*Contented Sigh*

Today was an amazing day, and it tops off an incredible week.

First off, allow me to welcome the newest addition to the Roland family - Isaac Levi Parlier, an 8 lb., 7 oz. little boy born to my sister, Bethany, on Monday evening. We're very excited to have him safely with us! We're also eagerly awaiting the arrival of yet another addition, a daughter that we expect to be born tomorrow to my little sister, Anna Caroline. So far we're just referring to her as "Squirt," though I imagine AC and Len have a more distinguished name that they're waiting to reveal. [UPDATE: Abigail Marie Causey was born at about 9:30 EST on Sunday night. She weighed 8 lbs., 8 oz., was 20 1/2 inches long, and already has more hair on her head than I do.]

Secondly, I'm very glad to announce that I have some room to breathe again at work. For the last six weeks or so, I've been pretty well dominated by my efforts to shepherd ten amicus ("friend of the court") briefs to completion in support of a set of our clients. On Wednesday we got all ten filed on time with the Ohio Supreme Court, and I am very, very pleased with the quality of the submissions. As a fun by-product of my efforts in this regard, I now have on the calendar my first official speaking engagement for IJ! On December 13th I'll be the featured speaker for a meeting the National Federation of Independent Businesses' Legal Strategy group, discussing "Successful Amicus Strategies: What Works and What Doesn't".

Today, however, was amazing for an entirely different reason. Let's call her... Tiger. [For reasons that I'll explain on an individual basis if you'd like to know, I've decided not to use her name in my blog.] If you've spoken to me in the past four weeks the odds are good that you've already heard a little something about her. If not - we really need to catch up!

I woke up this morning, just genuinely excited that I'd get to spend time with her today. For our original plan, I had convinced her (not that she needed much convincing) to take me shopping for some new clothes. Instead, we ended up spending much of the morning just hanging out at her apartment, enjoying each others' company and talking. As the temperatures climbed into the low-70s and the day was proving too unbelievably spectacular to be avoided, we went and had a fantastic, leisurely lunch out in the sun at Lauriol Plaza, a restaurant near Dupont Circle. We finally did get around to doing a little shopping, but we only ended up buying one shirt. Still, she's committed (perhaps from no small degree of self-interest...) to helping me reform my wardrobe, so if I'm wearing something that you don't like next time you see me, you'll have to direct your gripes to her. Hopefully, she'll be right there by my side so that she can offer a ready response.

So, to summarize this post... new babies in the family, new opportunities at the office, new lady in the life. I'm a blessed man.