Sorry it’s been so long. Sorry family and friends who faithfully check to see if I’ve written anything. Sorry folks who want me to fix things with the themes I ported. I’ve been busy.

Since I last posted, I’ve traveled over 1,000 miles, started a new job, and taken on a new client (not related to the new job)… Not to mention things like fixing up our inner city house, going on trips every weekend, seeing historic ball games, volunteering, etc…

The job is great. I like the people I work with, I like the environment (it’s professional - something heretofore unknown to me), I even enjoy the work. =) I don’t love getting up early in the mornings, but even that’s not really a problem - as long as I put in my 8 hours a day, it doesn’t matter when I work them.

The house is coming along. The stinky master bedroom carpet is gone - Dave literally tossed it out the window. (How ghetto are we!?) Now all we have is a stinky hardwood floor that’s about to get primed (tomorrow morning) and a tack strip going all the way around the room (so we have to wear flipflops all the time). Next step in that process is new carpet.

Tonight, we spent about an hour cleaning out the oven finally… it was nasty! That oven cleaner, though, wow! That stuff is potent - we both choked when Dave sprayed it in there - and when I was cleaning it out, I swear I could feel it burning through my rubber gloves. But now, we have such a nice clean oven! Dave just finished putting foil on the racks and the oven bottom, so we can now bake our assigned dessert for the 4th of July fiesta we’re going to tomorrow night.

Just as we finished cleaning out the oven and scrubbing the oven racks, we heard some fireworks being set off… My thought: “Why can’t these rednecks wait until tomorrow night?” I found out that “these rednecks” were my best girlfriend and her fiancee. =) I had a good laugh about that. They had come over to see if we were around (we didn’t hear the knock because we were in the kitchen - back of the house), and since we weren’t, they started shooting off bottle rockets in our front yard. =) Dorks.

Happy 4th of July, family and friends. Hope you have a good one - and a safe one!

I have a job! More accurately, I have a contract position until the end of the year… but it pays so well that I’ll be making a year’s salary in that time. =) Completely out of the blue, I got a call (Thursday night) from a company I’d previously interviewed with - something of an emergency nature had come up and they needed another “resource.” My interviewer had kept my information handy and pulled it out right away… He wanted to meet with me as soon as possible, so (because I was headed out on vacation) we had to meet at 8am on Friday morning. I went in thinking I’d get another interview - I came out with a job and security clearance. =) God’s awesome!

I’ll be working for Clarian Health (a network of hospitals in Indianapolis) with a contracting company, Sedona Learning Solutions, to develop manuals and training material for software used by physicians. Don’t quite know yet what that means, but I’m excited. I find myself doubting my ability to do the job already - before I even know what I’ll be doing! But that’s just my nature. My overwhelming emotion is thankfulness.

So, thanks to you guys for praying for me!

This was our “lazy day” - we’ve spent and will spend most of our time doing things, going places, and seeing people, so today was the day to relax and do nothing. Nothing except shop, that is. Mom and Leah are getting ready to go back to Pennsylvania for a couple of months (Dad will stay here), so they’re picking up souveniers and such for the PA folk and relatives back on the mainland - and buying me clothes while they’re at it. I love “living” with my parents again! For dinner (lunch?) we went to an Italian restaurant my parents love.

Me and Leah at Bravo’s in Pearl Ridge

I had a phone interview this morning with Keith at Clarian Health about doing some technical writing for them when I get back from Hawaii - we’ll see how that turns out. I have another phone interview tomorrow morning about a web design job. That’s unlikely to produce results, but it’ll at least give me something to put on the unemployment voucher. =)