Deadline Met, Moving On...

Yes, I know its been over a week since I've been on here writing a post despite the fact that I said I was going to try and get on at least twice a week or so, but hey, life happens.  The last week or so has been a whirlwind, not in a dismal or depressing sort of way, just busy and crazy with Christmas and the whole family being home.  I have actually taken a few days off of work over the last week, something which I rarely do, but since my wife and son are home, I figured it would be the perfect time.  In the past week, which almost seems like two with the amount of activity that has transpired, a lot has happened, and almost all of it is good.  In fact, I don't think anything even remotely bad happened.  So going back to last weekend which was crunch time for me to get our son's room finished and ready for him to move in to, I must say that a lot got done on his room in the matter of 3 days.  As of last Saturday, I still had a lot to do in our son's room.  The taping of the sheet rock was essentially done, but some trim still needed to be put up and all the trim needed to be wood puttied and caulked.  So from early Saturday till Monday afternoon, I managed to do the following; finish putting up trim, wood putty all the trim, sand all the sheet rock and trim, prime all the sheet rock and trim, caulk all the trim, and finally finish coat the walls ceiling and trim.  On top of that, I cleaned everything up and got our son's new twin bed into his new room so that we could drastically change his life by not only switching rooms on him but also switching him from a crib to a regular bed.  I must say, the color that we picked for his room, a nice bright yellow, is actually a really nice color.  And the room happens to be my favorite room in the house now.  But getting back to our son and his new room.  Tuesday was the first night he slept in his new bed and remarkably, he had no issues, slept through the night, and didn't fall out of bed.  After being used to seeing him sleeping in his crib, he looks incredibly small in his new bed, especially since he curls up into a little ball to sleep and is surrounded by stuffed animals.  In fact, sometimes when I go in at night now to check on him and make sure he is covered, I can't always find him.  All is good though.  I think what helped with moving our son into his new room was that I let him help me with certain tasks during the construction of his new room and from the get go, we told him that the room we were working on was going to be his new room.  As such, he was excited about the new room long before we actually moved him in there.  So the room is done, he is moved in, and the next project can commence....soon.

 

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  Our son is now of the age where he can understand more and actually enjoy the Christmas season.  We introduced Santa Claus to him, albeit on a minor scale, and even put out the cookies and milk for Santa, which of course he looked for on his way down the stairs Christmas morning.  When we got to opening presents, of which there were about a handful for each of us, my wife, son, and I; he decided that he needed to play with everything he opened before moving on to the next present.  He didn't get any toys as he already as enough of them, but he did get plenty of puzzles, an ornament for the tree, and a little toy car.  That was the extent of his presents.  He absolutely loved his puzzles and continues to work on mastering them every day, over and over and over again.  The hardest puzzles he got were a set of four, twelve pieces each, with no big picture or pattern to put the puzzle on.  At first, he struggled a little with the puzzles, but as we helped him and with each time he repeated the puzzle, he got better and better to the point now where he can do every one of them without help.  He is either memorizing where the pieces go or recognizing the patterns.  However he is doing it, it is amazing to watch him put them together, to watch the dexterity in his fingers, and to just be with him as he works out the puzzles.  He is now more interested in his puzzles more than almost anything else, except his blocks that he loves to build towers with.   It is amazing what happens when a child turns two year old.  Ever since his second birthday, it seems that everything is "clicking" a little, rapidly growing brain of his.  He is curious about everything and loves to get involved in anything we are doing.  On top being curious and understanding the world more and more, his mastery of the English language is growing by leaps and bounds.  He is moving closer and closer to full sentences and while there are still a good number of words that you almost need an interpreter to understand, he is getting clearer and more precise with his speaking every day.  To watch him grow from a little lump of breathing flesh to the age he is now is amazing.  And as I talk to others who have children and I tell them that this is currently my favorite age, they laugh and say that I will be saying that every year for a while as they did the same thing. 

