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Riding Haylee's Comet: August 2009

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Finding Balance

A couple months ago my Dad said something to me that really made me think. I was telling him about how busy I was with school and worrying about trying to find a job. And then he said something to the effect to make sure you spend as much time as you can when your kids are young because before you know it they will be gone.

I'm busier than I've ever been in my entire life. And more will be piled on when school starts back again next week. I honestly have been working pretty much from the time I get up until I go to sleep all in an effort to support my family. Something I've missed dearly this week though has been being around Tonya and the kids. In fact my first day back at work Tonya texted me that J.T. was going through one of his crazy breakdowns because I had to go back to work. It tore at my heart because I knew that I wasn't going to be around much this next year.

So that's my dilemma right now. Trying to figure out how to balance everything in my life. Besides just family life, I would also love to find time to do the things I enjoy such as running or playing basketball. School has not been nice to my weight and I've almost gained 25 pounds since I ran my first marathon back in December. I'm watching my six-pack slowly disappear.

There just aren't enough hours in the day. Why can't the earth take 48 hours to rotate around instead of 24? I just hope the day will come when I can work at a good paying job that will allow me plenty of time to spend with my family and leave me some time to stay in shape. I just hope that time comes before all my kids are gone and my wife doesn't know me anymore.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

and there went July.....

Time just seems to fly by these days. I can't believe July is already gone. Of course down here in Arizona having July fly by is definitely a good thing. For some reason I'm not liking the heat as much as I used to anymore.

We started off the month in Big Bear. It was a blast. I kept telling Tonya I could definitely live here if it wasn't in California. (for those of you who don't California is the root of all evil :) ). The highlight of the trip was taking out a pontoon boat. J.T. even got to command the boat for a little while. We also took a day and drove down to Disneyland. J.T. had a blast and went on a ton of rides. One of his favorites was the Tower of Terror. Towards the end of the day, J.T got a little worn out. As you can he is falling asleep while sitting on my shoulders.

A couple weeks later we went up to Oregon. Luckily J.T. and Haylee are great in the car or we wouldn't have been able to pull it off. We let right after my class and drove through the night to Reno. We stopped in Reno for a bit to drop off Mia and visit with Annalee and Jeff for a minute and then continued onto Portland. In all we drove 24 hours.

It was well worth the trip even though it didn't last long. We got to spend two days with my grandparents whom we hadn't seen for almost two years. What was very sad for me is that may have been one of the last moments I was able to spend with my Grandma while she still recognized me. Growing up my grandparents have been a huge part of my life so it will be very difficult for me when my Grandma no longer recognizes me. My grandma has a great love for babies and really enjoyed holding Haylee. She pretty much held her the entire time we were there. Hopefully we'll get to see them again soon.

During this whole month of traveling I've also been trying to go to school. The end of July also marked the end of my first trimester of my masters program. Only 3 more to go. Yippeeee! I also finally got a job teaching computer science at the East Valley Institute of Technology. I'm both scared and excited. I haven't done any programming for the past 2 almost 3 years, so there's going to be a lot of catching up to do. What this means is that because it isn't a full time job, I'll be working 3 part time jobs and doing a unpaid internship. I guess I'll be saying goodbye to Tonya for the rest of the year when my job starts tomorrow.