New photos

I took the camera out this morning to practice composing some photos. I never have hiked into Stillhouse Hollow Nature Preserve in Northwest Austin, even though it is only a few miles from the house and I run or ride by this place several times a month.

The hiking was non existent. The trail is a blacktop path and less than a half mile long. It was a nice quiet walk though, and I got a couple of  nice shots.

 This morning's destination

 Found graffiti

Heart shaped cactus

After shooting a few dozen photos and playing with my camera settings, I drove over to the scenic overlook on Loop 360. I'll come back here on a less cloudy day.

 Downtown Austin from the Loop 360 overlook.

Since you have made it this far, you deserve a treat, so here is a photo of Squirrel from a few days ago. 

Picture this

I am thinking about trying a 52 week photo challenge, or even a 365 day, photo-a-day challenge to document the upcoming year. It will be interesting to look back in 2017 on how the children and I have grown and changed after a full year of this new life.

My parents have already let me have my Christmas gift, a new camera, an Olympus OMD E-M10. I was able to buy it locally with a 14-42 Olympus M.Zukio Digital 14-42mm (f 3.5-5.6II R) lens. I don't know what most of that means.

Here are a couple of my first shots.

The camera has an on board picture story mode. Our first Christmas tree in the new life.

The view from our backyard this morning, The moon is barely visible. 

My tri-color lanatas are starting to fade for the winter.

I have a ton to learn about this new camera and I'm excited to have some really good pictures of the kids.

Another one last time

Divorce is exactly opposite of the joy and great fun of a wedding celebration. It's a cold and unfeeling process. My lawyer warned me about this idea early on.

Part of the process I wish would end quickly, the endings.

It seems that I often need to do some thing one last time to move this divorce to a new, further state of completion. Today it was one last time to deal with the collected seasonal decorations and ornaments for a Christmas tree I evidently lost somewhere between the house being cleaned out and a judge's gavel. I was really interested to see and keep the ornaments and decorations the kids made when they were preschoolers. When it came time to start dividing up the collection, those are the things I chose.

Last week I bought a new artificial tree for our little house. One huge benefit of the past 6 months, our house is relatively uncluttered now. Imagine your living room. Now imagine someone removing half of your junk. Voila!

The tree I bought is about two or three feet shorter than it's predecessor and it fits in a spot that the larger never would. This new tree also fits with the uncluttered feel of this new life, but that may be due to the small number of ornaments the kids used to decorate the new tree. As quickly as I got home, I added the recollected treasures to our little tree. This is now the perfect Christmas Tree!

Still, it is sad to see a bunch of things that we collected together over half a life time strewn across a garage floor, waiting to be picked, one ornament at a time. It was like choosing up teams for the worst after school basketball game ever.

Really though, it was just one more last time to remind me of the way things once were and how they won't be again. Not even after the last, last time.This should be the last of the shared "stuff" to deal with. We still have to deal with 25 years of photographs and videos, but that is another issue, for another last time. Maybe that will be the end of it, too.

Thankful

I have a lot of reasons to be thankful.

The two biggest, and my favorite reasons for everything in my entire universe, Kid 1 and Kid 2. The Oldest and The Youngest. The Boy, The Girl. Whatever they are called, I am thankful every day that these two call me dad.

I have a wonderful life. I never would have imagined this life a year ago. And especially not two years ago. My first real clue that my marriage was on the rocks came about unexpectedly on Thanksgiving  night, 2013. It has taken me most of those two years to remember the many things that SHOULD make me grateful. Every. Single. Day.

I come from an amazing family. Siblings, parents, and all the extended family, these are good people who really rally when the chips are down. The past seven months have revealed this frequently. Every nasty surprise, every emotional roller ride, and every unexpected cash infusion. Lawyers can burn through some cash! My people have stuck by me. That is a lot of reasons to be thankful.

Maybe surprisingly, I am thankful for the past twenty years. It didn't end the way I expected, but the mother of my children and I were a good pair for a very long time. And we made amazing kids.

Add to that, I have an amazing job working with students I really like and a staff of coworkers who I love like family, and I am in the greatest teaching situation I could ever imagine. My coworkers have been through the daily wringer with me and they stood by me through the entire process. I am lucky to get to spend 8 10 hours a day with this crew.

This is not the life I planned for. This is not the life I wanted or expected. But THIS is the life I am grateful to enjoy with my family and friends. Without the craziness of the last 7 months, I might not have realized how many things lead me to be thankful.

