Once again my work has absorbed any possibility of keeping up with the blog. So now, just shy of 2 months behind schedule, I will pick up with Week 58, the last full week of September and also my birthday...
It's fascinating to me that my birthday gift was once again on a Sunday. It is amazing that at my age I have only had just a few birthdays on a Sunday. Nothing special about a Sunday, although it's nice to have your birthday on a weekend, but just in general like counting the sunsets you will see during your lifetime, the number of times you will have your birthday on a specific day of the week paints in start contrast to the busy world the inevitability of that hourglass of life sifting sand. So when people ask me how it feels to be a year older, I usually just shrug and say it's not any different. But inside, I am wondering if what I did with the past year was worthy of my lease on life.
My loving family blessed me with great gifts, including a baby bike wagon for Hannah and our outings together next year will be a treasure to me. I also got an automatic reciprocating saw, a road bike, some beer and a handmade picture from Hannah courtesy of my wife's creativity. But the greatest gift was the ending of my long-drawn trial for my doctoral research. We started the project back in April and pretty much everything that could go wrong over the summer did, even as far fetched as arcing wires, power outages and random precipitant indoors. But the project finally ended this week and I feel so relieved to be done. Another few projects loom in the near future but I just want to sleep in next week, skip work and clean up around the house. I want to be able to take Hannah to daycare more often and hold her longer at night. I want to stay up with my wife and do nothing work-related after 5 o'clock until I forget the stress of this. I just want time with my family for a while. Our little girl is growing up so fast!
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| Hannah looks so thrilled, but I know someday she will really like this. |
This weekend we also finally fixed the hole melted in the backside of the house's siding. My brother-in-law figured out how to get up underneath the lip of the siding above the damaged area. This decreased how much siding we had to rip off the house by 2/3 and turned the afternoon job into a 1-person 2 hour task over beer and coffee. Sure, more people were involved in the work, and sure, we still had to pay for the siding, but it felt like a bit of victory to have it done, done well and done quickly.
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| Before we made the repair. |
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| After the repair was finished. |
The rest of the weekend consisted of trash burning and sitting inside watching my little girl sleep while I cleaned up odds and ends around the house. She will be baptized in just 2 weeks and we have to put the house together to prepare for the party we are throwing here afterwards. On Saturday morning, my father-in-law asked if I wanted to go to the Wisconsin game with him and I agreed without debate. It turned out to be a close game, thanks to Miller's TO streak and the inability of the Buckeye secondary to stop the slant route. But we came away with a win and I had a great time at the game.
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| This fire was too hot to stand any closer, but Betsy didn't care. |
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| This will always be the best band in the land. |
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| Just one example of the great moving formations done by The Ohio State Marching Band. |
Finally, for those of you who don't know, I've been dieting since April, trying to lose weight and increase my bike speed and off-road agility. While both of these have improved with workouts, my dieting has only led to calorie-counting misery when eating great food and too much time on my iPhone Apps tracking my intake and weight instead of sitting and enjoying time with my wife and daughter. Caution goes to the wind anyhow when I'm out celebrating like I was this week. So as of this week I am done watching my caloric intake. Besides, there is definitely more to losing weight than calories since I already knew I wasn't really eating too much beyond the range of my needs. But if you ever need a recommendation for a weight-tracker app, I highly suggest "LoseIt". It is simple and efficient, and the inaccuracies are equivalent to any other weight loss model anyway. For me, I will always have one trick up my sleeve to losing weight, but I'm not ready to give up my addiction to Dr. Pepper quite yet.
My loving family blessed me with great gifts, including a baby bike wagon for Hannah and our outings together next year will be a treasure to me. I also got an automatic reciprocating saw, a road bike, some beer and a handmade picture from Hannah courtesy of my wife's creativity. But the greatest gift was the ending of my long-drawn trial for my doctoral research. We started the project back in April and pretty much everything that could go wrong over the summer did, even as far fetched as arcing wires, power outages and random precipitant indoors. But the project finally ended this week and I feel so relieved to be done. Another few projects loom in the near future but I just want to sleep in next week, skip work and clean up around the house. I want to be able to take Hannah to daycare more often and hold her longer at night. I want to stay up with my wife and do nothing work-related after 5 o'clock until I forget the stress of this. I just want time with my family for a while. Our little girl is growing up so fast!
The rest of the weekend consisted of trash burning and sitting inside watching my little girl sleep while I cleaned up odds and ends around the house. She will be baptized in just 2 weeks and we have to put the house together to prepare for the party we are throwing here afterwards. On Saturday morning, my father-in-law asked if I wanted to go to the Wisconsin game with him and I agreed without debate. It turned out to be a close game, thanks to Miller's TO streak and the inability of the Buckeye secondary to stop the slant route. But we came away with a win and I had a great time at the game.
Finally, for those of you who don't know, I've been dieting since April, trying to lose weight and increase my bike speed and off-road agility. While both of these have improved with workouts, my dieting has only led to calorie-counting misery when eating great food and too much time on my iPhone Apps tracking my intake and weight instead of sitting and enjoying time with my wife and daughter. Caution goes to the wind anyhow when I'm out celebrating like I was this week. So as of this week I am done watching my caloric intake. Besides, there is definitely more to losing weight than calories since I already knew I wasn't really eating too much beyond the range of my needs. But if you ever need a recommendation for a weight-tracker app, I highly suggest "LoseIt". It is simple and efficient, and the inaccuracies are equivalent to any other weight loss model anyway. For me, I will always have one trick up my sleeve to losing weight, but I'm not ready to give up my addiction to Dr. Pepper quite yet.