lol, I couldn't think of a title for my blog, so I went with a little news about the weather. I was pretty darn dissapointed when I stepped out my door this morning to find snow coming down like crazy. Today's weather just sucked all around, I mean, Im glad the rain washed all the snow away, but even the rain sucked.
They say the rain on the west side of the state is depressing, and to some degree it is, but half the time I remember loving walking in the light rain in bellingham, a semi-warm humid day, raining. I loved to walk in it.
I know I am writing more blogs, I cant say I will write a blog everyday, and I probably should NOT write one everyday, but I just have this writing bug right now. I am not writing as much fiction as I would like to be, but I am writing some, and then writing blogs on top of that.
I swear to you right here and now that I will become a writer. I dont care how long it takes, I dont care if anyone understands the stuff I write or even reads it, but I will write it, I will get these stories put down to paper.
Speaking of which, my mind has been swirling with a story that came to me at work today. I haven't felt this creative in years. Even the short story I wrote a few months ago, or a year or whatever, I wrote that half out of my mind from being so tired, the next morning I barely even remembered writing it.
So I sat down to do my writing after I spoke with my friend Sarah. She is really goofy over this guy that she has been seeing lately. He seems really nice. I have to admit I feel a little jealous, not of the guy, well maybe a little, but I mean over the situation.
I miss sharing myself (and someone sharing themselves with me) with someone special, but the tragedy of that is that I don't know how to get that back. Sometimes I doubt if I've ever really experienced it. I feel like I dont know how to get close to people.
Anyway, I've talked about that enough lately, if Im going to increase the frequency at which I write my blogs, I should probably stop dwelling on stuff. Speaking of dwelling on stuff, I really want to find myself a tennis partner to get out and play a little tennis with, just for a little fun and exercise. I know I'll get at least one session in with Sarah when she comes to visit, but I really want someone I could play with regularly.
So I am still working on the short story I mentioned in my blog last night, I plotted out a few things in notes that I thought about today, but mostly I was really excited about this new story Idea that I think has what it takes to become a full fledged novel. Maybe an unpublished one, but lets just worry about getting it out on the page for now.
I exceeded my meger goal again today. I said I would write at least 250 words per day, and I think I hit right around 410. This ofcourse does not count the notes I am keeping, or the blogs I am writing, this is purely counting actual work on the writing of said stories.
The new one is being tentitivly titled 'My Immortal' but that may change. I have set my target for this project rather high, but I think it has the potential to exceed even that number. After plotting out some of the stuff for the short story I decided to go ahead and reduce the overall word count as it really does feel like a short story and not a novella.
I updated my progress bars on my main page, if you have any suggestions let me know, I'll post the progress at the end of my blog as well.
I made plans with a friend this weekend, she is going to bring her kids over to my house for a playdate of sorts, the intention is to play some board games with the kids, but we'll see what happens. Should be fun. I really want to make friends with people around my age that have kids, people my kids and I can hang out with.
Going to have another game night with my mom this Thursday. She moved my grandma to spokane today, she just called me when she got home sometime within the last hour. It will be comforting having my grandma closer to home.
Anyway, I better wrap this up, I think Im already risking losing readings just on the increased number of blogs, I should at least be nice and make them shorter.
g'nite all!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Writing and Kissing
I'd like to start things off by saying my grandma is in no worse condition than she has been for several weeks. There was some complications over the weekend that seem to have been smoothed out. My mom made arrangements to bring my grandma from Seattle to Spokane for her recovery. Im glad she will be closer to home again.
Jadon's appointment to get two of his baby teeth removed to make some space for a few of her permanent teeth coming in was supposed to be tomorrow. For some reason I just didnt think about this, but my plan was to just stick him right back in school after he got his teeth yanked out.
Once I thought it through, it was obvious that was not a good plan. So I rescheduled the appointment for next Monday, and made it a bit later in the day so he wont miss as much school and I wont miss as much work. He is nervous about it, but strangly excited. He has just started going through a phase where he isn't as afraid of things anymore, its been pretty weird for the last couple years as he has been extremely afraid of many things related to doctors, going into a near panic at the sight of shots or the chair at the eye doctors. Glad he is calming down a bit. Too much stress in his young life.
The 'kissing' from the title is unfortunatly not in reference to myself. Though I do like to do a little kissing, Im very very shy so I almost never get that far. I've still never made the first move as far as kissing goes, I would say that every girl I've kissed has kissed me first. I'll break that cycle sometime I suppose, thought I really don't want to be kissing a lot of girls.
People say Im too picky and need to lower my standards. I completely disagree, if anything I think I should raise them. You know what, I hate being alone and I dont want to live the rest of my life alone, but I would choose being alone over making another huge mistake like I did the first time around. Sure, a lot of good came out of it, my children esspecially. I learned an aweful lot about relationships, marriage in particular. I guess Im just saying, when there is a next time, I want to get it right.
Anyway, so I picked the boys up from Daycare today and Tristan started telling me a story, it went like this.
"A girl was running at me and my lips hit her head." I stopped walking toward the car and turned towards Tristan.
"Sounds to me like you were doing a little kiss'n"
Apparently not hearing me correcly, Tristan began to explain himself "Well, My lips hit right on the back of her head"
I continued to insist that it sounded like he was kissing and that he apparently needed to learn a thing or two about it, because its not supposed to hurt so much. lol, he got frustrated with me.
Well, I shaved my beard off today. I tend to shave it off every couple of years, I can't recall the last time I did it though. Im already growing it back, it feels too weird, like my chin isn't big enough or something.
Ive had a few comments about looking younger without it, but my goal isnt to look younger, its to let my chin breath.
Honestly I would prefer to look a little older, maybe get a little grey in my beard, something to make me look a little more distinguished, if thats possible!
I finally sat down and started writing. Im going to give myself a pretty easy goal to hit and maybe increase it as I get used to writing again. We'll say about 250 words per day, and since this is about building up a habit, theres no trading here, I cant average 250 per day, its a minimum of 250 per day, so if I write 500 words one day, I still need 250 the next.
I am hoping to get up to about 1000 words per day, and if I am really serious about finally getting back into writing, that sounds like a pretty reasonable goal. Though I think I will need a little bit more direction before I get to that point.
I am working on a short story, its tentatavely titled 'Heart of a Lion'. I put down a goal of about 25,000 words for it, but I'll let that number evolve as I expand more on the story. I may go down, it may go up, but I'll stick with 25k for now.
I just put up a little Word tracker so people can track my progress with me. I'll keep it updated each night, if you dont see it change, feel free to rip into me on my comments page, be completely brutal with me, I dont need people encouraging me at this point in the game, I need people to beat me over the head with it. I'll try and do the same!
I put the tracker right below my Slideshow and YouTube videos (which if you havent watched them all yet, they are super cute, they are all about my boys!).
Anyway, just writing another quickie, lets see if the tracker posts to my blog too.
-Jas
Jadon's appointment to get two of his baby teeth removed to make some space for a few of her permanent teeth coming in was supposed to be tomorrow. For some reason I just didnt think about this, but my plan was to just stick him right back in school after he got his teeth yanked out.
Once I thought it through, it was obvious that was not a good plan. So I rescheduled the appointment for next Monday, and made it a bit later in the day so he wont miss as much school and I wont miss as much work. He is nervous about it, but strangly excited. He has just started going through a phase where he isn't as afraid of things anymore, its been pretty weird for the last couple years as he has been extremely afraid of many things related to doctors, going into a near panic at the sight of shots or the chair at the eye doctors. Glad he is calming down a bit. Too much stress in his young life.
The 'kissing' from the title is unfortunatly not in reference to myself. Though I do like to do a little kissing, Im very very shy so I almost never get that far. I've still never made the first move as far as kissing goes, I would say that every girl I've kissed has kissed me first. I'll break that cycle sometime I suppose, thought I really don't want to be kissing a lot of girls.
People say Im too picky and need to lower my standards. I completely disagree, if anything I think I should raise them. You know what, I hate being alone and I dont want to live the rest of my life alone, but I would choose being alone over making another huge mistake like I did the first time around. Sure, a lot of good came out of it, my children esspecially. I learned an aweful lot about relationships, marriage in particular. I guess Im just saying, when there is a next time, I want to get it right.
Anyway, so I picked the boys up from Daycare today and Tristan started telling me a story, it went like this.
