Fit and trim (as if)

The last decade of my life has been sprinkled with failed attempts to get to the gym long term. A couple of months at a time just doesn't cut it as you might imagine. Still, I am one of those people that don't lose hope. Despite having less and less free time (as if that is even possible) I have, yet again, enrolled in a gym. Just to spice things up, I've done things differently this time. I am starting to regret it already. I've signed the kids up as well. They can go to a sports playroom where they hang out on a trampoline, climb a climbing wall, tackle an obstacle course, play soccer... They've decided that it's a lot of fun and now they are pestering me all the time to go. So now I have to go. So now everything hurts and I can barely climb the stairs. Naturally, it would have been wimpy to start out again with regular Yoga. It had to be power Yoga. Oh, the pain, the pain... Should we take bets to see how long I last this time?

Work desk feng shui

My work desk, over time mysteriously fills up with interesting, at times morbid stuff, courtesy of my kids. They randomly bring stuff over and then never retrieve it. Today, I have the pleasure of being observed by a decapitated Squidword and a prince doll whose torso is torn in half. Both are patiently awaiting an opportunity to get acquainted with some glue so they can feel whole again. Instead of office supplies, on my desk I currently have a Power Rangers mask, a green play phone, a shamrock lei, a handmade Christmas ornament and a cardboard Valentine's day heart. Now I just need an Easter bunny and my collection will be complete. No wonder I often don't have room for a notepad and a pen.

Facing the Facebook (finally)

Well, I've finally joined Facebook. I really didn't want to as I already have too many profiles and passwords and pages to keep up with. But... I've finally caved to peer pressure. There, I said it. :)

Anyway, I see that I've gone a record two months without a blog post. I've just been insanely busy so it may be a while before I get back to regular blogging business. So, really quickly, here is a summary. We went to the US for 3 weeks over Christmas. I've worked while there. Then we went to Disney World for several days. We had an absolutely wonderful time. Then we went back to Zagreb and I've been hard at work since. Not too much to report other than that we have some 1500+ (no, it's not a typo) photos from Disney. Maybe I'll even share a few when I have some time.

Personal record

I must have beat my personal record... I've just looked around my work desk and I have 6 large cups, 3 bottles, 2 plates and 2 bowls in various places on my desk. Can you tell I live at my desk? :)

My native tongue

Croatian is my mother tongue so I don't expect to ever really forget it. Whenever I called home or visited, I always spoke the language without any trouble. So when we moved back, I was surprised to suddenly come face to face with my lacking vocabulary. I probably moved too early in life so I've never encountered a number of situations in a Croatian speaking environment. For example, I've never held a job that required Croatian so writing Croatian business correspondence is a very painful task indeed. Also, anything that has to do with computers and design mostly leaves me speechless because I have trouble finding the words to say what I want to say. So, complex discussions of any sort now leave me struggling for words. I am sure it makes me look very intelligent when I answer such a frequently asked question of what I do for a living. Saying that I use computers to make pictures just doesn't sound very impressive. Since I work from a home office and people never actually see me go to work, I am sure that most people just think, yeah right, sure you do.

A few days ago during an online work meeting, I was faced with an impromptu review of a project I was working on. Sure, it was confusing material. That's why we were sharing lessons learned amongst ourselves. As I was listening to myself speak, I realized that I sounded just as incoherent as I would be if I were presenting in Croatian. Could it be that it was late and I was really tired? (good excuse) I don't know, but that wasn't one of my proudest moments. The ideas in my head were as clear and organized as they could be. Getting them out in a constructive, effective manner just wasn't happening though. So my audience quickly lost interest. I'll collect my findings in writing and will distribute to the team later. I suspect that it will make more sense then. It was weird to face an inability to communicate well. Still, I say to myself, making my brain work overtime while it lives two languages side by side, constantly switching between the two, will keep my memory fresh and Alzheimer's at bay some day. Cheers to that.

Frost

We awoke to our first frost covered landscape of the season. Though beautiful, it is annoying when we have to clean off the car. Especially if we're running behind schedule which, I admit, does happen, ahem, often... By Saturday night temperatures will dip into 20s.

All I want for Christmas is...

Instead of sending Santa a letter, Chris usually sends me an e-mail with his Christmas wish list. I don't comment on it but make a purchase. By the time Christmas comes around he forgets about his e-mail and then he's pleasantly surprised about his great gift. His wife is so talented that she always knows just what to get. The system works. Until this year. He's so excited about what he wants that he's sent an e-mail and then followed up with a phone call (from work) and then talked about it at home. Repeatedly. I get the hint. I am not that dense.

So last night he brings it up again and actually asks if I had ordered it. And, if I hadn't ordered it that he'll do it the next day just to make sure that he got what he wanted. This is unusual behavior so I had to learn more about it. What he wants for Christmas is a new Fallout 3 computer game. But not just any Fallout 3 will do. He wants the "limited edition." And those go quickly he says. Because they only make so many and he just really wanted one. And it will be sold out so he'd better order one. Limited edition or regular, it is the same game, I said. Nooooooo, he replied with a straight face. Limited edition comes with a LUNCHBOX! That was an excited reply of a 36 year old man who hasn't used a lunchbox since elementary school. Oh yeah, it comes with a bobble-head action figure (read: doll) as well. I bet kids won't be allowed to touch it. LOL.

