But in the interests of posting about new happenings, I need to mention a few things. I see that Shane as posted about his new job so go ahead and take a look at that as well. Unfortunately the sublease we thought we had all lined up didn’t work out.

Instead we found a woman in Woodbury who leases an apartment attached to her home out as corporate housing. She wanted someone who would stay through the entire winter so we have a lease here until the end of April. This way we don’t have to look for something and move in the winter again. Those who have moved in the winter know how unpleasant that can be.

The apartment is fully furnished with two bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, den/mediation room, open office/second living area, living room and kitchen. One main floor bathroom has a stackable washer/dryer unit, and the upstairs bathroom doesn’t actually have a tub, but the shower is quite large.

Besides being fully furnished, it also includes all the utilities, DirectTV and internet.  On the down side the internet is only about a 256K download and upload, which isn’t fast enough for Shane to do his schooling online.  We will be seeing if it’s possible to increase the internet connection or we may have to supply our own connection so that Shane can continue his degree.

For the record, and for those that missed the announcement, I will no longer be working on a teaching degree. After finishing my Associates Degree last month, and doing a lot of research, I have found that I will be better off in the long run staying in the IT field, and this job is in that field. I will be working with other developers on a scheduling system used primarily in the EMS field. I have met one of the developers already and though he is not as much of a geek as I am, it looks like we will work well together.

We will travel to Hudson on Monday, July 25th to tour the office (both old and new, they are moving soon which will be fun) and look at a place to stay. I have found an apartment in River Falls, 25 minutes away, that we can sublease for three months. During that time we will look for something suitable in Hudson and finally have our own place again in November.

With this new job I am just going to stop all the other stuff i have done to make money. No more blogs, web sites, hub posts, or anything else of the sort. I will work during the day and spend time with family and on hobbies during the evenings and weekends. It will be great to get back to a normal life again. Heck, I might even start posting here on a regular basis again!

Allyssa is getting bigger and is really smart too! She knows the entire alphabet and can count to ten, though some days she needs a little coaxing to get through them all. She is also at that stage where she wants to be “naked”, well, except for a diaper, and refuses to wear clothes. She also refuses to sit on the potty so potty training is progressing very slowly, or not at all right now.

Her favorite movie right now is Cars. Well actually, it is Mater and the Ghostlight which is a bonus on the Cars DVD. I think I have seen that over 100 times already. It is kind of annoying too, because every time Mater breaks his headlight she has to scream out “he broke his light!” Oh well, she’s still the most wonderful part of my life right now.

The job market in the area is crap, and although there have been a couple of options, none of them have panned out. So, Laura and I have decided to use my knowledge to build a business. We are working now on a Business Plan and actually have about a half dozen customers already, so it just might work out. The trick will be to actually keep working towards that, and not playing games on Facebook (hint hint Laura).

Shoot, gotta get back to work now. In case you don’t hear from us in the next couple of months, just remember that it is NORMAL to for us to not update the blog, so things must be normal.

I’d like to say there won’t be a lot of posts for a couple of weeks with packing and moving and settling in, but a lack of posts seems to be the norm for this site. So get ready for this blog to be normal! Maybe once we are back and we have things to share we will post more. Then again, we will be sharing those things with the very same people who read this blog, so we may not feel a need to update. Geez, what is a person to do?

Currently I am not working, nor is Laura, except to build up our new business venture. Hey, we already have nearly a dozen clients so things are looking up. We will be focusing on the area around La Crosse, WI in the coming months, so if you know someone who wants a cheap web site, send them on over to $150 Sites, OK?

This time, the title “Moving Again” means we are physically moving, south, past our hold home in Trempealeau, past La Crosse, heck, even past the state line. Though we don’t know exactly where we will be living as we are in the process of finding a place now, I will start working for Verizon Wireless in Schaumburg, IL on January 12th, and we will be moving during the first week and a half of January.

There is a fun story in this for all of you to enjoy. Originally, the in-person interview for this position was set for the morning of December 29th. Then it appeared the person who was supposed to interview me was going to be traveling that week, so they asked if I could come down on December 22nd. We made arrangements to stay with Laura’s cousin Jean Ann in Lake Villa and ventured south on December 21st – with terrible road conditions the trip would take us over 8 hours. It was hoped that the trip would be worth it.

Monday morning we set off for Schaumburg, IL for the interview, and after getting caught in traffic we were unable to make the interview, which was rescheduled for Tuesday morning. We had already planned to meet my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Bob for lunch so we kept those plans, then went shopping afterward. Joanne was having so much fun with Allyssa we offered to make room in the car so she could spend more time when the rest of her party headed back home. It was nice to see Allyssa take to Joanne so well that Laura and I could go and do some last minute shopping.

Tuesday morning we left an hour earlier and arrived almost an hour early, having no problems with weather or traffic. All was looking well until I received a phone call that the person interviewing me could not get out of his subdivision and could not make it. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and decided to head back home to spend the holiday with family. We again met with Joanne and Bob for breakfast at Walker Brothers, the world’s finest pancake house. During breakfast, I received a phone call wanting me to agree to meet for an interview on Christmas Eve, which I was just not going to do. I had family stuff planned – so I declined and we headed to Holmen, WI.

On the drive home I again received a call asking if I could come back down on the 29th for the interview – the day it was originally scheduled for. I agreed and we made plans to stay in Lake Villa Sunday night and drive in to Schaumburg on Monday morning. This time, everything worked out well and the interview started on time, but went long. I left the Verizon office around 11:30 thinking the interview had gone well . Laura and I spent some time around Carpentersville, IL where I grew up, and even stopped for lunch at the Village Pizza Pub, home of my favorite pizza as a child – and it was just as I remembered it.