Old hobbies, a resounding success

Since separating from the ex wife I have been hitting up a few live music venues a month. I had forgotten how much I like to see musicians and performers in front of a good audience. Thanks to living in a music crazed town, I was able to start catching up with all of the great music I have missed.

Over the summer and into the fall I have seen Dale Watson, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, and a handful of local acts. This weekend I go to see Don Williams and next month Bruce Robinson and Kelly Willis. That's a lot of great music in six months.

I've already bought tickets for shows next spring, too. Next February I go to see Shinyribs and in March, Randy Newman.

I'm enjoying getting to see live music again. But the best part is that I have taken a guest along to each show. It has been a lot of fun finding someone to go with me to each concert. I've enjoyed getting to spend quality time with my amazing friends.

Nice and public

Just need to be direct for a minute. Please know that this blog is not locked down and no one is blocked from seeing the content posted here. That helps keep things on point and polite at the same time.

I will moderate comments if someone posts anything I would not be proud to show my kids. Likewise, keeping things public keeps me from posting anything that I would not want to hand directly to their mother.

I am certain it will all work better that way. And I can make it happen here.

A whole lot less of me to be

I started out this divorce thing with my usual stress responses.

I talked it out. God, I am so sorry to my family and everyone else who had to listen to me ramble in the first couple of months...

I tried to find other stuff to think about. OK, not all of my ideas worked. 

I bought stuff to support the old (and new) hobbies. Sorry mom. There were multiple trips to the bike shop and the running store.

After a while I started realizing some new responses had crept in.

Evidently I am now a runner. On purpose. In my business, the rule is if you see Mike running, go the other way...

When my double decade worth of digital music disappeared into a moving van, I started listening to different music. And I started making use of the local music scene in town. Happy Birthday to Myself concert tix anyone?

But most surprising/not surprising to me, weight loss. When I get stressed I quit eating. Then I feel awful and I have horrible headaches. So that didn't surprise me in the early summer. What did surprise me? The way that I got my head together(ish) at the end of the summer and then I started eating healthier.

The extra 25 pounds I have carried for 13 years melted off with a better diet and increased exercise. I was eating better and finally seeing results. I have always been active. Again, sorry Mom... but this fall I was able to meet a goal I had long given up.

I am sitting at a weight I have not seen in at least 15 years. I feel better than I have in twenty and I just got home from running the first timed road race of my life - and I beat my pre-race goal by almost 4 minutes.

It is true, I have a long way to go before this divorce thing is behind me and I am ready to completely  move forward. But at this rate, there is a whole lot less of me to drag into my future.

The awkward level is permanently stuck on a lot

The new custody schedule is a work of calendaring voodoo that is not easily explained to anyone who holds less than a double Ph.D. in astrophysics and quantum scheduling. But I am fairly certain that this is the kids weekend at their mom's house.

I base my assumption this on the empirical evidence that there is no noise here other than Van Morrison shuffling through his entire catalog. Generally, the kids veto decent music in favor of crap some other noise. Also, the Xbox controllers have not moved in a few days. Weird.

Anyways, I am trying to figure all of this stuff out without setting off too many landmines, so after a pep talk from a friend, I decided to go to an event that The Oldest was involved in this morning. I hadn't been specifically invited, but it was a public event and The Oldest had mentioned it to me on Friday at school, which is just like an engraved and gold foiled invite in Middle School circles.

I don't know how soon it gets easier to be in the same space as my former spouse. I know it hasn't started getting easier yet. I went. I cheered on the kid. I hung out with The Youngest for a few minutes. It was nice. Kids are cool. Adults are awkward and odd.

This was a group of people I have known for almost 10 years. Some of them for 20. It was tough to stand aside and have no interaction with the crowd. Then I remembered, that reaction was one of the reasons I didn't want to carry on a relationship with this herd. When things got really tough and nasty last spring, these were not they friends that I needed, I found those at work and within my family. I have never been accused of being man of few words, so I don't really understand it, but a friend told me this summer that these people just didn't know what to say when times got tough.

Evidently they still don't.

New Space, Old Face / Old Space, Same Face

I've blogged for years. But it is time to seriously consider starting a new blog and leaving the old family blog alone. AtHomeDaddy is the blog I have written since June 2004, but like most bloggers, I haven't been around much in the last few years.

I am less than a month past my divorce. A divorce that still surprised me, even after two years of hearing the ex ponder it and talk about it.

Nothing much to share to start this blog.