Exercising...

It's coming along nicely for the record! I've managed to lose about 1/2 a kg a day, which is pretty nice, but man... I'm starting to worry about never being able to eat a donut again.

BUT I WILL!

:)

Also, restaurant portions are really really huge like actually for real.

But it's neat! I wonder if I'd be better if I'd started doing this 20 years ago, but I was too busy being skinny and grumpy. I don't think those were wasted years, but well spent.

Requisite blog title goes here

Not really much worth talking about today, in here, just normal life for me.

It's interesting to note that our house reno is coming along very well, but it is highly disruptive to my routine, and as that has continued, I have been less and less motivated to do stuff.

But, it's also very dark, and that's not great for motivation either. Ah well, in any case I'm making progress on things!

I think?

Was gonna say something...

OH RIGHT, I remember what it was.

Why do I stand in hallways when it's time for a party?

I stand in my hallway, I stand in my friends hallways... WHY?

Is it fear of open spaces?  Maybe?

Maybe it's discomfort with people being behind me? Which is hard in a big room and easy in a hallway?

Maybe it's that our furniture is in the way?  We actually have no place in our house to sit one on one and talk.

I remember seeing the greatest chair ever, where you sat side by side but facing different directions, so you could talk and it was a very nice chair.. I should try and find one, or make one...

Two chairs and a compatible end table in between them.

Then maybe I wouldn't have to stand in the hallway

An odd ripple effect of self-care.

So one of the behaviours I am attempting to extinct in myself is losing my temper. I mean, sometimes you gotta yell at your kids, right, sure, but I always want to make sure that  I am in control of when I do that, and sometimes I'm not. So I'm off to fix that.

But.. as I work to decrease the number of times I have a dad-tantrum, I find that I am, generally, grumpier. My peaks of anger have decreased, but my baseline is higher.  I mean, it could also be that I'm _exhausted_, which is a reasonable other variable that explain this.  But work shall continue.

Self care improving

BUSY-NESS ALSO INCREASING...

But I'm looking forward to a period of relative calm over the next few weeks.... ok, next few days... hours....

A minor thing I learned from my work

1) When supervising problematic staff, it's really hard to remember and recognize that they are improving, and to re-assess them fairly as they progress from sucking, to not sucking as much, to sucking very little, to sucking not at all.

Self-Care Inventory 2

Oh yah, and my weight.  I wanna not be a fatass.

DAMN YOU BEER

Self-care inventory

Oh man, my self-care is in the toilet right now.

I need to track this, like I track everything else that matters:

Ok:
Floss
How much do I drink
How much do I smoke
Did I ride my bike
Nights doing chores (YES this is self-care)
...
what else...
Shaving!
Haircut!

Peanut #1 versus the Universe

So Wee Peanut #1 had a run-in on the bus yesterday, where Little Shit #1 guilted her, or "blamed her", in her own words, into pulling down her pants and showing him her bum.

So she told us that! Yay! I mean, genuinely, YAY, because it means that she thinks she can come to us with this.

I mean, were we hoping she could get through motherfucking Kindergarten at least before she got sexually harassed, why yes, yes we were, but that is now past, I guess.

So she brought this up, and we told her that it wasn't her fault, and that we believed her, and that we had to tell someone else (which was brilliant, because she assumed we were going to tell our huge, manly, childless, and very protective Friend on the assumption that he would commit a capital offence on her behalf, which he would) and then we went off to meet the Principal.

A few observations: Peanut #1 did not cry, but she didn't joke about it either. She was in visibly good spirits, she ate well and slept well, so she's not showing any signs of _trauma_ around this.

So we go off to see the Principal, and we are READY for the Patriarchy, we are ready for "boys must be boys, and he's a good kid and yadda yadda yadda" and we tell the Principal and he _FREAKS OUT_ and is actually angrier than we are.

Which was all very nice.

Now we wait for him to call, and then we give Peanut #1 a week, and then we touch base with her specifically and intentionally to make sure she is OK.

A minor and hilarious note

We own a teensy washing machine.

But we can still wash a week's worth of laundry in one night.

I love it so much

Managing the Peanuts

I feel like this is going much better of late.

This whole process of being super emotionally honest while still being calm seems to be working out. Last night I was able to diffuse a situation that was tantrum-bound without actually having any tantrums on any part, including mine!

