A lot has happened, so the material has been there - it's just, I haven't really had the motivation to sit down and document it all.
I came back from my last training so drained, and I wrote about that. These last two weeks, I've just found other things to do.
It's also been hot as heck out, which seems to drain my energy even in the brief amounts of time that I'm out in it.
But oh well, I'm sitting down at the computer now though, so here we go.
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Two weeks ago, Jaxon and I started going to the gym together.
He'd been asking for a long time if we could start lifting weights together, and I'd put it off because of his age. I started lifting weights at 14, so I figured that was when I'd start taking him as well. However, he was persistent enough that I did some online reading, and checked with the CN gym and sure enough - as long we don't overdo things, 12 is an ok age for him to get started.
So, starting last week, we've been going three nights a week to the Markoma gym, where we spend 30 minutes doing some form of cardio (typically me on a treadmill and him downstairs shooting baskets) and then we have a routine that I got from men's fitness that we can do in the Nautilus machines room.
I'm not ready for him to start doing free weights yet, which works out because I don't think he's old enough to be in that room of the gym anyways.
Working for the Cherokee Nation has been such a blessing for our family. On top of all of the other perks, it comes with free access to the CN gym - which is a really nice gym. I'm already spoiled by the treadmills that come with television screens built into them, and now having a place to take my son three times a week for "guy time" just adds to the pile of bonuses.
And honestly, that's what it's been - guy time.
While we don't visit much during our 30 minutes of cardio (either because we have headphones on or because he's in a different part of the gym than I am), we get to talk a lot while we're lifting weights.
Also, it feels good to just be exercising again.
...once I got over those first couple days' worth of soreness.
I lifted weights pretty intensely through my high school years, and it's fun teaching him how to do something that held such a special place in my life. I've had to explain to him that the weight room is not a place to show off or be insecure (he really hated it when I tried to help him out the first couple of days while we were finding his appropriate weight limits) - but now that we're finding our stride - it's become this really special thing.
And honestly, even when we're doing the cardio section of our nights, the gym is set up in such a way that I can look down and watch him shooting baskets while I'm on the treadmill, and that's been its own kind of enjoyable.
I like watching him interact with other people. He's less awkward socially than I was at 12. Where I would have seen a group of strangers shooting baskets as perfect inspiration to find another form of cardio that night, he sees it as a group of people he can't wait to be a part of.
I think that's really going to serve him well through his life.
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Last weekend we went to Tulsa for a cookout at a friend's house.
While it was still really hot outside, it was nice to get out and do something with friends.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but I have a small group of guys that I play xbox with and communicate through fb messenger throughout the week. They're some of my best friends, which is funny because we only get to meet up in person a very few times throughout the year.
The cookout was a blast, and we got to catch up in person, which is something that just doesn't happen enough.
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This week we had a little scare in the house, though thankfully it turned out to be nothing major.
While home for lunch on Wednesday, I heard the sound of water running in the kids' bathroom. Though, nothing was turned on, so it was a sound that I shouldn't have been hearing.
I ended up staying home that afternoon trying to trace the sound to its location. I even called in Shelly's dad for help because he's a wealth of information on all things house related - and even with his assistance, we just couldn't pinpoint the source of the running water.
And it was truly bizarre.
The sound seemed to be coming from behind the bath faucet, though when we pulled the panel off of the wall to get to the bath tub pipes, everything was bone dry. The toilet wasn't running or leaking, and the panel under the sink revealed nothing as well.
Yet, the sound persisted. Turning the water off to the house killed the sound, and turning the water back on brought it back.
Stranger still, the water meter wasn't budging.
It had me so confused that I turned to google, which is never the most calming option when you think there's something wrong with your home.
Much like WebMD always convinces me that my stomach aches are cancer, googling my house's symptoms led me to believe that I had a small "slab leak" - something that it would take hundreds of dollars to diagnose, and then potentially thousands to fix.
In short, the type of money that would make things VERY tight around here for a while.
Thankfully, before calling a leak detection company from Tulsa to come out I tried a local plumber - who came by Thursday morning and had the problem identified and fixed in under ten minutes.
The source of my concern was a small rubber ring on the outdoor faucet just next to the kids' bathroom, and once it was replaced - no more sound.
Ended up costing 110 for the plumber to come spend ten minutes in my house - but it led to a lot of peace of mind, as well as alleviated fears of something far more troublesome.
And really, that's the homeowner experience. Putting out (or having someone else put out) small fires all the time, praying that each one doesn't have enough dry grass around it to become a catastrophe.
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This next upcoming week is going to be a busy one.
Today, I'm driving to Tulsa to have a small bachelor party for my little brother, who is getting married in Vegas next week.
We're going to dinner at the Prairie Brewery and then getting drinks at the Max Retro Pub - which after looking at their facebook page has me pretty excited.
Next weekend, we fly out to Vegas for the wedding, AND to eat at what I truly believe is the world's most amazing buffet.
I mean seriously, just look at this thing:
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I'm also waiting for the perfect opportunity to prank Jaxon, but I'll write about that in a future blog.
For now, just know that it involves a black morph suit,
a guy who didn't realize how unflattering black morph suits are,
and a kid who pretends to be tough, but frightens easily.
Have a great week.
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