{Cheese and Beans}

While catching up on the various thoughts of those I follow on Facebook, LiveJournal, Wordpress, Posterous and Tumblr early this morning (yes, I am mad), I chanced upon a really interesting post on Tumblr.

It’s mid afternoon on Saturday and I’m pretty much wiped out. Today was the day of the primary school Christmas Bazaar – and Wendy was roped in to creating and helping run Santa’s Grotto. Yep – you got it right; in the middle of me being away 4 days a week, we have been roped into helping with everybody else’s crap. On top of that we have no money to buy the kids anything for christmas, and no time to scratch our own backside.

Here’s a few pictures from the playpark earlier anyway…

Please excuse me while I go fall in a heap somewhere (that will be the heap before I make the kids dinner – like last night – then my better half’s dinner – then do the bedtime routine). By about 10pm I should be able to do some freelance work… just like last night, and probably every other night in the runup to Christmas.

I can’t remember the last time I sat down and played a video game, or watched television. I wish I could.

Visitors to our house are invariably astounded at the plethora of books that surround them – and probably make snap judgements about us, or the “kind of person” we are by the presence of so much literature.

I have a guilty secret.

Since ceasing the daily commute into and out of London, I have hardly picked up a single book. The four hours sat on trains each day was my time. In the course of the two year London odyssey, I hit a lot of the books on my “would like to read one day” list.

I discovered that Anna Karenina really is one of the best books ever written – certainly the best I have read thus far. It started as a chore – an act of blind faith because “everybody says this is good”. It required effort to escape the first hundred or so pages, before sweeping you into the world of Anna, Count Vronsky, and Levin.

“The Order of Things” by Foucault mystified me for days. I persevered through the philosophical navel gazing, and came away with something. I’m not quite sure what that something was, but it seemed worth it.

Terry Pratchett delivered light relief during the darkest times, and Cory Doctorow fired my imagination.

Since settling into the rhythm of a career closer to home, the internet has taken the place of the books I once read. Many and varied blogs vie for my attention. When the mood takes me, I sit into the early hours reading the shared story of far flung friends; some of which I now know, but the majority I shall never meet.

Stories. So many stories, and so little time.

Yesterday morning I woke at 6am to the sound of our resident air raid siren, otherwise known as “Little Miss Five”.

After listening for a few moments to her insane babble intended to wake her sisters, I fell back into a deep sleep, and embarked on several hours of adventure that (in reality) took only minutes.

How does your brain do that? I cannot read faster than I might speak, but in a few minutes of sleep my brain can come up with all manner of intricate and nonsensical stories.

Why is it that we never question the events of a dream while it is going on?

As I finally woke at 7:15 (and realised I had to scrape my sorry ass out of bed in order to make breakfasts, lunches, and get out of the house in time to make the school run), I remembered the last few moments of my dream. I still remember them.

I was in the playpark behind the house I grew up, collecting my teenage son (who I don’t have), who was dressed in a bizarre “New Romantic meets Street Fighter meets Nazi” trench coat replete with medals and epaulettes. There was some kind of altercation occuring, and I extracated my son by the most ingenious of method;

“Lets go home and get a drink”.

I shudder to imagine what on earth is going on in my head most of the time. I suspect I’m only using a small part of it’s true processing power – the rest seems to be devoted to constructing towering piles of ridiculous garbage.

What is it about Fridays? Where does our energy and enthusiasm go?

I was going to write a long post filled with bitterness, complaints, and general curmudgeonly pearls of spite. You might even call it “foaming invective”. Mid-rant, I realised that nobody would be at all interested in listening to my protestations, so I hit the delete key and held it down for quite some time.

Let me summarise that which I would have written if the “attack of sensible” had not happened;

• I have lots of things I would like to do
• I do not have enough time to do any of the things I would like to

The thing is, I quite like moaning. I’m good at it. I get in a temper with myself all the time – protesting internally at my private annoyance of the situations I commonly find myself in. The external manifestations are generally fast stomping around the house, heavy handedness, and refinement of a flustered look.

