Yikes! What a day!

This morning, I arrived at the office at a reasonable time. Unfortunately the doorway wasn't wide enough to accomodate the chip on my shoulder, so I had to slide in sideways. When you start your day with a bad attitude, things always seem to get worse. Despite that, it was a great day. Being irritable all day has left me completely exhausted though.

Or maybe it was the mini-golf at Hawk Hollow. This place is awesome. 18 holes of putting action. No windmills, but there were a couple of sand traps, some water, and a couple of really long putts. Never before could I fathom seeing divots on a putting green. I stand corrected. In most of the pictures, bare feet are visible.

Following closely on the heels of putting at Hawk Hollow, a coworker invited me to ride out at the Rose Lake Research Area for a mountain bike ride. What a rugged place to ride a bicycle. Great stuff though. It was a lot of hard work, and neither of us knew the trails very well. As a result we managed to push our bikes up a couple of very steep inclines. It was worth it though. It would be really cool to spend a day out there with a GPS, charting a
map (if nobody has already). Why do such a thing? The place is huge, and the trails go all over the place. They have not been intentionally groomed for riding so they don't necessarily follow any particular logical layout. That chances that I didn't get poison ivy are slim, because the stuff was all over the ground out there.

Ok, so I got to do some really cool stuff today. Why the persistent attitude, all day long? The short answer is that I'm an idiot. It is June 13, and I'm still in school. In fact, being in school full time with a young child in the house is a lot of work. It is a rarity that Aimee and I get in bed before midnight these days. Once we finish for the Summer (next week) we've both vowed not to take classes as aggressively, and certainly not so late into the Summer. We're both drained, and at wit's end.

In other news, my match through Big Brothers\Big Sisters was terminated today. They have asked if I would be interested in being rematched. It takes an incredible amount of energy to be in the program. It is rewarding, but it can also be an emotional sink. I worry a lot about my "little". He taught me a lot, and he's a great person...but I worry that without some very convincing intervention, things may not turn out well for him. Naturally I wonder what I could have done better for him. I wonder how I could have been more supportive. There are no easy answers, either. Should I have been more present? Should I have been more assertive? When possible I hooked up with him every week. He never exhibited any behavior problems around me, but I wonder if I could have gotten him to work harder on his education.

Now what? Until I'm finished with school, I don't think I'll do another community match. When I got matched, Aimee and I didn't even think we could have a child. Now we have a child, school, etc. I do think I will probably get into the school mentoring program in August, though. When I finish my degree I'll try to get into another community match. In the meantime, I've been invited to continue corresponding with my little-sans support from BBBS.

There were a lot of great things about our match. We had a lot of fun, and there are a lot of great pictures to boot. He really got a kick out of Evelyn, and even went so far as to give me diaper changing lessons!