And Then?

Next thing you know it's a week later and I haven't got a damn post up! Sheesh, I'm such a lazy bastard. I honestly have no excuse... I mean, I think the most exciting thing I did this weekend was getting a haircut on Sunday. Oh, and I watched the last 5 minutes of the super bowl. Can't forget that!

It's just a slow month I guess, but things are going to start to pick up in Feb. Starting right off the bat with this weekend... I will be attempting to resurrect my Dungeons and Dragons group!! That's right, I'm going to give it another shot this year and see how it goes. I want to run a 13 session campaign that will take place over 8 months... Ambitious? Maybe.

Yesterday, Andrea and I went to a sign language class. Not sure what to think about it. I've already memorized the alphabet and a bunch of words... will they help? Will it add anything to Megan's language development? Probably not. All I know is that the other couple there had a child with down syndrome, which to be quite honest, put our situation into perspective a little bit.

In other news, the whole bedtime thing is going swimmingly. Megan has zero issues with bedtime around 8pm after our "routine". She almost seems to look forward to it now, and enjoys giving big hugs and kisses good night. We tried a night light for a while, but she just took it apart and got the bulb out. No more of that, and she ended up not needing it anyway. The only down side are the nights I get home at 6pm from a run, and with dinner right after, I only get to see Megan for an hour or two during her bed time routine.

Don't know much else... Later this month we are doing an overnight at Mystic Casino for free, courtesy of my Mom and all the gambling she does (free hotel coupons). It will be our mini Valentines get away. Mom will be watching Megan overnight for us, which should be a breeze now!

Suppose I should get to sleep now... For some reason I've been depriving myself of sleep for the last 2 weeks. I can't really say why, but constant 5 hours of sleep every night does weird things to your brain.

All Better

I got a 45 min run in on Monday and there was no blood or pain, so the toe is all healed. It's still all scabbed over, so as long as I don't pick at it...

Some new things have developed with Megan that are making evening life much less stressful around here. No, Megan isn't talking yet. This is regarding her bed time. Awhile back, Megan started giving up her daily nap - but it wasn't 100%. Some days she would still end up getting SOO crabby or just fall asleep at random on the couch or floor. Now it seems she might have given it up for good.

So what else changed? Well, we tried to capitalize on this change of no naps. Basically it means she is very tired at a normal hour of around 8pm. We started a nightly routine of 1 or 2 movies and dinner. Then a bath and PJs. Finally story book time in her bedroom on her bed at 8pm. After reading a few books, we say good night and let her fall asleep.

First night, it was rough. Andrea got this whole ball rolling that first night, with a solid half hour of crying and Megan climbing out of bed. By the second night, it was maybe 10 minutes. By the time Saturday night rolled around (and I was home alone with Megan), she didn't even cry for 2 minutes or come out of bed. Last night was ZERO crying. I said good night, and she gave me a HUGE hug and kiss goodnight, and off she went. Tonight was just a minute or two, but in general it seems to be going very well. Perhaps another corner has been turned...

Just thought I'd end with some cute pictures of Megan and Andrea baking cookies from the other day. The second shoot is very cute, because Megan choose to arrange the cookies like that.

Day of Injuries

Today was a bit rough on the Anderson house hold. Megan was first this morning with an injury on the way home from the YMCA. She slipped and fell face first before getting into the car, cutting her upper lip badly and causing a small scratch under her chin. The worst part was the blood. In Andrea's words, "there was blood everywhere."

Speaking of blood... I was next in line. Earlier this week I had pulled out a part of my big toe nail, and thought nothing of it. It didn't hurt too much, and just bled a little bit. No big deal right? So this afternoon I head out for a run, and like 30 minutes into my run I feel this wetness in my sock. I look down, and what do I see?



And even worse....



I decide to cut my run short, and will probably take a small break from running for a few days to give my toe some time to heal. The weird part was that it didn't hurt at all while I was running. The upper part of my toe is a little tender, but that's about it.

Tomorrow Andrea is heading down to visit and spend some time with her Mom to do a project involving lots of pictures. They will also be doing lunch and Andrea is spending the night there, so it will just be me and Megan holding down the fort. I plan on getting some grocery shopping in and visiting with my Mom as well. Other then that, it should be a very mellow weekend.

