Leaving me behind

Ran to the river trail last night with K. and N., I'm really glad K. is running with me lately, it's very efficient - I get to exercise and at the same time work in some quality time with my wife and baby. I have to admit that it was nicer running around my old neighborhood, as we were right by the lake, which is absolutely the best place to run in Chicago. In fact I still go running on the lake - for my long runs on the weekends, I drive to the Recreation Park and run south to Navy Pier usual ly. Lincoln Square is a great neighborhood but there are just too many stoplights and people, you h ave to stop all the time when running, which is good for K. as she hasn't worked out in almost a yea r. When the weather gets cold I'll have to go back on the treadmill, I usually get sick of being ou t in the cold some time around early December. Luckily I won't have to drive to the Y anymore, ther e's a park district fitness center with a pool and treadmills that's every bit as nice as the Y, clo ser, and costs much less for a yearly membership.

N. is walking lately. Well, she started walking around 10 months, but now she's really getting good at it. I have some movies posted on youtube, so if you know how to get to my youtube channel you can check baby walking for yourself. This means it's about 30% more difficult to look after her, especially in our new house, which has much greater square footage. The new place is coming together b tw. We've spent basically every evening for the past couple of weeks unpacking and organizing stuff . I still can't find certain things though - some jewelry, clothes and toiletries mainly, I guess t hat's how it goes when you move. My in laws are such wonderful people also - they bought us a dinin g room table and delivered it all the way from the UP last weekend and helped us to assemble it. Gr eat weekend last weekend, also - we wound up going to lunch with M. and M. who we ran into on the st reet around the Square. Then we had a big barbecue at my moms on Sunday.

I'm really busy this week. Working from my mom's house today, I brought N. with me too. Mom's hold ing up - she's become very social since my dad's death, she seems to be having huge parties at her h ouse all the time. That's a good thing, I guess. It's weird for me seeing all these people that ov er at her house that I haven't seen in years since my dad didn't like them. I try to at least call my mom every day, my brothers are usually over at her house every day, it's more difficult for me to make it over because of the baby and all. N's birthday party this weekend, we have a lot of work t o do in terms of setting up our place, but it should be a lot of fun. I think we invited way too ma ny people but what's done is done I guess, and it'll be interesting seeing everyone all together in one place. Life is good, life has been very good for me for a long time, despite everything. Despi te me going through these spells of being cranky or feeling sorry for myself. K. and N. and I are e njoying our new house and our new neighborhood. It feels like a new chapter. What else. Now that things seem to be settling down, I'm starting to turn my focus to: working harder at my career, firs t by working some overtime. I'm also really determined to start performing music live and recording original music. I registered for a singing class at the Old Town school as singing and playing gui tar seems to be my weakness as a performer. I've also been talking to this dude about starting a ba nd/recording project - we've missed connections a few times, we were supposed to go out for drinks l ast week, and again tonight. I'm hoping everything works out because it would be fun to make a new friend that I can collaborate with.