Memorial Day and more pictures

All the stress over the last few weeks has got me over eating and not exercising as much as I should. I'm back up to 207 on the scale. Not too worried about it, but it's not exactly the direction I want to be going. I went for a tough run tonight, outside where it was easily 85+ degrees out. Okay, maybe it wasn't that hot, but damn did it feel hot. Was a good run though, and tomorrow I'm going for my second biking outing of the summer.

Memorial Day was lots of fun, we headed over to Chanhassen for a BBQ lunch. Our original plans called for some outdoor time, including some bean bag horse shoes. The heat changed our plans to include some nice cool indoor trivial Pursuit. In the ever popular Guys vs. Girls, the girls kicked our butts. We conceded when it was five pies to two.

The funniest part of the day however, was Megan's first real interaction with a dog: Murray. She was VERY curious about the dog, and got very excited when he would come close enough for her to touch. When he barked, she would JUMP as if scared, but with a big smile on her face. It was all very cute... check out these shots.


Introducing: Bat Dog.


Megan gets doggy kisses.


EXTREME CLOSE UP!! WOOOOHHHHHH!! (Wayne's World)


Family poses for a Memorial Day picture.

Sunday pictures

Since no one really wants to read my long droning on posts, here are some pictures for today. Nothing going on today, it's a VERY lazy Sunday. Tomorrow we head to a friends place for a Memorial day BBQ.


Megan went to her first swimming lessons on Friday!


Isn't she cute sleeping and holding on to her little ducky?


Just playing around.


Yes, we like to mess with Megan.


Megan looking at herself in the mirror.

Change is Good... right?

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a week. Truth is, it's been one hell of a week. I suppose I'll just go through the sequence of events as best as I can. Remember how I took last Friday off? Well, it wasn't for vacation. It was so I could do a phone interview at 10am, and an in-person interview at 1:30 that afternoon. Yes, I've been looking for a new job for the last 3 weeks. I guess to be honest, I haven't been looking for a new job, new jobs have been looking for me.

Monday rolls around and I finally get that call I've been waiting for: Target wants to interview me. I had been building up to the Target interview for awhile now, sort of getting my hopes up. Sure, I knew I'd have to wear a tie, but I could handle that right? I mean come on, 10% discount! Problem is, they want to interview me on Tuesday. I already took Friday off, how do I come up with an excuse for Tuesday? Well, I ended up making up some bogus family emergency story. First, and thankfully, only lie I had to make all week.

The Target interview was horrible. I have no clue why I thought I'd be able to put up with that level of corporate bullshit. I mean, to some degree EVERY job will have corporate bullshit, but from the moment I walked into Target, and as I talked to each interviewer, it just got worse and worse. From the 200 "touchy-feely" questionnaire I took, to the stupid pre-HR-approved interview questions. And for some reason, I bought a brand new $500 dollar suit just for the interview. I left the building at an all time low for the week. No way could I ever work at Target.

10 minutes into my drive home, and my cell phone rings. It's the company I interviewed with on Friday afternoon. And they want to offer me a job! Talk about messed up timing. Well, as you can probably imagine, I'm taking that job. It sounds manageable, and somewhat fun. Only time will tell?

Thursday I met with my supervisor to give her the bad news. It was tough, and in the end I don't think I handled it the way I should have. In short, I gave my supervisor an opening to try and talk me out of it. I should never have let that happen, and it was my fault for even letting that conversation take place. But in the end, it didn't matter. I stuck to my plan, and handed in my official 2 week resignation.

So once again, I venture into the unknown. Losing established routine, relationships I genuinely enjoyed, and 2 years in a company. It's kind of funny, but Wed this week was exactly my 2 year mark. I'm 90% sure I'm making the right decision. But that doesn't really make it any easier. One of my co-workers will be gone all next week getting married. When she comes back, it will be to find out I'll be gone by the end of the week. I'm really not looking forward to that.

So in the spirit of change, I've picked out a new template for my blog. Hopefully this one is a little easier to read and well... I'll probably add some more of my own personal touches once I have time.

