Loganing

Ok, I'm about to trundle off to bed, but I wanted to give a short update!

Things have been going well. It has been really hot here--too hot for my tastes, but just right for Andrew's. Pretty consistently high 90's. It turns every conversation into small talk ("Oh my god, it's so hot out today!" , "I know, it wasn't this hot last year!" "Blablablaweatherweatherweather"), but it's all genuine and on everyone's minds.

We very nearly killed the grass in our backyard by forgetting the concept of watering a lawn in the heat, but I think we just barely saved it. We have been watering like mad men every morning and evening and I'm just starting to see little green shoots poking through the brittle yellow patches of grass.

(See what I mean?)

Andrew is taking Physiology at the moment and we both seem to find his subject matter fascinating. I really enjoy it when he comes home and tells me what he is learning about. I learned about a lot of this stuff in high school, but not with the same amount of depth, and I've forgotten nearly all of it anyway. He took a test recently and got a great grade on it, we are both very proud :)

In other news, I got a promotion! I am now Bird Programs Manager, and I'm really happy. It's a big jump and it makes me feel a little nervous, but I hope that I do a good job filling the role and growing within it. I don't think it's very different than what I'm already doing right now, really, I don't know how they could add more duties than I already have at the moment, but it involves managing staff more and I always feel like my skills haven't quite caught up with moves like this. Fingers crossed! It's a great thing for me, though, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity.

Consequently, I have been working my butt off this summer. I've been pulling 5-10 hours of overtime each week for the past three weeks, which is nice from a financial standpoint but I think it contributed to my getting sick this past weekend. Just a little overextended, though I am feeling really satisfied with all of the effort I am putting into things. We have had fabulous feedback for our summer camps and the staff I have this summer all seem really happy with things (I hope!).

This past Saturday we conducted a program that was one of the most important ones I've made thus far--we are the City Partners for a national program called Flying WILD, that is essentially an education program/guide that has activities to teach kids about conservation and nature through birds. Helen assisted a bit, but really for this whole process I was the one who coordinated with the national Flying WILD people, created the program, created and submitted the assurances document to the state for approval for credit from the State Office of Education for attendees, and I was the one who made all of the materials for the workshop itself. It went really well, I think, and we had 20 people attend, which is about 13 more than we were expecting! Teaching other teachers anything is incredibly intimidating and in so many ways I am not qualified to do it, but it was an honor to share my very small corner of expertise with other educators and hopefully spread my department's passion of nature education to them.

It really makes me want to pursue a Masters in Ed, too. I think I could put it to good use. I would really like to do one while still working, considering the position I now hold, but everything is really up in the air until Andrew gets to the point that he's applying for vet schools. This whole time I have really wanted him to get accepted to Fort Collins so we can move out there, but things at the Aviary are just getting good enough that I kind of want to stick around longer... so I'm leaning more toward hoping that the USU program is a good one and that Andrew gets accepted there. I don't know, there's a lot of give and take on either side-- I am really young for the position I have, I think, but I have a boss who has a lot of faith in me and a lot of programs that are running incredibly smoothly to back me up. I feel like I am growing a lot professionally, and would like the opportunity to pursue more education that would help me in my job, but I don't know that I want to fully leave my job. I don't know, it's a conundrum. Thankfully, we have time yet to solve these things.

This week we don't have summer camps, so it's all hands on deck, and I have another employee starting on Wednesday (my permanent full time educator, whose name is Anne...she's really nice!). I just hope I have enough for people to do! I need to make a long list of things to get them working on this week.

Anyway, beddie bye!