Slight Slacking

Couple times last week I thought about getting something posted but just never got around to it. Main reason I think is that nothing too exciting is going on really. This cold weather just kind of grinds everything to a halt. I managed to get one run in this morning, but other then that I haven't left the house all weekend. A high temp of negative 7 yesterday!!

Not a lot of news on the Megan language front. We are starting with some sign language things, which she is picking up rather quickly. Although we tried to teach her "more" and "please" at the same time, she seems to use "please" for both now. She has also become SLIGHTLY less demanding of movie time, only wanting to watch them at night which I think might be a decent compromise. That isn't to say I've abandoned the idea of TV removal YET... Time will tell.

The gym traffic is slowing down already - maybe it's just the cold weather. But the last few nights I've been able to get in fine and right away. I think I'm going to get outside earlier this year then previous, simply because I miss it so much already.

In other news, I'm going to attempt to get some Dungeons and Dragons going again this year. I decided I needed at least one other hobby besides World of Warcraft. My guess? It might last long enough to keep me occupied through June, but I could see it falling apart through the summer. Once again, time will tell.

Stupid Resolutioners

I hate to start out with a rant, but what the hell. Once again, the people are flocking to (and filling up) the gym so that a) parking is damn near impossible and b) there are wait lines for treadmills. I didn't even feel like dealing with it tonight, and completely skipped my work out. Instead, I came home and ate 2 chocolate covered pretzels weighing in at 140 calories a piece. SUCK ON THAT, New Years Resolutioners!

I'm ready for spring, that's all I have to say. It is too damn cold and I need some out door type activities. I'd hate to admit that my mood would be so effected by weather, but who knows. I'm honestly going to give biking a bigger shot this year, with planned adventures and maybe even some crazy stuff like biking all the way to work. Hey... dream big I say.

In other news, I'm contemplating moving my ginourmous TV out of the house. This is an alternative idea to selling or getting rid of it entirely. The reactions I've gotten have been anything from "that seems extreme" to "I grew up with no TV". So why on earth would I want to get rid of one my most joyous of purchases from 2006?

There are a variety of factors... that have been building over time. Everything connected to the TV has already been moved for Megans safety. I never bought any of the new next gen gaming systems, and don't even own a high def DVD player. Not to mention, all my DVDs are in the garage anyway.

The final straw was that recently my receiver died. It had been flaking out for awhile. But why buy a new receiver, for speakers that aren't hooked up, and movies I don't watch anymore? Why keep a TV in the house that is just an empty shell?

This is of course all just secondary to the real reason I want to get rid of it. A firm belief that the TV and/or movies have played a part in Megan's delayed language development.

My Mom tells me I'm crazy to think that, and that we just need to teach Megan limits. Maybe she's right. Maybe I'm just using the TV as a scape goat for my own failings. I'm told not to be so hard on myself, but how can I not?

The small part of me that still has access to logic, dictates that Megan will grow up. She will eventually communicate with the outside world. And one day I'll look back at this time and laugh at how worried I was. But that part is so small these days, and just seems overshadowed by self doubt.

The TV as it was in it's heyday:



The empty shell of today:

Arch Support FTW

Ran a solid 6 miles tonight on the new shoes. I ended up getting the next ASICS in the line I like, the GT-2130. This pair seems to fit my foot better then the 2120s, a tad wider and not so tight over the top. They were great right off the bat, hardly feels like I have to break them in. Over the last 2 months I was having a lot of soreness in the arch of my foot, and tonight there was none. Lesson learned? When the arch starts to get sore, get new shoes!

I'm not quite sure why I thought things would "slow down" at work. It just feels like they want to suck the marrow from me until I'm dry. It's hard to stay motivated, but at least I enjoy what I'm doing and like the people I work with. Review time is right around the corner, so that is the only thing I'm kinda stressing about. Not so much that I'm worried about my review, but more so that for the first time in awhile, I feel like I deserve a specific review. And if it doesn't happen, I'm going to be very disappointed and most likely be very vocal about it.

