Every year at Christmas time I struggle to write a Christmas letter that describes our whole year – generally I have a hard time remembering past the previous month or so, let alone what happened in the last 12. I thought I’d help myself out by writing a mini-Christmas letter NOW in May, so that I will at least remember, if not include the first half of the year!
Michael – Busy, but not overwhelmed. The first three months of our year generally can best be described by “Tax Season,” an evocative term for those who’ve worked in the public accounting industry, though most other people think of it as an annoying few hours they have to spend preparing their tax returns or taking their taxes to be prepared before the April 15 deadline. I am pleased to report that this year’s Tax Season was our best one yet! Michael didn’t work nearly as many hours as in some previous years, and was able to maintain a somewhat family-friendly schedule through 2/3rds of the season. He celebrated April 16 (a mandatory holiday in CPA land) by taking the boys to a morning dress rehearsal of the Oregon Symphony – to my surprise, they stayed for the entire 2.5 hours. Amazing! Since then he’s been catching up on his volunteer activities, reconnecting with his tennis-playing friends and making important career decisions. Don’t worry, he’s not neglecting me – the bigger I grow (with child) the more help he’s been, doing dishes, watching the kids so I can rest, running errands, cleaning house and not complaining as dinner gets progressively later and later every day, and the laundry returns again clean more in terms of weeks than days, it seems. For Mother’s Day he and the boys washed my van, (yay) and gave me Sees chocolates.
Elly – Pregnant and starting to not love it so much. Yes, indeed. I am at this current moment, over 8.5 months pregnant, with the count ’til my due date down into days (10), rather than weeks. Naturally I am hoping that the baby decides to make his appearance sooner rather than later. Not so much for my sake (though it’s getting that way) but because we still want to go to Family Camp, which is about 3 weeks after my due date, and naturally, having the baby 2 weeks before would be less than ideal (3 weeks is pushing it as it is). Other than growing progressively larger, I’ve been making progressively more bread in my spiffy new Bosch mixer, which I love, and which can make 6 loaves of bread at a time. I still haven’t found the perfect mostly whole wheat bread recipe, but nobody seems to object to my practicing a lot!
I was going to do a whole family update, but if I wait to finish it to post it, I might never finish it, so maybe I’ll do a bit by bit approach and write more tomorrow – or the next day. Have a good week everyone!