I finally have time to breath...

The last two months have been an extremely busy time for me. I have promised to blog more and keep you updated on the things going on in my life, and I really do intend to, but things keep popping up. Let me try to get you all caught up and then this week I want to go back and spend some additional time talking about some of the things from the past six months and apply pictures to them. That is going to be something new, since I haven't put pictures in my blog before.

Let me start with a topic that I have talked a lot about: school. In May I wrote my comprehensive exam. It consisted of three questions and the instructions said to be concise while answering all of the questions completely. My goal was to write 4-5 pages for each question and leave it at that. The first two questions I thought went very well. I was pleased with the result and felt that they would pass the grading without question. The third question was not so good. Despite my best effort at research, I could not find the theories I was being asked to present and discuss. I instead found methods and try to write them to where it sounded like I was talking about theories. I know, that isn't how to write a sound academic paper. I then waited three weeks for the results of the grading. I knew that there were a couple of grades I could receive. 1) Pass all Questions 2) Fail all Questions 3) Pass some Questions, Fail some Questions with a rewrite of the failed questions 4) Rewrite all questions. I was hoping for a grade of Pass on all questions, but expected to pass the first two questions and be asked to rewrite the third question. To my complete shock and dismay, I was asked to rewrite all three of the questions. Fortunately, I was able to use what I had previously written if I wanted to and I was given a list of issues that the two reviewers had from reading my exam. I then took two days to touch up the first two questions with what I considered to be very cosmetic corrections, and then spent the rest of the two weeks I had doing additional research and making considerable changes to the third question. When I completed the rewrite, I had added eleven pages to my exam from the first version. I was very pleased with myself. I found out a week later that I had passed the rewrite and am now working on my dissertation.

That brings me to a frustrating area that I am working through right now. I have never written a dissertation before. I have a dissertation chair that is supposed to guide me through the process. My luck is that my dissertation chair has never worked with a student on their dissertation. So, she has no idea what she is supposed to be doing to help me. I am so frustrated!!! I have gotten no guidance and am trying to keep moving through the process. I know that I only have a couple of weeks in the current "class" to reach a key milestone of completing my prospectus and forming my dissertation committee, but I don't know exactly how to do everything in the prospectus. I may have to seek out additional help, because I have to get this done.

I mentioned in my last blog that I was getting a pool. The pool has been successfully installed and I have enjoyed it on five occasions over the last month (I told you I have been busy). We officially opened our pool with a 4th of July cookout with my wife's family. It was fun, but a lot of work. I still have a lot of work to do getting my yard back level again. To get the pool level, they had to dig down 19 inches on half of my yard. Needless to say, I have a lot of dirt to move when I have the time.

After having the pool in, we had to have a deck built. I built it myself with the help of my wife's husband. We spent one Saturday working and got most of it finished. I have one section that is not finished as it is going to be done a little differently. For most of the deck I used a composite material to keep from having splinters and warping, so we will see how that works out over time. We have been happy with it the past week and a half. I have to correct that on Saturday we didn't have everything done. We have the one section that is still not finished, but this week I did the banisters and added some additional supports that were not initially expected because I have never used the composite material before. I am hoping to finish up the rest of everything Saturday evening, if I have the time.

Last week my little girl turned 3. It is so hard to believe that she is getting so big. I am going to have to add pictures. We had a pool party for her birthday on Saturday, which is why the deck had to be done when it did. Everyone had a blast.

I have been working a lot lately. We have had several people taking their summer vacations, and that means that I get to pick up a lot of their work. 50 - 60 hour weeks have been very common, but it seems that I can breath a little now.

I am still preaching at the little congregation we attend. I don't know how much longer I am going to do it, because I think we are almost ready to look for a new church home. There is a lot of drama with some of the families that only seems to be getting worse, and people try to drag us into the middle of it. It is not an environment I want to be in, let alone have my kids in. If things don't get better soon, we will have to really consider leaving. I was asked by the elders to teach the high school class on Sunday mornings as well. Now I teach that class on both Sunday and Wednesday. It is starting to wear on my a little because we only have been having two people come to class for various reasons. Normally, the class would not be exhausting because of that, but both of the people that have been in class have mental disabilities and don't have the ability to really participate. I feel like I am lecturing for thirty minutes to people who don't understand and at times aren't even listening. That is emotionally draining. To build on that, my daughter doesn't like class most of the time, because she is either in the baby class where the teach doesn't do anything but sing songs, or in the kindergarten class where it is a little above where she is at. It is tough with her being the only child her age in the congregation. The final issue that I am personally having with the congregation is that there are not any other people the age of me or my wife. The closest people are a single college age kid who is 19/20 and a couple that is in their late 40's. I feel like I really need some people close to my age range to associate with.

