14 August 2024

I was telling my Queen that I’m a lost boy, during this quiet time I don’t have anything that needs to be done and it makes sense to rest as much as possible. Without a purpose I am lost, I could make new purposes to fill the time, but they’ll be abandoned in a couple weeks anyway. I’ll try to finish reading the book I’m currently on before than, that will be some sort of purpose and accomplishment as well as changing my perspective. Mostly I do enjoy this quiet time to be introspective. Always focusing on what to do next is a good way to move forward, but it’s important to take time to meditate on why I move forward and where I would like to go. For the time being I see my life as being given up to my kids, at least until the youngest starts school around age 5. Problems appear to rise in a parent’s life when they want to have their individual life and try to be a parent, it’s easier to accept that myself and my desires are gone for now. All that is ego anyway, if part of who I am is parent to these children, then by caring for them I am satisfying my desires. The hardest part I believe is lack of sleep, we may have a better tactic this time around, still the change of habit will create agitation. I view it all as weight lifting, I’m stronger now because I’ve gone through it before and will come out the other side stronger still. One of the final tests of infantry training was called the stairway to heaven, at the end of a week sleeping in field, we begin a march just after dinner that will take until breakfast. Obstacles we encounter along the way are a downed helicopter where we rescue the injured on stretchers, resupply where we carry cases of ammo an unknown distance down the dark road, and the stairway to heaven. The stairway was a steep climb up hill that seemed to never end, beyond every ridge was another climb. The sides of the road littered with people who had given up, head down, keep moving forward and this too shall pass. Of course once it was over we still had to walk home.

13 August 2024

At daycare they do some art with the kids or maybe it’s always available and when a kid makes something they hang it up. When passing by I had noticed my princess’ name on a couple pieces and yesterday I remember to asked about them. We came home with a short stake of master pieces and I hung them on the bedroom wall for my Queen to see. We have plenty of space to hang stuff and it will be nice to watch her work evolve. There are drawing pads all over the house that we’re always using, soon we’ll put more focus into writing letters in between the lines, I’m happy with her ability to hold a pencil for now. I have memories from first grade where I was learning how to hold a pencil, so she’s doing well. When talking about daycare I’ve started using the word “friend” because she is used to calling the other kids there babies and we’re changing the definition of baby for the elder princess. She’s a big girl not a baby, then she will have a better understanding when we bring home a baby. The final plans are being arranged and we’ll make moves around Labor day, which will be labor day. The princess, dog, and myself will be staying near the hotel, so it will be like a baby vacation, making happy memories in the vacation house while something is happening in the background without her knowing. Then we take our new found treasure home and begin the new routine. This is the calm before the storm, each day is spent thinking what can or should I do to prepare things. What loose ends still exist? Thankfully not much, but waiting with nothing to do slows down time.

12 August 2024

The family visit went well and it’s always good when my princess gets to see her cousins. She was excited to see a big kid and was surprisingly influenced by him even though in some sense it was a new person. Youths are impressionable at any age, the cousin would do something and immediately my princess would attempt it, but also I saw my brother with long hair last October and decided to grow mine out. The first time I grew my hair long was in high school when my other brother had grown his out, which leads me to notice the influence I have on my nephew. The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with my girls, the princess is continuing her word explosion, at one point after her nap I asked if she had a good nap and if she opened her curtains. Both times she said yes and repeated back the sentence I had said, still it’s the first time she’s said full sentences and everyday there’s probably a new word she says for the first time. We had a lot of swimming time and I started throwing her up in the air while in the pool, she got a kick out of it. My Queen got a video of me jumping in the water to make her laugh and she screamed with delight for a good 20 seconds, music to my ears. Our attention is now focusing in on new baby preparation, most of the basics have been done, there’s always more to do. This week on the podcast we should have on the brother who will be replacing me during paternity leave. We’ve also been giving the ok to schedule the birth the beginning of September. I’ll also be taking some time off of the blog when that happens.

