Day 23: Learning to Live at a Different Pace...Yeah, Me Too

Posted by: Cris

The last few days and today especially have been challenging me to, like Emilie, learn to live at a different pace. In order to get moved to Hawaii, get settled in Hawaii, spend time with Emilie before she left and get the girls settled in to life without mommy, I've let myself get behind at work and due to moving into a new house, let myself get behind in life in general. So, this past week was very busy at work as I said before and my list of stuff I really need to get done around here isn't getting any shorter. So, this morning I had in my mind that I'd get to Home Depot, get the stuff I needed to get started on the fence and come home and work on it.

Well, let me tell you that having an intricate list of stuff to get at home depot and trying to fill it in an efficient manner just doesn't work with 2 toddlers running around. So, the time in the store starts to extend which makes the girls more antsy and me more anxious to get out of there then eventually frustrated they aren't listening and the end result is Nova getting off of the lumber cart in an area of the store where she shouldn't, almost getting whacked by a guy pulling a piece of lumber off the pile, getting scared when she realizes she almost got hit and running back to the cart so out of sorts that she runs into the end of a 2x4 and now has a nice scrape on her cheek...and the crying (and almost passing out) ensues.

So, what was supposed to be a quick trip to the store turns into a half-day epic and not much gets accomplished. So, the girls are helping me learn how to live at the pace they provide, even if it means that just getting a trip to Home Depot and back is all I can get accomplished for the day :)

But, the day turned around from there. I made it home in time to watch most of the second half of the Ohio State game and thankfully they came from behind to win...I don't think my day could have taken a loss by the Buckeyes. As Tim and I were discussing last night at dinner, I still need to get to that point in perspective that my dad has - if Ohio State loses, he's disappointed, he wishes they would have won but it doesn't ruin his weekend. Sadly, I cannot say the same (and Tim agreed that for him, the Auburn game does the same). Since Tim is 10 years older than me and hasn't reached that point of maturity yet, it doesn't look good for me to gain that perspective anytime in the near future - Sorry Emilie :(

But, tonight I had some friends over to watch the UFC and enjoy hanging out.

The girls love having people over to the house and though they looked ragged from a crazy day, they were wound up.

These are a couple of my awesome PhD students, Melanie and Dax (the "old married couple" of the PhD program) who also happen to be a couple of my awesome friends who came over to hang out and watch grown men hit each other. (Bret came too but he was operating the camera) After a year of not having any good friends that lived less than an hour away from us (okay, maybe we could get to Travis and Laurie's in under an hour but not much), it is nice to have a gang of confidants who have been over here almost every weekend since Emilie left.

Tonight was the reappearance of a beautiful full moon over the ocean. It was very pretty but sadly it reminded me that it has been a month already since me and Emilie and Becca and Brad were all sitting on the lanai, the first weekend after we moved into our house, and the full moon was hovering out there over the ocean.

Come home soon mommy - We miss you!!