transitions

I am transitioning to working at the office 4 days a week.  It's a pretty momentous change as Kysa and Shay will be starting at Lighthouse Montessori in January, so I thought I'd better write something about it.  Mom has been helping me this week so I could train before we lose our awesome office manager Mitch Transtrum who has been holding down the fort at NAI Commerce One for the past couple of years.  He's going to grad school at U of U in an industrial hygiene program to eventually come back to Idaho Falls and work at the site, and his wife is having baby #1 on Monday.  He does an awesome job at NAI so Alison Frei and I have big shoes to fill.  It would be nice to continue to work from home but it's not just feasible right now, largely because of the uncertainty with the economy.  The girls attended a 3 hour class session at Lighthouse and did really well.  They have a lengthy application process but I honestly couldn't be more pleased.  The only bad thing is that they are located across town.  I have committed to NAI and the school through May.  We will be evaluating things in March to see if I will continue my commitment. 

It seems that we can't do without the $1200/month I've been making working from home, but the bottom line is I can't continue making that unless I help man the office because the dynamics have changed with Mitch leaving.  I've worked it out with them so that after paying for the Montessori school I will be making a couple hundred more than I have been making.  My hope is that I will be able to be more engaged at home because I will be getting my work stuff done while at the office and only using my computer at home on the weekends for personal stuff like blogging, projects, basketball stuff, videos, etc.  The rest of the time the laptop will stay at work.

Speaking of my laptop, I joked to Mitch yesterday that I hoped it wouldn't miss me overnight, and I even patted it and talked to it.  So this morning I came in and it wouldn't turn on no matter how many times I tried.  It would sputter and then turn off every time I hit the power button.  How's that for starting things out right with my new responsibilities?  It's had problems in the past, and luckily it's still under warranty until March.  Mitch took it to Best Buy for me to be sent in.  I won't get it back in time to make the annual Shippen Christmas video, but maybe I can find a way to improvise and do it on another machine.

Ty has a ball game tonight vs. Bonneville and again tomorrow @ Rigby.  I'm excited as the boys haven't played since last Friday.  I've actually only been to two of their games so far as I missed the game @ Bountiful and I went and scouted other teams when we played Clearfield and Blackfoot. 

Shay cracked me up last night.  She woke up in the middle of the night and wanted me to tell her a story.  She said, "Tell me the one about Olivia and Emma in the tree.  Tell me THAT one....and Emma gets stuck in the tree...now it's your turn..."  She is so bossy.  Her vocabulary seems to be exploding.  I told her I wanted to go to bed, and she said, "Not in Kysa's, or Daddy's, or Raleigh's bed.  They are sleeping.  You can't bother them!"