We're back....

After weeks and weeks, I have finally logged back into my blog. Yes, as some have heard, we have been very busy lately. It's rather appropriate that my last post hailed from February 1. Life has picked up speed ... and if what my father-in-law tells me holds true, things probably won't slow down until retirement!

What have I been up to? Namely, work. The Lord has really given me favor in my work ... in the first two months, I've been given two promotions. DesignStar has only existed for a year and a half, and it's growing very quickly. Business has almost doubled in the last twelve months. I came along at a time when a new Operations Manager position was created, so there was shuffling of the ranks upward and a reorganization of some responsibilities, and I've been a beneficiary of this rising tide. (As long as the boats are in the water, a rising tide lifts all of them.) What do I do at work? For the last two months, I was responsible for printing the display cards that go with our plants and diverse promotional materials. A few weeks ago, I was asked to translate a booklet for the company from Dutch to English, which was lots of fun.

I'm now learning how big a business plant tags can be. Last year, we sold some 14 million tags, both to our own nursery, but increasingly to companies that don't buy our plants. Without getting bogged down in details, I'm learning to oversee the ordering of these tags and shipping them to our customers. Learning all of this in Dutch makes the work rather exhausting. Getting up at 5:30 every morning also plays a role.

I'm also working on getting my driver's license. My American license is valid for 6 months, and those 6 months are almost over. So I'm learning finally to drive a stick-shift. It has not been a happy experience, but I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. Additionally, I'm doing another Dutch course (this one is on the city hall), which is 3 hours one evening/week. Soon, it'll be two evenings per week.

But really, that's the less exciting parts of our life together. Things got exciting a last weekend, when Lies awoke in the middle of the night.... and our dinner guest has arrived, so I must go. To be cont'd....