A Sigh of Relief

Golly… I’m getting worse and worse at posting on my blog. 🙃

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much has happened since my last post in May of 2022. Here goes!

Not that it matters now, but the following blog segment I typed up back on 11/9 but so much was going on that I left it as a draft and didn’t get around to posting it; however it works out with today’s posting.

11/9/2022

I finally finished my Bachelor’s degree. It’s been a long, often rough road the last few years with many “I’m done” or “naa, I don’t need this” inner dialogues. Thankfully, encouragement and perseverance drove me to the finish line. It’s so nice to not “have to do homework” after a long day at work or just having some school deadline looming outside of work or home responsibilities. I think it took a solid 2 weeks of me thinking I had homework to do until it finally sunk in. Yay! I is smart now. 🤣

I realize in my last post I was going to announce the birth and gender of the baby. For those (few) who read this blog (only), it’s a boy and his name is Ezekiel (aka “Zeke”). Otherwise, most already know about him from other communications.

What I do want to update on is diagnosis and surgery.

This very week, Zeke had his surgery to fix his heart defect. I’m a little rusty on the numbers, but I believe way back earlier this year when we were introduced to this world, that about 40-60% of babies born with Down Syndrome (DS) — officially called Trisomy 21 — will likely have some kind of heart issue or defect. We were very fortunate and blessed to learn that although he did have a heart defect, that his was in the “lesser of two evils” category, so to speak. I won’t go into egregious detail as you can Google AV canal defect and find many medical journals and peer-reviewed articles on the subject matter, but suffice to say this image is a rudimentary overview:

Source: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007324.htm

While not typical of every normal person (left) and every heart defect (right), the short version of what his surgery entailed was they had to insert the middle “wall” of his heart to separate the 4 chambers that have essentially been 2 chambers since birth. God is good and his surgery went well with no complications. His recovery is going well but has a little ways to go.

We were thankfully pre-prepared with Zeke’s diagnosis of Down Syndrome (again, not “Downs” Syndrome) a good bit of time before his birth so we could enjoy the long-awaited joy of his birth no matter the situation. In the initial few months, we had the looming awareness he’d need heart surgery but just not when or how severe it’d be (all covered above). As we fast-forward to now, he recovered very quickly and has pretty much gotten back to his normal self and advancing from there well. He was in and out of the hospital in a week, off oxygen in a month, and we’re praying he comes off of some other medicine in the next month or two. It’s crazy to believe we already have a 7.5 month old, encroaching on an 8-month old!

It’s always hard leaving a job you’ve been at for a long time, but it was necessary. I am thus very blessed in that I was able to recently accept a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (for me) to finally advance my career into the IT Networking field as a Network Administrator. I’m still baffled it’s a reality, but thank God (and the multitude of encouragement and nudges from work friends) for the opportunity. You can scan my older blog history to see this has been a dream job of mine and why I say a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — because the path to get here has been full of self-torture from high-expectation and failures to succeed in studying for this field for myself. Fortunately, I will be focusing on a niche aspect of Networking (phones) vs directly with routers and switches, but that is a cross-train opportunity I’m excited for.

Until next time,

Andrew

Finding Peace in the Unknown Journey

Goodness, it’s been 5 months since I last posted. Unless you get paid to blog (which I don’t lol), this is just a when you can or feel compelled kinda thing. I’ve posted same day before in the past and then had long, long stents. However, it is nice to get back behind the keyboard for a minute and post regardless of the time away.

A lot has happened since my last post.

Covid, while still a thing and roller coasters in and out, has subsided (enough) where I live, so it’s nice to get some semblance of normal back in the community.

We’re still loving our house and always doing this or that project to make it more of a home (but isn’t that a lifelong adventure?).

It’s hard to believe in the last post that we were just posting our baby announcement pic with Obi but here we are … realistically any day now baby will be here. We’re hoping it naturally makes its way closer to the June delivery date, but whenever the Lord allows it shall happen.

