyard and sing their hearts out and it is awesome. Maura wrote a beautiful song about an owl but she won't let me post it because "MOMMY, IT ISN'T FINISHED YET, I AM STILL RE-WRITING!!!"

6. Collin is crazy. Good crazy, but one crazy, tall, string-bean of a goof ball. All the girls love him, all the boys want to be his friend. He doesn't care because that is just how cool he is. He pretty much wears nothing but his Beatles and Arcade Fire shirts. Can't complain there. He builds things out of random toys and household items items and wants to design buildings and roads one day. Or be in a band. I think that is just for the groupies though. He has his dark side. We went to the cemetery the other day to visit my Grandpa and sister's graves (Maura has had a strange desire to do this for a long time. I despise cemeteries, so resisted, but finally gave in). We should have explained the purpose of our visit. Collin thought we were going to dig up our loved ones and say hello. I didn't want to explain decomposition, so we nicely said no, we won't do that today, let's just leave flowers instead.

7. Max's reign of terror continues. He scares me, I'm not going to lie. I thought he would get better once he learned to talk, but now instead of screaming, he can scream insults. But then he gets cute and cuddly and those blond curls make all the scratch marks and bruises on me seem like a distant memory...

8. Life is crazy. Life is good. Life is insanely, utterly exhausting.

The end.