I basically said "I'm laughing because I'm trying not to lose my temper" and they seemed to think that was interesting enough to stop freaking out and pay attention... and that was nice.

Update on Patience

I am continuing to learn to be patient, I find I lose my temper just as much, but for much less long times, and not as severely.

So that's good
:)

What is my 5 year plan?

This popped into my head today, that I don't have a five year plan... so I'mma try to write one.

1) I want to be married! So that means keeping going with what I'm doing in terms of affection, appreciation, and attention. It means keeping the kitchen clean, and supporting the work of the Project Manager in and around the house.

2) I... want... my kids.... to ... do.... something? I want them to be readers, and interested in building and construction and doing things with their hands. So to do that, I need to include them in the work that I do around the house, and around the props building, etc.

But... what do _I_ want to be doing?  What do _I_ want to be doing for work? What do _I_ want to be better at in 5 years?

(This list is building as I type...)

1) I want to be a better performer, both technically in my skills, and in my flexibility and diligence as well..
2) I want to be brewing more, and in small batches of weirder stuff
3) I want to have the house done, and be creating more art
4) I want to be 160 pounds
5) I want to be able to run to work
6) I want to be more patient...

I guess my desire is more to work more with soft foam, to be able to make costumes and props rapidly and with a lot of fun involved.

Current Status

So this month is a bit much

Peanut #1 starts school this week.
Peanuts #1 and #2 start dance classes two days a week this week.
I have a major LARP this weekend, and 3 days of tabletop gaming.
Then there's about 2 days of normal life, then the Project Manager leaves for Europe for 10 days
She gets back on the evening of the 25th, and the morning of the 26th I leave for US for 5 days..
Then I have a full week of hosting an international guest at work..

Then ... then we shall rest, and by that I mean we have just our normal INSANE BUSY-NESS

Peanut #1

Feels ALL THE EMOTIONS ALL THE TIME... and man, it's hard on her.

Complicating things somewhat is that her mom, The Project Manager, also feels ALL THE THINGS all the time, so it can be a bit tense when they get to feuding.

I mean, I think it's just a phase that she outgrows, but the Project Manager has to survive this. I guess that's my job: Keep reminding that survival is going to happen.

"None of this is personal"
"This is normal child dev"
"This is a phase"
"Your frustration is fine to feel"

Use of space

There are 2 full-size artistic THREE, correction, there are THREE full-scale artistic endeavours going on in our house right now, which means that there's also dishes, toys, and laundry scattered everywhere.

I guess it's part of how we've chosen to live! I wonder if there's food in our fridge... there's condiments.  Kids like condiments, right?

Heh... sometimes we do this right

Last night we threw a little bbq for the salespeople who come to the Prairie Metropolis Shoe Show.  A small gathering of about 25 people... so I cooked about 25 steaks on the BBQ.

At this point this morning, we have two fridges FULL of food. Like _FULL_ of food.

I have no idea what we're going to do about this LOL.

There was an interesting moment, where I realized that I was done. I just went full strength all day, and then just crashed. Hard. Just went up to bed and lay down and went to sleep.

I pulled it all together, amazingly, but it was a very sudden and interesting crash

Hot summer, hot Dad

Patience... I continue to lack patience... It's a thing I need to work on. I do not badly on putting up with crap, but when I can't, I REALLY can't... it's not great.

Keeping my phone away from my face seems to help.

5:30 am

We have a new cat.  He is a FWOOF

And he likes to be fed about 5:30 am. And he is boisterous and LOUD in his demands to be fed, so I get up and feed him.

And then, if the stars align, I get shit done

Today I did laundry, dishes, and cooked delicious breakfast for the Project Manager and the Peanuts and generally had my crap together.

It felt good.

And good thing, because I accidentally forgot to check the terms on the service that gives you free wood chips for mulch and accidentally got a dump truck of free wood chips dumped onto our driveway and my wifely person was displeased. Then eventually she was amused.

Basically, if you can't handle me at my "Tonne of Wood Chips on the Driveway Surprise!" you don't deserve me at my "Breakfast and Latte in Bed"

My Dad

Is an introvert, who lives in the bush with an extroverted wife, in a very remote part of Faraway Province.  He's in his mid 70s, and he is in very good health, but his hands shake a bit, and he's a bit tired, I think, overall.