8 August 2024

Starting a new exercise routine is going to require more time to rest, and I’m not trying to do anything big right now, just put myself in the best position I can before the new baby. With that I’m also trying to get into the VA at my new location, everything with the VA is a pain and in my opinion it’s designed that way because otherwise there would be too many people using their benefits. They already can’t keep up with the number of people that make it through, I could see online at my local VA the current wait was 61 days for a new patient to be seen. We tried to register online with no luck and that interaction took a lot out of me. The purpose of the organization is to help people, they know there’s a problem with how they work, and something as simple as making an appointment is not possible. I’m young and fairly tech savvy, there have got to be millions of people who can’t even log in because while they can’t make it easier to schedule an appointment, they will reset my password every 30 days and create new log in portals every couple months. Interacting with the VA is like banging my head against the wall and leaves me with a headache. Other than that I’ve got my oldest brother visiting the castle tonight and had to record the podcast yesterday as Thursday night is the usual recording time. They’ll only be here a short period of time which is fine and maybe I’ll get to go fishing. I have a memory of dealing with a hook in a fishes mouth as a kid, but other than that I don’t think I’ve ever done any fishing. Spending time in nature and around water is always nice though.

6 August 2024

The last of the tall grass got cut yesterday, the photo is of the area after it was cut since I like the contrast of green grass where it’s been cut regularly versus yellow and brown of a lot of dead grass. Today I did a little cardio exercise and it’s rough to get started. There’s been several times where I’ve taken long breaks from exercise and I’m familiar with the feeling of shaking rust off. It wouldn’t take long of regular practice to feel better, but right now it’s like I’m wearing lead shoes. We have rowing machine which is stored in the pole barn, so I ran down there, did some rowing and then went to run around the house on my way back. These were short workouts, especially with the run I know I could hurt my back doing a serious run without building up to it. Everything I did was a great start and it’s important for people celebrate small victories, it would be unrealistic to expect I can go from nothing for month straight into a marathon. There’s also the long game to consider, I have more in my life than just exercise. If going hard today negatively impacts the rest of my week, then I’m less likely to come back. Creating a habit is always more important than results, the results will come on their own in time. The other work I’m doing is trying to read more and I’m using my speed reading method. In the second year of the podcast I’d like to read more books and I’m currently reading almost twice as fast as I normally do, still I need to speed up to achieve my goal. Again that speed will happen if I’m consistent in my habit. I’ve also got my oldest brother visiting the castle at the end of this week.

5 August 2024

Lately my princess has had a word explosion, almost everything that comes out of my mouth she’s able to repeat, or at least attempt to. Recently we’ve been putting effort into reading with her more and I’m glad we are since I need to say more words. She’ll catch up to my abilities quickly and I have to increase acceleration to postpone it, a rising tide lifts all boats. Towards the end of pregnancy and the initial newborn I see as our weakest position and use that to calm myself whenever I begin to worry. I remember the exhaustion the first time around and remember I reached new levels of strength after recovering, but before restarting the cycle. Today I’ll be working on the patch of tall grass again, it shouldn’t take long to finishing trimming and then I’ll go over everything with the mower. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and I’ll release that from my mind. There’s still some coughing problems, mostly it’s a mental battle that I cough when I feel an itch which continues to the issue. I’d like to start doing some cardio exercise if I can find the time. I’ve finally added a pull up bar inside my house, it works better than I planned as I’ve found a tall doorway for it. Initially I was doing pull ups on a tree branch which I still like the idea, the only problem was the ground around the tree isn’t perfectly flat, so using a ladder to get up there was dangerous. Then I got a power cage that has pull up bars, but they were too low and there is a metal bar in the back that my feet kept hitting. As always I’m grateful for the experience and glad I found a resolution. 

2 August 2024

Most of the tall grass got cut yesterday, and I would feel comfortable driving my mower over the rest. On Monday I’ll likely finish what I started with the weed wacker, since the mower just got fixed I’d like to baby it for a little bit. Though I did use the mower to cut the forest ground, not the woody part, but where I’ve cleared before that had begun to over grow. Around January I’ll try to change the mower to mulching blades and clear more forest floor. There’s bigger machinery I could use except bigger cuts means more collateral damage. As I was clearing the forest the first time I was careful to avoid a lot of vines that I liked for the aesthetic and now that they’re growing I can see those vines are muscadine grapes, it’s a good thing I wasn’t cutting wildly. What I noticed while trimming the grass is the sound an engine makes when it’s overwhelmed, it’s happened with the mower before where I’m going too fast over too much grass and it shuts down. It’s interesting to build a relationship with a machine that I can hear it complaining, then I can take things easier. During my time cutting, I was working on my technique to see what is best. My hypothesis is it’s best to do a sort of sawing motion on the left side, though it’s not yet mastered and there were times I was swinging wildly out of exhaustion. There was also a need to continuously switch hands on the trigger and thus what side I hold the trimmer on. After I was done my hands continued to feel the shaking like I was still holding the machine for the better part of the day. It was a good days work and very satisfying to be able to walk around there again, I never like owning an area that’s inaccessible.