Bryce Moore's Blog, page 73

A Few More Dungeons & Dragons Presentation Thoughts (and a link to the presentation itself)

Now that my D&D presentation is behind me (huzzah!), I wanted to take a bit of time to look back at the process and detail a few things I would have done differently. The idea behind the presentation was pretty straightforward: I wanted to film the whole thing ahead of time, and then give the audience a series of choices about which way the presentation would go.

For a while, I thought I was going to have to do some sort of fancy editing to enable those choices, but I discovered YouTube has the ability to link to other YouTube videos at the end of each video you upload, so making those choices possible would be as simple as just mapping out how the videos could play out, and then being sure I linked everything the right way.

I learned a few things as I went:

To have those “links to other videos” at the end of a YouTube video, the video has to be at least 25 seconds long. There were a few snippet sequences I filmed that were much shorter than that, so I had to end up adding in some empty space at the end of those videos so there was enough time for the menu to pop up.Actually, I had to individually edit each video to add blank space at the end, since the choice menu shows up over whatever is at the end of that video.I used Quicktime to record myself at my laptop. I would then trim the beginning and ending portion of that recording from within Quicktime. I used iMovie to add in the space at the end of each video so I could have the choice menu pop up.Somehow I had thought YouTube only let you have two linked videos at the end of its clips, but after I was into the innards of the interface, I saw you could have up to four links. I would have likely designed my presentation differently had I known about the extra capacity.There were some sections where I wanted to splice YouTube clips into my presentation. I used MacX YouTube Downloader to get this done. It was super easy to do, and made for a seamless presentation. I was impressed how far iMovie has come. Switching between audio tracks and video tracks is a simple process. So much better and more intuitive than it used to be.Having a definite outline of what was going to happen when, and how everything would link together, was key. In the end, I uploaded the videos in reverse order, with the ones that happened at the end of the presentation being uploaded first. This way, I could link the videos that came before them properly once they were uploaded as well. (If that makes sense.)It doesn’t take too much to give the perception of choice without actually having to film 1,000 different variations. For this, I filmed the lecture itself in several chunks. The choices then led to alternate takes that then funneled back to the core presentation each time. That said, if I were to really go all out on this, that could be done with more editing of the videos. It wouldn’t be hard, I don’t think. It would just involve more scripting, more recording, and a better decision tree map. It would be fun to film an actual story this way, though I don’t know that I’ll ever justify the time it would take to do it . . .

With all that out of the way, I realize I linked the video of the presentation on Facebook, but I didn’t do it here. So if you’d like to see a 40 minute discussion about D&D and its impact on our society, check it out:

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

The Latest Birthday Music Video: Pandemic Edition

I’ve traditionally made a music video for my mom each year for her birthday. (Though as I was looking back at this, it appears I took the last two years off. I blame being busy, but if I managed to do it this year in spite of the pandemic and everything else going on . . . it was probably more me being lazy? I don’t know. I can’t remember why we skipped a few years. EDIT: Wait! I remember. One year I worked on digitizing all the old home movies we had. That was the present. The other year might still be laziness, but I can’t prove or disprove that . . .)

In any case, it’s been fun to do these, and it’s even more fun to look back at all of them to see how they turned out. Watching the kids grow up over the years, seeing how the house has changed (and how I’ve changed)–definitely entertaining.

So before I show you this year’s pandemic version, here’s a walk down memory lane of the older ones:

Done back in 2013. Denisa was pregnant with MC.2014’s video, starring MC!For 2015, Denisa took the starring role.Looks like we took 2016 off as well. In 2017, we recreated the opening of the Waltons, one of Mom’s favorite TV shows from back when.A bonus video from 2017, done for my step mother before she passed away.2018’s entry, featuring yours truly. How may people can say they know what a Sriracha Fluffernutter Sandwich tastes like?

And here at last we come to 2021. I wanted to make it pandemic themed, to reflect what the past year has been like. There were a lot of different ideas, and we managed to do a riff on many of them. I’m really happy with the final product, and this time Daniela got to take the lead!

Who knows what we’ll come up with next . . .

Happy birthday, Mom!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Technology Deep Dive

It’s not that often these days that I really have to throw myself into the deep end of the technology pool. Most of my work is focused on managing what the library is doing. Big picture stuff, along with some smattering of teaching classes, providing reference, and tons and tons of meetings, of course. Mustn’t forget the meetings.

