Author: daustin23

I don’t know where adulthood started and my childhood ended.  It might be the day I graduated college but I think I did enough crazy stuff after that point to warrant a later date.  It might be when I got married or when Ryan was born.  It could be the first time I opened a 529 plan for my children.  It’s not something I stress over but I do think about it from time to time.

I think I think (english teachers everywhere are cringing) most often about when I became an adult when I see my wife in action.  Her life, on a daily basis, is exponentially more stressful than mine. First off, she’s a middle school band teacher.  She has 100+ students, all with musical instruments and her job is to teach them how to play them.  Simple enough.  Her real job, however, is to teach them manners, perseverance, english, hygiene, self-respect, courage and music.  When she comes home from this she’s immediately confronted with the other side of her life.  This is the what’s for dinner, constant whines for mommy, yes tomorrow is picture day and no you can’t dress him in jeans and a Yankee shirt, I’d love a glass of wine but I don’t have time to pour it side of her life.

With all that’s going on in her world, I wasn’t too surprised to find this site when grabbing breakfast this morning.  If you look closely, under last night’s leftover meal.  Yes, that would be her cell phone tucked neatly in the refrigerator.  Definitely just one of those days.

There are more cliches I could use to describe the events of the last few weeks.  Jenn and I have been going back and forth with a family up the road from our condo over the sale of their property. When we first looked at the property, the listing agent told us “we’ve had several offers on this property so you’ll have to move fast.”  Umm, yeah, no.  When it finally got time to put an offer in, our agent asked if there were other offers on the table to which she said, “no, there are no standing offers on the table.” Hmmm.  Since we put an offer in,  we’ve gone back and forth on price and closing dates and strange legal terms in contracts.  A few days ago, the sellers of this condo came back and told us that they’re no longer willing to sell unless we offer the listing price because they think they can convert a loft area into a 3rd bedroom and make more money on the resale. Hmmmm.  Jenn and i thought about it and their listing price was only a few thousand dollars over what we thought was market value so we put in a full-price offer.

Step back 8 years.  Jenn and I are newlyweds and we decide to go house shopping.  Within six weeks of our house hunting we settle on our “dream home”  in Schenectady.  We paid full price for that house on the day it was listed!  Common theme here?  The Austins are not good negotiators.  After 7 years we lost about $30,000 on the resale. Needless to say, we didn’t want to put a full-price offer in again.

Step forward again to yesterday.  We put a full-price offer in… again, not good negotiators.  Late yesterday afternoon we received word that there were “multiple bidders” and that the sellers would need our “best offer” so they could decide which one to pick.  Ummm…no thanks.  We immediately responded with a lower than full-price offer and prepared ourselves to walk away.

We’re living very comfortably in our condo right now so there’s no rush to move and there are times when you just need to walk away.  Unnecessary bidding wars are one of those times… the hot dogs at gas stations would be another time.  Maybe the Austins are good negotiators after all.

It was a beautiful afternoon on the farm and Papa P. had just taken Ryan to his cousin Louis’ soccer game.  Coop, Maddie, Ben and I decided we’d take a walk through the woods.  It started off wonderfully.  The sun was shining but the autumn air kept things cool and crisp.  We saw a deer off in the distance and the leaves in full color change were still spectacular.  The dogs each had signs of tiring after running behind the four wheelers all morning and it showed in their calm demeanor.  Cooper was even able to stop and wrestle with Ben in the field a bit, something that doesn’t happen too often.

Then it happened.  I caught the initial scene on camera.

Ben started to sniff the ground a bit and then paused in his tracks.  He put his nose to the ground one more time and then dirt started flying everywhere.  With Cooper offering his super belly laugh, we watched in amazement as Ben dug an 18 inch hole in about 15 seconds and ruthlessly retrieved a mole.  With a quick crunch and a shake of his head, Ben had grabbed the mole from his hiding space and sent him on his way to rodent heaven by way of our canine friend’s stomach.

It was a difficult lesson for Cooper who stood confused asking, at one point if the mole was “sleeping.”  “Yes,” I said regretfully as I tried to avoid the life’s lesson that I’ll inevitably have to teach.  Within a minute though, Ben had swallowed the mole.  Cooper looked at me as if to say, “umm, Dad, the dog just swallowed that ‘sleeping’ mouse…is it still sleeping?”  Right there in the field I had the conversation with a two year old about life and death and the food chain.  It did exactly what I’d hoped it would do, confuse him so much that within minutes he was picking flowers to bring back to mom and grammy.  Mission accomplished.

I was inspired to visit this blog again by the most unusual of inspirations.  Flipping through pictures of our Hay Ride 2014 I came across this picture of our dear Ben,  Grammy and Papa P’s lovable yellow lab.  As we stood lookout on top of a high hill overlooking a beautiful valley, we all admired the changing fall foliage and the bright sun on the pasture.  Then, in the corner, we see Ben takin’ care of business.

It was a great reminder (and in keeping with the tradition of this blog, I take things way over the top ) that you can enjoy the beauty of life and take care of business.  Living life like a dog isn’t such a bad idea after all.

