ghostvillehero

I read whenever and wherever I have time. This means when I’m early for work, during breaks, and at lunch. Usually after a 12 hour day, I read two or three minutes before my eyes grow heavy and the words turn into gravy. I have not been able to read as much since I switched from night shift to day shift, but that is okay. Sometimes things change, and I have to figure out a different way to get things done. Stricter time management is one of those things.

When I was reading, “The Paper Wasp” at work on Sunday, I knew that it was a short book, only 240ish pages, and the pages were quickly sliding by. I spent longer reading on Sunday that I should have. I knew I did while I was doing it. I even commented to Lauren Acampora on Twitter.

The first big thing about this is how gracious Lauren Acampora is for not correcting me on the title of her novel. It is called,  The Paper Wasp and not “Paper Wasps.” The idea of the title refers to one of the characters and the path that she is taking, not the path of multiple characters. This simple mistake of semantics does change the complexion of what the novel is about (at least in my mind) because with a plural meaning, there are different things to look for in the story to make the title make sense. By not correcting me, Acampora showed me that she is a much better person than I would be in that moment.

The second thing about this is that both of our tweets are pretty playful, as if it’s just a lazy Sunday and there is going to be no type of repercussion about spending a little bit more time reading on a Sunday afternoon at work than I would on any other day. No big deal. Most Sundays this would have been the conclusion, but for some reason, management decided to review the cameras on Monday. This was due to a matter completely unrelated to what I was doing. However, when they were reviewing the tapes, they saw me sitting for a few hours, being enthralled by finishing Acampora’s book. It is one of those things that I did not expect to happen, and only happened on a fluke. I did get written up, and all I could say in the employee comments was, “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

And it won’t happen again. There are situations when you have to realize work and life are more important than reading or doing whatever you want to do. It does really sucks, but there is no solution. Even if you do something you love as a career, there are days when you just want to call it in, just do something else to occupy those work hours.  Because I have always worked night shift, those days were easy to cover. Now this luxury is not available. This is acceptable, but I have to learn, apparently the hard way. Adjusting from night shift to day shift, where there is now always someone around to keep an eye on what I am doing, is taking awhile. I still do not have everything figured out, but I now know that I really need to conduct myself in a different manner. This is all learning. I will still be reading at work. I just will have to figure out when is a good time, only on breaks and at lunch instead of any time I desire.

I take full responsibility for my actions, even though I tweeted Lauren Acampora that it was her book that was to blame for getting me into trouble. I said that this whole thing was probably a good blurb for the front of her book. “Only read at work if you can afford the disciplinary action due to not moving for hours at a time. This book will go down on your permanent record.” She thought this was funny, and I think it is funny. The whole thing is funny in a cruel way. I will always remember this novel as the novel that was part of the plot to get me written up at work.

Sometimes as soon as plans are decided, life takes a look at them, smirks, and says, “Watch this.” I planned to have a new post at least every Tuesday, trying to get some consistency in my writing, even had the next post outlined, ready to start. A few major things happened in a matter of days to derail all of this.

On December 31, while I was working on the next post for the next day (which is still partially done in my draft folder), I caught the sickness that is tearing through the country, causing hospitals to have flu restrictions, and killing those who are elderly and/or have compromised immune systems. I received the flu shot in the fall as part of a mandatory measure for most hospital employees, so the duration was a little shorter than many, but still on Tuesday, New Year’s Day, I was dead. I slept all day, sipped little bits of water, and by the time Wednesday came around, I went to work armed with two bottles of Gatorade and two packages of crackers. By the end of the day, I was not 100%, but I was feeling much better and able to function. Even still, my stomach was flipping and flopping the entire next week. I did not tell anyone at the hospital because I did not want to get kicked out of the delivery of my twin girls.

They decided to come January 3rd, two days after I was dead from sickness. They were more than a month early, and I know I should not have been there, that I could have gotten everyone sick, but there was also no way I would miss the birth of these girls. My wife had spent some days the week before in the hospital to stop contraction and for observation, but after five more days being at home and miserable on bed rest, the girls were going to come at 34 weeks and 5 days. Everything could have been drastically different; many babies this age end up on a ventilator and in the Neonatal ICU, but these girls, Elliot and Maddox, were strong, breathing, crying, pooping, and eating all on their own. They weighed 4 lbs 14 oz each, and even though the doctor and nurses told us before they were born that they would most likely spend a few weeks in the NICU until they get older, they were able to come home with just one extra day’s stay.

Having newborn twin girls is quite a bit of work. I do not consider myself to be the Dad of the Year by any means, but I have been helping out as much as I can, getting up in the middle of the night to help feed them, taking over for our two- year- old daughter so that my wife does not have to worry about feeding or changing her too, and trying to get their mom out of the house and away from them occasionally for her mental well-being. Even still, there are times when I feel as if I could do more, even though my wife does not want to bother me. The entire dynamic is difficult sometimes. Before I knew it, weeks passed since I have thought about writing anything.

