Well, I can’t say that I was pleasantly surprised by today. There was one ray of inspiration – the temperature almost hit 70 today. We went to Silver Lake Park after choir, and everyone there had this look on their face like they had won the lottery. Paige wasn’t quite recovered enough to fully enjoy it, but we still had a good time.

The rest of the day went as planned. Kate and I hit the road before 6:00 to get to the swim meet. It was a long morning, though it was made much more palatable thanks to Donia’s suggestion that I camp out in the hallway. Kate did a great job. She shaved time off three of her four races and just conducted herself in a very mature way. I hope she sticks with this.While we were there, Donia called to say that she went to urgent care after church and got diagnosed with strep. So she was home trying to deal with Quinn and Paige and feeling pretty junky. Luckily there are such things as naps and movies. Kate and I finally got home around 2:20, then turned right around and went to choir. Then the park, then pizza for dinner, and now things are winding down.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I’m feeling it. I hate when people are sick in the house, because I turn into a total germophobe and start imagining all kinds of ailments. What I’m feeling now isn’t fake (but it’s not sickness either) – just totally dragging, and for some reason my knees are killing me. Must be a storm coming. Anyway, I feel like I could sleep the sleep of the just tonight. It will be nice if I can actually get it.

It started out well. Donia and Kate headed out early for a swim meet, and I of course woke up then and started puttering around. When Paige got up, she was miserable. I don’t know if she caught what Kate and Quinn have had or something else. She did perk up a little in the morning, and she and Quinn were really good while I got some things done. I was feeling pretty good – caught up on things and about to start relaxing.

Then things fell apart.

Michigan decided to just give up a 14 point halftime lead. What a great bunch of guys. My buddy who was coming to pick up my leaves and trim a couple branches ended up being super late, which didn’t disrupt plans or anything but got under my skin. I got a call to give me the summary of the elder meeting, which reminded me that I missed the elder meeting, which got under my skin. Paige woke up from her nap feeling really crummy, which gave me that little scared feeling you get when your kids are sick. I just got into a fairly foul mood for all those reasons and for no reason at all, and then of course I was seeing the entire world through crap-colored glasses. After we ran Kate to a birthday party and Quinn to swim lessons, the night started winding down and so did everyone in the house. Being sick, getting up early, and fighting through grumpiness left us all a little worn out. Tomorrow I’m taking Kate to her swim meet, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to be terribly restorative. But if I was unpleasantly surprised by today, maybe tomorrow will surprise me the other way.

I got roped in to doing a presentation today for a Demo Day that the site put on to show off the various things that people are working on. We weren’t going to do anything, because we thought that the games stuff had been done too much already, but then our site exec thought we should be there. So there we were! I say I got roped in, but it’s not like I put up a huge fight because I am such a sucker for these things. Anyway, it wasn’t a major deal to set up or anything, but it ran for four hours. I got a couple people to help out, but I was there for most of it, and between that and the manager get-together on Tuesday, I feel way behind. We have an all day review on Monday, and I’m not sure I have the time tomorrow to pull the charts together. I obsess over charts. I want them to be Just Right. And that’s silly because they don’t really matter that much because people just run off on rabbit trails anyway.

Well. This is about to take its own rabbit trail. I think I’ll shut up before I get lost.

Quinn has been taking tennis lessons for a while (along with golf, which seems like a pretentious combo but it makes him happy). I’ve been wanting him to do some team sport, and he had shown some interest in basketball, so I asked him this morning if he wanted to do another round of tennis lessons or try out basketball. I wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say, but I didn’t expect this:

“I’d rather prefer tennis.”

Rather prefer? Good grief, he’s turning snooty on us. He said he might try basketball next year. <sigh> I guess I didn’t sell it hard enough.

He does love his tennis, though. He was running around like a maniac in today’s lesson, and eventually the high energy meant he wasn’t hitting the ball anymore, but he did well for a while. Then apparently he won a pop, which he has been wanting to do all fall, and they were out. So that was kind of a bummer. I was able to convince him that I would take it upon myself to redeem his pop point for a homemade lemonade.

So we’re on to the next set of lessons. When he’s winning at the All England Club, I’ll be glad he stuck with it.

It seems like things are going to pick up a little bit before the end of the year slowdown. This week at work has a couple of extracurricular activities, including all day tomorrow at a managers summit. That will cause me to get behind on the program review that is happening next week. Around the time I get caught up on that (and we inevitably launch into far too many meetings in order to stay on track), we will need to start the annual performance review cycle. Fun! Being busy does help the time go faster, but that also kind of makes the deadlines come quicker.