“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.”  – William Shakespeare

I often have high hopes for my children and, from time to time, you’ll see me post a picture or two about one of my boys and their future wives.  Of course I want my boys to be wildly successful and happy with the lives and families they build for themselves one day.  As any parent, you hope you’ve given them the seeds to plant such a life.  Of course, as an added criteria, the wives I pick for my boys will also be beautiful, funny and have incredibly wealthy parents.  🙂

It happens every year but this year is a bit different.  Today marks the beginning of school and, for those of you who know a teacher or live with one, you know this day is dreadful.  It marks the end of a summer and the painful reality that the job of an educator comes with 2 months of relative peace to 10 months of hell.  It’s not like they don’t love their kids or their jobs, they do.  It’s that they’ve only had a little over sixty days to enjoy their lives.

There are a few who feel teachers should work throughout the Summer.  I, for one, am not in that camp.  A few years ago I spent the day with Jenn’s band at Six Flags and I can say, without doubt, it was fun but also incredibly stressful.  Jenn was kind enough to remind me that that was during an unstructured day with twenty or so parent chaperones.  I get it.

Teachers are entrusted with our children’s most valuable asset, their minds, and they’re often challenged with the collective misgivings of our own parenting. For those who’re teachers, you should remember that line, it’s a great way to politely tell parents that their children are being F@#$ Heads.

I spent a bit of time this morning flipping through pictures from the last week and found this one of Bones and Belly.  One thing that hits me is the lengths to which Mr. Coop goes to ensure that he is doing exactly what his brother is doing!  I can recall a time when I was older and my sister’s younger friends would hang out with me.  I was cognizant of my responsibility as a role model and tried to act accordingly.  What is Coop doing in this picture?  We asked both of the boys to smile for the camera and Coop just wanted to make sure that Ryan was also smiling because otherwise he’d be guilty of being “uncool.”

Being a role model is a tremendous responsibility.  It’s one that most professional athletes can’t fathom and yet, for Mr. Ryan, he’s thrust into that role at a very young age by a simple chronological circumstance.  It’s a tough role, no doubt, but one that I know he’ll handle… with a little help from his Mom.  I, of course, am not qualified.    

We had a great opportunity this past weekend to spend some time with Uncle Steve at the War Plane museum in Hartford.  The boys had a great time looking at all the airplanes and even getting to sit behind the controls!  All-in-all we had a great time!  It was really neat to see the two boys engage their imaginations and feed off each other’s creativity.  Clearly, Mr. Ryan was the Captain and he quickly established that role.  Mr. Coop-A-Doop, on the other hand, was simply happy to be included in the operation.  Their pre-flight check did start with a few bumps in the road as they negotiated their roles.

Imagine yourself on a flight to Hawaii.  You’re excited to be going away to a beautiful place as you settle into your seat. Then, from the cockpit of the plane you hear:

Captain 1: “I’m the pilot!”Captain 2: “No!”Captain 1: “Yes, I’m going to drive!”

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  It’s a service that allows me to keep tabs on people I wouldn’t normally do.  I recently played a game where I covered up the names of my friends to see if there were people whose faces I couldn’t place.  There were several.  There are also a few with whom I have a stronger relationship on Facebook than I ever have had in person.  It’s an interesting and fun dynamic.  A love/hate relationship.

Where I begin to hate Facebook is when it takes away from my blogging.  I started to blog to put context around photos.  To find special moments in the growth of my two boys and put stories behind them.  To put some feeling behind the images.  How was I feeling that day?  Was it hot?  What was going on just off shot?  These are all things that you can do in Facebook but it’s sort of against the unofficial Facebook etiquette.  What is the Facebook etiquette?  For starters, keep it short.  The “wall” only has so much space and Facebook will even cut you off with a read more tab if you write too much.  Also, when you write, you’re writing for the audience, for your friends.  When I’m at my best with this blog, I think I’m writing for myself.

All of this is just a little something to think about.  I’ve thought about leaving Facebook but I’ll never do that… I love it too much.  What I will do is spend some more time on my blog, on my memories.  Disney 2014 and all of those memories will be a good place to start!

Estimates are that 1% of High School ballplayers will make some sort of professional baseball team however most of that 1% won’t make the major leagues.  It’s for that reason that most ballplayers do get their college degrees and really try and get a good one, because the grueling life in the minors is tough and, more often than not, that’s where the careers go to die.  As we sat yesterday watching the New Britain Rock Cats (AA Minnesota Twins) thoroughly thrash the Reading Fighting Phillies (AA Philadelphia Phillies) it became clear to me that many of the guys we were watching were really struggling to live out a dream.  It got me thinking, when do you stop fighting for your dream?  How do you encourage others to live out their dream?  When is it okay to dream?  When is it okay to give up your dreams?   There’s a lot of deep and corny stuff in these thoughts but that’s part of the overall charm of this blog so you’ll have to indulge me.  As I sat and watched Cooper call for the ball from the seats I watched as he was dead serious in telling the Phillies 1st baseman, Jake Fox, “Frow Ball, me!” He was clearly dreaming about playing ball.  As it turns out, Jake Fox has been dreaming since 2005 and has had a few stints in the majors with the Cubs.  He continues to do the thing that makes him the happiest… good for him.  I think most of us eventually let our dreams subside and we refocus on new ones.  That’s certainly what I’ve done.  I used to dream of being the President of the United States.  Now?  Well, now I dream of Coronas on the front porch of our beach house in Florida when I retire…that’s when I’m not at the summer lake house in the Adirondacks.  That’s my dream.  If Cooper gets his dream I’m pretty sure mine will become a rounding error for him.  Of course, Jenn and I are saving just in case his dreams change.   So, here’s to all of our dreams…as often as they change and as hard as they may be to achieve… I hope you’ve got one.