I really like this one, although I’ll admit its a little abstract. Make sure you clear your cache or force a refresh if you don’t see it. The tag line is from an Angels & Airwaves song… all of their songs make me want to create something…
I’ve also added a section to the pictures (see the menu above) to archive these banners, since I’m using them to push my Photoshop know-how. I’m trying to keep rough notes on what I did for each one.
Nicole is working hard intermittently on a baby update post, so stay tuned for that if mad Photoshop skills don’t get you pumped…
PS: Here are wallpaper-sized and iPhone/iTouch-sized versions of the banner, just because…

It has begun!
Monday morning the movers came by to inventory our stuff for a quote on moving costs. We’re nervously awaiting that figure, but are guessing its going to cost around $3000. When we moved here we had 3500 lbs worth of stuff and it cost $1800. 2 years later we have a baby (soon two) and roughly another 1500 lbs.
We’ll be purging as much as we can, of course. Historically, Nic and I have moved roughly once a year every year we’ve been married. Its kept us from accumulating too many “things” and although sometimes it forces us to discard possessions that might have some nostalgic value, overall I think its a good way of living. The Bible does say to store up your treasures in heaven, not on earth…
Still its a lot of work, even with the stuff we accumulate over the course of a year, to decide what’s garbage, what we can sell, and what we need to pack. On top of that, we’re packing in two passes — this first pass excludes all the things we might need to live on over the next month. We’re hoping that we can take a lot of boxes with us in the vehicles when Nic heads back to Canada, reducing the weight that goes in the moving truck in May.
And while we’re wrapping our possessions up, its also important to us to say a proper “good-bye” to our friends here in New York — or at least “so long.”
It turns out we’re actually going to be back a fair bit. Since I’m retaining my job here (technically my employment will be transferred to the Edmonton office, but I’ll continue to report to my boss here in NY) I’ll be traveling back periodically for meetings and reviews. From here on in, though, the trips across the border will be funded by my employer, and not out of our pockets!
We expect that I’ll be back roughly quarterly, although it could be more and it could be less, and that Nic and the kids will come along perhaps every other trip. So even though we’ll have our home base in Ontario, New York will still be very much a part of our lives.
Nonetheless, closure is a good thing, and our remaining weekends here are now pretty much filled with last get-togethers. All of these are important to us, probably in ways that can’t be communicated here, but suffice it to say, there are some wonderful people here in New York who have been good friends. People who welcomed us and loved us and did life with us while we were here, and we will miss them all dearly.