Three reasons for a follow-up

I feel better after a hard couple days at work, but I'm still a little funky, and not the Prince/Sly and the Family Stone/Earth, Wind and Fire/Stevie Wonder/Jamiroquai kind of funk we've grown to love.
Maybe I just need to get back into a routine, but I think there are three reasons why I'm not exactly bopping along life's highway right now.

#1 - I miss my old life.
OK, I admit it.
Having a child is maybe the greatest thing that's happened to me. I say maybe because that's such a cliched thing to say - Hallmark Cards practically has a patent on it - and yet in many ways it's true.
But the birth of another child has made me realize that I do love my time to myself. I love to watch movies, play video games, play poker, read and blog. I don't like making choices, and in the past, I didn't have to. Now I do, and not only that, I would love to head to the casino more and play poker more and see a damn movie in the theaters with my wife every once in a while.
Kansas City, when we had access to a free babysitters, made me realize that.
And now I guess I'm a little worried that with two, all that will go away for good, at least for a while.
I feel guilty for feeling that way, too, which only adds to it.

#2 - Whoever wrote about the summertime blues was nuts.
In the summer you've got places to run, mountains to climb, girls to gawk at, places to swim and dogs to walk. In the winter you've got a land encased in ice, snow, cold, and it's dark by 4:30 p.m.
I love snow as much as the next person, and this winter, in many ways, has been fun, but I'm a little tired of it, and the realization that we've got at least a couple more months of this shit hasn't helped.

#3 - This third reason is a little complicated and rather stupid.
But I'm a little jealous of y'all.
Every day I've been reading posts about how you crushed this SnG or how you won $400 over the weekend or how you placed first or second in a 180-person tournament, and I'm over here still playing .25/.50 NL after an unsuccessful move to .50/$1 NL and having the hardest time making a fucking final table to a 45-person SnG. Yes, I've suffered several suckouts in those, but that's not the only reason I haven't made it. I'm feeling very small in the poker world right now.
I know how stupid it is to feel that way. I don't have the talent of a Fuel, the aggression of a Lucko or the pure blind courage of a Smokee, and I should be OK with that. I'm not Iakaris. I'm not even TripJax. I am not Jordan, even if he just wrote about his bad losing streak over the weekend. I suppose I'm not even Change 100, even though she honestly documents her own struggles, she seems to be a damn good tournament player.
I'm happy with what I've accomplished so far. I'm up more than $3,000 since last year playing low limits for my first year of real money poker. I've improved more over the last month and added several aggressive moves to my game. But I'm nowhere near where I want to be, and I wonder how long it takes to start dominating limits that would either bore you all to tears or make you chuckle as you laughed at the simplicity of the game and demanded the finest meats and cheeses.
And now many of you are getting paid to blog. Deservedly so. I haven't put enough into this to even dream about that. But, wow, that's really cool.
This hasn't affected my play, as far as I know, given that I'm up again so far this month.
I'll work my way through it.
I hope the sun comes out and melts all this snow, and my blues, away.