On location

So a part of my church assignment has me traveling to other areas to speak to other congregations. I've only done it about three times, but seeing different people means I can use the same written talk more than once.

It's a bonus.

But yesterday, someone was taking pictures of me from the back of the room. I didn't notice (I only need my glasses for distance, so I kept them off so I could see my notes), but the bishop said something to me afterward, and when I asked this person, apparently I gesture and make funny faces when I'm up there. They sent me the pics, and honestly I'm kinda funny.

No, I'm not posting them here. 

Wrestling.... schedule

My son, who chose wrestling, was supposed to be getting a shuttle to the high school athletics wing where they could use the legit, purpose built wrestling room. But due to persistent schedule conflicts, their normal start time is delayed.

No shuttle. I have to go home, and 45 minutes later drive him to the high school. Practice is long enough that it's impractical to stay for it, so I go home for the duration. Of course I gotta pick him up again. Coach says this should last through January.

I still wish they had a proper room setup at the middle school. It's getting difficult to accomplish anything.

Wrestling

My youngest son has chosen to join 7th grade modified boys wrestling. Despite him being in middle school, this takes place in the high school after hours. Despite having a late bus, they won't put middle schoolers on the high school late bus.

Yes, I have to pick him up every single school day.

My daughter has chosen ski club, which also requires a parent pickup, but that's only one day a week and it's at the same middle school her brother attends. It's close enough to walk, but not at 8pm with no crossing guard, so I'll get her anyway.

Meanwhile my wife is doing taxes and won't be around to help with any of it. My younger self would have been bothered by having to run around so much, but honestly I'm glad my kids are taking advantage of these opportunities.

To choose REM

I can count on one hand the number of times that I decided to just go to sleep instead of staying up for new years. For the most part I just stay up, wherever that happens. Once I was extremely sick (that was 2003), and about 2 other times I was just too tired to bother. 

So last night, opting to turn in at 9:30 was something of an anomaly. 

I'm blogging about my wrist again

At the end of last year the cast came off my wrist. It was stiff and unmoving - and filthy. You know how your skin looks when it's had something pressed in it for awhile? It was also vaguely misshapen. I had almost no grip strength, and there was a comically absurd mismatch between my forearms. I tested myself slowly at the gym - I didn't want to hurt myself, but I wanted to know what I could actually do.

It wasn't much.

Things as basic as twisting a screwdriver, even without any torque, were taxing. I couldn't do a bicep curl because I couldn't put pressure on my wrist in that direction - I could do a hammer curl instead. There were a lot of substitutions going on. At work I slowly pulled myself back into doing some actual work outside my desk, but doing anything with any substance or merit caused an ache that took a day to subside.

One fun fact about my job is that many of the operations are ambidextrous. I switched most of them to left handed operation and I was able to get things done. Trouble is, you're supposed to go back and forth to prevent strain. I couldn't, so I didn't, which caused a strain on my left shoulder.

Suddenly, I wasn't doing much again anymore.  I have a small team at work (literally one other person) and this person quit, so I had to do everything myself. It wasn't what I would call fun. Long story short, my team is running at full capacity again (someone else was assigned to me) and I'm comfortably back being a shipping manager and assistant production manager.

Hold on, I was trying to blog about my arm.

I had a notepad in my phone where I kept track of what I was doing at the gym and how much weight I was doing it at, and I stopped updating it after the accident. I made another one when I started rebuilding my arm. It was almost embarrassing how little I could hold with it when I started, and it was wobbly. I gave myself some goals, and some others told me it would take a full year from that point before it would feel normal again. 

I felt normal back in June. I checked the old notepad and discovered that I had recently surpassed every single part of it.

Now if only they were able to do something about my elbow. That thing pops like bubble wrap. Whatever. Happy New Year.

Merry fortnite

My kids have two weeks off of school at the end of the year. Two entire weeks. When I was in high school I remember I was in school on Christmas Eve for a half day (it wasn't very well attended, but I was still sent in). Now? Christmas is a Thursday, but they have everything from Dec 22 - Jan 2, plus the weekends bookending it making it 16 days off.

And they keep hoping for snow. Kids, if you already have the day off, the snow is wasted. You can't get a snow day when you already have the day off. You need to time your requests better.

Glasses

I've needed glasses since my early 20's. Fortunately right now my job pays for glasses (something about their contract requiring anyone working there to have 20/20 vision), and I get a new pair every two years. But something unfortunate happened.

Two years ago, they convinced me to get what they call 'progressive lenses', which means that different parts of the lens have different focal... lengths? I don't have that vocabulary, but what it meant for me was uncomfortable. You see, I look with my eyes, but looking anywhere but dead ahead was blurry and warped. They said I'd get used to it, but I never did. After a month, I put on my old pair of glasses and they worked just fine. But something unfortunate happened.

They disappeared when on a nice family weekend for my wife's birthday. Gone without a trace, never to be seen again. I tried to wear the weird ones for the drive home, but it was so jarring that I just went without. My wife drove when it got dark.

When we got home, I went digging and found yet an older pair of glasses. They're a little worn out, with an odd bit of wire holding the rims together and some mismatches screws holding the temples on. They worked well enough, and weren't jarring at all. I've been using them since then, except I have to keep tightening the screws or the temples fall off.

My eye exam was today, and I flatly told them that I was going back to single distance lenses. I'm looking at my six year old pair that needs work and honestly they can't come fast enough.