…in which I talk about the past three weeks in brief.
I feel really bad I haven’t blogged in a while, I meant to just write and write and write over break, but I think I enjoyed the break a little too much. I am still not back up to speed yet. I had two full weeks off for the holiday, and so far three days back at work hasn’t changed my mindset, yet.
This was the first really long break since Heather quit her job and I realized how much I missed her and Ansel now that I’m the only one working. It was so nice to just be home, or even out, with Ansel and Heather during the break; to see them at will, rather than at regular prescribed hours. 
These days, the best I can do is to glance up at the corner of my screen and see a smallish photo of Ansel and/or Heather to remind me why I’m here, why I’m working so hard. So, as you can imagine, it was really nice to just be home with them for 16 days in a row. I didn’t do much during that time, nothing really productive anyway. We didn’t complete any home projects, we didn’t do any real yard work, we didn’t break ground on any new accomplishments, but I thought it was important just to be, and to be relaxed, and to be a family.
Things we did do:
- We went to Pampa for Christmas: I, like most other people who have only ever visited the panhandle of Texas, have no desire to return. There’s nothing out there, so when we go, I try to make it for as short a trip as possible. We go only to see Heather’s family, and while that may make the trip worth while, I still try to get up there, visit, and get back as quickly as possible. We stayed for three days and that, I felt, was perfect. We would have liked to have had some snow so Ansel could see it and experience it, but aside from a few flakes the morning we left, it was just cold and windy. We all had a good Christmas, but it was still just Pampa.
- We (I) played a lot of games: I love to play games, from board and card games to role playing and video games. I’d say that gaming of nearly all capacity is my obsessive hobby (I don’t play games of chance, and I don’t enjoy games of sport, sorry). Heather got me Fluxx v4.0 for Christmas (so did Angela, actually) which was great because I had forgotten to take Fluxx with me and I wanted to play with Heather’s niece and nephew over Christmas. I was so glad when I pulled it out of the stocking because I had been dying for a game. I also learned how to play (and subsequently bought) Phase 10 and Munchkin (specifically I bought The Good, The Bad, and The Munchkin), and played an interesting game called Murder City. There was also a lot of Xbox (picking up at least two new games) and a bit of Wii in all of that, as well. I seriously indulged my gamer side this break.
- Movies, Movies, Movies: It was the holidays, so there was nothing on TV, so we watched a ton of movies. Between network TV, Netflix streaming & rentals, and newly acquired DVD’s, we pretty much watched a movie for each day we were off (though not one a day, some days we’d watch one or two, while other days we didn’t watch any at all).
- New Year’s Eve Party: I spent too much on a Second Hand suit jacket and a salmon tuxedo shirt just to go to a New Year’s Eve party with friends that I see on a weekly (if not nearly daily) basis. It was totally worth it, and for being a second hand, off the rack, jacket, it fit me better than almost any suit jacket I’ve ever worn. The Tux shirt didn’t fit too badly either, though it was a bit short in the sleeves.
Ansel’s been coming along quite well, too. He’s getting better at sleeping alone in his crib, his vocabulary is advancing pretty quick (though sometimes you have to be very observant to tell what he’s saying – cat and that are almost identical except that he sticks his tongue out when he says cat), he’s practically running around, and his stacking skills are getting really good. He spent an awful lot of time around Connor this break and I think that really gave him the courage to get up and move! He also lost his first shoe two days before we were to leave for Christmas. I know he’s going to lose a lot more shoes in the future, but it was just really bad timing for him to lose one right then.
(funny story, when I went to buy his new shoes, I also bought some milk and beer and had Ansel with me. when I was in the checkout line, the guy behind me asked Ansel if the beer was for him. I turned around and said “yeah, the milk is for me.” I explained that I was really there to get shoes because Ansel had just lost one and he said his fifteen year old kid still loses shoes and has no idea where they are or how they lost them, you’d think someday they’d learn to keep up with their own clothes)
But anyway, that kind of sums up the last three weeks. Now I’m back at work and having a hard time focusing on the task at hand. I have a hard time not just looking up at the photo of Ansel and wishing I was at home, playing with, or next to, him and just enjoying that other part of my life a little bit more often.
Originally posted at K. Close III
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