PTM 10/52 feet

PTM 10/52 feet, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

reflections on a historic event

Yesterday marked the end of Space Shuttle Discovery's service to NASA.  We just happened to be visiting the science museum and got to watch the simulcast and talk with an astonaut and have him explain the goings on and the final phases of the landing.  Also he told us some of what would be done to commemorate the retiring of the shuttle.  It wasn't until we got home that it struck me, that if we hadn't been at the science museum, I would have had no idea that this happened today, let alone watched it happen.  Then I checked my Facebook and Twitter feeds as I have found they are a pretty reliable source of news and there was no metion of NASA anywhere.  Had the nation really lost interest in the space program so completely in just one lifetime?  I remember when I was little all the kids wanted to grow up to be president or astronauts (or ninjas).  This might be a little bit left over from our parent's generation, but what great aspirations to reach for.  To become a member of the space program you have to be extremely talented, smart, and committed.  All things attainable through hard work and perseverence.  Now kids want to grow up to be the next music or movie sensation or lottery winner.  How did the shift from hard work to relying on luck sway from one to the other so quickly?  I don't know, but I hope to keep the "traditional" hard work ethic alive in my family as long as possible.  It makes you feel a little better if you know you can achieve your dreams if you work hard enough at them.

ball pit rain!

ball pit rain!, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

macro 7/52

macro 7/52, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

iced-hearts

iced-hearts, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

3-52

3-52, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

This is abandoned

2/52

2/52, originally uploaded by klintfocuses.

I'm catching up with the weekly blog post stuff...this was theme was togetherness

another year closes and opens

amazing how the wheel of life keeps coming around and around.  As I approach the end of my 28th eary and my 29th looms ever closer I look and try to imagine what will come of this year.

 

I hope more happyness as I take steps to sort out my past and my feelings of them

I hope better fitness as I ever strive to improve myself (and work is looking to reward those who do)

I hope a more enjoyable work environment as a thorn has been plucked from my workplace

I am sure of more smiles and laughter as my new daughter grows and learns

I am sure of more pride as my oldest daughter grows and learns in her homeschool classroom

I am sure of more mischief and happyness as my princess (2nd born) gets into trouble but wiles her way out of it.

And finally but not least by any means

I look forward to loving my wife I am able to love myself more and I can appreciate her more everyday

52.11-3

52.11-3

52.11-2

 

we lost our furnace this week, so seeing it running was amazing!

Checking in

hello blog,

It's been a while since we chatted.  I apologize, it seems life has gotten hectic and other things have taken priority.  I have been trying to slow down and really live in the moment and not over analyze things or worry about the future too much.  It feel like for the most part this has left me happier than average, but the last couple days have been rough.  I haven't gotten much rest and when that happens my outlook on life diminishes very quickly.  Add on top of that the fact that our furnace has broken and our landlord, while he is taking care of it, is really dropping the ball on a few key decisions and it looks like we may be without heat for the whole weekend (on top of the 3 days prior to that too).  Just seems like if it were HIS family he would really be pushing the HVAC guys and not just resigned to a monday service call.  Also, wifey's OB is being a real thorn in my side about the bill they submitted incorrectly.  They are refusing to admit they made a mistake even though the insurance company has contacted them and the hospital 3 times to get them to rectify it.  I'm just feeling very tired and very cold and very defeated.  It would be nice to feel like I had a friend that was there for me.

New Feature: 52.11

As part of my 30/30 list, I wanted to do a weekly blog feature so here is the first installment of my weekly photo. I will try to make it arty or do something that encourages me to grow as a photographer.

weekly feature upcoming!

I am looking over my 30/30 list and saw that I wanted to try a wekly blog feature.  I've been mulling it over in my head and to what I can do and then while I was cruising my facebook feed a friend's picutre came by.  She is doing a 365 project where she takes (amazing) picutres everyday.  I don't know that I have the time to take a picture everyday, but surely I can manage one a week.  I plan to start it with the new year so be on the lookout!

