Life compressed

It's been quite the spell since returning from vacation. I’d like to chronicle the events of the past two weeks as this period has had times that were: confusing, happy, sad, too busy, interesting, distressing, etc. I think that breaking things up into parts will allow me to make better sense of things. With this blog entry I’ll briefly touch on things in general

The first thing was the Sunday night after I returned home from vacation we received the news that my father-in-law, Alton, had died. The Celebration of his Life ceremony would be delayed until after the following weekend as his grandson Mark (Carol’s nephew) and his fiancé, Megan, were getting married on the coming weekend and then the family members would travel back up north for the ceremony and interment on the following Monday. A following blog will be about Alton.

After returning to work from vacation I found myself wondering if I'm happy to be back or if I should have stayed on vacation. There was a very complex slide presentation for a proposal interview by one of our offices that I help support, being put together which involved a high level of pressure to perform graphics work in a short amount of time. One of my bosses wanted me to work the upcoming weekend but I turned him down without going into details telling him that I had several commitments which I couldn't back out of. Besides the wedding this was a Newsletter Daze weekend with the town newsletter having to remain on a tight schedule to be ready for the publisher on the Monday night of Alton’s Celebration of Life ceremony which put me in the position of not being able to attend which was very disappointing for me as there is a lot that my father-in-law has done for us that I would have like to be present to honored him for the life he led.

Writing this out in an orderly manner is more difficult than I thought it would be.

The week’s work was hectic and challenging. Mark and Megan’s wedding was really good as was the reception. We had a very good time. Afterwards I jumped onto the newsletter work and found it difficult to get rolling on it. The next morning Carol, Ian and Taylor left for the trip north for Monday’s morning ceremony. They would return Tuesday. I finally got up to speed on the town newsletter and managed to have a good draft to send out for the final proof Sunday night. At work Monday I put the last touches I could on the proposal presentations before sending the files to another office near where the interviews would be held so the presenters could make final changes and practice their parts. That night I made the final edits on the newsletter and sent it to the out for the publisher around 11pm. Tuesday night I began finishing off the church’s newsletter and had the final finished Wednesday night after returning from a get together at Lois and Jim’s where Carol and Lois’ brother Greg and his family were staying before leaving for their home in Texas Thursday morning. Thursday night I zoned out, go figure.