If You're Tired, Then Do It Tired!

My mom used to tell me, “If you’re tired, then do it tired!” At the time, I’m pretty sure my response was probably something along the lines of, “But I’m tired!” That didn’t matter much to her. There were things to do, so you got up and did them. Looking at my life lately, apparently that lesson stuck.

After getting the house in February 2026, I started putting more time into something I’ve wanted to take seriously for years: my books. I’ve written for a long time, and I have notebooks full of stories and ideas that have followed me through different parts of my life. Now I actually have the opportunity to do something with them. Write them. Finish them. Publish them. Let other people finally read the things that have been living inside my head all these years.

That’s part of why this website exists.

Of course, I’m not going to pretend there isn’t a business side to it too. I’d love to sell some signed author copies here, make them a little more personal and special for readers, and maybe make some cash on the side while I’m at it. LOL. Amazon takes a pretty healthy chunk out of a book sale. You write the thing, edit the thing, format the thing, publish the thing, promote the thing, and then Amazon is standing there with its hand out like, “We’ll take that.”

Good Lord. So maybe I’ll sell some myself.

More than that, though, I wanted somewhere that belonged to me. Facebook is Facebook. Instagram is Instagram. LinkedIn is where I put on my cybersecurity hat and try to behave like a responsible professional. Amazon is where the books live. Here, I don’t really have to choose which version of myself I’m supposed to be. I can just be me.

Life Lately

The day job hasn’t changed. I’m still working cybersecurity during the day, and lately I’ve been spending a lot of my nights talking to San Jose. Somewhere between those two things, I’m raising three kids, which means there is almost always something happening in this house.

One minute I’m outside throwing the pigskin with my daughter because she’s playing flag football. The next I’m singing karaoke with my other daughter. Then I turn around and realize I’m teaching my son how to drive. Lord help me.

There’s something particularly unsettling about sitting in the passenger seat and realizing the human being you once had to buckle into a car seat is now controlling the entire car. I’m trying not to think about that too much.

And then there are the e-bikes. OMG, the e-bikes.

I don’t know when I apparently earned my certification in e-bike repair, but somehow I’ve become the household expert. Tires, brakes, cables, error codes, mysterious noises, and things that suddenly stop working for absolutely no apparent reason. If one of my kids approaches me and begins a sentence with, “Dad, my bike...” a small part of my soul already knows I’m about to lose an hour.

Still, I wouldn’t trade most of this stuff. The kids are getting older, and I’m becoming increasingly aware that this version of our lives isn’t going to last forever. There will come a day when nobody needs Dad to fix an e-bike, throw a football, sing karaoke, or sit nervously in the passenger seat. Although I’m perfectly okay with the driving part ending as soon as possible.

Apparently I Needed More Things to Do

Because my schedule was obviously far too relaxing, I’m also training for the October marathon here in Las Vegas. That’s 26.2 miles, in case anyone needs a reminder of exactly how questionable this decision is.

I’ve been putting in the miles and discovering that marathon training has a funny way of making distances that once sounded ridiculous seem normal. You tell someone you’re going out for an eight or ten-mile run and they look at you like you’ve lost your mind. Meanwhile, you’re standing there thinking, “Eh, it’s not that far.” Something has clearly gone wrong.

I also want to get my Pokémon trading card channel started once I have a second to sit down and properly set everything up. I’ve got video games I’d actually like to finish too, although at this point those poor games are probably wondering if I’m ever coming back. I will. Eventually.

So yes, there’s a lot on my plate. Probably too much if we’re being reasonable about it, but I’ve never been particularly good at sitting around doing nothing. My mom didn’t raise a lazy bones, and apparently she was very successful at that.

2026 Has Been a Weird One

Not everything this year has been funny. I went through a pretty bad breakup. There was money involved, and somehow I ended up not going on a cruise I had helped pay for while my ex went without me.

I know. ...yeah.

I tend to be a nice guy. Sometimes that’s something I’m proud of, and sometimes I have to look at myself afterward and think, “Come on, man.” Sigh.