Disappointment in medical, but faith in nature

Last night (the 21st i guess) wifey started having really bad contractions and other very real signs of labor at 6pm.  Our plan was to labor at home (lol like I have to do much other than be there and be supportive) then go to the hospital for the last bit.  I mean, who wants to hang out in a BORING hospital room and be in pain when you can be at home, snack some, watch your own movies, etc.  Well the laboring gets really intense and we send the girls to go hang out with our AWESOME neighbor Megan and we head to the hospital.  We get there and wifey gets hooked up to the machines and it verfies that she is having very intense, regular contractions.  We let the nurse and the in house OB/GYN know that her cervex is different than others and it feels like they completely ignore us and say that she has made negative progress.  This is at about 10am.  We hang out in the hospital doing everything we can think of to move labor along and by 4pm wifey's OB/GYN becomes available to check her and it turns out she has made progress...just not very much.  Turns out that it isn't the day for our new arrival yet so we head home and wifey feels completely crestfallen.  I try to remind her that nature doesn't work on a schedule like the medical profession would like it to.  When baby is ready to hop out I truly believe it will happen and it will happen just the way it is supposed to. 
We get so caught up in trying to control nature we forget sometimes that nature knows best.  We prune and shape hedges, we mow our lawns so that patterns appear, we fertalize, steralize, and immunize our crops so they can be bigger, tastier, and bug free, but then we have to replant or spend just as much to up keep them.  If we left well enough alone, bugs would pollenate and spread seeds, hedges could grow and flourish into amazing displays, and our lawns wouldn't more maintenance than our homes.  I think that nature has been doing a pretty good job of taking care of it's own for millions of years.  I trust that when baby and mom are both ready, she will come into this world happy and healthy.

The adventure begins!

November 1 marked the first day of a brand new experience for everyone in my household.  We started Gabby homeschooling.  We really felt that the public school system was failing to to give her the education we feel she deserved.  They were teaching yes, but only to what the standardized tests said were important.  Creativity was squashed, accusations were thrown (by the teacher at students) instead of playground balls, and my 6 year old had homework EVERY night.  And on top of that she had a weekly spelling test to study for.  I didn't have that much homework as a college student most semesters.  So rather than see her despise learning at the ripe old age of 7, we decided to take her out of an instution and teacher her in a way that she can enjoy and look forward to.

 

That being said, our first day of schooling got off to a rather rocky start.  First Aj is fighting off a nasty cough that she cl=aims debilitates her.  Next off, we finally got all the kids dressed and loaded up to leave and I look at the car and it seems a little lopsided.  Oh yes, a flat on passenger side.  So after much jacking, prying, swearing get teh flat off but can't get teh spare from under the car to release.  Our awesome neighbor let me borrow her car and I drove out, got the tire and got it back on. While I got all that done, my awesome wife got all of gabby's school instruction done for the day!  She worked on her reading, writing, science, and later in the day she painted some clay figures we made a couple days ago for her art.  We also taught her about money and how people pay for stuff with bank cards and she helped me cook dinner.  There is SO much to learn by living that people either don't notice or just expect you to know that school skips over it's amazing.

 

Our distant cousins have twins that were in gabby's grade and they were apalled that we would even think of homeschooling.  I told a good friend about it and she equated it to when she switched over to a mostly vegan diet.  It makes people uncomfortable when you reject the norm because you don't feel that it is good enough for you.  So instead of listening to our reasons why we are pulling Gabby out, our cousin just told us what a mistake we are making and how could we think to ruin our daughter's life.

 

So in closing, I hope I inspire or challenge you to take a look at your life.  Is there some aspect that the norm isn't good enough for you but you haven't changed because it is outside the social acceptable behavior?  I won't lie that it will be easy, but I can say with almost complete certainty that there is someone like you somewhere that you can talk to and find support and ideas with.

value

Value.  Many people take that word differently.  Some put a dollar sign on it.  Some attach value to other, incalculable things.  I try to make everything I do or participate in be of value or benefit something or someone in someway.  It's how I measure whether something is worthwhile doing.  There are words built into our everyday language that accomdate that mindset too.  Worthwile, waste of time, opportunity cost.  I've been taking a pretty hard look at some of my hobbies and activities recently and trying to decide if they are adding value to my life or diminishing it.  To give an example, I am one of those people that really enjoy working out.  That obviously adds value to my life as it makes me healthier and adds years to my life.  Some other things are harder to justify.  Like watching TV.  A documentary is obviously enriching, but a drama show?  I would argue that time spent relaxing is important in moderation too.  Also there are shows that I enjoy watching with my wife and that social time is very important as we don't get a lot of one on one time. 

