Big Decisions

I'm in the mist of a big decision so I thought that I would write about it and get everyone involved with the details.

A little history...Cerner decided to create a policy sometime earlier this year that those people who work remotely and do not travel will have the opportunity to move to Kansas City, find a position with travel, or find another position outside of Cerner by December 31, 2007. I don't know all of the motivation behind these decisions, but I am not bitter about it. Cerner has given me the opportunity to work for another year that I didn't expect at all - especially under my terms. I take it as a business decision and the leaders of Cerner have grown a company pretty well in the last 14 years I have been there. What will work out, will work out and I need to trust God for my stability and not trust in Cerner. (This was a huge thing for me last year when I initially resigned.) I also know that working remotely with a group of people that mostly work together in person is a challenge. The work dynamic is different if everyone is remote than just with a few people remote when the rest of the team has the opportunity to work together face to face. There were getting to be quite a few of us around and I can see why a policy was created, it is just yucky at the individual level to have to follow the corporate policy.

My immediate manager and her manager are working to try and find a position for me. I am honored that they feel I provide value and they want to keep me around. Adding some travel to our routine does not bother me because I miss that part of my job. I'm not willing to be gone every week, but once a month or even twice a month would be a nice variety and a chance to interact with some clients in person. I really do miss interacting with clients!

Last week an opportunity was presented for me that if I were to take on the challenge, I would be spared the end of the year deadline and be able to be employed beyond the end of the year. There is a huge BUT in the clause though - they want more hours. Specifically the request is four full days a week which is twice as much as I am doing now. The opportunity is very interesting - a mix of working with clients and writing requirements and guiding people through writing reports for our clients. I would get to use some new technologies that I would have the opportunity to learn as well to make it even more interesting. I would have the chance to lead a new initiative that has quite a bit of exposure so there would definitely be some excitement and notoriety in it.

I just don't see working four days a week as a good decision for our family. I really think that it's best for Andrew to be home schooled this year and that wouldn't really be fair to him if I worked four days a week and tried to fit school in around the schedule. We've already started and we've set that expectation with him and I don't think that it would be appropriate to change for this opportunity because I don't have to take it. I am willing to work some more hours but I don't know exactly what that is yet. That's where my big decision comes in...am I willing to take on more days or more hours where I am pretty much half and half of work and stay home or working every day but maybe not all day? Then adding school onto that, there isn't too much chill time or time to do laundry, make dinner, run errands and do all of those other household things that need to get done.

Adding more hours also means figuring out more child care for the boys - we still didn't have it all figured out for the fall semester yet anyway. If I were to add more hours, I think that I would want to find somewhere for them to go for one the entire days to be something more structured and not just someone "watching" them while they figured out how to find something to play while waiting for a parent. I would like the boys to spend one afternoon with their dad and hopefully that would be the science experiment time too so there was some structure there and something that I don't have to do for school.

Financially it would definitely be easier if I continued to work for Cerner after December 31st. One of us would have to do some more work between now and when Todd finishes his degree to not go into debt. The more that Todd works, the more time we don't get to see him so I'm not terribly keen on him taking on a job as well as school. And if I'm home all of the time, the days and weeks would probably get really long without him. We don't know how much study time he will need with multiple classes - we'll start to see that in a month! We both expect that it will take quite a bit of study time - everything has so far for sure!

So if anyone has any great words of wisdom, please let me know! Next week, I need to declare the number of hours that I am willing to work. Based upon that, my managers will decide what position they are willing to offer based on the hours that I will be willing to work and how that fits into my current responsibilities. Thanks for listening!

Cave Kisses

Have you ever had a cave kiss? I got a few this weekend and it was great! I had no idea what that was, but definitely have now experienced it and will want to do it again with or without my husband!

Cave kisses are water drops from the top of a cave falling on you just how stalagmites are created. We visited Onondaga Cave State Park over the weekend and saw yet another example of the incredible creation that God has given us. The tour of the cave is almost a mile walk with tons and tons to look at on the way. There is so much growth happening inside the cave it really was amazing to see all of the different cave formations. This will definitely be on the tour stop for those of you who want come and visit! I had no idea that there were so many different types of formations that can be made in caves and by water dripping and the minerals that are in the water. There are quite a few caves near us so after this experience, I assume that we will go and check out more of them.

Warms a mother's heart

The boys are going to Vacation Bible School this week at the Lutheran Church and the offerings collected are going to a church in that town in Kansas that was leveled by a tornado earlier this year. Yesterday Andrew earned a dollar by helping his dad pick up cement pieces from the back yard. His very first thought was that his dollar was best used for the offering for VBS. It's great to have a boy who thinks of others and not what he can buy himself with his money.

Yesterday we had a good talk about why we give money to other people and other places and what we are to be thankful for. We do have SO much to be thankful for! Here the boys are tonight getting ready for their night-time Bible story.

New visitors to the garden.

We came home Sunday night from a weekend trip to Iowa City and I was excited to check out the status of the yellow tomatoes that were growing nicely before we left. We had some new visitors to the garden over the weekend and they were quite interested in the tomatoes and the tops of the green bean plants.

The previous owner had left a fence and some posts that he used around the garden and now we know why. There are deer that like to come around and munch on gardens and they found mine and had a nice little salad of a meal.

So yesterday up when the posts and three foot fencing around the garden. That will stop them from the green beans for sure (there are still beans to be had, but there aren't any top leaves) and now we'll have to wait awhile for some more tomatoes. I'm not sure that my fence will stop them though from most of the tomatoes because I think that they'll be able to munch above the fence.

While putting up the fence I found little white bugs on the roma plant. On closer inspection there were white and green bugs on the top and bottoms of the leaves. My research on the Internet suggested a nice power wash of the leaves if there were too many to wipe off by hand. That plant got a power wash this morning. The next option is to use some soapy water as well.

I would love to be getting fresh tomatoes from the garden but I'll be patient and share with my other outdoor friends. I'll just have to make some more basil and be content with that for now - it is really yummy!

A few thoughts...

**We have holes in our house...Todd has been diligently working on filling them with glass block. It really is amazing how much light there is in the basement now with the plastic up! I'm more amazed by how God made our bodies crave sunshine and how much it affects us! We'll so much more want to be down there now! Todd has been a great dad/husband and spent some time with us even when he wanted to be working on the project.(You'll get to see a finished window project in a later post.)

**Why does JL put his clothes on backwards more than 50% of the time, especially his underwear? His underwear is on backwards almost 100% of the time! By the end of the day it's usually even inside out and backwards even if it's been put on correctly at some point. I really should just get him some more boxers. But why does he do this? Probably more importantly, should I really care?

**Identity theft is real but for us is over...we got notification that they agreed that the car loan in Texas was not taken out by us and would be removed from Todd's credit report. I won't be taking out any credit cards at department stores anytime soon or for like 7 years but no one else with be able to do that either! We may want to not move to Texas for a few years either and try to get a drivers license.

**Why would a town wait until 11pm to put on their fireworks display for the 4th of July! There was not a happy parent/kid in the place where we were because it was just too late!

**I have entered the Rolla racing scene. Yesterday morning I took 3rd place for my age division in the Firecracker 5K! Hills are still a killer here in Rolla. I did great on the hills but used up all my energy going up in the lst mile while passing people that I didn't have enough to keep up with them on the way back down to the end! Can't complain about 3rd place and then meeting the girl who I raced with the entire course.