Yikes, it's Friday the 13th.
We were supposed to launch the new Web site for my new job but the company helping us made a major mis-communication and we can't actually change to a new site until about two weeks from now. But it is exciting getting to work on a Web site again, and I am learning alot about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). They are pretty amazing and powerful and I don't want to ever create another site without them.

The boy is doing well. He flucuates from really happy to very fussy. Of course, he only really gets fussy when he is sick (and now he has a cold) so most of the time it's just between really happy and whiny because he is tired.

He is growing so fast. If you put him in a sitting postion he can keep himself up without support (most of the time). He loves to play with his mom and dad, especially if he gets to chew on one of us. He still loves to stand up when he can, and if his mom is there, he makes happy faces and reaches out to try and grab her. It is so cute.

Mia and Ethan and I are all very happy right now and excited to see what is in store for us the rest of this year.

I can't believe it's May. I can't believe Ethan is so big.
I can't believe that I have a new job. Or that we are still living in Massachusetts.

This year has been good so far. While I was unemployed I picked up some contracts and freelance work that was very rewarding and interesting. Currently I am working for a company called Snowbound Software, we do Document Imaging software and learning this industry is quite interesting.

I have decided that it only takes me five minutes to do a quick post to my blog and that I should do it daily. I know that I decided this back in January also, but I hope to be better about it this time.

Ethan has some great pictures at the other side of my site, I recommend checking out what a cute boy he is.

I have been meaning to get better about posting here and with the new year, I am resolved to do so.

Let me begin by saying that the boy is healthy and happy. He is especially happy when he is eating. We went to the pediatrian on Friday for our one month visit and Ethan weighed 11lbs 5oz. He gained almost 2lbs in his first month, needless to say he continues to top the charts for weight in his age category.

In other Ethan news, we think that he is on the verge of smiling. Currently he will give a rare open mouth expression that isn't a cry. We consider it the beginnings of a smile. Also, when he has gas he makes a sound that we think will be similar to his laugh when he learns to do that.

As you can tell our lives are still ted by the little boss that moved into our house. But we love him so much that we don't mind.
And besides, having been around some other children, we have a wonderful baby. He rarely cries, and when he does it isn't very loud, more of a moan or whine. But once someone is holding him (and standing) he calms back down.
Playtime is getting more fun. We lay him on his stomach and he can lift is head up a little bit. If you get him up on your shoulder, he will arch way back and lift his head high, but in that position he pushes his legs in against you for leverage. When he is on the floor he flails his legs, but they don't do much for him. Then he strains to lift up his head. And if you put your face next to the back of his head and talk to him, in small steps, he can work his head over to the other side to look at you. It's great.

I am still home, but hope to find a job now that the New Year has passed. With the holidays over I am hopeful that companies will begin to search for candidates to hire again. My resume never fails to impress people, and my interviewing skills have been getting some practice lately, so I am hopeful that something will come my way.
On the other hand, I am not just looking for the first job that pops up. I still want to make sure that I pick a job that will let me learn and progress. I need something that I can use as the foundation of a career. I have some great experience but need a solid position to solidify my ability to work in corporate America. Of course my dream is to work outside the mainstream, but until I can do that I have to make a living somehow.

My wife is doing great. She loves to hold Ethan and play with him and take care of him. She went through a brief period of post-partum mood swings, but no major depression. We think that is in part because I am home (and because Ethan is just so cute). We will keep an eye out when I go back to work, but are not worried about it. She looks great, and I am not the only one telling her that. She feels great, her recovery is going well and she has really enjoyed getting to hold Ethan and do so many things with him.

Well this has gone on for long enough. Needless to say our 2005 is looking like a great year.

WOW! So many things have happened, and I haven't update this in so long.

Well, first of all the best news is that we have a son. His name is Ethan Urban Alexander J. And we love him dearly. He was born on Dec. 2, 2004 and weighed in at 9lbs. 6oz. That is quite a bit of baby for a first child. Mia had him naturally, as the doctor was surprised to see how big he was. No one was expecting it.
Other than that however, the labor and delivery were very good. It was short, things progressed smoothly, and once the epidural was in, Mom didn't feel a thing (mostly).

Everything besides that seems unspectacular. The new Grandma (my mother-in-law) came to stay with us for a couple of days, which was a big help. It made such a difference having someone to boss around :)
But really, she helped out so much.

Grandpa (my father-in-law) also came to see Ethan while he was in the hospital. He couldn't get over how long his fingers were. And how cute he was.

My parents are coming for Christmas, and they can't stop talking about getting to finally meet Ethan. We are pretty excited to see them too.

I am still working at my contract, much longer than expected but we are so grateful to have the work. It has been good experience for me and I think will help to open some doors for me. After working there for about 2 months, I was finally motivated into buying a book about JavaScript, so I am going to learn out to write in it. I can pretty much read it, but don't know how to make my own scripts.

And that's about it.

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.