Aurora Borealis

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Tldz had a second interview for a position he was interested in.  Yesterday, less than 24 hours after the start of his interview, he was offered the job.  He gave his boss 2 weeks notice today and will start his new job on August 4.

There’s not a work from home situation with this job, and it’s a longer commute than he has going in to his current job; so we won’t see him very much during the week.  Agent Murphy will miss his Daddy.  It will be a tough adjustment for all of us.  But career-wise, things didn’t seem to be going anywhere with his current position.  This new job comes with a better title, a substantial pay increase, and based on the few interactions he’s had so far, a better manager.  So we think it will be worth it.  And it will make us even more focused on getting the house ready for sale.  We’ve known we’ll need to look for something bigger, but now we know what part of town to look at in order to ease the commute to this job while giving good commute flexibility to other areas of town that tend to have the sorts of jobs he’s interested in.

I’m so excited for Mr. Tldz’s opportunity, but I can’t help but have mixed feelings.  I remind myself that we had a very special  blessing to have him home almost all the time these past 6 months or so.  In no way is that a typical situation for most folks, and now we’ll just be going to a more “normal” situation.  Still, it will be hard.  I guess I’ll finally be getting a long, full dose of what it is to be a stay at home mom.

Mr. Tldz graciously agreed to look after the little guy for a bit this morning while I went off to church for a “Lunch & Learn” session on St. Paul in honor of the Pauline year the pope has announced.  It was a good session and really got me looking forward to the resumption of Thursday night Scripture study.  Hopefully I’ll be able to work that into the schedule regularly.

One little off topic point of annoyance came up.  We were conjecturing as to how Paul may have come to have Roman citizenship.  One woman in the class said, “Well, it could be like the politicians of today who say ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’  Like George Bush and Exon, financing his campaign.”  Really now.  As a conservative, it would never occur to me in a setting where we’re discussing St. Paul or something similar to say, “Well, maybe it was like Barack Obama and that outrageous Jeremiah Wright.”  I just wouldn’t think of throwing my politics into something like that.  Why do liberals feel so free to do so?  Mr. Tldz speculates, and I think he may be right, that liberals act on the assumption that everyone in any group they’re in agrees with them.

Foster Mulan went home on Thursday, Grandma departed mid-day on Friday to head to a wedding in Asheville, NC after visiting us for a few days…  So I guess you could say life is getting back to normal around here.  Agent Murphy has to readjust to having only Mommy and Daddy to entertain him, but he’s doing okay with that.

Mr. Tldz had a job interview this morning, so we all had a little field trip.  Sounds like they’re hoping to make a final decision within a couple of weeks, following second interviews, so there won’t be too much waiting on that.

Got home, made lunch, made some baby food, had a follow-up visit on my ingrown toe nail (I know, very exciting), then folded diapers and laundry.  Yeah, that sounds about normal.

Yes, the baby swing has been packed up and moved to the basement.  It served Agent Murphy - and us - well for many months.  But we really haven’t used it much the last couple of months, as he’s really gotten too heavy for it to swing well, and mostly too restless to tolerate being confined to it.  It’s been a fixture in our living room since several weeks before Agent Murphy’s arrival.  But lest I get too used to open spaces, the playpen immediately took its place.  I’m happy to report that Agent Murphy seemed to greatly enjoy his first stay in the playpen.  We introduced a few new toys there, and the little Elmo dump truck seems to be a big hit.

Mr. Tldz and I just spent some time going through movies and reorganizing things to clear out the cabinet under our TV stand so we can make it Agent Murphy’s cabinet.  He recently showed that he’s able to get it open, so we’ve put some new toys and some containers in there for him to discover when he gets into it again.  He is definitely in exploring mode.  Oh, have I mentioned that sometime last week he started really crawling?  It’s still not very organized, and sometimes he still drags his back end around rather than using his knees, but he is very definitely getting around now!