Pressing the Button

Friday afternoon.

And busy chaos remains undefeated.

Zoey's new room is finally coming together.

The bed is being assembled.

Boxes are moving.

Furniture is everywhere.

And if all goes well, she'll be sleeping in her new room tonight.

Which sounds simple.

Until you realize this is only the first room.

Once she's moved in, we clean.

Then we start preparing what will become Jacob and Asher's room.

Repairs.

Painting.

More cleaning.

More moving.

More decisions.

We've collectively agreed that some messes are simply allowed to exist right now.

We'll get to them.

Eventually.

This is only about a quarter of the work ahead of us.

This weekend brings the final swim lesson.

Plans changed a little.

A family we were hoping to meet in Richmond won't be able to make it because of a bad fall.

Life happens.

We'll still take the kids out for ice cream.

And on Sunday, Asher turns eight.

Eight.

I don't know how that happened.

I don't know where the time went.

I only know that it went fast.

Far too fast.

More on him next week.

Monday brings another Richmond run.

My beloved and my daughter heading north for appointments and a violin lesson.

Then turning around and racing home in hopes of making David's final baseball game of the season.

The schedule never really slows down.

It just changes shape.

I've also spent a lot of time this week preparing for something else.

Getting ready to return to streaming.

Last night, while watching Rale stream, I was reminded of something important.

He said:

"I can only stream every day if I keep my schedule. If I break that, it breaks me."

One hundred and thirty-one consecutive days.

Every day.

Showing up.

Keeping the promise.

The lesson wasn't about streaming.

It was about consistency.

Next week the button gets pressed.

The schedule gets created.

And we begin again.

Frostpunk 2.

Then whatever comes after.

After all the PC migrations.

The storage rebuilds.

The cleanup.

The bot reconstruction.

The endless little projects.

I owe it to myself to actually sit down and use the thing I spent all this time building.

The funny thing is that streaming doesn't replace anything.

It just joins everything else.

School.

Work.

Marriage.

Parenting.

Baseball.

Homesteading.

Writing.

Leadership.

Different hats.

Different responsibilities.

Different demands.

Sometimes all asking for attention at exactly the same moment.

And in about three weeks, I'll be adding another one.

Getting back to work on the three books waiting patiently in the background.

Deadlines set.

Expectations established.

Stories waiting to be told.

It's going to be a lot.

It's also going to be awesome.

And maybe that's the real story.

Not that life is getting busier.

Life has always been busy.

The difference is that for the first time in a while, it feels like things are lining up instead of piling up.

There comes a point where preparation has to end. You can organize the room. Build the PC. Clean the files. Rework the schedule. Plan the stream. Outline the book. Eventually there is nothing left to do but start. The risk of starting is failure. The risk of never starting is wondering what would have happened if you had.

This is a grounded moment where eventually you have to stop preparing and press the button.

Much love. Stay safe. Wash your damn hands. I'll see you Monday.