After leaving and getting on the highway to head home, I received a phone call shortly after 2:00 informing me that I was being offered the position, and that they wanted me to start on January 5th, but also gave me the option of January 12th. I chose the later date to give me time to finish up work I had back home and give us plenty of time to pack and move.

So that’s where I am at today – finishing up the work I started before this 1600+ mile trip during the holidays and planning how we will make the big move – yet another one in the winter. You probably won’t hear much from me until we get settled in the new place in Schaumburg, so I am wishing you all a Happy New Year – I know mine should be a little better with a full time job and steady income for a while.

With moving to a system that won’t be down when I want to post, maybe, just maybe we will update you more often. Of course, having Blogger be down when I wanted to post isn’t the only reason I haven’t posted anything lately. Mostly it’s because I am lazy – come on, you knew that already. Also, since leaving my full time job back in August (you knew that too) I find myself not wanting to be around the computer much during the day, and spending too much time with Allyssa.

I know, you can never spend too much time with your children, but when you don’t get your work done, you don’t get paid. And when the first of the month rolls around and you don’t have the income to pay the bills, you will understand what I mean by “spending too much time with Allyssa”.

The sad thing is that I don’t really spend too much time with her. I am spending too much time moving web sites around, playing with new software and trying new ways to generate income that I just don’t seem to get the work done. That’s going to change, which likely means not very many posts from me – but what’s new?

Today I moved the entire blog back to Blogger because WordPress wouldn’t let me track how many of you are actually reading this blog. With this move I have made the site more friendly and updated the look. I hope you like it.

Now, how did I find time to do this? Simple! I left my job to go back into freelance work. TravelNet was working me to death and I just couldn’t do it any more. A lucrative project came up that will keep me busy for a few months at least, and I had to take it. So now I get to sit at home again and just have fun – when I am not working. My last day was August 28th, just before Labor Day weekend.

So, now that I am not so burned out every evening, perhaps I will find time to update this blog more often. And just so you don’t forget what she looks like, here’s a picture of Allyssa with my Dad and Roseanne at Steve’s Wedding Vow Renewal back in June.

Well, it’s a new year, and everything so far is going great up here in the frozen north. We had a bit of hard luck with the van last week, and had to have the front brakes replaced, which was a $343 maintenance bill we really didn’t need this early in the year. It is nice to know however that at least the van is safe to drive again – after all, I haul around some of the most important cargo in the world – my family.

As for a new outlook, well, that has to do with how much I work. I have decided that I will no longer work for other clients outside of work on any week day. This way, when I get home from the office, I (hopefully) will not have to do any more work. I can enjoy a movie, play a game with the wife, or play with Allyssa. Hopefully this will give me more time and energy to keep you updated on what is going on with the family!

While I am on the subject, for those of you that don’t know, Allyssa has started to cut some teeth – one on the bottom so far, with many more to come. Surprisingly it doesn’t seem she is having a lot of pain from this. She gets cranky once in a while, but we can’t tell if it’s from teething pain or if she is just tired. I am sure she will have a lot more pain as more come in, but rest assured, we are ready for it! She doesn’t let us get a good look inside her mouth, so don’t be looking for any pictures, yet.

Wrong! Though most of the time it is just a job for me, for the most part I do enjoy the work. The stuff I have been doing this past month has been new and challenging and a lot of fun. For those of you that don’t know, I now work for Travel Net Solutions in Cottage Grove, MN. My main focus right now is to update and maintain the software to manage the Resorts and Lodges.com web site.

It’s more than just building web pages though. I am currently working to automate their work flow process and eliminate paper trails and manual entry of data into multiple systems. I won’t bore you with the details, but just know that it’s taken me two weeks and we still aren’t done with it. Hopefully I will be done by the first of the year – at least that’s the goal.

So, although it really is a job like most people have, I get to have some fun doing it. The people I work with are all wonderful except for the occasional screaming at the top of their lungs – not because they are made or hurt, but because they are excited about something. It can get distracting, but generally does help boost morale and keep us all on track. Oh yeah, the game room is really nice too – just too bad I never get to see it!

It’s really fun and uplifting to see her smile at us every time she sees us. She can be playing in her little “exer-saucer” toy that Grandma bought for her, or sleeping soundly with one of us. It doesn’t matter how long we have been gone, or if we just saw her 10 seconds ago. When she sees our faces, she lights up with joy. It’s also a lot of fun to try and make her laugh – which is pretty easy now. Just pretend like you are eating her feet or tickle her under the armpits and she goes crazy. She also loves to “fly” and crash into the cushy couch.

We’ve been slowly collecting some cute outfits for her to wear, but she quickly outgrows them. Today she has a fun, frilly outfit of pink and blue that, and although the pieces weren’t purchased as an outfit, they really go together nicely. Here she is pictured in that “exer-saucer” I mentioned above. She loves to stand up with someone’s help, and this toy lets her stand by herself and play. Some days, like today, she will play for a long time, while others she quickly becomes bored and lonely and wants to be held.

The only bad thing about being a dad is that now her poop has taken on a little bit of an odor. Not too pungent yet, but enough to let you know that she is dirty – and then she wants to be changed right away. This of course can be very difficult when you are away from home and someone forgets to put the baby wipes back in the diaper bag.

But now for some good news – she has started to accept drinking from a bottle. We have gone through many bottle and nipple types, and we finally found something that she seems to tolerate. Though she won’t go through a whole feeding on a bottle, it’s enough to let mom get out of the house once in a while. I think that will really help her sanity a bit – and mine.

I see now that Blogger let’s us easily add video to our blog posts, so I guess we need to get out that video camera, take some precious moments videos and share them with you. That is of course if I can find a piece of software that will take the wide screen video from our camera without distorting it. Until next time!