First off, I'll say that I don't know what goes on at baby showers and in all honesty I don't want to know what goes on at baby showers. About all I'm sure of is that whatever goes on, it may involve rituals similar to what are seen in the Masons or Shriner's secret ceremonies - time honored traditions that aren't to be messed with.
I do remember that soon after we ate on Saturday night, I was watching the Twins game in the living room and my sister-in-law said "the TV needs to be turned off for the shower." The dumb look I gave her and my hesitation to see one more at bat must not have been the response she was looking for because she reiterated her point that TV's and baby showers don't mix.
Luckily I had my XM radio in my pickup tuned into the game and I got there just in time to hear Nick Punto ground weakly to the shortstop.
Things are definitely different than they used to be 10 or 15 years ago. Had this been a normal night where we were all together we would have had a few adult beverages and watched the end of the game. The ones that had kids though, were asleep on the couches within 10 minutes, so I just kind of watched the game in silence.
Now it's been preached to me by everyone that I've talked to, that I should "enjoy my sleep now because I won't be getting any once the baby comes". So maybe my brothers have trained themselves like bears to hibernate and sleep whenever possible? It sounds like a plausible theory to me. I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy my sleep as much or more than anyone, but even with the loss of sleep I do see some gains. Here's just a short list of things I'll be able to do while walking a baby to sleep at 3:00 a.m..
1.) 3:00 a.m. fantasy baseball transactions. Nothing beats getting the first crack at Jose Lopez on the waiver wire.
2.) Re watching every episode of "The Jeffersons" on TV Land.
3.) Infomercials. I haven't see a good late night infomercial since the Ron Popiel "set it and forget it days". I NEED A SHAM-WOW!!!
4.) Watch the babies' Aunt Kaylan drive by on her way home from a night out on the town.
5.) Stare. I don't think people take enough time to just stare anymore.
6.) Read. Sure, they'll be books about Little Bunny Foo Foo or baby farm animals, but it's still reading and the books will have pictures so I'll be able to understand them.
7.) Learn the proper way to walk past the bedroom door as the baby is crying so that it wakes Katie up and guilt's her into trading places with me.
Ok, kidding on the last one. I'll enjoy it I think. (Parents, insert "let me hear the same thing 6 months from now" comments here).
Back to the baby shower now. It was done with around 9:00 so I went back over to pick up Katie and her Mom. There was a little room left in my pickup box when we got everything packed in, but not much. Thanks everyone for the gifts! I also found out I was the topic of conversation at the shower. I'm still not sure if thats a good or bad thing, but theres no such thing as bad press so I'm going to call it good.
Well, so here we are. The due date is around the 16th of May, but when we had our Dr. appt this morning she told us that she really doesn't know when it's going to come. From what I understand of what the Dr. is saying, baby is lining itself up for a headfirst slide and will probably still stay put for a little while still, but her Dr. told her the same thing on her first baby and she delivered the next day.
I stopped by the house and changed underwear before going back to work...........
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Spring showers, Baby Showers and a Fish
The last of the snow is slowly melting and we got a nice little rain today to wash all the dirt off the ground. Of course, because since it's North Dakota it couldn't just rain, it had to snow for about and hour as well.
This was a crazy weekend and it started at about 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Knowing that I probably wouldn't have time after this weekend to fill my spring turkey tag, Dion and I decided to run up to Hazen that morning to try to call some turkeys in. Perfect morning for calling in a long beard, but the Turkey's had some other ideas. I did find out that I can call in Ditch Parrots (pheasants) really well tho and we even managed to get some pics of a part albino pheasant. I'll post them someday.
Once back in Bismarck I had enough time to catch a little nap before Dad and brother Bob and kids came over to deliver what I've been waiting 4 years to get. My Northern Pike mount that I'm going to call "Mr. Snappy".
Mr. Snappy is going to be a point of contention for us I can see - I can tell that Katie isn't warming up to him like I thought she would. I think in her mind she thought fish were small, but this is 40+ inches of Northern Pike on the wall. I can see her argument, but on the flip side, this is a rare trophy that I've waited a long time for. The only logical solution is a bigger house someday with a room dedicated for hunting trophies. Katie, take note, I will disqualify houses in the future soley on the grounds of limited trophy space!! Moose, Elk and Bearskins mounts are a possibility!
