z’s bubbles 2

Today turned out to be a rather interesting day, though it was slow to start. After all of us went to bed late the past two nights (Friday = party, Saturday = rebellious Cora), all of us slept in and didn’t get up until 8:30am.

And since the past few days were rather messy, the kitchen was too. And we were (almost) out of milk. Fortunately there was 2/3 of a cup left, just enough to make biscuits.

Then around 11 we headed out for Sherman to attend church with my in-laws. That was entertaining. Some people are just… out there What can I say!

The afternoon was surprisingly fun. Most of it was spent just hanging out with Valton and Nicole, while the kids played outside and Cora either ate, or slept. Afterwards we set out for a walk off the beaten path with a very humorous interlude when Gillian and Nicole got spooked by a spider. Those two can act so alike!

Days like today make me miss social interaction with friends; since we don’t really have any. But them having children is making that quite challenging… Either people have kids with similar ages and are 10 years older than us, or they are our age or younger and have no kids. And the ones that meet both criteria we end up not “connecting” with.

Ah well. I still wouldn’t trade them for anything

So last night we went to a school dance for Gillian. And I once again realized that I’m still not a party person. Maybe I should force myself to attend some dance classes. Who knows, maybe that might even be a little fun.

At least Gillian had fun. And Roo and Liam seemed to also. Cora thought the whole thing was just weird but got lots of compliments and smiles by other kids and parents.

And today I’m at home, trying to get this menu-project done, feeling dreadully uninspired as to how to make it prepare toast, and hot chocolate for all the people who would use it, all the while being interrupted every 15-20 minutes by some cutie wanting either a drink or more food or me to admire their latest accomplishments.

Bless their hearts they are completely adorable but definately are not promoting my inspiration level when it comes to work.

So a few days ago Roo and I had this conversation about friends. We really don’t have any “close” friends… Nobody that we see on a weekly or even monthly basis… Nobody even that we have over for dinner once every year (outside of family).

But we have a fairly large circle of acquaintances. Some of them near, some of them far, all of them close to us in some ways.

We were talking about whether or not there were some acquaintances that were physically close to us to (you know, same continent, preferrably same state or maybe even city) could be nurtured into becoming closer friends; share a movie once in a while, have a game night…

And on the same note, through a series of completely unrelated events, I realized something wonderful about people. They tend to put me back into my place, in a good way: just when I thought that I had it rough, my life stinks, that there’s no way out, they cross my path and tell me something going on in their life and I’m dumbfounded! Who am I to complain about anything! There they are telling me how their day, their week is going and I’m thinking wow! All that is going on and they can still smile. They still move on. They still are happy. And just a few minutes ago I was groaning and moaning about money? And it was “only” a three digit number?

I should go home right now, kiss and hug my cuties and tell them I am so sorry for having been so stupid.

I should be happy. My life is great! The -only- thing I really have to worry about is so trivial in the grand scheme of things! All five of us are healthy (well, besides a runny nose anyway). All five of us are happy. We are not starving. We can still fill a tank of gas. We have a roof to sleep under. We don’t have doctor’s shaking their heads at us with solemn faces. Nobody had to rush us to an ER. We don’t have to pick out more or less decorated wooden boxes that we’ll only see now before they are lowered into the ground… None of us has any kind of life-support device strapped to us…

OK, I’ll stop now before I’ll think myself into an emotional wreck.

To all the people I know, who cross paths with me once in a blue moon. Especially the ones who may never read these meaningless babbles. Thank you! Your presence in this world alone means more than you realize!

Just when one thinks that everything sucks, something happens to make it just a tad more nerve wrecking. Like my dear employer’s benefits system somehow missing to send our insurance company my Cora’s data. So through an accident really we found out that she has no coverage and today we got a lovely bill for a well visit.

I want a punching bag for Christmas.

This weekend was by far the worst in a while. Everybody seemed run ragged, even Cora who is refusing to nap.

And in my case, what I thought when a few weeks ago (or was it months? It all seems the same…) on a trip down memory lane I read the question asking if my life today would qualify as exceeding my dreams as a youth, was meeting my expectations, or was below my expectations, was completely true.

When I was 16, what did I think I would be doing on the brink of my 29th birthday? It involved lots of professional successes, charm and popularity, a new convertible, etc, etc…

Instead I’m such a bad father that I can’t seem to go a single day without raising my voice at my beautiful children, not a day passes where I’m not reminded that instead of wasting my life a way for a $15/h job I could be in a financial position to not have to have a job… I can barely provide my family with a roof over their head that is too small for their basic needs, I drive my wife’s faded 12-year old car to and from work because I can’t afford to put a decent radio in my 15 year old faded car. I spend more time worrying about the things that I can’t afford to happen to us than to enjoy the first few months of my daughter’s life and I turned out too selfish to get the fuck over myself and do something to change it all.

But in the end I don’t know how, don’t know where to start.

It’s a mess. It sucks.

And I feel so utterly and completely like a failure.

So it seems the month of September is exiting dreadfully quick. It seems only yesterday that Cora was born, yet that was June 30th… Over 2.5 months ago. It’s scary how time flies.

So, not wanting to nail it to the wall just yet, how was September so far?

Can we say challenging? Yes we could, but it would probably not quite express how exhausting it’s been feeling. There are so many things coming together to form this overwhelming avalanche of… stuff… I’ve never really believed all those people I heard talking about the empty busy-ness of life. But that’s just what this month has been feeling like. Gillian’s school activities, her homework, Liam growing and becoming more inquisitive, Cora not always sleeping through the night… working more hours to get projects done (and help the month-end bottom line), bills, cruddy service from people like the car insurance, the water people, keeping an eye on my parents’ home, keeping in tough with people, keeping the house clean of at least livable… Take all that and throw in some funny ones like your boss announcing he’s leaving. Well, not yours, but mine did. And it’s the first time I was really sad about it too. See, all the others that I liked to work for, I left them. This one, I didn’t. And honestly I think in some ways I had elevated him to a resemblance of a role model: always friendly, seemed to “have it all together”, played golf… you know. And he was a really nice guy to work for and with.

So in all of this what has fallen short? Reading, big time. Spending one on one time with any family member. Any sort of hobby has gone completely out the window and been replaced by wandering idle time where one does not dare start anything because someone might request a cup, or a diaper, or a doll getting dressed, or the desire to be picked up any second now…

Not good. And I’ve noticed my patience has just evaporated. I need to find some way to refuel on the limited time that I have…

If only machine-based time travel was possible… or maybe a Time-Turner that allowed young Ms Granger to take more classes… or like that book Ruth was reading about someone who kept changing time… Well, he doesn’t really count since it wasn’t voluntary and led to his early demise, really…

Anyhow. Writing things down hasn’t happened either. Mostly because the best time to do so seems to be at work, and poohbear is nearly completely unaccessible from there because it’s too slow to serve anything but straight files… But that should be fixed now. And I should really start reading again…

…to move a stinking blog from poohbear to dk.

Grrrr….

All because silly me didn’t know that mysql 4 dumps could not be loaded to mysql 3.23 unless dumped with the –compatible option/

Duh…

Off to bed I go.

This is a test