However, there are still times when something comes up that I end up pushing myself outside my comfort zone. I’ll have some sort of crazy idea, and then I really want to make that crazy idea a reality. For example, back when I wanted to make a video nomination for the New Commons Project, I wanted to do something that was really good. I wanted clips, a soundtrack, memes, and more. The vision was clear in my head, but it took a fair bit of on-the-cuff experimentation and googling for me to figure out exactly how to make it happen. In the end, I was very pleased with the result, but it was a lot of work to get it there.

Probably due to how well that video came off, I was asked by the New Commons folks to give a lecture on D&D as part of the series, since D&D was selected as a finalist. (Yay!) And in classic present-Bryce mode, I assumed that future-Bryce would have plenty of time and desire to do that, so I heartily agreed.

But as the date grew closer, I began to have a fair number of second thoughts, especially when I found out I’d be speaking for 40 minutes. That’s . . . a lot of lecture. (I should have expected this. I’ve been to a number of those New Commons lectures as an audience member.) What in the world was I going to speak about for that long? How could I make it all interesting? And just as importantly, could I do something that would translate well to a socially distanced audience?

(At the time, I wasn’t sure at all if the presentation would be in person, and I didn’t want to spend hours and hours on a presentation that all of 10 people ended up being able to listen to.)

After much thought, I came up with a plan: what if I designed a presentation to be given Choose Your Own Adventure style? It could be a series of branching videos, with the audience in control of what happened in the talk. I really liked that idea, and so I’ve spent the last long while ironing out just how to make that happen. I’m not saying this is cutting edge technology or anything. I’m just using YouTube’s interface to set up the branching pathways. But you’d be surprised about the amount of work it takes to figure all that out as a novice. And then I still had to write the talk, record it all (and all the various possibilities), map out how they’d be handled, edit the videos, upload the videos, link the videos . . .

It’s been a hefty bit of work, and I wasn’t sure I’d finish in time. I’m still not done, technically, but the end is in sight, and I’m quite confident I’ll be able to share the final result with you all here online tomorrow.

Stay tuned . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Returning to Survivor

Back in the day, there were a number of shows I watched regularly. When I ditched television back around 2009, I gave up most of them. At the time, it just didn’t make sense to be paying how much I was paying (as a percent of what I earned) in return for the television shows themselves. Of course, it’s been 12 years or so since then, and there’s only so much sitting around during a pandemic you can handle. So maybe it only makes sense that I would eventually return to some of the television shows I used to watch all the time. (I even caught some of American Idol on Sunday. I’m still not sure how I feel about that . . .)

But one show that I’ve really been enjoying catching up on is definitely Survivor. We had avoided watching it with the kids for a long while, simply because I remembered it getting fairly cutthroat, and I wasn’t sure they were up to it yet. But there’s something about being abandoned on a beach and having to fend for yourself that really resonates with me right now (I wonder why), and so we launched in with Season 25. (I can’t remember which seasons I’ve seen and which I haven’t, so we just started somewhere I was sure no one had seen.)

If I were to ever want to go on a reality game show, Survivor would definitely be my first choice. It’s not my favorite of the genre: that would be The Amazing Race. However, I’ve traveled enough to know that I personally would probably tank in the Amazing Race. All those planes . . . I just don’t think I could force myself to do that for that amount of time. Survivor, on the other hand, has proven that you don’t necessarily need to be a superhero to be able to succeed in the game. Yes, there’s a physical aspect to it, but so much of the game is social and strategic, and that’s the part of watching it that really appeals to me.

I love board games. To me, Survivor is just one big enormous social interaction game, and nothing more. I don’t really understand how people playing the game say things like, “I have to give up my integrity to play this game well.” It’s a game. If I’m playing Risk with someone, and I make an alliance with them, and then I end up having to break that alliance, am I suddenly a person with no integrity? I would say no, since it’s all within the bonds of that game. (And in Risk, if you break an alliance, that can really come back to haunt you, just as in Survivor.)

Does that mean I’d do anything in order to win? No. I tend to believe I’d use my typical skill sets to try and get ahead on the game. When I play board games, I almost always keep my word, even within the bounds of the game. I’ve found that trust is more valuable than short term gains from breaking trust. What else wouldn’t I do? I wouldn’t compromise my morals, and I wouldn’t do things that go against my religion. (Another reason I think the Amazing Race would be ill-suited for me. There’s inevitably some challenge that involves alcohol, and I’d have to just take the automatic penalty, which would really stink.)

Do I think I could win on Survivor? Sure, it’s in the realm of possibility, but just as much as anyone can win on Survivor. Yes, a lot of it is skill based, but there’s plenty of luck as well, and I’m always impressed by the people who manage to successfully finagle their way through all the potential pitfalls to come out on top.

