Evening Keel

I'm just going to skip the apologies on neglecting this blog.  We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. At any rate, here I am, so bygones?

Things are....well.  Not that they are well, simply that they are, and nothing more can be said about that. I am settling in, this is starting to feel like a long-term situation, and I have never been so homesick in my life.  I have never missed mountains and altitude more in my life. I have never missed my family and friends more in my life.

But, here I am, and here I must stay.  So, to that end, I've got myself a crappy little job.  I'm writing freelance, of course, but I'm also now working for Ryla, which is a call-center oursourcer. We will be running the Verizon Wireless account, so the next time you call them for service, you might very well be talking to me.   That is to say, at the end of the next five weeks you might, because for the next five weeks, I'm in training from 4:30 PM through 1:15 AM, Monday through Friday. It's not what I WANT to do with my life, it's just what I could get after having been home with the girls for the past five years. So, it gives me something to do. It doesn't pay well, but it pays something, and I can supplement with my writing, so it ends up being OK.

And I kinda rock at it, too.  We had our first "assessment" on Friday.  It was 32 questions, and they gave us 2 hours.  I took 10 minutes and got a 100%. I'm kinda awesome that way.

There are thins to like about Indiana. I like Steak 'n Shake a LOT. I might be a whale when I go back home, just because of the weight gain from steakburgers. They're the shiznit, but everyone looks at me like I'm crazy when I say that. That's because they've HAD Steak 'n Shake for most of their lives....we don't have them in Colorado.  It's a trade off, though--they don't have Del Taco here. Give and take, I suppose.

Peyt and Chuck are doing well.  Peyt's teacher wrote me a nice e-mail to tell me how much she's enjoying having Peyton in her class and to thank me for sharing my daughter with her.  I thought that was pretty nice! She's already been taken up two reading levels, and I think she'll be going up one more here soon.  She's way more advanced than they're giving her credit for.  She also just got her "wings"--they have a behavior reward program at her school (she goes to Amelia Earhart Elementary), and she got recognized for good behavior in her classroom.  On Monday, she'll have her name announced with daily announcements and will have her name in the school newsletter at the end of the week. She's proud and excited, and I'm proud of her!

Chuck is doing REALLY well.  She's gaining weight and growing tall and starting to speak in sentences, even! I think we've just about recovered from the time she spent in the PICU, and she's just about caught up with the rest of her age group.  She's also a big snuggle bug...and she loves to give hugs and will come up to me and say "Hug-a me!" Love!

So, things are OK here. I don't love it, but I'm getting used to it.  I guess at the end of the day, that might be all I can ask for.