{"database": "pelican", "table": "content", "rows": [["ryan", "musings", "I've written before about the [Theme's that CGP\nGrey](https://youtu.be/NVGuFdX5guE?si=-9zFaB0xjmxOEh26) has discussed and I\nthink they're great! I've just recently completed my 'Spring of Transition'.\n\nSo what is the Spring of Transition? For me it meant focusing on that last bit\nof time that my daughter will be living with me and my wife full time.\n\nShe just graduated from High School and is getting ready to go off to college\nin the Fall. I've taken the last quarter to really try and focus on spending\nquality time with her, and enjoy the last bits of her living here with me and\nmy wife.\n\nOne of the things I am eternally grateful for is that when my daughter was a\nbaby/toddler I started a [WordPress](https://wordpress.org/) blog to keep\ntrack of all of the adventures we got into. This was 2008 - 2010 and while\nFacebook was _kind_ of a thing, Instragram was **NOT** a thing. I used this\nblog to post pictures with a fun caption of the context of the picture. I\nwould also write a monthly letter to her and recap what fun adventures we had,\nor what changes I had noticed.\n\nI did this for a couple of years, but then life got in the way and the changes\nthat she was going through were harder and harder to see, and capture, with a\ncamera. This made it very hard to write about as well.\n\nI ended up taking down my site, but I kept a backup of the WordPress XML just\nin case1 I would want to use it again.\n\nAt one point I stumbled upon a journalling app called [Day\nOne](https://dayoneapp.com/) that I used to journal. I used it for a couple of\nyears and then found a feature that allowed me to import my WordPress blog\ndata.\n\nI played around with this a bit and finally made the plunge to import the\ndata. It may be the best decision I've ever made with respect to tech.\n\nOver the last several years I focused on trying to journal every day. One of\nthe grear features of Day One is 'On This Day'. After I journal I'll click on\nthat tab and look back at what I've written \"On This Day\".\n\nThe best entries are from the blog. Small reminders of the toddler my (now)\nadult daughter was.\n\nThis has been especially great over the last 3 months as she has wrapped up\nHigh School and prepared for College. It's really allowed me to focus on the\ngreat times we had, and work to create some awesome new memories.\n\nWe didn't do anything exotic, or visit any far off places during this 'Spring\nof Transition' ... there's already sooooo much to be done at the end of a High\nSchool career!\n\nBut, I have tried to focus on the things that we do like to do.\n\nWe have watched a bunch of Star Wars:\n\n  * [Bad Batch Season 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Bad_Batch)\n  * [Acolyte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Acolyte_\\(TV_series\\))\n  * [Tales of the Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Tales#Tales_of_the_Empire_\\(2024\\))\n\nWe've also tried to watch the [Battle Star Galactica\nTV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_\\(2004_TV_series\\))\nshow from the early 2000s. This didn't go well.\n\nAnother thing that we've been doing is trying to cook meals together. My\ndaughter is a vegetarian, and my wife and I are not, so this makes dinner (and\nother meals) challenging.\n\nTo over come this she found several vegetarian dishes that she thought I would\nlike and we've made them together for dinner. It's been a real treat to see\nwhat she thinks of some of these recipes, which are mostly Thai and Vietnamese\nmeals which is not something she would typically eat (she's really big into\nthe various combinations of cheese and starch, i.e. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches,\nQuesadillas, and Cheese Pizza \ud83d\ude0a\n\nWe've also been trying really hard to get take out from a Thai place that has\nmany vegetarian options, but haven't been able to make it work just yet. This\nlooks to be something that we'll **hopefully** be able to do over the summer\nbefore she leaves for school.\n\nI think the hardest part about all of this has been knowing that each of the\nthings that she's done will be the last. She had her last dance recital (I've\nbeen watching her dance for 15 years). She had her last Girl Scout meeting.\nShe had her last High School class.\n\nSoon she'll have her last night sleeping here before she goes to school.\n\nObviously I always knew this day would come, but I didn't really think it\nwould get here so quickly. [The days are long, but the years are\nshort](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/239043-the-days-are-long-but-the-\nyears-are-\nshort#:~:text=Quote%20by%20Gretchen%20Rubin%3A%20%E2%80%9CThe,but%20the%20years%20are%20short.%E2%80%9D).\nI never **really** understood what that meant until these last few months.\n\nThere is now this full grown adult living in my home ... at least for the next\nfew months. But just yesterday she was a silly toddler walking around the\nhouse claiming that the elves must have left her milk in the pantry!\n\nI know that her leaving for college isn't the last time I'll ever see her. I\nmean, she'll still have a room at our house, so she'll want to come back at\nsome point, right? Right?\n\nAnd it's not like she's going to school on the other side of the country. It's\njust a short 2 hour drive away. But still ... it won't be the same.\n\nIt's just all so different. My wife and I are planning to be empty nesters.\nLike, what does that even mean? For the last 19 years our daughter has been a\npart of, and influenced, the lives that we've lead.\n\nI'm also a little nervous about my 'little girl'2 going away into the big bad\nworld. I know I shouldn't be though. She is the most thoughtful, capable,\nintelligent, caring, hard working person I've ever met in my life.\n\nI know she's going to do great in her next chapter.\n\nI just didn't realize that next chapter would come so soon.\n\n  1. this is one of the ONLY times my digital hoarding has actually paid off \u21a9\ufe0e\n  2. Fun fact: she's 5'7 with the strength of someone that's been dancing for 15 years so she's not _actually_ little \u21a9\ufe0e\n\n", "2024-06-20", "spring-of-transition", "I've written before about the [Theme's that CGP\nGrey](https://youtu.be/NVGuFdX5guE?si=-9zFaB0xjmxOEh26) has discussed and I\nthink they're great! I've just recently completed my 'Spring of Transition'.\n\nSo what is the Spring of Transition? For me it meant focusing on that last bit\nof time that my daughter will be living with me \u2026\n\n", "Spring of Transition", "https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/06/20/spring-of-transition/"]], "columns": ["author", "category", "content", "published_date", "slug", "summary", "title", "url"], "primary_keys": ["slug"], "primary_key_values": ["spring-of-transition"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9232060983777046}