"A girl was running at me and my lips hit her head." I stopped walking toward the car and turned towards Tristan.
"Sounds to me like you were doing a little kiss'n"
Apparently not hearing me correcly, Tristan began to explain himself "Well, My lips hit right on the back of her head"
I continued to insist that it sounded like he was kissing and that he apparently needed to learn a thing or two about it, because its not supposed to hurt so much. lol, he got frustrated with me.
Well, I shaved my beard off today. I tend to shave it off every couple of years, I can't recall the last time I did it though. Im already growing it back, it feels too weird, like my chin isn't big enough or something.
Ive had a few comments about looking younger without it, but my goal isnt to look younger, its to let my chin breath.
Honestly I would prefer to look a little older, maybe get a little grey in my beard, something to make me look a little more distinguished, if thats possible!
I finally sat down and started writing. Im going to give myself a pretty easy goal to hit and maybe increase it as I get used to writing again. We'll say about 250 words per day, and since this is about building up a habit, theres no trading here, I cant average 250 per day, its a minimum of 250 per day, so if I write 500 words one day, I still need 250 the next.
I am hoping to get up to about 1000 words per day, and if I am really serious about finally getting back into writing, that sounds like a pretty reasonable goal. Though I think I will need a little bit more direction before I get to that point.
I am working on a short story, its tentatavely titled 'Heart of a Lion'. I put down a goal of about 25,000 words for it, but I'll let that number evolve as I expand more on the story. I may go down, it may go up, but I'll stick with 25k for now.
I just put up a little Word tracker so people can track my progress with me. I'll keep it updated each night, if you dont see it change, feel free to rip into me on my comments page, be completely brutal with me, I dont need people encouraging me at this point in the game, I need people to beat me over the head with it. I'll try and do the same!
I put the tracker right below my Slideshow and YouTube videos (which if you havent watched them all yet, they are super cute, they are all about my boys!).
Anyway, just writing another quickie, lets see if the tracker posts to my blog too.
-Jas
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Weekend & Babies
Well, not to blog too soon after my last one, but I got the itch to write before I go to bed tonight. It was nice getting a few things off my chest in the last couple blogs, just some whining and ranting mostly lol. What are blogs for afterall?
I was planning a nice laid back weekend, get some cleaning done and just relax. My mom was going to pick the boys up after work and take them for the whole weekend. But unfortunatly she had to head back over to Seattle.
My grandma was having some issues and my mom had to head over there to be with her, she is going to try and get her transfered to Spokane so that she is closer to home.
There were some complications with this last minor surgery she had, but it sounds like there are getting it worked out.
The boys were pretty dissapointed when I showed up at their daycare, but we made the best of the weekend. Even though it wasn't as warm as I was hoping for on Saturday, we still went to a park, we played mostly basketball and then they played on the playground at Jefferson right up until tristan slipped and landed hard on his ribs on a balance beam! He's ok, not even a bruise, but he was pretty upset at the time!
Then we went and walked around the mall for a bit, saw some cute clothes for the boys at Old Navy, still my favorite store to buy kids clothes.
We were at Shopko later that evening too, ended up in the baby supply section, I miss having a little baby around. Looking at all the little teething items and crackers and such just for babies, I miss it. I hate to say it, but I miss changing diapers too. I was always goofy while I did it, any opprotunity to make a baby smile, even when Im cleaning up thier poop lol. Ok, to be honest, maybe I wasnt smiling so much when Tristan would explode out of his diaper, front and back!
I feel really lonely in Pullman. I feel like every time I make a friend, they move away. Completely unrelated to my becoming friends with them ofcourse . I mean, I know I go on dates, but thats proven to be once or twice a month, and Id say its closer to the once a month mark, and while that is nice, thats pretty much the only time Ive been getting out for awhile. I need some people I can hang out with and have my kids with me you know? I can't exactly take them on my dates!
Well, yesterday was pretty filled up, today we had a Harry Potter Movie Marathon! Watched ALL of them. Well, we had watched the first one a couple of days ago, then we watched the other 4 today. I cant wait until their old enough to read the books. I cant wait until they can read the Choose Your Own Adventure books too!
I did something new tonight, while I made dinner for tonight I also made part of dinner for tomorrow night! I was really amazed with myself lol, everyone reading this is probably rolling their eyes at my right now, but oh well, patting myself on the back.
We are going to eat my delicious enchildas tomorrow night, and probably have left overs for tuesday night as well.
I think I had some other stuff to say, but I am very tired, so I am going to bed. Good Night All!
I was planning a nice laid back weekend, get some cleaning done and just relax. My mom was going to pick the boys up after work and take them for the whole weekend. But unfortunatly she had to head back over to Seattle.
My grandma was having some issues and my mom had to head over there to be with her, she is going to try and get her transfered to Spokane so that she is closer to home.
There were some complications with this last minor surgery she had, but it sounds like there are getting it worked out.
The boys were pretty dissapointed when I showed up at their daycare, but we made the best of the weekend. Even though it wasn't as warm as I was hoping for on Saturday, we still went to a park, we played mostly basketball and then they played on the playground at Jefferson right up until tristan slipped and landed hard on his ribs on a balance beam! He's ok, not even a bruise, but he was pretty upset at the time!
Then we went and walked around the mall for a bit, saw some cute clothes for the boys at Old Navy, still my favorite store to buy kids clothes.
We were at Shopko later that evening too, ended up in the baby supply section, I miss having a little baby around. Looking at all the little teething items and crackers and such just for babies, I miss it. I hate to say it, but I miss changing diapers too. I was always goofy while I did it, any opprotunity to make a baby smile, even when Im cleaning up thier poop lol. Ok, to be honest, maybe I wasnt smiling so much when Tristan would explode out of his diaper, front and back!
I feel really lonely in Pullman. I feel like every time I make a friend, they move away. Completely unrelated to my becoming friends with them ofcourse . I mean, I know I go on dates, but thats proven to be once or twice a month, and Id say its closer to the once a month mark, and while that is nice, thats pretty much the only time Ive been getting out for awhile. I need some people I can hang out with and have my kids with me you know? I can't exactly take them on my dates!
Well, yesterday was pretty filled up, today we had a Harry Potter Movie Marathon! Watched ALL of them. Well, we had watched the first one a couple of days ago, then we watched the other 4 today. I cant wait until their old enough to read the books. I cant wait until they can read the Choose Your Own Adventure books too!
I did something new tonight, while I made dinner for tonight I also made part of dinner for tomorrow night! I was really amazed with myself lol, everyone reading this is probably rolling their eyes at my right now, but oh well, patting myself on the back.
We are going to eat my delicious enchildas tomorrow night, and probably have left overs for tuesday night as well.
I think I had some other stuff to say, but I am very tired, so I am going to bed. Good Night All!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Prepping for a Summer Alone
Well, I have approximately 9 weekends left before my boys head back down to Phoenix for 8 or so weeks of summer vacation.
I miss my kids tons during the summers, and any time they are gone, but the summer's esspecially. No matter how much I resisted the idea, it has been easier as time goes on, but it is still a very rough time for me.
I thought this summer would be different, better really. I've been dating again since early last year, and Ive got to admit, I was hoping to have a girlfriend by now. Ive really started liking meeting new people, but Im still not good at it. I kind of like meeting people online, and that has been relatively successful, but Im wary of it because I still don't think its too common and someone 'checking up on you' that doesn't know you seems kind of creepy.
I dont just browse the internet for 'dates' I look for old friends, people I went to high school with, people I was friends with in Bellingham and Everett, and when I find someone, I add them.
Generally when I find someone interesting that I don't know, it doesnt go any farther than that. Sometimes, if it really seems like we have similar interests and seem compatible from just our profile information, I'll shoot off a message, just to say hi and they can check me out.
If there turns out to be a mutual interest, then I believe it will develop on its own, so I dont see the need to push it, Its not the same social dynamic as meeting someone in person, which Im not always the best at to begin with.
Ive met my 'dates' all sorts of different ways. Ive met them at my work, Ive met them at their work, I've met people through friends, I've been approached online, and Ive done the method above where I essentially just start a dialogue with someone and see if it turns into something more, but even that is fairly rare.
I don't mean for this to become an online dating profile blog entry or something, I mostly talk about my kids, which I will get to after this rant, but I do have a few things to say before Im done.
