Updates!

Oh, how quickly I have fallen back into the pattern of infrequent blog posts.  Here's some of what has been going on lately:

• EOY Trip to Denver.  We had a fantastic road trip out to Denver just after Christmas to visit Anna & Kyle and see their new home.  (To be accurate our trip out there was not fantastic due to the weather, but once we go there, things got much better.)  It was pretty amazing to see how much differnent their house was; it was hard to believe that just a few months ago they had plants growing up through the floorboards.  I will be honest that newness/niceness of everything did make me a little jealous, but I've been trying very hard the last year or so to be content with what I have and where I am.  Also, it was funny because they kept telling me that they were having a cold streak because it was in the upper 30s and  lower 40's, but I just left an ice storm and single-digits in Woodstock, so it felt pretty nice to me.  Plus the sun was out almost every day we were there, so that was a really nice change.  We got to spend some time just relaxing, drinking a few White Russians, visiting the Zoo, taking the lite-rail downtown (Addie loved that), and hung out with Kyle's family a couple times, which actually didn't feel weird at all & Addie made two new friends. Also, I got to visit La Casa Bonita which had absoluely the very worst food I've ever consumed, but was the theme of a South Park episode so very much worth the experience, even though Black Bart's Cave scared Addie to the degree that she still says she never-ever wants to go back to that "skooky cave."
• I deferred my grad school enrollment at WPI.  I think I fall into an interesting group where I make too much money to qualify for a lot of grants and loans, and too little money to pay for school out of pocket.  Still, some loan information was pending, but looking at our finances, it just wasn't a prudent gamble to pay out of pocket and hope something came through to refund/suppliment my costs.  I have been wanting to do grad school pretty badly for a couple years now, and was really disappointed to have to deffer to next semester, but I think it was the right choice for our family.  Maybe I will set up a PayPal "Donate Now" button over on the side of my blog to fulfil your present strong desire to help me go to school.
• I finally got a bike!  For the last year or so, I've been wanting to get a decent entry-level road bike, and so ahead of my birthday this year, I've been scanning craigslist pretty religiously to find one that fit my needs, but didn't cost too much.  Last night, I took a trip out to Palatine to pick up my brand-new-to-me 2000 Specialized Allez A1 Elite.  It is definitely not the sexiest bike around, but for 300 bucks I think I got a pretty good deal, and it'll get me on the road, so I am really excited for warmer weather to start heading our way.  I still need to pick up some gear and a new saddle (the one that was on there is for women), so I'm not totally out of the woods yet in terms of spending money, but for less than a gym membership, I'll be able to get some exercise, time by myself, spend time outside, and have a lot of fun.  A good investment, in my opinion.
• My current project as an analytics manager has not been the challenge that I had hoped that it would be, so I've sometimes found myself bored during the day (even on busy days, its just somewhat repetative work).  So to suppliment my desire to keep my self challenged and learning, I've been able to pick up some side-work doing operations & finance stuff for our internal business unit.  It is way more up my alley in terms of what I would like to be involved in long-term (career-wise), and has been a lot of fun so far.  Getting things set up has taken a lot of time (one of the reasons I haven't been posting a lot lately), but things are starting to come together, and it has been good exposure to a lot of our senior leadership - not a bad thing to help distinguish myself with promotion cycles coming up this year.
• I have discovered melatonin!  I have a terrible time falling asleep, and though sleeping pills help, I don't personally like the idea of taking a drug to go to be everynight.  Several month's back, my Dad told me I should try melatonin.  I kept forgetting, but about a month or so ago I picked some up while grocery shopping with the thought that it couldn't hurt to try.  It has made a tremendous difference to me... 35 minutes after taking one, I'm able to go to bed and fall asleep within 5-10 minutes, which is something I didn't even come close to before.  I'm not sure exactly why I'm sharing this, other than the fact that I'm excited that I can actually fall asleep when I want to now.  Of course, its harder to wake up in the morning because I'm still drowsey, but its also hard to wake up in the morning when your spend 90 minutes tossing and turning before you can fall asleep, then wake up several times throughout the night.

Okay, I think that's it for now.  peace.