Tonight was a pretty mild night, with Megan and I enjoying some time together while Andrea went to her volleyball game. I was able to capture a fun little video of Megan's basketball skills. This is something I had been wanting to buy for her for a long time, but she ended up getting it for Christmas instead. It's definitely one of her favs.

Better Update

Taking Monday off was exactly the right decision. The funny part was, the day itself was very stressful. Megan was very unhappy and not cool with napping when she should, and ended up having a melt down. This of course caused me to have a melt down. Thankfully, Andrea remained the rock solid parent she is and calmed us all down.

On the positive side, I've gotten two runs in the last two days and that has made me feel better. My cold is still full blown, but hopefully it will start to wane towards the end of this week. I'm going to try and get two more runs in before the weekend and see how it goes.

Work started good today with "no new problems" to deal with, so that was nice. The end is in sight and I can look forward to getting this project out. I'll probably never get much credit or fanfare for my work on this project, but it will be a big personal victory to see this one succeed. Whether or not the customers think it's a "great" thing is yet to be determined.

On another up note, my bro has offered to watch Megan tomorrow night. I think we will take the opportunity to hit a dinner and just relax. I'll probably stop off at the Running Store and get some new shoes. I think some recent foot pains I've been having can be attributed to worn out shoes. Plus, I need to break in a new pair to start working on my 2008 running goals. (more on that later)

Anyway, today was yet another "No nap for Megan" day, so I have to go do my best to help keep her awake as long as possible. If she falls asleep too early, it just causes her to wake up crying around midnight, or even the possibility of her coming out of her room.

Bad Start

2008 isn't starting off exactly as I had hoped, but pretty much exactly as I expected. Over stressed, under exercised, sick and lazy!

The long New Years break was great, because although Christmas break was 4 days, it didn't even feel like an actual break. New Years weekend was much more relaxing. My Mom even offered (for the 2nd time) to watch Megan over night on New Years Eve. We totally took her up on it, and managed to get in a dinner/movie date.

The bad started with going back to work. Not that work itself was that bad, but we are STILL at the end of this project cycle causing me undue stress and getting me into situations where I have to work until 5:30pm. This of course cuts into my running time. Now combine that with a really nasty cold I started getting this week, and you have a recipe for disaster. I haven't run this year at all!

Could I run through this cold? Ya, probably. I've done it before. Do I feel like it? Not really. I feel like being lazy and getting better. Sleeping in, resting, and taking lots of drugs. I'll probably call in sick tomorrow and if I'm feeling up to it, get a run in then.

In the meantime, I thought I'd get a picture up of Megan. This one is for you Mom!

Why 2008 will be better

3 weeks since my last post... might not seem like a long time, but it might as well be 3 months. As I said to one of my relatives over the holiday weekend, the best thing about letting my blog die, is that once I finally do revive it, the only ones coming back to read it will probably be the only ones I want reading it in the first place.

You didn't REALLY think I would let my blog die did you? Of course not... but I think some time away was what I needed. Give me time to think about what was important to me about my blog and what wasn't. One change that will be occurring is 2008 is the rating. It's high time my posts were R-rated. Life isn't PG, so why should my blog be censored?

The title of this post implies that 2007 was bad. That's not really an accurate statement. 2007 saw a lot of great things happen, ranging from achieved fitness goals to achieved financial goals and more. What made 2007 so rough was my stress levels. I think overall, 2007 also saw the highest stress levels I've had in a LONG time.

So why will 2008 be better? Less stress. And what changes will occur that should bring about less stress? Here is my short list:

1. The project I've been working on at work for basically all of 2007 will be released to customers in the 2nd week of January. This is going to be a huge stress reduction. I've learned a lot from this project and I think I've gained some insight on how to approach future projects in a way that won't let the stress build.


2. Megan should be talking by the end of 2008. I say should only because I'm such a pessimistic. I strongly believe she will be talking or starting to communicate before summer. Having a higher level of interaction and seeing progress there will really lower my stress levels.


