The dream has ended. I’ve hung up my pen and notepad and have decided to move on with my life. No more long nights. No more intense drives around Snohomish County looking for a wireless signal. No more soaked paints, jacket, and socks from covering prep soccer games in the torrential rain. No more watching sports for free. No more having an excuse to watch and enjoy girls volleyball. It all came to an end last week when I turned in my final two stories.

It was a hard decision to make. Lis and I discussed it and decided it was best that I spent more time at home. With Lia approaching 1-year-old and Lukas closing in on his fifth year, it was time for both of us to double team the bedtime duties. I think I’m fine with it. The first night of prep football came and went and it didn’t bother me that I was not spending my Friday night in a press box frantically taking down stats and trying to come up with questions to ask the coach. I’ll miss my time in the office with the crew, but I’m sure I’ll keep in touch through Herald Hoopfest and fantasy sports.

Oh yah. Fantasy sports. I finished my fourth draft on Monday evening. That, unlike the one I did on Friday, went much better than I had expected. I’m a little excited about my team, unlike the team I drafted on Friday in my 16-team keeper league. Yuck!

This is the ninth-year that I’ve played in the Smashmouth Juggernaut league. This is one of the first years that I have looked at my team and felt like I just threw away $25. My strategy of going heavy on the receivers didn’t pan out, mostly because of the 16 teams. Not thinking about the amount of players in the draft, I wanted too long to snag people I felt good about thinking I could steal them later. And I failed to study for my keeper picks and it didn’t help that I had to help my friend draft, thus spending most of the night reciting the picks that just happened and not thinking about who I was going to draft next.

Again it’s been three months since I’ve last updated. The other day (week, whatever) I looked back at why and when I started this journal aka blog. It brought tears to my eyes reading about how good and how special Lukas was. We often take him for granted, getting on his case for pushing his sister down or not going to bed when we want him to, but he played a huge part in Lis’s success of beating cancer and we forget about that. Sometimes after he’s asleep I stand over him, smile and think about those times, the month he spent taking care of me while Lis was in the hospital, the month he spent making the nurses, visitors and Lis smile while he hung out in the hospital room.

So it’s time to begin a new dream. In the past some of you have mentioned the idea of me writing a book. I think to commemorate Lis’s upcoming fifth-anniversary of her fight against cancer I will begin that quest. A new dream of putting this journal into a book. I’ll do it mostly for my kids, so they can read all about how their mom kicked cancer’s butt, but also for everyone that was there for us (including all of you!) through the past five years! Now that I’ve put it out there I’ll need to get started! Talk to you soon!