New Job in my Future?

I had my second interview today at the medical device company and was finally able to meet the General Counsel, who would be my boss. She seemed very nice, but direct and without any of those passive/aggressive tendencies that I hate. I think that we would communicate very well and get along just fine. So phew - that's a nice hurdle to be past. And she must have liked me well enough because she wants me to come back on Monday to meet with the commercial/business guys, who would be my internal "clients". The job itself sounds interesting. The GC is interested in hiring me for my expertise in drafting and negotiating commercial contracts and along the way, I could learn how to handle labor/employment issues, medicare reimbursement, compliance and labeling review. I hope to avoid securities work, but I could do that if necessary. The pay would be about 70% of what I'm making now, but there would be much more regular hours and no weekend work. And I wouldn't have to keep track of every fifteen minutes of my life in order to bill clients! What is also awesome is that this GC truly understands the importance of work/life balance and is all about her kids. She will leave work at 3 pm sometimes to make sure she sees her sons play hockey and thinks that as long as I get my work done, she's cool with that.

On a totally separate topic, last year, about 3 weeks after Ian was born, my father noticed this tiny little Japanese maple tree growing like a weed right next to our front steps. It was adorable and we decided to all it "Ian's tree" because it was basically the same age as Ian. It kept growing throughout the spring and summer, but by late fall, we were worried that it wouldn't make it through the winter. In any event, it certainly couldn't grow into a big tree right next to our steps in about 2 inches of soil! So we took pity on it, potted it and put it in our sunroom over the winter. Every now and then I remembered to water it. And today, I went into the sunroom because it was just so beautiful outside and saw that it was starting to grow its leaves! It's doing this much earlier than the trees outside because it's so nice and cuddly in our sun room. Here's it is.