Time

"Just once I would like to wake up with more time on my hands than there are hours in the day."

Will Salas ( Justin Timberlake) - In Time

So obviously time is somthing I have issues with if you couldn't tell by the frequency (or infrequency) of my posts. So I felt it fitting to look at my schedule, my life and what I do with the time I have. I figured I should start with Monday morning since that's where most peoples week start.

Monday and Tuesday
9:00 am;   get up and ready for work. (my wife will take the kids to day care so I can sleep in unless she has to be in to work early.)
9:15 am;   leave for work.
9:30 am;   start work. (most weeks it's 9:30 am some weeks it can be earlier, a few weeks it's later.)
6:00 pm;   end work and head home. (this is my scheduled time off but I have stayed as late as 7:30 pm.)
6:30 pm;   (or later) sit down for dinner or make dinner. (some Tuesday nights, I get to go out with my wife                 for a movie and or dinner.)
7:00 pm;    clean up/check e-mail/unwind, whatever works out.
7:30 pm;    give my kids a bath and get them ready for bed.
8:00 pm;    read a story (if there is time), say prayers, and tuck my daughter into bed.
8:05 pm;    my son eats, gets a diaper change, and gets dressed for bed. I either finish up what I didn't get to do at 7:00, or my wife and I start a Netflix.
9:00 pm;    on Mondays we watch "Castle" on ABC (GREAT SHOW), if that's not on (or a rerun) or on Tuesdays, we'll just keep watching Netflix. Somewhere during this time we make lunches for tomorrow, and make some kind of sweet dessert. That sometimes stretches into the next hour.
10:00 pm;  start the process of getting ready for bed-shower, brush teeth/hair, dressed for bed.
10:30 pm;  hopefully I'm getting into bed at this time, sometimes it takes til 11:00 pm to get to this point. The nice thing is it usually only takes a few minutes for me to fall asleep.
2:00 am;    Get up and go get papers assembled and ready for delivery. I unfortunately hit snooze on my alarm for about an hour most days. Mondays it's only one part and Tuesdays it's two. My total number of papers on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday is about 220-ish.
3:15 am;    Start delivering papers (between now and 4:00 am, depending on when I got to the D.C.-distribution center.)
4:30 am;    This is the earliest I get finished (which is rare) from this time til 5:30 am.(the official dead line)
4:45 am;    at the earliest, but on average I get home between 5:30 am to 5:45 am.
5:45 am;    wash up from the newspaper.
5:50 am;     crawl into bed and sleep until 9:00 am to get ready for work.


Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (unless I'm off one of those days)
7:40 am;   get up with my son,  my wife goes to work around 7:00am. Feed my son a bottle and cereal.
8:30 am;   get up my daughter, feed her breakfast, if she's not all ready up and getting into things.
9:30 am;   put my son down for a nap, a little earlier if he's cranky.  
11:30 am; get my son back up and feed him a bottle and food and make lunch for me and my daughter.
12:30 pm; put my daughter down for a nap.
1:30 pm;   Put my son down for a nap and take one myself.
3:30 pm;   get my daughter up and start "dinner".
4:15 pm;   eat dinner when my wife gets home.
4:30 pm;   get ready for work.
4:45 pm;   leave for work to work from 5 to 2:00 am (approximately)
2:00 am;   get newspapers ready for delivery (400 + on Wednesdays 280-ish on Thursdays)
3:45 am;   start delivering newspapers (this is the ideal time, but it's more likely between 4:00 and 4:15 am)
5:30 am;   deadline for papers being done Monday - Friday ( I finish between this and 6:30 am depending on when I started.)
6:00 am;   get home and crawl into bed before having to get up with my son in an hour and forty minutes.