Saturday night brought on the first meeting of them families, and not without some trepidation. The Brandner's are a smaller family, so being thrown into a situation where there are 17 adults and 27 kids can be a daunting task to handle. Mission accomplished. Clint Eastwoods equalizer was the .44 Magnum, the Miller families is food. Trish and company can put out a spread of food that would make Rachael Ray, Emeril and everyone else at the food network tear up.
Once that was done, the men headed to my brother Brads to watch the Twins pound up on the Indians and the women held their baby shower...........
I think the baby shower is going to require a post of it's own.
Needless to say, we got a TON of gifts that we thought we needed and a TON of others that the veteran parents knew we would need.
To be continued........
This was a crazy weekend and it started at about 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Knowing that I probably wouldn't have time after this weekend to fill my spring turkey tag, Dion and I decided to run up to Hazen that morning to try to call some turkeys in. Perfect morning for calling in a long beard, but the Turkey's had some other ideas. I did find out that I can call in Ditch Parrots (pheasants) really well tho and we even managed to get some pics of a part albino pheasant. I'll post them someday.
Once back in Bismarck I had enough time to catch a little nap before Dad and brother Bob and kids came over to deliver what I've been waiting 4 years to get. My Northern Pike mount that I'm going to call "Mr. Snappy".
Mr. Snappy is going to be a point of contention for us I can see - I can tell that Katie isn't warming up to him like I thought she would. I think in her mind she thought fish were small, but this is 40+ inches of Northern Pike on the wall. I can see her argument, but on the flip side, this is a rare trophy that I've waited a long time for. The only logical solution is a bigger house someday with a room dedicated for hunting trophies. Katie, take note, I will disqualify houses in the future soley on the grounds of limited trophy space!! Moose, Elk and Bearskins mounts are a possibility!
Saturday night brought on the first meeting of them families, and not without some trepidation. The Brandner's are a smaller family, so being thrown into a situation where there are 17 adults and 27 kids can be a daunting task to handle. Mission accomplished. Clint Eastwoods equalizer was the .44 Magnum, the Miller families is food. Trish and company can put out a spread of food that would make Rachael Ray, Emeril and everyone else at the food network tear up.
Once that was done, the men headed to my brother Brads to watch the Twins pound up on the Indians and the women held their baby shower...........
I think the baby shower is going to require a post of it's own.
Needless to say, we got a TON of gifts that we thought we needed and a TON of others that the veteran parents knew we would need.
To be continued........
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Arts and Crafts
Tonight we put the finishing touches or at least SOME touches on the nursery. Katies mom had bought us a "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" sign about 8 months ago, she's a little bit excited I think. But it just hung there without any friends so we decided to give it some. Finding things that go for either boy or girl is tough, but after some searching we were able to find what we were looking for. More moons and stars.
Here's a sneak peak at the crib area.
and a close up of the crib.
The crib stuff and the moon and stars came in the mail on Wednesday so we got that setup, but then you could tell it needed more.
ARTS AND CRAFTS NIGHT!!!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!
Unable to find anything in stores that we liked we got some wood stars from Wal-Mart and just painted them how we liked and put them on the wall by the rocker. Kaylan stopped over to help with the painting project. I allowed her to stay when she shared some of her Sushi and Wasabi.
This was a little different for me as the extent of my arts and crafts previous to this was camoflauge painting my tree stand for bow hunting and constructing a Ghilli suit for turkey hunting a few years ago.
We also had a Dr. appt on Tuesday, everything is looking good she says and we now go in weekly from here on out. Both of us are a little more nervous every day and I don't know if it's intuition or the Sushi and Wasabi, but I got a feeling in my stomach that little one is going to make an appearance sooner rather than later. It's just a hunch though.
Here's a sneak peak at the crib area.
and a close up of the crib.
The crib stuff and the moon and stars came in the mail on Wednesday so we got that setup, but then you could tell it needed more.
ARTS AND CRAFTS NIGHT!!!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!
Unable to find anything in stores that we liked we got some wood stars from Wal-Mart and just painted them how we liked and put them on the wall by the rocker. Kaylan stopped over to help with the painting project. I allowed her to stay when she shared some of her Sushi and Wasabi.