Of course, at the end of it all, I do have a general question as to what the worth of Survivor is. I like to watch things that improve me or my writing somehow. In the Amazing Race, I like seeing other countries and learning a (very small) bit about them. That’s enough to justify the show to me. In Survivor, I’m not sure. It’s an excellent way to pass the time, and it offers some interesting scenarios to spark discussion with the fam. (I wonder how often my family wishes I would stop hitting “pause” to make commentary . . .)

In any case, it’s been a diverting way to spend some evenings again. (Though I’m still not sure I’ll ever get back to full American Idol fandom . . .)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Thankful for School

I was listening to a story the other day on NPR about how different areas of the country have implemented school during these days of the pandemic, and I was struck for a moment about how grateful I am for my school district and the efforts they’ve made to keep kids safe but also keep them learning.

Back when the pandemic first hit, I was disappointed with how the school transitioned to online learning. Anything that was done once kids moved to at-home learning couldn’t be officially graded, and so a lot of kids just checked out of the learning process. It felt like from mid-March through June, school was more of a joke than a real learning experience. I was worried we’d have more of the same when things started back up in September.

But they did start back up. True, there weren’t all the afterschool activities, but my kids have still been able to do cross country and now nordic skiing. There have been some virtual music groups. They’re in class every day, sometimes in person and sometimes online, but learning as actually happening.

I know there are parts of the country where schools are still shut down, and I know this is a topic that’s incredibly sensitive with many different people, both for and against the decisions that are being implemented. I was definitely worried how in-person schooling would go, but in practice, I’ve found the kids handle it sooo much better than the adults. We’ve had some COVID cases in the district, but due to social distancing and masking measures, none of them have really broken out into a huge problem.

Is school normal for my kids? No. But it’s much more normal than it was at the end of last year, and for that I’m very grateful. There’s enough bad things happening around the world these days that I’m trying to take some time and think about the positives that are here. I’ll take any positives I can get at this point . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Happy Birthday, Daniela!

Can you believe it? She’s thirteen today. I had to double check with her when she woke up, because I could have sworn she was just barely turning eight. However, she confirmed it: we now have a second teenager in our house.

What will we be doing to celebrate? Strangely enough, our lives are pretty busy at the moment. You’d think with the pandemic still raging that we’d be holed up at home more than we are, but Tomas and Daniela and MC are all doing nordic skiing (cross country), which involves a ton of practices and races. There are two races this evening, and Denisa wants to get some downhill skiing in as well. (Yes, it was -7 F when we woke up this morning, but I think there are some definite advantages to living in a place where there’s plenty to do outside in the winter. True, I suppose if it were more like 60 degrees, then we could just have outdoor parties, but whatever. I like snow, and I love that my kids still have some school sports going on.)

So they’ve got all that going, but later this evening we should all be back together for some good old fashioned cake. Yay for cake.

These days, Daniela is getting more and more into the trappings of teendom. She’s on her iPad a fair bit, chatting with her friends. She loves Taylor Swift songs and decided to listen to every single Swift recording, just so she could be up to date on all of them. She loves movies, and is a big fan of older classics like His Girl Friday or The Philadelphia Story. She’s Ferris’s favorite human, and she loves to draw, typically using the iPad and Apple pencil. She’s getting very talented at the cello and practices often without prompting, and she’s branching out into cooking as well.

It’s fun watching her try out all these different things, and while I do miss the girl who was absolutely obsessed with all things Lord of the Rings, it’s great to see her growing into her own personality. Maybe she’ll even come on Facebook one of these days. Who knows?

In any case, if you see her today, wish her a big happy birthday. It’s tough to be a middle schooler during a pandemic, so we all need all the cheerfulness we can get. I love you Daniela!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Revisiting The X-Files

I mentioned the other day that Daniela and I are now revisiting the X-Files. We’re still really early on in the show, but I had a couple observations already, and since what I really want to write about (the impeachment trial) is something that I don’t feel up to writing about today, I thought I’d focus on something lighter instead.

When I was in high school, The X-Files was one of the first shows I viewed as event television. Something that you’d get together with friends to watch, and that you’d all be talking about the next day. (Or, since it aired Fridays as I recall, the next Monday at school.) In many ways, it was a show that broke ground for the sort of television that’s so common now: big plot arcs, compelling mysteries, hints handed out bit by bit over time. It’s the kind of show that would have a mass following online if it were to come out now, with people all dissecting the little clues they noticed in each episode.

