I don't usually write about things like this, things that are going on in my personal life that is, even though Mike Rellahan once told me that he'd love it if this blog did only that - things that were going on in my day-to-day and that he'd way rather read about that than my stupid not-so witty observations I had on the wacky world around us. (OK, he probably said it in a nicer way than that, but that's the way I heard it.)

So here's what my week has been like:

Monday - a relatively slow start:

11am - a meeting with 5 people here at work, to discuss, among other things, all the meetings we need to have this week. Seriously. I made a list of 7 meetings we need to have. We'll end up combining many of them so we don't need to split them out separately.

Tuesday - the fun begins

10-11am - a Stewardship Meeting to discuss the meetings we need to have next month with our Conservation Biologists to discuss a whole list of issues we need to address regarding our path forward starting this year
Noon - 2:45 - lunch and an interview at the Friends School where I am Board President with a semi-finalist for the Head of School position, a very friendly, engaging likable fellow, followed by a discussion with the Search Committee about the remaining 2-3 candidates as well as a "situation" that has cropped up that depresses all of us
5:30 - 7pm - another meeting at school with an employee about a really tough personnel issue. The toughest day of my 7 years on the Board and 2.5 years as Board President - first time I've ever left the school sadder than when I got there.

Wednesday - more fun with meetings

8:20 - 9:25am - A meeting back at school with the Interim Head of School - a woman I greatly admire, who tells me a great story, almost like a parable, that she is using to illustrate a bigger point, though she doesn't come right and say so, which makes it all the cooler.
10-11:30am - a Project Meeting here at work with 7 of us to go over potential 2014 projects
Noon - 1pm - Another Meeting back at the school with: a Board member, the school Business Manager, the Associate Head of School/Director of Development, the President & CEO of the bank (originally I had the name of the bank the school uses, but I see that someone came to my site after googling the bank, so I'm removing it here) that the school uses and the Regional President too. Sounds worse that it was - they were a fun, well, fun-ish, group, talking for maybe 15 minutes about banking (they project that the number of banks in the USA will shrink by 50% in the next 3-5 years!) but more about the Eagles, Flyers and raising kids than anything else.
1:30 - 2:30 - another meeting back at work with an employee at one of our projects telling him that we are totally restructuring his responsibilities and our agreement with the HOA he and we had an arrangement with.

So, having outlined those 8 meetings in 3 days in way too much detail, I'll now mention the meeting I am most looking forward to this week. On Sunday evening, Emma came in to our bedroom, where I was lying on the bed reading the Sunday paper, plopped down next to me and said, "Dad, can we schedule some time together Thursday evening, just you and me, on the couch in the living room?"

(insert the sound of a heart melting here)

 

Oh sigh. Gawd, I love being a dad. What Buddy the Elf said about smiling, I'll say about being a dad:

 

"That's my favorite!"