3. My damn roof will be done, with gutters, at some point in 2008. I thought this would be such a simple thing to get a new roof, boy was I wrong. I'll be so happy once this thing is finally done, and that stupid ass company puts my gutters on. I slipped once already this winter, and am so fucking pissed off at that company for not getting them on over winter. It a danger to my entire that I'd rather not worry about.

As I said, that's the short list. I think there are other things that will make 2008 a better year, but it will be awhile before some of those ideas solidify for me. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a lovely New Years Eve date with my wife, as my Mom has offered to watch Megan over night for New Years for the second time! Will she go for 3?

Are You Serious?

What a weird week. It must be karma or something. To have such a large amount of things happen right after I'm on the cusp of quitting my blog. Where to begin? I'm not even sure. This is gong to be a long post, because if I'm going to do this, I might as well put some real effort into it.

Monday came and I had zero desire to goto work. Andrea reminded me that the speech specialist for Megan was that morning at 10am. That was all the reason I needed to stay home and be part of that process. I'm glad I did, and it's been requested that I'm there for a follow up session later in Dec, which I'm sure I will do. The gist? Yes, Megan is lagging behind in speach. She's not forming two words together, let alone many single words. She speaks mostly in "AHHs", pointing, and in physical ways. She understands what we say and will usually do things we ask. She just doesn't want to talk back. I can't even get into how this all makes me feel, but I'm sure you can guess it's nothing positive.

Tuesday night was the big snow storm. My commute home was a solid hour and 30 minutes. I went in crazy directions to attempt to avoid traffic (I even passed my sister in law at one point). Apparently it paid off, because two other people I work with that commute to Apple Valley were on the road for 3 hours.

After arriving home, I decided to take the bike rack off my car. (which incidentnly, I never did get around to using this year) In the process of doing this through the snow covering my car, my hands got really cold and at one point I shook them to warm them up. The result? My wedding ring went flying in some random direction. I didn't even hear it land. Ya, it's pretty much gone now. Maybe I'll get a metal detector and look for it in the spring.... suuuure.

Tonight I came to yet another shitty realization. My attempts to play World of Warcraft "competitively" were a gigantic waste of time. Despite the raw video game talents I have, there is just no way I can play at the same level as college kids with nothing to do but play video games. I quit a large part of my World of Warcraft gaming tonight. Time will tell if I'm fully done yet again.

There is only one positive thing that has happened this week. Somehow, this one thing is keeping me going, because honestly, I don't even know what to think anymore. Over on the right side of my blog, under my Exersize Log, click the "Year to Date" total. That's right, 1203 miles! I hit my goal of 1200 miles in a single year. It was a good feeling to achieve a "year long" goal. The only hard part? To convince myself that it doesn't mean I get to take the rest of the year off!

Yes, I realize this post is one huge bitch session. Maybe that's what blogs are supposed to me. Life is full of ups and downs, as long as I'm posting about both, well maybe that's the whole damn point.

Blog Death

It's hard to say what killed my blog. It was just a combination of a bunch of little factors, that added up to a slow but eventual death. The main factor is of course time. Blogging takes time that 9 times out of 10, I'd rather be spending doing something else. Granted, usually that is just World of Warcraft, but that's not the only thing...

Megan has become a bigger focus of my evenings lately, from spending time with her when I get home from work right away, to putting her to bed on time every night. (around 10pm) Each night, I spend a good 30 minutes with her putting her to bed. It's worked out well, and in general most nights are much better. Take tonight for example, she went to sleep without the slightest complaint.

The other main thing that killed my blog, is when all my posts became nothing more then a series of complaints. What the hell do I have to complain about? I'm healthy, I have a great job, a wife that loves me and a daughter I just adore. My insistence of focusing on the few negative things here and there started to just bother me. And blogging about it even made things worse.

So what next? Is my blog really dead? It's hard to say. With November already over and the New Year right around the corner, thoughts of new goals and resolutions come right along with it. What do I want to focus on in 2008? Where do I want to spend my time? Where are my priorities? And most important of all, do I want to share my crazy struggle to find the answers to all these questions again and again on my blog? I suppose only time will tell.

Week from hell

Ugh! Week between posts. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel on this silly blog business. I'm so good at quitting! Might as well embrace the things I'm good at...

