New Year's Resolutions

It's resolution time! This year's list is rather short. My hope is that by keeping it small I might actually make some progress.

1. Do my best to leave work by 5:00 Pm. Denise (that would be my beloved wife) said this is one of the best things I could do to help her in the new year.
   
   To do this successfully, I'll have to focus on leaving for work earlier and probably cutting down on lunches and coffees with friends.



2. Spend at least 10 solid minutes a day writing.
   
   For a very long time I have felt that I just consume and absorb information without producing much of anything. I need to have some outlet! My writing can be in a journal, this blog, the back of an envelope, anything, as long as I'm writing.

A Week To Forget

This evening is the last night of a two-week break from work. My most excellent employer, Guidant, has a company-wide shutdown from Christmas Eve through January 1st. This year they threw in January 2nd as the floating holiday. The result is that I could take two vacation days and get two weeks off. Nothing to complain about in that, is there?

Now, the first week was great. We had a very nice Christmas celebration. But starting on the Friday after Christmas my kids started getting sick. Soon, all four of them were down with the flu. Shortly afterwards my wife got sick as well.

I can say that it could have been much worse. We did not have the stomach flu, thank God. But everyone was moping about, and there were several nights where I was awakened a number of times by children wanting to be comforted, or wanting to sleep in our bed, or wanting water or medicine. The sleep depravation was getting very severe. But we have appeared to weathered it, with the only remaining symptoms being tiredness and slight lack of appetite. The high fevers are a sad memory, and it looks like we are on the mend.

This ended up being one of those vacations which will make returning to work a very recuperative experience.