I’m very fortunate to work for the company that I do. One of the benefits that you get after being with the company for 5 years is a reCharge period of 30 calendar days off fully paid. This is a HUGE benefit and one that I’m very happy they have in place. After 5 years, you realize the toll the job can take on you. I’ll fully admit, at the end of last year my projects were plentiful, my team was growing, and the challenges we were tackling were pretty challenging. Thus… I was starting to get a little burned out. Luckily I had a few days off at the beginning of the year to put things back into persepective for me. Spending that time with your son in the PICU fighting RSV has a tendency to do that. You realize how lucky you are to have the insurance that you have. But… Time away is important to charge up the batteries. Without this, I’m not sure where my head would be necessarily.

I ran across this video at the beginning of the year and it dramatically changed how I look at my week. I used to have every minute packed and often time I would go from one half hour meeting to the next with no time to prep or really be prepared for what was going to happen in the next 30 minutes. Sometimes even prepping in the last part of one meeting for the next meeting.

After almost a decade of rocking a mac mini for my main home machine, I finally pulled the trigger on an upgrade. I’ve upgraded the mini with a few tweaks over the years such as more ram and a larger SSD to make it a decent machine, but the time had finally come.

Last fall, when rumors of a new iMac were floating around, I had some money set aside to pull the trigger when they were finally announced. Well, history will tell you that I had to wait. No announcement in October, none in November… December… and into early 2019 when the March event was announced and it also claimed there was going to be no new hardware at the event. Well, I was getting a little itchy running this mini with all of its flaws.

Earlier this year, I officially celebrated my 5 year Faceversary at Facebook. Its been a crazy ride and one that I am fortunate to be on. While there has been a lot of negative press about some of the mistakes the company has made over this time period, I’m still proud to call it home. For me, Facebook holds some more than a place where I get a pay check. This is a place where I make connections to people all around the world. The mission had always been one of those, of coarse we’re connecting people all around the world. But it really started to hit home for me with my post about The Ochos

I’ve been doing nothing but reviews at work and setting goals before that. Time for my personal goals for the year.

• Drop the next 10 lbs - This is a carry over from 2018 where I didn’t do near as well as I would have liked. A big portion of that is how I have been eating. So this yaer, I’d like to get down 10lbs+, eat better and hopfully it can help with energy levels. With 3 boys at home, 2 of which are getting even more active as they grow, its getting harder to keep up .