I feel lonely, I want someone to talk to, someone to trust. I NEED to share all this with someone, my life, a future with someone special. But I seem to have this problem meeting people that share my interests. Sometimes there is some overlap, but not usually.
I dont need her to like everything Im into, as that would probably freak me out, but at least some of it.
Ideally I want someone who likes to Camp so we can all go camping together. I'd prefer that she like physical activity a bit, esspecially Tennis, but not required. Liking at least family fun type video games like Mario Kart, Mario Party or Guitar Hero/Rockband would be nice.
I would like someone who is good socially, but doesn't NEED it, someone who has some really tight friends, likes to sit around and talk, play party games in groups. I'd like someone who enjoys drinking a little, but doesn't do it very often.
Someone who likes movies would be nice, I have a really broad and general taste in movies, I like almost any movie at least once. I do love myself some horror ofcourse, but I really like Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Epic Movies, Inspirational Sports movies and gangster movies a lot.
I LOVE comedies, movies, CDs, and I esspecially love standup comedy, the amount of it Ive gotten to see life this last year has been awesome.
And also Im a huge gamer that needs a little understanding. I like to play more hardcore games, wether they be board games, or computer games or roleplaying games from time to time. I dont need someone who is into any of this stuff, just a little understanding.
And Im a huge geek and gamer on the opposite spectrum. I like to play Yahtzee, Monopoly, LIFE, The Farming Game, Clue and so on.
I esspecially like the 4-generation games of Pinocle that I get to play with my Mom, Grandma and Great Grandma.
This is a good time to seguway out of that line of thought, Ill leave you with this, Ive been dating pretty actively since deciding I was ready to start dating again, but Im not dating just to date, Im dating to find someone special and stop dating. I wont jump into anything, but I am looking for something more.
Well, to further the seguway, my grandma is still healing and resting, there hasn't been much change, at least not in her condition.
Its good to note that before I go on my grandma is still in her right mind and the responsibility of making decisions for herself and my grandfather still rests on her shoulders.
But I was just invited to a get together with my mom and uncles to discuss thier thoughts on what is coming next, and what they want to do about it. Its pretty clear that when my grandma comes out of this she will be vastly different. I hate to say this, but It has finally come time to find a more permanent solution for my Grandpa, who's alcheimers only gets worse for him.
Also, as a note, my mom gave me the total amount for my grandma's hospital bill from the hospital in Lewiston and HOLY CRAP. Im not going to mention it here, but lets just say that when she told me to take a guess I guessed some crazy large number trying to get close and I was just under the halfway mark. Fortunatly most of that is the insurance.
Speaking of Grandma's, lets talk about my mom for a second. She has been very very busy taking care of my grandparents. She is really gone above and beyond and we all love her for it, but I can't tell you just how moving it was to see just how much my boys had missed seeing my mom around pullman. When she came back into town this last weekend and we went to have dinner at her house (Meatloaf!!) Jadon gave her so many hugs in a row and just held on. We're glad to have her back.
I invited her over for dinner tonight, and to play a new game. I bought two new games, one is called Memoir '44 and its based on WW2, I showed the boys how to play yesterday and they insisted on trying a game themselves right away. Its a little over thier paygrade, but they were doing suprisingly well, its a 2-player game, so I just taught them how to play and let them do the rest with my assistance pretty much.
Tonight I showed my boys and my mom how to play Carcassonne, which is a really fun tile based map building game where you earn points for completing roads, cities, monastaries and so on. Its simple and its really really fun. Tristan kicked our Butts big time, my mom was close behind him, but they left Jadon and I in their dust!
Speaking of my kids, I just wanted to talk a little more about this Pig Out On Books program that was started last week. This has been so awesome, they have both slowly been increasing their interest in reading, but this was such a huge surge of interest, its been a TON of fun.
I am so so proud of how well both the boys have done and Jadon has really been able to see his own progress just in the last two weeks. Ive talked several times about Jadon's struggles with reading, but I think in the last two weeks he really saw that the more he reads, the more he can read.
Tonight was their last night to log books in and turn their final lists into their teacher tomorrow. In the end, Tristan read around 350 or so pages of DIFFERENT books, and Jadon read over 500, possibly right up by 600 pages! I know, amazing right.
Thats in TWO WEEKS of time too, I cant even believe it. Each page, depending on the book they were on, consisted of between 5 and 30 words.
Im pretty amazed and very very proud of both of them.
A little bit more about the boys, Cub Scouts is coming to an end very soon, we will have one more Den Meeting and one more Pack meeting and then we adjourn until next year. Jadon will become a Wolf and Tristan will join in as a Tiger.
T-Ball starts up soon for Tristan and Rookie League for Jadon. Im looking forward to 4 solid days of baseball each week from early May until the last week of June right before they leave for the summer.
Both the boys had dental check ups today, they went well. The dentist did recommend I take Jadon in and talk with an Orthodontist, which I am doing in the morning (holy crap, its 2am, I need to wrap this blog up!).
A couple more things to mention before I sign out. First off, Fringe has gone completely crazy, this show is awesome. I liked the first episode, they've had a couple 'creature of the week' type episodes that were kind of lame, but the overall plot line is really starting to develop and this most recent episode was just plain awesome and it is turning into exactly the kind of show i was hoping it would.
One little thing though, the new images they are putting right before commercial breaks, kind of freaking me out. The apple with little babies instead of seeds, the smoke that is actually the shape of a person's face, the flower with petals that look like a bugs wings, the leave with the triangle on it, and I cant figure out what is with the hand print, but Im sure is just as creepy.
Last but far from least, my friend Sarah is going to be coming over sometime soon to visit us and it will be awesome! I've wanted her to see my apartment for awhile now, I almost got her over here once before, but just like with many things, life has a way of changing gears on you.
Well, I think that is enough for now. Ive got lots of responsiblities, so I best go get my beauty sleep so I live up to every last one of them
-Jas
I miss my kids tons during the summers, and any time they are gone, but the summer's esspecially. No matter how much I resisted the idea, it has been easier as time goes on, but it is still a very rough time for me.
I thought this summer would be different, better really. I've been dating again since early last year, and Ive got to admit, I was hoping to have a girlfriend by now. Ive really started liking meeting new people, but Im still not good at it. I kind of like meeting people online, and that has been relatively successful, but Im wary of it because I still don't think its too common and someone 'checking up on you' that doesn't know you seems kind of creepy.
I dont just browse the internet for 'dates' I look for old friends, people I went to high school with, people I was friends with in Bellingham and Everett, and when I find someone, I add them.
Generally when I find someone interesting that I don't know, it doesnt go any farther than that. Sometimes, if it really seems like we have similar interests and seem compatible from just our profile information, I'll shoot off a message, just to say hi and they can check me out.
If there turns out to be a mutual interest, then I believe it will develop on its own, so I dont see the need to push it, Its not the same social dynamic as meeting someone in person, which Im not always the best at to begin with.
Ive met my 'dates' all sorts of different ways. Ive met them at my work, Ive met them at their work, I've met people through friends, I've been approached online, and Ive done the method above where I essentially just start a dialogue with someone and see if it turns into something more, but even that is fairly rare.
I don't mean for this to become an online dating profile blog entry or something, I mostly talk about my kids, which I will get to after this rant, but I do have a few things to say before Im done.
I feel lonely, I want someone to talk to, someone to trust. I NEED to share all this with someone, my life, a future with someone special. But I seem to have this problem meeting people that share my interests. Sometimes there is some overlap, but not usually.
I dont need her to like everything Im into, as that would probably freak me out, but at least some of it.
Ideally I want someone who likes to Camp so we can all go camping together. I'd prefer that she like physical activity a bit, esspecially Tennis, but not required. Liking at least family fun type video games like Mario Kart, Mario Party or Guitar Hero/Rockband would be nice.
I would like someone who is good socially, but doesn't NEED it, someone who has some really tight friends, likes to sit around and talk, play party games in groups. I'd like someone who enjoys drinking a little, but doesn't do it very often.
Someone who likes movies would be nice, I have a really broad and general taste in movies, I like almost any movie at least once. I do love myself some horror ofcourse, but I really like Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Epic Movies, Inspirational Sports movies and gangster movies a lot.
I LOVE comedies, movies, CDs, and I esspecially love standup comedy, the amount of it Ive gotten to see life this last year has been awesome.
