Well, after a long, tiring weekend, I'm slowly getting back into the groove. I led a retreat over the weekend for some college students that go to schools around the Puget Sound. I've never been asked to lead a full retreat before, so that was an interesting experience. Three talks, all related to a central theme. Be high energy enough to maintain peoples' interest, without being cheesy or lame. Be challenging in the talks in order to motivate some life change/adjustments, without being overly emotional or manipulative. Overall, it felt like things went pretty well - my opinion isn't the important one in terms of whether or not it was actually a good experience for people - but I guess my opinion does count for something.

The next few weeks will still be very busy and full of activity for me, but I get to be more of a consumer than a producer of the things I'll be doing. So that should be a little fun.

Meanwhile, today is Michelle's first day on her new job. She took a position with a research company a little bit north of where we live. She's helping them put some systems in place that will facilitate some growth. It's a good career step for her. Our plan, though, is to look farther down the road than our need to pay this month's and next month's bills. Hopefully, over the next couple of years we can transition her into a place where she can do some work that's more in tune with her passions and life interests. She's very skilled and talented with what she's doing, but it still kind of feels like work. I'd love for her to have the kind of job I have - yeah, I'm busy and keep long hours a lot of the time, but I'd be doing a lot of what I do whether I was getting paid for it or not.