Saturday
11:30 am;  so I get to sleep in a little. I prefer to get up by 10:30 am so I can spend some time with my family before work.
12:00 pm;  make/eat lunch.
12:30 pm;  get ready for work.
12:45 pm;  leave for work. Usually I work 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm, but sometimes it's 12:00 pm or 2:00 pm.
1:00 pm;    start work.
10:00 pm;  usually I do get to leave on time, but 10:30 pm is about the latest unless something happens.
10:15 pm;  meet my wife at the D.C. to pre-assemble Sunday's paper. (bring my wife popcorn and soda for payment)
11:00 pm;  head home to nap before having to come back and finish assembling and bagging Sunday's paper.
11:15 pm;  hop into bed for a quick nap.
1:00 am;   wake up and head back to the D.C. to bag papers.
1:20 am:   get to D.C. and start bagging papers(it takes me a bit longer to wake up and go back)
3:00 am    start loading the van, this may happen between now and 4:00 am depending how big the papers are and how long it took to bag.
3:30 am;   start delivering the papers, this may start between now and 4:15 depending on how long it takes to load the van. Which is usually around 30 to 40 minutes.
6:30 am;   finish throwing the paper, this my happen between and 7:00 the latest 7:30 or 8:00 on rare occasion.

Sunday
8:45 am;   this would be the ideal time to get up to get to church on time. It's more like 9:00 am or 9:15 am when this actually happens.
9:30am;    again this would be the ideal time to leave to get to church on time, but it's more like 9:45 am. On days we help in the nursery, we're suppose to be there by 9:30 am, we still end up leaving the house between 9:30 am and 9:45 am.
10:00 am;  church begins (wither we are on time on not, usually not)
11:00 am;  this is more like 11:15 am or sometimes even latter but the Spanish service starts at 11:30 am so they try to clear the sanctuary as quickly as possible.
11:20 am;  my wife and I was the communion plates every week (unless we're in the nursery). The only time we would wash during service is when they do a communion service for the whole congregation.
11:30 am;  leave church and either go to lunch or go home for lunch.
12:00 pm;  start lunch either at a restaurant or at home.
12:30 pm;  if we are at home we put my daughter down for a nap at this time.
1:30   pm;  if we are at home we put my son down for a nap. If we went out this is about the time we will be finishing and heading home...for naps.
1:45 pm;  arrive home and get kids down for nap, maybe even take one myself. If not, we start a Netflix movie or TV show(we just started White Collar).
3:30 pm; get the kids up from nap. Some Sundays we go grocery shopping, others we tidy up around the house.
6:00 pm; do whatever we were going to do for dinner,either eat in or go out.
7:00 pm;  If we eat at home we get the kids ready for bath, if we go out the bath waits till we get home.
7:45 pm;  around this time we get them ready for bed.
8:00 pm;  put my daughter down for bed, after prayer my wife nurses my son and we watch something on Netflix.
8:20 pm;  put my son down for bed and make lunches for tomorrow.
8:30 pm;  continue watching Netflix.
9:30 pm;  shower and get ready for bed.
10:00 pm; get into to sleep until I have to go do the newspapers.
2:00 am;   wake up to the alarm (usually hitting snooze two or three times) and leave for the paper.
3:15 am;    Start delivering papers (between now and 4:00 am, depending on when I got to the D.C.-distribution center.)
4:30 am;    This is the earliest I get finished (which is rare) from this time til 5:30 am.(the official dead line)
4:45 am;    at the earliest, but on average I get home between 5:30 am to 5:45 am.
5:45 am;    wash up from the newspaper.
5:50 am;     crawl into bed and sleep until 9:00 am to get ready for work and start at Monday all over again.

So for the most part this is my schedule. Somtimes we have other plans, or special occasions that cause things to alter a bit but for the most part, this is it.  This is why I'm tired all the time, why my papers are sometimes late, and why this blog took over three months to write (and almost as much time to read I'm sure.).