And also Im a huge gamer that needs a little understanding. I like to play more hardcore games, wether they be board games, or computer games or roleplaying games from time to time. I dont need someone who is into any of this stuff, just a little understanding.
And Im a huge geek and gamer on the opposite spectrum. I like to play Yahtzee, Monopoly, LIFE, The Farming Game, Clue and so on.
I esspecially like the 4-generation games of Pinocle that I get to play with my Mom, Grandma and Great Grandma.
This is a good time to seguway out of that line of thought, Ill leave you with this, Ive been dating pretty actively since deciding I was ready to start dating again, but Im not dating just to date, Im dating to find someone special and stop dating. I wont jump into anything, but I am looking for something more.
Well, to further the seguway, my grandma is still healing and resting, there hasn't been much change, at least not in her condition.
Its good to note that before I go on my grandma is still in her right mind and the responsibility of making decisions for herself and my grandfather still rests on her shoulders.
But I was just invited to a get together with my mom and uncles to discuss thier thoughts on what is coming next, and what they want to do about it. Its pretty clear that when my grandma comes out of this she will be vastly different. I hate to say this, but It has finally come time to find a more permanent solution for my Grandpa, who's alcheimers only gets worse for him.
Also, as a note, my mom gave me the total amount for my grandma's hospital bill from the hospital in Lewiston and HOLY CRAP. Im not going to mention it here, but lets just say that when she told me to take a guess I guessed some crazy large number trying to get close and I was just under the halfway mark. Fortunatly most of that is the insurance.
Speaking of Grandma's, lets talk about my mom for a second. She has been very very busy taking care of my grandparents. She is really gone above and beyond and we all love her for it, but I can't tell you just how moving it was to see just how much my boys had missed seeing my mom around pullman. When she came back into town this last weekend and we went to have dinner at her house (Meatloaf!!) Jadon gave her so many hugs in a row and just held on. We're glad to have her back.
I invited her over for dinner tonight, and to play a new game. I bought two new games, one is called Memoir '44 and its based on WW2, I showed the boys how to play yesterday and they insisted on trying a game themselves right away. Its a little over thier paygrade, but they were doing suprisingly well, its a 2-player game, so I just taught them how to play and let them do the rest with my assistance pretty much.
Tonight I showed my boys and my mom how to play Carcassonne, which is a really fun tile based map building game where you earn points for completing roads, cities, monastaries and so on. Its simple and its really really fun. Tristan kicked our Butts big time, my mom was close behind him, but they left Jadon and I in their dust!
Speaking of my kids, I just wanted to talk a little more about this Pig Out On Books program that was started last week. This has been so awesome, they have both slowly been increasing their interest in reading, but this was such a huge surge of interest, its been a TON of fun.
I am so so proud of how well both the boys have done and Jadon has really been able to see his own progress just in the last two weeks. Ive talked several times about Jadon's struggles with reading, but I think in the last two weeks he really saw that the more he reads, the more he can read.
Tonight was their last night to log books in and turn their final lists into their teacher tomorrow. In the end, Tristan read around 350 or so pages of DIFFERENT books, and Jadon read over 500, possibly right up by 600 pages! I know, amazing right.
Thats in TWO WEEKS of time too, I cant even believe it. Each page, depending on the book they were on, consisted of between 5 and 30 words.
Im pretty amazed and very very proud of both of them.
A little bit more about the boys, Cub Scouts is coming to an end very soon, we will have one more Den Meeting and one more Pack meeting and then we adjourn until next year. Jadon will become a Wolf and Tristan will join in as a Tiger.
T-Ball starts up soon for Tristan and Rookie League for Jadon. Im looking forward to 4 solid days of baseball each week from early May until the last week of June right before they leave for the summer.
Both the boys had dental check ups today, they went well. The dentist did recommend I take Jadon in and talk with an Orthodontist, which I am doing in the morning (holy crap, its 2am, I need to wrap this blog up!).
A couple more things to mention before I sign out. First off, Fringe has gone completely crazy, this show is awesome. I liked the first episode, they've had a couple 'creature of the week' type episodes that were kind of lame, but the overall plot line is really starting to develop and this most recent episode was just plain awesome and it is turning into exactly the kind of show i was hoping it would.
One little thing though, the new images they are putting right before commercial breaks, kind of freaking me out. The apple with little babies instead of seeds, the smoke that is actually the shape of a person's face, the flower with petals that look like a bugs wings, the leave with the triangle on it, and I cant figure out what is with the hand print, but Im sure is just as creepy.
Last but far from least, my friend Sarah is going to be coming over sometime soon to visit us and it will be awesome! I've wanted her to see my apartment for awhile now, I almost got her over here once before, but just like with many things, life has a way of changing gears on you.
Well, I think that is enough for now. Ive got lots of responsiblities, so I best go get my beauty sleep so I live up to every last one of them
-Jas
Friday, April 17, 2009
Raise Your Hand if you like to Read!
No, the title of this blog is not meant to indicate that this blog will be long. Though when I say that I really don't know how long a blog will be until I am done writing it, that's the magic of thinking my thoughts as I write them. Though I am sure I put my foot into my mouth on many occasions using this method.
Speaking of the length of my blog, I wanted to mention that when I compiled every single blog and comment, prior to this blog, into a single word document I found that I had written 209 pages of material (at 10pt Times font, single spaced), which amounted to 103,167 words. I gots a lot tah say yo!
Such an immense effort I feel deserves to be preserved. As such I am going to print a copy of it out and save it in my old chest, and keep it in document form and possibly make it part of another blog.
Now, I've only kind of glanced at parts of the document, showing a little interest in what was going on in my life on particular dates. I discovered two things that astonished me 1) I dont remember ALOT ALOT of stuff, which quadruples the value of my blog 2) I write a lot of crap that just plain doesnt make any sense
Next I want to talk about Podcasts that I listen to. I used to listen to music on my iPod pretty much the entire time I was at work but then I started looking for good Podcasts to listen to instead. Well actually I meant to just listen to some podcasts but still listen to music, but I found a bunch of Podcasts I really like and now I exclusively listen to Podcasts while at work.
I also tend to listen to podcasts while I am cleaning my house, I seem to get a lot more done than I would with music as the more I am engaged by what I am listening to, the less I am likely to get bored out of my mind cleaning.
I listen to some comedy podcasts, some learning podcasts and some nerdy ass podcasts.
First off, Adam Carolla's new podcast is bad ass, Ive loved Adam Carolla ever since his days on Love Line. His radio show was awesome, but I am happy as hell that his station cancelled him because his Podcast is Way better.
Another comedic one I like to Listen to is the Real Time With Bill Maher podcast, its obviously very political as well as humerous, I enjoy listening to the intense debates that get broken up by bouts of ridiculous humor.
The next three podcasts I am going to mention are my favorites out of the whole bunch, Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed In History Class, and I Should Be Writing. I just discovered I Should Be Writing and it is pretty much driving me crazy making me want to sit down and write again, which I will talk about a bit later (damn, this Blog may end up being long after all).
The next group of stuff I like to listen to are the Geeky ones:
The D6 Generation: This one is basically three guys that love all the same games that I love, they do reviews of new games and they sit around and BS about all the gaming stuff they do. This includes Miniatures and Roleplaying games ofcourse, but Im really focusing on the Board Games they play and Ive found lots of good new ones to try with the boys. My favorite segment they do is their "When Wives Attack" segment. Its a cool segment where two of their significant others come on and give advice as to how to get your Girl to like playing games, and what games she might like to play and advice on how to teach them games and to make sure and stick with Party Games from time to time as well.
There are a couple of others, right now I have 107 podcasts sitting in iTunes that I haven't listened to yet and they range from 15 min up to almost 4 hours each.The total amount of all 107 is 5 full days of full audio.
Next I want to talk about The Wheel of Time. This is a series of books that I got into when I was a teenager. I still very much remember when I sat down and read the first book. I had borrowed it and when I returned it I went to a bookstore to look for my own paperback copy of it, that is when I discovered it was a whole series and it had 5 more books out with a 7th on the way.
Well, it is an amazing Fantasy Epic series, but right now there are like 11 books out and the last one I read was book 8 or 9 and its been a good 9 years since I read it. It was going like 2-3 years in between novels by the end of the series so I decided to just hold out and read it when it was completed. Well, the author died while starting work in his supposedly final novel...
