2010 - the year of truth, justice and my way

5 months. 5 months. That is how long it has been since my last entry. Various reasons have attributed to this, but mainly my new job is to blame. Blame being perhaps an imperfect word.

In my pursuit of doing the best I possibly can do for the largess my company sees fit to pay me, although many around me deem my paycheck normal, I, who have lived successfully one year, granted long ago, on only $4000 a year, like to keep things in perspective. Therefore, I have been dedicating myself 9 hours a day, 5 days a week to nothing but day in day out, cubicle work. While I enjoy helping others and take umbrage in the fact that what I do is a service that makes quite a difference in the world, especially when it involves services for safety software systems for refineries in the US, I feel quite warm knowing I did my best and it will positively effect hundreds perhaps thousands of lives. That makes it worthwhile. Mostly though, I spend my days explaining process to the hundreds of lost souls (myself included) that continue to be dazed by changing and challenging issues, some technical, some human contrived. As would be expected, the human contrived processes and changes thereof are the most complex to understand and therefore explain.

For the rest of the time, I have been doing my damn best to aid my family in acclimating to this truly if not godforsaken, then let us say intelligence forsaken place some call Texas, but I like to lovingly refer to as Texass.

Don't know why really, it just fits.

It's been cold here lately, but not as cold as where we were this past Xmas.







My boys are doing well, excepting my biggest boy. He's homesick. After 3 1/2 years in the U.S., we treated ourselves to a fabulous 2 1/2 week, all expenses paid (by us) vacation back to The Netherlands. We stayed for free (paid for by my best of best friends, Angela) at her apartment, while she luxuriated on the Rio riviera costa del Brazil. Upon our arrival snow, and it would stay with us almost the whole time. Yes, it was gray. Yes, it was cold, fiercely so at times. Yes, it was home. Yes, the people bumped into you at every turn and never said excuse me. Yes, people cut in front of you on Christmas eve and never blinked. Yes, our family & friends were met, one and all, and everyone of them swore it was as if we had never left. We travelled often on the train, opting for not renting a car since parking in Europe, period, is never fun. Yes, it was pricey, but it was also calming. No rushing. Everything in it's time. I miss that. Hubby misses that. The kids even miss that.

But what we really miss the most is the walking. Steps away, the grocer, the baker, & I swear to god, the candlestick maker. The post office, the bank, the train station, restaurants etc... all within walking distance. All in all, we probably walked an average of 3-4 miles every day while we were there and it was wonderful. To be outside, in the cold, amongst the crowds, surrounded by ancient 500 year old buildings and grey skies. I guess the moral of this particular story is that homesickness is contagious and I have caught a bit of it myself.