Rock in my pocket

"At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket." - Nat (Dianne Wiest) Rabbit Hole - 2010 


I need to start this by saying I have not see the movie Rabbit Hole. Don't get me wrong I'm sure it's a great film, but when I get around to seeing a movie (which is not as often as you may think.) I want to be taken out of whatever is going on in the real world and just veg. So knowing the subject matter of Rabbit Hole I decided to pass on the depression filled cry-fest and enjoy the likes of True Grit (the only other movie that came out in December that I actually saw).
Now the only reason I know this quote is because a friend of mine discussed in one of her Facebook posts of having her feelings or memories in her pocket like a rock. She had done something that day that brought a flood of emotion that she described as her "rock in her pocket" or "boulder". This concept intrigued me so I asked how she came up with it. She explained how the idea came from Rabbit Hole and what the actual quote was. So your asking yourself "What does all this mean? Does he have a point?" Yes, here comes the point.
Before my father passed away he was living in an assisted living facility.  For the past week and a half I've been writing down how he got there with the intent of showing how he ended up feeling betrayed and how in the end I was. I've decided to save that for another blog and keep this focused on some good memories. 
While dad was living in this facility (health permitting) he would go on walks. Occasionally he would walk to his doctor's office, Walgreens, or the cemetery to visit mom's grave. Most days, because of the heat he would just do laps around the building or block if he was feeling up to it. He didn't feel like he belonged there so he didn't socialize much. In the beginning he would go to the activities but towards the end he just walked and talked to people in passing. Because of this everyone knew dad because he was almost always walking by. 
One of the things he liked to do when he walked was to pick up rocks. He had always liked rocks. I remember being on vacation as a kid and he would pick up rocks he thought were unique or different. But now they were just landscaping rocks but rocks never the less. He always found something different or special about them even if they were just from the courtyard or grounds. Dad would take them back to his room, sit in front of his t.v. and polish his rocks. No fancy set up or cleaner just Armor-all and an old rag. I don't think it did much to them but he did. He would show them off to anyone who would visit, some were so pretty he carried them with him so he could show them off.
After dad past away, my brother, his son and I were going threw his apartment. We made piles of things he wanted, things I wanted, things that would get donated, and things that would just get tossed. We came across pictures, old x-rays, old paperwork (taxes, medical, and mail), clothes, junk (an I.V. stand, a broken desk chair, extension cords, ect...), and keepsakes ( the toy planes he collected, the weird pictures he drew, the walking stick he brought down from Alaska, ect...)
As we were adding to the piles we came across a box of rocks, then another, and then another. They were small because they would be easier to move that way, but still three boxes of rocks? And once again just regular landscaping rocks nothing special. We did find an old "lava" rock for one of our vacations and the few rocks that him and mom picked up because they had cross patterns on them but they were separate from the three boxes. My brother was going to have my nephew throw them out, but I told him to put them in my pile. I figured I would put a few on display at his service, put one in his casket, and the rest I wan't sure.
I brought the rest home and went threw them. Like I said before I didn't see the appeal and then one caught my eye. It was small, smooth, and black. There were a couple others like it, but not as nice. The rest of the rocks I placed in a neat pile outside to the left of our front door. Most of it blends in and you would never know the significance unless you knew. As for the small, smooth, black rock it is in my left pocket. No matter what I'm wearing or where I'm going, it is always in my left pocket. If I can't find it because it fell out while on the end of the bed, I can't leave the house. And if you see me with my left hand in my pocket there is a pretty good chance I'm holding on to the one thing that reminds me most of my dad.

Here I go...

"When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?" - George Carlin


 So, like I mentioned in my description, this is an experiment. I'm not sure how often I may post or why anyone would want to read it, but I think I wanted to do this because it could be liberating.
I have a friend with her own blog, which with her permission I may link to from time to time, that made me think about starting this. I read her posts and find myself not just being welcomed into her private life, but looking at myself. In down times her blog can be comforting by letting me know others feel this way. Other times she makes me reflect on my past remembering good times and bad.
This blog, like the title states is just going to be my opinion, my "2 cents" on a variety of different topics. It is basically a way for me to vent or hopefully de-stress  by putting my feelings out on the web. I do have a couple of ideas for some posts so I do have at least two more coming, any more than that we will see in time.
I will try to keep this from becoming too personal. Yes I plan on posting my feelings about certain things but my family, and my work will most likely be off limits. If either are mentioned it will be in a generic way. I ask that if you know me and want to make comments on any of my posts that you keep them generic as well.
Now with all of that out of the way I boldly step into the world of blogging, here I go..