Tag Archives: birthdays

The Road Ahead

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I’ve said it before and I’m sure everyone will hear me say it again. It’s seems impossible for me to to find time for everything. Work, family, friends, health, religion, education, hobbies, chores, blogging… Some people manage to balance everything and I can’t figure out how they do it. On a good day I perform a passable juggling act. I’m about to turn 30 (less than a week) and I’ve got to give careful consideration to my time (it’s running out!)

These days I cram in more and more work.  Jim operates Blaze Commerce and I just signed on as a part owner and we have plans to overtake the local ecommerce market.  Over here at BladeHQ we’re getting ready to open our “real” retail shop and there’s a huge amount of prep work to do before the remodeling. We’ve also got plans to fire up a slew of new websites so we can keep costs covered. If I was a single guy and sacrificed every aspect of my personal life then there’d be plenty of time.

But I’m not- I’m married, I have three kids.  It’s sad to miss pieces of their childhood. It only happens one time and you’re either there, or you’re not. Don’t get me wrong- I come home from work every evening to see my family but it’s not enough for me. In the the grand scheme of things I keep hoping that I can get work “out of the way” and then go play. So far so good, but it really takes it toll. And part of me wonders if it’s really worth it. It’s been physically destructive… I can say that much.

For my birthday I ordered a sole treadmill. It should be here next week. I have plans to hop on the thing every day for about 30 mins. Where will that time come from? I don’t have television, I have’ read a book in months and I only sleep 6 hours as it is (with the exception of Saturday, when my wonderful wife lets me sleep in). Another 30 minutes a day is going to be tough! But given that my body weight has increased by 129% in the last four years I figure an intervention is necessary- even if it comes from me.

I’m sure I’ll find a way to throw one more ball into my chaotic juggling regime. I always do. Focus is a real key to success. I’m often amazed at how much time I can waste surfing the Internet, browsing catalogs in the bathroom, or sometimes just staring into space. If I can harness some of that I’m sure I can scrape together 30 minutes of time to treadmill it up. I can stare into space while I run (well… walk… I’m sure I’ll be walking at first).

And so… that’s why I haven’t been a consistent blogger. Blogging is lower down on my list of priorities and often gets pushed to the side. “I need to blog… but I haven’t slept in 13 days… I must sleep.” I don’t anticipate any change, but if I can think of something to jettison I will blog more. Any ideas?

“Where have you been?” Yeah, yeah…

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I’m finally getting caught up from last year, in regard to work. It’s been a great year for the business. However “great year” translates into “lots of work.” Two weeks into January and we’re finally settling back into our normal routine… whatever that is. Lots of good things coming up- I’ll be posting more about those in the near future.

This past week proved to be both heart wrenching and stressful. Most of the info is available on our Family Blog, but I will summarize a little here. On Jan 6th I arrived at church around 11:15. As I pulled into the parking I saw people running out of the church building. I realized that they were running toward someone on the ground. My first thought was that the person has slipped. However, getting closer I could feel the tension in the air, see the blood on the ground, and the tears in the eyes of onlookers.  I went inside to find Francoise, knowing she would be worried. We soon learned that Kristy Ragsdale has been shot and killed by her estranged husband, Dave. Church was cancelled and we went home confused and shaken. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have done something if I’d been five minutes earlier (I probably would have been shot). One of the bullets from the shooting entered our car thought the radiator and did some damage. Hopefully we’ll have our car back soon sans the bullet.  A memory blog has been set up for Kristy here.

Other stuff: Mike had a birthday on Dec 3rd. He’s four now! My personal memory really kicked in around four. I imagine he’ll remember stuff from here on out… I’ll have to start being nice to him. Christmas was good. We kept it pretty low key this year.  New Year’s was fun. The Sabins posted about it over on their blog (have a look at the “Going Greek” entry). We purchased Rock Band and have been playing it steadily since (Everyone is welcome anytime to play- invite yourself right over!).  It’s 4:30 in the morning right now, so I’d better get back to work!