I don’t want to become somebody who stops being generous because someone else didn’t value it. I don’t think that’s the answer. What I am learning, though, is that being kind doesn’t mean my time has no value. It doesn’t mean my energy is unlimited either. There are only so many hours in a day, and looking at everything I’m trying to accomplish makes that painfully obvious.

I need to be more careful about where those hours go. I want to put that energy into my kids, my writing, my health, my career, the people who genuinely want to be in my life, and maybe every once in a while, into myself. That last one is still a work in progress.

Oh, and My House Flooded

Because apparently the breakup, work, writing, kids, and marathon weren’t enough plotlines for one year, my son managed to cause what I have lovingly decided to call The Great Flood.

The downstairs of the house flooded. Because of course it did.

The renovations are getting there, thankfully, and eventually I’ll have my downstairs back. I’m also finally getting toward the end of everything involving the settlement on the house in Hawaiʻi. Finally.

When those things are finished, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with myself. Knowing me, I’ll probably look around at the sudden absence of a crisis and immediately invent another project. Actually, I built this website. Maybe I already did.

I Want to Go Places Too

One thing I want to do differently going forward is actually enjoy some of this life I’m working so hard to build.

I live in Las Vegas, and there’s still plenty of Vegas I haven’t really experienced because I’m always doing something else. I’d like to change that. I want to spend more time in San Jose when I can get up there too, and I’m starting to think about some bigger trips. Maybe overseas. Why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it.

And yes, I have another cruise planned. This time it’s an ACTUAL CRUISE THAT I PAID FOR AND GET TO GO ON! I feel like that distinction is important. Apparently you’re allowed to purchase a vacation and then actually attend the vacation yourself. Fascinating concept. I look forward to trying it.

Joking aside, I want to travel more. I want to see places I’ve never seen, eat food I’ve never tried, meet people, take pictures, make memories with my kids and the people I care about, and occasionally allow myself to exist without feeling like I should be accomplishing something every second.

I’m starting to understand that enjoying your life isn’t time wasted. Maybe I should write that one down.

And Then There Are All Those Notebooks

Writing this has actually been surprisingly relaxing. I think I understand why people blog now.

There’s something therapeutic about sitting down and putting all these thoughts onto a page without worrying whether they’re supposed to become a novel. I’m so accustomed to writing stories where every paragraph has to take the reader somewhere that it’s nice to occasionally just talk. And believe me, I have plenty more to talk about.

I have notebooks everywhere. Some have complete ideas in them. Some have half-written stories. Some contain a sentence I apparently thought was absolutely brilliant at some point, except Present-Day Me has no idea what Past Me was talking about.

There are books waiting in those notebooks. Characters I haven’t introduced anybody to yet. Stories I haven’t finished. Some things might never become anything, and some might turn into the best thing I’ve ever written. That’s the exciting part. There’s more coming.

The train isn’t stopping anytime soon, but I’ve been thinking about how every one of these things starts the same way. A book doesn’t magically become eighty thousand words. You write the first sentence. A marathon doesn’t start at mile twenty-six. You take the first step. You don’t rebuild a flooded house all at once. You start with one piece and keep going.

Maybe life isn’t much different. One push. That’s all you really need to start. Then you push again.

It’s August now, which means we’re already well past the halfway point of 2026, and when I look back at everything that’s happened since January, it’s almost ridiculous. The house, the kids, the books, work, relationships, running, renovations, Hawaiʻi, travel plans, broken e-bikes, late-night conversations, victories, mistakes, and all the ordinary little moments happening between the big ones.

Boy, what a year it’s been.

But I think the sunshine is finally starting to show itself on the horizon. There are still books I want to write. I’ve got kids to raise and places I want to see. There’s a marathon waiting for me in October, a stack of video games patiently judging me, trips to take, people to spend time with, and enough stories sitting in those notebooks to keep me busy for a very long time.

I’m tired just writing that.

And somewhere in the back of my head, I can still hear my mom: “If you’re tired, then do it tired!”

I’m doing it, Mom.

I’m doing it.

— T. M. Quillopo Jr.