Last, we went on our first family trip down to a museum in New Haven this past Saturday.  We figured our son is now at the age when we can start exposing more of the world to him and what it has to offer.  Our plan was to head to the Yale Art Museum, but as that didn't open till 11 and we were there at 10, we headed across the street to the Yale British Art Gallery instead.  Only one of the floors was open due to renovation on the other two floors, but that proved to be more than enough for our son handle at a time right now.  The gallery proved to be perfect for our son as they had a lot of animals in the paintings which he could recognize and also sailboats.  Whenever we stepped in front of a new picture I would just our son's eyes roam across the canvas, darting here there and everywhere, taking it all in.  Whenever we would ask him what a specific animal was, he would whisper the answer back to us.  We didn't even tell him he had to whisper, after all its just a museum, but he figured since it was quiet, he should probably whisper.  It was adorable.  We were there for a half hour to forty five minutes before our son began to lose interest.  Not wanting to push him too hard on his first museum visit, we left and decided to walk around the Yale campus.  That was the second highlight of my day after the museum visit.  Once we got off the main streets and into some of the wide open courtyards, we set him down and he was off and running, to no where in particular, just running through the courtyards of Yale.  He was like a little machine, he just kept going and going and going and it was a lot of fun to just be out, getting fresh air, and watching our son run.  To sum all of this up, despite leading a crazy life, I love being a father and wouldn't trade it for anything. 

The First Snow and Other Things

Last week we received our first good snowfall of the season.  It came right around the time I saw a post from another blogger about his love for snow.  Well, winter is one of my favorite seasons, not only because there is a distinct lack of heat and humidity, but also because of the glorious effect of snow blanketing the world around me.   Our first snow storm, while only a few inches, will probably end of being one of our most beautiful.  The snow came a day after we received some sleet and freezing rain that coated the world in a thin veil of ice.  As it turned out, the temperature was just warm enough to give the snow a nice heavy texture, yet cold enough for it to actually stay as snow.  That magical temperature range, right around 32 degrees, is when the snow sticks to everything in sight, every branch, every straggling leaf still holding on to a tree, every bush, every... you get the point.  There is something quite other worldly about driving down a road a day after a snow storm like that and seeing the sun glisten off of the snow covered branches hanging langurously over the road.  Perhaps it just beckons the sentiment of a "New England winter" to rise within me, one in which mounds of snow perpetually cover the ground and perpetuate the notion that everything is pristine and perfect.  Or it could just be that I love the contrast of brilliant white snow glistening in the sun against the dark branches of the trees.  Regardless of the reason, I love snow, I love winter, and I love the cold. 

 

Also last week, as the temperature dropped significantly after our first snow fall, I started an exterior job.  Not painting obviously as that would just be stupid, but rather, putting up cedar shingles on the side of a house.  It is a small job, one that will only take me about a week, but a job in which I need multiple layers in order stay warm in temperatures that on at least one day last week barely rose about 25 degrees.  Unless the temperature was steady at about 50-60 degrees, I will take the cold any day.  The freezing temperatures, tingling fingers, and the shiver that sporadically traveled up and down my body are preferred any day over the sweat that pores out of every single one of my pores on a hot and humid day.  At least when its cold, you can add or subtract layers of clothing as the temperature rises or falls.  When its hot, you can only take off so many clothes before people start to yell at you to put your clothes back on.  (Not that I have ever had that problem, just saying).  So while some people complain about the cold and are wishing for summer to return already, I am embracing winter and its cold and will cherish them as long as they last.  Even our son doesn't seem to mind the cold that much.  We had more snow this past Saturday and he loved nothing more than being outside with me, shoveling the snow, throwing it to our dogs, and getting our noses and cheeks rosy red from the cold.  He never wanted to go inside and it took everything I had to convince him we should go have a snack, or something, anything to come in from the cold so he didn't get frostbite or a worse cold than he already has.  Yes, he does have a cold and yes, we did let him go and play outside in the snow.  After all, its winter, he mostly just has a runny nose, and snow is meant to be played in, not just viewed from the inside through a window. 

