Man, I have forgotten how busy life gets with a full-time job. I have been coming home earlier than I used to, but it still seems that I don't have much time to do the things that I want, like keep this page updated. I should start writing at least every Sunday like many of my relatives are doing.

But until that starts, I should give a couple of updates here.

First, things are going well for me on the job front. I have a contract position currently that I really enjoy. I am doing Web editing again, and getting to make some updates to the content. The work I am doing is for a college, so the processes are somewhat slow. Not much of my work is up yet, but once we get some things live I will post a link.

I am also doing some freelance resume editing. It is pretty lucrative for the amount of time it takes, its just that it means I have to come up with a couple hours a week to work on them. But we need the money right now and this is something that I am interested in, so I don't mind doing it.

Mia is still pregnant. She wishes that she weren't, but we are getting close, so I think we are going to make it. Last night, we finally outgrew our full-size bed. I blew up the airmatress and slept next to our bed so that Mia could spread out without worrying about hitting me when she rolls over, or me taking up too much room if I get into bed before her. It will be hard to be apart, but we will survive that too.

The only other thing to report is that Boston finally won a World Series. Fans here have been waiting a long time so we are glad they were able to pull through. It would have been extremely disheartening if we had beaten the Yankees so specatularly and then lost in the Series. Everyone here is happy that we didn't.

So, my dad asked me to clarify because I guess that if you aren't living through it, then I might have lost you.

Here is how my job search has played out.

I received a full-time job offer at LW Robbins after the first interview. This was the same day that my brakes failed and I heard about an interview potential at Wheelock College.

I turned down the full-time job, went with the hope that my interview went well at Wheelock. Fortunately, it did.

As of yesterday, I am once again employed, albeit only for a month.

However, I have also started doing some work with an online Resume editing company. It is nice because I can do it from home, just a couple a week, and make some extra money for us. I am working on bigger resumes than I am used to (people with 15-20 years of experience) but hey, they think I am the expert, so as long as I make it better they can't complain.

Now that I am working again (two jobs in essence) it means that I am tired again. And I should be going to bed at a decent hour. Which I am not (tonight). But I feel good about where we are headed and that is the important thing.

I realized the other day that I have no pictures of our wedding up yet. Well, I wish that I could give you a link right now... but it isn't finished yet.

However, I also just received some pictures from my sister's wedding which is an impetueus to get mine up before I post pictures of Mia and I at her wedding. So, in the next week or two, look for many wedding pictures to spring up around my site. Actually they will all be in the picturing section, so I guess you don't have to look at my whole site. Much of which is in desperate need of updating.

Ok, I had better get to it then.

As my sister pointed out to me, it very much did sound like I had this writing position when I last posted. And I thought that I did.

But after turning down the full-time job, the people at Wheelock started sounding unsure, it made me nervous about whether this was going to fall through after I had already removed my other option.

Fortunately, I do want to tell everyone that I have work for at least the next month. It is with the college and I will be doing writing. I am excited for that. It will be a good feeling to go back to work and start collecting a paycheck again. The time off has been good for me, and for Mia, but at the end of the day we need some money coming in.

I should also mention that the pregnancy is going well. She is really starting to get big, but there wasn't much room for the baby to begin with, so I guess it was inevitable. But they are both healthy and happy -- most of the time.

Whew, more updates to the site.

You can see most of our furnished apartment now! The rest of it needs to be cleaned, which will happen shortly.
Also, the picturing page is updated with a snapshot for each gallery.
And if you look in the random pregancy photos, I put up my sympathy picture.

We all know that life is full of tough decisions. I think that I make some of them harder on myself than I need to. This week, just one month out of work, I have been trying to decide what to do with myself. On Monday I received a job offer from a company in the Direct Mail industry. They do not put the mail together, but act as an agency to get all the pieces to the right people so they can do it.

I would have been in charge of budgets, vendors, data, production, and myriad other things. The potential for growth, especially as a project manager, or manager in general, seemed very large. They were also offering me a salary that was quite a bit larger than my previous position.

I turned the job down. Mia was part of the decision, but ultimately she felt that this time I needed to be the one to make the final choice so that I could stick to it without feeling resentful.

Instead I am going to be taking a 4-6 week contract to update the content on one of the small, local college Web sites. It is going to require interviewing and writing, as well as some of my Web skills. I am excited about to do it. I am excited to start writing again. To have something to show for the work that I do.

On the other hand, it puts more pressure on us, because once this contract is finished, I have to find another one. This is what I want to do, try things out, work for a couple of months and then move on. However, standing at the beginning of the path it is very scary.

I have learned this week about how prayers are answered. I have learned that free agency is not just a phrase that we use to justify our wrong choices. My assumption was that as I prayed the Lord would make my choice, that he would tell me what to do. However, the first feeling that I got was that whichever choice I made, our family would be OK. He would support us. The more I prayed, asking to know which choice was right, the more I felt impressed to study both jobs. I looked at the pros and cons, I thought about the long- and short-term consequences, I thought about what would make us both happy.
In the end, it was the feeling that we would both be happier as a couple that led me to my choice. I felt that while it would have been a good job, I would have learned so much, the full-time offer would also have consumed my time and energy. Knowing the industry, even after work I would be thinking about my job. It would likely have gotten me up early in the morning to arrive early to get a jump start. And while I had planned, and discussed at my interview, to leave at 5:00PM, I surely would have stayed later some nights. I didn't feel right walking back into the same fights we had had over my previous job.
So, I am looking out, feeling scared, feeling excited, feeling that this is my time to accomplish something, prove that I have the abilities to take my life in the direction that I want. And I am humbled and grateful to feel that I have my wife and my Lord supporting me.