update project muddle and other hillarity

First the hilarity I think. Work has gotten silly. My plan had been to ease myself into the background over the next few months, slowly replacing me with someone else as the go to person at the company. I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends if I'm not watched, and I really didn't want to be more stressed then necessary while I'm transporting another being. I've had neighbors with thin walls and I hate it when they play their rock music all night. I assume Tobo feels the same. :)

So, I got to work after traveling to the Old Country (pgh) ready to pick up a few left over tasks and generally putter around. I find that I am going to a meeting with WOT Realtors(R) AND that we don't know why we are meeting. I find out that I am now going to be their very own personal pet designer and actually be stationed in their office. "Um, what?" I don't get more money, I do get out of there as soon as we can hire someone in. I was pretty close to throwing a tantrum, but cooled down after some time to think. TL and I spinned it that I'm going in to "work out the bugs" in the system and then we will bring in a new designer. I will wear my maternity gear if necessary to explain why I will be leaving asap. The really irking point about all this is the stress of meeting 80 new people and being pulled back into a corporate setting just as I was about to leave the work force. I haven't been in a corporate office since 2001(?). I left it for a reason.

In truth, the work will not be any harder than what I'm doing now. I also doubt we will have anyone ready to step into this until late nov, early december. And don't ask me what will happen to all the other projects I would normally be working on. Tough luck I guess.

On to the muddle project:

After that meeting, I went to a second meeting with ACME and Paul to try and hammer out what our plans are for the future. It was a really good meeting.

We have been struggling with how to stay with ACME and not live out of our car. Now we opened up that struggle to the ACME leadership team, to see what their take was on all of this was. Beyond the numbers, we wanted to see if there was a need for us to stay, a way which I could help (since I would be new to the team) and how to work out the logistics and timing. With Tobo on the way, we were very emphatic that we need to have a plan in place and a few benchmarks which will be go/no go lines both for us and for ACME. We can't be dead wood, but we also can't hang out on a wing and a prayer. Well, not on a wing at least.

After a loooong talk (we got out just before six), we had a plan in place, with benchmarks, dollar amounts and action items. It still needs to be finalized and approved by the whole leadership team. The plan as it stands is we would become full time members in the next year or two. Full membership is defined as having enough prayer and financial support to meet an agreed upon monetary amount that ACME needs to support us. Our current support is minimal, so we will need to do a lot of work. (called deportation, uh I mean deputation)

In faith that the plan will be approved by the rest of the leadership team, Paul and I will be going through a number of psych, medical, and financial batteries, as well as theological questions in the next few weeks. We will be attending the candidate course which is the last 2 weeks of October. In November, we will hear back from the leadership team about whether the plan is still viable on their end. Which means we would move forward and go before the board, hopefully to become appointees.

Paul and I are willing to try it. This is our last shot to try to keep Paul in a position where he is called vocationally to be. If it doesn't work (see: go/no go lines) than Paul will be leaving ACME and finding an IT job that will cover our expenses. That probably will not be in Denver, since one of the struggles we are having right now is the cost of living out here. We're planning on staying for the birth, but after that we will be on the move as soon as Tobo is portable again. (what is that, 18?)

Obviously this is a lot to consider. As always, we would appreciate any prayers you can send up about this, for us, the leadership team, the board, and Tobo. Little does he/she know how crazy his/her parents will be.