Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Ups and the Down

Its been about a month since I last posted  and its been an insane month.  In the past month the following has happened:
  • February 14th - Shannon and I drove down to San Luis Obispo to see Shannon's good friend Brooke get married.  It was a fun wedding and reception, and Shannon and I stayed down there an extra day to enjoy the SLO life.
  • February 17th - Our good friends the John and Christina Argo welcomed their son Knox Jaxon into the world.  John has wanted to be a dad since the day I met him, and its awesome to see that his wish is now is reality
  • February 18th - My Grandma passed away after being diagnosed with cancer 5 weeks earlier.  This was her second bout with cancer, and she knew that it was her time to go.  Shannon and I were glad that she had moved down to Manteca to live with my parents, as we got to see her quite frequently in the last 5 months of her life.  We were also blessed to be with her when her "earth suit" died, and she went to heaven.  In her last days she talked about all the beautiful colors she was seeing and my mom often found her in her room lying on the bed with her arms outstretched into the air.  While it could have been the morphine, we like to think she was getting to experience a little bit of heaven.
  • February 23rd - Monday the 23rd was my last day of school.  I will be receiving degree's in Business Marketing and Business Management.  It's been a looooong road, but its finally come to an end and I am extremely happy
  • February 26th - Shannon and I board a plane to take us up to Portland for my grandma's memorial service.  My parents and Charlie were up there as well and we had a chance to hang out with both my Mom's family and my Dad's family.  It was great to catch up with them.  We also spent time in downtown Portland, eating at good restaurants, shopping at Powell's and seeing the place my mom worked 40 years ago (now a Macy's and a hotel).  We flew home on Sunday, March 1st.
  • March 3rd - Tuesday was my first day back at work (Monday I was laid out on the couch due to my back not liking the hotel's soft mattress and the hour of turbulence we experienced on the flight home) and I was pulled into my Director's office for my yearly review.  I did well - and while raises have been put on hold due to the economy, I got a 5% bump in salary (not technically a raise - its a long story) and a 1% bonus (not a lot I know, but when I was expecting nothing - I'll take what I can get).  As soon as my review was over I learned that my 5% bump in salary didn't mean much because our VP came in and offered my the job of  Category Manager of Tobacco.  While selling cancer isn't my favorite thing, the raise that came along is quite large and I happily took the job.
So as you can see its been a crazy month - and I'm excited for things to get back to normal, but alas in the next month I have a Bourbon Dinner to put on, The Big Lebowski to go see with a bunch of guys, a graduation party to plan and put on as well as making up to Reno for my good friend's birthday.  So things will continue to not slow down... at least I don't have to deal with school anymore!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget a trip to Manteca to hang out with your favorite 2 people in the whole world (psst...that's ma and pa). Congrats on no more school!!!! You done good!!! and the promotion. It's a "good news" week!!!

Love ya bud....PA