In my mind it seems like Sundays would be the perfect day to do this because theoretically I am just hanging around resting and what not on the day of rest. But it never turns out that way in practice. We have church from 1:00 to 4:00 so I am never in a hurry to get out of bed, and then when I finally do around 9:00 (or sometimes even later), I sit around reading a magazine or the news for a little while. After that I do my Sunday chores. It is my job to wash the towels and also to wash Molly's and my clothes. And that usually gets done on Sundays. I should probably try to find time to do that on some other day so Sundays aren't so busy, but I never seem to get to it during the week. So I do laundry. It is also my job to do the dishes on Sunday and to make dinner. Usually the dishes from Saturday night are still waiting for me so I try to get those done before church. Then if I am on top of things I might start some dinner before church. Though lately Molly has been doing a pretty good job of taking over the dinner duties on Sunday, so I don't usually have to worry about that these days.
And then there is church choir practice from 11:45 to 12:30. That time is a pain because that is when most of the action takes place Sunday mornings at my house. The kids just sit around until about 11:45 when they start getting hungry and then they have lunch and get ready for church. Or I should say, Molly or I get the kids some lunch and get them ready for church, or make sure the older kids are getting ready. Normally this is the time when I kind of take control and get the kids their lunch and make sure they are all getting ready while Molly is doing her face and hair. But that doesn't work very well if I am at choir practice. So I am thinking about not doing choir for now until the time changes. Because when I get back from choir practice now, Molly seems really stressed. And the kids don't like having their hair done when Molly is stressed. I thought when we first had Zoe that I would be the kind of dad that would be able to step in and do the girl's hair whenever it needed to be done, but it didn't really turn out that way. I can do a ponytail all right and I can pull a brush through their hair as well as anyone else, I suppose, but that is about it. I do know how to braid hair, but it never looks as good as Molly would want it to look. And the girls don't really like it when I do their hair because it takes longer and isn't as gentle as when Molly does it. And I think Molly doesn't like me doing their hair because it doesn't look great and people will think that it was her that did it.
Boy this blog post is getting boring. Boring enough that I am starting to get sleepy writing it. I can't imagine anyone reading it and not being bored. So enough of that. I guess I was just saying in the most long winded way possible, that Sundays are always busy and I don't have as much free time as would be nice.
So anyway, what is going on with my life now you might ask. Well, I have a new job. Or it was a new job two months ago. Now it almost seems like an old job. Which is good I suppose. It means that I mostly feel comfortable there now with what I am doing and how things work there. I left the good folks at Salt Lake County Engineering and Flood Control and began working at Ensign Engineering on April 23rd. It was pretty hard to leave the government job benefits and sad to say goodbye to the people I worked with there, but I want to be a structural engineer, and that just wasn't possible at Salt Lake County. So when the people at Ensign asked me if I would consider going to work for them, I had to really think about it hard, and in the end decided that giving up a great retirement benefit at the County for the opportunity to work close to home and to be able to work with other structural engineers was worth it. I have to work with under a structural engineer for three years in order to take the 16 hour test to become a structural engineer, and there are no structural engineers at the county. There are several at Ensign though. So now I work in Tooele and don't have to commute anymore to Salt Lake. I work four nine hour days and on Fridays I work four hours and get to go home at noon or so. I really like that. And I get to do a lot more structural design than I did at the county.
I haven't really gotten into the rhythm of the new job yet and I don't think Molly likes it much at all. At the county job, I left home at the same time every day and got home at the same time every day. Molly loved that consistency. At Ensign, I haven't really had a very consistent schedule. I am supposed to work 8:00 to 5:30 Monday through Thursday with 1/2 hour lunch and then 8:00 to noon on Friday. But that really hasn't happened much. I have a hard time keeping my lunch to 1/2 hour and so I am always trying to make it up by going in early or coming home late. And even on the days when I plan to leave work at 5:30, I have a hard time doing it because someone always wants to talk about something right as I am leaving. There are only four of us that work for Ensign in Tooele. Well, five if you count the surveyor that is never in the office, but four of us that are always there in the building, so it is not a very big office. And I am the only licensed engineer there. There is an engineering intern named Jacob Clegg, a draftsman named Roger Fish, and the office manager and partner in the company (who is a surveyor) named Doug Kinsman. So when someone is leaving, everyone notices and they all want to chat or have one last thing looked at before I go. And I am supposed to go to the Salt Lake office every week or every other week or so. So on days when I do that, I lose two hours in driving time, which I also have to make up on one of the other days. So for Molly's sake, I am going to try to come up with a more consistent schedule.
I really like working there though, and think that in the long run, even though I won't have a great retirement benefit from the county, that it will have been the best choice for me and the family. I still will get 10% of the salary I was making at the county when I get to retirement age, and I am trying to put more money into my 401k to make up the difference. Unless the markets disappear and money is worthless and the world dissolves back into a goods trading economy that will probably work. And I always have my tiny garden if the monetary system disappears. That should last me. Ok, not really. My poor garden is hopeless. But I keep trying every year, so maybe if the time ever comes that I really need it, it will be a great garden.
I guess I am getting tired and even though I haven't written about anything fun yet, I think I will end this now. They say that in learning about history it is the seemingly boring minutiae that is the most revealing, so in 1000 years this will probably be the most exciting blog ever.
Maybe I will add one cute picture of Ethnie and a chicken. This little chicken did something naughty (I don't remember what) so Ethnie put it in time out. She held it there for several minutes until the chicken had learned her lesson.
