Vacation ends with my todo list more full than it began. This is a binary year…it will either be astoundingly amazing or godawful. I do not see a middle ground. I would kill for a few hundred thousand in the bank and a year off from work. I really want a reboot to regroup and assess what I want to do with the next decade. A month-long meditation retreat would be amazing.
I am simultaneously excited about 2020 and terrified. I have big plans and have documented the anticipated year in a spreadsheet. Let’s hope the plan works.
Author: Doug McCaughan
Father of 5.
Juggler.
Ticked off at blogger.com.
Welcome 2020
I awoke this morning spooning the dog who turned her head and gave me a sloppy French kiss. I don’t even want to wager a guess as to the omen this is for 2020.
Yesterday, I spent the day trying to plan the year. I made it partially into January. I’ve had a nice relaxing break. 2019 was a great year! Still felt like I was on George Jetson’s treadmill all year. Cue comic moment when movers discard the 2019 treadmill, slide in the 2020 treadmill, and place me and my coffee atop it.
Annual Planning
In scouting, we take a full day to a full weekend to plan the next 15 months. In my personal life, our planning is a bit more ad hoc. Granted, we are usually well booked several weeks in advance. However, my idyllic vision of family life has our family attending weekly family meetings (Sunday post-dinner) to discuss the week and the coming month with a high-level view of the months to follow. The reality is my wife keeps our calendar. We always have the next 4-5 weeks on a dry erase board by the front door. And schedules are coordinated via text messages and shouts as people rush out the door.
On this last day or 2019, I have decided to plan all of 2020. I am setting goals for the year, the months, and the weeks. I am planning meals for every day of the year which should give me the ability to better plan our grocery shopping and couponing. If I can cut out food bill in half of 2019’s then I will be thrilled. I also plan to be serious about growing my own food this year too. I learned much last year and now it is time to put that in practice. At a bare minimum, I don’t want to have to buy another store tomato for the rest of my life. I am listing the Knox County School calendar, specific school calendars, my work calendar, the scout calendars, and the church calendar. I am blocking off time for sharpening the saw for physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual development. And I have time set aside for each of the seven roles of mine (husband, father, homeowner, employee, entrepreneur, scoutmaster, volunteer). Next, I will fill in all the dates which I do not control such as school holidays and federal holidays. I will list birth days and anniversaries. Then I will begin filling in extraneous information. Then I will drink scotch and let the whole chaos wash over me as I begin my longing for 2021.
Too much to do
I find myself decision impaired. Mark the property lines? Finish the shed? Buy food for the year? Recharter the scout troop? Clean house? Repair the drip in the shower? Find the leak in the kitchen? Replace the dishwasher? Repair the car? Rest? Relax? Plot? Plan? Take the dog to the dog park? Land a rover of the moon? Learn Spanish? Automate the house? Decide on meals for 2020? Make a personal mission statement? Work on freelance jobs? Work on my budget?
Crawl under the covers….
Ah, what to do with 2020
The year 2019 concludes. As I look ahead, I see an interesting and busy year ahead. My daughter of 17.5 years will go off to college. I have a mere half a year to complete all the parental dreams I had for her. There will be a ton of work to do in scouting. I want to increase cash flow into the house which could mean a career change or placing more emphasis on my side work of freelancing or my personal websites. I’m toying with taking some classes at the University of Tennesee. And, of course, home improvements. I want all the home projects finished. I also want more family time. More travel.
From the mouths of babes
Son: “Dad, you should get up at 5am and cook breakfast. You handle sleep deprivation better than I do.”
18 years after 9/11…a generation raised in fear
This morning I looked into the clear sky and noticed only a single contrail of one plane. That’s the closest I have seen the sky to plane free since 9/11 and 9/12 of 2001. The quiet of the world as everyone stayed home with their loved ones and no planes flew (technically one flew with an antivenom but I digress) was unsettling. No noise of trains, cars, trucks, planes, or helicopters. No squealing children in the streets or yards. It seemed as if even the animals took the days off. An eerie silence and calm reigned those two days. There was a peace hidden among the terror.
