The ants go marching...

...two by two!

Okay, this has nothing to do with my former adventures in pest control (summary of said adventures).  This actually deals more with personal desires.  They always say that you should set a time to do such and such and then stick to it!  Usually this involves exercise or daily devotions and usually they tell you to do that at 5 am or something similarly ridiculous. 

I have discovered that the morning was not made for me, but maybe its for all those type A go-getters out there in the world. I'm not type A.  I don't think I can even transform into a type A person if I wanted to.  I don't have that desire, so life is good.  That actually makes me think of this:


Yeah, that dude isn't going to make it!

I've tried doing the early morning thing, but my bed has this gravitational pull that is so strong that even if I do leave its comfort, my brain stays with it in spirit.  Ask my wife how responsive I am in the wee hours.  She asked me the other day what time I came back to bed after comforting our older daughter who decided to wake up crying, very early in the morning.  I don't recall even leaving our bedroom. 

So usually I scoff at this advice, but today I've decided to try it.  It won't be an early morning thing, because I want to write everyday and if I tried to demand that I write something first thing in the morning, my writing would be more incomprehensible than my two year-old's drawings. 

My goal is two sentences written or wrote, damn I hate verbs, by two in the afternoon.  2 x 2.   You might be thinking, Whoa, Bill, don't over do it!  And I might smirk at your smart-ass nature, and then explain to you that most days when I get over the blankness of the page and actually start writing, it just starts flowing and before I know it, a page is filled.  Much like this blog post that seems to be running on and on.  I started writing today at 1:48pm and haven't stopped and that was twenty minutes ago.  Its about momentum and I like it. 

So if you see me and its three o'clock in the afternoon, feel free to ask if I got my two in for the day!

Grumpiest old man...

...you must die!

We've all heard misery loves company.  But company definitely doesn't love misery.  Some days I feel like I'm company and a certain coworker is misery.  The only problem with the whole thing is that I often get dragged down to misery's level and become miserable myself.  I hate it.  Often I start talking to someone and by the time I'm done I wonder if I sounded like a whiny little girl or a grumpy old man. 

I'm pretty sure that I usually sound like an awful chimera of both. 

How does this happen? I drive into work, usually after spending about ten minutes hanging with my wife and daughter in silence as my brain warms up to the fact that it is awake. Then while it finishes its boot up cycle I'm half way to work and the last ten minutes I either focus on the good parts of life or get angry at people who drive 30mph (in the left lane, no less) when the speed limit is 65mph, but that anger fades quickly.  And I get to work with a pretty good attitude regardless.

Then I sit at my desk and eat some yogurt as I plan for my day and check the ol' email.  Then into the lab I head.  Ten minutes later I'm ready to throttle the old guy who doesn't have anything nice to say about anything or anyone.  He seems angry and bitter about everything.  His pay, all politicians, coworkers, construction workers, greeters at walmart, ants marching across his desk, and that guy that use to work with him 20 years ago!  Blegh. 

His attitude is corrosive.  I just stick in my head phones and find something semi-positive to listen to, yet he comes in and waits for me to stop to take my earbuds out to listen to his latest complaint.  Aaarrrgghhhh!!!! 

I had to text my wife today for prayer so that I didn't stab him with my lefthanded scissors that he keeps buying me (I write left-handed, but after a lifetime of dealing with right-handed scissors, I'm a righty in my cutting habits).  I had another coworker that told me he would help me dispose of the body. 

I find myself thinking up devious ways to get back at him.

Then while trying to divert my thoughts from revenge today, I was reminded of a movie.  Grumpy old men (go watch it if you haven't already).  And I realized that is my life.  We aren't competing for the love of a woman. I'm competing for my sanity.  I think up ways to make him suffer (I haven't thrown dead fish into his car yet) and luckily he hasn't retaliated, or realized that I do anything to make his worker life harder, otherwise things would escalate like they do in the movie. 

I actually haven't done a lot, I did pour a few granules of sugar on his desk to draw the ants away from mine, but at the time I was mad because he placed a full open bag on my desk, which really drew them towards my desk.  That doesn't really justify anything, I'm just saying I'm turning into a grumpier old man and soon I'll be worse than him.  I don't want that. 

