It's Been A While

And I have not had a whole lot to say. It seems the longer I am away, the longer I can stay away and the less I have to share.

Anyway, I wonder if any of you are still checking in with me.

I have sort of stopped checking on some of my friends and I am sorry. Nat, I am going to go see what is up in your life. And I know I will be encouraged by your running and your attitude.

There are all sorts of things swirling around my head right now. But mostly, it's this:

Close friends are divorcing
Ran into one of my friends' ex-wife last week
Haven't seen her in over two years
Dammit, but she looks awesome
She is running Chicago Marathon in 9 days
Ever wonder how much more me-time you would have if you were divorced?
I do not think it would be worth it
My other friend's soon to be ex is giving her a scant $40/wk
They have two boys
Nan has to live with her parents now
$40 will not even buy gas
How do you tell your kids?
Which is better:
(a) remain married and your kids never see their dad
(b) divorce and your kids actually have a dad interact with them and take them places and has to finally take responsibility for them while under his care
There are compelling reasons either way - even outside the relationship
Imagine how hard it is inside the relationship
What is the straw that breaks someone's back?
What is the defining moment that makes you throw caution aside and verbalize those thoughts to your spouse?
No, I am not talking about me.
But it does make you review your own situation and wonder if all is as it appears.

See my stream of consciousness thoughts? Yeah. It's been whirling around there for some time.

Updates

It's been a while. What has been happening out there?

Vacation in Canada - fantastic, beautiful, cool weather, good time with the family

Return to work - crazy, busy, naturally

Kids and I visited my parents in Denver - love Colorado, saw Greeblemonkey and MotherGooseMouse and families and friends, spent some much needed time with my parents

First Grade - N started first grade on Monday. So far, no issues with behavior. He seems to be enjoying it. Back to School Dance on Friday.

Work - more craziness. I have openly admitted I do not enjoy managing people. Please help me.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Have you seen this? It's awesome.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Time Away

Makes the heart grow fonder, right? Like Gretchen said, it's not you, it's me. The longer I have not posted, the less I had to say that was interesting, at least in my mind.

Life has been incredibly busy of late and may let up for a few days next week. I did manage to run 9 miles on Saturday and have 10 lined up for tomorrow.

N is going to the best camp this week - fishing, hiking, archery, BB guns, cookouts, making tie-dye shirts, etc. He has come home filthy and tired and happy.

J has impetigo, which her brother had about 4 weeks ago. Poor little girl. Otherwise, she is fine.

Nothing much else right now.

ACK! What Did I Do?

My friend Anne just called with an exciting invitation. Would W and I play indoor soccer on a newly formed co-ed indoor team? First game is tomorrow. In this co-ed league, only women can score. W is to be goalie. We accepted.

Holy moley. Now I am simultaneously excited, scared, nervous, and cannot focus on work. It sort of feels like pre-race nerves. I have not played soccer - other than outside with my 6 yo son - in about 8 years.

So I am supposed to run 8 miles in the morning. If I run at 6 a.m., I should have just at 12 hours to recover before I running all out at soccer.

I also have to find a sitter for 2 hours.

One of Those Weeks

Both W and I have had sort of hard, stress filled weeks at work.

Yesterday, I terminated an employee. I believe it was for good reason and not arbitrary. He believes otherwise. I knew he would think that, so I was a ball of anxiety all morning. I went home at lunch to run a few miles to just work it out in my mind.

Today, W had a very difficult discussion about closing one of our offices. It is the right decision, but it is nevertheless extremely hard.

Neither of these decisions, nor the other decisions he, I and the VP-Operations make are ill conceived or capricious. And the hard decisions often come with much gut-wrenching determinations. It is not black and white.

What we always try to remember is that even though we are the owners, we also employ 120 people and ensuring that those people have a good, steady income is one of our priorities.

Fortunately, we have each other to help us make it through these weeks.

In a Rut

I am in a rut. I have not read a novel in more weeks - or possibly months - than in my entire life. The evenings are a race to feed the kids, make lunches and J's milk for the next day, give J a bath, maybe fold one load of laundry, ensure N's homework is complete and correct, review sight words with N, monitor N's piano practice, play with J and N, put kids to sleep - and that is an evening without soccer practice or the need to stop by and pick up some milk. The same thing every working mom in the U.S. is doing, basically. However, this does not enable me to read as much as I would like. I know there will be a time in my life - and not in the distant future - when I will be able to feed my hobby.

I have several on my bedside table:
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Madonnas of Leningrad - Debra Dean
March: A Novel - Geraldine Brooks
Middlesex: A Novel - Jeffery Eugenides
Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
Bel Canto - Ann Patchet

And this is just the ones I can remember. I have a habit of running across a good novel, buying it, then setting it aside until I am in the mood for it. With my time crunch, I have become a fan of short stories. I need to find more collections of short stories. I can concentrate for 20 pages or so and find some sort of resolution.