February had a very different feeling between the first and last day. Picking up right where January left off, there were a lot of personal matters to attend to:

• My wife and I started looking for a new preschool for our boys. It takes a lot of time away from work to go tour all of the schools. We have some we like, but the waiting lists are long, so that could be drawn out for a while before we have a resolution.
• I spent a few nights and weekends working on taxes. We have some investment accounts, which have bitten us in the past on taxes, so it takes a lot of time to make sure those are just right. And when we owe money on top of that, well… I’m glad it’s another 12 months before we need to file taxes again.
• After much discussion, my wife left her job to go back to school to become a nutritional coach. Her last day at work came and went without a ton of fanfare, but changing jobs is such a big life event that this was heavy on our minds for most of the month. My wife also took two trips related to this, which I’ll talk more about below.
• Oh and because that wasn’t enough, we decided to refinance our house since rates are so low (and while my wife still had valid pay stubs 😐). A bit of extra homework for us after the kids are in bed.

All of that was mostly wrapped up by the end of the month, so the last few days were quite a bit more relaxed. Things are feeling a bit more back to normal. Though, with two toddlers, and my wife just starting a career change, I’m not sure I know what normal is anymore.

Travel

I didn’t travel this month but, as mentioned above, my wife went on two trips. That left me in charge of the kids for a few days at a time. The most notable thing about these single-parent adventures is that they weren’t all that notable. It’s far from easy, but I find it much more manageable as our youngest gets even a little older.

I don’t have any upcoming travel planned for the next few months. But there are enough places I’d like to go over summer that I’ll need to make some decisions about how to spend my vacation time.

Climbing

I climbed a consistent three times a week for 12 total, all at the gym. Some of those climbs were part of the Crux Boulder League, a multi-week climbing competition. It’s far more casual than competitive, so I’m mostly pushing myself to do well for personal reasons.

Crux holds this same competition twice a year or so, and I’ve participated before. There are four divisions: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and open. Last time I participated in the advanced division and did really well. I was planning on pushing myself this season and entering the open division. But, instead of picking a division, the first week was for qualifying to put people into the proper division. The qualifying was pretty difficult and got me a bit discouraged since I had high expectations. I got placed into the advanced division again, but I think it was a healthy reality check, since that’s right in line with my skill level. It also means I’ll be able to finish more problems and likely have more fun overall.

After qualifying, the first two weeks of the competition were in February. I finished four out of my five problems the first week. I would have finished the last problem too but the start was a bit tricky, and there was a long line so I didn’t get many attempts. One of the routes I did send was labeled a v7, which I haven’t done many of, and that felt really good. For the second week of the competition, I finished all of my problems, including another v7, so that was a great night. The scores right now are just kept per team, but on the last night of the competition there are individual results as well, so I’m interested to see how that turns out. Two more weeks to go.

Video games

As things settled down I had a bit more time to play video games. I ended up abandoning Divinity: Original Sin 2, which I’m a little disappointed with. Maybe it had something to do with taking almost a month off of video games, but I’m not sure exactly why I stopped playing. In general I liked the game and had fun playing it. I’ll try to write a post about this, mostly because I think it would help me identify what I didn’t like, so that I won’t try to keep picking games like this.

As for what I did play, I dusted off the Switch and started playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I really like tactical strategy games, though I was a little on the fence about the professor parts of the game. I’m only a little ways in, but so far I’m really enjoying it.

What’s next

As I sit down to write this, I’m looking over my previous entry from January. One month is not a long time, but with the daily adventure of raising two children, it’s easy to forget some of the little things that happened. It’s great to have some record of that, but even more important than capturing the moments is capturing the feelings that go with them. I hope I can maintain a regular cadence for posting here, but even if I don’t, I can see the benefits of journaling somewhere.

Along with personal journaling, I’m trying to do the same for my work as well. Every Friday, I’m writing down a recap of the week. I haven’t looked back on previous weeks that much yet, but I know it will be invaluable when it’s time for annual reviews. And with work I’m trying to go a step further. On Monday mornings, I’ve been writing down my focus areas for the week. It’s been a good way to get into a work mindset for the week. And, if I find myself distracted during the week, I can get a quick reminder of where I should be spending my time. It’s been more helpful on some weeks than others, but it’s still got a low cost-to-benefit ratio, so I’ll keep at it for a while.