Monday State of the Blog(ger)

Good morning fellows,

This morning I find myself sitting on my couch having just eaten breakfast, watching An Idiot Abroad, and listening to my son play two feet away from me in his bouncy chair. He loves that bouncy chair. He’s growing up way too fast.

Everyone tells you that infants change by the day, but I don’t think you really understand it until you experience it.

It’s just crazy that I can leave at 5:00 p.m., come home at 11:30 after your kid is asleep, and by the very next morning, I’d swear he has gotten bigger. He’s a bigger baby than he was yesterday afternoon! It blows my freakin mind.

Growing up…

Last night we closed Pump Boys and Dinettes. If you look me up on Instagram, you can find a couple pics of the show. It was a nice run, but I’m glad it’s over.

Ohp… Jake is crying. Guess it’s time to eat…or put his toy in his mouth again.

Brandy and Jake

-scritch(es) out.

Monday State of the Blog(ger)

Good morning readers,

Being a stay at home dad has made weekly blogging I bit more problematic than I first anticipated.

My thought was, “Awesome. Now I’ll have time to raise my son, work on my second novel, and keep up with my blog.”

2/3 ain’t bad, right?

Updates…updates…updates…

I’m still working as a GA at Career  Services. I’m just a virtual internship coordinator now. Working 9 hours from home and 1 in the office. Neat, right?
I finished my edit of The Shadow of Fate. Brandy is working on one now and then we’ll start peddling it to agencies and probably ultimately self-publishing (You can read the first chapter in my Author section).
I’m working on my second book right now, tentatively titled The Wandering City. Look for it in a couple years…

I read Wool by Hugh Howey. It was a great book. Contemplating doing a review.

I’m currently reading Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright. Fantastic so far.

Saw How to Train Your Dragon 2. It was remarkable.

ALSO!

I joined Dollar Shave Club. If you, like me, have issues shaving. Specifically if your skin is sensitive and your hair is tough, I suggest you check it out by clicking Here.
I use their 4x blade with Dr. Carver’s Shave Butter… I love shaving now. Went from a full beard to a Van Dyke. Seriously.

I have better things to talk about but nothing comes to mind.

Jacob is a massive blessing…And I’ve learned so much about being a person from watching him grow. It’s insane that he’s already 4 months old.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to regular posts soon.

-scritch out

 

Also, be sure to check out Everything is Theology… This is the second time I’ve jacked his blog title thing. Also, he’s reading my book…

Expectation v. Reality: Dawn of Justification

Good day ladies and gents,

It’s been a bit of a wait since my last post and for that I apologize.
A lot has happened in the last few weeks…
I’m now watching my son every day instead of working. This may be a permanent thing while we’re in Virginia Beach.
I’ve seen Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
My parents came down for a visit.
I’ve been editing the hell out of my first novel, The Shadow of Fate. Almost there…

Courtesy preview from CreateSpace

Now… To the topic at hand!

This is a topic I’ve wanted to address for a while, and a few moments in life recently have really sparked my thinker.

Expectation vs. Reality.

It’s amazing how your expectations can oftentimes be let down by reality. (I’m looking at you Green Lantern).

My son, for instance, has this nifty toy. His favorite toy. It’s a red and white football with a bunch of holes in it.
Now he has a love/hate relationship with this toy.

He loves it because of its shiny colors and he can hang on to it for dear life without it falling out of his hands.

He hates it because he can’t fit his mouth around it.

There you go. He picks it up because it’s appealing, expecting to chew on it. He then gets angry and frustrated because the reality is… He can’t.

Another for instance….

I burned myself out last week…
I’ve been watching my son during the morning – afternoon and taking a sword & shield class at night. (I love stage combat ftr).
When my wife got home at 3:00, being burned out I laid out on the bed and promptly fell asleep.
My wife, being the wonderful woman she is, thought it would be nice to let me sleep while she took over watching Jacob.
She woke me up at 5:30 to tell me dinner was done expecting me to be happy about sleeping.
Instead, I woke up grumpy because I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, felt gross, and would have to leave in less than 30 minutes to go to my class.

She expected thanks… I gave her grumpy grumpness.

I did apologize and everything went swimmingly from there… Ate dinner, went to class, kicked some tail…

Amazing though…

How context can simply alter a situation. Had I awoken happily or had I not slept at all, who knows what would have happened…

But that’s part of the point… No one knows what would have happened.

I don’t get to pick and choose my reality just because I’m uncomfortable with it or it doesn’t meet my expectations.

I’m not going to justify my reactions just because I’ve been let down by my crappy reality.

As I write this I can hear my son beginning to fuss. My expectation was he’d been down for at least an hour… Reality is he didn’t want to nap right now.

Don’t let your expectations get too high…
Don’t let your reality ruin you or the ones you love…

(I’m looking at you Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice aka The World’s Finest: The Justice League prequel)

– Scritch out

Also: When I publish my book… Read it.