 

Lastly, this past Friday was named "pay it forward friday" in honor of the Sandy hook tragedy that occurred a year ago.  The radio station that I listen to, while normally a more comedic show, was taking calls from people about the nice things that were done to them or the nice things they did for others.  It got me to thinking about how often times I don't go out of my way to be nice to others.  I am rarely rude (except while driving), I just don't always go the extra mile when I am able to.  Perhaps it is the perpetual selfishness that resides just below the surface in me.  I don't know, but for me at least, I have to make a conscious effort to go beyond what I normally do and make an effort to, in a sense, "pay it forward".  What does pay it forward really mean?  To me, it means committing random acts of kindness for complete strangers, those people you run into at a grocery store, or in a parking lot, or standing in line at a Dunkin Donuts.  It means having an effect on people to the point where they feel like comitting a random act of kindness for a complete stranger that they run into.  The idea is that if you start paying it forward on a regular basis, others will start doing the same and it will have a snowball (ha, pun partially intended) effect and turn the world around you into a better place to live.  While its nice in theory, does it actually work?  According to the movie with Kevin Spacey from the 90's, it does.  In any case, last Friday, in the midst of thinking about paying it forward and how I should do it more, I came upon an easy way for me to start paying it forward.  So what I did was when I was in the drive through line at Dunkin Donuts, after I placed my order and I was asked if there was anything else, I said, "Actually, yes, can I pay for the person in front of and behind me?"  They had to double check to make sure they heard me correctly, but they said, yes, I could.  The person in front me didn't know what to do, but he waved and said thank you.  I didn't do it for any other reason than I wanted to do something nice.  I figured that what nicer thing to do that was easy, than to surprise people with a free coffee as they pull up to the drive through.  So, I want to know, have you ever paid it forward and if you have, what's your story?

Tis the Season

Its the Christmas season and for the first time in a number of years, the spirit of Christmas has infected me earlier than usual.  During a previous year, life would cruise along until that first Christmas carol came playing over the radio and the hair son my arm would bristle and I would think to myself, "Christmas carols already?  Bah humbug!"  So maybe the sentiments never veered quite as far as a scrooge, but the incessant over commercialization of the Christmas holiday, once reserved for the time after Thanksgiving (years and years ago), has now infiltrated stores as early as September.  My heckles are still raised whenever I see that first decorated Christmas tree in a store, its small lights begging you to come and stare in awe.  Like we haven't seen a Christmas tree before.  Yet, this year, come Thanksgiving time, I was ready for Christmas.  Perhaps the only thing that has changed is that my son is getting older, now a little over 2, and I was curious to see his excitement at the whole change in seasons.  While I know some people who decorate their houses depending on the season at hand, there are a good number of people, ourselves included, who only truly decorate their house for one season, Christmas.  The remainder of the year will hold only the normal decorations around the house, nothing out of the ordinary, no mass of pumpkins adorning every shelf and orifice for Halloween, no plethora of turkeys or cornucopias with autumnal leaves for Thanksgiving.  No, our house remains relatively unadorned except for the normal pictures with their thin layer of dust on the upper edge, my wife's pottery and sculptural work, and our house plants.  Even when we decorate for Christmas, we only have a few boxes of decorations that we bring out.  But I digress as I began talking about my Christmas spirit this year and have become minorly side tracked.  We got our Christmas tree this past weekend and with our son able to walk around with only minor help on stairs sometimes, it was a lot of fun.  We searched and searched for the perfect Christmas tree at a small family run place in Newtown.  It is not an enormous place, but it is cute and not crowded which is the nice part.  The trees aren't perfect, but they are unique.  We ended up picking a tree that was about 14 feet tall of which the top was perfect and the bottom was almost completely void of branches.  It was the perfect tree and we figured rather than take a smaller one, we would help out and cut down a bigger one to make room for the smaller ones to grow.  Our son absolutely loved the experience and loved it even more when we got the tree home and put it up.  The real excitement came the next day however.  After our son went to bed, we brought out the Christmas lights and hung them on the tree with our ancient star at the top.  The next morning when we brought our son down and turned on the Christmas tree, his face went from tired and groggy from just waking up to plastered with a huge smile that could barely express his wonder and excitement.  He proceeded to just stare at the Christmas tree for a while, exploring the lights and the shadows they cast between the branches, the star at the top which somehow has not needed a light replaced in over a dozen years, and on top of that, he just kept on pointing and saying "Christmas tree".  Yes, my Christmas spirit is here and its not about the presents I will give or receive, its about being with family and seeing our son's excitement.  For today, I leave you with that, for whatever it is, it is, and that made no sense so now I stop writing.

