Hello

Hello out there. Bet you thought you wouldn't see me again here, didn't you?

Day 33

It's day 33 of the 100 days 100 pushups routine. To recap - I'm working up to the point where I'm doing 100 push ups a day. I started out doing situps as well, but ditched that early on.

And I can already tell the difference. So short summary:

Total Pushups since Day 1: 561
Total Pushups in the last week: 210

Not bad who was at 0 and 0 for the last 20 years.

Day 10

Day 10.

Pushup status: Check
Sit up status: Check

So far, that makes: 55 pushups in 10 days, which is *by far* more push ups than I have ever done in that time period. No big deal so far. Not really struggling or anything.

But, I after working out the other night, I thought I'd just do some other simple exercises. So I did squats, you know, without weights. Well, without added weight I should say. I was squatting a great deal of weight. I did 25 of them, and holy crap am I out of shape. That's about all I could do. I could feel it a little bit today even.

I also went the full seven days without sweets. Which was a big challenge for me, but got through that without a hitch too. Next thing you know, I'll be healthy. Watch out.

100 in 100

To paraphrase my friend Gabe, it's not real unless you blog it.

So I started a program. I'm working up to 100 pushups and 100 sit ups in 100 days. This is day 5, so far so good. Some people try to work up to being able to do them all in a row, but I have no such delusions. I'm just hoping to be able to do all of them in a single day. It should be interesting. I have trouble motivating myself to work out, unlike DearWife who is nearly obsessive about it. Doing this provides a specific goal - one that I think is accomplishable.

Image via WikipediaIn a related note, I have sworn off all sweets for a week. Which - at least for me - is fricking hard. On day 4 of that one. Why am I doing these things? To see if I can. Gabe recently quit eating meat altogether. And while I've thought of doing that, I think the concept is nearly insane. Why would you give up tasty meat? Pshaw - health concerns. Bah.

Will keep you all updated.

Children's Book - Owl Moon

Cover of Owl MoonIn our house, we have hundreds upon hundreds of books for our kids. We've read all of them about 80 times. That's a lot of reading.

So I thought I would pass along reviews once in a while. I'm starting with one of my all time favorites, Caldecott award winner "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen.

It tells the story of a father and his daughter walking out into the snow covered hills near their home. They're going 'owling,' looking for a Great Horned owl. A simple walk in the woods is transformed into a great adventure in the eyes of the girl. You can tell really feel her excitement to be out after bed time in the cold with her Dad.

The book is also sentimental - and I'm a sap for sentimental books. Reading the book reminds me of time I spent in the winters on my Grandparents' farms. It reminds me of how extraordinary every day things can be to children

My kids love examining the pictures to find all the hidden animals. Even though the father doesn't really *say* anything in the book, I always like books with fathers in them. There are too many books that eliminate the father, often times without explanation. So it's refreshing to see stories with Father\Child bonding.

The story is so calming, that it is the perfect book to read before bed. It's highly recommended.

Buy "Owl Moon: 20th Anniversary Edition" at Amazon

Jane Yolen at Amazon

Cone of Silence

As happens from time to time, life catches up with me. The schedule between longish days at work, the commute and getting some rough-housing time with the older boys, and face time with the baby, is just hectic.

So I haven't been blogging at all. Which is a little disappointing, because it's sort of a reflection on why I started blogging. That is, I didn't want to miss the little stuff. And I have been. No longer.

Yesterday, LittleBrother spontaneously drew a picture of a heart, a picture of me, and 'mis' because he misses me when I'm at work. Incredibly heart warming. I do spend a lot of time out of the house because of work, but at the same time, it's not like I'm gone for the entire day. I'll get home for a couple hours before they need to be in bed.

At the same time, I do feel like I'm being cheated a little bit. Cheated of time when they're truly innocent. Am I projecting? For those of you who work outside the house, do your kids talk about missing you when you're at work?

The Door fell off

I was at work on Tuesday. I called home to hear about the kids day in school, how the baby was doing, and all that. DearWife "Um, did you see my Facebook status?" I don't know what it says about us that we communicate in Facebook statuses sometimes.

So as it happens, her status was "The refrigerator door just fell off."

But let's back up a few days. I was out of town at a conference in New York last week. On a sidenote, I stayed in a hotel that didn't have it's name on the outside because putting your name on the outside isn't cool.

So, DearWife was crazy busy with the kids. Then we were at my parents over the weekend. So, there has been little time to get anything done around the house or whatnot. So on Monday morning, DearWife realizes it's playgroup on Wednesday, and ZOMG there is a lot of cleaning to do. So, short story, she decides to paint the mud room - because, you know she's full of free time.

Before the paint dries, the door on the refrigerator falls off. The bottom hinge rusted through apparently. Now DearWife scambles to save the frozen pizza and ice cream (there may have been healthy food in there, I'm not sure, I just don't really pay attention to it) and everything else.

Now in my world, that's a lesson. When you are a SAHM with 3 kids 5 and under, it's always going to be something that pops up. In DearWife's world, it's just that the damn door fell off the fridge. It reminds me of the former Bears head coach Dave Wannstedt, who, after each loss would say "if we could have just made more plays." Well, that's the thing, you have to earn those big plays. And with kids at home, it's always going to be something unexpected popping up sucking your time.

But, to her credit, the house was ready for playgroup the next morning. And everyone survived. What the hell do I know.