Joining the modern age

I'm as shocked as you are - really. When I went to check out the last time I posted, I thought I'd see an October date or something....no, it was August. Sooo, guess I have some 'splainin' to do.

Hopefully this should be easier - I finally asked to get a laptop at work, due to (at the time) impending second trip to Japan (which most sadly, took place the week of Halloween). Help facilitate my very gradual change into a workaholic type, I set us up wireless here at the old Casa de Fox, so I'm able to blog (without breaking the electronics useage policy I wrote) at home, sitting on the couch, drinking a nice little scotchy-scotch.

For those of you who want to know, here's a recap. September: uuuuhhhh...nope, drawing a blank. I have some vague memories of good weather. Otherwise I'd have to check my email to figure out what I was doing. Did remember Dad's birthday this year, and had a nice dinner at the club. (We did offer to take him out, I swear!!) Ava also started taking Gymnastics as well, with her best friend, Georgia. They're adorable, but I have to say the kid didn't exactly inherit a lot of natural skills from us... all the more reason. Hopefully she'll watch Georgia really well!

October: More glorious weather, with the only downside being the leaves not really changing until the very end of the month...not a lot of color. Time was spent working toward and worrying about going to Japan... again, to try and force Jatco HQ into thinking in a little more modern way about HR... you know, non-essentials like global HR framework for developing employees. I was pretty nervous going in...considering for a week long trip the HR department was only officially allocating 2 hours for meeting with me and other HR reps from Mexico and France. It turned out better than expected, and I have to say it's exciting to really have a strong voice and vote in the planning and creation of global HR systems for a multi-billion dollar company. Now if I could only get them to allocate a little larger fraction of those billions for me.... but more on that later. The really cruddy thing was giving up Halloween, my absolute favorite holiday. Thankfully for me, Shannon and Jeff had a holiday party the night before I had to hop on a plane, so I did get a bit of the holiday, and got to see Ava in her costume...

November: Again with the work craziness...due to a lot of both voluntary and involuntary turnover, it's been the year of recruiting for me, which of course sucks up enormous amounts of time. We'd hoped to see Angie and Crawford, who were scheduled to visit, but alas, it was not to be. Hopefully we will see them in January or February instead, so it will be really nice to have that to look forward to in the mid-winter, when all the holiday cheer has changed into winter doldrums. I was really happy to have some extra days off around thanksgiving, though - my first block of more than a couple of days off in a row without having to give up a vital body part. Thanksgiving was nice, but a touch melancholy - last Thanksgiving at Casey's aunt's house in Belding (didn't have to bring ANYTHING, which was awesome) due to the unfortunate pending divorce. Still, nice time had by all, and extremely minimal effort on our part. I've finally discovered the secret to lack of Thanksgiving work - bring a couple of poorly recieved dishes, and they let you off the hook. (Guess no one likes broccoli but me, huh?)

December: Starting off was the annual daycare Christmas pagent...got there early for once, ensuring good seats, which was kind of nice. Mom and John came with us, and true to form, John knew someone. Ava only made it about halfway through the program before crawling off the front of the stage and running over to us, claiming to be scared. This is the same girl who virtually chases down strangers to ask their names and find out what they're doing. The same girl who will gladly strip down and shake her booty at any random visitor in the house. Thankfully we don't have a lot of strangers over!! Oh well - it's all part of the drama for Madam President. She's picking up all the manipulative skills she can. We had our first episode (in a long time, anyway) of random vomiting....in the middle of the night she was crying for me, and I got there just in time to get the majority of the payload in my lap. Being relatively practical, I was just glad it was on me instead of the sheets and carpet. The episode was over in about 12 hours, but the lesson of sickness=no school is forever.

Currently, work is crazy - the only downside to the christmas break is the pressure to wrap up everything by the 21st....plus the whole year-end thing. Thankfully, my assistant is pretty quick...if I only had time to train her, it would be great. Did get good face time with the boss who seems to trust my opinion more and more, and who had good things to say at our last 2008 objectives session....don't want to jinx anything, but I hope I'll have good things to report soon. 'Course I told him I'd better have good news to report, or I'd be reporting somewhere else, so that may have something to do with it.

Tomorrow Casey and I have our annual shopping day - trying to get all the gifts out of the way before the last minute rush. Hopefully it won't be too insane!