ace’s blog

The last few weeks have been a very difficult time for everybody in my family. Meri and I have decided not to get a divorce, at least not yet.

My mom lives in Jacksonville, which is about 2 hours away. We just recently star started speaking again, after a 3 year hiatus. So since I don’t have a support system down here in Orlando, Meri really wants to take the boys to Massachusetts. She is from there and has a lot of family around that would help with child care if one of us needed it.

My parents were divorced. my brother and I stayed with my mom and since my dad was in the Navy, he was all over the place. He was mostly in California and we were in Florida. I know all too well what it is like to grow up without a father around. I don’t want that for my boys. I don’t want to be several states away. I don’t want to be an occasional phone call and a random card in the mail. I don’t want to be that kind of dad.
I’ve discussed my situation with my IT Director at work and asked if I could work out of the Massachusetts branch. He told me that it was no problem at all and that I won’t really need to go into the branch at all and that I could just work from home. That was a major relief!! I didn’t really want to have to find another job up there.

We’ve decided that we aren’t going to get a divorce right away. We are going to get separated and see how that “works” for us, for approximately a year or so. If both of us feel that we want to remain together, then we’ll get a divorce. We are going to live in separate places. The boys will stay with both of us half of the time. We aren’t going to be so rigid about that schedule – we won’t force the kids to go to either place if they won’t want to.

We don’t want to jump right into getting divorced. Neither of us can say that we are 100% sure that we don’t want to be together.

This weekend, we’re going to list our house on the market as a short sale. We have a realtor friend that is going to discuss the ramifications of short selling our home, on our individual credit reports and on us financially.

I’m already feeling very sad that my family is going to be broken up. Hopefully, after our separation period, we’ll both decide that we really want to remain together and we can stay married.

Looks like the family life is done. It appears that I’ve fucked up enough that I’ll be single pretty soon. Aaron is willing to move up to Massachusetts in lieu of seeing me anymore.

Speaking with my friend Bernard today via IM, we got on the subject of relationships and how much information we share with our “loved ones”, i.e. our family. While we were on the subject, he said something very profound so I felt the need to capture it and put it here.

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in Orlando. It was just the four of us this year. After we ate Thanksgiving dinner (part 1 anyway), we put up our Christmas tree.

Today, my sleep-deprived wife made me a big breakfast when she woke up.  Aaron drew me a card and actually wrote several sentences in it!  It was one of the best cards I’ve ever received.  Meri got me a picture of my boys together and a picture of their hand prints. She also got me Metroid Prime 3 for our Wii.

Of course I mean my interest in my current job.  It seems I can’t stand to stay at a place for over a year (check my linkedin.com profile).  There are a few LANSA contracts in central Florida but with the economy behaving the way it is, I think I’m too nervous to take that step and work for myself. Meri can tell when I’m fed up with my jobs and last night, she told me that she would be OK renting the house and moving again. That’s the last thing I want to do. We’ve moved 4 times since I graduated from college and I’m sick of packing up all my junk and moving it around. I’d rather stay in central Florida as long as possible. I thought about maybe going to school to get a masters degree in something from UCF but I don’t think now is the time for that. Meri and I were talking and she’s very interested in going back to school to be a teacher. Right now, she’s looking at getting a master’s degree for herself. She’s looking to be finished in about two years.  That’s not a whole lot of time and we’ll be more than comfortable living on my income alone. We’ve been doing it for the past couple of months and we haven’t HAD to slow down our spending; we have cut back but not out of need, I just want to start putting a lot more away for retirement. I’ve also become very interested in getting back into web development. Basically, I’d like to do what I was doing at my last job, just with a stable company this time!

In other, less pleasant news, we’re flying up to Massachusetts to visit the in-laws and yes, we’re flying with both of our kids! In more pleasant news, we’re going to celebrate Aaron’s 4th birthday birthday while we are up there and and also let the rest of the family meet Eli for the first time. Aaron’s birthday is next Tuesday, May 6th.

I think that’s enough rambling for now. I have another blog that I’ve been posting short posts to, it’s at dfktv.com. Also, if you have any idea what Twitter is, follow me!  I can be found here.  Twitter is pretty damned addictive, especially if you use it in conjunction with twhirl!

From the first moment we talked, after we hung out for the first time that night in my dorm room and after I realized she wasn’t some Amazonianly-tall girl like the picture she sent me led me to believe, I was finally proven right after so many years of half-hearted joking.

I would sometimes say to her “you always loved me” when she would reminisce about how much of a pain-in-the-ass I was when we were dating in college. On again, off again, on again…you get the picture. All of that drama caused because I was impatient and not ready to succumb to the fact that deep down, I knew that she would be my future wife and I just wasn’t ready to for that yet. We’ve been together for over 8 years and married for over 4, 5 in November.

Last night, she told me that she realized I was actually right in saying that “you always loved me”. She remembered telling one of her old boyfriends that she that she was going to marry me one day. That was after we had only hung out a few times. We talked so much more than that. Old

Somehow, even way back then, we both knew that we would be married one day. We now have each other and our two little boys now. Who knows if she will actually let me try to have that little girl that I want so badly (not just me, you know how that works)? With Meri, Aaron and Eli, I’m feel very happy with my family and where we are at this point in our lives.

Who would have thought that by just talking to someone one day, it would turn into a full-blown family one day?!

Meri, Eli and I are back from the hospital. Eli was born on 3/12 at 11:36am. He is 9 lbs 5 oz and 21.5 inches tall. Eli slept very good last night. Meri was pushed for about 15 minutes and Eli was born. Meri made the delivery look easy (compared to Aaron’s delivery). Below are a couple of pictures.