Father, Husband, Tech Guy
It was a great day today. Now that the snow is finally starting to go away we were able to go for a little bit of a hike. It was a lot of fun! I will post some more pictures once I am able to go through them a little better.
It was a great day today. Now that the snow is finally starting to go away we were able to go for a little bit of a hike. It was a lot of fun! I will post some more pictures once I am able to go through them a little better.
Friday is my favorite day of the week.
Friday is my favorite day of the week. I spend the afternoons finishing up little jobs that didn’t get done throughout the week and listing out what needs to be done for Monday. Once my work week ends, I head home knowing that I get to spend the next 48 hours with my family without having to go into the office. It is a great feeling and one that I am coming to appreciate more and more each week.
We make Friday afternoons special at our house. We have one of my favorite meals, pizza and wings, for dinner. Addison gets really into picking out the show she wants to watch and it’s funny to watch her trying to figure out if she would like to watch Frozen for the 100th time or some show Jen or I am trying to convince will be great. This is the only meal during the week we let Addison sit at the coffee table and eat while she watches a show. Most nights we try to start getting Addison ready for bed around 7:30. On Friday’s we let her stay up a little later to finish her show or play a game before bedtime. Once Addison is in bed, Jen and I will find a movie on Netflix to watch. I think it is our way of having a date night each week.
Once Addison is in bed, Jen and I will find a movie on Netflix to watch. I think it is our way of having a date night each week.
I always make sure that I will be work free Friday night in order to spend the time with my family. I am sure the girls are going to get into their teens and not want to spend Friday night home with there mom and dad but that won’t be for a while. I am going to soak this up as much as I can while it lasts.
I am going to try to fit a short trail hike into the schedule this weekend. Hopefully we can have some great pictures to share tomorrow and/or Sunday.
Since the beginning of May I have written a post a day. That’s 22 posts in 22 days including over 6,000 words. I have covered a lot about my newest daughters birth and all the tribulations of having a child born with Congenital Heart Disease.
Since the beginning of May I have written a post a day. That’s 22 posts in 22 days including over 6,000 words. I have covered a lot about my newest daughters birth and all the tribulations of having a child born with Congenital Heart Disease. I have talked about things that have been going on in my life and even some things that I want to have go on in the future. I am pretty proud of my accomplishment so far since I have never tried anything like this before.
I had 3 goals when I started this Post a Day Challenge.
The first goal was to get as much information out as I could about Isabel’s birth. I believe I have done a good job with that so far and there is still more to come in the near future. I am only to the second week of January in Isabel’s Birth story and we didn’t get to leave Denver until February 3rd.
The second goal was to learn that things don’t have to be perfect all the time. When I first started this it was very hard for me to finish anything that was written. I would spend hours writing and proofing an email. It was a gross waste of my time and would keep me from spending as much time on doing what needed to be done in the first place. I have quickly learned that I can read over something once or twice and feel confident that it is written well. I am sure it could be better but it isn’t always worth the time to re-examine every sentence just to eliminate one or two extra words.
My third goal was to share my believes and not fear being criticized for them. I am a Conservative, Christian, White Male and based off my Facebook feed I am in the minority on the Internet. I think there is way to much ignorance on the Internet and want to be able to have a conversation with you without blindly following the pack, right or left, like so many do. I want to be able to hone my believes so that when the time comes I can share them or explain them intelligently.
I was reading through some of the old posts this morning and I realized that even though I have shared a lot about what is going on in my life, I haven’t shared much about my own thoughts. I have played it safe by not trying to make somebody mad or challenging myself. I have avoided topics that have been buzzing around specifically because I didn’t want cause somebody to not like me because of how I think or what I believe.
I am quickly learning that if you don’t stand for something you might not be standing at all.
The Courage Classic is a bike tour to help raise money for the Children's Hospital Colorado starting July 16th and lasting till the 21st.
The Courage Classic is a bike tour to help raise money for the Children’s Hospital Colorado starting July 16th and lasting till the 21st.
When we were at Isabel’s Cath last week, we had one of the nurses talk to use about the Heart Institute’s team, Cardiac Climbers. They have been riding in the Courage Classic for 11 years and have raised almost $700,000. All the money the team raises goes directly back to the Heart Institute for new equipment, education, research and family assistance. The team consists of cardiac parents, members of the community along with many of the Heart Institute employees including doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, echo technicians, surgeons and support staff. Each rider dedicates their ride to a cardiac patient.
This year one of the Cardiac Climbers will be riding for Isabel. We need to get them a little more information and then I will post how to support the team and Isabel’s rider. I was amazed at all of the resources that we had available to us while we were in the hospital and I am sure some of those were because of the Cardiac Climbers. Go check out the links above to learn more about the team and the Courage Classic.
Go like the Cardiac Climbers on Facebook to show your support and help spread the word about the Courage Classic.
I realized something this weekend during our trip to Denver. I work way more than I have to right now. In the past I have put in anywhere from 50 to 70 hour weeks for my day job and then come home only to start working on my night job.
I realized something this weekend during our trip to Denver. I work way more than I have to right now. In the past I have put in anywhere from 50 to 70 hour weeks for my day job and then come home only to start working on my night job. Since Isabel’s birth I have tried to cut back on both of those considerably but not near enough.
I have always been a very hard working person. I would bust my butt to get something done and sometimes, more often than not, that would mean I would bring my work home with me. My dad was a hard worker and I am sure I get it from him. I have always wondered if he ever regrets not being around more when we were little. Don’t get me wrong, he was there for every little league game and would drop everything to help with a question or just just play a game of poker before bed. He just spent a lot of time traveling and for some reason I just don’t remember him being around a lot on a normal day.
My lack of attention at home was especially bad when I had my office setup at home. I would work through lunch because I could and then not end up not shutting down until well after the work day was actually over. I decided a few weeks ago to stop using my home office and start working from our real office again. I also started setting an alarm telling me when it is time to start finding a stoping point for lunch time and then another alarm to start closing down for the day. It has been amazing how I haven’t lost any of my normal productivity and yet have been able to start spending more time with my wife and the girls. It feels like I have just cut out a lot of the nonsense and now I have freed up the time to get everything done.
I haven’t been able to completely remove myself from bringing work home but instead of jumping immediately at every issue I wait just a few minutes to see if it is really an emergency and then handle it accordingly. Most of the time it can wait until I am back at the office in the morning. I guess the moral of this post would have to be; by changing my definition of an emergency, I have been able to not take work home as often and spend more time with my wife and kids. Still not as much as I would like but I am getting closer!
