The life rut

I've been getting into quite the rut lately.  I find that my schedule is pretty full with work and kids; but I don't think there's anyone in the world that doesn't think this so there's nothing unique about my busy life.  I liked a post from a friend of mine the other day.  You have to focus on a few important things that you care about in life and allow yourself dedicated time for just those things; cut out the million tiny things and it'll help focus you on some goals.

I'm really dragging to get motivated to do anything these last 6 months.  I guess I'm putting a lot of energy into my new job still and getting the webkit business off the ground there.  At the end of the day I'm pretty zoned out and just watching a lot of TV to still spend some time with my wife. 

Kids soccer started up again and so weekends soon will be taken up with soccer.  They need it but I lose even more time to focus on anything for myself when they play soccer every weekend.  This year is likely to be even more busy as both my daughters are playing now.

I have a few projects that I want to get started on; I'd like to do some upgrades on the house including painting and stuff but my wife and I still have a lot of work to come to the point where we both like things.  We've finally compromised on some colors for painting, but not really, I get one wall the color i like and she is doing her own.  Is that a compromise?

I'd like to work on some HTML5 web apps too and have a few fun projects in mind.  Carving out that time do it though seems to be pretty elusive still.  I probably need to set aside a few days and times in the week and really schedule it in.

Then there's my exercise routine.. The usual thing that we all have, i haven't exercised much at all for quite a while; i have a great YMCA membership but haven't used it very much.  It's sort of adhoc so this needs to be set in stone.  I have at least 3 days a week that I could stick with going but I need to cut down on the vino in the evenings to get up early.  I think this coupled with some of my friends training for marathons and continually blogging there 5 mile runs on facebook it's a total discouragement.  It doesn't really sound to me like your doing something for yourself if you have to continually tell the world about how great you are and the last mountain you climbed.  Maybe if it's not your regular routine I don't mind hearing it; but over and over every day is just a tad pompous.

All this rut with life is also killing my relationship with my wife.  We need to try and do some out of the ordinary things.  I think i just have to take some time each week and try and plan something different that we can do away from the ordinary; no effort in means nothing out so I need to put some effort into it.