The scourge of DeathPlague9000 has finally left our house after nearly 3 weeks of misery. As I mentioned before, I was the last person in the house to get it, and not only did that virus knock me out for 5 solid days, but I managed to get a nasty case of conjunctivitis on top of it which required a trip to a doctor for antibiotics. I was put on this ointment stuff first, which was a fun challenge trying to get into my eye without stabbing myself in the eyeball – not terribly easy with no depth perception. I tried that for 5 days, and had no relief… I actually think my eye looked worse than when I started the ointment. My right eye was completely useless, which was fun trying to drive places.
I considered getting an eye patch and living the pirate life on the high seas, but my wife suggested I call the doctor and get some antibiotic eye drops instead. Within 3 days of getting the eye drops, my infection had cleared up enough that I could start working on projects again without either feeling like death or having to sit there with one eye closed. Unfortunately, this put me back about 2 weeks on my already overwhelming list of projects. I’m in the middle of 2 major Web site build outs, which require staring at a computer screen for a good chunk of the day – not something you can effectively do with an eye infection.
This past weekend was the first opportunity I’ve had since the illness to really get to the big white board to-do list. To get back into the swing of things, I decided to tackle some of the smaller sub-projects on the list. I had one of my most productive weekends in a long time, clearing almost all of the small projects and sub-projects off of the white board. At this point, I’m just about down to the largest projects and just a handful of the small stuff. I’m going to try to break down the largest projects into much smaller segments to do the rest of this week and this weekend, when the kids and wife are doing their own thing.
Along with not getting any work done at my desk, the chores went by the wayside during DeathPlague9000 and the subsequent eye infection. We’ve had perfect growing weather outside the last couple of weeks, which is great for the corn fields across the street from my house, as well as the weeds and grass growing around my house. The garage is also full of pop cans and bottles from my wife’s caffeine addiction that need to be sorted and taken back to the grocery store, not to mention all the toys sitting in the garage that need to be inflated or repaired.
It’s hard to believe that the summer is more than half over now that we are into mid-July. Before I know it, my older daughter will be starting back to school – five days a week this year in pre-kindergarten. My younger daughter is moving around so much now, not content to just chill out in a chair while I work. Her favorite movements are the backwards crawl and the log roll. I can’t have her chugging around in my office because of the cords, so we spend a lot of time in the baby-proofed family room. It’s only a matter of time before the younger one is standing on her own and cruising around the room. Then, she’ll be getting into everything.
With August coming up, everything seems to go into a bit of a lull. Beyond the usual 1 Million Cups stuff on Wednesday mornings and the last few days of my older daughter’s tennis and swimming lessons, my calendar is looking pretty blank – no major entrepreneurial events on the horizon. There are a couple in the pipeline that I’m not at liberty to discuss at the moment, but once they go public, expect my Twitter account to be more active. In addition, I have a couple more projects in the pipeline to start at the end of the summer, which should be interesting.
Speaking of projects in the pipeline, Sexy Life is slowly coming out of hibernation with a significantly smaller team at the moment. David and I are the only remaining members of the original team, and we both want to see where this project takes us. We’re starting to contact people that were not official team members in the past to gauge how interested they are in joining us to make Sexy Life a reality. I would love to see this business take off soon, possibly before the end of the calendar year. I’ve never built a business like this before, and I want to see if we can make a go of it. We just need some help coming up with the content for the boxes, and definitely need team members that aren’t just white guys. I plan to spend some time tomorrow contacting friends that were incredibly enthusiastic about Sexy Life during our Venture School customer discovery.
As always, I’m continuing to work on side projects, including some other blog content. Much like it’s hard to work on the computer with one useless eye, it’s also difficult to put pen to paper. I have some editing to do on the first three articles I’ve written, but I’m hoping to release the first one around the end of July or beginning of August. I’m also starting a series of spotlight articles about my different clients and their projects. I’m hoping to start releasing these on this blog before the beginning of the holiday season. I’m still also considering starting a podcast on being a stay-at-home dad that doesn’t know how to say no to a project, but I don’t think I’ll start that until 2017. I have to draw the line somewhere.
It’s nearly midnight, and I know I need some sleep if I’m going to get anything done tomorrow. Some nights, I just get into a groove and don’t want to stop working. Of course, tonight is one of those nights. However, it is time to shut things down and head for bed – I don’t want to feel terrible in the morning. Lights out.