Recent events

Ahhh, again I slack. I suppose I've been doing too much Facebook, not enough blogging.

To pull out a Master-of-the-Obvious phrase - much has happened.

Nothing earth shaking mind you - it's not like I've had a good excuse, such as a debilitating disease or epic struggle against evil to keep me from the blog. Just me. Those of you who love me will have accepted this by now, and undoubtedly will take consolation in the fact that I've probably seen you since the last post!!

Now the hard part...what the (*$&**& have I been doing since the last post? Ahhh yes, I do remember one reason for not being super candid...a couple of days after Halloween, we had to announce we were laying off more than 1/2 our staff. As (evil) HR, I was pretty deeply involved in this. (We moved two entire segments of our business down to our Mexican sister company) Thankfully, Jatco allowed us to offer our employees a good severence package. I also found a government program for employees displaced by movement of jobs to Mexico (part of NAFTA), so there were some good benefits to be had there too. Still really really sucked. Almost all of the employees we had to let go were long-term employees, well trained, loyal hard working folks, who just got skunked by the economy, and the lower cost of labor in Mexico. While it's easy to grumble at Mexico, or other so-called "LCC"s (low cost countries), whenever someone starts to do it to me, I just ask them if they shop at Wal-Mart. Or, alternately if they make sure to select products made in America, even if there is higher cost (and perhaps lower quality).

But as Casey would joke, "I digest". Layoffs for most were final on December 23rd, with a few employees staying over until the end of March. True to form, our folks were as good as gold through the end of their jobs, and we didn't have a single incident, accident, or other problem. In fact, they did such a great job that all the work needed to be completed was done early, so I wound up proposing that they spend the last month or so on the job doing some community service, instead of sitting here bored out of their minds. That was well received too, and we got a couple of nice thank-you notes from the various charities they assisted. Now, it's way too quiet around here. While I'm very thankful to still be employed, it's a different company than it once was, and it's going to take us some time to pick ourselves back up again.

In the mean time, Thanksgiving came and went. We had my mom and John, Casey's mom and Steve over for dinner. We brined the turkey according to Alton Brown, and it was delicious! Thank you food network.

Christmas really snuck up on me, since I was so busy with the layoffs here, but as always, it's nice to spend time with friends and family.

Spring brought Ava's 5th birthday (how is that possible?) We opened a few presents right after waking up. Once the easy bake oven was discovered, we had to make "breakfast cake." Being a little sweetheart, though, she made the cake, frosted it, and then saved it for Daddy. We had had taken the day off, for festivities. We grabbed her buddy Georgia, and made a day of kid friendly activities, such as hair, nails and makeup at "Sweet and Sassy", fed the ducks, etc. Nothing like purple and pink hairspray to make a girl's day.

By the time March rolled around, we were waaaaaay sick of snow, and generally depressed, laying off the last (and best) of our people scheduled for cuts, and then, to add a new level to the overall feeling of instability at work, our President resigned, and announced our new President would be starting in a month, at which time he would depart. Niiiice. Thankfully, I knew the guy slated for the spot from some of the many trips to Japan, and knew he was a very nice, cool guy who spoke English really well, and would be a good fit for us.

March also brought medical madness to the house for a bit, when Casey finally scheduled his shoulder surgery. During the rafting trip last year (I think I did a post...) another person in our raft was launched forward, hitting Sara in the head (thought she'd broken her neck) and Casey in the shoulder. While we were far more worried at the time for Sara, turns out that Casey's injury was more enduring, and they wound up having to go in there and shave a bit of his collarbone off, so that it would stop rubbing up against other bones. All went really well (and FAST - surgical report said surgeon did the whole thing in just under 15 minutes) and Casey was hooked up with interesting painkilling catheter, which blocked the nerve for a few days. I think Casey was more annoyed with carrying around the little pump than anything else about the whole process, and was bored of being at home after about 2 days. He wound up back at work in a little less than 2 weeks, and fully functional at about a month. Now he's looking forward to golfing.

Seemed like Spring took forever to get here. Maybe it just seemed longer because I was waiting to take the top down on the VW bug we bought in December. Yes, crazy time to buy one, Crazy like a FOX! I'm really going to have to start annoying people by using that phrase more often. The fact that it kept raining and snowing a lot probably had something to do with the whole doesn't-feel-like-spring-thing too. April seemed to slide along slowly, without a lot of distinguishing features.

In May, though, we had something to look forward to - a vacation in Hilton Head with my Mom, John, Angie and Crawford. Mom and John had gotten a condo rental in a charity auction some months before, and we'd all arranged to go down for a week. Hilton Head was very different from Outer Banks....much more golf oriented than beach oriented, at least it seemed to me. Certainly very lushly green compared to OBX. Very pretty. We were really happy to see Angie and Crawford, who is getting so big. He and Ava got along well, and we all had a nice time, if a little subdued, due to the large number of rainy days. Still, we did manage to get pool and beach time, and quaff many glasses of wine. Always a plus.

The Saturday after our return, Ava was the flowergirl in Steve's daughter's wedding. Surprising no one, she loved the dress, the attention, the flowers, everything. Surprising me, she was really well behaved at the altar, and stood through most of the (short) service like a well-trained bridesmaid. She only broke ranks and headed for Grandma Sue when she saw the big bag of popcorn they were using to keep 2 year old Van quiet. Had to get some of that.

Last but not least, we celebrated out 7 year anniversary yesterday, the 1st. It seems like yesterday....but that's a good thing right? I'd imagine it would feel like eternity if you weren't with someone you loved!! We had a very romantic dinner of tacos and chips, with white cheese dip brought up from South Carolina. Mmmm tacos. tastes like love.