This was a little different for me as the extent of my arts and crafts previous to this was camoflauge painting my tree stand for bow hunting and constructing a Ghilli suit for turkey hunting a few years ago.
We also had a Dr. appt on Tuesday, everything is looking good she says and we now go in weekly from here on out. Both of us are a little more nervous every day and I don't know if it's intuition or the Sushi and Wasabi, but I got a feeling in my stomach that little one is going to make an appearance sooner rather than later. It's just a hunch though.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Porkchops and Applesauce
A high school teacher of mine used to speak of “Harsh Realities”. You studied all semester (or didn’t), then you get your grades and that was the time for harsh realities. Today is day of reality +3 for me. Not really harsh realities, just that I’m done with my Wisconsin project as far as the software conversion part and I won’t be going back on the road until after little one is born. So now instead of completely being stressed by work, I'm now faced with the reality that someone is going to be a dad in a month and will be raising a kid. Kind of like the blind leading the blind.
Waking up Saturday morning was like waking up the day after school got out for the year except I didn’t put on a pair of Toughskin jeans and ride my bike as fast as I could to the jumping ditch to try to set a new high jump record on it.
Two points to make here. First of all, for those of you that don’t remember Sears Toughskin jeans, they were jeans marketed by Sears and Roebuck in the 70’s and 80’s that were indestructible. I think the material used in them was a precursor to the Kevlar used in bullet proof vests. Getting them caught in your bike chain, wiping out on gravel or sliding into second base had no effect on them. They were impervious to blood, grass stains, oil or the effects of poor BB gun handling. On occasion the knee would show wear, but your mom could iron on a patch the extended their life indefinitely.
Second, the X games that the kids watch on ESPN now……. They didn’t invent Big Air, we did, but we didn’t even call it big air back then and the bikes we used were of questionable construction. We didn’t wear helmets or padding and there were no foam pits to do trial runs into. If you saw a dirt mound, you rode over it a couple of times to test things out. As the knot in your stomach loosened you rode over it faster, then jumped it, then finally you took turns to see who could get the highest and land without cracking the frame of your bike. Of course you had to find the cracking point of the frame eventually and at that point you made up a story to your parents about “how your friend rode up behind you and did a tire rub that sent you flying or the grizzly bear that stepped onto main street that you had to swerve to avoid.” Luckily we had our Toughskins on that saved us from injury.
Ok, now that I’ve gotten completely off track here, lets reign things back in. This weekend I set out to do some things to get the baby room ready, etc. Nothing major, move some things to the garage, put some new handle hardware on a dresser, things like that. One other thing that needed to be done was that Katie’s sister Kaylan had bought a new bed and of course having a pickup I get elected to haul a lot of things. We got it loaded just fine, but then I realized that I didn’t have any tie down straps along so we stopped at my brother Brians to get some. Kaylan got a small taste of the storm approaching this weekend when everyone converges for the baby shower. I’m curious to see if any of their heads actually spin on axis when they see 25 people there to eat – and that’s just immediate family.
Katie worked all weekend, so being the awesome boyfriend I am, I cooked both days. On the menu Sunday was pork chops, but since we really don’t have a grill I was going to broil them. 10 minutes before I was going to start them though, I found out that we didn’t have a broiler pan. I refuse to disrespect meat by pan frying or baking it so I made a quick trip to Target to buy one. I like to keep as close to my roots as possible, but since it would be frowned up on kill a pig on the lawn, cut a hunk of meat off, skewer it with a green branch and roast it over an open flame you have to move up the cooking tree, which would be in order: open flame, BBQ over charcoal, BBQ over propane gas, broil, pan fry, bake and finally just eating Tofu on toothpicks with Strawberry Daiquiris. I’m not turning in my Man Card yet.
Yes, this post got a little long winded. Sorry about that. Coming soon, pics of the completed nursery!!
Oh yeah, one more thing. I think I’m banned from grocery shopping after coming home with Pickled Pigs feet and Horseradish. Pregnant women or I suppose women in general don’t find that as appetizing as I do.
Waking up Saturday morning was like waking up the day after school got out for the year except I didn’t put on a pair of Toughskin jeans and ride my bike as fast as I could to the jumping ditch to try to set a new high jump record on it.
