A moment to spare and thus an update

Hello world! Long time no post and all that self-deprecating hoohah mess....I almost typed "self-defecating" there! HA! Quite the mental image, no? Life these days is a blur. I thought the years I spent as a stay-at-home Mom whizzed by with lightening speed but that pales in comparison to my life today. It's nice in some respects and scary in others. I love my job. Seriously. I work with mentally disabled adults (who will be known as 'clients' from here on out). The area I am in is a production area. Local companies give us simple tasks such as inspecting parts or simple assembly. Our clients do these tasks and are paid by the piece. My job as an instructor is to keep them on task, keep the supplies they need filled, etc. All of this teaches the clients job skills, social skills, and life skills. The ultimate goal for most of the clients is a job within the community. For a lot of them that will never happen and for the most part they're happy to stay right where they are. I can't express the joy this job brings and the feeling that comes from doing good. It sounds cliche and dumb, but I think this is what I was born to do and I hope to have the opportunity to do it for the rest of my life.

In other news Geof is kicking ass in Kindergarten. Not literal ass of course. He's really enjoying himself and I hope his zest for learning stays with him throughout his days. His first school pictures were taken last week and I've yet to see them. I've already decided to buy them when they get in just because I'm a sentimental sap that way. The company his school uses lets you pick the background color and the pose and you get to see the pictures before buying. I'm not sure if that's the norm or not but I thought it was pretty cool. He's still all boy dripping in testosterone but enough maternal influence that he does have a sweet side. At least we haven't had any parent teacher conferences yet! His obsession with the Cars movie and all things Thomas is waning and now he's all about super heroes. He has decided to be Iron Man for Halloween after talking about being a vampire all year! I flaked and we bought his costume today, it's just a lot easier that way. As you may have noticed from the picture on the right he has lost another tooth. I was almost hoping that it would fall out before his school pictures were taken but it took another few days of him wiggling and twisting before he got a visit from the Tooth Fairy. Please pardon the quality of the photos my camera's batteries decided to die just before the photo shoot so it was my cell phone to the rescue.

Let's see...what else has been going on? My Dad had a stroke but he's doing just fine the only thing that has changed is his desire to quit smoking and he's on insulin shots twice a day. I think he still has some numbness on one side but that is improving. Once again he's escaped an early death. Nathaniel is still in the trucking industry. He's been on the road for a month at a time for a while now, probably almost a year. He's seriously looking for other options that will have him home at least three nights a week if not every night. Here's hoping that happens sooner than later. Our car decided to crap out on us last weekend while Nathaniel was home. It left us stranded on the side of the interstate. Luckily my parents were able to come get Geof and me while Nathaniel stayed behind to wait for the tow truck. He was there for over 5 hours! This happened on a Saturday and we didn't get the car back from the shop until the following Tuesday or Wednesday. Thank God we extended the warranty on that hunk of shit because it saved us about 2 grand for the repairs. We're very displeased with the particular General Motors product we purchased and it will most likely be the last we ever own. Period.

That about sums up the past month or so. What have you been up to?