"YES, THIS IS AWESOME!"

Do you ever ask yourself where did the week go? I did today, and in reflection it was a really busy yet really fun week. Full of surprises, sentiment, and successes!

My new blog over on Ubuntu User is coming along as I walk my way through this new adventure with help and support from the folks at Linux Pro Magazine. I sent a series of interview questions to the Canonical Platform team and those interviews should be popping up over there this week. So keep your eyes open if you want read about how they encourage the community to get involved and share in overcoming obstacles and what happens when it all comes together. It’s an exciting journey about a fabulous community that surrounds an awesome operating system like Ubuntu. I’m always on the lookout for people, places and points of entry within the Ubuntu Community to tell people about so let me know if you know of anything fitting into those categories – email me amber [ a t ] ubuntu [ d o t ] com. Thanks in advance. Please take a look at the Ubuntu User site and let know what you think. It all just makes me smile, I am really enjoying participating! 😀

Speaking of smiling, my birthday, my 40th birthday is happening on the 29th. Yeah, I’m owning it! I thought about telling people it was the 11 anniversary of my 29th birthday and I was only having anniversaries from now on, but why? I think my 40’s are going to be the best yet. (dang I probably jinxed it now, let’s hope not :-P) Oh and I think it is so cool that Karmic is being released on my birthday and I get to be in the UK for the release. So I guess I can share the day with a Koala. 😛

johnc4510, with Ubuntu Weekly News (UWN), pinged me this week and asked if I wanted to help with UWN. I was excited and thought it was really great to be asked to help out. More smiles!! Another point of entry for those of you looking for a way to become involved with the ubuntu community. Also of note, tyche, will be giving a class about UWN during open week. So join in and bring questions you might have about UWN to the session and see if this is something you would like to contribute to. Even if you only have ideas and links to points of interest you are still contributing. johnc4510, tyche, and the others on the UWN team are awesome to work with on this project so if you don’t want to wait until open week to get involved then click here and join in on all fun.

I also had the opportunity to work with Jorge Castro of the Canonical Community Team to finalize the schedule for Open Week and get the information, for what I am sure is going to be a really cool booklet, for the event together. It’s always great to say “hi” to new people and gather information for events. We got the wiki shored up and the announcement about Open Week went out to the community. It should be a really great week full of knowledge and opportunities. As I mentioned above about UWN being a point of entry to get involved in the community. There will be many session during open week that will offer points of entry. It was just fun to work with Jorge and I can’t wait for more opportunities, should they arise, to help out the community team folks – they just rock!

I finally switched all my computers that I use on a daily basis over to Karmic. Then I figured out why gwibber wasn’t playing nice with identi.ca. I was using my openid to sign into identi.ca and didn’t have the passwords set right. Once I set the password up on identi.ca and fixed the account in gwibber, bam it was working. I also started playing around with empathy. I only made one successful audio and video call and that was just to Pete across the room. I tried to talk to a few other people and we got the video to work but not the audio. I’m really excited about using empathy, but to be fair I tried pidgin and skype audio and video as well and those didn’t work either on my dell :-(. So I’ll be trying to figure out what the heck I am doing with those 3 applications over the next week.

On the home front, the kids have made it through the first grading period at the new school. I am glad they are becoming active in the school community. What does that mean for mom – drives to school, meetings with teachers and parents, more opportunities to be part of other entwined communities. It also means I’ll be making more friends as my kids make friends, as I am one of those over-bearing protective, mean moms, who just has to know who the kids are hanging out with and heaven forbid talk to their friend’s parents. (you would think having parents that care is a fate worse than death to a teenager, oh the great tragedy of growing up that gets played out with every generation).
Oh and let’s not forget Chorus, Band, Football games, competitions and more. I must admit, I LOVE being a MOM and I enjoy my kids so much – they make me smile!

Fall, full reds, golds, and yellows highlighting the trees giving the mountains a glow of fire against a Carolina blue sky, ushered in a colder climate this week. That meant it was time to fire up the wood stove. The crackling of the fire, the smell of the wood as it burns, and the warmth it gives off reminds me that this is my favorite time of the year. Whether it is playing a board game, or watching a movie, or just sharing a cup of hot chocolate and laughter with kids, fall of the year brings my house to a point where we stop and admire the changes that are not only happening outside the window, but what changes are happening inside the house and within each of us. What new growth will occur as fall fades into winter, and winter melts in spring – the blossoms that this season of reflection allows is always an amazing time for me.

Pete and I will be going to the UK for release week. He will have to work but I am looking forward to writing while I am there. I love writing about people in my family and what they mean to me. Each Christmas I try to give people in the family a story about one of our family members and how their lives have touched mine. It’s my way of telling them thank you and letting them know just how special they are. I tell my kids all the time, I’d rather appear sappy and sentimental while telling the person how special they are than to tell it to family and friends at a funeral. We aren’t guaranteed our tomorrows so I try to make the most of my today’s!

I will also be meeting some new people and taking a few moments to spend some time with my wonderful husband while we are in the UK. Pete continues to be a source of encouragement, inspiration, and enthusiasm to me each and everyday, and brings me more joy than I have words to express.

It’s been a great week for working on the house together as we set up my sewing area (and I finally finished a quilt I’ve been working on for a few months). We worked out the plans for where his office is going to go. And we unpacked a few more boxes as the house is slowly beginning to come together.

I have to admit, Pete working from home has been the weirdest adjustment for me. For 16 years he traveled about 6-8 months out of every year. We are slowly settling into a routine that allows for us each to have our space to accomplish our jobs and goals. It was a hard adjustment. Most people say, “oh your husband works from home you are so lucky.” :-/ I am just now entering the yeah I think it’s cool stage. When you aren’t used to having anyone home during the day and having to give them space to do their job while still doing the day to day housekeeping and stuff, it’s a HUGE adjustment. So this week I really felt like “YES, THIS IS AWESOME!”

I can’t wait to see what next week holds but if it is anything like this past week was, then I am in for a really productive week full of accomplishments and smiles. Wishing you all successes and smiles for this and every week! Enjoy 😀