Taking a Back Seat

No, I haven't disappeared off the face of the planet due to some government conspiracy that swept me discreetly into some locked cell in a bunker deep in the sand hills of Nebraska.   As much as that would make for more interesting news and a story that could only be told through a censored document, I haven't gone anywhere or been taken by anybody.   Rather, life has veered towards becoming vastly more crazy.   In the craziness, I have decided that for Christmas, I would like nothing more than the gift of more time.  If we could somehow figure out how to make days 26 hours long instead of 24, I could at least get some more sleep.  Its not like I would try to fit more work into a day (although I probably would), the best thing would be for me to take those extra two hours and just sleep a little more.  However, we have not yet figured out how to disrupt the time/space continuum in such a way as to allow us to get a few more hours of sleep each day.  As such, I have not had the wherewithal to actually get my fingers to typing and forming coherent sentences in the early morning hours.  Rather, my mornings have been occupied by reading the news and talking to my wife.  Reading the news has not made me a better person by any means.  It has made me more informed, and as the alternative to writing, it has been easier on my brain.  Over the past few weeks, while I normally pride myself on waking up with my alarm, I have actually turned it off and kept on sleeping a few times.  Perhaps I need to slow down some, but then again, I figure that since I am young, I can push myself a little harder and still recover.  I know, I know, those days will come to an end eventually, but for now, I will take advantage of my relative youth and push on with long days and short nights of sleep.  So why has my life taken a turn towards the crazy and insane.  Well, there are a couple of reasons as to why.  The first being that I now have only two weeks left to finish the room for our son before we have to move him in.  I have my deadline of Christmas to finish the room so that he can be in there for at least a month before the new baby comes into the world.  Needless to say, there is still a bit of work to get done before he can move in.  The floor is down, the walls are sheet rocked and almost fully taped, most of the trim is up, and yet, there is still work to do. 

 

So that is only the first reason my life has turned towards the crazy and insane.  On top of trying to finish his room before Christmas, I have been getting a slew of calls for new bids on work, and I have been having trouble just trying to keep up with those.  Then there is trying to find the balance between satisfying customers by getting the work done, spending enough time with family, and also finishing our son's room.  I have been doing OK at find the balance between family and work on both his room and regular work, however the balance between regular work and his room has been harder to find.  While I know that it is necessary to get our son's room done soon, I am also torn by the fact that I still need to make money to pay the bills.  A conundrum yes, but one that will eventually sort itself out.  Regardless of the balance in my life, which teeters every day, I will be making an effort to taking my writing off the back seat and push it back to the front of my early morning daily routine.  Even if it is just a paragraph, short and sweet, I will do my best to write every morning.  There is much I have to share, especially about our son and his changes, but also, I just need to start writing again so that I don't forget how.  I know I am making it sound like I have taken months or even years off from writing when it has only been a couple of weeks, but since I have started this blog, I haven't taken that much time off from it yet.  I figure if I don't get back to it, I probably never will and then I will have to kick myself in the ass for not keeping up with it.  But anyway, that is quite enough for today as I need to kick the rest of the my crazy Monday into high gear and get my family ready.  Cheers and hopefully I'll be back here tomorrow.