One year to the Next

For the past two years my mid to late July has been a busy, emotional time for me.

In 2011, about 2.5 weeks after my mother's 65th birthday she passed away.She had always had medical issues, including chronic pain, and post polio.
We had a fairly large celebration of her birthday at the beginning of July, friends and family came to visit for the occasion.
Around the middle of July my sister and family (with 3 year old son and 1 year old daughter) moved to Brussels. That same day (after the family left) my mother admitted herself into the hospital to have her medications readjusted.
One week later she passed away.
A couple days before she passed away she aspirated, which induced a coma, and her body couldn't handle the fight of that with all the other health issues she was coping with. She passed away quietly with myself, my father, and a family friend present.
At the time I was also teaching a summer course that I could not find a substitute for - I continued to teach that week (she passed away on a Wednesday morning).
The rest of July, most of August, and part of September was helping out my father with all that happens after the death in the family. The latter part of 2011 I was in a mild depression, looking for work, but not passionately.

Jump ahead to July 2012.
This year I have been busy with more happier things in life.
In May I started to really pull things together for a play I had on the waiting list for the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival. I found out in mid June that I was in the festival, around the time I got (exceptional) actors. I was near the end of June that my stage manager caused some problems and quit. Through the first half of July I was busy with the production and trying to find a new stage manager, as well as all the little behind the scenes of producing a show.
I was also teaching Lego robotics for 3 weeks though mid July; the second year in a row (the same thing I was teaching when my mother passed away).
The biggest change in my life for this year happened one day prior to the anniversary of my mother's passing. I received a job offer to teach mathematics at NAIT (technical institute / college).
Just as last year had August busy with memorials for my mother, the Edmonton Fringe, and other travel (more on that in a future post). This year August will be just as busy (perhaps more so). Not only am I producing a show at the Edmonton Fringe, I will be doing my typical volunteering, and have a 2 week training course for my new job.
The course is August 10 to 24. The Fringe is August 16 to 26. I will likely be starting to teach just after my 35th birthday in early September.