Telling the story
We still have not told everyone that we are pregnant. Very close friends and family - they know. But how and when to tell everyone else? I guess I have to write a few more emails and make some more phone calls. But - doing that I realise that with many folks I am not communicating that often at all. Our biggest problem is that Simone and I are pretty active when it comes to stay in touch with friends. But for whatever reason - the opposite is true for many of our friends. It is very frustrating writing an email and never even getting an acknowledgement that they have received and read our emails. People always used to ask how we were doing. We always wrote back how well we were (are) and that things were (are) going well. Sometimes I have the feeling that this is not really what most people want to hear. We moved to the US from Germany in 1998 and I think many people thought that we would fail and come back after a few months. Looking back - we have been pretty successful and I wonder if the success is the “problem” for the people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean?! Who knows ….
Annual Enrollment for benefits has started at work this week. We will have to pay about 50% more for health insurance next year. 
We’re not very happy about this. When will this always increasing cost of health insurance fees stop or at least go back to a normal level? The annual raise in my salary was already eaten up by higher benefits cost that we had to cover from last years enrollment. I don’t think that a normal raise will cover the even higher cost now. And living is not getting cheaper either. I am putting in a lot of work and efforts to be good in my job but somehow working above average is not paying off right now. I will be putting (I already do) more efforts into my own small business. At least for a few more months I am able to work 70-80 hour weeks. Hopefully that will pay off in time ….