Another Year

There's a song by K's Choice which I am reminded of at the moment.  Although the song isn't actually about the passing of time, the chorus ends with the words, "Another year goes by."  This is the first time since about this time last year that I've had the luxury of a few days to sit and reflect.  And, as I've done for many years before, I'll shortly start my list of resolutions, many to be broken, and a handful to be achieved.  But, at this moment, the chorus rings very true for me, and I realize that I've lived through another year.  There's this funny thing about time - it passes without you really intending it to, and before you know it, lots of time has passed, and you've filled it with an ordinary life.  I'm tempted to preach about the dangers of ordinary life, but I'd be preaching as much to myself as to anyone else.

But as I sit and think back across time, I realize my failure at blogging has made me miss out on documenting some of the really great stuff that has happened in the last year or two.  It might seem that since coming back from London, life has become mundane.  I won't deny that to some degree, it has, because there's not the same sense of adventure, the sense of exploration in a world and a land where everything is new.  On the other hand, we've not been still.  The kids continue to grow and change and are slowly becoming adults, step by step.  Somebody reminded me just the other day that my oldest will be 16 in only three and a half years.  We've explored, and we've had a great time learning more about the stuff that is closest to us.  There's a lot more neat places here than I previously realized.  There's been ups and downs, and I've just been neglectful at posting about them.

I won't even begin to try to recap the past two years - there's far too much to cover, and I'm afraid I'd miss some vital piece of the story.  And that's kind of the point, that life, however lived, will tell a story.  Here's to beginning next year and living out a story of greatness.

The Ways and Means to New Orleans

It's been a quick couple of weeks since the last post, and I can only imagine the vast heart palpitations that are occurring in various places right now ("It's only been two weeks since the last post?! Is the world coming to an end?"), but I can assure you, that, at least to my knowledge, the world is not ending. I'm just trying to keep my end of the bargain in this whole blog deal by actually blogging every once in a while.

So, anyway, since the last post, I had a small conniption over internet flower companies, swearing them off for the rest of my life, based on the terrible service I've received. I can't recall if it was before or after the last post, but Chili's also firmly ensconced itself in the list of places that I will never go to again. I'm not even certain that I could bring myself to go there to watch someone else eat. Feel free to ask if you want details, but suffice it to say that Chili's is home to four of the worst dining experiences I have ever had.

The most exciting thing to happen to this family in the past few weeks though, has to be the recent week-end trip to New Orleans. We had visited this past summer, but literally for a single day, driving down on one day, and returning the next. This time we spent two days (kind of) attending the pre-Mardi Gras parades and enjoying the NOLA atmosphere. It was everyone else's first time going to the parades, and I think it's safe to say we all had a good time. I may have added a new favorite to my list of New Orleans restaurants, specifically for breakfast/brunch, but we also stopped at old favorites, including Maspero's and the infamous Lucky Dog stand. Still, the highlight was the parades, and the kids racked up on beads, stuffed animals, and other various parade paraphenalia. Still, the visit was far too short, and it seems like it really only whet my taste to return again... and soon.

Oh Me, Oh My, Oh You

It's safe to say that I won't win any frequent writing awards, given the overall dearth of news coming out of this blog in recent months. That's not to say that nothing has been happening. Au contraire, there have been lots of changes in the months since I last wrote - enough that to attempt to summarize them all in a single post would be somewhat ridiculous.

It is now creeping up on two years since we returned from England, and I suppose you can say we're as settled as we can be. We are in our house, with which my wife and I share a love/hate relationship. There is much to be done in the house, and we have once again begun some small steps towards the overall renovation, but to be honest I don't think I realized just how much work (and money) getting the house to look like we want would take. Nonetheless, we've begun to tackle small things around the house, and sometimes, even the small things can make a decent difference.

In other news, I changed jobs this past summer. The new job promises to allow more free time and a better work life balance, but time will tell. So far, it has been much less stressful than my previous job, which is definitely a good thing. It also has great promise for future development and so far, it's been a good change of pace from the world to which I had grown accustomed. This is my first non-busy "busy season" in some six years, and I am still trying to figure out what life is really supposed to be like on the other side.

The kids spent summer mostly at the pool and started school in their new grades this past fall. School is going much better this year than last, but I remain amazed that Dalton will be in middle school next year. He is also transitioning to Boy Scouts in a few weeks, both of which I suppose signify something about how quickly he is growing up. Mich and I were looking at pictures this past weekend, and noticed how little he (and Maggie) were when we first arrived in England. Time really does fly by.

