The 43

This isn't going to be a post about how I'm rededicating myself to posting every day, or at least a few days a week. That post will come, and I'll be writing much more, but for right now, I might be too busy over the next few weeks the blog much here, just as I was too busy the last few weeks. It's been like that for months, too busy. When I dropped down to part-time at the newspaper, it was with the hope of becoming less busy, and in turn Wife's life would be less busy. But as I inched back up to near full-time, the busy times returned, even worse. However, the change is coming. After two final full-time weeks at the newspaper, my last regular day will be Dec. 14. I might stay on one night a week, but that one night will remain one night, with no gradual increase like last time. I've taken on some freelance editing and have some leads on more. Wife and I have positioned ourselves to take this step, and we are more ready. This was the big news I alluded to a cou...

Autumn has been chugging by so fast, which is a good thing, but there has been one oddity as Halloween approaches: Hardly any of the leaves off our two trees have fallen. The leaves have changed colors, and a few are starting to drop, but it's Oct. 27 and I haven't raked yet. Normally, I would have raked for the first time a few weeks ago. It's not unusual for some trees here in Salt Lake to lose their leaves all at once around the first week of November. But not ours -- a small maple and our big tree of which I have no idea what brand it is. Maybe because spring sucked so bad and our leaves came a little late resulted in them falling late, too. Maybe it's just been the nice weather this fall. I'll have to rake soon, I bet this weekend. We'll be ready.

Today the boys and I went on a mild adventure. OK, it was just to the dinosaur park up in Ogden, but between preschool, work and a gazillion other commitments, we haven't been as adventurous as we were even in the spring. It was a fun adventure on a crisp, sunny fall day we don't normally get in Utah for another few weeks. I packed a lunch -- an accomplishment since we've been hitting McDonald's way too much in the past couple months. Littlest growled at every full-scale dinosaur statue he saw. And at the end of the night, when I asked Eldest what was his favorite part of the day, he said it was the dinosaur park. Very cool.

They broke my heart again. Those damn Cubs made it to the playoffs only to be swept in the first round. On one hand, they weren't tantalizingly close to making the World Series and somehow didn't. But on the other hand, this might have been the best Cubs team since 1984, it fell apart at the worst time. Watching these last three games has been painful. There's always next year, right? Maybe they'll win at least one playoff game in 2009.

I fear I have devolved into just an occasional blogger. It's been a busy three weeks since my last post. I've been working a lot, not only at the newspaper but also with some freelance editing (more on that in another post). School resumed. Eldest's soccer began. The month has just zipped by without a good explanation. That's a good thing (again, for another post), I just wish I was more productive and wasn't so tired. October is not going to be quite as busy, thankfully; I really only have one bad work week (as opposed to four out of the last five). We're going to Moab in a few weeks, which will break things up nicely. And after we get back ... alas, that's for that other future post. A couple months ago I blogged about something big coming and how I didn't want to jinx it. Well, it's still on track and I still don't want to jinx it. You'll just have to wait. In the meantime, it will be October very shortly. Though I want the days to peel of...

The boys started preschool last week. Eldest is in a 4-year-old class again (he was young for his class last year because there wasn't any room in the 3-year-old class when we switched preschools), while Littlest is began 2-year-old preschool. So far, so good. Eldest is a veteran of this class, so I wasn't worried about him, other than wondering if he'd be jealous we'd be dropping Littlest off then leaving (both classes are in the same room). But he's been fine. I wasn't sure about Littlest, however, but he's adapted quickly. He's used to playing in this room, so he feels right at home -- if anything, he always wants to play and doesn't want to sit down for circle time or snack. Other kids are having separation anxiety, but not Littlest, who is so low-maintenance that as long as he's not bored, he's fine. Eldest goes to school Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, Littlest goes Tuesday and Friday. The routine is back, and it's busy.

We knew August would fly by, and here is proof -- we have been back from vacation for three weeks, and I haven't even blogged about it. So five weeks since vacation started, here was our trip: Vacation was two weeks long, our longest trip yet. It wasn't long enough, as we didn't quite see everyone we wanted to see, and didn't get more time with just us -- us being Wife, the boys and myself. At the same time, we were ready to get back: Vacations are great, but they are work. We visited so many people. I saw a friend I hadn't seen since 1990. Our kids played with our friends' kids. My sister and her kids came in from Texas. We went to northern Wisconsin and stayed a great resort near Eagle River. Eldest got to fish for the first time. Littlest swung on a swing just about every day of the trip. Eldest went out several mornings with his Grandpa to exercise the dog. Littlest would wake up with the earlier sunrises and exclaim to us "Let's go!" It was hu...