It was very sad, he struggled with his illness for quite awhile. He knew he wasnt going to be able to finish his work so he started keeping his notes differently and emmassed a lot of information so that someone could finish it after he passed.
His wife selected Brandon Sanderson to write the final book, he has been hard at work for some time now, and I just recently saw that he has written so much that they are dividing it into three seperate books, one to be released each year for the next three years (starting this november). I suddenly feel like i need to sit down with book one and start from the beginning.
I loved this series of books so much that I bought them all in hardback, which was quite expensive for a high school kid to do! They are all pretty big books, The paperbacks all ranged from 600 to 1100 pages in length, getting longer as the series progressed.
Anyway, so that it excting!
As far as writing goes, this I Should Be Writing podcast Ive been listening to has really made me want to dig back in and write something. I re-read the short story I posted not too long ago and it was so good I nearly made myself cry! Ok Ok, so Im biased . Either way, other than the multiple works of fiction that I have wanted to write for years, I have a few other short story ideas that I need to at least catalogue for later use.
Plus, I am revisiting the idea that I should write a Memior type book that walks people through my experiences in Divorce and the details of my custody battle. I think a lot of good lessons can be learned from my experiences and I think this may be a good place to start. Though, being used to fiction writing (as used to it as I can be since I havent written regularly since 1996) I am not quite sure how to lay out a work of non-fiction like this.
So both my kids got grounded this week. Jadon just got grounded for a day and a half because he lied to me. It was ridiculous too because it was something that there was absolutly no reason to lie about in my opinion, but after coming down on Tristan hard for what I will explain next, I had to crack down on Jadon too. Lying has become more and more of an issue lately, and saying disrespectful things as well.
Now, Im just an anal uptight Dad that needs to loosen up (according to my mom and grandma), so maybe I am overreacting. I find it tremendously disrespectful when I have already had to repeat myself and when they finally acknowledge that Ive instructed them to do something they think its hilarious to refer to me as 'Captain' or something. I've explained the situation to them.
Now on to the big deal, Tristan was grounded this whole week, including Movie Night, which he ended up not appreciating very much.
When my kids get grounded I reduce their already early bedtime of 7:30 to 7. They are not allowed to Watch, Listen or Play with electronics, and there is no candy or desert while you are grounded.
Tristan got grounded for the longest duration thus far, 5 days. He stole an item from a friends house and when discovered he fabricated two lies (one reasonable and one that was completely un-reasonable). The first lie was that he got the object at school from their prize box. Unfortunatly for him it was a small miniature that I had seen before and that I already knew belonged to my friend Russ. And a school is as likely to give this out to students as a church is to give out free D&D books.
The Second lie was that he found it in my car. Yeah right kid. Tristan has become increasingly dishonest, which kind of came out of left field for all of us as he has built up a very solid and trustworthy demeanor. He has used that to his advantage well of late. In addition to the grounding, because of how serious I consider theft to be I also took his allowance for the month, spoke with all of his teachers about the situation, and the last and most important step, he is returning the item and apologizing.
Now, this is all a philosophy. In the end, this is an item that Russ and Yvonne would probably not have even noticed they were missing. Because it is such a nothing item, I called Yvonne to prep her for the apology, I know she wasnt going to be upset, but I just wanted to make sure she didnt say 'dont worry about it' or 'you can keep it' or something like that. Its not the item that matters, he could have stolen a toy from a store and it still wouldnt matter to me what the item was or where he got it, what is important is that he learns that it is wrong, that I focus on guiding him to become a trustworthy individual with a strong moral character.
Like MySelf
An update on my grandma. She is doing the same, they do need to do another surgery for certain, but she is too weak for the surgery to be performed at the moment.
They have moved her to an assisted living facility or something so that she can recover, they expect her to be there for 6 weeks to 3 months. Once they do the surgery it looks like things may take a turn for the worse even if they fix the problem. As I already stated, she already has to have the colonoscopy bag or whatever, but things may turn out that she won't be able to eat again either, meaning she would need to be put into permenant care.
This information is still sinking in. My grandma will never be the same again.
I am hanging out with Yvonne and her boys again tomorrow, we will probably have dinner and play some more games. I am also meeting up with Heather for a Coffee date at 2pm tomorrow, Im really excited to finally get to go out with her again.
I really dont think that things can work out with Heather and I. We literally can never talk outside of our dates. She is busy pretty much every sunday, we work opposite shifts and that just leaves saturdays. One day a week. Well, I spend some, if not most, saturdays with my kids. That will change in the summertime, but also she is busy some saturdays too, which pretty much leaves only one or two saturdays per month that we can even go out.
I really like her, she is really cool and I am really excited about going out with her again, but right now I really dont see any potential. We get along great, so I wish we had schedules that blended together better, but as long as she is working nights I dont think it can go anywhere beyond where it is now.
Oh right, I completely forgot why I titled my blog that way. Its because my kids have been reading like crazy this last week, they started this Pig Out On Books thing at school and since then Jadon esspecially has shown a ton more interest and dedication, and because of that he has shown a lot of improvement and fast! Im really really happy.
Anyway, there are a couple more things I want to clean before I go to bed. I forgot to talk about easter and the only reason I remembered just now is because I was going to say 'I hope everyone had a good easter', but I will save that for a later blog.
-Jas
Speaking of the length of my blog, I wanted to mention that when I compiled every single blog and comment, prior to this blog, into a single word document I found that I had written 209 pages of material (at 10pt Times font, single spaced), which amounted to 103,167 words. I gots a lot tah say yo!
Such an immense effort I feel deserves to be preserved. As such I am going to print a copy of it out and save it in my old chest, and keep it in document form and possibly make it part of another blog.
Now, I've only kind of glanced at parts of the document, showing a little interest in what was going on in my life on particular dates. I discovered two things that astonished me 1) I dont remember ALOT ALOT of stuff, which quadruples the value of my blog 2) I write a lot of crap that just plain doesnt make any sense
Next I want to talk about Podcasts that I listen to. I used to listen to music on my iPod pretty much the entire time I was at work but then I started looking for good Podcasts to listen to instead. Well actually I meant to just listen to some podcasts but still listen to music, but I found a bunch of Podcasts I really like and now I exclusively listen to Podcasts while at work.
I also tend to listen to podcasts while I am cleaning my house, I seem to get a lot more done than I would with music as the more I am engaged by what I am listening to, the less I am likely to get bored out of my mind cleaning.
I listen to some comedy podcasts, some learning podcasts and some nerdy ass podcasts.
First off, Adam Carolla's new podcast is bad ass, Ive loved Adam Carolla ever since his days on Love Line. His radio show was awesome, but I am happy as hell that his station cancelled him because his Podcast is Way better.
Another comedic one I like to Listen to is the Real Time With Bill Maher podcast, its obviously very political as well as humerous, I enjoy listening to the intense debates that get broken up by bouts of ridiculous humor.
The next three podcasts I am going to mention are my favorites out of the whole bunch, Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed In History Class, and I Should Be Writing. I just discovered I Should Be Writing and it is pretty much driving me crazy making me want to sit down and write again, which I will talk about a bit later (damn, this Blog may end up being long after all).
The next group of stuff I like to listen to are the Geeky ones:
The D6 Generation: This one is basically three guys that love all the same games that I love, they do reviews of new games and they sit around and BS about all the gaming stuff they do. This includes Miniatures and Roleplaying games ofcourse, but Im really focusing on the Board Games they play and Ive found lots of good new ones to try with the boys. My favorite segment they do is their "When Wives Attack" segment. Its a cool segment where two of their significant others come on and give advice as to how to get your Girl to like playing games, and what games she might like to play and advice on how to teach them games and to make sure and stick with Party Games from time to time as well.
There are a couple of others, right now I have 107 podcasts sitting in iTunes that I haven't listened to yet and they range from 15 min up to almost 4 hours each.The total amount of all 107 is 5 full days of full audio.
Next I want to talk about The Wheel of Time. This is a series of books that I got into when I was a teenager. I still very much remember when I sat down and read the first book. I had borrowed it and when I returned it I went to a bookstore to look for my own paperback copy of it, that is when I discovered it was a whole series and it had 5 more books out with a 7th on the way.
Well, it is an amazing Fantasy Epic series, but right now there are like 11 books out and the last one I read was book 8 or 9 and its been a good 9 years since I read it. It was going like 2-3 years in between novels by the end of the series so I decided to just hold out and read it when it was completed. Well, the author died while starting work in his supposedly final novel...
