Let's see, Sunday morning. I made some waffles for the kids, and did some more cleaning around the house. My plans for today are to sort through clothes and toys to set aside for donation pick up on Tuesday. A lot is done already actually, but I will try to rebag/rebox some of them better. I sure hope it doesn't rain on Tuesday so that everything will be dry for pickup. Doing the preparations should help keep my busy and organized, even if the pick up becomes problematic.

Yesterday I went to Big Brothers Big Sisters bowling for kids sake event with the family. My wife is on their board and helped organize the event, although my company had about five lanes all together. It was a lot of fun, the whole family (even my 13 year old daughter) seemed to have a good time. We also went to a City of Santa Cruz planning event, where they had various exhibits discussing the General Plan and were soliciting ideas. Lots of tough problems, and some good proposals for solutions. I wrote down a few of my own. I'm hoping that they take to heart more diverse building styles (encorporating living&working space), as well as some of the traffic proposals seriously. Even something as simple as enforcing no left turn on Mission St. intersections unless there's a turning lane could really help with rush hour congestion. I also hope that they take seriously the suggestions to keep away WalMart and other big box corporate stores. Though I'm sure half the city of SC would be up in arms if they tried, at least that's been the case in the past when they've made such attempts.

In the evening I went for a walk with my son and our neighbour's dog through Lighthouse Field and down to watch the surfers in The Lane for a bit. The dog's leash broke about halfway through and I didn't even notice for a while because he was carrying the end in his mouth. It wasn't until the second person commented, "What a cute dog! Taking himself for a walk," that I noticed what had actually happened. Talk about well behaved, I had a good laugh over it. Of course -after- I noticed, then he stopped carrying his leash in his mouth, and later even jumped in a big muddy pound that appeared from the recent rains. I felt bad about returning him dirty and with a broken leash, but our neighbours seemed OK (apparently it wasn't their main leash anyway). I'll think of something to make it up to them.

Kept it mellow for the evening as I was still pretty tired from a23 the night before. That was fun BTW, great to see Kevin and catch up. He's really a top notch guy. I felt honoured to be seen with him by the time we got to the club and Da5id Din, a fellow from Battery Cage and others all came up to him to see how he'd been and what he was up to. He and I have both been away from the scene for a while, but the contributions he made, obviously left a lasting impression. Dinner was great too, I didn't catch the name but we went to an Ethiopian joint in SF. The okra dish as well as their variation on samosa (sambosa?) were great, the sambosa had a very dark spicy sauce that was awesome, reminiscent of a mole' almost.

What else? Oh right, the mellow evening. I read to my son and got him asleep a bit later than usual ~10pm, he had a long day but I think a late day donut treat kept him hyped up (even after our long walk and lots of running). My daughter was at a friend until late, but happy when she got home, I had done some laundry (which is her chore) and she was totally cooperative when I asked her to fold clothes I think because she appreciated the helping hand.

Anyway, once the kids were asleep I finished reading one of Michele Davis' books on marriage. The Sex Starved Marriage for those curious, as it was the only one I could find at the bookshop by her. The framework in her books I think is similar regardless, and just puts it in different contexts. While the context of this I think has applied at different times to my marriage, right now it's a little different I think. Still, I guess I'll see if any of the suggestions help out, but the one of the best things for me were her examples of other couples' problems and reading ones that were similar as well as what techniques helped them out positively.

Anyway, I want to keep this exercise in blogging focused mostly on the positive, and not detail too many personal things beyond myself. But that said, the last thing I did was write a list of things that I have really appreciated from my wife in the past few days. That was good to focus on the positive in our relationship, just like I'm working here to focus on the positive in my life.

Oh, and undeadly turned 1 year old yesterday! I feel a little bad since I have been slacking a bit on it the past week or two with everything else that's been going on. But I told everyone on the editors list that I would be busy, so they can pick up the slack (of course they always can). Jose left a really nice comment too. I really appreciate his lending an ear, as well as his links and useful suggestions, it's helped me a lot in keeping motivated on the site, as well as provided some kind of consistency maybe? Anyway, since he aggregates this blog and might end up reading it (and all the lengthy babbling). Thanks Jose!