The 43

In September 2008, Michael played his first organized soccer game. He took to the sport quickly and had so much fun that first season. He scored plenty of goals (it helped he was the biggest kid out there) and was a joy to coach. Today, we might have witnessed Michael's last organized soccer game. He's been lukewarm to playing since the fall. Part of it was the team was disorganized then, and part of it was he just is preferring basketball. I didn't coach his team this year, instead scaling back and let others more qualified than me guide his development. For the spring season (in this rec league, you sign up and get fall and spring in a package deal), his team got a new coach and Michael's enthusiasm perked up a little. However, it was not enough to keep playing, and he asked not play come next fall. It's been a good run. Michael became a good goalkeeper this season -- no easy task considering nobody on his current team plays defense. I think he likes playing m...

This glorious day would have been more glorious if work hadn't pummeled me. I had my agenda set on what I needed to get done in a reasonable time frame, but it turned I out, I accomplished very little of that agenda. Things kept coming up. We had to talk a writer off a ledge from quitting. Three Zoom meetings. Unexpected fires to attend to. I know it was just a four-day week, but hurray for the weekend! Ben had a baseball game, which his team won 14-7 (it wasn't even that close). He struck out twice and now hasn't got a hit in a month ... but at least he has hits this season. He's still so enthusiastic. I took him to Costa Vida for dinner, where he ate an entire burrito. I got the dog out for a nice long walk tonight. Saturday is going to be busy, and I do have some work to do, but at least this week is over.

Days 4 and 5 of this summer were much like the whole month: rainy. And it was finally taking its toll. Another baseball game rained out. Another day I couldn't work on the porch (where I work best and am less tempted to keep grazing in the kitchen). Another gloomy reminder that May has sucked. OK, it hasn't sucked. But this is my favorite month because it prefaces summer. Everything is green, but it has been gray as well. Although I like thunderstorms like the one that passed through last night, I prefer them to be one-day events sandwiched between days of sun, not a break from just normal showers. A glorious thing happened today, Day 6: The sun stayed out all day. I had to actually water the EZ Seed on the front lawn. I worked on the front porch. I took the dog on a long walk without worrying if we would be caught by a sudden storm. I kept the windows rolled down on the Corolla while it was in the driveway. I held soccer practice for the first time in four weeks -- the pre...

We got to drive the car a long time again today! Michael had a basketball game in South Jordan this morning -- a good 15-mile jaunt each way. His team lost (they looked so out of sorts this morning; Michael finished with 1 point and two vicious picks that put defenders on the ground), and after, I had to remember what car to look out for. We hit Subway on the way home. The yard got plenty of attention today. Michael pulled weeds, I mowed and weeded the back lawn, the boys and Lori planted vegetable seedlings in the garden, I put down EZ seed on the front lawn. We got to drive again, to Home Depot, to get the plants and two bags of wood chips. I grilled, and after dinner, we drove up to the H Rock for a little hike and the great view of the valley. The day was still partly cloudy, and we were too early for the sunset, but the boys appreciated the exercise, and Popcorn was super excited to run around. And we got to drive the new car again! I have a good feeling that this summer is go...

The shock period after the new car yesterday definitely meandered into today. We all drove to the JCC so Ben could do a turn/dive clinic for swim team, Lori could work out, Michael could shoot hoops and I could work, and the short trip felt great just because we got to drive there. Later in the day, we went to Costco -- Lori drove while I set the presets on the radio. Yes, we are definitely enjoying this. What we aren't enjoying is the continued rain. I wanted to take the dog for a long walk tonight, but after several clear hours, the showers resumed. The best I could get was a walk around the block. Aside from our excursions, it was a mostly lazy Sunday of recovery. Both boys were exhausted from Friday/Saturday, and though they did collaborate to mow the front lawn, they were content to just hang out.

Tonight, I begin my annual journaling of summer, my favorite time of the year. By my count, May 23 to Sept. 9 (the day before the first NFL game) equals 110 days. That's plenty of time to blog this summer and all it brings. It can't come soon enough. The last three weeks or so have been continually rainy. I can't remember the last fully sunny day we have had here in Salt Lake City. May is usually a pleasant month, with a few rainy days but nothing like this. Temperatures have been cool -- I feel like we suddenly moved to Seattle. I usually start this summer blogging a week earlier or so, but the weather hasn't put me in much of a summery mood. And the next week isn't looking better. But, it's Memorial Day weekend, so now is the time to start Today, this first day of my defined summer, was occasionally rainy and cool, just like the last two weeks. But it was eventful. Michael was at Teton Science School for his fifth-grade class trip since Wednesday, and ...

What can I say about our journey home to complete our Florida/Georgia vacation of April 1984? We left Atlanta early, got home at about 8 p.m., went to sleep, woke up the next morning and went to school. The end. We must have stopped to eat someplace along the way, but I don't remember where. We stopped at a gas station in which I saw a Turtles tape; when I mentioned it to the family, they said I should have alerted them and we could have bought it (we had seen the Turtles the summer before at ChicagoFest). It was a pure driving day, and my dad pushed to get us home. The end. From all these posts I've written, it might seem I didn't have fun on this vacation. That's absolutely not true. The trip was great, a vacation we desperately needed, and one of the last real family adventures we had before my parents separated two years later. It just wasn't quite as wondrous as the first Florida trip two years earlier, and as an adult, it's not evoking the deeper memor...

I'm 16 weeks into the new job, and I think this week, I was more tired than any of the previous 15. I usually wake up during my sleep cycle around 5:30 to use the restroom. In the past, I merely went back to sleep, dozing off pretty quickly. Lately, I'm not falling back asleep so easily. I start thinking about my workday and what I need to do ... and I can't turn my brain back off. Yes, I'll doze for a little while, but even this week, that seemed impossible. I should just get up and start working and nap later -- a perk of working from home. I should keep my phone out of my room, and I have been good at not looking at it every time I wake up, but I like listening to podcasts or ESPN radio on it while falling asleep, so it's in the room on the front end. Instead, I've just been lying in bed, trying to fall back asleep, the opposite of when I worked nights and couldn't fall asleep in the first place. The solution would seem to be going to bed earlier, b...