It was very sad, he struggled with his illness for quite awhile. He knew he wasnt going to be able to finish his work so he started keeping his notes differently and emmassed a lot of information so that someone could finish it after he passed.
His wife selected Brandon Sanderson to write the final book, he has been hard at work for some time now, and I just recently saw that he has written so much that they are dividing it into three seperate books, one to be released each year for the next three years (starting this november). I suddenly feel like i need to sit down with book one and start from the beginning.
I loved this series of books so much that I bought them all in hardback, which was quite expensive for a high school kid to do! They are all pretty big books, The paperbacks all ranged from 600 to 1100 pages in length, getting longer as the series progressed.
Anyway, so that it excting!
As far as writing goes, this I Should Be Writing podcast Ive been listening to has really made me want to dig back in and write something. I re-read the short story I posted not too long ago and it was so good I nearly made myself cry! Ok Ok, so Im biased . Either way, other than the multiple works of fiction that I have wanted to write for years, I have a few other short story ideas that I need to at least catalogue for later use.
Plus, I am revisiting the idea that I should write a Memior type book that walks people through my experiences in Divorce and the details of my custody battle. I think a lot of good lessons can be learned from my experiences and I think this may be a good place to start. Though, being used to fiction writing (as used to it as I can be since I havent written regularly since 1996) I am not quite sure how to lay out a work of non-fiction like this.
So both my kids got grounded this week. Jadon just got grounded for a day and a half because he lied to me. It was ridiculous too because it was something that there was absolutly no reason to lie about in my opinion, but after coming down on Tristan hard for what I will explain next, I had to crack down on Jadon too. Lying has become more and more of an issue lately, and saying disrespectful things as well.
Now, Im just an anal uptight Dad that needs to loosen up (according to my mom and grandma), so maybe I am overreacting. I find it tremendously disrespectful when I have already had to repeat myself and when they finally acknowledge that Ive instructed them to do something they think its hilarious to refer to me as 'Captain' or something. I've explained the situation to them.
Now on to the big deal, Tristan was grounded this whole week, including Movie Night, which he ended up not appreciating very much.
When my kids get grounded I reduce their already early bedtime of 7:30 to 7. They are not allowed to Watch, Listen or Play with electronics, and there is no candy or desert while you are grounded.
Tristan got grounded for the longest duration thus far, 5 days. He stole an item from a friends house and when discovered he fabricated two lies (one reasonable and one that was completely un-reasonable). The first lie was that he got the object at school from their prize box. Unfortunatly for him it was a small miniature that I had seen before and that I already knew belonged to my friend Russ. And a school is as likely to give this out to students as a church is to give out free D&D books.
The Second lie was that he found it in my car. Yeah right kid. Tristan has become increasingly dishonest, which kind of came out of left field for all of us as he has built up a very solid and trustworthy demeanor. He has used that to his advantage well of late. In addition to the grounding, because of how serious I consider theft to be I also took his allowance for the month, spoke with all of his teachers about the situation, and the last and most important step, he is returning the item and apologizing.
Now, this is all a philosophy. In the end, this is an item that Russ and Yvonne would probably not have even noticed they were missing. Because it is such a nothing item, I called Yvonne to prep her for the apology, I know she wasnt going to be upset, but I just wanted to make sure she didnt say 'dont worry about it' or 'you can keep it' or something like that. Its not the item that matters, he could have stolen a toy from a store and it still wouldnt matter to me what the item was or where he got it, what is important is that he learns that it is wrong, that I focus on guiding him to become a trustworthy individual with a strong moral character.
Like MySelf
An update on my grandma. She is doing the same, they do need to do another surgery for certain, but she is too weak for the surgery to be performed at the moment.
They have moved her to an assisted living facility or something so that she can recover, they expect her to be there for 6 weeks to 3 months. Once they do the surgery it looks like things may take a turn for the worse even if they fix the problem. As I already stated, she already has to have the colonoscopy bag or whatever, but things may turn out that she won't be able to eat again either, meaning she would need to be put into permenant care.
This information is still sinking in. My grandma will never be the same again.
I am hanging out with Yvonne and her boys again tomorrow, we will probably have dinner and play some more games. I am also meeting up with Heather for a Coffee date at 2pm tomorrow, Im really excited to finally get to go out with her again.
I really dont think that things can work out with Heather and I. We literally can never talk outside of our dates. She is busy pretty much every sunday, we work opposite shifts and that just leaves saturdays. One day a week. Well, I spend some, if not most, saturdays with my kids. That will change in the summertime, but also she is busy some saturdays too, which pretty much leaves only one or two saturdays per month that we can even go out.
I really like her, she is really cool and I am really excited about going out with her again, but right now I really dont see any potential. We get along great, so I wish we had schedules that blended together better, but as long as she is working nights I dont think it can go anywhere beyond where it is now.
Oh right, I completely forgot why I titled my blog that way. Its because my kids have been reading like crazy this last week, they started this Pig Out On Books thing at school and since then Jadon esspecially has shown a ton more interest and dedication, and because of that he has shown a lot of improvement and fast! Im really really happy.
Anyway, there are a couple more things I want to clean before I go to bed. I forgot to talk about easter and the only reason I remembered just now is because I was going to say 'I hope everyone had a good easter', but I will save that for a later blog.
-Jas
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Im Full
Im Full
I thought long and hard (not a gay joke) about how to title this blog. The original title was "The Boys Are Back In Town" and yes, they are indeed back in town, my life has meaning again! lol. But its time for me to write yet another blog where I look inward. I'll talk about the boys ofcourse, their trip to disneyland, our fun with Sarah in Seattle.
But its time for me to take a good hard look at myself, judge myself as I am so good at doing, but then take it one step further and try to actually fix some of the problems I see.
Im so very tired, I look inside myself and see so much potential, so many things just wanting to explode out of me. So many stories not yet written, so many websites not built, so many ideas not fulfilled. So many memories that I've never had because I stop myself from experiencing anything.
The title "Im Full" is indeed a reference to food, but it is also a deeper reference to the paragraph above this. I feel as though I am filled to the brim with the things I have stopped myself from doing with my life. "The One That Got Away" was another title for this blog that I had thought might work.
The One That Got Away is a reference to a lot of things, to all of the things I have let slip through my fingers. The obvious reference is romantic generally, and in this case that is true, I have a girl that is 'The One That Got Away", but it is a reference to so many more things than just that.
As you read this, esspecially if you've read some of my previous blogs, you probably find that it is easy for me to talk about myself, to analyze myself. I do it so much. But it is hard, I am very literally cringing as I write these truths about myself.
While some of these things have been on my mind, writing is a strange paradox for me. I discover more about myself through it, reveal more of my thoughts as they hit the screen.
I am crippled, my mind is crippled. I don't mean for this to offend anyone that has an actual physical or mental disability, I just mean that even the simple things in life are difficult for me to muster the resolve to accomplish. I make everything I do so hard.
My computer is a conduit for this, and also a reflection of just how far I have fallen. I can sit here each night after my kids go to bed and look the same identical things up over and over again each day of the week. Looking for something anything to keep my mind off the fact that I have a million things I should do, a million things I could do easily, but a million things I wont do, cant do because I don't even think about them when I need to.
I don't know why I am like this. In the past all the way back to my childhood I can rarely recall failing at anything I did. Not that Im bragging, I've failed at I would say most of the things in my life, but literally for lack of trying.
When I do something I succeed at it, even when faced with opposition so great that there is no light at the end of my tunnell, no chance of success at the beginning of my journey. I make my own success, my own luck. I create my own path in life and I really do feel that I can be whomever I wish to be.
But I set that all aside, and I don't know why. School is a very good example. I got decent grades up through sometime in middle school when my grades suddenly dropped off really bad. It was entirely due to me not doing homework. I knew the material well enough, but I just didnt do my work, I lied about doing it and never did it and my grades went to shit.
The answer to this was that my mom and grandma took turns picking me up from school for a semester or so and they would talk to my teachers, find out all about all of my homework and then they made me do it. lol. Maybe thats it, maybe I got so used to the women in my life making me do things that I stopped worrying about doing them on my own. lol, that is a joke for sure.
