I Think I'm Turning 33...

33 and 12 hrs or so to be exact. Every year at this time I reflect on how much more reflective I want to be. This past year I started a family blog (jessanderyn.blogspot.com) which is our family journal, and I think it's now time to branch out and get my own. The readers of the family blog aren't interested in my riffs on music or tv or religion, or working at a certain software company in Redmond, or being a dad to 2 amazing boys or a husband to an amazing wonderful wife. Well maybe some of those things are more relevant to the masses than others, but in any case I thought it was time for my little ideas to leave the nest of the family blog and find their own home. This just leaves one question: is the world ready?

It's the end of budget season and I'm a little punchy. And I just turned 33 today. I look at my life and I'm amazed first off how in just a few short months I have been able to "catch up" in so many areas of my life that I always felt like I was "behind" on. When we were living in NYC I'd always feel bad about not owning a home, not having real furniture, not having a good car for the family, for not living in the neighborhood I'd want my kids to grow up in. It seemed like even after 9 yrs of marriage and 9 years into my career we were still somehow playing grownup, but hadn't actually arrived to adulthood. I'd think back to my own parents who at this time in their own lives seemed to be so much further along.

And then it happened. The fateful phone call of sometime in mid-February, when Shawn Hansen asked if I'd thought about coming out to Redmond to interview with the company. My own company in NYC was having financial "issues" so the writing was on the wall there (not exactly boom times for the publishing industry) so the timing felt right to make a move. But the company in Redmond was so far beyond what I thought I could achieve...I remember telling Eryn when it first came up, "don't worry, they receive 100s of resumes a day for every job...I'll be lucky to even get a phone interview." Well, 5 phone interviews, 12 interviews in Redmond, and 4 months later, here we are going on month #3 in Washington and my new job.

This is getting really long and I don't have time right now to flesh it out. The sum is, in a relatively short time I've "caught up" in so many of the areas I was behind and didn't know how I'd catch up. I mean, I bought a lawn mower last week!