less stress

maybe it's the medication I've been taking, but I have been noticeably stress free for the past day or so. small blow for victory. a bigger blow for victory is that things have been proceeding smoothly at work. and therefore I seemingly have less to write.

that's me...a fair weather blogger. but writing has always served in this theraputic role. it's how I got started writing poetry in the first place.

so hopefully I will enjoy it while it lasts and use this time to stay ahead at work.

yeah, and I also hope I win the lottery.

first steps!

I am pleased to announce my daughter took her first steps this evening!

and somehow we were lucky enough to both be there for it. she is growing up waaay too fast. next thing you know she'll be dating. AHHHHHHHH!

anyway, for anyone reading waaay too much into all the death stuff on here as of late. don't. there's nothing to read into. it's just one thread in the tapestry of me (cue Celine Dion music) anyone for some International Foods Coffee?! :-)

ripple

no. this headline is not a reference to cheap liquor. it is the title of a grateful dead tune I would like played at my wake.

I make music mixes like some people make cookies. as a result I have begun planning the ultimate mix. the one they play at my wake.

this is one tall order, but I think I can handle it. the key is getting more upbeat, optimistic and happy tunes to add to the list along with Ripple. that said I do not think the song is totally sad per se. but you be the judge. lyrics are posted below.

This gets me thinking about Irish wakes, but that is a whole other post now isn't it? Along with a few bizarre ideas I joke about for my layout. One example is a burial robe made entirely out of proscuitto. But you're cheating. This is for a different post.

Ripple

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung

Would you hear my voice come through the music

Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken

Perhaps they're better left unsung

I don't know, don't really care

Let there be songs to fill the air

Chorus

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty

If your cup is full may it be again

Let it be known there is a fountain

That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

Chorus

You who choose to lead must follow

But if you fall you fall alone

If you should stand then who's to guide you?

If I knew the way I would take you home

graveyard run

one of my neighborhood runs takes me through a nearby cemetery. my wife actually started walking this route and I picked it up as well.

now for those of you who do not realize it, running in a graveyard has many positives. little traffic, if any...well paved road...nice scenery...quiet...and arguably safer than running elsewhere.

some may feel it's disrespectful. but I mean no disrespect...travelling around the outer rim of the graveyard. I rationalize this makes me less visible to visitors. well, today is memorial day and there was no getting around being seen by visitors. in fact there was an outdoor mass in progress this morn as I ran by.

"Glory glory Halleluiah" was being sung as I ran by. so maybe today I should have stayed away?

on an odd note, some of teresa's relatives are buried in the same area as my Dad, brother, uncles, grandparents and a few cousins. [note to self: keep running as it would appear longevity in my family is not a common trait] and we run/walk by this area each time we go through. I get a calming feeling when I run through actually. maybe this has something to do with it. the only time I could see graveyards being a bad thing are at night and around halloween? otherwise they are quite beautiful places.

this reminds me that I have many other thoughts and theories on death that I must share with you sometime. until then...

smelling the roses vs. complacency

this cinches it. I am literally going to search out and see a psychologist. bottom line is too much anxiety in my life. since I stopped drinking I thought I was doing a pretty good job adjusting to facing my emotions. I've been doing a damn good job of staying sober at least.

but lately I have been feeling as if I've painted myself into a corner and have no relief. I'm watching what I eat, what I drink, excercising, saving money to go on vacation/buy house/have baby...insert american dream here. and I dunno what this release would be, but I need something.

I need a shrink to see if I need meds, if it's something obvious I cannot see, if it's my folks or if it's just ME. bottom line is I want to talk to someone professional about it all...a third party that is trained to put things into perspective for me.

my wife has been great and wants to help, but does not necessarily know how. reading the post below, I almost laugh. looks like I was in denial as predicted. what exacerbated the situation was the perfect house. we put a bid in on it and did not get it. but I was relieved we did not get it as I was not as ready as I thought I was to move ahead and get house #2. right now we're in a good financial spot. and I want to stay that way. so we're waiting three months or so before looking again. hopefully three months will allow me to chill out and not get all knotted up over the next house situation. the three months also give us time to fix up the house in addition to save more money.

anyways, I should probably tie everything into my headline. now I sit here wondering why we are moving? we're being proactive. long term I will hate it here. it's an ok area for kids, but it could be better. sigh. the burbs are calling me. but I am also settled here and do not necessarily want to uproot and start all over again. so am I being complacent...sitting in my comfort zone? or do I merely want more time to stop and smell the roses.

is there a difference?

worry wart

lately it seems like I get one thing in my life nailed down and sure as hell something else breaks.

felt pretty good about us not bidding on the perfect house. we simply need to save more before moving.

so tonight we had our a/c checked and first the technician tells me I'll need to replace a part and then he tells me not to bother at all. we'll be lucky if the unit will last the summer.

sweet.

stay at home mom and daughter will be lovin life when the a/c gives out.

ka-ching!