To move on with the school example, High School was a big joke for me. The guidance my mom and grandma gave me in middle school paid off for most of my freshman year, but I felt very disillusioned with a system that had held me back and overlooked me at times despite being able to get good grades on tests and proving that I know the material.
Am I just a worker bee? is that all you are trying to teach me? Did you ever prove to me that WHAT I am learning is important? I went from a B+/A- average my freshman year of highschool to flunking all but one of my classes in my first semester of my sophmore year. The class I didnt flunk I got a D in and I only attribute not failing to a slight difference in how much tests were worth compared to my other classes. Through that semester I never did homework, I never cared and I did pass my tests, all of them.
I find this to be utterly ridiculous, an insult to myself and to the knowledge that was supposedly so important. This system, along with both your parents having to work every minute of their life just to provide your basic needs has utterly destroyed this nation. How can we go from a majority of our populace not recieving a formal education, to a public education system and make ourselves dumber in the process?
Alright, I went off on a tangent. Obvously Im not too happy with the school system, but it is not entirely to blame, as I have seen this behavior of mine in other facets of my life as well. For example, I dont do the things that I actually Want to be doing. I don't even work on my own hobbies anymore. I've written one short story in the last six years. This list can grow and grow but I am certain I've passed my point on well enough.
One step at a time Jason, one step at a time. But its not that simple with me, I break my life up into steps and each step becomes a mountain to climb in my mind.
Getting back into college is a great example. Do you realize just how much thought and work I've put in to just trying to find a fucking proctor??? What the Fuck is my problem. Sorry about all the swearing, but god damnit, what the fuck.
Some might say that I am afraid of change. Ive thought that myself. But when I look more broadly at my life, Im definitly not afraid of all of the things Im not doing for myself. But Im still not doing them.
When I truly need to make a decision, DONE decision made, when I truly need to take an action DONE action taken. But if there is not something compelling me to make this decision or take this action, then it just won't happen. And that can't go on. I can;t allow this to go on. I have to be the person I see inside of myself. I have to be the person I am meant to be.
I've set some small goals for myself and by god I will acheive them. Minor goals meant to blow up into bigger goals as I accomplish them. Take steps to unlock my potential. For starters Im intending on finally taking my placement test to see what classes I start in for Math and English. That should happen this weekend.
There is nothing making me do this though. Come monday morning I could not have this done still and that would be business as usuall for me. I could wake up monday morning, realize I forgot to do something that should have been extremely important for me to do, shrug my shoulders and forget about it until my next blog. I can't let that happen, I cant tell you just how important it is that I break this cycle that has haunted me for two decades.
Another small goal I've set has to do with Food. I feel like I dont really have the opprotunity I need to go out and walk/jog the way I would need to in order to lose weight. But I can change my bad habits when it comes to my diet.
Eating healthy is a very lofty goal, far too lofty considering my condition. So my initial goal is to eat less unhealthy. To that end I am going to stop eating fast food for a period of 60 days, starting yesterday, and so far Im doing pretty good.
My mom and I developed some really bad habits, around the time I was 12 my mom had started working 2-3 jobs at a time and we often found that fast food was the easiest way to get dinner. In hindsight the best solution would have been for my mom to teach me how to cook and to make me responsible for making dinner and having it ready for her when she gets home. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of responsibility, but so far in my experience it is that which we are responsible for that makes us stronger and better people. The more responsibliltiy you've had in your life the stronger and more functional of a person you are.
Anyway, we started eating fast food ALOT and thats a habit I've always always fallen into since becoming an adult. Not anymore, I just cant do that anymore. I need to be able to show some control over my basic needs and urges. And I will not fail in this, I can not fail in this. Once again, something so easy for me to trick myself into doing.
The trap I drop myself into is that, I dont each breakfast or lunch during the week. I need to rectify that, find an easy way for me to make time and effort for those meals at home so that I can avoid temptation, and also, when temptation occurs, have the strength to fight it.
Another trap I set for myself is the 'oh we're out to late for me to have time to fix dinner' excuse. I need to learn how to prepare food before hand so that its just ready to go when we get home. I need to learn to use a slow cooker and make some stew or anything.
The other goal is to take cleaning my house up a notch. I try and clean my house once per week. But in between cleanings garbage and dishes just pile up, messes just pile up. I need to force myself to develop a more fluid routine for myself and the boys. I started that a bit ago with some success, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Something I also can not afford to avoid.
Alright Alright, that enough of that for now. Writing this has worn me out, Im going to talk about this last weekend and then Im off to bed.
The week my boys were gone sucked, not as bad as it could have, but it did suck, and I could have done so much more. I did less than usual, and generally went to bed earlier but still woke up tired.
On Saturday I drove across the state, took me almost 10 hours to get to bellingham because I was stopped for around 2 1/2 hours on Snoqualmie pass because of soem debris or something that had to be removed from the road.
I woke up early on Sunday morning and drove down to meet my friend Sarah in Everett again, just like the previous weekend but not quite as early fortunatly lol. We drove down and picked up my kids from the airport and then we went and visited my grandma in the hospital.
As a side, last week it was decided that it was best for my grandma to be moved from the Lewiston hospital to a hospital in Seattle. My mom is over there staying with her in her hospital room and there has been no improvement.
After we visited my grandma we went and got lunch and assessed the time. We had planned on going to the Zoo but it was getting late and I still had a long long drive ahead of me in order to get home. In the end we decided to play it by ear and we headed towards the zoo, we ended up heading in the wrong direction on the freeway, but almost as soon as that happened we spontaneously had the idea to spend the rest of our time with Sarah in Seattle Center.
Even though it didnt turn out as expected, our whole experience at Seattle Center was a ton of fun and it was very memerable. I took the boys up the space needle for the first time, which they thought was pretty cool. Then we had a snack in the food court, at the end I started an ice war with Sarah and I would have to say I won
lol
Then we went to the fountain to sit since the day was still so nice. I let the boys get totally soaked in the fountain which they thought was pretty cool, then I would encourage them to hug sarah and get her wet! Which they also thought was hilarious.
Then we decided to call it a day so we headed back to the car. Now, before I tell you the rest of this story I want to note that all four of us went to the bathroom at Seattle Center right before we went to get the car. When we got there Sarah held up a blanket while I had the boys change out of their wet clothes in an underground parking lot, which was very entertaining.
After the boys were dressed Tristan made it pretty clear that if he didnt go potty within the next few minutes that he was going to pee in his pants, so we had Tristan pee on the wall of the parking garage and then we got the hell out of there. Not 10 minutes later both the boys have to pee again so we had to stop at the mall.
Once that was over we dropped Sarah off at her car in Everett and said our goodbyes, which I think the boys are still blushing about. I never like to say goodbye to Sarah :-(
But we had a fun two weekends together and hopefully we'll see her at least one more time this spring.
Anyway, time for me to sign off, think about the things Ive said and discovered this evening, and accomplish the goals Ive set for myself, however small an insignificant they may seem at first. Everything had a beginning.
I thought long and hard (not a gay joke) about how to title this blog. The original title was "The Boys Are Back In Town" and yes, they are indeed back in town, my life has meaning again! lol. But its time for me to write yet another blog where I look inward. I'll talk about the boys ofcourse, their trip to disneyland, our fun with Sarah in Seattle.
But its time for me to take a good hard look at myself, judge myself as I am so good at doing, but then take it one step further and try to actually fix some of the problems I see.
Im so very tired, I look inside myself and see so much potential, so many things just wanting to explode out of me. So many stories not yet written, so many websites not built, so many ideas not fulfilled. So many memories that I've never had because I stop myself from experiencing anything.
The title "Im Full" is indeed a reference to food, but it is also a deeper reference to the paragraph above this. I feel as though I am filled to the brim with the things I have stopped myself from doing with my life. "The One That Got Away" was another title for this blog that I had thought might work.
The One That Got Away is a reference to a lot of things, to all of the things I have let slip through my fingers. The obvious reference is romantic generally, and in this case that is true, I have a girl that is 'The One That Got Away", but it is a reference to so many more things than just that.
As you read this, esspecially if you've read some of my previous blogs, you probably find that it is easy for me to talk about myself, to analyze myself. I do it so much. But it is hard, I am very literally cringing as I write these truths about myself.
While some of these things have been on my mind, writing is a strange paradox for me. I discover more about myself through it, reveal more of my thoughts as they hit the screen.
