It Looms.

Quiet, dark hotel rooms are a great place to think. 

I'm sitting here in the dark because the rest of my family is sleeping in after we all stayed up late to watch the fireworks on Lake Coeur D'Alene last night.   I've tried sleeping in, but it's just not something I have the ability to do.  Much more than about 7 hours, and my body thinks it's time to get up and get going.

We should be rolling into drive-way sometime mid-afternoon, and as much fun as the last five days have been, I think everyone is looking forward to it, even me, a bit.  The girls are looking forward to seeing the cats, and being able to watch NetFlix On Demand on a real TV, and being able to jump up and down and make noise without mom or I glaring at them because we are on the 2nd floor of a hotel.

My wife's looking forward to being able to work on more homeschooling lesson planning, and being able to tell the girls to 'Go to the family room if you want to make noise' instead of just telling them they can't make noise, and having a bedroom with a door she can close, and a bathroom with a tub she can use without having kids come in to use the bathroom.

Me?  I'm looking forward to all those things because it makes them happy.  I'm kind of curious about the cats, and I'm really curious about how my garden is doing...I've got this fear that my sprinklers died, and after 5+  sunny days with no rain all I'm going to find is charred cinders.  I'm also looking forward to being able to cook a meal at home...not that it's not fun to eat out, but the vacation budget is just about spent.  I've also got some projects to work on, and a dump run to make.

What I'm already NOT looking forward to is Monday.  That's when I go back to the bad place.

I'm pretty happy with my life...very happy actually...my life, as far as my wife and kids goes, is fairly close to perfect.  Oh...occasionally, because  of behavior issues that all kids have, I'd be willing to trade them for a used candy bar wrapper, but, it would have to be a short trade.  When they brighten up, I wouldn't trade them for anything.  Watching my 6-year old(7 in October!) dance and cheer and say 'WHOA!' for 20 minutes straight during the fireworks right now allows me to put up with a lot of bad behavior.

It's kind of like that at work...do the positives let you deal with the negatives?   So far? 

Yes...the negatives are many, and varied.  My wife tells me not to go into them in too much detail, but mostly they are tied to an attitude that has been allowed to flourish long before my arrival...like, the last 15-20 years.  An almost(almost...things ARE getting better, so I'm told) institutional resistance to anything resembling more than minimum effort.  A lack of job satisfaction(in the Shipyard, you would see a boat you fixed go to sea...I didn't realize how much that mattered).  More that you would have to see to believe.

What positives counter this?  Just one...the fact that this job gives me 700 hours more time a year with my family...13+ hours a week.  That's huge...and it's the only reason I haven't given up and moved us all back to the Kitsap area. 

Now...if they ever create a pill I could take daily that would just allow me to not remember anything that happened between 6:30 and 4....that would be pretty cool...I mean, let my body and mind do the right thing....just have it all instantly go away as soon as I drive back through the gate in the afternoon...I would buy that pill.

Until then, there are vacations, and memories....and lottery tickets.