Friday is here, looking at a full weekend

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

Wow, this week just flew by.  I am not sure what to attribute that to, probably a combination of still using the charge from the week off, plus the effects of changes to flow in how I do certain things here & and at work, plus Kim's unusual schedule, and last feeling the inertia of the boys summer break ending.

Family

Kim's schedule was a little goofy this week, having Tuesday & Thursday off, and then working slightly different schedule on the days she does work.  And next week she is testing out the feasibility of working over night shifts, so our life will be different because of that. She was able to get her mom over to our house and finally tackle all of the stored stuff in the basement.  Which also allowed her to really tackle the whole basement.  So we can actually go down there again and use the space.  We have plans for some of the furniture down there,and I have some new strategies for storing the Lego's.  And last I plan to lay down the law for the kids playing down there as far as toys as well.  Hopefully with the goal of keeping massive disaster areas like we had under control.

Saturday the boys have their last baseball games of the season.  I think this will be James' last season playing baseball.  It's too bad, I think he has some talent there, but I can tell he is bored with the game itself, and would like the break from sports in the summer.  After the games the boys will be going to a birthday party, which should be a nice opportunity for them to see some school friends they have been missing all summer.  Sunday we have a family barbecue at Dad's since my sister is in town.  So it is definitely a full weekend, which is good, because I had to yank video game privileges for the weekend.

I think James is ready to spend time with kids his age, without his little brother around.  Because lately they have really gotten on each others nerves.  And last night I had to warn them to start behaving better while playing Wii, and when my warning failed to be listened to had to suspend the privileges.  It was mostly James losing his temper, but it was partly Daniel being passive resistant to James requests for cooperation while playing, thus the need for the hammer.  Might not have endeared myself to either one, but sometimes you have to play bad cop. 

Email

So my goal this week was to reform the way I dealt with e-mail.  Just that, and primarily at work.  Both simplify it, and make sure I actually got into the habit of both reading the messages, and then did something with them.  It involved removing the excessive compartmentalization of lots of little sub folders in my inbox, and just creating 2 (3) new ones: Follow Up, Hold (& Archive).  Then making myself stick to a habit of deleting e-mails I didn't have to respond to, placing the ones I had to respond to in the follow up, and moving keepers to the Hold or Archive folder.  Then changed my workflow to hit that follow up folder periodically and clear it out.  This whole process keeps me doing 2 things: touch each e-mail when it comes in, but just long enough to determine what category it fall in, then keep my actual inbox empty.  This whole process has helped keep me sane this week, and helped me keep focused on the important work, and deal with it in it's correct priority.  I got this tip from the Lifehacker book I mentioned earlier in the week, and I highly recommend it for people who get stuck managing their e-mail flow. 

Sports

Football is here, sort of, training camps are opening in the NFL, and the Hall of Fame game is a week away.  And not a moment too soon, not that I want to start filling my weekends again with TV, but a man can only stand so much time with only baseball to watch, and 'what if stories' to follow.  I am ready for the real thing, to see what really happens in game action.  It's a bit like seeing a toy in a box, and wondering what it is really like, what will I do with it, but I have to wait.  This is the time of the year when I see my teams, have some ideas on how they will play, but no one really knows for sure. 

Running

Had a real good week, fell into the daily routine with no problems, ending with a net loss for the week.  And now, with 2 races planned on the horizon, and a visit to the Dr. for a checkup I feel really good.  I am especially excited to see the Dr. since he hasn't seen me in over a year, and 50+ pounds of weight loss.