The Balance thing again

Attitude is Everything!......... Who knows who first said this

This has been the subject for Marco and I over the past few weeks. He is at a stage in his live where boys begin to like girls, he's being tempted to be "cool", his homework is getting harder, and most of all he is learning to love reading and it's getting in the way of sleep. In other words he turns the light back on to read and sometimes stays up past 10:00 before we notice. This simply means he's getting less sleep. So all of this boils down to "You are your attitude". If you have a good one, you can overcome anything and you typically get what you want. If you have a bad one, bad things will happen and you surely won't get what you want.

The other day, my good friend Kristen emailed me with a concern. She has been reading the blog regularly and noticed that I'm "training" a bunch. She was worried that I was getting out of Balance and thought she should weigh in. Thanks for that Kristen, I have some explaining to do.

Family - I wouldn't say family life is perfect but we are doing well. The challenges mentioned above with Marco are all part of growing up and for the most part I think we are dealing with it well. We never expect Marco to be perfect at home, he has to have a bad attitude at home so that he doesn't have one outside of home. All indications are still that he is one of the nicer kids around. Mary, Marco and I are working on one of his projects this weekend. We are building a model Solar System which is a bit of a challenge. Marco is probably the most mechanical person in the family but his patience for mom and dad is short as he tries to explain how he wants it to work and we ask questions to try to learn. Other than this it's a weekly focus for all of us to spend quality time goofing off. This week we had Jordan and his dad over (his mom is traveling for work) dinner. Last night we all went over to another one of his buddies houses where the adults had great coversation and dinner and the kids created havok.

WORK - At the start of this week I was bored at work. We were doing our project plans for the third time because we were trying to make them work for many different people. It was boring and tedius work trying to redefine what we already defined. So I wrote in my daily Journal that typically when I'm bored at work I blow something up just so that I have something to do. I committed myself to stay the course, not blow anything up and keep things moving forward. Tuesday rolled around and the blow-ups occured without me doing anything. It was good to be involved in them even though they were monumental blow-ups. It sure made every day of the week exciting and will keep it exciting for the next few weeks. It's amazing when you peel back the onion so to speak, you find things that stink. All fixable problems and no blood was drawn, yet.

Financial - I hate to say it but thank you USA. Our computer died two weeks ago and we had to buy a new one. Since Dad is on his way in a couple weeks we thought we'd ship one to him and have him bring it. Who knew the day we bought it from Dell, the exchange rate would jump to $1.51 to 1 Euro. That means the 1300 euro computer that we paid $1100 dollars only cost us 700 euro. Those aren't the exact figures, but you get the picture. We saved a great deal of money. The Euro goes a long way right now so we are trying to take as much advantage as we can even in this increadibly Tax heavy country.

Dave's World - My posts may indicate that I've put lots of emphasis on training. Although some of that may be true, it's not anything out of this world. I'm simply telling you about it which I normally don't do. In general my "training" has been at this level or higher for most of what I can remember. I do this to release energy and to fuel the competitve side of myself. Just some indications of what it looks like right now:
Monday - Key Run - Steady State done by 6:30am - Swim all drills early evening.
Tuesday - Hard Ride on the Turbo Trainer - done by 6:30am - Core Strength in the afternoon.
Wedesday - Easy run done by 6:30am - Long Swim in the evening
Thursday - Key Run or Key Ride or Easy Run - Depends on the focus for the week along with Core strength
Friday - Varies by the week but could be long run day, or long brick (bike/run) day - All done by 7:00am
Saturday - Long bike or long run Core work in the afternoon
Sunday - Off

The younger Dave would have stuck to this schedule no matter what but today that's not close to the attitude. For instance this past week I've been taking driving lessons and because of that I did not swim at all. In other words, Dave's World does not rule my life any longer and I'm extremely flexible with it.

To conclude, I'm always working on balancing out the above. It's a never ending task but in general I'm balanced right now and it feels good. 4 weeks from today, life will balance towards work as I head out on the road to Panama, Mexico and the Boston Marathon, but as long as we see it coming and plan for it, the overall Balance doesn't have to suffer greatly.

Finally, this weekend marks the 1 year mark of my Germany stay. Last year on this day I road for 3 hours in the bright sun with a major bike crash in the middle. Today is Sunday so it's a day off but there is no way I'd be out there on my bike. Steady 30 MPH with gusts to 60MPH put a damper on bike riding. Anyway 1 year down who knows how many more to come.

It's a good life....

Dave