Of course, as a pioneer in that type of television, it’s got many aspects that don’t necessarily stand up as well to modern scrutiny. For one thing, it’s a bit hard for me to watch the series, since I know full well that many of these mysteries will just never be answered. That’s been something that’s held me back from watching a number of TV shows over the years. I watched the first bit of Heroes, for example, but then heard that it got significantly worse later on, so I just lost interest. In many ways, it feels like someone tells you “The first five chapters of this are incredible. Then it gets worse.”

There’s no way I would read that book. Bit then again, isn’t that what television has sort of been like all along? The difference is that now we’re often consuming it a season at a time. Maybe I’m just getting much more demanding, or maybe there’s more good television out there, which makes it harder to find shows that are as good.

(Something else that’s hard to wrap my head around? Gillian Anderson was 25 in season one. Duchovny was 33. When I watched them in high school, they were indubitably Old. What does that make me now? It’s almost been 30 years since the first X-Files aired. Showing it to Daniela now would be like me watching The Beverly Hillbillies or The Dick Van Dyke Show with my parents when I was her age.)

Then again, from what I remember, the X-Files also did a great job of “episode of the week” deliveries. Sure, there were the episodes that advanced the big plot forward and dribbled out additional hints and clues, but there were also just flat out funky episodes where cockroaches invade a town or there’s a monster Scully and Mulder have to fight. That’s something that I haven’t watched as much of recently, and it’ll be interesting to revisit it. (Doctor Who is pretty much completely in this vein. You’ve got the cool premise, and so you use that as a vehicle to do cool things.)

So far, the shows have stood up well, but like I said, we’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ll be interested to see where it goes from here. (Especially since I’ve never seen all the episodes. I mean, back when I was watching them, you either saw it live, or you didn’t see it. Talk about the stone age.)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Turning Up the Temperature

Since we moved to Maine, we’ve typically kept our house at a fairly cold temperature in the winter. We have a wood stove and oil heat, and we’ve tried to generally focus on the woodstove as the main heat with the oil heat as backup. So the thermostat has generally stayed at about 55: enough to kick in at night if it gets too cold, but never do more than that.

During the day, we usually have the house in the mid 60s, give or take. That’s a fine temperature if you’re in the kitchen or living room, but the home office is farther away from the woodstove, and so it can get pretty nippy in there. This wasn’t a big problem in the summer, but the times when I’m in there in the winter are trickier.

For the last while, I’ve just been putting up with it. Heading into the kitchen for breaks to warm up when I need them. Then again, it’s also been tricky with our bathroom now that we have Ferris. We’ve tended to keep the bathroom door shut, since we don’t want the dog to drink toilet water. But with the door shut, the bathroom gets no heat. You’d be amazed what a difference a closed door can be in terms of temperature, when all your heat is coming from a single source.

And today, it finally dawned on me. I’ve been still treating the thermostat like I was treating it when we first moved here. Not that I want to throw caution to the wind or anything, but I think we can safely turn it up a bit more now.

“Turn it up a bit” means more like 68 in the house than 64. That might not seem like a huge difference, but it means that we run the oil heat some during the day. Our basement is insulated, so all that heat stays right in the house, which means the floors get much warmer, which means the rooms in the entire house are toastier. Win win.

I don’t think I’ll ever go much higher than that (at least for the next few decades), because I dislike being hot, but there’s definitely something to be said for not being cold, either . . .

What do you keep your indoor temperature set to during the day when you’re home?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Super Bowl 2021 Thoughts

Like many (most?) of you, I spent my evening yesterday watching the Buccaneers thrash the Chiefs, in a game that was honestly pretty disappointing, since I thought it would be much more of an even matchup. I mean, I ultimately wanted Tom Brady to win (that’s what TB stands for, right?), mainly because I think it’s a pretty remarkable storyline. He left the Patriots and everyone was saying he was just too old to do anything anymore. People all attributed his success to coaching and a confluence of influences, and then he went and joined . . . Tampa Bay? I mean, when I heard about that move, I thought it was a pretty ignominious way to end your career.

(Honestly, the Patriots should have never, ever, ever let Brady go. When a player has done that much for a team, I’m of the mindset that the team should stick with them to ensure they end their career with that team. Tom Brady was the Patriots. But whatever.)

In any case, Brady managing to win the Super Bowl with a team that had, up until then, only been on the bad side of so-so for the past long while is pretty jaw dropping, in my opinion. Yes, the team didn’t just win on the back of Brady. Their defense played a huge role, and yes, the Chiefs were down some key positions, and it looked like Mahomes was still somewhat injured, but that’s how football goes.

