This fall has been an interesting one in the news from Iowa. Its goofy season here so every day there is some political news coming from the state. I can’t wait for the caucuses so we can vote some of these bums out of the running.

But more importantly, it started in early fall at the Iowa / Iowa State game when a guy names Carson King held up a sign stating he needed some beer money.

Well, we’re at the mid year, so let’s see where we have gotten with our goals for the year.

• Drop the next 10 lbs - I joined a group of Rockin Dad (our Facebook Down Syndrome Group) to do a weight challenge. It was slow and steady work, but I’ve almost accomplished this one. As of June 14th the last day of the competition, I lost a grand total of 8.3 pounds. It doesn’t hurt that I was away from work and the delicious breakfasts for a month on reCharge.

So, we finally did a thing a few weeks back! We’ve looked for an opportunity to do this for a year.

In case you are wondering about the meaning of the arrows, check out this article

My tattoo has a little extra meaning to it as I wanted an arrow for each of the boys. They are all going to go their own direction and I’m able to tie in the lucky few tattoo into the design. Its healing up well and I’m really happy with the end result. More than anything, its a conversation starter on a great bunch of kiddos and a good story as well.

I’m very fortunate to work for the company that I do. One of the benefits that you get after being with the company for 5 years is a reCharge period of 30 calendar days off fully paid. This is a HUGE benefit and one that I’m very happy they have in place. After 5 years, you realize the toll the job can take on you. I’ll fully admit, at the end of last year my projects were plentiful, my team was growing, and the challenges we were tackling were pretty challenging. Thus… I was starting to get a little burned out. Luckily I had a few days off at the beginning of the year to put things back into persepective for me. Spending that time with your son in the PICU fighting RSV has a tendency to do that. You realize how lucky you are to have the insurance that you have. But… Time away is important to charge up the batteries. Without this, I’m not sure where my head would be necessarily.

I ran across this video at the beginning of the year and it dramatically changed how I look at my week. I used to have every minute packed and often time I would go from one half hour meeting to the next with no time to prep or really be prepared for what was going to happen in the next 30 minutes. Sometimes even prepping in the last part of one meeting for the next meeting.