Two points to make here. First of all, for those of you that don’t remember Sears Toughskin jeans, they were jeans marketed by Sears and Roebuck in the 70’s and 80’s that were indestructible. I think the material used in them was a precursor to the Kevlar used in bullet proof vests. Getting them caught in your bike chain, wiping out on gravel or sliding into second base had no effect on them. They were impervious to blood, grass stains, oil or the effects of poor BB gun handling. On occasion the knee would show wear, but your mom could iron on a patch the extended their life indefinitely.
Second, the X games that the kids watch on ESPN now……. They didn’t invent Big Air, we did, but we didn’t even call it big air back then and the bikes we used were of questionable construction. We didn’t wear helmets or padding and there were no foam pits to do trial runs into. If you saw a dirt mound, you rode over it a couple of times to test things out. As the knot in your stomach loosened you rode over it faster, then jumped it, then finally you took turns to see who could get the highest and land without cracking the frame of your bike. Of course you had to find the cracking point of the frame eventually and at that point you made up a story to your parents about “how your friend rode up behind you and did a tire rub that sent you flying or the grizzly bear that stepped onto main street that you had to swerve to avoid.” Luckily we had our Toughskins on that saved us from injury.
Ok, now that I’ve gotten completely off track here, lets reign things back in. This weekend I set out to do some things to get the baby room ready, etc. Nothing major, move some things to the garage, put some new handle hardware on a dresser, things like that. One other thing that needed to be done was that Katie’s sister Kaylan had bought a new bed and of course having a pickup I get elected to haul a lot of things. We got it loaded just fine, but then I realized that I didn’t have any tie down straps along so we stopped at my brother Brians to get some. Kaylan got a small taste of the storm approaching this weekend when everyone converges for the baby shower. I’m curious to see if any of their heads actually spin on axis when they see 25 people there to eat – and that’s just immediate family.
Katie worked all weekend, so being the awesome boyfriend I am, I cooked both days. On the menu Sunday was pork chops, but since we really don’t have a grill I was going to broil them. 10 minutes before I was going to start them though, I found out that we didn’t have a broiler pan. I refuse to disrespect meat by pan frying or baking it so I made a quick trip to Target to buy one. I like to keep as close to my roots as possible, but since it would be frowned up on kill a pig on the lawn, cut a hunk of meat off, skewer it with a green branch and roast it over an open flame you have to move up the cooking tree, which would be in order: open flame, BBQ over charcoal, BBQ over propane gas, broil, pan fry, bake and finally just eating Tofu on toothpicks with Strawberry Daiquiris. I’m not turning in my Man Card yet.
Yes, this post got a little long winded. Sorry about that. Coming soon, pics of the completed nursery!!
Oh yeah, one more thing. I think I’m banned from grocery shopping after coming home with Pickled Pigs feet and Horseradish. Pregnant women or I suppose women in general don’t find that as appetizing as I do.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Well, that worked well.
I tried to setup Mobile Blogging on the blog and as you can see by the previous post that it didn't turn out so well. I guess it takes whatever you type changes it to whatever characters it feels like changing them too. We may have to work on this......
Thursday, April 16, 2009
So two guys walk into a bar......
Ok, stop me if you’ve heard this one. So two guys from NISC walk into an Applebee’s wearing NISC shirts………
Yeah, there’s no joke there, but it sounded like one. The statement seems a little Passé I guess, although it usually ends up being the trick of the day. Usually when I go on the road I like to eat a places that are the local flavor – BBQ in Texas, Chowder in Vermont, etc. In Wisconsin though? Go to the store and buy a hunk of cheese maybe, but that’s about it. In the end there usually seems to be an Applebee’s within close approximation of your hotel and you know what you’re going to get there. It’s like the Gus Ferrotte of restaurants. Nothing flashy and it usually gets the job done, but on occasion will make you puke.
We’ve expended our options of places to eat not named McDonalds in the greater Menomonie area, so last night after work we decided to go vanilla and eat at Applebee’s.
I just have a few comments on these types of eating establishments, up to and including Ground Round, TGI Fridays and the like.
First off, you can have too much customer service. My soup was fine when my waitress asked 30 seconds ago, the manager doesn’t really need to come and check as well.