I am crippled, my mind is crippled. I don't mean for this to offend anyone that has an actual physical or mental disability, I just mean that even the simple things in life are difficult for me to muster the resolve to accomplish. I make everything I do so hard.
My computer is a conduit for this, and also a reflection of just how far I have fallen. I can sit here each night after my kids go to bed and look the same identical things up over and over again each day of the week. Looking for something anything to keep my mind off the fact that I have a million things I should do, a million things I could do easily, but a million things I wont do, cant do because I don't even think about them when I need to.
I don't know why I am like this. In the past all the way back to my childhood I can rarely recall failing at anything I did. Not that Im bragging, I've failed at I would say most of the things in my life, but literally for lack of trying.
When I do something I succeed at it, even when faced with opposition so great that there is no light at the end of my tunnell, no chance of success at the beginning of my journey. I make my own success, my own luck. I create my own path in life and I really do feel that I can be whomever I wish to be.
But I set that all aside, and I don't know why. School is a very good example. I got decent grades up through sometime in middle school when my grades suddenly dropped off really bad. It was entirely due to me not doing homework. I knew the material well enough, but I just didnt do my work, I lied about doing it and never did it and my grades went to shit.
The answer to this was that my mom and grandma took turns picking me up from school for a semester or so and they would talk to my teachers, find out all about all of my homework and then they made me do it. lol. Maybe thats it, maybe I got so used to the women in my life making me do things that I stopped worrying about doing them on my own. lol, that is a joke for sure.
To move on with the school example, High School was a big joke for me. The guidance my mom and grandma gave me in middle school paid off for most of my freshman year, but I felt very disillusioned with a system that had held me back and overlooked me at times despite being able to get good grades on tests and proving that I know the material.
Am I just a worker bee? is that all you are trying to teach me? Did you ever prove to me that WHAT I am learning is important? I went from a B+/A- average my freshman year of highschool to flunking all but one of my classes in my first semester of my sophmore year. The class I didnt flunk I got a D in and I only attribute not failing to a slight difference in how much tests were worth compared to my other classes. Through that semester I never did homework, I never cared and I did pass my tests, all of them.
I find this to be utterly ridiculous, an insult to myself and to the knowledge that was supposedly so important. This system, along with both your parents having to work every minute of their life just to provide your basic needs has utterly destroyed this nation. How can we go from a majority of our populace not recieving a formal education, to a public education system and make ourselves dumber in the process?
Alright, I went off on a tangent. Obvously Im not too happy with the school system, but it is not entirely to blame, as I have seen this behavior of mine in other facets of my life as well. For example, I dont do the things that I actually Want to be doing. I don't even work on my own hobbies anymore. I've written one short story in the last six years. This list can grow and grow but I am certain I've passed my point on well enough.
One step at a time Jason, one step at a time. But its not that simple with me, I break my life up into steps and each step becomes a mountain to climb in my mind.
Getting back into college is a great example. Do you realize just how much thought and work I've put in to just trying to find a fucking proctor??? What the Fuck is my problem. Sorry about all the swearing, but god damnit, what the fuck.
Some might say that I am afraid of change. Ive thought that myself. But when I look more broadly at my life, Im definitly not afraid of all of the things Im not doing for myself. But Im still not doing them.
When I truly need to make a decision, DONE decision made, when I truly need to take an action DONE action taken. But if there is not something compelling me to make this decision or take this action, then it just won't happen. And that can't go on. I can;t allow this to go on. I have to be the person I see inside of myself. I have to be the person I am meant to be.
I've set some small goals for myself and by god I will acheive them. Minor goals meant to blow up into bigger goals as I accomplish them. Take steps to unlock my potential. For starters Im intending on finally taking my placement test to see what classes I start in for Math and English. That should happen this weekend.
There is nothing making me do this though. Come monday morning I could not have this done still and that would be business as usuall for me. I could wake up monday morning, realize I forgot to do something that should have been extremely important for me to do, shrug my shoulders and forget about it until my next blog. I can't let that happen, I cant tell you just how important it is that I break this cycle that has haunted me for two decades.
Another small goal I've set has to do with Food. I feel like I dont really have the opprotunity I need to go out and walk/jog the way I would need to in order to lose weight. But I can change my bad habits when it comes to my diet.
Eating healthy is a very lofty goal, far too lofty considering my condition. So my initial goal is to eat less unhealthy. To that end I am going to stop eating fast food for a period of 60 days, starting yesterday, and so far Im doing pretty good.
My mom and I developed some really bad habits, around the time I was 12 my mom had started working 2-3 jobs at a time and we often found that fast food was the easiest way to get dinner. In hindsight the best solution would have been for my mom to teach me how to cook and to make me responsible for making dinner and having it ready for her when she gets home. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of responsibility, but so far in my experience it is that which we are responsible for that makes us stronger and better people. The more responsibliltiy you've had in your life the stronger and more functional of a person you are.
Anyway, we started eating fast food ALOT and thats a habit I've always always fallen into since becoming an adult. Not anymore, I just cant do that anymore. I need to be able to show some control over my basic needs and urges. And I will not fail in this, I can not fail in this. Once again, something so easy for me to trick myself into doing.
The trap I drop myself into is that, I dont each breakfast or lunch during the week. I need to rectify that, find an easy way for me to make time and effort for those meals at home so that I can avoid temptation, and also, when temptation occurs, have the strength to fight it.
Another trap I set for myself is the 'oh we're out to late for me to have time to fix dinner' excuse. I need to learn how to prepare food before hand so that its just ready to go when we get home. I need to learn to use a slow cooker and make some stew or anything.
The other goal is to take cleaning my house up a notch. I try and clean my house once per week. But in between cleanings garbage and dishes just pile up, messes just pile up. I need to force myself to develop a more fluid routine for myself and the boys. I started that a bit ago with some success, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Something I also can not afford to avoid.
Alright Alright, that enough of that for now. Writing this has worn me out, Im going to talk about this last weekend and then Im off to bed.
The week my boys were gone sucked, not as bad as it could have, but it did suck, and I could have done so much more. I did less than usual, and generally went to bed earlier but still woke up tired.
On Saturday I drove across the state, took me almost 10 hours to get to bellingham because I was stopped for around 2 1/2 hours on Snoqualmie pass because of soem debris or something that had to be removed from the road.
I woke up early on Sunday morning and drove down to meet my friend Sarah in Everett again, just like the previous weekend but not quite as early fortunatly lol. We drove down and picked up my kids from the airport and then we went and visited my grandma in the hospital.
As a side, last week it was decided that it was best for my grandma to be moved from the Lewiston hospital to a hospital in Seattle. My mom is over there staying with her in her hospital room and there has been no improvement.
After we visited my grandma we went and got lunch and assessed the time. We had planned on going to the Zoo but it was getting late and I still had a long long drive ahead of me in order to get home. In the end we decided to play it by ear and we headed towards the zoo, we ended up heading in the wrong direction on the freeway, but almost as soon as that happened we spontaneously had the idea to spend the rest of our time with Sarah in Seattle Center.
Even though it didnt turn out as expected, our whole experience at Seattle Center was a ton of fun and it was very memerable. I took the boys up the space needle for the first time, which they thought was pretty cool. Then we had a snack in the food court, at the end I started an ice war with Sarah and I would have to say I won
lolThen we went to the fountain to sit since the day was still so nice. I let the boys get totally soaked in the fountain which they thought was pretty cool, then I would encourage them to hug sarah and get her wet! Which they also thought was hilarious.
Then we decided to call it a day so we headed back to the car. Now, before I tell you the rest of this story I want to note that all four of us went to the bathroom at Seattle Center right before we went to get the car. When we got there Sarah held up a blanket while I had the boys change out of their wet clothes in an underground parking lot, which was very entertaining.
After the boys were dressed Tristan made it pretty clear that if he didnt go potty within the next few minutes that he was going to pee in his pants, so we had Tristan pee on the wall of the parking garage and then we got the hell out of there. Not 10 minutes later both the boys have to pee again so we had to stop at the mall.
Once that was over we dropped Sarah off at her car in Everett and said our goodbyes, which I think the boys are still blushing about. I never like to say goodbye to Sarah :-(
But we had a fun two weekends together and hopefully we'll see her at least one more time this spring.
Anyway, time for me to sign off, think about the things Ive said and discovered this evening, and accomplish the goals Ive set for myself, however small an insignificant they may seem at first. Everything had a beginning.
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