I hesitated for a while including this but it is well with my soul to post about it for those who do not know. At this point the dates are a blur because I just don’t remember, but I think it was end of Feb we had gone to our normal OB appointments you’d expect, but we had gotten sent to a high-risk OB for additional echo scan and and stuff like that, and that is when we were given some then-very unsettling news: our baby showed several signs (they call markers) of Down Syndrome. After some further tests that were needed to confirm, the baby has a heart defect that can be common in those born with Down Syndrome (by the way it’s Down, not Downs. I learned this later on in some of dr-prescribed material and research.). We were both devastated in the beginning because nothing of this caliber had ever happened in our family or to anyone we knew. Why us? Why would God be so cruel knowing we’d been waiting and praying for 10 years to have a baby, and then our prayers finally get answered with a life-altering twist? Why, since being married, did we constantly wonder why we had not yet become parents like the many couples we knew who metaphorically zoomed by left and right with kids around us?

*Breathe for a moment*

We were both raised in the church and deep-down in our roots knew that’s not His ways, of course not, but we couldn’t help but to feel the feelings of anguish in the early days of the news. Our upbringing helped anchor us to the truth. We had a prayer session with our parents which was very much appreciated in a time of need. Through subsequent OB and Phoenix Children’s visits over that next month we met some wonderful people, learned a lot we never knew, and cleared the air on some preconceived notions on something (DS) that we only remotely knew about! Our baby thankfully has a “lesser of two evils”, if you will, heart defect so it will not need surgery right out the gate (amen!), and it is growing like a champ with no other identified problems (amen again!). As of last week’s appointment, it is a chonker around 5 pounds. (That’s a lot for the situation so we are happy it’s growing).

Side plug: you may be thinking “Why do you keep saying it?” Well, we don’t know the gender and don’t want to know. As you’ve read, we’ve tried for a decade, so what’s a few more weeks? When it pops out we’ll know boy or girl. Pretty simple. hahaha

Let’s fast forward a couple/few months…

Ironically, in the various things I’ve read/researched since going on this journey, one phrase or quote thing stuck out to me. God sometimes makes parents of those who have yearned and are humbled for the experience thus so that they can take on a heavier burden because they have been being prepared for it all along. I butchered the phrase and don’t even remember what resource I read it from, but we will be thankful for this baby no matter what because we are in this together and that’s enough of a start for me.

We are almost here at delivery date (around first week of June if not sooner), and we could not be happier although nervous. We are first-time parents so that is really more of the more driving factor of nervousness over the Down Syndrome. Hmmm… Who knew this mountain would be like a hill and we could surpass it? No, I’m not ignorant to the fact that many mountains will appear for the rest of our lives with this child, but knowing we were given a rare blessing to absorb this news early on and turn it into a positive instead of a negative, we can take joy during the birth knowing God is in control with the wonderful doctors and other medical staff who’ll be helping as we go through this journey.

Until next time (when we share the gender!),

Andrew

1 + 1 = 3

Yes, I am bad at math, but hang in there for a a few … I’ve got a few updates to catch up on since my last entry.

So in my last two posts I discussed some leaps and bounds in my life I had not thought previously possible … nameling going back to school after a long time as well as moving out of a long stint in a role I was not happy in.

Let’s fast-forward to today.

It has been a year already I’ve been in IT at my job (wow!). I am officially 3/4 done with my Bachelor’s (double wow!!). Mid this year, Danielle and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary (triple wow!!!).

Yes, Covid/Corona is still a thing … I think they got tired of going letter-by-letter and skipped Epsilon through Xi (Greek alphabet) and went straight to Omicron. On top of this horrible pandemic, it’s still bad all-round … there’s still cultural, racial, political, and general divides tearing our country apart.

In the recent post I mentioned we were moving into apartment life, which we were very blessed and thankful we did not have to move into an actual apartment rather our cousins who we stayed with briefly when we moved to Arizona many years ago let us stay with them for a period of time. Part of that was while we were hopeful to still build our custom dream home, but that did not come to fruition. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Sure, that is more often used as a tongue-in-cheek negative connotation but in earnest, God was looking out for us as we were able to find and purchase our dream home and move in right around the beginning of October. Here is a photo of the front.

