End

Always with their mouths open.

Not so much a year in review, but a simple post on looking back to be thankful that a year which seemed pretty rocky was actually really good, or ended up that way anyhow.

My son Jimmy was born this year in April and he had a good start. He was healthy a from the beginning, no real issues to be worried about but a few that took their toll on the household for a little while. He didn’t sleep well for a long time and that was hard on the mama but that’s thankfully on the right track. Thankful for that cause Jimmy is really very sweet and the little things keeping him unfocused made for a stressful time.

Charlie grew quite a bit this year. Started preschool and is developing into a really bright boy. It’s evident especially when he’s around kids his age cause he’s much more confident in his speech and easily understood where some of the other kids aren’t really all that well spoken or confident about much. Charlie really makes me proud, he’s a great kid.

There were quite a few times this year where I had taken time to reflect on things, particularly after a lot of the really horrible things that happened this year, and I was sad but also thankful I have what I have. I’m very lucky. I have two wonderful boys and an amazing, beautiful wife who continues to be my inspiration and is unquestionably the strongest person I know. She’s handled a lot this year raising the boys and we love her very much.

As for myself, I’m happy to have continued throughout the year happy in other areas except at home, which as previously stated is basically a utopia. I’ll save the “I wish I was more…” posts for later or possibly just stop them altogether since doing more seems to make the wishing more go away. I did complete a 5k this year which I am proud of and look forward to a couple more races this coming year since I actually enjoy running and it agrees with me.

I hope that you had a wonderful year as well, wherever you are. Cheers!

Danger, Will Robinson!

One can’t expect to get things right on the first try, and that seems especially true for parenting. As a parent, you do the very best you can to prepare yourself for the little scrapes and bruises that life—and sometimes other people—deals out. However, there’s little to prepare you for a day in which your little person is the giver of such a hurt.

I think the best thing one can do from the situation is patch up the wounds and make an attempt at a very serious understanding that hurting people is not a good thing and that sadly, hurting people doesn’t take a whole lot of effort sometimes. The most difficult things tend to become second nature after just being alive for long enough that you lose perspective until it walks up and slaps you in the face. As a parent this happens often and there’s no panacea.

Parents who have been through the younger years offer advice and there’s some value to it, just as this outpour of feeling would be to someone reading it that might be going through the same thing. I could overanalyze this isolated event and obsess as some do but life’s moving forward and I’ve no choice but to adapt, observe and evolve.

Why I feel old.

Because I can clearly remember things that happened 30 years ago.
Because my first computer had a 200MB hard drive and my current one has a 4TB one.
Because things inexplicably ache.
Because I think about it enough to put a list of things like this.
Because everyone else I know, even those some 10 years younger, are doing the same thing.
Because I bitch about the cost of things going up while the quality of things goes down.
Because I can remember record stores, video stores and arcades fondly.
Because I can remember large, loud cars made out of a lot of metal and chrome.
Because I am, whether I choose to realize it or not, middle-aged.

In heavy rotation:

Synthetica – Metric
Lex Hives – The Hives
The Dance – Faithless
Key Lime Pie – Camper Van Beethoven
Monocyte – Saltillo
Shake the dust – The Ettes
The Sun & The Neon Light – Booka Shade
Movements – Booka Shade

If you audit the content of my posts, chances are you’d find that about half of them are about motivation or really lack thereof. There’s no real reason for that amount, actually, since the reason for me complaining about a lack of motivation is me being captive in front of a computer with a little time on my hands (read:blogging) and wasting it on something not really all that important (read:blogging), because I find I’m generally more productive now than I’ve ever been. I kinda have to, but that’s really not the point.

I’ve not less or more motivation that I did when I first started this thing but I suppose eventually once you start reporting on your own activities to a faceless public you begin to push yourself to deliver some kind of result. Well, there have been a couple things I started but really didn’t do much with and that’s really no way to run a railroad. I know, excuses, excuses. If all those vloggers on YoutTube can blather on about bullshit for five or six minutes once a week and make a ton o moolah doing it than I’ve nobody to blame but myself. Seriously.

I really have no idea what I'm doing.