Curious

?

From 2009 Summer

This is a hydrant in a forest. Maybe the squirrels had it installed to counter the forestry department's new "controlled burn" practices.

I think I need to look harder for something real to blog about. If we don't start meeting people and doing things soon, I might be driven to actually decorate my blog.

Baby Videos

For those of you who like this sorta thing . . . (I have to admit, I did not used to like this sort of thing. But now that it's my kid . . .)

I guess we'll go in chronological order. This first video is actually mostly of Jon. It was July 4th and we were near the Cradle of Forestry in America, hiking in a place called The Pink Beds. Given the nature of our video, it's a rather serendipitous name.



Now for the cute stuff -- Naomi started cooing and laughing in the last few weeks. She shows a bit of personality in the first video. The second one is just plain cute.

Heaven

Our new home is so perfect that it is bizarrely un-perfect. What I mean is that it is perfect for us, so of course it has some . . . let's call them unique characteristics. Don't get me wrong. I really do love it. There were plenty of other choices -- but this one suited me and my family's current situation.



Notice the iron railing separating the dining room from the kitchen. And, oh yeah, the lovely shade of mustard brown for the carpet. (I don't think the camera does it justice. There's much more yellow in it than you can see here.)


The neighborhood is really great, too, but it's the same story as the house. It's kid-friendly, but I haven't actually seen a kid (besides mine) here. There are sidewalks and playgrounds. A walk around the neighborhood is beautiful, interesting, and relatively free of dangerous traffic. It's like the setting for a Ray Bradbury novel; there are swing sets and clubhouses, baby swings and water slides, but no actual children. Anywhere. Freaky.

For the moment, at least, I'm living under the impression that summer time is the quiet time for this place. Maybe the kids are all at summer camp. All of them -- in the whole city, at the same time. Or maybe they're hibernating indoors because of the heat, humidity, mosquitoes, severe thunderstorms, etc. (Writer, if you're looking for a quieter neighborhood, this is the right place.) And anyway, I know people are out walking, because there's litter on the side of the road. Of course that could come from people in cars, but I'm being optimistic.

Here are some pictures of the park that is nearest our home. Maybe, instead of thinking that there really aren't children here, perhaps we don't see other kids at the park because it's too close to the railroad. (See the wheels on the box cars in the background?) I guess it makes sense if the town is 90% retired -- they had the park built out of nostalgia, not because they expected any children to play in it. The other neighborhood kids must be playing somewhere else, farther away from the train tracks. I just wish they'd invite us to come along!


So, to summarize, I really think this is what heaven will be like for me. Beautiful. Lots of trees and green things. Peaceful, warm, seemingly inviting. But with an unexpected twist.

Bull-headed

This is Naomi. She was born May 6, 2009 - a Taurus. Strong neck and all. In this picture she's about 6 weeks old. Today we went to the pediatrician. She passed the physical tests for a 4 month old. What have I gotten myself into?

Just some cute pictures. I know some of you have been waiting for this. If you want more, just browse through our picasaweb album: www.picasaweb.google.com/tempppo/2009Naomi#

Waiting

Thanks to everyone for their sympathy on the last post -- which I now realize was almost 2 months ago! I wonder what happened to keep me from blogging?

Well, this post is just a warm-up. Our #2 child is expected on or around 8 May 2009. I'm driving myself crazy with waiting. So tonight I've decided just to get everything all ready, put it in the trunk of the car, and just go about my life as if the baby was going to stay there for another 9 months.

If I have some spare time in the near future, I'll take a picture of my beach-ball belly and post it.
Love to all.

Snow Lessons

So our pipes froze last night. I accidentally left the garage door open on the only night that it has really snowed at our house. I called around to see what I should do -- never had a house or been responsible for pipes before -- and decided that I'd try the only suggestion I got: pour anti-freeze down each drain and see what happens.

I don't know if that was really the best idea -- especially in hindsight, thinking that anti-freeze probably would be a bad thing to have mixing around with the city's water supply -- but after an hour or so, the water started running in the toilet I'd flushed earlier, so I was just happy. I'm not really sure whether my subsequent water use is what caused the pipe to burst, or if it was just a gremlin that was determined to cause problems and wasn't going to be outdone by a bottle of anti-freeze.

In any event, the pipe is fixed now. I'm hoping that, despite the relatively small nature of this particular life challenge, the ordeal was big enough to fill the quota of trials that each person is supposed to be allotted on a regular basis. I sometimes wonder why nothing really bad has happened to my family. Maybe really bad stuff just doesn't happen as often as I think it does, and it's just the cumulative effect of all the sorta bad little stuff that can make life a pain.

Sunday

"But then again, perhaps I have the strength after all."

I wasn't going to blog tonight. But my stomach changed my mind. Instead of sleeping and dreaming, I'm eating and blogging. Just as long as I'm ing-ing, I think that's the important thing. If you can't -ing anymore, that's when you know you're in trouble.

And speaking of ing-ing, I thought I should record, for posterity, today's events and the utter lack of stress that most of them caused. A sign of progress . . . or just numbness.

8:30 a.m. Ward council meeting. I gave the spiritual thought.
10:30 a.m. Fast and testimony meeting. Bore my testimony.
12:10 p.m. Conducted opening exercises in Relief Society.
12:20 p.m. Defended Church doctrine against the notions of a 17-year-old girl in the class.
12:22 p.m. Taught a lesson to the combined YW classes, including the 17-year-old girl who sulked for the duration of the lesson.
2:30 p.m. Planned a training meeting with the 2nd counselor in the YW presidency.
4:30 p.m. Typed and formatted an agenda for the training meeting.
9:00 p.m. Wrote dialogue for part of Starfire III.

Normally, I think the combination of all of these events on the same day would have caused a significant amount of stress, or at least fatigue. Most of them were things that I have either never done, or rarely done. And the rest (except the typing and writing) were things that I get nervous / stressed about no matter how many times I do them.

I don't really know why my stress level stayed so low today -- but it must be significant in some way. I'm sure if I look back on this in 10, 20, 30 years or so, I'll either realize the significance or the complete in-significance of it all.

And on that note -- goodnight all.