Author: Abe Darais

Mary had an assignment due on Tuesday to record a fairy tail on video for the class.  Lily and I were both so tired on Tuesday after the trip (and wanting to bond over Game of Thrones), that we asked the teacher for an extension.

Tonight, was our night to get it done, and Mary, Georgia and Lydia are the heroes. Unbeknownst to me and Lily, those three prepared a beautiful story. Georgia typed it out and edited while Mary dictated, and all three worked on costumes and acting parts etc. They announced to me and Lily that they were ready, and we couldn’t believe what a wonderful production Georgia helped them to produce. Georgia is such a patient, involved and loving angel.

It took us a few takes to get it right, but finally we got it! Here is the video!

 

 

 

We don’t have any photos for Wednesday and as far as I can remember it was pretty plane. It was a half-day for Lydia, and the last day before fall-break for all the kids in school.

I was still fighting a cold at work and feeling down about my faith struggles, but three things helped cheer me up:

1. It was my mom’s birthday, and I had a very lovely chat with her. She is so sweet and just recovering from the corporate tax deadline that just finished the day before her birthday (she runs a tax practice).
2. It was “bring your own dish to the lunch-line” day, and I went to William-Sanoma on my lunch break to buy a plate, a bowl and a fork so I don’t waste paper with every meal now. And I qualified for a free cookie!
3. Lily has been over the top sweet to me and telling me she loves in various intentional and touching ways.

Mary had a performance class in the evening. I’m guessing Lily and I also watched Game of Thrones.

Lily spent more time with Ammon than I did on his birthday and she’s sleeping now, but I’ll do my best to recreate his birthday (feel free to add, if I miss anything Lily!)

First, Ammon woke up to find balloons and presents downstairs on the table. He wanted to open up all of his presents right away, and so that is how he started the day.

After watching him open up some presents, I went to work, but then Lily made a French Toast breakfast with candles to blow out for him.

While I was at work, Ammon got to play at the kid’s area with Clarissa at the Toyota dealership while our car received maintenance. I’m not sure what Lily did with him after that, but she may have taken him to the park.

I left work a bit early to take Ammon to the arcade. It was so much fun! I loved it every bit as much as he did. It was so fun to pal around with my little man. We played a motorcycle game, threw balls at the clowns, played ski-ball, and even played “Let’s Make a Deal”. But the best game of all was a shooter arcade game for kids. You shot Zombies and your gun actually shot streams of water on the screen. We kept paying more and more until we beat the game because Ammon loved it so much. I had a great time too! Ammon, I look forward to many more fun father-son times with you.

 

At home, we had a yummy dinner from Sushi Burrito. Then we had a Baskin Robins Ice-Cream cake. Clarissa blew out a couple of candles (uninvited), and I eventually removed her from the table because she was distressing Ammon.

In the end, I think our little guy had a wonderful day. His favorite present was this shark blanket that also acts as a dress-up. I think that one may have been from Georgia.  He kept insisting I call him Sharky and not Ammon.

There are a couple of things I want to capture about sweet Ammon at this age. First is that he is EXTREMELY outgoing.  This comes out especially when we travel. He will walk up to any dog and start petting it and start talking to the owner about it. When we were in line for fry bread at Taos, he went one by one to the three people in line asking them what their names were. To our waitress at Pasta Jay’s in Moab last week, he unabashedly declared, “I love you!”. He is so warm, sweet, friendly and outgoing, and he makes so many people smile by his open sharing of love.

I also want to mention how sweet and sensitive he is. He often is bullied by Clarissa, but he wont fight back or hit almost ever. He’ll just take it and cry and he started to get use to Clarissa just always taking his stuff until Lily and I started doing better at enforcement.  Also, when he fell down at Meow Wolf, he landed on someone, and he turned around and said, “are you ok?”. He’s very aware, and sensitive and sweet. I love my little Ammon.

Oh, and that is another thing. He is always falling, and getting hurt.  The first day of our New Mexico Trip, he was skipping or running on the trail at Ghost Ranch and he tripped and scraped a ton of skin off his cheek. Lily was amazing to get doctor’s instructions on how to treat it so it went away mostly in a week, but it was really bad and could have easily gotten infected if we didn’t treat it so well.  By the age of four he has gotten staples in his head, gotten lost and has CPS called, many many bumps and scrapes and bruises. He is just very very active, innocent and curious, and I love him all the more for it.

Ammon, thank you for being in our family and bringing us so so so much joy!

Today was a very very good day. I was completely exhausted and a little sick from the trip, however, I got a ton of good news at work. We got way more credit for a deal that billed than we expected, and some criteria changed for my next promotion that might make it easier.

