Saturday, September 17, 2011

Introduction to Thane

Hello blog-reading world,

I will be making some posts over the upcoming months, so I thought it would only be proper to introduce myself.

My name is Thane.  I am Annie’s less-better half—the yin to her yang, the peanut butter to her jelly time, the Simon to her Garfunkle.

Career-wise, I do a combination of marketing, consulting and analytics.  It’s one of those jobs that is interesting to the job holder but not really interesting (or well understood by others).

Being married to a nurse is interesting in many ways.  For one thing, I don’t put what I do in the same category as what Annie does.  Although some of my clients might disagree, I don’t think helping companies get more money than they already have is quite as important as saving people’s lives.

When I have a bad day, it’s because a presentation went wrong, a project went off-track or someone was unhappy with work I did.  When Annie has a bad day, people die.

I’m not belittling what I do, and, again, I enjoy it very much, but it’s good to be married to someone who has a job like Annie to help you remember what’s really important.

Quick funny story:  I’ve noticed on multiple occasions a phenomenon when Annie and I are introducing ourselves to people at parties.  Inevitably the conversation will turn to what everyone “does.”  Annie will say that she’s a nurse, which will be met with nodding approval and smiles.  Then they will turn to me and I will say I’m in marketing analytics.  This will almost certainly be met with confused stares and forced smiles.  Finally someone will break the awkward silence with a question like, “Do you enjoy that?” or a statement as awkward as the silence like “That sounds interesting” (which generally means exactly the opposite).  Then, they’ll focus back on Annie and her career, which they think they understand.

Yes, Annie’s the saint in our family.  I figure if I stick close enough to her, maybe I can get swept up into heaven on her coat tails before the pearly gates get shut behind her.

In my next post, I’ll share my feelings about adoption.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Babysitting

Since we are  responsible adults, and I'm a nurse for goodness sake, we often get the chance to babysit. Babysitting is so much fun for us and it lets us "practice" being parents for a little while. We had an opportunity like that this weekend when we babysat our four sweet nieces. We love to see them, but babysitting them is especially fun.
We did dinner, went to the park, and watched a movie with the older girls. We thought we had navigated bedtime quite well until 8pm when the older girls went to bed and we found  our younger niece curled up in a blanket in the hallway watching the movie. I guess we have more to learn. :)
We had a great time and we are so blessed to have some family close by.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Our Busy August

Well, August is my favorite month, but it was so busy this year with fun things that I'm excited that September has come and that with it has come a slower pace. We had birthdays and our anniversary this summer. 9 years!! It seems to have flown by.
We had our "family vacation" in August: a roadtrip to Yellowstone. Neither Thane nor I had been there since we were young and it really is nearby. So we packed up the car, camped on the ground, and admired the beauty of the park. We saw LOTS of bison. They especially enjoyed standing in the road so that the many tourists could take their picture. ;)
The highlight of our wildlife experience was when we came upon two bighorn sheep grazing on the side of the road. We watched them for quite awhile and they didn't seem to mind us a bit. We of course saw all of the geysers and other geothermic creations. The end of our vacation was rounded out by a whitewater rafting trip down the snake river at sunset. It was a lovely trip and we enjoyed being able to spend so much time together.







Our final excitement of the month was when part of Annie's family came to visit. We enjoyed all of the company, but especially our four-month-old nephew. He cooed and smiled as well as spitting up on us any chance he got. We especially love the time we can spend with family.