 

Something else came to mind as I was making a list of activities that add value to my day is a list of friends I have and what I value about them and how I would like to be more like different aspects of them.  Some I value for their optimism, energy, perseverance, peacefulness, and/or, inspiration to be fit.  I wonder what others value about me.  I hope that some look to me as a valuable pat of their life as I look to others.

Be the Change

"Be the change you want to see in the world" is a quote from the most peaceful person that has lived in my lifetime that I'm aware of, Ghandi.  It's a very hard directive to follow sometimes.  I have no problem being kind to others or showing generosity as I wish more people in the world would do, but lately work has been rather, as a friend once put it, soulcrushing.  I know everyone has days where it is hard to get out of bed and get motivated to go to work, but the flavor of disgust I've experienced lately has been toxic.  I was assigned to walk around on a foot patrol and in doing so I crossed another employee who I've noticed NEVER smiles and NEVER has a kind word for anyone but their close friends.  I thought to myself, I do not want to end up like that and how sad that they are so unhappy.  I said good morning and have a good day and all I got was a blank stare in return, but I tried to do something to show them that a) not everyone in my department is an un-charismatic slob, and b) life isn't as bad as it can seem and people do notice you. 

 

My wife once told me that she read somewhere that you should surround yourself with people you want to be like or aspire to become.  It's a subliminal form of self improvement.  It makes sense though.  If you are trying to drink less, don't hang out with your bar hopping buddy, hang out with your friend that has been dry for 3 years.  If you are trying to get finances back on track, avoid the friend that is swimming in a sea of consumer debt and chat up your friend that just paid off their student loans.  I have a good friend that is always smiling and full of energy.  That is the change I want to be.  I make excuses often that I'm tired due to my shift and I don't get enough sleep, but perhaps I can do the Mind over Matter thing and just become happier.  I don't have more than average to be upset about.  Everyone has bills, most people don't really enjoy their jobs (blessed are those that found their dream career!!), and it seems all have interpersonal conflicts from time to time.

 

So no longer will I be sad, sleepy Klint, but rather serene, content and happy. (I'm not one for the cheerleader over the top crazy happy...think that's the quickest way to get a drug test at work if I ever saw one).

 

~Peace

BOOM! instant karma

There is not a whole lot more satisfying than seeing justice dealt.  I say justice because should be more appealing than revenge because justice is what someone deserves but revenge can be bitter and spiteful.  Karma is the universe's built in judge and jury.  When you do ill to someone else it has a way of coming back to you.  It may not even be in this lifetime (suspense is killer!) but it will come back to bite you in the butt.  Take the case of the 3 year old birthday dinner I just took my little princess on.  She love Applebee's. I don't know why, but she does.  She orders macaroni and cheese and even on the menu it states that it is the same exact Kraft macaroni and cheese I get at the store for $0.88 but they feel ok charging $4 for it.  Whatever, it's her birthday, get whatever you want kiddo!  Where I have the issue is the service we received.  Part of what is built into the price of the food is the atmosphere, cost of food, and wages of the staff.  So as a person who has been on both sides of the restaurant experience (server, cook, dishwasher, done it all) I understand how it works, so when Jimbob (name's changed to protect the accused) came up to our table and asked "What do you want?" I was tempted to say "a new waiter."  He didn't care or say anything when we said we were celebrating my daughter's 3rd birthday, didn't bring out a dessert, or even mark off anything on the check.  In short he didn't even acknowledge my child on her special dinner.  Turns out that being a server is one of those opportunities for karma to be applied instantly.  If you do awesome and make the customer feel good, tips are generally good.  If you suck at life and make people feel like they didn't have a good time, tips will go down the drain.  There are exceptions to the rule, but you get the general idea. 

I think you can guess how awesome our waiter did when he picked up the check  :)

Mindful schooling

Schooling and education should be synonyms right?  I always thought so but after having a child in the public school system I am beginning to wonder.  When I was growing up the kids that were home schooled in my area (I mean no offense if you were) were weird.  I think a big part of it was the socialization differences but they talked funny and dressed even weirder.  But before I go on exploring new interest in home schooling let me explain the events that lead me there.

So begins the journey towards the decision of whether to keep her in school and see if she "adjusts" to the new structure to bring her home and school her at home.