Time Flies!

Yeah, it's been a while since I blogged. Summer feels like it has been busy, but really, when I look back at the first half of the summer, it does not seem like I have accomplished all that much. Life is different now, being a dad, and this is definitely not a bad thing. Normally, I would be bummed at the fact that school is starting in a month, and that I have gotten so little accomplished this summer. But, my priorities have changed. House projects, school work, and going back to school just don't seem to be the big deal they were before. The worst part of the end of summer is going to be not spending so much time with Maddie. We have had so much fun this summer. She has got a real personality now, and simply melts me with her smile. She is so awesome that I hardly mind the regular baby maintenance stuff: feeding, changing diapers, bathing, etc... difficult, smelly, or wet as they may be, it is still time that I am spending with Maddie. Let me tell you, if we could afford it, I would be a "stay-at-home dad" in a heartbeat. But unfortunately, we can't live on one teacher's salary.

I know I said I wasn't going to dwell on what I did and did not do this summer, but I was reading a blog post from earlier this summer (50 days ago to be exact), and realized I have accomplished several things on this list, and if I haven't accomplished them it is for a good reason. I also still have a month left to get some more of this stuff done. Let's see how I am doing.

House Projects:

• Lattice around the deck - Can't do it- not enough money left in the budget.
  
• Repairs throughout the house (e.g., no toilet paper holders in either bathroom right now) - Fixed the toilet paper holder! And I have been doing an excellent job on keeping up with house maintenance. The interior of the house is looking the best it has in a while.
  
• Beautify the gardens - The exterior is a different story. There was only enough money to redo the side garden. The front I fixed up last week, and looks really nice. I am going to tackle the backyard, which is currently overgrown with weeds, this weekend.
  
• Clean out the shed (again!) and find a way to keep it more organized - I haven't even touched it yet. And if it was messy 2 months ago, you can't even imagine what it looks like now. Another project for this weekend!
  
• Clean an organize some of the messier areas of the house - As I said before, I've been doing great with this.
  
• Make weekly and monthly cleaning checklists and stick to them! - Checklists made and working great!
  

School Projects:

• Write my own recorder method book - Need to do yet
  
• Make 'Elements of Music' posters for my classroom - Working on that right now

The rest of these school-related things are on my nightly to-do list after Maddie goes to bed I am feeling excited about the new school year (did I mention I am getting an ActivBoard permanently installed in my room!), but I do want to start not only prepared, but overprepared, so that it is less likely that I will fall behind.

• Figure out and plan a better way to structure my middle school general music curriculum
• Start the school year with the 1st marking period planned and ready to go.
• Actually prepare scores for the band (instead of winging it, like I usually do)
• Get into school a couple of days during the end of the summer and clean and organize my room, and find out a classroom arrangement that works better.

Family/Personal Stuff:

• Bond with Maddie, and take lots of videos. - I think I have done this the most this summer, as I mentioned above. I really do feel closer to her than ever before. And we have taken lots of videos. In fact there are a few more on the camera I need to download. If you haven't seen the videos yet, check them out here.
  

• Go fun places with Meg and Maddie - As we learned tonight, this is not easy to do. We were all ready to take a night-trip to the OCNJ boardwalk when Maddie came down with a fever, and we had to abandon the plan. Of course, 1.5 hours later, she is fine. But, in general, it is difficult to get out with Maddie's schedule of eating, napping, etc.
  
• Eat better (despite the fact that in the last year I have gone from a 44 waste to a 40!) - I can't honestly say I've been eating better, but I still fit comfortably into those 40s.
  
• Exercise in the pool with Meg - Once again, not easy to do with a baby. Maddie doesn't like to nap. If we get into the pool together, it is pretty much guaranteed that she will wake up the minute we get in. We have taken her in the pool though, and she LOVES it.
  
• Ride my bike - uh, yeah, it's covered with spider webs...
  
• Take walks as a family - We did this the other day, and it was fun, and we should do it more often.
  
• Have Scamp over to play with Max - haven't done it yet, but Scamp is coming over Sunday with the family.
  
• Have friends from school over - I plan on inviting Lisa over, since she is a mutual friend of both Meg and I, and she has a yellow lab who could play with Max. The state of the backyard is holding me back now, but hopefully I will get it cleaned up this weekend, and I'll send her an e-mail.
  
• Have my parents/brother/sister over more - Well overdue, they are coming on Sunday.
  

Computer Stuff:

• Pick a new theme for the blog (may even do that tonight) - did it the night I wrote this post.
  
• Blog as much as possible. Obviously I have failed on this one. I really do need to do this more, so that I don't have such obnoxiously long posts (like this one!)
  
• Set up my sister's old computer in the 'office' as a file server and guest computer - Done! and then undone! I had the computer up and running, and then a week later, I got the blue screen of death, and I really do mean death. Despite several attempts to get it working again, I determined that the hard drive had failed, rendering the computer useless. This occurred while Meg's laptop was sent out for repairs. So the computer she was using because hers broke, stopped working. Well, the old file server is up and running, but now with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so it can be used like a regular computer (the old file server, by the way, it a laptop with a broken monitor).
  
• Finish tagging all of our photos (9,000 and counting!) with the names of the subjects of the pictures - Done as of last night!
  
• Clean up, archive, and reorganize files on my laptop - still need to do this.
  
• Keep Maddie's blog regularly updated with pictures and videos (we've been really lazy about that lately) - we've gotten better about this, but are still pretty lazy.
  

Hobby Stuff:

• Attempt to write an original piece of music for my band to play at school. - I would still like to do this, but I don't know if I will have time. I bought the new version of Finale, which has loads of improvements. I need a memory upgrade though (which is another long, frustrating story--let's just say, read eBay listings carefully before you click 'bid') to take full advantage of the improved VSTs. I did a quick, one night arrangement of the Harry Potter Theme for the band to play at the Halloween Parade, but I would like to try at something original.
  
• Refer to everything above. Most of the stuff on the list I genuinely enjoy doing! - I have been having a lot of fun this summer, and am looking forward to tackling more of this list.
  

Okay, so those 72 days (7 hours, 57 minutes, and 34 seconds now) don't seem like enough. - Scarily enough, there are only 32 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes, and 24 second left in Summer! This post is from 50 days ago, as I said before, TIME FLIES!

After taking stock of the list above, I realized that I have been up to other things as well, which makes me feel a lot better. So, to add to what I have accomplished is this list:

• Re-Read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and just finished Deathly Hallows, which I believe is the best book of the series by far.
• Helped out with music at VBS. I wasn't all-too-much looking forward to this, since I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, but it ended up being a lot of fun, and Meg and I both agreed to help out last summer. I also recently learned how to run the sound board at the church, so I can help out by running it for Sunday morning services.
• Vacationed 'down-the-shore'
• Took two trips to Gettysburg
• Kept the house exceptionally clean

Add those things to the above mentioned red items above, and I can see how those 50 days went so fast.

Well, off to get some sleep. I really need to blog more... so much to say!