The goal of terrorism is to bring about societal change through violent means. We should have lived 9/12 as we lived 9/10. Instead, we reacted in fear. We have now raised a generation in fear. Kick a dog every day and what happens to that dog? Raise kids in fear, surrounded by cameras and security theater and ask if there is not a correlation to acts such as school shootings. As the generation who has never known a pre-9/11 United States joins the ranks of our lawyers, legislatures, and politicians, how will that fear be manifested in our laws and the impact upon our freedoms?
9/11 was horrific. I still feel the emotions of that day in my chest. It was on a level similar to the emotions that raced through me as I witnessed the Challenge disaster. I will never dishonor the valiant people who gave such sacrifice on that day and those which followed. I will always pay reverence to those lost in the attacks.
I will also never forget that our society was forever changed. The terrorists won.
Today
Today I am doing:
- Client programming and website maintenance
- Balancing my books
- Renegotiating my cable/internet plan
- Cleaning my basement
- Some yard work
- Preparing for a Scout ceremony
- Preparing a couple of meals for the week
State of me
I used to really enjoy social media. Don’t get me wrong, I still do. I overshare often. Of course, what I share is not the complete me. It’s a little keyhole peek into my life. I want to return to more online publishing, podcasting, and video work.
I still hold a fulltime job. That takes much of my time. On top of that, I freelance when I can find work. My goal is to do enough freelance work to consider it a second fulltime job. Of course, I’m volunteering with a scout troop. That is practically a fulltime job at the moment. I would like to think that if we can double the size of the troop that the level of effort will actually drop. Sounds antithetical but a larger troop gives more adult volunteers to delegate work, work which right now I feel compelled to take on.
Let’s talk about the online publishing, podcasting, and video work. I keep putting it off because I don’t want to just ramble, I’d like to have a topic that genuinely interests people. This blog is a stream of consciousness dumping group so it will always be all over the board. My past podcasts were similar. But now, I’d like a bit more focus. But I’m a bit all over the board in my personal life. Perhaps the podcast could be interviewing people I encounter in my day to day life. The focus could be their stories. Hmmm. Time to ponder.
From the mouths of babes
Me: “So, Noah, how’s it feel to be gainfully employed?”
Noah: “Pretty good!”
Me: “You know that Weigel’s card in your car you use to pay for your gas directly from your parent’s bank account? Let’s give that back to your mother.”
Noah: “Oh. Okay.”
Noah, complaining to older sister: “They made me give back the gas card.”
Older sister: “What?! They never paid for my gas!”
I played chess with my son
Last night, as I prepared dinner, I asked my youngest (14) if he wanted to play a game of chess. He eagerly agreed and after finishing his battle on his computer game, set up the chess set on the table. We started playing. I made a move then prepped an ingredient for dinner. Made another move, prepped. After I stood up for the third time, my son said, “Dad, I’m going to go do my school work before it gets too late.” That hit me in the feels. Fortunately, dinner was ready to go into the oven for 30 minutes. I felt I was a few moves away from checkmating him so I said, “I’m about to end you. Let’s finish. This will be quick.” He perked up and I gave my undivided attention to him and the game. In the blink of an eye, the oven beeped. 30 minutes passed in the flash of an eye and the game had turned. Two terrible moves by me gave my son control of the board and he destroyed me. Then he returned to his room to either study or game or both. It was a great moment.
I wish I could turn the clock back 19 years and make every night like last night. I have allowed busy to replace bonds. Excuses to prevent experiences. I have great children. They have had good lives. I could have done so much better. With the time I have left, I will do so much better!
Things I am learning
* SCRUM/Agile
* vuejs/Angular/React
* Hydroponic gardening
* The business of standup comedy
* AWS and Google Cloud services
* Kubernetes
One of my favorite song lyrics
“My life is a mess
I should be depressed
But I’m having a good time.”
Thank you Internet!
I don’t know what this is but I feel like I owe someone some gratitude.
Of Grasshoppers
Student: My life should have been so much different.
Master: Perhaps you would enjoy the life you have more if you spent less time living the life you don’t have.
