Finding the time

I write this at 11:08 at night and I just got finished up with work. With Planet Cash, and Fill N Thrill, I find myself working quite a bit. I have been making a very conscious effort to spend time with Emily, because she deserves it. I have a tendency to engulf myself in projects and just tune everything out. So, always in the back of my mind I am trying to make time to hang out with my lovely wife. It is a little easier with her being home in the summer. I can take a long lunch, or take a afternoon off and go shopping with her. Once school starts for her (August 10th) It will be harder to make that time, but it remains a huge priority in my life, a constant balancing act.

On top of everything, I have decided to coach soccer again. I am coaching a U-17 girls select team. I started out just wanted to be an assistant coach, but 38 girls came out to try outs and we didn't want to cut 1/2 the girls and give them no team to play on, so we just made two teams, with me being the head coach. I know that I have a calling to work with kids, and soccer has, and always will be an important part of my life. I have played since I was 5, and Pops help start the league at the Lake. Soccer was always our thing, and by being back on the field, it helps me keep his memory alive. And, even though I really don't have time for it, I am loving every minute of it. When I am on the field coaching, I get to play around, keep in shape and really just forget about everything else, except soccer. We are not the best team around, but the girls are a lot of fun and they are just happy to be playing soccer.

Fill N Thrill is still going great! We are installing 42 screens this week, which will take up all my time and then 8 screens in Branson shortly and then in 2 weeks adding 12 more screens in our West County Network, so things are really moving fast. I am not working from home as much as I want, maybe 50/50 now, which is not too bad.

Emily is ready to go back to school, she has had enough of being bored. Her goal was to spend most days at the pool, but thanks to the 70 degree we had, the pool was colder in July than June. Not quite as much fun to lay out with clouds in the sky. And yes, we have a heater, but we needed to fix it, but we figured, "hell, it's already June, why fix it now." "Well,"says Mother Nature,"because it is going to be 70 and cloudy and not have 2 days in a row of sunshine for all of July." ahhhh Hindsight.

Rest of our summer: Leave for Clearwater, FL with our very dear friends Bear and Amy and Chic and Noodle(he is pumped) on Sunday the 26th. Be back Friday with a house full of more close friends for a weekend of weddings. The rest of August is 2 soccer tournaments, and family Christmas (yes you read that correctly, Christmas in August. We have a family who, if you mention snow they won't leave their house for weeks. So, to make sure no one gets stuck in the snow, we bring you Christmas in August! It will mark the first time to have a family get together in St. Louis. Justin and I are very excited to have the family up! I have been looking forward to it most of the summer.

On a completely unrelated note: They are remaking Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp and for some reason I am really excited to see it.

Here is a link to the preview.

But, over all, I have a beautiful wife who I love her and she loves me, a roof over my head, food on the table, a great family, wonderful friends, a job that I love and all around great health, so I couldn't be happier. I still find time to stop and smell the roses and realize just how blessed I am! I have posted some summer pictures below

Thanks for reading and keep on keeping on! mrrrrrrrrrr.

Norah with Auntie Em at Grant's Farm. Emily takes Norah every Tuesday.

Norah feeding the goats at Grant's Farm


Norah walking towards her new birthday gift from Mommy & Daddy and the Grandparents

Norah enjoying Mommy's brownie/cupcake/amazing things

Norah painting her horse with Auntie Em and Grandma


Just a random cute picture of Norah



Emily and I at Norah's birthday party


Justin, Mom and myself at Norah's 3rd birthday party.

Emily's hard at work

With Emily being out of school for the summer, she has created a long list of projects that she wants to get done for the house. This summer will be rush around to get a project done, then rush to get the house back in order since people are coming over and then start that process all over again.

I, unfortunately, have been very busy with work and have not had much time to help Emily with the various projects, so she has been tackling these alone. My main job was to put up all the new blinds in the house. Every window on the main floor finally has wood blinds.

I am very happy to be busy with work, have not been busy with a job for quite some time now, it feels good to get back into the flow of it. I am officially a partner in Fill N Thrill now. To be quite honest I was nervous and still am a little nervous to be jumping into a new business again. But, for the most part, I am very excited to part of such a new advertising medium. I have slowly backed out of sales in more into an Executive VP role. I basically make sure the company is running smoothly. All the commercials are being produced on time, customers are happy, etc. Here is a link to one of our commercials, just so you have an idea of what we

do: http://www.fillnthrill.com/adview/newmelle.html

The next phase of our business plan is finding distributors in other cities. We are heading to Springfield, MO next week for 10 different meetings to find a distributor there. If you know anyone who wants to own their own business with very little overhead, let me know. $2,000 finders fee!

Any who, I digress, back to how aswesome my wife is.

She spend last week painting and caulking the dinning room. We had talked about doing it for a very long time, and finally got it done. She is onto the kitchen now, so we will have pictures posted for that next week.

Here is the before shot of the dinning room before we moved in. (not our furniture).

Here are the after shots.

More updates to come. Keep on keeping on! mrrr