Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

at least I tell myself that's why I haven't posted in so long. In actuality, it's been a very hectic last month or so, and I simply have chosen to let the blog go in favor of more important things... sleep for example.
The last two months at work have been very, very busy. I've had several large cases come to major decision points around the same time, and paired with my already busy workload, makes for a very cranky and stressed-out Courtney. I am happy to say that these cases have since either been closed or are very close to closing.
If you've forgotten what I do for a living... I handle about a third of the audits that are conducted routinely by the 46 states with a corporate income tax. (Hooray for those four states without one!) And, seeing how I work for the world's largest retailer, we are audited by most of the other 46 states on a regular basis. I work on a team with three other great people who all do the same thing. We have split the 46 states among us in as close to a "fair" way as we could, but sometimes the workload shifts depending on what's going on in those particular states at that moment. These last few months have been my moment.
Anyway, I have spent many hours at the office and at home dealing with all the many moving parts involved in closing a large audit. As expected, there are always a few people that make the process painful and I have many times been quite frustrated with those people. Some days I wish that my job really was only about the numbers. Wow - I really am a nerd!
I learned that I don't deal well with stress any more. I think I used to - but that's been so long ago! Apparently I have some physical stress symptoms - lovely rashes and two separate bouts of sinus infections/bronchitis. I also haven't been the most enjoyable person to be around either. I know, it's a shocker.

The girls have been really good, though. They're getting older, and as they do we're trying to get them out of the house to do more things as a family. This new initiative has made for some very interesting times, but overall they've done really well. We have a "family allowance" for going out to eat or the movies or whatever, but sometimes we just stay home and roast hot dogs over a fire, too. I've noticed a marked difference in mainly the little girls' behavior out in public and also at home.
This weekend, for example, we went to the park, out to eat at Chili's, and to the Razorback Lady Gymnast Regional Meet. I was nicely surprised that even though the Chili's event and the gym meet were both fairly late in the evening, all were nicely behaved (even Mike!). Okay, so there was a lot of wiggling and fidgeting, but hey, that was all me.
Hannah wrapped up her gymnastics season in the fine town of Pine Bluff (yikes, people) and did fine. It's nice to have some free weekends now, although I will miss seeing her perform....not so much the other 99 girls that don't belong to me. If you haven't experienced a gymnastics meet for youngsters, congratulations... they average five hours with awards and your gymnast performs for less than four minutes of that time...yes, you heard me right. And lest you hope that those four minutes are consecutive...nope, one minute every hour or so. How did I not see this and advocate for soccer or softball?? We had some issues with her goofing off this year, but we had a serious discussion about doing our best all the time and we'll see where that gets us. She is, after all, only nine. But, I got the impression she thought she HAD to do gymnastics, which is not and never has been the case. So, hopefully we've cleared all that up and she'll learn something about work ethic in the meantime.

Ryley will be starting Kindergarten this fall. She's been learning sight words and can read a little bit. She's also grown about a foot and weighs a ton. She's my cuddly, people-pleasing, super-sensitive sweetpea. Lately she's been struggling with the "big-girl" complex and of course since she is not one yet, life isn't fair. She's at an awkward age where she can't do the things that Hannah does yet, but she's capable of more than Abby. It's been tough to balance that and I plan to spend some alone time with her in hopes of alleviating the "not fair" issues.

Abigail will move up to the last year of preschool this year and will go to Kindergarten next year. She's all about keeping up with the Hannahs and the Ryleys, so she's trying to learn Ryley's sight words too. Well, only when there's jellybeans involved, anyway. She's my spunky kid (AKA "rotten") with a rebellious streak a mile long. We've finally (for the most part) conquered the potty training problem... and I do mean FINALLY. She was a tough one. We have regular bed-wetting issues, but that comes with the territory. Tasmanian devils apparently sleep really hard and thus don't wake up to go potty. Since she does sleep so well, I don't sweat the bed-wetting. I mean, I NEVER wet the bed... (cough)

Mike and I are also exploring what our life together looks like when we're so busy. Neither of us are happy with our jobs and so we've been pretty snotty to each other lately. The good news is that we're big enough to realize WHY, and haven't gotten really upset over it. We struggle to find time together, and I find that when we do, it's so foreign that sometimes we struggle for conversation. It's a bit like seeing an old friend after a long absence - there were a million things you wanted to tell them but they escape you at the moment you're together. It's an odd place but we're doing okay with it. The family outings have helped a little, and we find time when we can. I'm sure it's nothing out of the ordinary for any busy family. We're not really stressed about it most of the time.

Well, there you go. That's the Martin world for the last few months. It was a long post, but since I've kept all of you waiting I felt I owed you some serious content. Either way, at least you got a nice nap in.