Back To Work!

After a fairly brief summer off from work, I'm back to the grind on Tuesday. It is quite unfortunate that we weren't able to close on our house a couple weeks earlier (we close this afternoon) since we have a lot of work to do before it is move-in ready. Now with both of us working full time while we try to pack, paint, clean, and move, and only having two weeks to get it all done before our lease ends on our current home, we're sure to be more than a little stressed out. Hopefully work will be slow and I won't have to put in outrageous hours right away as the semester begins.

My emotions are a little mixed as far as returning to work is concerned. Certainly I had a lot of fun at times and did manage to relax a little when the kids weren't screaming bloody murder. Also I had a little extra time to do some reading, and lots of time to jump start this blog. I have some doubts as to how frequently I'll manage posts in the coming months; my current feeling is that two articles each week will be a good number to shoot for. Last week when I returned to work for most of a week I had a tough time working up the motivation to write anything at all. The issue isn't necessarily finding the physical time to post, but rather a combination of having mental energy enough to brainstorm ideas and motivation to get words down on (virtual) paper. I can find the time but it has yet to be determined if I can find the desire. Stay tuned!

There have been downsides to having the summer off as well, and not just the fact that I haven't received a paycheck in a couple of months. Although I loved the idea of spending lots of quality time with the kids at first, as the weeks passed my patience with them grew considerably shorter. On bad days I felt I should be committed (oh, the peace and quiet of a nice clean place with no kids! I can deal with the mentally ill.) On good days (well, day, I think there may have been one of those) I could sit back watching my brilliant, beautiful children and think how wonderful it is to be a parent.

Maybe an even tougher aspect of the time off is that I don't know what to do with myself when no one structures my days. I'm so used to being busy enough that free time is at a premium and it always feels like I need to make the most of it. When I'm here at home all summer one day leads into the next, I feel like I waste too much time just fiddling with the computer, and I never seem to really get anything accomplished or very often have much fun. I need structure! Sure, you'd think I could have self-imposed some structure on my free time, but if that's the case you obviously don't know me. Maybe I should have tried to get committed, I hear there's lots of structure there! Maybe next summer.

After saying all this it might appear that I am just an ungrateful bastard that doesn't fully appreciate a great gift that God knows how many busy Americans would love to receive in my place, but really I did enjoy the summer, and I am grateful to have had it.

But I'm still ready to go back to work. Of course, catch up to me in a month and ask me what I think about that, my answer may have changed by then.