The rest of the game was . . . pleasantly diverting? I mean, it was a good excuse to sit there and eat chips and Oreos for a few hours. The halftime show made me realize I have officially stopped caring at all about current music trends, which is kind of disappointing. I didn’t recognize a single song by The Weeknd, and I found the whole thing just bizarre and fairly boring. Give me Prince or U2 any day of the week.

The ads were fine, though there was a severe lack of monkeys in them. (I don’t ask much from my commercials. Some humor is good, but a good chimpanzee can go a very long way with me.) I still find the ads that are Heartwarming and Special to be . . . strange. What have we come to as a nation when it takes Bruce Springsteen to appear in a Jeep commercial to tell us all to be more unified?

But again, I’ll take just about any excuse to do something different in February. We didn’t have people over or go anywhere. Just watched it with Tomas, Daniela, and MC. (Denisa decided to skip the experience.) It felt like this strange mishmash of normal and not normal. It was the Super Bowl, but there were masks, but there was a crowd, but only half or a quarter as many.

Here’s hoping next year’s game is better, and that life is much more back to normal than it is right now . . .

What did you all think about it? I realize that my perceptions can be heavily skewed by living deep in the heart of Patriots country for so long. Did everyone else want to see Brady do well, or were you all rooting for the Chiefs?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Spending Time with the Kids

I believe one of the best ways you can show someone you care about them is by spending time with them doing things they’d like to do. And on that theory, I’ve had a goal to spend time with each of my kids doing activities of their choosing.

This is a great goal on the surface for a number of obvious reasons, but I’ve found it’s also a very difficult goal to actually keep going. For one thing, I have three children and only one me. It’s true that Denisa also spends time with the kids doing a variety of things (skiing, taking them to practices, etc.), but for this goal, I really wanted it to be me spending personal time with them. In my head, this would be something I did every day, even though I recognize that getting this done every day is just not going to realistically happen. Take yesterday: I was out the door at 7:20, and when I came home at 4:20, the kids were all gone skiing with Denisa. I had a Stake Presidency meeting at 5:30 that ran straight into a Stake Council meeting at 7:00, and I wasn’t done until 8:45. The kids didn’t get back from skiing and youth activities until 8:00 or so, which means that I saw them all for a grand total of about 15 minutes the entire day.

But I still keep the goal at a “daily” level because I know from experience how goals tend to go for me. Look at it this way: by having the goal as a daily goal, if I miss once or twice, I still do things with my kids multiple times a week. If, on the other hand, I make it a “once a week” goal, and I miss once or twice, then suddenly I’m down to only having done something with them a couple of times that month. This is definitely one area where I feel it’s better to set an unattainable goal and still constantly strive to achieve it.

(Side note: I suppose I could add a “Spend time with Denisa” goal, but she and I spend time together every day out of sheer habit at this point. It’s very rare that we don’t both sit down to talk or watch a TV episode or part of a movie each night. It’s just the unspoken rule of how our house runs. So I suppose I have an unwritten goal to make sure that never changes, but in practice, it’s not a goal I feel like I have to expend any energy toward reaching. Spending time with the kids, on the other hand, seems to be trickier for me. Too many moving parts to keep track of, I suppose, so I need to have that goal there to remind me.)

In practice, what does this look like? It varies for each kid. MC is on a big Minecraft kick right now, so I sit down and play Minecraft with her for a half hour or so each day. More, if I have time. We happily go about digging for diamonds or building rooms in our survival mode world. (No monsters on as of yet, because MC isn’t a fan of blowing up by Creepers.) Tomas and I play a variety of games. Often it’s Magic, though recently we’ve been playing a lot of Gloomhaven. He’s much busier than MC, however, so I typically only get to play with him twice a week, give or take. On the other hand, it’s usually for a couple of hours at a stretch, so maybe that offsets it some.

For Daniela, it’s been trickier finding something for us to do together. We’ve done some drawing activities, and we’ve read books together, but it’s been hard to find something that’s easily replicable. Playing Minecraft is something I can do without really having to think too much, so I can do it even after a long day at work. Reading out loud, drawing, and the like are more mentally challenging for me, and so I’ve found we start off strong and then end up slipping off into doing nothing again. Our new goal at the moment is to watch all of X-Files together. I’ve wanted to revisit the series for quite some time, so we’ll see if that works well. (DC is getting busier, so this might be difficult.)

Anyway. This isn’t really intended as a bragging post. I’m far from perfect when it comes to this. But I share it more as a way to show something I’d like to do so that when my kids are grown, I can look back and remember the times we spent together and know that I put in a good effort to make time for them. Having a close family is something I’ve always enjoyed, and this is one way I’m trying to reach that bigger goal.

What do you do to find time for your family?

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