Year in Review 2009

Personal Development (Training/Certification)

Interesting...I've made some progress in formal certification training and I'm working through my WPF training manual and I'm lining up to write my .net exam in Q1 2010. But I've also spent LOTS of time over the last year writing C# code and those skills have grown considerably over the past 12 months.

Organization & Tasks

The 'stuff'' is getting deeper. We are planning to work on the basement bathroom this coming year - we'll see if that spills over into a cleaning frenzy.

Well, some help here - the Aimless Surfing has been removed as the laptop died :-) Turns out that I still take time to sit and play games etc. but I'm not watching TV at the same time. The other thing that removing the couch surfing did was ruin my blogging time. In fact, it may be that I'm better at clearing my personal email box when I am couch surfing - something I hadn't expected! I've recently purchased a new laptop we'll see what kind of effect this has...

We did get the living room painted and it looks great

Activities & To Do's

We didn't have great summer weather - I accomplished little outside at all. I'm going to have to be harder on myself and commit to getting more done. There is little time in the evenings when it's nice and I enjoy being outside in the garden and I would enjoy it more if it looked more complete!

We did plant a garden but yields were poor - it was very wet during the prime growing period and we didn't drain well - resulting in few carrots and poor beets - got some good beans. We continue to produce good tomatoes in almost too large quantities. We added a willow in one corner

Fall on the other hand was very nice - we had some nice family adventures - strawberry picking and petting zoos for instance. The snow held off until almost Christmas so that almost made up for the poor summer.

Our winter task is the basement bathroom - just a toilet and sink for now and it shouldn't be that hard to do. We were able to go and buy the vanity and the toilet on a boxing day sale and get a pretty good price! I'm ok doing most of the plumbing and the electrical but putting in the toilet from scratch (installing the flange in the floor for example) is something I haven't done - I'll be calling a friend to help with that!

Volunteering

Our experience this year at our parish has been less than stellar - we are in an interum time, meaning we don't have a permanent priest. The process of getting a new one is taking by far too long, there was little that needed immediate repair and the previous priest retired after 10 years of good service. Leaving little real conflict. The congregation is loosing membership and energy. The 'corporation' (the executive of the parish council) has become insular and controlling - issuing directives vs. being consultative. Not to mention that some members are (to say the least) abrasive towards S. This distancing continues, as the interim withdraws from various committees that she was chairing, in particular the key music and worship committee. We cannot reasonably expect to have the new priest in place until the fall and I am deeply concerned that we will be in really deep trouble by then. Frankly my willingness to do volunteer work for them is failing and we're considering a different parish - one that might more closely match us and that might be appreciative of the skills and experience that we as a family bring.

Family

K and now P ( 4.5 and 8 months at this writing) are doing just fine, taking time with K to be with him, play with him and enjoy his time and enjoyment of life and the world is a at times a task (way too much energy) but I enjoy being around him greatly. He started school this year and while shuttling him back and forth is an issue P is just beginning to crawl it will be interesting in the next few months as she gets mobile and can begin to enjoy the world - while dad chases after her!

S is bored - she's been home with the kids now for 8 months and really, she needs to get back to work - just for her own enjoyment, I saw this last time, she really doesn't seem to enjoy 'homemaking' much, at least not when it's full time. She is often tired and finds the constant interaction with K draining. She's much much happier when she can work - thankfully that's over in four months!

Overall, a successful year - more like plodding ahead really but onward to the next!

Have a great year!

Evan

Photo Credit: AltoExyl

February Catch Up

Alright - we're half way through February and the winter is going very well actually! Which is a nice change, for the past few years the end part of my winters has not been a positive time for me!

To catch up - S. is pregnant with our second child - Kiddo is now 3.5 years old and doing very very well! Daycare is fun and enjoyable (though our pickup and drop-off cycle leaves something to be desired - it's located badly 'out of position' for both S. and I.)

I've just finished a seven month contract and I'm about to pick up another two week engagement, unfortunately this is doing MS Access work. I would really prefer to continuing with more modern development in C# and VB.net and on larger Object Oriented projects - it's an area that I don't have much experience in and what I have learned in the last seven months has done much to move my career forward.

Aha well - we spent the day today at the Baby and Kid show - many many kids and moms - it was fun - if very tiring - Kiddo was being a 3.5 year old - running ahead, being interested in stuff, doing what kids should do. But that doesn't mean it wasn't tiring for mom and dad.

Photo Credit: Omega Man

Museum Day

It' isn't often that S. and I get a day off together that we don't have other things to accomplish. Today being Good Friday S. suggested that we visit the Museum with our son. We had a wonderful time. For us this was a return to places that we had grown up with (every student in Winnipeg goes to the museum a couple of times at least in Elementary school.)

For Kiddo this was dinosaurs, moose, owls, wolves, a tonne of native artifacts, a bat cave, Winnipeg in the 1920's and 'the big ship' the Nonsuch What a great day!

Photo Credit:Guacamole Goalie