Grandma's shortbread

SHORTBREAD

1 lb. butter
1 cup white sugar
yolk of 2 eggs
5 cups flour
2 tsp. vanilla
salt

Combine like pastry, adding flour until combined.  Pat out and lightly roll, cut

into at least 1/2 inch sizes.  Bake 350 degrees until slightly brown.

Feeling Lucky

The more I see of the world and people, the more I see relationships that just don't work out. Sometimes there's something that you can point to and say "oh ya, that's totally the problem", but most of the time it's just... done. At least from the outside. It makes me sad for those people, but I'm not really surprised anymore by it.

Which is why I feel so lucky right now.

Which is why I'm motivated to keep working on what we've got.

There will always be difficult times (8yo puking off the upper bunk comes to mind).

I just hope that all my puppeting practice will put me over the top. [ squeaky voice ] I'm sure that it will!

Commuting with family

September is about 10 months away, but that will be the first time in a long time that I will not be commuting without taking kids into work with me. They can be difficult, but as I think about it, I'm really going to miss it.

It's been a "forced" time with the kids. The most enjoyable of course are biking, but the train is a close second. For those 20-30 minutes it's just us exploring the world together, talking about what we see, making up silly things (me: "did you see the elephant hiding in the tunnel? It's grey and puts its trunk by the pipes... you have to look hard". Lucy: "No, but I see a purple kitty cat and a pink dog. Woof woof woof!").

Ah, one of these days I'll be less sad as my kids grow up. But today is not one of those days.

The quiet moments

Today when I got to daycare to pick up Lucy I was able to get into the room without her seeing me. Usually when that happens the other kids point out to her that I'm there and we start the pickup routine. Today was different, no one payed me any attention. Lucy was sitting on her knees facing another girl while watching this girl playing with drumsticks on drums. You could tell she wanted to play, but was waiting patiently. After about 30-60 seconds this girl handed Lucy the sticks and went onto another task and Lucy happily played the drums.

It's really nice to see those moments.

Loss of trust

Loss of trust is a shitty thing. Trust takes years to build up, but it's very easy to lose.

The other day something happened that I keep on thinking about because it's really bothering. me. Someone lied to someone else, while smiling, about the stupidest thing: the booking of a boardroom. Not a mistake, not confusion, but a flat out lie because they had mentioned the truth shortly before.

If you're willing to lie about the inane thing to a coworker, where exactly is the line?

Have you been lying to me? How could I ever trust that you're not going to in the future? I don't think that I can, and that makes me very sad.

An easy lie. A smile. A broken trust.

We rode the TRAIN!

Yesterday was an auspicious day. First off, we all had a chance to ride the LRT.
Then we all had a chance to play on the teeter totters that light up and make music downtown.
Then it was date night at daycare (they took Lucy and Isaac).
Laura, Alice, and I enjoyed some food and drinks on a patio.

Then we rode the train again.

It was a low traffic time, going against the rush hour crowd. But... it was as fast and quiet as I hoped that it would be. I'm actually really happy about the train. (I'm not enthusiastic about the tunnel for us to get to the train, but...). I'm just hoping that it will continue to work and people in the city will start to really get a feel for fast, clean, non-bus public traffic. It's lovely.

Mixed feelings

Today was the first work day that the LRT opened. Fine-freaking-aly. We have not ridden it yet, but I'm sure that we'll have more than enough chances this winter. I'm excited to, but not actually going to skip a day of biking to ride it if I don't have to. Some co-workers rode it at lunch 1 stop for fun. Me, that'd cost like $3.45 so I'll wait until I have more time to do it better.

I love biking, I really do. At first it was just because it was fast, cheap, and convenient. Then because it made me feel so much happier with the little bit of exercise. Now as it seems like the world is heading towards climate disaster and it's starting to feel... required. It's something that we can do.

Then I think about what we can do more. Smaller car, use it even less. Then I think about my folks who I love very much driving around in their huge Dodge Ram 2500 truck where the hood comes up to my arm pit. Why do they need a big truck like that? Well, for hauling a 5th wheel like 2-3 times a year. A 5th wheel that's pretty much a second house that they drag around with A/C, satellite tv, etc. Honestly it just makes me a bit sad.

Thinking about these things makes me feel so helpless sometimes. But it helps, for a bit, to go ride my bicycle.

Achievement Unlocked: Biking with an Umbrella

I went slow, it was fine. My thighs were wet, but that's more to do with it pouring and it was windy. But I went really slow and got home eventually.

Oh, and it was at night too.

Cottage fun

As we have in the past, after the long weekend family get together we stayed up at the cottage for the following week. This week it’s just been us up here and it’s been really nice as a family. The kids play “coffee drive through” with the window between the dining room and sunroom. A little bit more each day, they seem to be playing better with each other. I’m not sure if this is a golden age that will last, or a brief window. I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

We have new paddle boards. Alice loves the “see who can stay on the longest” game. Isaac is more cautious, but loves to paddle around in a boat on his own. He does well and has good control and acts as a good Captain Isaac when Lucy is on board. Lucy is learning to paddle, and her favorite boat to fall asleep is in Uncle Phil’s green kayak.

We’ve been playing a bit of Skip-Bo which has been interesting. Maybe a bit too advanced for Isaac just yet, but he will get better at it. We listened to Alice teach Isaac how to play war which was endearing. I love it when they help each other.

We are heading home tomorrow and it’s been a good time. It’s so nice to just hang out with the family without having to travel anywhere, even if it’s a local park.

I go back to work on Monday after being off for 5 weeks. They went by really fast. I still need to figure out how to retire right now and enjoy life with the family. This is really nice.

