It’s snowing

While technically last winter would have included Kayleigh’s first snow, this time she is actually aware of the fluffy white stuff falling all around. And she seems to be looking forward to more of it.

It's snowing!

A couple weeks ago when a not-so-record 6 or 8 inches fell on my house, we took her outside for some exploration.

Kayleigh shows off her new snowKayleigh and Mommy in the snowKayleigh and Daddy in the snow

Snow can be terrible around these parts, but I still miss that almost constant blanket on the ground as a kid. It’s just so much fun for play, even if you’re still not convinced you can walk in it.

This year ended decently, hopefully that carries into the next one…

Almost a wonderful day

One of these two turned a year older today. The other one threw a fit in the nice restaurant that we went to for breakfast. Can you guess which is which?

Cuddly Kayleigh

Being upset with a 17-month-old toddler is a crappy feeling. Especially when her outburst was fairly uncharacteristic and she was very well behaved almost the entirety of the weekend besides the incident this morning. I look forward to her turning 18 months when I assume her separation anxiety will magically disappear overnight.

Rumors of my demise…

After a month of heavy posting I shut up and then leave some stupid tweet about having a really bad day… pretty crappy, eh? Not to make any excuses, but it comes down to this: layoffs suck. They suck a lot less when you’re not on the receiving end, but they still suck. And when you run the IT portion and get stuck doing some of the dirty work well… you can guess.

Just in time for pundits to start declaring “the recession is over” my company downsized for the first time in its 25+ year history. Obviously I couldn’t mention any of this before it happened because… duh. Once the deed was done and the press release hit the wire I still needed some time to gather myself. My office hidden in the deep back corner of a half empty building only shields me so much.

It’s not like I’m going to discuss specifics about my job anyway, but know that everything hit like a ton of bricks just when things seemed like they had turned a corner. The stress resulted in at least half a dozen gray hairs popping up in my winter beard which has since been trimmed down to disguise them and may disappear completely. It also beat down my immune system enough for a cold to grab a hold of my head. Fortunately the rest of the household remained unaffected while I took up residency on the back couch and passed out by 9 every night.

For now my head is buried in the sand far enough that things seem to be back to normal. In all seriousness there’s nothing here for concern beyond the need to tighten our belts a little “just in case”. Maybe I’m just an eternal optimist, but things have a way of working themselves out for me.