Once I was starting to get into the groove of these two new girls, my dog, Rascal, started acting like he didn’t feel good. He was having trouble standing and going to the bathroom. I could tell he had been losing a little weight before this, but now he could not get up to go outside, and we had to carry him. He had to go to the vet. We were hoping that the diagnosis would be dehydration or something that could be cured with a pill wrapped in lunch meat and a few days rest, but the vet said it was a GI bleed, and a pretty severe one. There were two options: send him to Purdue Animal Hospital for blood transfusions, and an interminable length of stay. If they were able to stop the bleeding, there was no likelihood that he would be better because they did not know what caused it. I got from the pound when Rascal was already eight from the pound, and he was going to turn 10 in May.

He was my dog, and I was always yelling at him because I constantly was tripping over him. He always wanted to go on runs with me, and he was notorious for digging food out of the trash and pulling it off of the counter. One time we were waiting for some tilapia to cool a little from the oven, and we turned out backs too long. A loud crash from the kitchen was evidence that Rascal was going to have all of the fish that night. He also was skittish during storms and had a tendency to run off. We learned that this was also a game. He ran back and forth in front of the house a few times before taking off down the street. The whole point was to get chased. When we first got him and he ran off, I followed him around town in the car. Rascal eventually would stop and look at me long enough for me to think he was done. I would open the door, and he would take off running again. It got to the point where I would just come home because our phone number was on his collar, and when he got tired, he found someone to call us, and we came to pick him up. He was good with the kids. He let Oliver pull his tail and Spencer sit on him while she watched TV. He did not seem to have a care in the world outside of food and humping a large stuffed bear in the boys room. He seemed to enjoy most of his short life with us, and sometimes I wonder if I should try to find his previous owners, to tell them that Rascal is gone. Part of me thinks they would want to know.

My wife called from the vet crying when she told me the options. I said that there was no real option. We had to put him to sleep. We did not have the money to pay for blood transfusions and hospital stays. We had the twins medical bills already on our plate. I miss him dearly, every minute of the day, but I also know that he is no longer in pain. I know that he is running neighborhoods in Doggy Heaven, eating Burger King chicken nuggets, and getting all of the pets that he deserves. We miss him here, but I think that we made the best but hardest decision.

So 2019 has been weird so far. Joy and pain already, but now that things are slowing down a bit, I should be able to get into the routine of posting when I plan to post. As it is, I still welcome the new additions to the family and mourn the loss of another family member. Hopefully February slows life down some more. Yeah right.

My life has had a new restart date about 100 times. This date is the day that I say, “I’m going to start doing all of the things that I want to do, accomplish all of my lofty goals, and be as successful as I know I can be.” This date is usually my birthday or New Year’s Day, but sometimes they are other holidays–July 4th, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc, that I pick for a new start date. (I do realize this is being posted on Christmas Day, but it is not because I mark this as a day for a fresh start as much as I plan to keep a schedule when I post to this blog, Tuesdays and Fridays, and Christmas happens to be a Tuesday.) This time I just picked a Monday, one of the last Mondays of the year to start. What is different this time versus the last 99 times I told myself that today will be the day I will start accomplishing things? There is a list.

1. I plan to keep my goals realistic. In the past, I came up with these great ideas, writing 10000 words a day, running a half marathon every weekend, holding every baby, petting every puppy, and generally saving the world. These goals are fantastic, but not realistic, unless you have built a strong foundation. The foundation starts small, one cornerstone, and builds and builds. So these things are achievable, but not from day one. My goals are going to keep me uncomfortable so I do feel a sense of accomplishment instead of just going through the motions day in and day out. I don’t want to be one of those people that are comfortable, like the men and women at the gym that do the same workout, with the same weights, in the same order, every single day. This is exercising, but it is not working out. It is not working toward growing stronger and stronger and sometimes amazing yourself. I want to work out and not exercise. All goals need to be like this.

2. I plan to be successful by being more organized. Throughout the years I have learned that I do not work well without a schedule. If there is no structure to my week, to the things that I plan to accomplish, none of it will happen. I am not a person that can micromanage every second of my day because I also do not adapt to change quickly, which means if I already have too many plans, I get angry and irritated if those plans change. Having some scheduling is important but having some leeway in my scheduling does not work either. There has to be some balance.

3. There will be repercussions to not meeting the deadlines. Many times, I spend time doing nothing, scrolling on my phone or playing FIFA 19 on the Xbox. There will be times that I need to sacrifice these things for my goals, maybe it is not watching TV that night or getting up an hour early to get things done, simple things really when you think about dedication to the goals you want to accomplish. On the flip side of this, if I do not do these goals, if I do not meet the deadlines, some penance needs to occur. This can be as simple as not having a phone for the day or some sort of food or money deprivation. The purpose will be that there are many things that I do not want to do.

4. I need to stay out of my level of comfort. This does not mean that every day has to be impossible. Every day just has to be productive. That productivity will snowball and eventually this comfort level will grow and grow.

I do not have to set goals for myself anymore. I am pretty much at peace with my  life. I have many blessings. A great wife, five wonderful kids, a fantastic career, and all of my bills get paid, but I want to set these new goals. The motivation now is teach my children, to let them see their father as a giant, with success and strength, and this giant is the shoulders they have to stand on to achieve more. This is why I show up my 100th time starting over, this is why if I am unsuccessful this time, there will be a 101st. I want to show my kids that they can do whatever they desire, because I did it too.