I chalked it up to a sure sign that we should stay put. my wife had a better spin. we'll be moving and there's no telling when the thing will break. the house will come with a home warranty so we're going to wait and see what happens.

caveat: I let stupid things like this stress me out more than I should. I am anal retentive and tightly wound. I accept it. but oddly enough I have not caught myself wanting to drink through any of these situations. I used to drink when I was stressed...when things were bad...when things were good. pretty much every night. but I have not been getting the crave during stressful times. so while I still need to chill, it is great to note I am riding out the wave of stress and not cracking open a beer instead. either I'm handling things really well or I'm in some serious fucking denial.

well, ok. NEAR BEER is another story. I do drink non-alcoholic brew...but not as much as I drank the real stuff. and YES I know there IS alcohol in near beer. Do YOU know how much? Some soy sauces have more alcohol per volume in them then near beer. And its not like I'd wind up drinking a case of pretend beer/fake beer/beer-flavored water, in an attempt to catch a buzz.

this reminds me to note how much a pain in the ass it is to get near beer. so much so I thought it would be a great idea to market near beer micro brews, near beer that came in 22 oz and 40 oz bottles...all in an attempt to blend better into the real beer world AND provide us water drinkers with more options. I even had a great name for a microbrew brand: buzz kill.

project: greenergrass

stayed up till 2:30 am this morning crunching numbers. our proactive look into the housing market took us to two house visits last evening. the house visits were the fun part...then came the hard part.

MATH

the good news is it forced me to take a hard look at everything. I realized we spend a shit load of money on this and that...non-budget line items that eat up at least a third of my paycheck. I also realized the downside of being proactive on our part - more savings are needed. of course we saw a house that we loved and is ultimately in our price range, BUT. we just need more money in the bank to get out of our current house and into our next house comfortably. and by comfortable I mean ME not laying awake at night sweating over how it's all gonna work. the whole process is sooo friggin expensive: closing costs, home warranties, property taxes, insurance and PMI. makes me wanna drink.

I've resigned myself to let the perfect house go and to not act rashly. and in the meantime we know what we need to do and have started the preapproval process so that when we are ready...IT'S GO TIME!

this brutal numbers crunching session also showed me what the infamous 3 to 6 month cushion would be. now if only I had THAT saved up as well.

told ya I was mr white bread suburban. wanna see pics of my 2.3 kids standing by the white picket fence? {editor's note: we've only one child and no picket fences...thankyouverymuch}

the downside of my job

a coworker came to me today and informed me he is looking for a new job. let's call him joe. joe wanted me to know out of respect. another coworker, let's call her sarah, told me she might have to quit for childcare logistical reasons. sarah wanrted me to know for god only knows what reason. neither owed me the heads up...and I take joe more seriously than sarah anyways. bottom line is that the advertising industry is pretty dynamic with clients and coworkers coming and going at a seemingly regular pace.

six years I have been at my current job -- I work in the cincinnati market. the cincinnati advertising market is not the largest.

when I grow up/long term I want to go over to the "client side" and get a corporate marketing job. sure there are no more guarantees for job stability on the corporate side of things, but I tire of seeing everyone else leave here. it gives me cognitive dissonance and the fear that the longer I stay, the harder it will be to get that next job.

the market and economy also suck though. so until I find the right job...you see the vicious circle here, right?

monday blues. indeed.

monday blues

EVERY Sunday, sooner or later I get anxious as amphetamine over Monday. I refer to it as Monday Blues. and I know many people feel this way, from having had a great weekend and not wanting it to end to just dreading mondays outright. it sucketh muchly.

an added bonus is I am coming off a week of vacation and will really need to hit the ground running. as a result it is 9pm est and I already have my clothes all ready to go and my alarm set for a 6am wakeup call. ugh.

on the brighter side, after this week is a looong weekend...Memorial Day weekend to be specific. then in late June I take a real vacation with my family...out of town and to the beach. Far from email. And I can't wait.

More of the numbers game

So for the past 8 months I have been dieting. In fact, my diet probably made it even easier to stop drinking - if there is such a thing as easy when it comes to stopping.

Anyway, one of the side benefits to my diet was the impact it would hopefully have on my cholesterol. After my daughter was born, we decided we'd best get our house in order. We had the wills drawn up and got life insurance. And now I am worth more dead than alive. Anyways, the life insurance people informed me - post physical - that they locked me in at a higher rate due to my cholesterol.

It registered a 277 on the richter scale. Anything under 200 is a good thing. Anything over is heart stopping. Sooo since then, I have had it restested 3 times. I immediately got a second opinion and it was down to 266. After four to six months of dieting I came back in at 211 and just recently it came back in at 209. It could be better, but the continual decline keeps me off LIPITOR.

