Saturday, January 11 2020

jazz hearts, snow, and a game of catch

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! Hope you're all feeling good this Saturday morning. Today, we all slept in, and we just wrapped up breakfast. I'm feeling well-rested, fed, and grateful. While waiting for the Dutch baby to finish in the oven, I cleaned the kitchen with Rodney's help, and made a short TODO list for the day.

Here - this will be fun - why don't I just share my TODO list?

```org * Today [3/9]

I was grateful to sleep in today. Yesterday was a long day. I had a regular workday, went out to lunch with my teammates, then stepped out for the afternoon to go to a doctor's appointment. At the last scan, the doctor heard an arythmia in baby Miles' heart beat - and we heard it too. It was almost as if his heart would skip a beat every four counts, like a flam on a snare drum. The analogy stuck and since then, we've been referring to it as his jazz heart. Yesterday was the follow up appointment. We were nervous, but the doctor immediately attenuated our fear by reporting that the arythmia went away and the heart beat sounded normal again. "These things come and go," the doctor explained. "The heart muscles are immature at this stage, and they do weird things. The important thing is that the structure of the heart still looks good." What a relief! We celebrated by grabbing a quick cup off coffee and snack at Collectivo, then I returned to work to wrap up the day.

After bussing home, the three of us drove to Hy-Vee to pick up groceries. With a snowstorm approaching, soup started to sound like a better idea than pizza. We went with leek and potato, which has become a stand by favorite in our house. Returning home, Marissa painted while Rodney and I hung around the kitchen and cooked.

After finishing dinner, my back started to feel sore, and I had a headache coming on. The day wasn't particularly tough, and we were most excited to get good news from the doctor, but it was as if the entire work week caught up with my head and body all at once. Marissa graciously excused me to go take a nap upstairs, agreeing to put Rodney to bed.

I slept like the dead until 10:30, and when I emerged from our bedroom, I felt like I was walking around on a different planet. I crashed on the couch to allow my body to readjust. Marissa was wrapping up a painting upstairs and joined me on the couch. I got up, and not exactly knowing what to do with myself, I picked up Rodney's football and threw it to Marissa. She flinched, but caught the ball in her arm, then threw it back to me.

"You throw a really nice spiral - I think it's better than mine," I complimented her, throwing the ball back.

"I used to play catch with my dad," she replied.

"I can't wait until Rodney is old enough to carry on a game of catch. I really miss throwing the ball around with somebody," I explained. Marissa nodded, replying "I feel the same."

Marissa and I continued talking, throwing the football back and forth. The dogs, at first riled up from the moving ball, eventually acclimated and we continued talking. It was almost as if playing catch activated old memories - we traded stories of prom, awkward first dates, childhood memories, bullies, and fights. Marissa and I lost track of time, and played catch in the living room until 12:30.

"OK, it's time to have a snack," said Marissa, excusing herself into the kitchen. I popped some popcorn, and we reconvened on the couch to watch a movie. Feeling refreshed from a long nap, I had no problem staying up a little later to watch an hour of a movie. I picked the movie Catfish, which is an interesting documentary about impersonating people on the Internet. We finally called it a night at 1:30. I did my best to clean the kitchen and start a load in the dishwasher, then we called it a day.

After writing, I'll probably take Rodney outside. I promised him that we would play in the snow while I shoveled. As expected, the promised snowpocalypse only yielded about two inches of snow, and it looks like my neighbor decided to do our side of the driveway as well. We live next to some good people - you gotta love that.

So instead of shoveling, it looks like I'm just going to take Rodney outside to play in the snow for a bit. If it feels nice out, we might go for a walk. Unfortunately, Rodney's sled didn't make it through the summer. This past fall, a big crack formed in the middle and we had to discard it, but we might be able to fashion a makeshift sled out of a big tupperware bin and some rope, and that might be just good enough to drag around the block. We'll see.

Today, we're also looking to empty the project board of all remaining tasks. There are only a few cards left, and even though we're still trying to figure out a natural home project workload for a typical week, the temptation to go above and beyond is there. Later today, if we have time before bowling, I might set up some new tech toys we got in the mail. I spent my cut of our Christmas money on a new wireless access point, and I think this might be the upgrade that makes our WiFi reachable from the bar across the street.

So that's what I got today. Today, we're just hanging around the house, working on what we feel like, playing in the snow, and later today we'll end the day by going bowling. We might also watch some football this afternoon - both the Packers and the Vikings have play-off games, so I'm going to do my best to keep tabs on them.

Hope you have a great day everyone. Go play in the snow or something.