I think he's had to work very hard on his social skills his whole life, and he's not getting any better at it as he ages. He has an old nigh-dead dog, which gives him an easy excuse to avoid doing things with people.

He's mentioned this week that on a good day he speaks to only one other person, his wife, and on an even better day he speaks to no one at all.

He likes to read, he likes to write, and he likes to watch British murder mysteries on the TV.

Fine.

At some point, he will have some hard choices to make as his health deteriorates.  It occurs to me as I type this that maybe he's stocking up on solitary time, knowing that he will have to move somewhere more populated if his health gets worse.

Heat Wave...

A summer heat wave in Prairie Metropolis has us on our back feet a little bit with regards to productivity and so on, but things are coming together!

We had a lovely vacation with my Dad and Step mom in Far Away Land, and they are a whole blog post unto themselves ;)

My Dad is a complex dude with some grumpiness issues and .. probably... some kind of anxiety-related autism-style disorder.

a charismatic loner, I think, would be the way to describe him.

Why can't I be creative?

I've been struggling the last month or so with a complete lack of creativity.  Like, nothing. Like, can't come up with plot ideas for LARPs, can't come up with tabletop ideas, can't do imagination play with the kids... nada.

And all I can think is that it's because I'm BALLS EXHAUSTED from work.

My jorb is the busiest it has ever been. I have, literally, more to do on this coming Monday than I had to do the day I got back from TWO WEEKS IN THE DESERT.

Which is also why I'm working away on a Saturday morning in my basement.

Oh yeah!  That's the other piece! I need to improve my home office space to get more work done here.

Oh hey, I'm setting up a basement office in a mildly unfinished basement space.

I"m my Dad!  PEW PEW PEW PEW!

Burn my house down and throw out everything I own.

Welsh police spent days excavating a hoarder’s cottage — then found the owner’s body http://wapo.st/2HWrlxm

Energy flows

Just a quick one today!

My energy is quite unpredictable these days; I feel that's worth some investigation?

My mornings are energetic, until I get to work, then it's a peak of about 90 minutes, then it kinda dies down. Maybe there's a problem with my morning snack / lunch that is interrupting my flow?

Maybe meetings interrupt it?

Worth a thought?

Maybe it's ebbing and flowing like this because I'm brutally behind at work?

That's also more likely as a cause than anything else, too..

So I guess I better get back to work!

Weekend!

What a great weekend!

What did we do Friday?! I can't remember...

The Peanuts had ballet on Saturday, which went great; I'm getting to know the other ballet parents a bit, which is nice, and I pulled off the greatest 'massive grocery buy to restock' ever, in 45 minutes with Peanut #2 during one ballet class. Then we went to one of Prairie Metropolis' indoor public spaces and the Peanuts did art, on their own, for an hour. No fights, no accidents, nothing.

Then we had a lovely rooftop-patio lunch at the pub (still in their ballet clothes LOL) and then off to my singing lesson. And after 15 years of lessons, I feel like I don't suck at this. Like, maybe I can actually sing.

So much patience, so many adjusted expectations

To be easier on the little peanuts, we've worked on being waaaaay more patient.

So we don't meet them on the tantrum train, we don't get freaked out and try and storm our way through the various kinds of normal misbehaviours, without treating them as crises.

So it needs to be not only incredible amounts of patience, but also all the forgiveness and just letting the past, even the 5 minutes ago past, be the past.

We'll get there, and we'll yell a lot less.

Coming along...

...

We're busy, but it's manageable? I think? It's so easy to just be like, everything is fine and keep doing what you're doing, but that's what bit me IN THE ASS in 2007, so I'm trying not to rest on any laurels?

How am I doing?

Attention? Yes? I think?  Mainly by saying Yes to things like "hey, wanna watch TV?"
Affection? Yes, pretty much, although this is probably where I'm weakest right now
Appreciation? Better make sure I'm on the flowers for opening night...which is Friday. RIGHT.

Basement

Darn it! Our contractor came up with an awesome idea to turn all our shelving into a giant rolling storage unit, and I'm all "THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY IDEA"

Because that is just exactly zany enough to have been something I came up with.

Progress!

Peanut #1 has calmed down the tantrums a lot, and that is a tremendous relief for everyone.

We need to get some house stuff done, more, soon, and that's a good reason to have a long weekend!

