back home

Finally, finally, finally back home. I'm so effing sick of traveling for work. These last 2 weeks I was in California and it was a real pain in the rear. There's two real things that ate at me the whole time I was gone 1) homesickness and 2) working around the house.

Item 1 is a lot of things. I've been out of town now for nearly 8 weeks this year and we aren't in the 2nd week of MAY yet! That's cool though, it pays the bills and my job is nice, but I like my wife a lot (Love, actually). I enjoy coming home to our house and chatting about my day.

Tack on top of that Xander is starting to be really, really cool. Apparently while I was gone on this last trip his vocabulary is suddenly turned a corner and is taking off. While I was away he threw a temper tantrum because there was a commercial during wheel of fortune (aaah, my son). Aaaand, I've gotten him to like eating chips and salsa. Right before I left we were having some chips and salsa and I was dipping the chip in the salsa for him (it was hot, so I just dipped it in there) and he loved it and demanded more. So while I was gone Amanda was feeding him tortilla chips and she would hand him a chip and then he would hand it back and say "baaaa!" (please). How awesome is that??!!

So the 2nd thing I missed out on is working around the house. I have 2 weekends to kill in Silicon valley and it really grates on my nerves that my honey-do list is just collecting dust. And really, why do I even call it a honey-do list? Amanda puts 1 thing on there for every 10 I put on there myself. I think I call it that so she can feel free to add projects on there, so it can be "our" list. But it's not. It's mine, it's all mine. I drive my wife nuts working around the house: wash the car, change the oil, weed the garden, weed the flower beds, plant this bush, paint that, put up this shelf, paint this room, put up a fan. AND I LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT!

"Why don't you just relax?" she says. Because it's too damn much fun!

So there I am wandering around state parks of California (Mt. Diablo and Henry Coe --very nice by the way, had a great time) and I'm missing good, sunny, fun in the yard weekends here in Ohio. But I'm home now...lookout!