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.