Mentally Exhausted

This week sure was long for a 4 day week. Although I took the day off today, I was hard at work. Working on those aspects of my life that I want to improve. Needless to say, it's wearing me out mentally. Because of my inability to stop thinking/worrying/analyzing every little thing in my life, I just get worn down. A bad side effect of this is I tend to "shell-up" and shut the rest of the world out (aka, Andrea). I don't mean to do it on purpose, it's just how I deal with the stress. Well, that and exercising. :-)

I stepped on the scale today and weighed in at a whopping 202.5... To this day, I look back over the past year and have to ask myself "How did I get here?" The receptionist at work stopped me the other day and asked me about my weight loss. As I explained to her what I did to get to this point, she just kept complementing me. She actually used the words "inspired by my story". Wow... my story? Inspired? Yikes... This is supposed to be the blog of the uninspired!!

Andrea is topping off my weekend with a very nice gift - she is taking Megan down to New Ulm to visit her grandparents tomorrow night. This gives me the house all to myself so that we can have an awesome AD&D session. She is so wonderful to give me a treat like that on the weekends when I try so hard to give her some time to relax. Tonight she went out for Mom's Night out and had a few drinks, so hopefully that will help relieve some stress. I even drove her to the place so that she could enjoy herself that much more and just get a ride home.

Well that's all for tonight, I'll post more this weekend and report on AD&D session number 3!

Buffet Overload

This past weekend was way too much food, but somehow I managed to stay on track. Saturday we headed to Mystic Lake Casino to do the Buffet for Mothers day (my Mom and Grandma). I didn't really hold back on what I ate, because I'd rather just work out harder and make up for it later then deprive myself of good food. Megan got to enjoy some of the desserts from the buffet, she really liked the creme brulee thingy that my Mom gave her.





Then on Sunday, Andrea and I went to Champps for another buffet! This one wasn't quite as good as the Casino, and we ended up having to wait for a good 50 minutes, but it was okay. Champps was nice enough to make me a special order of waffle fries. They normally don't do that during buffet! I guess I'll overlook the fact that they didn't even bring the omelets we ordered.

To make up for all the food, from Friday-Sunday I got 8 miles of running in. I would have got more, but on Saturday, I just wasn't feeling up to running. Instead, I ended up at Kohl's and finally bought the new pants I so badly needed. 3 pairs of khakis and 2 pairs of jeans. Next step will be to buy some new shirts... and perhaps, even some ties?

Deep & Meaningless

Existence must be asserted in the present
if one does not want all life to be
defined as an escape towards nothingness.

- Simone De Beauvoir

Anyone who thinks they're important is
usually just a pompous moron who can't
deal with his or her own pathetic
insignificance and the fact that what
they do is meaningless and inconsequential..."

- William Thomas

A whirlwind of change is coming into my life shortly. I'm excited and happy for it, but at the same time I have to stop and ask, "Why? What's the point?" This is the day to day struggle of someone without a clearly defined sense of purpose. I'd like to think that most people struggle with it, but I honestly don't know. No one ever really talks about it.

I think about my life and how narrow in scope it really is. I'm a simple minded individual with simple goals. I have no delusions of grandeur, no sense that what I do in life needs to be big or important. I just want to be able to provide for my family, enjoy the time that I have, be healthy and have fun. Is that my purpose then?

I have to assume that the search for meaning or purpose is something that continues until the day you die. At least, that's what I've always assumed. Which is why I continue to go by the belief that there is no meaning. Somehow it's easier for me to accept that, and go from there. Because the only meaning there is in life, is the meaning I put into it.

Baby Experimentation

A lot of parents talk about how they like to "experiment" on their children. Like seeing if they remember a toy that's put out of view. Or asking them which glass has more in it, the tall skinny one or the short fat one. But here at the Anderson household, we take it one step further! Today's post is brought you by guest blogger, Andrea, as she was the one to actually take Megan to the experiment. Enjoy!

- Shawn


I got a postcard in the mail a couple months after Megan was born asking me if Megan would ever want to be in a study at the U of M. I sent it back saying in my head, "Sure why not!". And last week they called me. They basically explained it was a visual recognition experiment.

I got there much earlier then I had anticipated because I wasn't familiar with the traffic flow around the campus. I was led into the building by a high school kid that was doing his internship, he said it was his second day there. He took me into a room with a collage age student named Katie actually conducting the experiment. They made some small talk, and I was taken behind a curtain to see what Megan would be seeing after signing a release form. Basically it showed a yellow duck moving back and forth on a computer screen on a white background. And then the second one showed the same duck in the same proportions, only now it looked like it was going down a hallway. This gave visual impression that the duck was getting smaller, but it wasn't. The third one was a variation of that. Basically they were trying to test whether infants can perceive a level of 3-dimensionality from a 2-dimensial drawing.

