I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reflecting about the various priorities that life brings.  I don’t really have any epiphanies to report, but nonetheless I think it is wise to get my thoughts out onto digital paper so they stop rattling around in my head so much.

God and Family

For the first time in my entire adult life, I am putting God first.  I have done more in the last 18 months to reintroduce myself to the Catholic faith than ever, and it feels GREAT.  The catalyst for this change should be obvious to anyone that has looked at my Facebook feed in the last year: it was the birth of my daughter, Eve.  I realized that if I was going to baptize and raise her as a Catholic, I should better know the proper things that I ought to be teaching her and be sure that I could answer questions from her as they arise (in the future, obviously).  That led me to the That Man Is You! men’s fellowship, then to the Knights of Columbus, and then to my own personal studies in Catholic apologetics.  I embarked upon all of the proceeding activities with three main goals: become a better man, be a better father for Eve, and be a better husband for Tasha.

Skeptical?  Good, so was I… when I went into the That Man Is You! introductory classes, I decided to go in with an open mind and left any baggage (and there was a LOT) at the door and actually strive to learn what the Catholic Church actually teaches instead of what I heard translated through people wronged in some way by the Church, by media, or by hearsay.  I was pleased to find that the more I dug, the more I felt uplifted and empowered.  I could go on and on with details (and I may someday) but I think a single quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen about sums it up: “There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church.”  The more I read the actual teachings of Christ and the Magisterium, the more the false perception drops away.

That was a long windy paragraph, but I can continue on now… it won’t surprise you to know that necessarily my second main priority has been my family.  I help put Eve to bed most every night, we have playtime together when I’m home from work, or at a minimum I help feed her dinner.  Tasha and I are trying to get a little “no computer” time each night so we stay connected at a level that doesn’t involve picking up toys.  She also participates in the Ladies Auxiliary, which operates alongside the Knights of Columbus (so we do Church activities together).  We’re applying the above lessons from the Church directly to our family, and our family is getting better all the way to it’s core.

Work / Life Balance

This topic has often been used in a sarcastic tone in my immediate past, but the priorities toward God and family have put work in it’s rightful place.  I still have to aggressively participate in my job when I’m at the office, but I take time in the morning to see Eve before I go, and so long as the sky isn’t falling I leave at a generally reasonable hour.  It takes some effort, and occasionally things shift around so long nights are necessary but they are the exception now.  There is some extracurricular work research that doesn’t get done now, but I’m finding ways to fit that in to my work day in creative ways.  Another important addition is that I’m taking certain status meetings on the road, and I mean that literally: some of my coworkers and I discuss work status and actually take a walk along a running trail that goes around our office instead of sitting in the cube farm all day.  It’s still important work, but it’s relaxing too.

The time I’m not spending on the above activities has been divided among my other interests.  Karate isn’t getting the focus that it used to, and I am somewhat conflicted about that.  I do my best to attend class (and I really need to Facebook/blog when I do make it) but it hasn’t been aligning with my schedule in the best ways right now.  I need to work on that.  I know some of my karate compatriots back home are reading this and worrying to themselves (and possibly others) that I’m quitting or dropping out, and that’s just not the case.  I still attend class, and I enjoy it when I do.  The burner’s still on, but it’s set to LOW for a bit while I work on some other things.  Eventually, I’ll put some tape on it and get over it.

My other hobbies, such as reading and guitar playing/building do occupy some time, but it’s usually evenings or the spare weekend day.  I am going to make some weekend time for getting started on my guitarbuilding hobby, so expect to see some entertaining posts in the Recreation category.

So what’s the point?

None, really.  The reason I committed all this to the blog is to acknowledge efforts toward closing some deficiencies and to reflect on the positive changes this has made on my life.  These changes have been working for me right now, and I intend to continue with them.

Things are going along pretty normally right now around the house.  Much of my time has been focused on work and church-related activities, which is a nice refreshing rebalance of my priorities.  I am learning to leave stress at work when I go each day, and using the rest of my time to focus on my family and helping others.  Unfortunately, due to a fairly demanding Lenten season of church activities, I have not made it to the dojo as much as I would like.  This week is my anniversary and my next-to-last week of That Man Is You on Friday morning, but after that I hope to make a few workouts before the end of the month.

Eve is getting much bigger and more active.  She finally broke her cycle of hovering near the statistical bottom of the weight chart, and is just on the verge of learning how to walk.  She had a minor meltdown at church today, those are usually very rare and far between.  We think it was a combination of being too tired and some diaper rash that she’s picked up over the last few days.  Or teething.  It could also be teething.

Speaking for a moment about my 2012 goals… my book-reading goal has been struck with some attention-deficit disorder.  I have several books underway, opting to read a few pages each night.  One is close to being completed now, and before long I will have strong motivation to finish my guitarbuilding books since I will be starting on a few of those projects as soon as the warm weather is consistent.  The short of it: expect to see some progress soon.

I am trying to get into the habit of blogging again, but honestly participating in life is taking the place of actually writing about it.  Please excuse any long expanse of whitespace here, know that I’m out in the world doing interesting things and I will eventually return here to write about them as time allows.  It is often much more convenient to use social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc) to provide a day-to-day view of what I’m doing.  More soon!

As some of you may know, I am participating in the That Man Is You! men’s fellowship at Church.  This is the season of Lent, and the program challenges us to attempt a different covenant each week.  This week, we are challenged with something that will be very difficult: no media.

