Drive Until The Map Turns Blue!

**Brad Paisley's "Water"- check it out!**

This song screams summer fun and it's my latest favorite! It sums up exactly everything I love about summer and everything I'm excited about. This summer, in particular, will be the best!!! Announcement: I am now a part time worker! Immediate disclaimer: This was my choice, not a layoff for budgeting purposes, although it won't hurt. :)

I met a few months back with my boss to discuss my time off (as most of you know, I was getting two weeks paid time off as a full time worker). This happened every year-we would meet and I would try to negotiate some extra time, paid or not, two weeks wasn't cutting it. My boss has been sympathetic to my situation, living thousands of miles away from my family. But with trips for Dan and I and his family and then trips back to my home, it was just too tight. I must admit we were pretty crafty in using my allotted time most efficiently. And again, I could usually sway my wonderful boss into somehow swinging a few extra hours my way. This year, she had to put her foot down. Apparently, my asking for more time started to bother my co-workers enough to say something to my boss. Why my taking unpaid time off bothered them, I don't know. I usually made an effort to schedule around everyone's vacations so my leaving didn't disrupt anyone's plans. But she was able to offer me something different. :)

We had touched on going part time about a year ago, but Dan and I decided it would be best for me to continue working full time. This year, Dan and I made a list of things we want to do and not be missing out on and decided that I would present an ideal schedule to Shanda and see if we could in fact do these things on our wish list. To my own surprise, there really wasn't too much to negotiate! She thought that what we came up with made a lot of sense and decided to draft up my new contract. My new scheduled hours are:

Monday, Wednesday and Thursday- 12pm-6pm
Tuesdays- 9am-6pm (whole day, so I can still make our weekly meetings)
Friday- OFF!

I will have double the time off, although unpaid. And Dan gets 5 weeks I think, so we are ready to attack our trip list with full force! Our ideas include visiting Manhattan, Atlantic City, Niagara Falls- Canada side, Las Vegas, Florida, Wisconsin Dells in August, three day weekends in our beloved Traverse City...and that's just summer. We are working on Thanksgiving in Seattle :), possibly a Christmas time cruise, and Hawaii next fall after they open their new Disney Resort!

We are extremely grateful that my boss has been so kind to me these past few years. I know we are blessed to be able to explore what we wish. I feel like this is the right time to do this. I have been anxious to be less stressed at work, be able to spend more time prepping and practicing for my cake decorating class and hopefully this means I can have a cleaner house! Maybe some treadmill time too! :)

So, this morning was my first morning home. I got up around 9, made coffee and packed our bags for this weekend's trip to the lake house and Traverse City for the 4th. Then took my time getting ready, ran the dishwasher and made it work 10 minutes early--possibly a first for me!

I'm looking forward to leaving tonight and enjoying the long holiday weekend! Happy 4th everyone!