Please put something on the menu that doesn’t taste like cardboard for under 4000 calories. I don’t need to consume 2 times my daily allowance for everything in a half “Mandarin Chicken Teriyaki Lemon Pepper Basil Crunchy Salad”.
Also, when did it become the thing to throw up as many random pictures and objects as possible onto you walls? A picture of John Wayne, a catchers mask, a Nehi Grape sign and a Mickey Mouse doll. What do they have in common? Nothing, but it pulls your attention away from the crappy food.
I have a theory though, it’s the common link between every Applebee’s in America. It’s called my “Abbey Road Theory”: stating that you will find the album cover picture of the Beatles Abbey Road album in every one of them.
So what does this prove? Nothing. Other than the most common restaurant in America will always have the most cliché photo in America, in every one of them.
These are the things I like to think of over a nice Applebee’s Spinach and Artichoke dip.
Yeah, there’s no joke there, but it sounded like one. The statement seems a little Passé I guess, although it usually ends up being the trick of the day. Usually when I go on the road I like to eat a places that are the local flavor – BBQ in Texas, Chowder in Vermont, etc. In Wisconsin though? Go to the store and buy a hunk of cheese maybe, but that’s about it. In the end there usually seems to be an Applebee’s within close approximation of your hotel and you know what you’re going to get there. It’s like the Gus Ferrotte of restaurants. Nothing flashy and it usually gets the job done, but on occasion will make you puke.
We’ve expended our options of places to eat not named McDonalds in the greater Menomonie area, so last night after work we decided to go vanilla and eat at Applebee’s.
I just have a few comments on these types of eating establishments, up to and including Ground Round, TGI Fridays and the like.
First off, you can have too much customer service. My soup was fine when my waitress asked 30 seconds ago, the manager doesn’t really need to come and check as well.
Please put something on the menu that doesn’t taste like cardboard for under 4000 calories. I don’t need to consume 2 times my daily allowance for everything in a half “Mandarin Chicken Teriyaki Lemon Pepper Basil Crunchy Salad”.
Also, when did it become the thing to throw up as many random pictures and objects as possible onto you walls? A picture of John Wayne, a catchers mask, a Nehi Grape sign and a Mickey Mouse doll. What do they have in common? Nothing, but it pulls your attention away from the crappy food.
I have a theory though, it’s the common link between every Applebee’s in America. It’s called my “Abbey Road Theory”: stating that you will find the album cover picture of the Beatles Abbey Road album in every one of them.
So what does this prove? Nothing. Other than the most common restaurant in America will always have the most cliché photo in America, in every one of them.
These are the things I like to think of over a nice Applebee’s Spinach and Artichoke dip.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
I dislike Wisconsin during baseball season.
And why do you ask do I say that? Well, I spent the week conducting training in Menominee Wisconsin, for those of you that don't know, Menominee is about an hour from downtown Minneapolis and I was looking forward to coming back to the hotel after each day of training and watching the Minnesota Twins play. Not so much...... not so much...... Evidently once you cross the river into Hudson Wisconsin you are no longer in Twins Territory. It's Brewers, Packers and I suppose Milwaukee Bucks territory and they will remind you of this ad nauseum.
I did get to see opening night at least because the Brewers had already played that day and the Twins had a night game. I was able to watch the gamecast on the internet the other days and I watched a show on how cheese is made. To me, airing that in Wisconsin is kind of like showing Tiger Woods an instructional golf video. The weather was nice though after seeing snow and cold of 7 months and the people I was training were good to work with.
The only other bad part of the week was the landing into Minneapolis/St. Paul. I'm still not quite sure if we landed or if we were shot down, but in 5 years of flying for work, this ranked #2 on the worst landings on my list. Not that it was pilot error or anything, just some nasty wind. It does make me laugh sometimes though, whenever you have a good landing the pilot always comes out and stands by the door waiting for a congratulations on a good flight. If the landing is subpar, they usually stay in the cockpit and talk really loud "yeah, that was quite the strato-nimbus disturbance at vector, niner when we came down to 24,000 feet, eh Ted." "Boy is sure was Bob! I thought my gimble conversions were way off and we'd have to recalculate the widget until I saw you put the power crystals in the flux capacitor."