We’ve been slowly moving in because unlike our last houses where we took ages to paint and do flooring on our own, the first couple of weeks we went official and had professionals paint and do flooring. It’s been so nice having that work done and not have to do it ourselves (haha).

It’s been a slow road getting things tidied up for a couple reasons. First, I somehow out-of-the-blue contracted Bell’s Palsy and had that for a couple weeks. Praise God it has gone away, but I was struggling there for a hot minute. Second, and most exciting news is that Danielle and I are expected a baby next June!!!!! Here is our official Christmas card with the secret news tucked in the corner 🙂

We’re super excited and nervous, but definitely blessed!

Until next time,

Andrew

I is Smart

So I’ll start by saying I know post-secondary education (“college or university”) schooling is tough at most any level. It can be either because of a direct result of the degree pursued (a dr for example) or it can be for external forces causing strife (like life events or such). For context now, it was circa winter 2010 and I was about 3-4 years out of high school (wow!) and I was encouraged to go get a degree. Before this, when I was wrapping up high school, I had already applied to and been accepted into the music dept program at my local university, but I was not accepted to the school itself due to being just a few points shy on my SAT and ACT (dumb). So I put it off for a couple of years. Eventually, I did decide to go to the local tech college to get my Associate’s degree. I, among dozens of other students, were about halfway through our degrees when the tech school decided to “align with the university system” and changed everyone from a quarter-based system to a semester-based system. This made majority of our degrees that were typical 2-year into 3.5 or more year degrees. That coupled with me finally leaving my first ever retail job and getting my first ever “Corporate America” big boy job means that I paused college.

You know how they say (to some effect) that when you say you’ll go back a good percentage likely won’t ever go back or whatever? Well I did not get to nor choose to go back. Fast forward to 2019 and I’m feeling the the ceiling of my experience in technical support and knew I had to make a decision of some kind or be stuck in this kind of role for as far as I could foresee. I was able to talk to one of the local universities and was flabbergasted to find that after almost 10 years of being out of college that about 95% of my credits would transfer from my previous Associate’s degree program (obviously not classes on legacy stuff like Windows 7 or Server 2008, which made sense). I told the recruiter (or whatever) rep I was definitely willing to go back to “finish” my Associate’s; however, after a further review (matriculation I think they called it) of my official transcript, the rep told me that I would be able to get not only my Associate’s but also get a Bachelor’s because 100% of the courses in the Associate’s are in the Bachelor’s program + the Bachelor-only classes thereafter. After looking and talking it over at home, it made sense to shave off a whole year of transferred credits and get both an Associate’s and Bachelor’s degree a year early each. I’ve since been trucking along pursuing my degrees. I had not yet earned my Associate’s yet, but I do think it was one of many contributing factors in me finally getting out of technical support and into help desk. I absolutely love the role, the folks I work with, but above all that the freedom I now feel of not being bogged down like I was for 10 years to a headset and a tv callboard. I can think, plan, be flexible, contribute, and do all sorts of things previously impossible in my working life.

It’s been a realllllllllly long last couple of years as a result. Selling our first AZ house … buying land to build … Covid … selling said land b/c of covid and other factors … getting a new role at work… and of course school. But all of that aside, I can say that I officially triumphed and received my Associate’s degree in Information Technology in the mail yesterday! I am now smart! It was quite a bit surreal looking at a piece of paper that has taken so long to get, but it’s more than that.. it’s an accomplishment that I didn’t think I would ever get and at several points I felt “too old”, “not smart enough”, or had not met some indescribable quota in my mind to go back and get one. All excuses, of course, but nevertheless, it was pleasing to finally see my name on that (expensive) piece of paper and that I can now mark off that miniscule worry from the back of my mind. Getting my advanced education makes me feel great personally and professionally. Here’s to the same or a greater feeling after I get my Bachelor’s in a year or so.

