What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?

Or maybe...

What do I want to be next month? That is the pressing question.

With my current role ending, it hit me that I haven't looked for a job in fourteen years. Back then I was a new college graduate with a degree in English and a teaching license. Ever since, the jobs have found me.

But as I begin to seek the next opportunity, I realize the experience I've gained in the interim is wide and varied and doesn't point directly to me doing one specific thing in this season.

Can I tell you what I love to do, and what I have done? Then you can tell me if you have (or know of) a team that could use someone like me.

Gonna Miss this Place

Last Friday, I found out that my job at the Focus Leadership Institute will be ending on August 2. By the time I cross that finish line, I'll have invested 11 years and one day there. Eleven years. That's a big chunk of my 36-year-old self.

I'm thankful that I got some hints that this was coming. Because of that, I got to process a lot of the nasty emotions about a month or six weeks ago. When the news actually came, it wasn't as messy as I expected it to be.

Just to Keep Things Straight...

Thursday, June 6: Josh and my brother Steve leave Ohio in a Penske truck to move Steve's stuff to Colorado. They stop in Greenville, Illinois, to see Grandma Keffer, who is in the hospital with pneumonia.

Friday, June 7: Mom drives the kids and me to the airport at 6 a.m. Dad Keffer picks us up in Denver at 10 a.m., brings us home and I go straight to work.

Crash-a-boom-yah

More kid phraseology: 

Crash-a-boom-yah: Lorien's word for anything that makes a noisy impact

STAM UP, MOMMY: Josiah's newest, meaning he wants me to stand up. But somehow it always makes me feel like he's swearing at me.

Demova Joy Keffer

Back in January, we were surprised and glad to hear that Josh's Grandma Keffer would be making a visit to Colorado at age 93. When, two days into the trip, she ended up in the hospital with congestive heart failure, I wondered if that might be the beginning of the end. (Not to be crass—I just know that's what often happens with illness in old age.)

As it turns out, that was what happened. Grandma never regained the ground that she lost in January and she continued to battle compounding illness. She passed away late on Tuesday, June 11, 2013. She was the last of Josh's and my eight grandparents, and her death is a different kind of sad because it closes a chapter and a generation for our family.

Here's her obituary, which remembers many details of her life.

On the Farm

We made our annual summer pilgrimmage to Ohio aiming, in one trip, to celebrate cousin Beth's wedding and see Doug and fam upon their return from India for the summer. We succeeded, sort of. Note to self: cramming in a visit while jetlag is still in full force may not be the best of ideas. Especially when jetlagged 18-month-old twins are involved.

In short: I took not one photo at Beth's wedding. But it was beautiful. And she was more than beautiful. 

Thanks to my SIL Mandi, however, I have shots from the reception. The kids thought the dance floor was the coolest place they had ever been. They danced for over an hour without stopping.

Kids on the Dance Floor