I have no idea what they are talking about ever, but luckily I'm easy to please. My rule is that any landing that ends with me walking off the plane is a good landing.
Back on the homefront, Katie has started to hit her "go to bed by 9:30" routine again. I can't blame her, she looks uncomfortable, but she's a trooper though and never complains about anything. Her parents brought up some furniture for the nursery today as well. As soon as I get the rest of the crib back that I had moved out during our flood warnings and we get the bedding in, I think the room will be complete.
We went with a moon and stars concept for the room. No particular reason, we just both kind of liked it.
Finally, the geese. Don't think for one second that I've forgot about the geese. They still fly over constantly and taunt me...... now, they openly walk on the side of the road and have no care in the world. Here they are, just down the road.
We've come to an agreement. We can coexist, except for in the fall. Then I have a 3 bird limit if they fly into my decoy spread.
I did get to see opening night at least because the Brewers had already played that day and the Twins had a night game. I was able to watch the gamecast on the internet the other days and I watched a show on how cheese is made. To me, airing that in Wisconsin is kind of like showing Tiger Woods an instructional golf video. The weather was nice though after seeing snow and cold of 7 months and the people I was training were good to work with.
The only other bad part of the week was the landing into Minneapolis/St. Paul. I'm still not quite sure if we landed or if we were shot down, but in 5 years of flying for work, this ranked #2 on the worst landings on my list. Not that it was pilot error or anything, just some nasty wind. It does make me laugh sometimes though, whenever you have a good landing the pilot always comes out and stands by the door waiting for a congratulations on a good flight. If the landing is subpar, they usually stay in the cockpit and talk really loud "yeah, that was quite the strato-nimbus disturbance at vector, niner when we came down to 24,000 feet, eh Ted." "Boy is sure was Bob! I thought my gimble conversions were way off and we'd have to recalculate the widget until I saw you put the power crystals in the flux capacitor."
I have no idea what they are talking about ever, but luckily I'm easy to please. My rule is that any landing that ends with me walking off the plane is a good landing.
Back on the homefront, Katie has started to hit her "go to bed by 9:30" routine again. I can't blame her, she looks uncomfortable, but she's a trooper though and never complains about anything. Her parents brought up some furniture for the nursery today as well. As soon as I get the rest of the crib back that I had moved out during our flood warnings and we get the bedding in, I think the room will be complete.
We went with a moon and stars concept for the room. No particular reason, we just both kind of liked it.
Finally, the geese. Don't think for one second that I've forgot about the geese. They still fly over constantly and taunt me...... now, they openly walk on the side of the road and have no care in the world. Here they are, just down the road.
We've come to an agreement. We can coexist, except for in the fall. Then I have a 3 bird limit if they fly into my decoy spread.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The 24 hours of Lemaze
Kind of like the 24 hours of LeMans in auto racing, except for baby classes and this was only 9 hours.
We picked this weekend several months ago to go to "prepared childbirth class" because our friends Jason and Kristy were hoping that basketball season would go long and they'd be state class "A" basketball champions (mission accomplished) and I would be done with my project for work in Wisconsin, (mission in progress), but we wanted to go to class together.
To say the least, the week and weekend have been a hectic time, late nights and early mornings during the week and on Saturday, then 4 1/2 hours of classes both days this weekend.
I empathize with instructors because they know the material, they're qualified and try hard to get class participation. Kind of like what I'll be trying to do all next week with maybe the same success level.
I don't think people realize the magnitude of what you're preparing for because most in the class had waning interest in what she was presenting. Yeah, you had the gamut of couples at the class: the disinterested couple, the couple that asks every question they can think of, the couple that thinks they know everything...... and then you have Scott and Katie and Jason and Kristy.
Kristy and Katie set some ground rules for the weekend, which we ignored, not that we were disruptive in class (or at least to the point that she would kick us out), but we had fun with it. I mean, if you have to sit on metal chairs for 9 hours, you might as well have fun with it, not? The first few hours on Saturday provided the both of us enough material to make each other giggle and also get an occasional smile out of Katie and Kristy, but it was when they started showing the films that things took a turn for the worse.