Waving at the trains

We now have a new MUP that can get us faster to downtown, safer, and I get to wave at all the trains. I think that the drivers enjoy the enthusiasm because they often wave, and sometimes clang their bell and beep too. It's great. The other day Laura even had them wave at her first. I have to admit that I start waving long before I can see if they are waving back.

I'm excited because this means that I won't have to stress taking the kids downtown and worry about them being run over going along Somerset. It means I don't have to worry about me being run over going along Somerset.

I do feel a little bad though. The other route that Lucy and I were taking had a lot more chance to see dogs, ducks, and generally have a nice time along the river. There's less things to point out and talk about, but that also means there are so many fewer conflicts points.

And you've never heard a perfect guffaw until you've heard a 2yo laughing at a train clanging their bell at you.

Twelve Years

It's been a pretty good 12 years. I couldn't really picture a better scenario (other where I rode a self-aware bike that had a built in coffee / stroopwafel machine).

I'm pretty damn happy.

Here's to many more.

Bulk convert iTunes m4a files to mp3's

I knew that I didn't have all my home music files on my work computer. I thought that something had gone wrong with the transfer, it didn't occur to me that it wasn't in a form that WinAmp couldn't read it.

Long story short:
find . -type f -name "*.m4a" -exec ffmpeg -n -i {} -codec:v copy -codec:a libmp3lame -q:a 2 {}".mp3" \;

Somehow sick

I don't know how it's possible that I got sick. No one else appears to be sick. Sure, I splashed around in icy water for hours digging trenches so that the water drains from the driveway so that the garage door can close and the kids can bike again and no one will slip and fall on the ice, but nothing that could have gotten me sick, right?

(it wasn't that bad, I just got wet boots)

We have a new addition to the family: a pick axe ⛏️. I'm calling him Mr. Pickles (yay helpful person on twitter). Super, super useful for digging trenches in the ice to get the water to drain. Much nicer for blunt force ice damage than my straight edge shovel for the short ice breaker which is designed to send shock waves directly up your wrists into your arms.

Other than that not too much new.

I'm still stressing about if I want to move on from work. It... it doesn't feel good at work. It just makes me sad. Sure, it could be we're near the end of the winter and I haven't exercised at all, but... but it's not just me. Ah well. Meeting tomorrow.

Thinking about work

Work is work. But lately it's been stressful with the feeling of making very little progress. I feel that everyone has been stretched too thin, pulled in too many directions. No one is happy and it kind of sucks. My buddy Andrew that I have worked with for like 15 years has taken a 1 year leave and gone to the private sector. Other talented people I know have as well. People keep on asking me if I will leave as well.

Will I? I don't know. I'm worried about a work life balance. I've enjoyed having a super flexibility schedule to be able to drop everything and leave if I need to do something for the kids.

I enjoy helping the people at work. I enjoy feeling like I know the answers right away. Is it a good thing to not really be challenged? My biggest challenge lately seems to be finding someone to go for coffee. Sure, there's a ton of work with impossible deadlines, but I feel impossible deadlines are a failure of project management not my work. Deadlines and goals are supposed to be attainable.

Honestly the best thing about work is the people. I really like the people that are there and if I move on, that would be a hard thing to leave.

This is going to take up a lot of my brain space in the next while I think.

A new plan for updates

I've been unhappy with how much I've been blogging / creating lately. It's been making me sad, not because I'm missing out on the act of blogging, but because I won't be recording the moments with the kids. I'm going to try to resolve to make Monday's A Blogging Day™.

The kids are good. They seem to be pretty much the same, but in truth they aren't. They are growing and getting better at stuff all the time. They are sort of sleeping in until 5 or 5:30 most days. Lucy still enjoys crawling into bed and pushing me until my heads in a drawer. Classic. But I'm starting to feel not like a zombie anymore. I was saying to Annie at work today that I've felt much better this last year. The face she gave me I can only describe as bitch please face. Apparently I was regularly zombie like in December, so I guess this is a ton of progress.

Alice is doing really well. She's far too clever for me. One of her friends at school has felt... toxic? She seems to be guarding herself against that friend which I'm happy about. She's been doing Brownies and loves it. She just got back from a two night (!!!!) sleep over Camp Woolsey way out Dunrobin way. The weather for pickup was horrible with freezing rain and then rain, so the roads were partially flooded on the way back. Not to worry though, we stopped for coffee and donuts.

Isaac is four, almost five, so that means he still has troubles with his big feelings. He'll rage, smash things, hit people, etc. But when he's calm, he'll come over for either crushing hugs or "dinosaur hugs" where he nuzzles his head against your side or head. It's very sweet. He's the kind of person that will give you the coat off his back, even if it's -30 just so you can warm up. So sweet. Then he smashes something else and / or runs away. So, it balances out a bit. He's in Little Kickers soccer right now and he loves it. He really does need to do active stuff to be happy.

Lucy is the sweetest thing right now. Loves being held (too much when I'm trying to do school pickup). She's playing well with both the other kids. Loves to tidy up and clean - cleans up Isaac's messes! She loves playing with her babies and dollies. But she's not Alice, and she's not Isaac. She's Lucy. She loves pink and purple, but has to have something with pockets. Ideally paired with a Thomas the tank engine shirt. Pockets + Thomas isn't usually pink. A week or two ago Laura said "I'm done with diapers. We're potty training her". I was nervous, but Lucy has done extremely well. I was doing something with Alice tonight, Isaac had to go pee and Lucy went in, pulled down her pants, and peed by herself. Cue the fireworks.

Laura continues to be super awesome. Not a day goes by where I'm not amazed that I get to spend time with such a wonderful, kind, beautiful, fun person. I'm not just typing that because she's sitting beside me. It's because it's true. I feel very lucky, every day.

That's it for now.