How do you deal with the every day slings and arrows ?

You find me on arrival home from a walk into town – an eleventh hour dash to procure food for dinner – and a hearing of our eldest daughter reading from a book of her teacher’s choosing.

These few minutes are grabbed in passing. A moment of calm delimiting the mayhem of the day; a day filled with the bustle of the morning routine, perpendicular progress at the office, and then greeting stress and further mayhem on arrival home.

Once the little ones are in bed we will return to our adult lives for a few hours, before collapsing into bed as the world tumbles towards tomorrow and it begins again.

I sometimes envy the single guys at work – that can roll out of bed with a finely crafted routine ahead of them to leave the house with seconds to spare beyond which they would be late for work. My morning typically starts an hour before I leave the house, of which ten minutes are spent on myself.

The morning typically includes;

• Tell kids to get dressed
• Attempt to walk downstairs without tripping over toys left strategically on the stairs
• Tidy kitchen sufficiently to make stuff
• Tell youngest to put [insert random toy name] back away, and respond to inevitable “Why?” with “Because you have to get ready for school!”
• Make two packed lunches for little people
• Ask middle child if she is ready for school yet – respond to “Yes” with “Where are your shoes then?” (typically responded to with “Oh…”)
• Make three breakfasts for little people
• Jump in shower, brush teeth, shave if time allows
• Get drinks for three little people
• Request that the wreckage spread across the breakfast table is re-l0cated to the sink in the kitchen.
• Make cup of tea for other half
• Make coffee for myself
• Ask all children again if they have their coats, shoes, and bags ready
• Get dressed
• Brush hair of each child, wondering how they have managed to tangle their hair to such an extent overnight that cutting it all off is turning into a sensible idea.
• Let chickens out
• Fetch mountain bike from shed
• Fail to find pump to put more air in rear tyre
• Begin walk to school
• Bellow at youngest children to stop as articulated lorry pulls out of petrol station
• Tell younger children off for not listening to bellowed “STOP”
• Have heart attack as youngest leaves scooter braking manoeuvre far too late approaching main road (repeat this again, and again)

I typically walk the first half mile of the journey with the kids towards their schools; or – as happened this morning – I accompany the eldest to her school gate (little miss 5 has “Maths Club” on a Monday morning – quite what it might involve is anybody’s guess – perhaps “two cakes plus two cakes = my cakes!”)

The craziness of our typical morning can be derailed by the slightest thing. Missing school clothes or shoes are a favourite. Discovery of no milk to make cereals, or bread to make toast are also common . We commonly have to deal with a belligerent four year old, who, in the middle of said toast shortage has decided that the only substance she will eat is chocolate spread on toast. All other suggestions are responded to with an unhappy grunt. People without children who are recoiling at the thought of feeding children such horrors as chocolate spread can go take a running jump – until you have experienced a mayhem filled morning, you are in no position to judge (and we don’t feed them it every day anyway).

If you are single and/or childless, and reading this with a significant amount of horror or justification for your childless state forming in your mind, I need to redress the balance a little.

You know the bit in Monsters Inc. when they discover the power of laughter? It works the same on grown ups. No matter what the kids have done – how naughty they have been – if they giggle, you’ve had it.

You’re probably wondering what on earth “Thunking” means. As far as I am aware, it comes from computer science – and is often used to describe the process of laboriously going through something, doing something mundane. It describes my life pretty well at the moment.

I can’t remember a time when I shared less in my personal blog, or had as little motivation to write anything as has occurred recently. I’ve not even taken sideways glances at this neglected soap-box. It just hasn’t entered my head to sit down and write anything.

In years gone by, my posts were either uncomfortably personal, filled with “foaming invective” (excellent description offered by a great colleague), or so mindlessly boring that they induced narcolepsy in the unwary. At least I was writing regularly though.