I want joy and peace in my life.  To do that I need to kill the grumpy old man in me.   Its hard.  It'll take a lot of work.  I'm going to have to humble myself.  I might have to crank up the tunes in my earbuds or go deaf to block out some of the whining (doesn't Jesus say something about shoving pencils through your eardrums because its better to lose one, or two, parts of your body than to have it all thrown into hell?  not a literal translation, but I do think it might work in this situation).  Or I could just take Monday, Wednesday and Fridays off and never have to deal with him.

 The last two might be unrealistic, so I guess I'll have to do some internal work on me. 

Feel free to pray...

Grogginess is catching...

...run fast!

Yeah, I am feeling completely uninspired to do anything.  I've yet to X off a single day since I set the goal last week and I think each day I don't do it adds another day's burden to my shoulders which inspires me to do it less and less out of condemnation and guilt.

It's a horrible downward spiral.  The question does need to be asked as to why I succeeded for so long last year when this year I seem to be having a hard time making it out of the starting gate. Could it be working two jobs while trying to have a relationship with my wife and daughter is too much for my brain to handle and laziness sets in too easy when I'm not having to do any of those things?  Or maybe the lack of confidence I have in my writing scares me toward inaction.

Maybe just having a 15 month old climbing all over me while I'm trying to write is more detrimental to my success than I might have originally guessed...tomorrow is a new day.

Knowledge and Identity...

...lessons from my daughter.

We have been working with Charleigh on signing so that its easier for her to communicate with us.  It hasn't been very successful, but I still try to use some of the signs that we know or made up while talking to her.  I made up one where I point to myself, draw a heart on my chest and then point to her while telling her that I love her.

At first when I started doing this I would get a big grin out of her.  Now when I do it she will sometimes still get that same grin and then point to herself.  Her mom keeps trying to teach her to say it back, but I honestly wouldn't care if she did, I just want her to know that I love her, that she can find comfort and rest in that.  When I see her point to herself I think to myself that she knows she is an object of her father's affection.

I want her to grow up confident in the fact that she has two parents who love her no matter what and that there is a God in heaven that loves her even more than either of us could ever imagine.

I have been told that having children gives you a new perspective on God.  And I have to admit that it does.  I just wish that it was easier to form that identity in my heart and mind that I'm an object of affection to God (like  my daughter seems to have when it comes to her parents).  There's no bigger testament to his love than the Jesus death, burial, and resurrection.  Yet when He says He loves me, I don't grin and point to myself, secure in that knowledge.  Sometimes I struggle in accepting that love and grace.  Sometimes I doubt his delight in me.  I'm kinda jealous of my daughter in all honesty.

I have a lot to learn, and I'm glad He has blessed us with our daughter to reveal more of Himself to us...to me!

Six months...

Its amazing to think that its been six months.  Some days it feels like its been only a couple and other days I can't remember what life was like before Charleigh.  Well I might strike that, I can't remember what life was like before Charleigh except for date nights.  I really miss the nights DaNae and I could go out and not worry about getting to the sitter's at a decent hour.  I think that is the thing I miss the most of our pre-Charleigh era.  I think moving right before she was born has been the biggest help to shedding our single life together.  New friends (even though I definitely miss the old ones), new town (I also miss a lot of things about Laramie, like Peach Ice Tea from CoalCreek, but I don't miss the weather at all!), gone are the old memories, those things to remind us of what life was like.  Its been good!

But its been six months and Charleigh is a crawling, smiling fool!  She seriously looks like a frog when she crawls.  I keep trying to capture the moment on camera to share with the world, but by the time I track down the machine, she has moved on to something with which she can deposit her drool on.

We had our six month appointment today and she got a tube full of something in her mouth and three shots in her legs.  And for the first time at the doctor's she actually cried.  I think it was a mixture of hunger and a non-subtle nurse with the needles.  The other nurse was more highly skilled.  But she survived and was smiling by the time the nurse left the room.

I can't remember her stats other than she was 16.4 pounds and 27.5 inches long.  She's healthy and happy 95% of the time.  We've been blessed.

So after six months, neither of us our sleep deprived like everyone said we would be and Charleigh's poop is really starting to stink!  That's our life in a nutshell right now.  Hopefully the rain doesn't wash out my new grass, or the old!  Good night....