The last thing that I am going to touch on today, and again I am going to say now that I need to get pictures uploaded, is a new endeavour that I have taken on. That is coaching Pee Wee football. My five year old son decided this summer that he wanted to play football. We found a team for him to play on and signed him up. During the first practice, they asked for some help coaching, so I volunteered, applied, went through the interview, took the online coaching class that is required for certification, and paid the fee to be a volunteer coach. It has been an extremely rewarding two weeks so far. Being able to see the growth of these 5 and 6 year old boys learning something that they have never done before has been amazing. To see the drive and desire in their eyes and to help them through the times they wanted to quit and when the helmets were "hurting" their heads has already made it worth the money. (They just had to get used to the helmets.) It is frustrating at times to know they aren't working their hardest, especially when it is my son who isn't running his hardest, but they will learn and get better. They have come so far. I am really glad that I offered my time, even when I had so little to offer.

I will right more this week, even as the work is piling up again. I just got an e-mail asking me to help do some things I normally wouldn't work on. At least, for now, I finally have time to breath...

It has been too long...

Well, here I am a long time since my last blog. So much has gone on that I probably won't cover it all. I am just proud of myself for actually sitting down and blogging today. I have gotten really bad about this whole blog thing, but I really think I am going to block some time on my calendar atleast once a week to blog. We will see how that goes.

Since I last blogged a lot has happened. I have found out that a lot of people around us are now expecting babies within the next year. And I do mean a lot. I can think of 5 that I know and if I waited five seconds to think, I might come up with a couple more. I am not going to say who they are, because I think that is their business not mine. I am excited about all of them though!!! :)

I completed all of my coursework for school and took my comprehensive exam. It was horrible, although I am still holding out hope for a "Pass". I definitely do not want a "Fail" and I really don't want a "Rewrite". It was bad enough writing it the first time. I guess if it came down to a rewrite or fail, I would rather rewrite it, but I am hoping for the pass. I still have another week or two before I find out how I did, and it is killing me. I don't like waiting to find out how I did on stuff. I always want to know now!!! I will let everyone know when I find out.

We decided that we were going to get a pool this summer, so assuming I get all of the permits, sand, HOA approvals, and all of the other 10 million things done it will be up in two weeks. I am already almost ready to not get the pool, but I really want it, so we will have one.

Work is pretty busy, and it is calling me away for now. I will try to catch up some more soon, It has been too long...

Frustrated

For lack of a better word, I am going to call myself frustrated.

I am frustrated over the fact that I submitted an 18 page paper for class a week and a half back and have not received feedback from it, with another 15-20 page paper due in four days.

I am frustrated because we are supposed to get snow, and although we were promised snow by 11:00 AM, it is now 3:20 and we still have not had a single flake fall. To add insult to injury, I get to see pictures of a 100 year record for snow get broken in the part of Oklahoma I grew up in.

To top it off, I have people who complain about having to do their jobs.

Finally, I have not blogged much this year because I have been so busy.

Add all of that up and I am Frustrated!!!!

Until next year....

Well, I am back just as I promised I would be. It has been two months since I actually blogged about anything and a lot has happened in that two months. Let's see how much we can cover before you get tired of reading this.

School:

I mentioned yesterday that I got an A- in the class I completed earlier this month. I am mostly okay with that, because I just wanted the class to be over. It was a class with just me and the professor, so I was getting tired of not having any other thoughts and ideas. I guess it was a good warm up for the class I have starting in January. January and February will be filled up with the Independent Study that I have mentioned before. I recently received a little more direction on what it will be, which makes me a little more comfortable with what to expect. I will be spending this time doing research for and writing my Literature Review for my dissertation. That is exciting to me, because that will be half of my dissertation being mostly written. If I am able to accomplish this, which is required to get an A, I should have little problem completing my dissertation by May 2012. The biggest thing holding me back will be waiting on responses from the survey I will submit as part of my research.

