The End of Summer

Yesterday was Ryan's first day of third grade, and thus officially ends a wonderful summer. What an incredible few months it has been for our family--my kids are unbelievably brown from days of swimming and visiting the beach for the first time. I got to see Ryan turn green with seasickness when we went fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. He constructed a monstrosity of a sand castle, which took hours--in general, we had a wonderful summer.

I'm a little overwhelmed by the prospect of filling the blank screen with meaningful, witty insights after not blogging for months. My company has declared that we can only use our laptops for work purposes, which means that I have to write my blog on Fran's computer which has some kind of weird keyboard--I can't put my finger on it (I guess I do put my fingers on the keyboard itself, but you know what I mean...) but there's something weird about it--like keys in the wrong place or they don't have enough spring to them or something (I like to hear crackling and popping as I type away). I'm pretty careful not to go into too much talk about things that happen at work since that seems to be a hypersensitive issue--sure, you can say whatever you want at the sales meeting, but for God's sake, don't write it out for everyone to see!

The "Year of Fran" continues--she has signed up with the chorus again and will be performing in Europe next year for nearly a month in several countries. In the meantime, she has been exercising and getting very healthy. Since Ryan was born, she has lost over 100 pounds and is now running several days a week. She is signed up to run a 10k in September and a half marathon in November. I can't wait to be there to take pictures of her crossing the finish line. There certainly was a time when I literally couldn't envision her achieving something like that--I guess it goes to show what determination can do--she has really taken control of her health, and I'm really just in awe of that. As for me, until they come up with an eating program which incorporates a fair amount of chocolate, I'm pretty doomed. Last night I fed the kids, bathed them, and put them to bed while Fran was at chorus rehearsal--she left me a note telling me how much she appreciated all the things I do so that she can pursue the things she wants to do--Yes, I needed to get a note like that.

I got a chance to travel to visit my grandparents in Idaho--way back in July. It was almost unfair--I got to leave all responsibility behind and just go be a guest in somebody's house. I could literally feel my brow unfurrow as the worries went away--it was a very refreshing break from everything. Not sure if everyone knows the story, but I grew up not knowing that this set of grandparents existed. My mom and dad split up before I was born, and my mom remarried and the dad I grew up with was the only dad I ever knew (I didn't learn about the whole situation until I was pretty old (12?), and then we never talked about it again). A few years ago, I found them through online searching, which was a real identity crisis for me (and the brothers and sister I grew up with, I imagine). So there are lots of stories there, but essentially I was able to add a whole group of people to my family, and I seem to fit in with them very naturally, which, trust me, is a weird feeling. I tried to write an analogy, but it seemed so absurd and incomparable that I just gave up. Just trust me, it was weird.

Maybe things will be changing for me over the next few months--hard to say. I'll be traveling some--going to New York, where Fran and I will celebrate our 16th anniversary in October. We'll stay with Mike D. and his wife in their new home on Long Island. I'll try hard to pick my writing back up again. I guess I'm not sure who's reading these days, although I have had a lot of nice comments and Emails during my absence from blogging--I suppose it's nice when people check you for a pulse...

So I'll get the coffee pot ready again for my early morning blogging sessions. I'll be back soon!

Scenes from a Busy Summer

Hi Everyone--I'm sorry I've been out. A little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Then, you get out of the habit of blogging. Now, I have this backlog of ideas and inspirations that will take me the rest of the year to work through. Another little side effect of being out is that my work has piled up. Two more excuses then I'll be done: My lovely wife kindly bought me a gym membership for my birthday, so I've been trying to exercise more (more than zero). Lastly, I've built up my own expectations so much for my next blog entry that I can't possibly do anything of quality. So, I thought I would show some pictures of where I've been and what I've been doing for the past month and a half...I hope you enjoy them! Deep thoughts and insightful observations to follow shortly...