Below is a picture of a tiny jamboree. I’m not sure what it is, but Lily got it and Lydia on her phone:

 

After work we drove through the Alpine Loop to see the fall colors. We drove up to the summit and then parked and ate the crepes that Lily brought from the crepery. We were probably two weeks too late (the very end of September or the very beginning of October is probably the best), but the colors were still very pretty, even if a bit more muted, and we still felt like we were doing fall. The air was crisp and beautiful and it was a very fun way to pass the evening with the family. Below are some pictures, not of which do the actual scenery justice:

 

This morning I woke up and told Lily that I was scared and sad.  My faith, my job, my fatigue (with recent travel) and the overall demands of life had just been wearing me out and I just felt like I could barely face the day, let alone life.

Of course, Lily was sweet, loving and affirming. I had a good prayer and read in Ephesians which helped prepare me spiritually for the day and then I took the kids to school and met Lily at her physical therapist so she could take over with the kids so I could go to work.

At work, I started out a bit weary, but as the day went on, I got some wind in my sails.  I connected with a colleague I really care about who is leaving, and made major headway on a presentation I’m preparing for a bank.  I also got some good news from one of my reps and we closed a small deal.  Also, I played spikeball with my team (great team-building) and before that even stole some time for weights. I also had a lighter than normal schedule so the day just didn’t feel that hard. I also made 25 prospecting calls. Things seem to be going better at work, and on a great trajectory.  Only two more weeks in a difficult Q3, but my team has been trending in a good direction, and next quarter my team is smaller, and I’ll have a pod lead, and our pipeline is very very good. There is a lot I can be excited about as I power through this last difficult 2.5 weeks.

Today I know that Lily went to the library, worked out on our new Nordic Track Exercise bike (which we love).

After work, I went to the appointment at Mary’s eye therapy. I love going because I feel involved, and I get to observe the exercises they do with her and get tips about how I should be doing them at home.  Kaylie was the person that worked with Mary today and she said that Mary is so cute and that the different workers love when it is their turn to work with her.  I’m kindof obsessed about fixing Mary’s eyes. She has a lazy-eye problem. Her left I will check out and shut off when she is looking at things that are not close up, because her double-vision is bad (from her eyes not working together) and her brain just shuts off her left eye to not have to deal with the double vision. I feel so blessed that we have a doctor that can help her with therapy, and I want her to grow up to have her eyes as normal as possible so I have felt very invested in the process. I’m so grateful for the work Lily and Georgia have also contributed to getting her exercises done at home. Kaylie was so cheerful at the session that that was also a pick-me-up.

At home things just got better and better.  I did piano practice with Mary and she was charming even if focus was difficult at times. I need to also mention here that Mary has been a complete gem recently. We’ve been marveling about how sweet and helpful, and cute and adorable she seems to be ALL THE TIME. A year ago she was having a harder emotional time, I think with being the youngest in her class and struggling to make friends and stay caught up in school. But she’s repeating 1st grade and she’s loving it and finding a lot of confidence and happiness. Maybe that is helping her be so over the top sweet at home?

There was one particularly cute anecdote tonight. We looked everywhere for her math book because Georgia was going to help her with her math homework. After much looking, it finally dawned on Mary that she left it on the cinder-block wall at the edge of our property. She went and grabbed it, and came back and energetically stated, “See dad, here’s the whole deal, I came home, wanted to ride my scooter, set the book on the fence, then went to the backyard to pick lavender without knowing that I put it on the fence, then went inside for dinner, and forgot all about it, but now we found it, so see dad, we just needed to think about it.” It’s hard to explain how cute she was. It was mostly the sweet excited, knowing tone she used. I love her 🙂

After piano, I threw Clarissa and Ammon on the couch over and over which they loved. Dinner also made me happy because we ate so many things that we grew in the garden. We had corn (it turned out decent this year!) and the salad had delicious tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all from the garden. The garden is my baby, and I love to each fresh vegetables, so dinner was very happy.

After dinner, I cleaned up while Lily did the night routine with the kids. I did scriptures with the kids, wrote in my Jesus journal and now I’m blogging with Lily, my best friend, feeling like it was actually a really good day. I am so blessed 🙂

I’m going to start taking pictures during my work trips. I’m always very busy, and feeling preoccupied and also excited to get home, so I never really stop to enjoy the places I go the way I would like to. I commit to starting to post more interesting things from the places I go for my work. This will help my family to feel closer to me as they get to peak into more of my world, I hope. I think I will feel even closer to them knowing they are tapped into things I’m experiencing when I’m not directly with them.

So today I was in San Diego all day. Lily says there was not much to report from the home-front front I’ll tell about my trip.