So, January and February I will be reading a lot of articles and finding information that will help me focus in on my research topic and prove that it is a valuable area of study that has not been done before. The end result will hopefully be 60 pages of my dissertation done.

Weather:

This year has been an odd year for us here. Normally we don't see snow until January, but we have already had at least three inches of snow on two occasions and one or two other occasions of a dusting of snow. While three inches of snow doesn't sound like much, it reeks havoc on our roads. Since my family and I live on some back roads, our roads are usually the last to be cleared, and we have hills all around us.

This leads to a fun story about the first time we got a few inches of snow this year. It was a Sunday, and the expectation was that we would see snow in the morning with no accumulation. Sunday morning it was snowing when I left for worship and was still falling when I got home. It snowed all afternoon and started to build up on the grass. My wife told me that I needed to stay home Sunday night and not got worship because she was afraid the weather was getting too bad. My daughter was sick, so she was staying home with my wife. My son and I left to get to worship. I am the preacher and felt like I shouldn't miss. By the time we made it to the church building(it's a 25 minute drive), the snow was starting to gather on the roads. Salt trucks had not been sent out because the weather people were not predicting any accumulation. After services when my son and I left, the roads were getting bad. We made it to the Interstate, which had finally had salt put on two of the four lanes, and began our drive home. When we got to our exit, I had a bad feeling. The roads were completely white and you couldn't see the lines, just some tracks from where others had driven previously. We get to the road we live on and turn. Right after the turn in a small but steep hill. We make it two thirds of the way, and start sliding back. I back up to get a running start and the same thing happens. This goes on for three more attempts, it is the best way for us to get home. On the fourth attempt, I drive off the road where this a little gravel shoulder which allowed me just enough tracktion to make it up the hill. The roller coast just began. We made it over a couple of smaller hills and began our decent towards the biggest hill we would face. It is tall, has a three foot drop off on one side and a five foot drop off on the other. There isn't a shoulder to drive on, so I start up hoping for the best. Three fourths of the way up, we lose our traction and start sliding backwards. If you have never been in this position, sliding down a steep hill backwards is very difficult to control. The van started to slide sideways, but I get it straightened back up and stopped about halfway up the hill. The only option I have is to back down the hill and pull into a driveway. Fortunately, my brother-in-law has a four wheel drive and was able to pick us up and take us home. The little front wheel drive mini van just wouldn't make the hill.

We had a white Christmas this year. It was the first one in 17 years for our area. I knew that I hadn't seen one in the 14 years I have been out here. It was beautiful. The roads were bad again, but this time we stayed in until they could be cleared. One of the elders preached for me that Sunday morning and was very understanding in why we weren't there. Total we had 20 that Sunday morning.

Church:

I am still preaching for the small congregation. We have hit 80 on 2 occasions, so the elders set our new goal to be 90, even though we average 65-70 on a regular basis.

Friends:

I greatly miss some friends. My best friend in Oklahoma is the one I miss the most. We have some friends that have worshiped with us for the last ten years that may be going somewhere else, and that is upsetting to me. Their daughter is my son's best friend and he will be devastated if they leave.

Family:

I have a great family. As a part of my New Year resolution to write on this blog each week, I will be introducing them to you. I am going to add pictures too. I have been really bad this year, so look for that to come in 2011.

Me:

I am exhausted. With work, school, church, family and anything else that decides it wants to creep up going on, I just get worn down. I took three days of vacation last week along with the holiday and am more tired now than I was before. I just hope that staying up to bring in the new year will provide me with the rest that I need, or at least the excuse to sleep in new years day.

Until next year....

In short, Merry Christmas!!

I want to take a few minutes to say Merry Christmas, even though it is a few days late. I plan on writing more tomorrow to catch up on the past two months. I also plan on spending more time each week next year on my blog. I am actually going to schedule time on my calendar where I write in my blog. I hope that it will provide me a time to step away from all of the things going on in my life.

