I stopped sending out updates on a regular schedule for three reasons. First, we had survived the major trauma of Julie’s first two years. The remaining issues seemed dull and ordinary in comparison.
Second, I took a writing class in the spring of 2013. The assignments kept me so busy that I couldn’t find time to keep up with updates. After reviewing my writing in comparison to the techniques I learned in that class, I felt that my writing lacked pizazz. So, I got tired and lazy. It took about 18 months before I started getting the urge to write again.
Third, the increasing pressure at work drained me emotionally, mentally and physically. I feared to talk about my problems with too much detail. Nobody wants to star in this headline: “Computer Geek Loses Job after Facebook Posting about His Boss.” And, well, everyone has problems at work.
Dull, depressing and mundane – who wants to read that?
When I started reposting these updates (Fall 2014), I added extra spice with new background material that I hadn’t included with the original updates. Time had given me permission to disclose some things we had withheld for a potential book. Also, I wanted to connect the dots of the patterns we had seen in our lives. Both Sarah and I hoped our story would help others to connect the dots of their life’s situations in order to see God’s hand of protection, provision and grace.
As I proceed with the updates I will take some editorial license to include updates which I didn’t post at the time. As always, these stories are true.
The new year began with a quick picture update…
Just a review of 2011 and 2012 with pictures…
In the pictures from Christmas 2011 – the lady is Julie’s Aunt Marla and the couple is Julie’s adopted grandparents.
Happy New Year!
Andy, Sarah, Julie plus one
My mother kept bugging me about seeing Julie in dresses, so Sarah and I posed Julie in a series of dresses and sent the pictures out in order to maintain peace in the family. Some people didn’t believe us when we claimed that Julie wore dresses. Julie inherited a number of dresses from friends whose daughters had outgrown their clothes.
We didn’t get a chance to take pictures when she dressed up, so we put on a fashion show on New Year’s Day by the front door and in front of the Christmas tree.
I also included some pictures from Christmas 2012.
Julie had grown very fond of ducks. She loved to play with them, along with plastic eggs, whenever she sat in her highchair while attached to her feeding pump. Julie spent a lot of time in the highchair after she outgrew her bouncer. I used to hide the ducks and other small toys in the plastic eggs. Julie loved opening up the eggs and hiding the ducks under the half egg pieces.
Julie at Christmas 2011…
Sometime in January, my department went through another reorganization. Despite nearly a year asking to be placed into another group which more closely matched my skills and experience, I found that I stayed in the same group with the same boss trying to figure out what to do. I wondered why everyone else high-jacked into our group who asked for a transfer had found a new home, but I couldn’t escape.
I also couldn’t understand management’s goals. On the one hand, they maintained that I was too valuable (as a grade 28 engineer) to waste on managing some 20-year-old systems which kept producing money for the corporation. Instead management wanted me to do the same tasks that the rest of my team performed. On the other hand, management wanted the rest of my group’s grade 28/29 engineers to teach their jobs to the grade 25/26 technicians. More simply put, my tasks were beneath my job grade, but I was to take on the assignments being given to people in a lower job grade than me. Exasperating!
In the meantime, management canceled all my training opportunities in favor of other people on my team. So, I couldn’t leave nor could I receive any training to help me move forward. I worked under a micromanager who marked my weekly progress on a read/yellow/green scale like a school child. Although I actively searched for new work, I tried my best to submit myself to my boss, understand his instructions, and work to his priorities. Yet, at every turn, I found myself at odds with him.
I dreaded Friday one-on-one meetings with him each and every week. Even when I had accomplished all my goals, he found something horribly wrong with my work. He changed his priorities each week making my life more and more miserable. I found myself at odds with my peers since my new tasks often compounded their workload or exposed delays in their projects (and none of them faced disciplinary action).