"Halloween", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Saw"..... those movies are like "Pinocchio". I'm not going any further than this with the details of them, but they could charge $7.00 a seat to one of those movies and have provide psychologists with patients for several months following.
We got a reprieve early in the session today when the instructor announced that it was time for another massage. Katie tried to get in her "receive massage" position, but then she told us that the pregnant ladies would be the massager, not the massagee. This elicited a fist bump with me and Jason. My hands were getting tired.
4 hours later and with jaws dropped, we left, but with a renewed enthusiasm that we'd soon be bringing a baby into the world, which is pretty cool. I think the things I took from the class are that, nobody is the same, labor will be interesting, there's a lot of things that you can try during labor and I will be scared stiff by much of it.
On the home front, we had put a roast in the crock pot this morning before we left. It was a pork roast. We're both much more fond of beef roasts, although I think the hot pork sandwiches are going to be killer this week for her.
I'm off to Wisconsin in the morning, not looking forward to being away this close to go time, but it has to be done.
We picked this weekend several months ago to go to "prepared childbirth class" because our friends Jason and Kristy were hoping that basketball season would go long and they'd be state class "A" basketball champions (mission accomplished) and I would be done with my project for work in Wisconsin, (mission in progress), but we wanted to go to class together.
To say the least, the week and weekend have been a hectic time, late nights and early mornings during the week and on Saturday, then 4 1/2 hours of classes both days this weekend.
I empathize with instructors because they know the material, they're qualified and try hard to get class participation. Kind of like what I'll be trying to do all next week with maybe the same success level.
I don't think people realize the magnitude of what you're preparing for because most in the class had waning interest in what she was presenting. Yeah, you had the gamut of couples at the class: the disinterested couple, the couple that asks every question they can think of, the couple that thinks they know everything...... and then you have Scott and Katie and Jason and Kristy.
Kristy and Katie set some ground rules for the weekend, which we ignored, not that we were disruptive in class (or at least to the point that she would kick us out), but we had fun with it. I mean, if you have to sit on metal chairs for 9 hours, you might as well have fun with it, not? The first few hours on Saturday provided the both of us enough material to make each other giggle and also get an occasional smile out of Katie and Kristy, but it was when they started showing the films that things took a turn for the worse.
"Halloween", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Saw"..... those movies are like "Pinocchio". I'm not going any further than this with the details of them, but they could charge $7.00 a seat to one of those movies and have provide psychologists with patients for several months following.
We got a reprieve early in the session today when the instructor announced that it was time for another massage. Katie tried to get in her "receive massage" position, but then she told us that the pregnant ladies would be the massager, not the massagee. This elicited a fist bump with me and Jason. My hands were getting tired.
4 hours later and with jaws dropped, we left, but with a renewed enthusiasm that we'd soon be bringing a baby into the world, which is pretty cool. I think the things I took from the class are that, nobody is the same, labor will be interesting, there's a lot of things that you can try during labor and I will be scared stiff by much of it.
On the home front, we had put a roast in the crock pot this morning before we left. It was a pork roast. We're both much more fond of beef roasts, although I think the hot pork sandwiches are going to be killer this week for her.
I'm off to Wisconsin in the morning, not looking forward to being away this close to go time, but it has to be done.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Apologies
I keep forgetting that I'm writing to a mass audience. Some of the stuff in the last post some people didn't catch the humor on. 30% of them got it and chuckled, another 5% may have gotten a good laugh out of it. You gotta kind of know how the Germans in ND talk to get it and it was kind of an add on to the end of the post as I was going back and reading it.
Sometimes I use words like 'not' at the end of a sentence now or say 'side by each' - it's how that group of people talk and I never used to until I've lived in this area for awhile now.
Anyways, edited the last post, hope it makes sense now.
Sometimes I use words like 'not' at the end of a sentence now or say 'side by each' - it's how that group of people talk and I never used to until I've lived in this area for awhile now.
Anyways, edited the last post, hope it makes sense now.
Your "Bob Ross Memorial: Whiteboard Pic of the Month"
Seriously folks, this is as good as I can do. Don't expect anything better than this with a whiteboard and 5 felt tip markers in the colors of black, blue, green, red and black.