I made an A- in my most recent class in school. I would have had a solid A, but I turned 6 assignments in atleast 2 days late. Those points really add up. The thing that stinks about the A-, is that now my GPA is a 3.96, despite never getting lower than an A- in a class. Oh well, I guess it can't all be perfect.

Well, I am going to go for today. I will write more tomorrow. For today, in short, Merry Christmas!!

Trying to slow down

Hello blog world. It has been a long time since I have posted and I am sure that you all greatly missed reading about what is going on in my life. I have been extremely busy the past few weeks, so I am going to try to catch you up on what has been going on in my world. Also, I am going to "try" to talk a little more about my family and what is going on with them moving forward. I can't make any promises, but I am going to try. My wife recently learned that I have a blog and was a little hurt to find out that I wasn't talking about her all the time. I guess I can see her point. I talk about work and school most of the time, so it might be nice for you to hear about other parts of my life.

So, to start us off, lets talk about school. I know what I just said in the paragraph above, but I am still going to write about what I started this blog to be about. I am rapidly closing in on the end of the class I am in currently. When I say rapidly closing in, I have sixteen days left in this class. I have a lot of work to do to make it and get a decent grade in the class. I am currently caught up with all of my assignments, but the two biggest assignments are still coming up and are due in 10 days. I guess the last six days are more of a vacation for me as all of my assignments will be finished by then.

When I finish this class, I will be 9 hours away from my comprehensive exam and dissertation. That is 3 classes. It looks like it will turn into 2 defined classes and an independent study, which will be great for me. It is kind of scary to think about the end coming so soon.

On top of being busy with school, I have been very busy with work the past couple of weeks. I lead the quality assurance team on my contract, which comes with a lot of work on its own. I am responsible for creating any and all of the templates used by our analyst and programmer team, and also used by the team for our other MIC contract. I also am responsible for driving the quality process to ensure that our clients only get the highest quality deliverables from us. This is a time consuming process, especially at the end of the month. To compound this, in September we scheduled a new staff training in our Baltimore office for the last week of the month. So, as the lead for the QA team, I got to travel to Baltimore and present several training sessions.

After we planned our training, I found out that I would also be giving a presentation to our client. So, I had to travel down a day earlier to give that presentation and spend all day in meetings there. I think the hardest part of all of that, was flying on Sunday afternoon and then getting up earlier than I ever do for three days. Monday morning I had to get up at 6:30. That doesn't sound like that early, but my body thought it was 5:30. To make matters worse, I never get up before 7:30 on a regular day. And to put the icing on the cake, since I normally stay up until 1:00 every night, I could go to sleep that Sunday night. In the end, the presentation and training all went well and I was very happy about that. I ended up getting home around 10:00 Wednesday night. Thursday rolled around and I was in the office from 9:00 a.m. to 10:15 p.m. It was the last day of the month and we had to get work done. Friday I got a little of a break and left early, at 3:00, but that was to plan for working from home Friday night. From the Saturday to Friday, I worked right around 60 hours. Then Friday night, I started working on updating on of our web-based tools. I happen to be the administrator for this tool on both of our contracts and our company decided we needed to make some changes. I went to bed at 4:30 Saturday morning. I really wanted to sleep all day on Saturday, but no such luck. I had important football to watch. Can we say Boomer Sooner?

This week has been a lot less stressful. I have still been very busy but at least things are trying to slow down.

I miss my friend!!!

I am hurting today. I have had a friendship with one of the greatest people I know for 14 years. We have been through it all. We almost hated each other when we first met, but then we got to know each other and decided that the other wasn't as bad as we thought. We struggled with maintaining a close relationship while we were hundreds of miles apart. We were there for each other during difficult times in our other relationships. We laughed with each other and we cried with each other. We saved our friendship after it almost fell apart because of my stupidity a couple of times. We rejoiced with each other as we found the ones we would marry. We rejoiced together with the announcement of my becoming a father and cried together when the struggles for her to become a mother. We rejoiced together again when she bore her first child and fulfilled a dream. We have shared almost everything over the past 14 years, and we have been there for each other. Today, I feel like we are slipping apart. We have not spoken in several weeks and reading each other's blogs seems to be where we learn everything that used to be first hand. I know that life moves forward, but I don't want to lose this friend. I miss her so much!!! I miss my friend!!!