I missed writing yesterday. I had a work dinner and didn’t arrive home until 8:30pm. That, of course, doesn’t explain much since I should have had time putting Dinosaur to sleep and sleeping myself to write.

The real reason is because I hit a point of no return in that fantasy book I’ve been reading. This is a long book, and there’s a chapter close to the end where you: Can. Not. Stop. Reading. The strings of the story come together after going off a cliff. I hit that point yesterday and all thoughts of writing or sleeping were washed away until I managed to eke past the end after midnight. I wish I could have slowed down to savor the chapters, but, as I mentioned, there was no way to do so.

My reading buddy is a chapter or two away from hitting this point. I warned him that it’s not possible to stop after passing this precipice. He appreciated the warning and set aside Friday evening (and probably into the early, early morning) to finish the book.

It’s Valentine’s Day today. By the time the Doolies reads this, I should have already delivered her flowers. I decided to buy them at the market instead of ordering them online after so-so experiences with online flowers. While definitely easier, the quality and delivery price appear to go up every holiday. It’s like they know us lazy husbands have no choice but to use their services. It’s an illegal monopoly if you ask me. I also had to rearrange my schedule to leave a bit earlier so I have time to buy the flowers, pick up dinner, and make it to Naginata early. Our teacher’s teacher is visiting from California this weekend, which means we have to be on good behavior and actually try to get there on time. Harder said than done as the Tiger’s bedtime is when class starts. Hopefully she’ll cooperate and go to sleep a bit earlier today.

The Dinosaur is no longer a magical sleep baby. The four days of blissful sleep have passed quickly, and he has returned to waking twice a night. It was nice while it lasted. I just wish it had lasted a bit longer. This means I’ll have to start the conversation about sleep training again. The Dinosaur is a better sleeper than the Tiger. After a bit of feeding and some rocking he falls asleep quite easily. The Tiger would wake as soon as we put her in the crib. So I guess we should be thankful for small favors.

I’m again writing this at lunch. With Naginata tonight, I worried that I would be too tired to put in the requisite time.

It was a busy but good morning. Lots of interesting meetings and running around. My days are much better when I have stuff happening, particularly stuff I can react to. I’m not as good at the contemplative slow times as my motivation begins to wane.

I keep thinking I want to get more involved in social media. I toy with Facebook and Twitter and even Tumblr and Google+ from time to time. I want the outlet but I don’t want to put in the time to make it work. I also hit my social phobia when I dive too deeply. The best I did was a month of tweeting a few years ago. At the end it felt too much like a job to keep at it. I guess this writing is sort of my equivalent of social media. Except it’s not terribly social. And I’m not sure it’s in any form of recognized media as blogging has become uncool.

We’re still working out the details of our Taiwan trip. We may ask our nanny to stop by a couple of times a day to feed and play with our dogs. We did the math and it’s cheaper (and easier for us) than boarding them. Otherwise the airplane tickets and hotel room are booked. Not sure how we’re going to travel with two small children. We don’t have a choice now. I expect that the Dinosaur will travel well, as babies are relatively easy because they’re used to sleeping at weird times. I do worry about the Tiger as the last time we went to Taiwan, it took her over a week to recover her sleep schedule from the jetlag. That meant we didn’t recover our schedule either. It’s funny how that works.

The work dinner last night was tolerable. It was with folks that I don’t know so I had many awkward moments of standing around wishing I was somewhere else. This was especially true during the cocktail hour where I had to go from circle to circle trying to mingle. I grew tired of the conversations and the travels and decided to stand by myself. This would have worked better if the Doolies came with me (as two people standing by themselves are less noticeable than just me), but with the Tiger’s going to sleep at 7pm, and the dinner running from 6-8pm, there was no way for it to work. Our nanny could not put the Tiger to sleep and watch the Dinosaur. Scratch the second part, I can barely put the Tiger to sleep without her crying for her mother. Sigh. That’s definitely a reflection on my parenting skills.

In happier news I have made a bit of progress on my website redesign. It’s coming together nicely, and while it’s still a few months away, I do expect to roll it out soon. Then I can replace that with another hobby, as it appears I need to constantly shift around my hobbies to find time in my schedule.