$250 for six smoke detectors. Wired, chirp-free, and way more expensive than I imagined. Safety isn’t cheap, apparently.

Finished Reading: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey 📚

A random thought this morning: shiny object syndrome + context switching might create more waste than anything else. So much energy lost in false starts and scattered focus.

Finished Reading: Outsmart Your Brain by Daniel T. Willingham 📚

A lot of the tips in this book are things I’ve been telling my kids for years—though I’m sure it would’ve carried more weight if I’d had this book to point to instead of just “dad’s advice.”

Currently reading: Outsmart Your Brain by Daniel T. Willingham 📚

Time is strange. The weeks leading up to moving my daughter to university flew by at double speed. The week since we said our goodbyes has felt much longer than just seven days. But for her, a lot has happened in those seven days. Rush week is over now, she received her bid this morning and ran “home” to her sorority house. Classes start tomorrow. We’ll be back on campus in three weeks for the homecoming game. A full month apart. The longest we’ve been separated. I can’t wait to hug her.

There’s a paradox to parenting I’m experiencing to a greater degree in the wake of dropping my youngest at university last weekend. It’s loving someone so fiercely you’d stand between them and every hurt, take every blow, absorb every loss. And yet, knowing that if you did, you’d rob them of something essential.

The small disappointments of childhood become the heartbreaks of adulthood, and each one leaves a mark. But those marks tell a story. They are the proof that they have lived, endured, grown.

It’s the strangest kind of love; one that aches to protect, and yet steps aside. Not because you care less, but because you love enough to let life do its work.

I love my daughter enough to step aside. But oh, how it aches.

Currently reading: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey 📚

Finished Reading: The AI-Driven Leader by Geoff Woods 📚

Taking a day off after the whirlwind of moving my youngest to campus. Rest days don’t come easily—I feel like I should be productive. But after the drive, packing, unloading, and all the emotions, maybe today I just need to be lazy.