After a long weekend, I start a long couple of months.

Labor Day weekend has come to an end, the kids are back in school, fall is just about here and winter is on its way. Over these next few months I’m going to have an increasingly busy schedule. I was hoping that everything would cool down after the summer, I would go on my vacation in October and just enjoy life for a while after. Then all of a sudden we’re moving into a new house in the next month, I’m still putting in 50 hours a week trying to tackle all sorts of stuff going on at work, and now both of my grandparents are having health problems.

I think 2008 will be a point in my life that I’ll look back on as one of the most stressful times I’ve ever experienced. But with this experience I’ve come to realize that life will never return to the ‘way it was’, there’s just no such thing. I can only cherish the past and make the best of my future. I find that if I’m always focusing on a goal, or I have something to occupy my time it makes life go by just a little bit easier. The drawback with this mentality is it can also make time go by faster and before I know it I’m missing out on everything.

I think everyone goes through this eventually, a time where they have to grow up and realize that the free ride through life has come to an end. For most people I would think this would come right after college, when they find out that the next step in life is to get a job, a wife, a mortgage, a dog, and spend the rest of their lives paying off the endless debt that ironically school alone had a big part in creating. My situation might be a little different but it’s the same concept, I need to understand that if I want to make progress in my goals and ambitions I need to let some things go, I need to make sacrifices because I simply don’t have time for everything.

Next month will mark my 7 year anniversary on Dream.In.Code.net, an online programming & web development community. During my 7 years with Dream.In.Code (DIC) I’ve seen countless people come and go, I’ve seen amateurs become professionals, and I’ve made some very good friends with the people I’ve met through the website. If Chris ever came up with commercials for DIC he could interview me as a true success story because saying that Dream.In.Code had a small part in the career and skill set I have today would be an understatement.

Like a lot of things, the relationship between my free time and DIC has been a little rocky lately, I’m finding it hard to spend enough time keeping up with the discussions and stuff going on and it’s even harder to uphold my responsibilities in the community’s maintenance and decisions. It’s disappointing that something this important to me is being interfered with but I know there are plenty of people that will continue to build upon Dream.In.Code’s future and success. Still, I was hoping that by the end of the summer I would be able to return to playing a bigger role in the community but right now I just can’t see that happening anytime soon. I’ve put a lot of thought into it and I’ve decided that I will be stepping down from the staff entirely, and this entry is basically acting as the announcement since I haven’t really mentioned it on Dream.In.Code just yet. I think I’m making a good decision, at least for the time being. I’ll still be around as much as I can and I’ll have the ability to jump in and enjoy my time on the site while I’m there and I won’t have to worry about getting caught up with everything or missing out on something important while I’m away.

However, I have a feeling that Dream.In.Code won’t be the only adjustment I’ll be making in the near future, but who knows, maybe everything will eventually fall into its place for me. Maybe everything will work out and I’m just overreacting. Maybe.