Devotion and Desire

What's up peeps. Quite a few things to cover tonight, so let's get to it. Over the rather steamy and hot weekend, Jill's parents came up to babysit Mia, which allowed us to go see "Wicked" in Milwaukee (for Jill's belated birthday. Let me tell you, it was absolutely fantastic. We haven't seen a play since NYC in 2006 when we saw Spamalot. Anyways, it was an incredibly delightful evening with my wife.  The play was wonderful, acting spot on and the props and sets were fantastic. I easily could recommend this one to anyone. I've heard tons of people who've seen it that have loved it, so going into the play, I knew it wouldn't disappoint. A friend of mine even has a "Wicked" inspired tattoo. :) Sunday, I worked the early shift, and ended up being too exhausted from the crazy day to play soccer. Plus, it was incredibly muggy. I sort of regretted not playing, because I saw the rest of the month I've got 2-10 shifts on Sundays. :( So all in all, not a bad weekend. Got some yard work and laundry accomplished. Totally appreciate my in laws for coming up and taking care of Mia so we can have a lovely rare date night.

Today, I woke up rather sad. Just totally bummed out about things. About turning 30 soon, and not having a proud career. I know I've gone over this before, but it's always something I think about when it's brought up in a conversation. "When are you gonna get a better job?" "When are you going to work in your field again?" It angers me how true that can be. But I have to move on and continue with where I am. Thankfully, listening to Alkaline Trio got me through the morning/afternoon. Mia and I didn't do anything too exciting. She was rather great with my Dad, which always makes the old man happy. Other then that, nothing else going on. Haven't touched this art project in over a month, and decided today to just not look at it for a while. I may scrap it, or continue a little later. I did start a little sketch of Mia that I hope turns out cool.

That's all for tonight. Thanks for reading :)

Best Imitations Of Myself

Hey! Hope every one's enjoying this rather strange week. 4th of July on a Thursday is a bit strange. Some people are getting a full 4-day weekend, others (like my wife) get just Thursday off. Me? I'm not off. Didn't take the holiday off. Used to back in the day when we would go to to catch Less Than Jake every 4th of July at Summerfest. Lots of fun, but as time went on, I just stopped wanting to go to Milwaukee's famous fest. Loss of interest. Would take a lot for me to go now. The Lawrence Arms would guarantee me to attend, as well as probably Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Okay, that's enough of that.

Over the weekend, we drove down to Illinois Friday after work.  After we gassed up and got on 43, Mia fell asleep rather quickly watching her new favourite movie "The Princess Frog". While driving through Huntley, there were cones and cops everywhere with floodlights in a parking lot. I swear, it looked like border control. Well, they were stopping every single car and did a "safety check", which of course meant they were checking for drunk drivers. Great idea, but crap, they just HAD to shine the flash light in poor sleeping Mia's eyes.  She fell asleep soon after we went on our adventure. Saturday morning, we drove to the Shedd Aquarium. LOVE LOVE LOVE driving through the city. Leanne (one of Jill's friend's) came with too. It was a great time. Was quite blown away by how amazing the beluga whales are. I've seen them there before, but every time we go, they impress me more and more. The string ray touch thingy was actually better then the Milwaukee County Zoo one. Why? Well, the cow-nose rays were SUPER friendly. They swim right up to you like a dog would rub their head. It was pretty amazing. My favourite part of the Shedd (besides the awesome penguins) still is the Reef animals down stairs. Plenty of awesome sharks swimming. Nice 6 foot ones too. A rad part of the experience, was Mia was enthused to shoot some pictures of the coral and fish with our DSLR camera. "Daddy, I take a pictures of this" *CLICK- CLICK- CLICK- CLICK* All in all, great time at the Shedd. I figured something out why Chicago residents drive rather defensive in Wisconsin. In the city, its "drive defensive, or be crushed" as my bro in law puts it. Everyone in the city has to be on their toes to get to where they're going. Cutting people off to make a turn is just part of it. There's no hesitating or middle fingers flying when someone makes a bold move to get in front of you. It's their way of life. So with that, I have 0 hatred for "FIB drivers" here in good ol' Wisconsin.

 Anyways, so Thursday is the holiday. Jill's taking Mia to the fireworks in Waukesha with my parents. We heard some neighbors shooting some off today and it peaked her interest, but of course they stopped. We put on the local news channel that had the fireworks on and I said to Mia "hey, look fireworks" and she responded "Daddy, I'm learning Spanish!" Well alright then! Saturday, we're going to see Wicked. Should be fun. Jill's parents got her tickets for her birthday. I've heard only great things about the play/musical for quite a while so I'm anticipating a wonderful evening. PLUS after work Sunday, I've got soccer. It's been a few weeks, so I'm stoked to play again.  Before I finish this, I gotta bring up this new thing Mia does every once in a while. Maybe once a day. Sometimes when we ask her about something such as for example "what would Daddy say if you fell off the swing?" Mia responds with this hilarious impression or imitation of me saying "Oh no, Mia fell off, don't cry Mia" She imitates Jill and Remi all the time too. HILARIOUS! That's all for now. Thanks for reading!