Until next time,

Andrew

Wow! April’s Almost Over

I’m a little behind posting and have been piecing this post together several times this month because I just get really busy. But man oh man how time flies! It’s been nearly 3.5 months since I posted last but SO MUCH has happened — things I’ve left out accidentally or on purpose for a more appropriate time. Let’s see where to begin…

First of all, I left this out of my last post by design since it was a tough topic, and still is, but time’s passage does help. I wanted to include a quick tribute to my sister-in-law, Lisel Weidenborner, who was killed in a horrific car accident back in 12/14/2020. Continued thoughts and prayers are needed 4 months to the day…and they’ll be needed for years to come as there’s a long road and new journey for David and family.

We’re now over the year mark with Covid 19/Corona/”Rona”. The world, for the most part, has changed both for the good and bad. Really, it’s the way the world works… the world is always going to change, just sometimes at faster or slower paces (this time it was accelerated due to a virus). This has changed the face of politics, laws, perceptions about aspects of lifr, personal life in general and business life, including the corporate Work from Home (WfH or WFH) structure for untold numbers of companies and millions of people. Regardless of the complexities involved, it has reshaped what “normal” is going to look like forever to some degree for everyone.

My company last year had several marker points that executives said we’d evaluate this date, and then such and such date, and then finally just said whenever X, Y, and Z indicators are at a certain level we’llthink about going back. Recently in an all-company meeting they told us it’s theoretically possible to go back mid this year whereas they last said it would be later this year! In my new role (explained later), I need to be in the office regularly. Even before that, I was not fond of WfH even though there are tons of benefits. I’m looking forward to going back to the office on some sort of regular basis. To each their own, right?

Last year when millions lost jobs altogether, and countless others were cut back on pay or some other aspect in their jobs, Danielle and I were fortunate that our impacts were not as severe as others have been. We’re thankful she’s gotten back up-to-par and at my company I was ecstatic when I got a promotion to another dept at a full/normal pay bump without a Covid impact, so it worked out on my end, too.

For 10 long, grueling years I’ve held some form of call center/support center job. They definitely paid the bills and I’m thankful for that, plus no qualms against the companies themselves, but that kinda role in general just takes a toll on you in a negative way. I was super, super, SUPER thankful when I got the promotion to IT in Help Desk where I could finally exhibit my range of IT skills. Hard to believe that about 3 weeks ago was my 4-month mark already! I love the team I work with and the work we do is challenging but rewarding, and we have a good time, too.

If you go wayyyyy back into the depths of my archived blog, I had a regular theme of pursuing Networking as a career option. Looking back they say hindsight is 20-20. I can see that for the better (or worse?) part of the last 15 -18 years I have “tried” (not really though, right?) to get my CCNA certification … heck or even the Network+ (Net+). It’s always been a goal I wanted to grab at but never really took the reins it seems. So I gave up for several years; however, at my job, our former Network engineer was giving me some motivation when I joined the team to pursue it again and forget the past failures of not getting certified before now, but even after going ahead and buying the latest series of study books and videos I’ve “put it aside” again. Each time an excuse crops up and each time that timeline gets longer and longer. To be fair this excuse is better than having no viable ones before. We were selling a house, temp moved then had to moved again in less than a month, dealt with initial Covid, working on land purchase then stress with blueprint planning and building issues, and my Bachelor at school, too. That’s a lot on the plate and I know the pilot light is there, I just need to ignite it somehow. No matter the excuse or the years lost to it, I can chock it up to pack of accountability sprinkled with discipline or drive. I’ve always wanted to do Networking but just can’t get the “umph” to motivate myself to get past a chapter or two (or video or two). We do have a new networking person starting soon who is aware I am interested in networking as a career, so there’s a glimmer of hope I can pickup some motivation or something to make this failed aspiration a reality.

Whew! Segwaying from all of that. We’re going to move soon into the apartment life. I’ve never wanted to rent– nothing against it and those who choose or have to — but I don’t like sinking $ into something you want get bwck (equity in a house vs the owner’s pocker per se). Right now, lumber and other materials are still astronomically high (last we talked to our builders it was like 188% or more for lumber costs). Even with our severe cuts on the house plans it was not enough. So now we’re selling the land to find cheaper land to offset the costs a tad. While, no, that alone won’t be enough, we can take more time and less stress in the build and plan process to get it built the way we want amd hopefully in the mid to near future materials costs will decrease enough to build.

Until next time,

Andrew