Alex's Calendar

I asked Alex about the picture he drew for his January calendar and he explained that it was Zoe and him on a sled, being pulled by Daddy, who is sweating lines. Mummy's face is red because sometimes she gets angry while walking the dogs.

Dirt, Nice to Meet You...

I guess we must share the same birthday.

I've been feeling rather old lately, and I think children are to blame for that.  They get all old and big and then I realize that they're no longer kids, and some of them even have jobs.  That makes me feel old.  It's a rather strange phenomenon, because some of these kids I see when I'm younger, and then for whatever reason I don't see them for years and that person disappears.  For example, I've seen Derrek like three times in the past couple years, and I know he's 18 and taller than me in a tophat, but if the 6 or 7 year old version of him shows him requesting no onions in his food and wanting to play Nintendo 64, It would not be weird at all.  Because 7 year old Derrek existed far longer in my memory than the 18 year old version.  Same with some other kids, like Bobbie when I did her sister's wedding and she was the little girl running around, and now she's a teenager and everything.  Recently a cousin of mine befriended me on Facebook, and I didn't really remember who he was until I asked my mother on the way back from the airport this morning.  Turns out he was my third uncle's son, a kid that I used to play with whenever I visited Malaysia.  I even remember specifically playing with mercury at his house.  Or maybe that was a faulty memory from mercury poisoning, who knows.

But no, the kids are one thing, the other being that everyone is getting old.  Movie stars I've seen are getting old.  I'm falling apart myself, fragments at a time.  All in all, I'm pretty ok with it mostly because everyone is aging too.  Even you, right now as you read this post.  

Dirt, have you met my friend?

Zoe

Zoe2

Stained glass clown at Value Village

Interesting chicken at the Value Village

$20 for this wonderful hand drawn portrait of someone's parents at Value Village

A Dubious Milestone

So today, at 34 years of age, I finally wrangled myself and my wife into a gym where I got onto a treadmill, for the first time in my life.  For the first time I was running with no particular destination in mind, other than the fact that I was trying to get some form of exercise back into my life.  I've been paying for the gym membership at my work for about a month and finally I dragged myself in there and get pretty close to convincing myself back out.  But Elaine was with me and we both needed to just get into the gym and get back into some kind of healthy form.  Even since I got myself a desk job, I've been doing even less exercise (although my previous job was more manual labor, not really exercise per se.)

It was a pretty good stride, occasionally breaking into some wimpy form of jogging whereby my arms flail about like some chicken with wing atrophy.  I'm still not a big fan of the locker room, further reinforced today when a naked man out of the shower made some eye contact with me and smiled.  It's not like I'm some complete homophobe, because it literally could some hot girl coming out of the shower naked, I would still feel completely uncomfortable.  I guess nudity weirds me out to a certain extent.  Or maybe I'm just a big fan of modesty.

Anyhow, other than extending my work hours a bit more, I think I'll enjoying this working out thing.  Especially after Zoe looked at my tummy and said, "You must be really full."  I hadn't eaten anything for hours.  Sad, sad, middle aged tales.

Ribs for Dinner!

Ribs for Dinner!