The idea is simple: the world is noisy and attention grabbing, and forces us to not spend our attention on the things that really matter.  So this week Tasha and I are going to spend our time reading more, praying more, reflecting more, and spending more time with family and friends.  I am going to completely remove TV and limit myself to only an hour of Internet time each day (outside of work, obviously).  Interestingly, one of our local grade schools is doing Screen Free Week this week so our neighborhood will be experiencing a general trend of less TV and Internet use.

So don’t be alarmed if you don’t see me online.  If something is important, please call my phone or text me.

Well, at least three.

Today at work, I got into it with one of our Technical Managers who was hellbent on trying to design our system during a high level planning workshop.  These workshops have a way of bringing out the worst in me… stuck in a training room with 18 people, only 8 of which actually give a crap about the stuff that is getting proposed is not a recipe to endear me to days of productivity.  At very least it becomes a cautionary tale of what not to do.

So I came home from work tonight and had to go back out to Church to help set up some AV equipment.  I got Eve all situated, and we ended up on the road.  We were in a 40 mph zone, and this white SUV in front of me was doing about 20 for quite a long time.  I wasn’t tailgating him, but I was secretly (outwardly) wishing that he’d step on the gas.  I eventually get tired of waiting for him to learn to drive, so I switch lanes to go around him and he flips me off.  I looked a him perplexed for a second, since his inability to drive must have angered him so much that he took it out on me.

Last, but certainly not least, we have a woman at Church who felt it necessary to lay into my friend Tom and I for getting the AV equipment set up for our session.  There is a big common area at our Church center, so we pulled all the equipment into the galley to set it up in order to not disturb her class that was taking place in said common area.  We ultimately needed to plug it in to a jack in the common area, so with about 3 minutes left at the end of her class we went and wheeled the cart into the area.  Note: her class was at the back of the area and there was nobody remotely near us.  We do our thing (less than 10 minutes) and are headed out.  She stops us and says “for future reference, I’m going to need you to wait until the class is over entirely before you are moving through.  I have to, because of the children.”  My first response was apology, and a question of how we bothered things by moving the cart through the common area.  She repeated her request.  I thought for a second she was actually in one of the classrooms (again, we were so far away I didn’t recognize her as being part of the common area class) and asked if we accidentally switched on the equipment in the classrooms and that’s what distracted her.  She didn’t acknowledge any of this and repeated herself again.  I said “ohh….. kay…..” and turned to go.  My friend Tom said (loudly, within earshot) “Don’t worry about her, she’s just a control freak” and away we went.

Now I’m sitting here in my house, the baby is asleep, and the only asshole to be found is my dog who is consistently sleepfarting right now.  I think I’m going to go out in the back yard now, and hope I don’t run in to any more.

Today was a busy day and began with some time spent hanging out with my good buddy, Jeremy.  He is a very adept nerd in the area of audio equipment, so we went to his place so I could hear his setup which has largely been handcrafted from thrift store equipment and it sounded AMAZING.  He also surprised me with a set of his highly modified speakers so I could get started on my own rig.  Shortly thereafter, we were perusing some local thrift stores for equipment.

Jeremy delights in taking old discarded equipment and stripping them down for components, then using those components to create an excellent audio experience.  We struck out on the audio equipment front, but we did find a cache of old vinyl.  I added 7 new records to my collection and spent less than $8, he added another 25.  I got stuff from Billy Joel, Elton John, Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, and for some reason I don’t quite understand Godspell.  I think I remember my Mom really liking that musical and for $1 I didn’t question my gut.

After that I had to go and get my final measurements for my tuxedo sorted out.  It went smoothly and it is currently being tailored so I can pick it up next weekend.  I also had a 40% off coupon that came through my email, as well as other sales.  Eric, the person helping me out at Men’s Wearhouse, took very good care of me and had found a tux that was 50% off, shoes that were 50% off, and applied the 40% for the coupon so I made out pretty well.  While I was standing at the checkout, I decided to pick up an extra shirt too.

To wrap up the day, I went to Church.  In light of the big Denver game (which turned out disastrous), we opted to change the format slightly so we could keep it short for everyone that wanted to watch the game.  So I ended up just going to to the front of the Church and getting introduced and didn’t have to do any talking yet.  It was a nice primer to get used to having a few hundred people staring at me again.  Next week it will be my turn though!

Tomorrow I will be doing that same thing three more times, then lunch followed by a get-together with our friends.  Where did this weekend go?

Not much to report on tonight… we got some snow here in Westminster so I was a little late coming home from work, which meant I had to turn around and make it to Church quickly for my Knights of Columbus meeting.  The meeting ran long, and then I had to de-ice my car and slowly make it back home.  I spent the rest of the night doing some small chores and trying to unwind for bed, and here we are.

I’ve been on a minor roll at work lately, so far 2012 is going pretty darned good.  Here’s to hoping I haven’t just jinxed it!

Tonight I got together with a few guys from my That Man Is You! group at church.  I was asked to get up at the end of Mass and talk about the program and my impressions of the first semester of talks, so tonight was a planning meeting to figure out the structure of what we’re going to say.  Because the group focuses so much on the small group discussions and the age range is wide, we decided to do a combined talk where one of the more experienced (older) guys is going to get up with me and we’ll tag-team it.  He will tell about the overall program and how it affected him and then I will and talk about how specific sessions run and what I get from hearing the life experiences and cautionary tales of the older guys.

I also found out tonight that the older guy won’t be around the following weekend, so I will have to fly solo for those Masses.  It’s been quite awhile since I’ve spoken in front of a group of people so large, so it’s going to be a return to my high school days and the few times I had to speak in front of an auditorium full of employees at work.  I haven’t acquired enough experience at speaking in front of groups to not be nervous, but I tend to have a knack for it so I’m sure it will turn out ok.

So if you need me the next two weekends, I’ll probably be at Church.