I honestly don't know what is stressing me out more right now - Megan's bed time issues or work. The problem is that they both compound each other into this really bad cycle. Megan keeps me awake until 1am. This causes me to be tired and negative at work all day. This results in me stress eating and/or being too tired to work out after work. Of course that puts me in an even worse mood followed up by another late night with Megan.

I just want to survive the week. Tomorrow is Friday, and it should go somewhat easier then the rest of the days this week. Then a short 3 day weekend to Thanksgiving break. Just... need... to survive.

Mid week was a nice visit with the family, it was my sister in laws birthday. We went out to Red Robin and Megan was decently behaved. She ate all of her pizza and for the most part stayed in her little area. Made for a pleasant evening. Wish I could see my brother more but with his work and school schedule these days, we don't have a lot of overlapping free time.

This weekend we are going down to New Ulm to get a night off. It's sort of our standard thing now, we go down, drop Megan off with the grandparents, and then enjoy a small break. Going to try and milk it for all it's worth and de-stress as much as possible. I'm sure that will involve a little bit of drinking as well.

Bed Progress

Overall I would say the transition from the crib is going well. Megan has been hit and miss with actually going to bed on her own so far. At least one nap time and one evening night time, she climbed into her bed all on her own for sleep. Other times we've put her in and she has climbed out. One night I fought with her for a good hour until she finally just collapsed in exhaustion and slept.

Although she stayed in the bed over night a few times, the last few nights she has either fallen out or climbed out. I've kept the baby monitor on over night so she isn't crying or anything, just falling out. But once I saw her like this... I realized we should probably do something about it.



So tonight I stopped off at Baby Depot and bought some bed rails. I think this should take care of the problem, although she might be weirded out by them at first.



The other big challenge we are facing is Megan's insistence on taking all her clothes AND diaper off. You take your eye off her for a minute and all of a sudden she will be running around naked. I'll go ahead and admit the worse part - when she then decides to go to the bathroom after getting naked. It's quite annoying. What advice we find online mentions tactics such as duct taping diapers and putting pajamas on backwards. Ohhh the joys of two year olds.

Bed and Bread

Bought a new bed and some bread this weekend! The bread was especially yummy, from the Harvest Bread Co. off 42. Had a coupon from a 2006 run for a free loaf that I never got around to using. Bought Megan a new bed, since she has figured out how to climb out of her crib! Not that we didn't see it coming, she might as well be a monkey with how much climbing she does. I was just surprised at how easily she can climb out without falling or hurting herself at all.



I realized I still haven't got around to posting Halloween pictures, so I'll just end my post with a bunch of pictures. Starting first with Megan and her awesome Snow White costume!



We did a little bit of Trick-or-Treating with Megan, but it was very cold and so we only did about 10 houses. Not that we didn't get enough candy... Ended up throwing most of it away, can't have that stuff in the house and not eat it!

The rest of these pictures are from my weekend in Boise. I thought I'd start with the best one first. This is "Ash" from the movie, Evil Dead and/or Army of Darkness, take your pick. It was an awesome costume that he built all by hand.



I made this guys night simply because I knew what his costume was. Could it be the 20 something generation is too young to know? Apparently no one realized he was "Brand", the older brother from the movie Goonies. Seemed pretty obvious! I heard they might be making another Goonies in the future?



Saw two Edward Scissor hands, but this one was the better costume in my opinion. The impressive part was holding a drink at the same time...



This was just a fancy costume I thought looked cool. Chesty as well...



I have more, but these were some of the better ones. Overall, there was a ton of good costumes that night. It had been a long time since I had "gone out" for a Halloween, so that just added to my enjoyment of that weekend.

Back to Reality

I wish I could put together a well thought out post about my weekend adventure in Boise, but honestly I just don't think I could do it justice. Instead, I'll just give a quick summary and some pictures. If I have more time later this week, I will try and post up some pictures of the better costumes from the weekend.

Weekend in a nutshell: got to see everyone I wanted to for at least a few hours. Ran 20 miles across two days. Drank some alcohol, had some craziness, had some fun. Did some thinking, did some reminiscing. Saw a couple movies, ate out a bunch, and started missing my family pretty badly by the end of it all.

