The 43

I have three minutes before I take the boys to school this Tuesday morning. What I can write about in three minutes? Basketball season is wrapping up. Ben has 1-2 games left (next Monday and maybe Tuesday), and all of Michael's leagues' tournaments begin within the next week. The season has been wonderful, though a little long. I've been coaching both kids at practice on Sundays, and I'm somewhat looking forward to getting my entire Sundays back. Yikes, my boys are tall this morning! Michael looks about 5-foot-5, I think Ben is up to 4-10. I'm more than six weeks into the new job already. Finally feeling a little less stressed about it, I think because there has been more writing (my strong suit) in the past week and less recruiting (definitely my least favorite part of the job). I've lost 13 pounds so far in 2015. My goal is to be at 200 pounds by summer, and I am well on my way after two months. Time to go to school. Hurray for the three-minute post!

This is our 15th winter in Salt Lake City, and it's been the weirdest yet. I'm looking out the kitchen window and seeing no snow on the mountains. We've had about two weeks of high temperatures above 50; today, it's supposed to climb above 60 again. This is in a city that hosted a Winter Olympics -- at this same time of year, mid-February. I'm not complaining: I'm not a big fan of winter to begin with, so I don't mind that it's feeling like spring two months early. But this is maybe the fourth winter of the last five or six in which I've barely had to shovel or sweep snow off the car. I've only worn the winter boots a few times. The snow toys, sleds and snowball throwers, are strewn around the bare yard, hardly used by the boys. Again, not minding all this, but just a sober reminder of the current meteorology. The east is getting socked again this winter, and I see all the Facebook hosts about how "global warming can't be happening b...

Michael's year of kindergarten was a wonderful experience, for him as a 6-year-old student, and for us at parents. Our school, The Open Classroom, is a unique type of learning environment, with parents helping out in the classroom and becoming an integral part of a robust community. Lori and I took turns co-oping in the classroom, watching Michael grow and interact, working with other kids, developing a deep admiration for the teacher, and making new friends with the other parents. Michael on his first day of kindergarten, September 2009. That first year of kindergarten was tremendous. And, just like every other aspect of our children's lives, it zipped by far too quickly. From that first day when another boy thanked Michael for playing with him during recess, to the circle talks and snack times and playdates, to Ben wanting to sit in on the last few minutes of class every time I picked his brother up, to the field trips and changing seasons, to the class campout (we just...

Almost three months since the last post, but the focus has changed. I started writing professionally so much in 2014 that the the non-professional writing suffered. My reasoning, I was so tired from the work that I couldn't just sit down in front of my laptop and write some more when it didn't count for anything. This blog languished, as well as the two other blogs I still kept putting off. The focus was incomplete. The focus is changing because ... I've been hired for a full-time job. The company I've been freelancing for is bringing me on for 40 hours a week, writing, editing, and managing content. I get to work from home, and I'm not strictly working 9 to 5 every day. The opportunity is tremendous, and I'm excited to begin next week. The new job also has me refocused. Even if I didn't take the job, I knew I needed to reassemble how I was structuring my day to reach the goals I want to reach. Getting in an hour of writing just for me is that first st...

(I wanted to write this back in August, but, well, my time and ability to non-work write has become limited with all the freelancing I've been doing. This is a recollection of 30 years ... and two months ... ago.) My mom drove me to school that first morning. My sisters were old enough to stay home by themselves for an hour, and I'm guessing my dad was working. The sun was shining, and it was one of those pretty Chicago summer mornings the city really doesn't get enough credit for (spring mornings were nice, too). Seven years earlier, for one month after we moved, my father drove me into my final weeks of first grade at my what became a far-away school. I'm now just realizing the parallel between those mornings in 1977 and that first, and only that first morning. I was 13 years old (still a few months away from 14) and starting high school. Notre Dame High School for Boys (it sounds even worse typing it out -- thankfully, the school is now Notre Dame College Prep) w...

Since about late June -- except for the two weeks we were on vacation -- I've been freelancing like crazy. The one company I work for has sent me a steady yet impressive amount of work over the last three months. This is the most proficient work period I've had since going part-time at the newspaper several years ago. And this was my goal to, especially after quitting the newspaper in March. Oh, I am still writing for my old employer too, just adding to the freelancing madness. Amid this load of work, I haven't had much time when I wasn't thinking about what I needed to get done next. I get a little free time, I more often than not will pull out the laptop and work. I pulled back somewhat on vacation -- managing about five or six work-free days -- but was slammed when we returned to Utah. In the eight or so weeks since vacation, I've been a machine ...  and have worked in some way, shape or form every day. After knocking out 17 ghostwritten blog posts and two ne...

At the end of every summer, I'm always a little sad. In my youth, the end signaled the beginning of school again. After college, when I was working as a sports journalist, the end meant the beginning of football season, which was always an exciting transition but also a return to a crazy busy seven months of the newspaper business (summer is always the mellowest time of year for sports desks). After I had kids and they started school, the end of summer meant a slowing down of any adventures and vacations and the return to a routine, with the inevitable cooling and short days just around the corner. I go through these cycles always looking forward to the next summer, inexorably setting myself up for everything going too quickly. I have a fifth- and a third-grader now, and I'm still trying to understand how that happened. Something was different this year throughout August. Not resignation that summer was ending and went by in a heartbeat. Not melancholy that my favorite seas...