They had Megan sit on my lap, but made me wear some glasses so that I couldn't see anything. They didn't want Megan picking up on any visual cues from me. They asked me if Megan watched much TV and I said ya...like all the time. I said she was really starting to pay attention to the screen now so we couldn't watch Sin City anymore. Then just like that, the test was over. More small talk ensued and they gave me a coupon for a free portrait sitting at JC Penney and that was it. Now I can always tell Megan she was in an experiment at the U of M!

Shawn here again... I also wanted to post a Megan tooth update. There is a crazy explosion of teeth coming in on the top. She has 4 teeth all coming in at once that we can see. Here is a close up image...

Not the Smartest

Staying up until 3am roleplaying while still very sick might not have been the brightest move. Oh well, we were having fun! Thankfully, Megan slept in really late (8am) and Andrea got up for her. Even though I feel like crap, I did get a solid 5-6 hours of sleep. It was worth it, roleplaying was a lot of fun. The session started out a tad slow as we dug into the details of camping rotations and misc stuff, but it picked up pace quickly. We moved the plot along, rescued some halflings and now are going to have to save a town with a poisoned water supply. All in a days work for a hero!

I haven't exercised since Tuesday. This is the longest stretch of time I've gone without exercising in well over 6 months. I'm pretty sure that I'll go tomorrow, my cold got a little better over the weekend. Hopefully I have this cold out of my system by the end of the week.

Speaking of colds, both Megan and Andrea caught it. Opps... Megan seems to be handling it well, sleeping okay and what not. She is sneezing a lot, and usually stuff comes flying out her nose when that happens. I did try the nose sucking thingy once, but it just seemed to piss her off more then do anything useful.

Megan has been doing a lot of this recently...



It's actually gotten to the point where I don't feel comfortable watching scary/R/movies with killing in them anymore, because she really is starting to watch intently. She usually just will watch scenes that catch her attention for 10-20 seconds and then go back to doing whatever else she was doing (usually this means playing with toys on or around her exersaucer). Time to start building up my Disney DVD collection!

Spring Cold

I wasn't feeling exactly 100% going into the run last weekend. Apparently running 6.2 miles in the rain isn't the best thing when you think you might be getting a cold. It has hit me REALLY hard this week. I got some running in on Tuesday, but I'm not going to get to the gym the rest of this week. I'm just too run down and stuffed up.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my work recently started up an old tradition of having a social hour in the office. They bring a half keg into the lunch room and everyone has a few beers Friday afternoon at 4. They even have a giant neon sign that says "The Lounge". I haven't actually partook of the beverages yet due to various circumstances. One time I had to run after work, another time I didn't go... So I think this time, I'm going to enjoy a few beers.

Saturday night I have my second roleplaying group. It should be a lot of fun, I think the group is much more in sync with each other in terms of what they enjoy from roleplaying. It's also a little easier to be focused on roleplaying with a group of single guys without kids.

Next Goal?

As I enjoy my 2nd day of no exercise, I'm trying to think of what I want to do next with fitness. I think for now, I should just kinda go through the motions until I come up with a plan. First though, I have to get my bike into the shop for a tune up and then get out there and do some biking soon! I won't stop running entirely, but it probably won't be much more then a once a week thing for me.

I've added a new blog to my links. I only like to add links to blogs of people I know personally. I think that I'm indirectly responsible for at least 3, maybe 4 people starting blogs. :-) I forgot to add Jim's blog back when he started at the beginning of April. Jim and I roleplay together, and he has a pretty good post about our recent session on Saturday. Don't think I could add much to it. Disgruntled players? Perhaps...

Last night we had a rough night with Megan. I have no clue what brought it on, but we did end up letting her cry it out. She only cried for 20-30 minutes before she fell asleep. I think the whole day she was building up to it, because all day she only had 4 naps of barely 30 mins a piece. It wasn't the easiest thing to deal with, all I could think about was that it was taking the "easy way out". But really, maybe its what Megan needs? Am I just trying to convince myself that it's okay to let her cry? Does she need to learn to go to sleep on her own without constant parent intervention? I don't know what right answer is, and sometimes it's hard to just trust my feelings.