Maggie still deeply loves her ballet dancing, and I for one, enjoy seeing her dance. It's one of those things where she dances because she loves it, and I think it comes through. The joy of the dance. She wants to take horse-riding lessons, and piano lessons, so we'll see what comes of it. I'm undecided at the moment, although having a piano player in the house would be nice, especially considering that at the moment, we simply have the piano, but nobody really knows how to play. We had decided to delay any sort of lessons for the time being, simply to make sure that she was giving the appropriate focus to her school work. As I mentioned above, school is going much better this year, so we may elect to allow her to take lessons of one kind or another in the near future.

For those of you not in Alabama, you may not realize that this year has been extremely unusual from a weather perspective. The kids have used all of their weather days already due to multiple snows, icy conditions, and other wintry weather, and any additional school cancellations will result in days being added to the school schedule. We actually got snow on Christmas Day, and the day after we had about an inch or so of accumulation. We built a fire and I ended up sitting inside reading and lazing about. It was quite nice and cozy.

That's enough of an update for now. I'll try to make sure it's not quite as long between updates next time.

An Update of sorts

In case anyone out there is actually still looking at this from time to time, an update would be the right thing to do. The last couple of weeks have been strange for me. For anyone who is unfamiliar with my family, my parents leave to go to the Czech Republic in about a week. So, the last few weeks have had various trips of going to get things they're not taking, and just visiting, and that sort of thing. I'm still trying to sort through how I feel about it. I imagine that my reaction will come (as it usually does) after the fact, or just right before. I tend to have severely delayed reactions. I'm not entirely sure why that is. All that being said, it all feels a little surreal at the moment.

In other news, the kids get out of school this upcoming week. That will start the pool trips shortly afterwards, I would imagine, since we opted to renew our pool membership this year. I still haven't made vacation plans. I had intended to be off the last week of April, believing (foolishly, as it turns out), that my work would have sufficiently slowed for me to do so. I started the busy season with six reports to get out - one was supposed to go mid-February, two by mid-March, and three by end of March. On April 1, a grand total of one report had gone out the door. Somewhere along the way I picked up another, so now, nearing the end of May, there are still three to go. Makes the whole "work-life balance" thing a little difficult to manage. So, when all is clear, I plan on taking some time off. My strong desire would be to arrange some time off and to also head beachwards, since that, I think, would assist greatly in the unwinding process.

Otherwise, our little family has been trooping along. Dalton and I went on his first overnight camping trip last weekend, along with what seemed like an ungodly amount of other small children. We went and found shark teeth in a small creek, fished, and then I basically sat around while Dalton ran and played with his friends. Still, it was fun. We had to set up our tent on a slight incline, because there were no flat spaces for us to set up on. Therefore, inside the tent, everything was slightly tilted. We went to sleep, and sometime during the night, I hear Dalton making "unh" noises. I wake up, look over, and Dalton's sleeping bag has slid to one end of the tent, and he is all squished into about two and a half feet of space. He's still asleep, though. So I just pulled the top of the sleeping bag up, and he stopped making the noise.

Maggie had her recital, although that's been probably a month or so ago at this point. She clearly enjoys dancing, and I hope she keeps it up. I can't remember exactly what she was (a periwinkle, or some sea creature, I think), but we bought the DVD so we can watch it at any point now and I can be reminded.

Our house is a wreck (as always), although hope remains strong that we will actually clean it up at some juncture. With additional inherited furniture and other goodies, we're rearranging a bit this weekend, so maybe some of the clutter will vanish. It's starting to look a little better, so maybe soon we'll actually have some semblance of a clean house. And that, I think, is my cue that I've said all that needs to be said for now.

One Year Later...

I am well aware that it has been several months since I last posted. I did decide to make a post this weekend in honor of our one year anniversary back Stateside. It was one year yesterday that we arrived back in the States, and I can still remember Dalton wandering around and saying repeatedly, "It feels like I'm in a dream." And it did - it was truly odd to walk around the places that I remembered and knew so well, and see them anew after spending the larger part of two years abroad. I've found that life isn't what I thought it would be (I guess it really never is), and feel like enough time has passed that I can make a reasonable look back and give a better overall assessment than I could have before.