Art on the whiteboard has taught me quite a bit on the use of erasers and overdrawing for effect. I really struggled with the back of the turkey, it needed to be darker than the rest, but not completely black and every time I drew it on it looked like it had a WWII German helmet on it's back.... but by filling it in darkly, letting it dry and then taking some of the black off with the marker tip it created the effect I was looking for. I have to thank my aunt, who is a professional artist in the medium of scratchboard. Through her art she's taught me that sometimes it's not what you leave on the art, but what you take off.
That right there was a very prophetic statement, I think I'll coin that as my own.
Some of you might look too analytically at the drawing and say, "Well, the beard on the turkey isn't very long, maybe 4 or 5 inches", keep in mind, this is the Bob Ross Memorial photo and in my world the woodland creatures romp and play with short beards..... Except the wise old owl, he has a short beard...... and the rabbit. He doesn't have a beard, but he does have a mustache.
So I guess in keeping with the theme of naming these works of art we need to name this one, not? We've had "Landing Goose" and "Jumping Fish". This one is of a strutting turkey, let's call this one "Morning Strut". "Whoa" you say? Whoa is right. This one is very special to me, needs a special name and will be erased in 30 days.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
End of an era
Things have certainly gotten crazy here the last few weeks. Blizzards, floods, Flizzards, work, appointments, work. You name it, it’s came up. It really put me to thought about the time and effort that I’ve put into this blog. From it’s infancy a couple years back dealing with the happenings at 2607 N Washington St., to it’s adolescent years with “New From Da Hood”, to being all grown up with “News From Da Crib”.
I’m not sure at what point it was, but I realized some time back that this blog isn’t a normal “update the family and close friends website or share pictures and funny little stories”. No, this blog is worldwide. In fact, several Google searches will return results that point you to the blog, which amazes me to some degree that someone in South Africa or Germany could type in a word or two into Google and stumble onto the site, find it interesting and continue to follow it. Not saying that it has happened, but it could.
At some point you need to stop and look at the current state of things though and realize that a decision needs to be made and in the best interest of all parties involved I have decided to retire from the blog world. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but one that I’ve resolved myself to and feel that this will allow me to pursue other interests and spend more time with my family. The kid is growing up so fast, it seems like just yesterday it was 6 months from being born and now here we are less than two months from it’s birth!
I know, I know…… Stunning news to many of you. I’m sure most of you are running the gamut of emotions right now, anger, fear, sadness…. Maybe even happiness. Feel free to take a moment now and collect yourselves. Ok, that’s enough time for you. I want you all to know that life will go on, the sun will rise tomorrow and you’ll find some other meaningless blog or website to fill up those 8 to 10 minutes a week you spent reading this.
I did contemplate just cutting back on the number of posts per week and running a skeleton blog of sorts, but I think I would just be doing all of you a disservice, so it’s better to end it in one fell swoop.
Thank you all for your patronage the past several months!!!!
Oh yeah one other thing.........
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April Fools!
I’m not sure at what point it was, but I realized some time back that this blog isn’t a normal “update the family and close friends website or share pictures and funny little stories”. No, this blog is worldwide. In fact, several Google searches will return results that point you to the blog, which amazes me to some degree that someone in South Africa or Germany could type in a word or two into Google and stumble onto the site, find it interesting and continue to follow it. Not saying that it has happened, but it could.
At some point you need to stop and look at the current state of things though and realize that a decision needs to be made and in the best interest of all parties involved I have decided to retire from the blog world. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but one that I’ve resolved myself to and feel that this will allow me to pursue other interests and spend more time with my family. The kid is growing up so fast, it seems like just yesterday it was 6 months from being born and now here we are less than two months from it’s birth!
I know, I know…… Stunning news to many of you. I’m sure most of you are running the gamut of emotions right now, anger, fear, sadness…. Maybe even happiness. Feel free to take a moment now and collect yourselves. Ok, that’s enough time for you. I want you all to know that life will go on, the sun will rise tomorrow and you’ll find some other meaningless blog or website to fill up those 8 to 10 minutes a week you spent reading this.
I did contemplate just cutting back on the number of posts per week and running a skeleton blog of sorts, but I think I would just be doing all of you a disservice, so it’s better to end it in one fell swoop.
Thank you all for your patronage the past several months!!!!
Oh yeah one other thing.........
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
April Fools!
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