Three months of life

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So there goes three months without work. Long service leave, plus some of my accumulated leave, has given me a lovely break. I had expected to use these three months to relax, but also as a form of sabbatical. I did, in fact, barely code at all. I had expected to catch up with all my long-lost friends. I did, in fact, catch up with not one of them.

Here’s a rough list thoughts and memories from the longest break from work or study since I started school (and likely the longest until I retire):

  • Spending time with Carolyn
  • Going on a family holiday to Yanchep, where we spent time away from all the gadgets, and lots of time wandering around, playing board games, or just at the beach
  • Planning for and then enacting a surprise wedding (we finally did it!)
  • Carolyn and I going on a child-free honeymoon, and getting to pretend to be adults for a little while (Nice dinners! Fancy shows!)
  • Getting pregnant again (yes, really)
  • Helping Carolyn out around the house (due to her horrible, 24/7 “morning” sickness)
  • Helping Elysha work out her studies
  • Taking Elysha to her first day of TAFE (in Mandurah)
  • Picking up Elysha from her first day of TAFE, only to find that she’d already worked out how to get home on her own
  • Driving Elysha to and from the train on Fridays (such early mornings)
  • Dealing with a sick Romilly
  • Having Romilly spend full weeks with us (even if only for a little while)
  • Watching Romilly and Oliver playing together
  • Taking Oliver swimming in deep water for the first time
  • Taking Oliver to his first day of school
  • Taking Oliver to class every morning, and staying for puzzles and reading time
  • Picking Oliver up from class, and hearing excited (but exhausted) stories of his day
  • Helping out in Oliver’s class (twice)
  • Playing Skylanders with Oliver and teaching him how to use an XBox controller
  • Listening to Oliver talk about Skylanders every waking hour of the day
  • Planning how to fit another child into our crazy family
  • Looking at cars
  • Looking at houses
  • Looking at granny-flats
  • Panicking (just a little)
  • Realising that there is always room in a house full of love
  • Building a new PC
  • Late nights of computer games, either by myself or with friends and brothers
  • Going on photography walks with my brother
  • Cuddling my frail 19-year-old cat as he finds it hard to keep warm
  • Fixing things for people
  • Eating too much
  • Watching the soft, fluffy clouds wander across the blue, blue sky and realising how wonderful life can be when you    just    slow    down

So many memories with my family, and so well timed to be able to look after Carolyn. I’m sorry to all the friends I didn’t see, to all the projects in my head left uninvestigated, and to all the lines of code I didn’t write, but I wouldn’t sacrifice any of my last three months. Not one bit.