I’m also aware that I have not been reading friends blogs – or at least when I have, I have not been commenting. This is unheard of. Quite often I will take a glance at Google Reader, and convince myself that my opinion on this or that is inconsequential – and what’s the point in saying something for the sake of it? Why would you say anything if you have nothing constructive to say?

Is it all about being constructive though? Am I becoming one dimensional – I get up – I work – I come home – I work some more – I go to bed…

I am reminded of a line from Mr Holland’s Opus (that was probably stolen from somewhere else)…

You can cut the arts, but the kids will have nothing anymore to read and write about.

Swap “the arts” with “free time”, and you edge a little closer to the world I inhabit at the moment. Take away the “me” time, and I have no recent experiences or thoughts to share with the world. I cannot talk about work, and I choose not to share too much about the children… which only leaves me, and there’s not a lot of me left to report on at the moment.

Of course the easy answer is “you need to find more personal time”. Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen…

There was a time when I would find a quiet hour to sit at the computer and write. The keyboard served as a conduit between mind and computer, translating the days thoughts, experiences and frustrations into something of interest for the wider world.

The quiet hour grows rare, as do the chances to scribble passing thoughts into the Moleskine. The first fifty or so pages of my latest notebook are filled with complicated diagrams, and technical language that may as well be heiroglyphs.

It is becoming more difficult to find a part of my world to share, quite apart from finding time to share it. Past readers will no doubt have noticed the increasing likelihood that I post photos – and also know from their own experience why I am doing it – it’s easier.

While at dinner with friends on Sunday evening, I was asked if I would be taking part in the local 5 mile run this year – and I had to explain about not having time to train. A colleague from work boasted that he found time, and his other half tore into him. It would appear that the time I spend with the children, tidying up, washing up, or playing with the children is a great deal more than many.

What am I trying to say here ?

Perhaps that there are only so many hours in the day, and that at the moment they don’t stretch far enough for me to find an hour – as I have done this evening – to share a part of myself with those who read the rubbish I write.

Who knows – perhaps scarsity will increase quality. Instead of a torrent of garbage, I will produce a trickle of barely passable rubbish.

One day I’ll get around to reading some of the blogroll too – which is starting to bear a striking resemblence to cities of earth in Wall-E.

Another night down, another night closer to paying for our new car, and another night of churning out illustrations that will eventually grace a corporate website.

For the first time since I have been freelancing, I was approached today by a possible client on the strength of my portfolio. To say I am pleased is an understatement – especially as the work I am able to display online is only a small fraction of the work I actually do. So far I have not actively scouted for any of the work I am doing. Of course, as I complete more freelance work, I will have more to show – a bigger “shop window”.

Week days are spent mired in the world of Microsoft, C#, web services, workflow, and all manner of other stuff that 99% of people have never heard of. Weekends are spent running round like an idiot fulfilling social obligations, and ferrying the children on their never ending itinerary, which leaves evenings and late nights to help freelance clients realise their ambitions on the web.

We decided several months ago that I should give it at least six months to a year – doing the web work on the side – before making any kind of long term decision about my future. It will be a difficult call to make when the time comes (if it ever does) – deciding between a career as a professional software developer, or a freelance web designer and developer.

My continuing inspiration is a friend in the US who followed the opposite path – leaving a world of web development behind to chase her dream of making wonderful things from glass and silver. She had the courage to make the leap, but then she also has another half earning money. Our situation is different – I am now the sole supporter of our family of five, and it concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Over the past several evenings while working early into the morning on occasion, I have wondered about the pursuit of money – or rather, my own pursuit of it recently. At what point do I slow down – how much free time should you make for yourself – and your family ? I’m not so sure there is a right or wrong answer, so long as you find some time… this evening I ate dinner with everybody, talked through the children’s day, and helped the eldest with her homework before returning to the study to knuckle down.

Right now I am writing these words in a period of reflection at the end of a long day, and continuing the tradition of being a “personal blogger” – the very same class of contributor to the web that the intelligencia will tell you is becoming extinct.

When I grow weary, I am reminded of the Dylan Thomas poem – do not go gentle into that good night…