How much does it cost to fly?

I've spent the weekend searching for airfare for our Christmas vacation in US. At first I was delighted to see that prices haven't really gone up. I expected them to be much higher so this was a pleasant surprise. Quite the contrary, the prices were at par or in some instances lower than they were 3-4 years ago. Good, I thought. Perhaps this won't be as bad as I anticipated. The warm and fuzzy feeling lasted until the checkout time. The taxes and fees have ballooned up to be two thirds of the price of the actual fare. That means that the advertised price is nowhere close to the actual price (like it used to be). In addition, it makes it very difficult to comparison shop. I went through the beginning of the checkout process with three web sites to determine that the final price was about the same. They varied in what amount they allotted to the ticket price and what amount went to the taxes and fees. I knew that I would pay more than last year. But I find it upsetting that the costs have to be lied about like that. As if you wouldn't notice the difference at payment time.

On a more positive note, see you all at Christmas!

Got to brag a little

My sister and I have been working on a pet project for three years now. First we just talked about it over the phone, then we put it on paper, then we started taking actual steps to make something happen... After many, many, many hours of work, we launched an education portal (zbornica.com) on September 1st. That's why I haven't been blogging much. As it turns out, working on a site like that requires a whole lot more spare time than I could have anticipated. Since I have a paying job in addition to this new hobby of mine, I've been scrambling to find free time. In addition, I am just learning the software that runs the site as I go along, so there are still quite a few things that I'd like to have fixed. However, the site is humming along and we're starting to get regular visitors. I figured, within a year or so, we'll have us a decent little site going.

Last week we experienced our very first hacker attack. The IP was "hijacked" and it attempted to download PDFs onto users' local machines and it tried redirecting to their site. This is entirely new territory for me and I had absolutely no clue as to where to start. After much searching, reading, digging and complaining, I managed to locate the evil code and bid it farewell. I am so proud of myself as honestly, I had no clue what I was doing. For now, things are OK and will hopefully stay that way as I've spent a huge amount of time trying to figure this out. I hope this bragging doesn't come back to bite me in the ***. If it does, you're sure to hear about it. Back to work now...

Kids

A friend of mine had her first child several months ago. I finally got to meet the toothless, bald, smile-as-big-as-his-face baby. The worn out saying of "nothing will ever be the same again" just doesn't even begin to describe what that really means. Yes, she's having a hard time as all new parents do. She is just learning to love and care for that little baby. It's actually not until much later that it hits you what interesting and wonderful little people you're living with. Honestly, I wish if I had it written down every time Ivor or Mia came to me with one of their unique comments on the world around them and life in general. They both change constantly so their comments change and it will keep us amused until preteen years (or so I am told).

I don't get ordinary kisses. Mia stands on her tiptoes and lifts one of her feet off the ground behind her (like in the movies) to plant a smooch on my face. She wished upon a star tonight to have a real live pony when she grows up. She declared that it was her "dream come true" when, much to our surprise, there were fireworks so we rushed out into the cold in our pajamas to watch, kids' eyes big as saucers. That was a couple of weeks ago and she won't stop talking about it. At age four and a half she has her life figured out, knows how many kids she will have (2 or 4), what their names will be (I honestly can't remember any more), what pets she'll have (list too long for this little blog), what color her car will be (rainbow).... Today I attended a birthday party for one of her stuffed animals and we had to sing happy birthday in three languages (Croatian, English and German). I must confess though, I wasn't there willingly, she pestered me until I came.

Ivor knows what he will be when he grows up. Few years ago he started out with the usual policeman, firefighter. Now we're getting more specific. He's decided to have several jobs. At the age 7 he knows that he'll start up an aquarium, just like the one in Atlanta and has been researching fish so he can know which ones to get for the aquarium exhibits. He'll also have a hotel and a water park alongside the aquarium so you're all welcome to stay for a few days. I'll keep you posted. He'll be a ninja in his spare time so he can fight off any zombies that might happen nearby. You can never bee too careful I suppose. So on our way to school in the mornings we clock the speed of our car at 68mph to see how fast the fastest fish in the world can swim (called sailfish or istiophorus). Or we slow down to a seemingly slow pace of 30mph which is how fast the fastest shark in the world is believed to swim (mako shark). He knows how chocolate was discovered and how it is made and is curious about everything from electricity to space travel.

There are no boring days when you have kids. They'll leave tiny and sharp things on the floor for you to step on (be careful how you go through the "prickly forest," says Ivor), jump out of the shadows to scare you (funny how they don't even have to learn this one), leave sticky trails on light switches, mirrors, walls and your chair at the table, and will pack your house with treasures like dirty rocks, stray pets (Ivor is very good at this), priceless drawings, broken toys, pooped underwear and much, much more. Much patience is required for the job. Oh, and the pay sucks unless you don't mind getting paid with sticky hugs and sloppy kisses. It's kind of sad to think that they will turn into tired, stressed out adults like me some day.