Outside of work, the kid stuff isn’t too bad. Kate has a band concert Thursday, then we have conferences next week. Then there will be a little lull, with things getting especially quiet since Quinn’s tennis and swim lessons are ending, and then there will be the onslaught of Christmas stuff. What all this means (besides a blog post that probably borders on unreadable) is that the end of the year will rush up and be here before I know it. It’s such a nice time of year that I like to try to savor it a little, but it seems like it might be a little more like last year, where I came screaming in to the holidays and then threw on the brakes. It worked OK, mostly because I had two full weeks off, but it was a little jarring. But maybe that’s more likely to be the way of things in the years to come.

I had a fairly intense blow-up at Paige before dinner tonight. We were trying to go into the restaurant, and she didn’t want shoes, and we wanted her to have shoes, and it got nasty. I think she finally either got tired or got scared of me, and we got her in. I figured she would be impossible to talk to for the rest of the night, and she was fairly sulky for a while, but then I got her to apologize (and I apologized too), and she was sweet for the rest of the night. I was struck by how impossible it is for her to hold a grudge. Kate and Quinn are both capable of that, so it probably won’t be too much longer. But for tonight, it was nice that Paige had completely forgotten about the previous unpleasantness and was ready to move on. Of course, the next step for both of us is to try to not have any unpleasantness to begin with.

I’ll just get it out of the way and say that it would have been much happier if Michigan hadn’t totally choked. It wasn’t completely their fault – once they lost the momentum there was just no getting it back – but it was not their best showing. And it certainly didn’t bring out the best in me.

But enough of that. Today was pretty nice. Quinn had tennis, then he and I hit the library and bookstore. We did pumpkins when we got home, then went out for lunch. I got some raking done before the game (and obviously should have just kept on raking). Then after dinner, we got our pirate, Batman, and poodle out for trick or treating. I wanted to hit the Lewises before we got too cold, so we went straight there. That went pretty quickly because we were out a little early and people didn’t have their lights on yet, so I decided we could forge further before turning around. I decide something like this almost every year, and I always regret it. Around the time the kids start getting tired and cold (OK, when I start getting tired and cold), I realize we’re really far away. Paige starting fading fast on the way back, but I was able to coax her the rest of the way home, then Kate and Quinn headed back out with me. That didn’t last too long; they were pretty tired. There was a candy trade when we got home, complicated by the fact that Kate kept trying to trade Quinn candy he didn’t want. Finally got it straightened out though. It’s nice to have the extra hour tonight. The short days have my sleep all screwed up, and the walking around really wore me out. Hopefully I won’t wake up at like 3.

Every weekend feels short. This one seemed to go by excessively fast. Mostly because of today. I didn’t sleep well because Quinn went to bed really upset about a headache, and I was worried that he was coming down with something. He seemed much better in the morning, but all the worry had taken its toll on me. I developed my own headache halfway through church. Luckily it wasn’t too crippling. Quinn was pretty much back to normal when we got home, so we ate lunch and parked in front of the Packer game. He seemed engrossed, so I decided to try to drift off for a quick nap. About the time I nodded off, Quinn jumped on me and alerted me that the girls were back. They had decided to drive straight home after the meet since Paige was cranky. So I got them in and got Paige put to bed, then took the kids to choir, where I almost fell asleep again. It’s felt like I’m running at half speed ever since then. Not to wish the days away, but I’m already looking forward to next weekend. It’s not like we’ll be tromping all around the neighborhood….oooh, wait a minute…

One of the kids from our church went to Luther College to play football, and I decided a group of us should go down and see him play. Kate ended up having a swim meet in Hudson, and Donia decided to go to her parents with the girls since they are close to Hudson and they could help watch Paige. So I got to take Quinn with me to Decorah. We left with Chuck and CJ after Quinn’s tennis lesson and met Steve and Linda at Mabe’s Pizza. It was a good choice – the pizza was good, and it had a nice local feel to it. We met Jenny and Ron at the game about 10 minutes before kickoff. It was a beautiful day, which was a pleasant surprise after yesterday’s blizzard. Quinn paid good attention for the first half, but drifted off after that. Too bad – it was a great game that came down to the last play, and the Norse held on for the win. Ian seemed glad to see us. It was nice to go down and support him, and it was nice to spend the day with my son. Not that I was telling him to do things he didn’t want to, but he was a good boy today and he made me proud.

Someone else that made me proud was my little swimmer. It sounded like her first couple races were a little rough, but then she decided she wanted to win a heat because they were giving out necklaces. In her 100 free, Donia said she took off like a shot, started losing gas after the turn…..then won her heat by 0.01. She said that Kate looked up at the board and did a fist pump. Wish I could have seen that.

This was taken today. October 23.

It’s going to be a long winter.