NJT

Somewhere in the first months of parenthood, my wife and I were exhausted. And there were some arguments that would pop up, most of which I can't remember, and may of which we couldn't solve. And as tired as we were, the harder we tried, the worse it got. So, we came up with NJT.

NJT is the acronym we came up with for "No Judgment Timeout."

My wife and I were together for 7 years before the birth of our first kid. We were used to a certain level of communication. For years, when something didn't work, we could talk it out. We both knew the relationship was good, that the other person was indelibly on our side, and so those crappy arguments were really confusing. We really wanted to resolve them, becuase we knew it would make everyone feel better.. we just couldn't get there from where we were. We were exhausted, and the harder we tried, the worse it got. We realized this eventually, and came up with NJT

NJT means: I love you, and you know it. You love me, and I know it. And the harder we try to resolve the argument, the worse it's getting for both of us. And the best thing we can do for each other is to just stop. We're not going to resolve this.* It will suck less for all involved to just blow the whistle, go to separate spaces, and get over it.

Note: NJT was for small, day to day stuff, not big, serious issues. Those bigger things we knew to leave alone until a later date. NJT is for stuff like "I thought you had all the bottles washed," or other things that suck SO MUCH in the moment, but won't burn the house down.

8-25-2023 What's up now?

So, it's now the end of August 2023. I've had this particular blog up since 2014, because I had previously been maintaining a woodworking blog, which had gotten some traction. Not huge, but even now, 9 years later, it still gets 500-1000 views on a monthly basis, so clearly it's still useful to a few people. But there's a difference between writing in an authoritative tone about a topic, and just blogging about what's up, what's on your mind, and I had a bunch of posts up here that felt like me trying to quasi-authoritatively offer information on... well, nothing, really. And I didn't want to use it to just meaninglessly blab, so every time I grabbed a hobby, I'd try writing about it. But never really had any commitment to it. 

At this point, I think I'm just going to use it to babble about me, what I've done, where I am, and so on. I've done a few things in the past 9 years, and there are a few things I keep telling people I'll write about, and this is as good a place as any. 

And now, the news...

As of tonight, I'm registered to start classes at WPI, working towards an MBA that specializes in engineering. I'm hoping it takes me someplace good. More as it happens.