If I can't be a blaze of sparks...

"You see women are like fires, like flames.  Some women are like candles, bright and friendly.  Some are like single sparks or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights.  Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after.  Some women are like hearth fires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while.  But Dianne... Dianne is like a waterfall of sparks pouring off a sharp iron edge that God is holding to the grindstone.  You can't help but look, can't help but want it.  You might even put your hand to it for a second.  But you can't hold it.  She'll break your heart..."

~The Name of the Wind

Maybe I am a waterfall of sparks... but what isn't said is that she can't be held, so her heart too is breaking.  Perhaps I am candle... bright and friendly, but easily snuffed out and quick to melt down to nothing but a puddle of wax.  I'd rather be a hearth fire though... warm and red that burns for a long while constantly giving heat.  

Maybe women aren't like fires at all....

So what am I doing exactly?!

It always seems that my posts get fewer and fewer when I'm back in the States and life regains some level of monotony and routine.  I'm not sure that is a bad thing, it is something I tend to crave when everything is in a whirlwind (how many comments of just wanting stability have I written?!)  Regardless, when each weekend is quite similar to the weekend before, and the Mondays feel an awful lot like the Thursdays, there isn't much to report.  Again, I sometimes think this is a good thing.  

It does raise the question of "What am I doing?" even if every day is the same, it is the same - something.  

Monday - Friday:  Work.  I make ice cream.  Or rather I walk around and talk to people who make ice cream and sometimes ask them to work differently so they make more ice cream or higher quality ice cream.  It is fun most of the time.  A lot of what I do is try to make our process safer and more efficient through the implementation of continuous improvement tools. Sounds drab I know, but it really is a good time and there is always free ice cream so it can't be that bad.  After work it is one of two things usually:  Gym, or lazy evening on the couch.  I'll be the first to admit that I have more lazy evenings on the couch than I do gym evenings.  Usually after the 12 hr day at work (ok, typically it is closer to 10 hrs so not that bad) I'm just not interested in working out.  I push myself sometimes, but more times than not... it is straight to the apartment.

Friday night - Sunday night:  Dinner out with friends, multiple games of Settlers of Catan, brunch, Sunday spin class.  This is an almost uncanny, unchanging routine that has come about recently with my group of friends.  Most Fridays we meet for dinner somewhere in town, catch up and have a nice meal.  Fridays are always early nights as we all work in manufacturing and most of us saw some measure of 5AM... so by 9PM we are turning to pumpkins.  Saturday is errand day (or more lazing on the couch) and almost invariably game night at someone's house.  We've become quite the Settlers crazed group and it is a fun game.  Sundays are typically brunch at a small local place where we sit around for 2 hrs drinking their "fun coffee of the day" talking about anything and everything.  1:30 is spin class and it is the only constant trip to the gym that I hold myself too.  I figure it starts the week out right with a good sweat, a flush of all the weekend food and lazing about.  It also motivates me a smidge to try to get to the gym more frequently (doesn't always happen though...)

Then it is Monday again and my mind goes back to chocolate fudge brownies and shrink wrap film and motor parts and equipment failures.  All to repeat itself.  So it is a small little routine, but a good one.  I'll admit that I'm starting to get a little tired of the routine and I'm ready to shake things up again.  Plan a weekend trip somewhere, get a different group outing together, try a new activity... I'm starting to get restless.  

So when you ask what I'm doing and I say "work, Catan, sleep... nothing much"  I really mean it!  I know... not the adventures I'm used to, but this is just a different type of adventure.