If I can get another section of wall up in the basement, I suspect the Project Manager will be pleased.

oooh, also, I should brew some beer.

Stabilizing....

So it HAS been a bit up and down since I got back, but things have stabilized a bit.

We've stopped trying to night train Peanut #1, and so, as a result, she slept 11 hours without waking up, which hopefully will result in fewer tantrums. It sure did this morning!

It's funny though, I've been running around all 10 days or so since I got back, trying to make myself more valuable to The Project Manager, basically just trying to Up My Game a bit, and it turns out she's been FREAKING OUT about how well I work and how much I get done and totally stressed by her inability to do the same things as easily.

The trick is I am far less busy than her, so I actually do way LESS work, just more of it at home

The Eagle has... crash-landed. (Editted)

Edit: Things seem better now. Everyone is a little less exhausted today.

So I'm back from two weeks away, leaving the Peanuts with the Project Manager.

And it is a complete shit-show.

My children and the Project Manager fought every day, basically for the whole day.
In fact, it's not really like I left them with the Project Manager at all. I left them with a series of baby sitters who passed the Project Manager from time to time.
Of their four scheduled activities, they made it to one a week, consistently.

The cost of babysitters for this trip I was on was startlingly high.

There were 9 bags of garbage on the back porch of the house. Just piled up. The side sidewalk of the house was blocked with piled garbage. There was no groceries in the house to eat, except what had been brought by friends.

One house-plant had been sprayed with vinegar. So it's dead.

Mail was just left on the floor of the house.

I don't think the Project Manager can hack it alone.

There is just so much to repair and rebuild, both physically and emotionally. I'm not sure this kind of trip is doable again. It's breaking my heart

Fun and Excitement!

I'm solo-ing parenting this week, and it's as fun as always.  I really do need to just flush my phone down a toilet at night though, it is the Thief of Time in a big way.

I have a pretty good app for managing it, but it does need me to turn it on. I wish there was a way to trigger it automatically at a certain time, or at a certain location.

Haulin' garbage

I feel like I'm hauling garbage for a lot of people that I love and cherish, and I feel terrible for them.

I've pushed back against drama in a number of setting, personally, simply by walking away, but I reaaaally can't do that in a couple of these places.

So, I guess, hold on, 'cause this may hurt...

Cryptic Posts

Heh, those were some cryptic posts... but now it's all good.

But let's talk about the Graceful Exit.

Say you've been wronged, and you're hurt, and you're in a position that serves customers (and you are), so you decide to leave

When you decide to leave that position, you have a responsibility to serve those cusotmers one last time, to keep them from being hurt. Because, I think, if you don't, you are likely to be the one who carries the blame, not the people you left, especially if you, um, started the organization you left in the first place.

I'm reminded of a young priest, who after they had left a position, was contacted by a family who had scheduled them for an interment.  And when they phoned FROM THE GRAVESIDE to say "where are you?" said, " I don't work there anymore, you'll have to call the church" instead of "HOLY CRAP LET ME HELP YOU IF I CAN"

I wonder....

... if this is how parachutists feel in freefall? 

"This is terrifying, but I'm going to pull the chute at a pre-determined time, and then I won't have to worry any more!"

Also, I do not have the time to carry everyone.  My favourite part is that, except for the dishwasher loading, I never have to carry the Project Manager.

Fuck this.

Fuck this.

Staring into the Abyss

... My hobby.

My main big hobby.

IS FILLED WITH TERRIBLE PEOPLE. AND CRAZY PEOPLE. AND TERRAZY PEOPLE.

Can't... can't we just put on costumes and run around?  Maybe without being so goddamned dramatic all the time?

Edit: Jesus, it's like dancing on stepping stones over a den of snakes, knowing that EVERYTHING you say will be taken, amplified, twisted, and shared in exactly the right way to make you look terrible.... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Self-check progress

So far so good!

I do need to get more time.... still need to push this through somehow...

I mean, I get a little bit of time, here and there, but maybe I need to give up more?

My activities are LARPing, RPGs, and singing... but there's also going to be more singing coming up soon.  Frick.

Ok, off to try and find a studio or something to use.

January!

Well here we are, it's a whole new year!

What do I think will happen this year?

1) More kids activities, fewer adult activities
2) More house renos, but getting more stuff done
3) One major health scare from my parents or my brother...

We shall see....