There actually was some drama. I forgot to pack my phone charger, and my phone was all, but dead in the morning. I was concerned that I wouldn’t even have enough juice to call a Lyft ride to my appointment, and there were none hanging around in the hotel lost and found. So I decided to go on a walk to get one, figuring I’d find a place relatively easily. Well, I was staying right next to the airpot, and I think I walked in the worst possible direction, because I basically walked the length of the airport and it took 30 minutes to get to a gas station to buy my charger. I then walked 30 minutes back, ate my breakfast while my phone charged, called my lift ride and was 30 minutes late to my appointment. With all the anxiety I have felt lately about my faith and personal journal lately, the walk actually felt like a miracle.

My meeting was so cool. I can’t share who I met with because of a signed NDA, nor will I share many details. I’ll just say that my colleague, Sonya from Walker, did the bulk of the presenting and she did an amazing job, and I learned so much just watching her. Also, the potential customer had almost ten people around the table and there was such incredible and insightful discussion that gave me great insights about what is required to get a CX program off the ground. It was one of the best on-sights I’ve ever had in terms of things that I learned. We also made great progress towards getting to the point of working with this great company.

After the meeting, I went straight to the airport, talked to the kids on the phone, ate a burger, cranked out some work and then fell asleep on the plane. I got home at 12:45 AM and fell asleep promptly in my bed, which was a gift as sometimes it is hard to sleep after napping on the plane. I felt very full of doubt, and far from God that day, but there where moments where it felt that hope and God broke through, and it was very very nice to be back home with my sweetheart.

Lily said there was not much to report today, so I’ll share about my day.

Work was mostly consumed by re-imaging my laptop to be SAP compliant and networked now that we are owned by SAP. It’s kindof funny and sad because my boss insisted I upgrade my computer about 5 months ago. I couldn’t have cared less about upgrading. But for those who hadn’t upgraded, they got a brand new fancy machine (better than my upgraded one) and they got to keep their old one for personal use with this SAP transition. I was bummed that I now have a worse machine and not one for personal use, but hey it’s all good.  I had bumps in the re-imaging process and it took me 2-3 hours, but it finally got done.

After work, I came home, had dinner with the family, and helped with the night routine. I then spent a few minutes with Lily giving her a short massage. Harp practices have been especially brutal lately, and she has been getting very stressed out with all her demands. After a moment with her, I drove to the airport, got on a plane and arrived in San Diego very late.

This blog post is devoted to our garden.

I absolutely love gardening. Of all of the hobbies I have, it might be the one I love the most. There is something about having my hands in the dirt, something about growing something from seed (it still feels like magic), something about caring for and tending something and knowing that without your care it will die, that all just really grabs me. Gardening is so easy for me to want to do. I just gravitate towards it.

And there were some major successes this year! Our tomato boxes that Lily found for me started out a bit problematic because I didn’t water them for three days and I learned the hard way they must have water every single day (ideally even twice a day when it is very hot). By learning the hard way, I mean we probably had 50 otherwise beautiful tomatoes develop big yucky brown areas on the bottom. But, after that wave of ruined tomatoes passed, we are now in a season of incredibly delicious tomatoes of all shapes and sizes. Steak tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, yellow baby tomatoes, black and red cherry tomatoes. They are so so good. See the boxes below. I would recommend them to anyone:

You will also notice to the left of the tomatoes our flourishing nasturtium. These are edible flowers that go great in salads. The other flower pot has the fun flowers you see below. I love how they start and end as these little balls, but they pop open with so much energy when they bloom.

Now I will take you through our garden boxes row by row (read captions for details):

I had a relatively good day in Chicago. Travel can be hard because my e-mail inbox is flooding with inbound e-mail as I’m about my activities and so I’m often just trying to steal the moments I can to try to stay on top of things. Even still, it’s nice to mix things up a little bit.

In Chicago, I presented at a CSI user conference. They are wanting to either resell our technology or allow their customers to contract directly with us.  I did a presentation at a break-out session for seven minutes to fifty people. I didn’t feel very on, and I barely prepared (I think those two are definitely related), but I chalked it up to the fact that I have a million things going on right now and this deal was not super big or promising, but CSI is a big SAP partner, and it was important for the overall relationship I feel, that I go and present. Plus some business really could come from it.

Then I met with my contact, Jessica, at a medical device company. They just barely signed their contract. She greeted me with a hug, which felt fitting because we’ve been working together for six months to try to push something through and we finally did. She is a great person and was fun to talk to.

Then it was back home to Provo 🙂

I don’t remember what happened before leaving on my work trip this day. But I do remember that on the plane, and back at the apartment I worked on my “Prison to Playground” book about my story overcoming perfectionism and finding more joy in the gospel. I also ate at a way good Jamaican restaurant.