Work Life Unbalanced

No, the blog is not broken. And no, there is not lack of news around here (at my best count, I'm about eight posts behind ... sigh). We have been living ridiculously unbalanced here for the last three weeks and the blog has borne a brunt of "what has to give." Other things that gave ... judging by the piles in the laundry room and the bare shelves in the pantry - clean clothes and healthy food. What did not give? Celebrating our new five-year-old in style and throwing a super killer sales meeting for work. These two items (mostly the latter) have been all-consuming.

I was in Austin all last week to support the sales meeting (read: work my butt off) and was down for two days the week before to check out the hotel and take part in a department meeting. Besides the fact that the meeting went beautifully and informal feedback was that it was one of the best meetings on record (yay!), I also got to spend a ton of time with one of my favorite people, my co-worker Kim. And Kim and I got to sneak away last Wednesday night and have dinner with Jocelyn and Katie, two more favorites! Thursday night, after it was all said and done, the whole sales meeting crew went out dancing! Emerson rented out a bar in downtown Austin and got a cover band, The Spazmatics, who were well worth a trip to Austin on their own! SO amazing!

Super fun co-worker dinner

During all this sales meeting prep, we threw in the most random illness to go through the Vanneste household. It started with Mike. For several days in a row, he was getting a lot of bloody noses. We didn't think too much of it as he tends to get them, but we noticed they were worse than usual. Then one day, I picked Quinn up from Ms. A's and she was in a new outfit. Ms. A told me it was because she had a bloody nose. Same story the next day. A couple days later, Dec woke up crying in the middle of the night. After determining that he had not puked (as he told me he did), we headed into the bathroom where the light showed him completely covered in blood from a bloody nose. Maybe three days later, Fiona got a bloody nose during our bedtime book. And with that, the bloody cold was done. 

We also mixed in Mike's company being acquired and all the uncertainty that goes along with that. We are almost two weeks past the initial announcement (a complete surprise), so while we are no more certain of what the future holds for him, we are at least more in a state of calm around it. It was a bit stressful to find out and, of course, I was out of town the day it was announced. He'll be fine - whether he stays at Anchor or finds something new. It was just such a shock because he has been loving his job, his path, his co-workers. Sometimes even Mike will admit that change is hard.

The sales meeting is done, the birthday has been celebrated, the washer is currently in overdrive, and rumor has it that if I ever make a grocery list, we might fill up the pantry. We'll use the next couple weeks to move toward balance and an updated blog - just in time for school to start and send us all spinning again. Speaking of spinning ...