The beginning of the month...

The day finally arrived. The kids and I took Scott to the airport yesterday for his month-plus long work trip to the States. He's been working towards this month for the last six years. All of us have. All the time and energy he and others have spent preparing for this trial hopefully will be proven to be well invested. So that there is no jinxing, I won't wish him luck.

The kids and I are on day 2 without him. In honesty, I feel the least worried about being alone on this trip than any other trial he went over for. The kids' behavior has been great, Mary Poppins has been great, and the house seems to be in a pretty good rhythm. I say all this now, but let's see what the sentiments are 3 weeks in...

Completely unrelated, this morning I listened to a presentation from a Ted Talks episode. While the discussion focuses on vulnerability as it relates to connecting with others, the presentation seemed so much bigger to me. It was a good reminder of the times where I (or we as a family) have succeeded or benefited the most was when we took a chance. My nature is to control as much as possible, but my very success at work has been reliant on learning as much as possible, researching as much as possible, and then taking a leap of faith that the outcome of the chance (with preparation) would work out. Of course there have been times when things didn't "work out" as I had hoped they would, but even those occasions have proven to be building blocks of me, of my future decisions, of my experience, of my thought processes. Recognizing the risk or vulnerability (or chance of failure) has been important in my connections with others of course. It has has also been the mechanism for success in relationships, professional goals, and even personal awareness. With the good of course comes the bad. The success from the bad comes from using the bad to make future good such as learning from mistakes, not giving up because the last risk didn't work out, etc. Probably most of the readers will have already figured this out long ago. For me this was a pretty enlightening morning!

After my little digression, I am hoping that the next month goes happily, easily, and with many successes for Scott and his client. And in a poor attempt to tie my rant into the current family situation, I completely admit my vulnerabilities in facing the next 4-5 weeks! (-;