Category: Life in general

No, not the Valentine’s Day heavy breathing. Stop it. There is something about a one year-old’s heavy breathing that is like nothing else, and Gwenyth does it all the time. It might be because of her Chucky-ness. But that’s OK. Tonight I was laying down next to her in her bed, trying to get her to go to sleep. The heavy breathing would slow down, then start up again. I thought that she was nearly asleep, then the next thing I know she’s got a finger in each of my nostrils.

Julie, Lucy, and Grace are starting to feel better. Especially Julie and Grace. I’m very proud that she is one of the few world-wide to actually conquer the bird flu. Please send media requests directly to her. Unfortunately, Chucky herself has started to feel a little under the weather. We’re just passing it around, I guess.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Always an interesting day for me and usually disappointing for Julie. My intentions are always good, of course. I’ll see what happens this year. I love all of my girls.

More pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

So I’ve been told by my little Gracie O that our blog background “is lame.” I’ve also been told that we need to join the 21st century and put music on our blog. Apparently you blogspot homeys out there have impressed her. She likes to listen to the music when she goes to the different sites. She also said that she was embarrassed by my comment about deer heads over at Catherine and Zac’s blog. Speaking of being embarrassed, we went in to take lunch to Abigail and speak to her teacher about 2 weeks ago. We saw Grace as we were leaving. I went to go say hello to her and she TOTALLY HOSED ME! Poor girl is already embarrassed by her father.

Julie told me (in all seriousness, I found out) that she thinks she has the bird flu. She, Lucy, and Grace are all out for the count. We went up to Prescott over the weekend to see Julie’s sister Nancy and her new baby. We came back with more sickies. We’re hoping we didn’t spread the love too much up there. Nancy’s baby is beautiful and I love Prescott. It’s always such a production to get us out the door to anywhere.

Poor Lucy is moaning on the couch right now, so I’ll need to go take a smoke break or something and see what I can do for her. You know, since I’m working. It seems my hours these days are: 8am – 8:40am, 9:30am – 12noon, 1pm – 3pm, 4pm – 5:30pm, 7pm – 11pm. It’s great. Tonight is racquetball night, though, so Julie’s going to have to figure out how to calm the locals for an hour or so.

Unfortunately (for some) the Super Bowl weather wasn’t exactly Chamber of Commerce-worthy. But my opinion is that you take all the cloudy, cool days you can get around here, because you know it’s bound to change. This winter has been the absolute most pleasant winter I can remember. It’s been relatively cool and wet. You know that when you hear desert folks constantly complain of how cold it is, it’s been really nice. I’m just hoping that it’s the start of man-made global cooling so that Phoenix summers can be more like they used to be when I was a kid. You know, rain actually hits the ground during the monsoon season?

In any event, it’s funny to see how you adapt so quickly to what’s around you. I have frequent conversations with folks up in Utah and in Boston about work things, but it always shifts to the weather for some reason. They all end up asking me how things are out by the pool. They seriously think I’m fibbing when I tell them that it’s in the 60s. They get downright angry when I say that we’ll be in the 70s this weekend and for the foreseeable future. Then it turns to belligerence when they remind me that it will be hotter than the surface of the sun in 7 months. Somehow that makes them feel better. And, while it is true, I prefer to just enjoy myself for now. You know, I’m just a glass half full kind of guy. Or something.

I’ve been working quite a bit lately. Lots going on. The day job, the side job, the hit job, everything. Hopefully this is the year that I break out and actually conquer the world instead of just talk about it. What does that mean? Who knows. In reality, it probably means do a project and get paid more than $3/hr to do it. We shall see.

We’re heading up to Prescott this weekend to see Julie’s sister Nancy and her family. She just had baby #4 and they’ll be blessing her on Sunday. We got a hotel up there Saturday night, so it should be a little less hectic than normal. Maybe. Everyone’s finally starting to feel well. We were passing things back and forth there for a while and it was no fun. So now we’ll plant some stuff in the garden, pull some weeds, finish painting, etc.

I’m ever surprised by anything that happens in this house. Especially with Lucy and Gwenyth. I mean, how could I ever be surprised to find this in Gwenyth’s room (after a supposed nap):

When this is your big sister?

Gwenyth doesn’t have a chance! It got even better after lunch as Lucy donned her pink scarf to go with her bag lady hat and rock star glasses for preschool.

Update: Catherine (and Julie, actually) asked what that is in Gwenyth’s room. The papers are Julie’s sewing machine manual that Gwen ripped the pages out of one by one. There’s also an entire package of wipes dispersed throughout the room.