I stayed at a place also know as the "Myrtle Morgue". Home of a promoter of the Boise death metal scene. This is picture of the back fence...



Friday was pretty relaxed, I started with a run and a lunch date with old co-workers, Rick and Jennifer. Both are doing well, all things considered.



After a 2 hour lunch, I had a few hours to kill, so I caught a movie: Dan in Real Life. I was expecting a comedy, but instead got a drama about a Father with 3 daughters, trying his best to be a good Dad. At one point in the movie, the youngest girl tells him, "You're a good Father, but a bad Dad." It nearly broke my heart, and for a long time after that I thought about what that meant to me.

Friday night was mostly relaxing, very little drinking, and basically just some nice socializing. I spent the time with my old drinking & gaming buddy Winston, and his girlfriend Marta. (hope I got the spelling right)



Saturday was a long half marathon run, followed up with 3 hours of thrift shopping. Crazy, I know. Just go with it... Then we met up with some other old gaming friends for coffee and another movie: 30 Days of Night. It should have been called, 30 Days of Suck. It was the worst vampire movie I had seen in a long time.

Saturday night was a bit of everything. I didn't quite make the connection that this weekend would be the big "Halloween" costume time for young people. Downtown was full of everyone in costume, and I got quite a few pictures. I also let loose and enjoyed a bit to drink, just enough to enjoy myself but not enough to regret anything in the morning.

Sunday was supposed to be the long 12 hour day of sitting in airports and planes. Instead, I asked about possible flight changes. Long story short, I was able to get a direct flight for a charge of $50 bucks. I got home a good 5-6 hours sooner, which was great. Gave me time to see the family sooner, tell Andrea all about the weekend, and unwind.

And now... the long road to reality. And work. Sigh.

Not a moment too soon

Here I sit, the day before my vacation, with a small moment to catch my breath. The week started out on such a good note with two out door runs. First a 10 miler on Saturday in CRAZY good weather, and then another shorter 4 1/2 mile on Monday night. That one was a bit colder, but still nice.

Despite that great start, I'm sitting at the highest stress levels I've been at in a long time. I woke up this morning with a major stress headache, and even two Excedrin didn't make it go away. You'd think the day before a vacation, I'd be de-stressing, but for some reason the exact opposite is happening.

I'm not trying to be vague, I simply can't put my finger on where the stress is coming from. It's just a combination of many things, with the biggest piece being Megan's ever changing abilities to find new ways to get into trouble or things she shouldn't. In other words, the fact that she's 2 now!

Work is no small part either... I confided with a co worker how I've given serious thought to finding a way to get a different manager. Not that I think that's an actual possibility, I still entertain the idea. Something rather funny happened this week at our group meeting. I reminded everyone I would be out for 3 days, and someone chimed in that maybe we should delay some things because I was a "major linchpin". Being the vocabularaly challenged person that I am, I wasn't sure at first what it meant, if it was a joke or a complement? I thought it was some derivative of the word "lynch", i.e. hanging. Turns out, linchpin refers to "a central cohesive element". That was a nice pick me up... maybe all my hard work does get noticed.... Naw! Who am I kidding!?!?!

Hopefully I can come back after this weekend with a fresh perspective on things. Relax, let the worries flow away for just long enough to re-center myself and focus on a few tasks over the next few weeks to lower my stress levels.

Did I mention my roof work hasn't started yet?
Did I mention I'm going to have to get new brakes on my car?
Did I mention I'm going to get my wisdom teeth pulled before the end of the year?

Oh sorry, what was I saying? Oh ya, back to my regularly scheduled worrying! Pictures of the trip when I get back!!

Something Positive

Been feeling pretty negative lately. I'm sure my blog posts have reflected that in some way. I attributed it mostly to the change in weather, and the fact that if I'm lucky, I'll get maybe one or two more outdoor runs in this year. The cold, the waking up in the dark, all the rain this week. Think it's finally starting to add up.

