Family Odds, Ends & Updates

Wow - it's Friday and I haven't posted anything in a week. Where did the past week go? I'll summarize a bit of what's going on with the Virginia branch of the Sears family.

Dave is finally home. He's been away more than he's been home for the past month or so. Many of you saw him at Jason's wedding last week. Within an hour of getting home, he had to show off his wedding and family photos. On the very next day he left for a three-day business trip. Now, he's home for at least a couple of weeks. We're making plans for our two-week vacation, which will take place in the last week of June and the first week of July. Oddly enough, we'll be spending quite a lot of that time traveling with Joshua and the Crossmen. Here's the scary part: we've been enlisted to help the food service crew for several days. Run, kids, run!

Jonathan is still in Europe with the National Capital Band - somewhere in France. We got an email from him yesterday. He enjoyed his time in Switzerland, but the hectic schedule is making him tired. We've got a copy of his itinerary at home. He's had some long days with early morning bus trips and late evening performances. I gave him my old camera (the Panasonic superzoom), and he took his Pentax point-and-shoot too, so I hope he brings home lots of good photos. We're all looking forward to seeing him. I wonder how long he'll be home before he lines up a welcome-home date with Maggie? Maybe he already has one scheduled! I'm always the last one to know these things!

Joshua is busy winding down the school year. He's been taking exams for a couple of weeks now and only has a couple more left to do. He flies to Texas next week. Dave seems more anxious about his departure than I am. Maybe the crisis that I experienced last summer when Joshua flew to Europe is settling on Dave this time around.

My strategy is to conceive of the summer as divided into sections, rather than thinking, "My baby will be gone ALL SUMMER!" Joshua will be gone for just over three weeks when we connect with him at the end of June. Then we'll see him several times over a two-week period that ends around July 8. Then he heads back south and west for another month. So, I'm thinking of it as two trips of approximately one month each, rather than one ten-week block. We've sent him to camp for four weeks at a time before, so, psychologically, that's a manageable stretch of time for me to handle.

Finally, what's happening in my life? Surprisingly, a couple of things. It looks like I'll be the vice-president of the Oakton High School band boosters next year. My nomination was approved by the band executive and the parents who attended last night's business meeting. The final step will be a vote at a general membership meeting just before next week's concert. What usually happens is that the current president announces the slate of nominees and the parents do a voice vote. They usually just approve the slate without any discussion. The general thinking is something like, "If those suckers want to do all that work, they're welcome to it!" Besides, they just want to get through the election as quickly as possible and listen to the concert. Since the boosters raise approximately $90,000 each year, that position will keep me busy.

Also, my job has been modified again and I'm finally doing some stuff that my boss initially proposed three years ago. I'm now wearing four different hats and doing jobs that used to be done by three people (in my day job - that doesn't include my piano and book review gigs). I just started with the new stuff this week, so I've been going through a transition as I figure out how to balance all of my tasks. Some of you may recall that I've toyed with the idea of leaving my present employment. I seriously considered taking a position with a local non-profit organization last December, but backed out because I decided that that particular position wasn't what I wanted. Now, since I'm going to be really busy with the band booster stuff, especially through the fall, I'll put the job search on hold for awhile and revisit that possibility at a later time.

I think that's all the news for now. Hopefully, I won't wait another week before posting again.