Clover is learning how to play guitar.

Thing are going well. It has dawned on me that although I have been pretty posty lately, I have not been very newsy.
I have organized the news into six different sections, kind of like a newspaper. So here is a table of contents. I hope this update is adequate.
-Clover
-Kristin
-Work
-Writing
-Stuff
-Wrap up

Clover bear my little princess.
Clover is growing to say the least. We are going in to the doctors office next Tuesday for her nine month checkup. That means that her cells have been dividing for over 18 months now. Oh man, that is a long time. She has 6 brand spanking new teeth, bringing the total up to... six. I can see two more that will probably pop out in the next couple weeks or so. *side note: I wonder if the reason that time seems to go faster when you get older is because when you are two years old, one year is literally half of your life. When you are fifty years old, one year is like the equivalent of two pennies to the dollar... not that much time... if your life time tuned into a dollar I mean. end note.* Clover loves hanging out with her cousin Penelope, eating solid food, grapes especially, crawling around, pulling thing out of things, blowing raspberries, eating raspberries, and pretty much tons of stuff that it was hard to imagine her even being able to comprehend, let alone do, just a couple of months ago.

Kristin is my busy little queen bee.
She is currently in the process of becoming a certified child care provider. She somehow manages to clean the house and pack my lunch and do the dishes and prepare breakfast and watch four kids and stay beautiful every single day. Well... not every single day... She only watches one child over the weekend... but everything else, all day every day. She has really embraced the mountains and the weather associated with a move to Utah. This fall she has canned a copious amount of salsa and peaches and everything she can manage to get at a farmers market. She sold our T.V. About 2 months ago, and has not turned back. It has been awesome to see what sort of thing she has going on now instead of staying current on whats on. Not to say that she was a couch potato, because she by no means ever has been. She just does different things now to kill time... like sewing a new outfit for Clover or canning peaches or going for a walk or something like that.

Work... is called work because I get paid to be there.
I truly enjoy my job. I truly enjoy having the bosses that I have. I feel like I have grown as a person over the last six months (wow it has only been that long really) in ways that I could not have in a different situation. Wow. That was really deep captain obvious. I guess that I really appreciate the lessons that I learn for and through work are easily applicable to my life in general. I feel like I am a better manager both at work and at life than I was a year ago. I am excited to see what is in store for me over the next few years with this company, because I know that it will be nothing but great. Sometimes I miss what I refer to as my “past life” or “where I came from,” (I use these terms to reference habits of policy and whatnot that I have been taught and how I apply them to my new job) but never really enough to even think about wanting to go back.

Writing is something that I choose to go to bed instead of to do sometimes.
I wrote down my two jokes. I have written a few little lyrics, but nothing that I could really put down... except part of a verse a version of a song that I listened to a lot as a kid, and would like to pay tribute to through my own style... and just haven't finished writing it yet... yep nothing really ready to put down yet. Unity by OPIV. Anyway. I also would like to note that my contributions to the idiotbook have increased by 250% since May. That is quantifiable, measurable (kind of redundant?) progress. Yesssss. (feel free to join me in my drawer pull during the yesssss part.)

Stuff that is about stuff... that is on my mind?
I feel like I should mention that when I put three dots... I am actually thinking, and I feel like of those who have talked to me in real life have noticed that I tend to pause sometimes... especially when I am thinking. I leave the dots in because I feel like it helps keep the book a little more conversational and less technical... and kind of because I feel like they belong. I am sure that most, if not all, of my English teachers would object and have me edit it so that I don't do three dots like a hundred times in each paragraph... but this neither their book or an assignment. I know that my wife gets kind of grumpy sometimes when we are talking and I pause to think. I wonder if I do it because at work I am the one who is trained to act quickly, and since I have to always be thinking and flying by the seat of my pants as part of my job, I choose to take my time over pretty much everything I can when I am not on the clock and being expected to keep up the pace. Hmm. Maybe. I dunno.
I went to a barbecue last Sunday with my sister and some of her friends. It was a trip. It kind of made me realize how antisocial I was for some... maybe even a large part... of my life. I mean I have always known it, but sometimes things happen that just kind of drive it home. Here I was hanging out with people that I went to school with, and sometimes hung outwith outside of school, and I didn't even know their names, even though some had managed to find me and recognize my child by her pictures on facebook. It kind of makes me wonder if I just used my work position as an excuse for some underlying issues about making and having friends. I did make a point, however, to include myself in some of the conversations as well as the overall game playing and barbecue fun in general as opposed to just hang out by the 'cue and cook while the festivities go on around me.

Wrap up in a speech class would typically start out with the phrase “in summary.”
Things are going well. Work is going great. My family is doing awesome. Kristin is happy and healthy. Clover is as smiley as ever and even now makes noise like dadadada when I walk into the room. I am still kind of a regular flosser and have lost about 40 pounds over the last six months. I am not sure if my hair is starting to thin out or not... more on that later... it is kind of like a sailboat... sometimes it works sometimes It doesn't... I even wrote a few articles for LMC next month. Life is good.

-p