If that wasn't enough, a large percentage of the people I work with are sick or have been sick in the last few days. So sure enough, I've got it also. So far it's just cold symptoms, but it's hitting me hard. Especially with my insistance that I only need 6 hours of sleep a night. I'll try to run it out this weekend and hopefully start to feel better by mid next week.

Reason being... I head out to Boise next Thursday night! One week, and a nice long weekend break for me to visit my old friends and coworkers out there. I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time, for various reasons. I'm going to get some running done each day, with the goal of doing running 13 miler along the Boise Green Belt. In addition to that, just being able to visit the people that had a big impact in my life over the 6 years that I lived out there. It should be great.

So that's my positive thought for the week: Vacation, vacation, vacation!

Feeding Addictions

Oddly enough, blogging is NOT one of my addictions. If it were, I would be posting a lot more then I do now. Alas, once a week is becoming more and more the norm...

Obviously, I have a very addictive personality. I'm pretty sure it runs in my family to some degree. Addictions can be both positive and negative in my mind. It's all about how you spin it. Basically, some of my main addictions are:

1) Worrying. I worry way too much. I worry about everything, my job, my family, and yes, even my addictions. It gets to be a bit much at times. It has to be prematurely aging me somehow.

2) Video games. Always been on the top of the list. World of Warcraft being the current choice. How long can video games be my only form of entertainment?

3) Running. Finally, a positive addiction! The funny thing is, I can even find a slight negative with this one. My insistence to run run run has prevented me from achieving a secondary goal of weight lifting on a regular basis.

4) Alcohol. Ahhh finally the only one on my list that could be considered an official addiction. The positive side of this one is that it's more or less fallen out of the top 3. About once every other month I find myself having a few drinks to de-stress. Okay, maybe more then a few.

I thought about how I feed my various addictions at some length this weekend. Not sure why, but it centered around my choice of video games as my primary form of time wasting / entertainment. The thing is, with an addictive personality, you HAVE to feed something. You can't just quit an addiction. The only thing you can do is replace one addiction for another. If I cut back on video game playing, all that would end up is my other addictions would get more time. And looking at the above list, I'm not seeing more negative then positive alternatives. So video games it is!

In other news, Megan loves her new Dora fort... Great birthday present! (if you are reading this, thanks!)

Birthday Weekend

I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking for today. Megan's 2nd birthday party was a huge success. Lots of family from all over came to celebrate, and Megan had a great time opening gifts. She also got everyone to give her rounds of applause, as she would clap for herself. For some reason she just loves clapping and having other people clap! Or, she just loves being the center of attention...

If one birthday wasn't enough fun, we have even one more this weekend! It's at a place called Just Jump, with tons of inflatable jumpy things. Megan has been there once before, but she was much younger then. I think she will have a great time today climbing in some of the bigger inflatable toys.

Here is Megan in a very cute birthday dress:



You have to stay cool on your birthday:



Megan enjoyed reading some of her cards more then the gifts. Especially the Shrek card from Grandma G!



Cuddling with Uncle Scotty:



Enjoying her Gelato cake. The cake was a huge hit with everyone! We might be doing this again...



Finally, the day after, with her new clothes and new toys.

Slacker

Blogging has taken 2nd fiddle to a lot of my time lately. Weekly posts are just not going to get the job done, I know that much. Still, I find myself struggling to find the time to blog. Why? Dunno....

I've gone on and on in the past about my thoughts on anger as the most useless of human emotions. Tonight I might have finally found a potential use. I'm not sure why I was so angry today. I think it all started with my morning. It didn't help that today was Monday either.

First, I slept in due to staying up to late and the fact that my alarm clock sucks. After that, traffic was horrible because of an accident. I got so frustrated that I actually ended up going SOUTH just so I could turn around and go back north.

Then... work. Not much more to say about that, other then things are getting to the point where I either have to do something about it or just give up. I tried to get Andrea's opinion, and her only response was, "Why does everything have to be so black and white with you?" I don't know, it just does.

So what did I do with all this anger? You guessed it, I RAN! I ended up doing an all out 5k of about 23:30, although the last 2/3rd was at a 7 min/mile pace. After that I did a cool down run of another few miles. It helped, a little bit. But it's just like anything else, it's only a temporary fix.

The long term fix? See below: