Catch Up

I have been lazy about getting on here and updating. Sorry about that. I had a great vacation and it turned out to be a special time! Thanks to Pat for getting me going, Claude and Mike for DC hospitality and Martha and Mike for MA hospitality. Also thanks to Sara for letting me use her apartment! It was the best!

I still owe a copy of pictures to Pat and Sammy and Martha. I promise I will get to it!

I also really appreciated the cookout and all of the recollections and the piecing of family history. I hope our kids do a better job of paying attention and getting the details!

I came back to a very busy schedule. Work is absolutely crazy. I am managing a $1M build out of a college campus, together with overseeing HR and IT, and negotiating a campus lease, etc. Busy, busy. But I am very proud of the fact that I still am not working long hours! I am keeping my schedule to 40-44 hours. I get lots of complements from people at work that I am doing a great job and that is really nice. Past employers rarely took the time to tell me whether I was doing OK or not.

Had an HOA Board meeting right when I got back and have one again this coming week. The time commitment for that is less now, mostly because I have decided to give less. The President of the HOA seems to have problems with me because I tend to disagree with him and he takes it personally rather than looking at it as business. But I am also working hard to reject negativity in my day-to-day dealings so I try to ignore him and go about the tasks that I feel are important. We just got speed humps put in the north part of our neighborhood (where Anya and I live). I hate speed humps but they were very necessary. Residents were driving so fast that there were real safety issues.

Last week I attended my first social event, post divorce. Don't laugh now but I went to a meeting of the Socrates Club. It is a group that meets to discuss philosophy! We met at a Vegan restaurant and talked for two hours about a posted question of philosophy. I have to say that I really had fun! The people were very nice and interesting. They were also very different - young to older, male and female. I met a woman from Russia and a professor from Philadelphia, and a number of other interesting people.

It felt a bit strange walking into a place, not knowing anyone and just introducing myself and starting conversation. I am sure it felt the same for them too. In the end, we had a great discussion. Everyone was respectful of other's ideas and all had very different levels of knowledge - from no reading in philosophy to being a professor. All spoke. It was a nice night and I am sure that I will go again. I found this group on a website called meetup.com. I think I will check out some other groups as well.

Yesterday I took David to the airport for his trip back east, watched Ella and John while Anya and Adam went to see the play Wicked and went out with friends to see the new Harry Potter movie. I was exhausted by the time I finally got to sleep, but I also felt alive. It is nice to have lots of different things to do.

Well hopefully that gave everyone a quick update as to what has been going on with me. I will try to be a little better at keeping this going. I have appreciated everyone's comments!