Do any of you remember the cheesy Lipitor commercial? It has already been replaced by a hipper one. But anyways, this lady picks up her husband and, as he climbs into the car, he says, "MY DOCTOR TOLD ME ABOUT LIPITOR." And it is clearly voiced over which gives it an emotion-free robotic feeling that should accompany any pharmacuetical ad darnit.

So NO meds for this guy. next up, I get yet another blood test to lock myself back into my life insurance at a lower rate. ahhh, exciting shit, no?

still sober

very bored, very tired, very sober. about to go to bed but wanted to touch base. watched "ghost world" tonight and enjoyed the tunes the most I believe. have been into jazz and more recently swing. old shit.

yesterday I bought two teeny, tiny minor pieces of camera equipment and started pricing zoom lenses as I want to get back into manual photography once again. have some good ideas of what I want to study, but want a zoooooom lens to really dig into things.

as it turns out, one of my favorite subjects for photography could very well be architecture. from small details to wide, sweeping shots that use light and shadow. a good example of what NOT to build lies *here*.

is there anybody out there?

sorry for the floyd reference, but I've been wrestling with whether or not I should tell people I know about this blog.

I want to be real here and I should be real in my life, but that is not the case.

but despite all of this, I realize I want SOMEONE to read it.
are you reading? what do you think? splendrific@yahoo.com

stress, be not proud

waaaay too stressed this week. and I am on vacation no less! the bright spot has been my 1 year old daughter. I am watching her this week and it is too cool.

but of course, I am checking in with work which is a stupid, but necessary, survival tactic. no matter how well you cover your projects prior to leaving-shit happens. and if it happens whilst you're out, people assume things unless you intervene with the facts. perceptions, even misinformed ones, are reality.

this would not be a huge deal if I did not think about it at the same time I think about my life: we want another child, we want a different house as a result. more on this later, but I ball them all together and think about them all at once. what if I lose my job with one more mouth to feed and a bigger mortgage to pay? eeek! so I am stressed and I am on vacation. yesterday I ran six miles to get out of the stress and it worked. may try for a few more miles tonight. luckily we take a REAL vacation in June. we'll be leaving town so I cannot check in on things. yea!

my parting thought is that we're blessed to have the problems that we do have. have a great weekend!

run, run, run!

ok, I run. I am a runner. it is the only physical activity I have really gotten into. this did not happen until I was 24. wound up losing like 40 pounds and ran a marathon (26.2 miles) within a year of starting out. People have asked me why I run and aside from the obvious benefits...I just do.

so, was tallying up the mileage to date and I am fast approaching 1,000 miles run in my short career. After the marathon I burned out hard and barely ran for a couple of years. Just last year I got back to it in earnest. So for me, 1,000 miles run is pretty cool

I will also turn 32 years of age this year so numbers have started taking on an odd importance in my life: 7 + months sober, 32 years old, recently lost another 45-50 pounds (depending on the day. and yes, those are pounds I basically gained back again vs. new pounds) and a few other things I've begun tracking.

Dunno why I am all of a sudden measuring things like this. I hate math. I prefer words. Took one math class in college my first semester freshmen year, got a C and moved on. Never looked back. But boy, 7 + months and nearly 1,000 miles speak volumes to me.

It's ALL good

ahh yes, remember me? no really, I will post here enough in the future that you will care to return and read up on my so-called exploits.

here's an email address so you can tell me more: splendrific@yahoo.com

so I am spending the week at home, taking vacation time to watch my daughter while my wife earns some extra cash substitute teaching. she is a career mom now but used to teach. she has no regrets and I am loving the extra time with my daughter. the kid has effectively stolen any cool I once had. being sober is something I am doing for myself, but I want to be sober for her. 12 months old and she's already a heartbreaker.

soooo...is being sober boring? depends on how you look at it. bottom line for me is that I used booze to escape feeling things. so now I feel things like rage and appreciate it for what it is...raw emotion. the trick is realizing that emotions are not fact. anyway, my point here is that emotions are kind of a buzz in and of themselves.

more to come, I swear. maybe I'll even explain the meaning behind the name of this blog. this means I will in fact have to make something up. drop me a line in the meantime and tell me what YOU think it means. I will tell you spelndrific is a made up variation of the word splendor. used it in a poem once. and yes, my apologies, I write poetry. sometimes booze was not an obvious choice in dealing with my emotions and I wound up writing them down to get rid of them, to get past them.

by the way, this blog currently sucks. just opened it up and decided to log in so to speak. much more later, like my alcoholism and pure white bread family man bullshit that makes me - me.

Enough with all of my friends' blogs. Enough with all of the articles about blogs. If you can't beat them, join them.