The New Job

This is kind of old news, but for those who haven't heard, I got one of the jobs I had been shooting for- so much happiness here. I started full-time at a great consulting agency mid-June as an Implementation Consultant (the same work I did at Omniture before Daniel got too big, and what I've been doing as a contractor for the last 18 months or so.) And yes, this is the agency that has the #nerdshirtfriday competitions :).

I had been looking at 4 or 5 different positions but had pegged Keystone as a favorite early on. I've been watching them hire one industry leader after another since January and happen to have become friends with a lot of them over twitter. One thing I love about my industry is that it is FULL of smart people. This job will also provide the best income we've had yet in our marriage, so... woohoo!
I wrote a blog post- mostly geared at my non-analytics friends, actually- describing what my industry (Web Analytics/Tracking) is about and how it really benefits the average internet user. If you have a free minute I recommend giving it a read- especially since it touches on current legislation that will affect all of the internet.

Working from home with the whole family here has been great. Kenny no longer has to be out the door before 6 am- which has changed our family dynamic a lot. We wake up together, eat breakfast together, then I go to my home office (formerly known as "grandma's room") while Kenny watches the kids. We get to eat lunch together then by the time I'mn done with work at 5 or 6 we're all pretty eager to get out of the house. Kenny's been amazing about watching the kids, though I am a little gratified to see that even he needs a nap sometimes when the kids go down (or sometimes when they haven't ;)).

My first week of work was, well, exhausting. I went to meet a couple of my coworkers in Austin for a couple days (and enjoyed a baby-free night in a hotel), then on the 15th dove into the work from my home office. The first project was a lot to handle, but it was using Google Analytics, which I've been itching to get more experience with, so I'm happy. We've fallen into a good routine now and I'm feeling good about how everything fits together now. I'm working with some pretty big names and will take a day-trip to Florida next month to meet with some of them in person.

I still hope someday to get to be "just" a stay at home mommy, and we definitely hope someday Kenny will go back to teaching. But for the foreseeable future, we feel this is the best path for our family.

So, now that we have a bit of stability in our life, our plan is to save every extra penny possible and start preparing our house so we can move back to the Pacific Northwest. I don't expect the moving plans to start rolling until next spring, but it's nice to know we have a goal to work towards.