I think there were several lessons that I thought I had learned before we left that clearly had not stuck well enough. I thought I had figured out that your problems follow you no matter where you go, but somehow, I managed to still be surprised when we had problems here. They may not have been the same problems, but there were problems nonetheless. Perhaps it's just the old human nature to look at other people and places and to think the grass is greener. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be back - there are definitely things that I appreciate here in a deeper and different way than I did before. That being said, there is also a newfound appreciation for the English as well, and having been a part of another culture for a brief time, there are things that I think they do better than we. I've been told that once you're exposed to another culture for an extended period of time that we cease to be part of our original culture, but at the same time, don't fully adopt the second culture, and become almost a third culture to yourself, adopting and appreciating the good and the differences of both. My experience leads me to believe that this is true.

Atlhough I would have told you a year ago that England had changed me inalterably, and that England had somehow, against my begrudges, won over a small portion of my heart, I have probably been the most surprised by how much of my heart England seems to have invaded. Again, don't misunderstand - I truly do appreciate our warmer weather here in the South, sunny, sandy beaches where you actually go swimming, large yards, and the many, many other joys of being "home". But I miss cream teas, the beautiful English countryside, the real sense of history, the at times overwhelming sensation of being so close and so familiar with such amazing buildings and places, their abundance of spring flowers, and the list goes on. We'd love to go back and visit, but times being what they are....

Overall, our lives have progressed with little change from our last post. Maggie and Dalton continue to go to school and do the things typical for kids their age. Maggie is still performing ballet, and was in the Birmingham Ballet performance of Peter Pan. Dalton played soccer again this past summer/fall, and joined Scouts shortly after we returned. My life is far less interesting, as it has been absolutely consumed by work over the past several months, thanks to the annual occurrence of the accountant's "busy season". Michelle has been scrapping, and takes care of the kids (and me). Maggie did turn eight earlier this month, which is still absolutely amazing to me, and she went to Atlanta and got an "American Girl" doll as part of her birthday present.

That's all for now. I am thinking that once I get some of my life back, I will return to blogging more regularly, but no promises...

A Question for You

Someone, who shall remain nameless, (but whose name begins with 'E' and ends with 'N', and who occasionally goes by the name "Dakota") not so subtly pointed out the amazing lack of updates that have recently occurred. This is, regrettably, true. However, I must admit that I have struggled to find a reason to write recently. The blog was originally established to keep in touch with our friends and families while we were away. We are, as some of you may capably observe, no longer away. Which leads to the next question - what form should the "Tales" take going forward? This is the question which stymies me. I personally found it much more interesting to write about (and to read about) our travels and adventures in London and Europe than I would find it to write about, say, how I cleaned the yard, or the garage, or perhaps went on a walk in the Alabama woods.

Your thoughts?

Another week has passed by, and I am well aware that I have yet to post photos. Still, I will blithely continue on as if I hadn't noticed that small, yet pressing oversight.

This past weekend was quite fun. We did a retreat at the church that we've been visiting for the last few months, and had a great time. We had a cardboard regatta, which, for the uninitiated, is where you build a boat out of cardboard boxes and then race the other contestants in their cardboard boxes. Our boat actually made it all the way around the course, however, it tipped over about three feet from the starting line, so I ended up pushing the boat around the course by swimming, while Dalton rode along inside. Still, it was a blast. We also enjoyed meeting new people and getting to know other people better.

The kids started school on Wednesday, and that day and the following days were begun with the alarm clock going off. Normally I awaken a little bit before the alarm clock, and just get up. I hate waking up to the alarm clock. It just doesn't give me good feelings. But that's the way it's been the last few days of this week. I'm sure eventually I'll adjust to the time change. The kids have been pretty good about the whole thing, and seem to be enjoying going back to school. Maggie has already had an invitation to go and play with one of her classmates (not surprising, since she is Miss Sociable), and Dalton spent the night with his best friend this past Friday night.

I think, although I'm not sure, that the beginning of school will be good for Mich as well. It will be probably the first time in seven years that she's had some down time, away from the kids, when she hasn't had to be planning for a return to the States, or some other pressing thing. We'll see.

The cats continue to be weird, and to desire to sharpen their claws on everything that they're not supposed to - new furniture, walls, doors, children's toys, you name it. On the other hand, they seem to mostly ignore their toys built expressly for cats to sharpen their claws. Typical cat behaviour, I suppose. Again, I am not a cat person, so this probably annoys me more than it bugs other people in the house.

And that's the news for this week. I am going to be teaching a course all this next week, so I can't promise that I'll have a lot of spare time for picture sorting and the like, but one day...