Category: general

Hi internet.  How’re ya doin’?  Good.

This past weekend Sharaun and I decided we’d use Saturday as a “spring cleaning” day.  With the new baby on the way I suppose we are both getting a little “nesty.”  The plan goes like this: 1) clean out our 3rd bedroom, which is currently serving as Keaton’s “toy room,” 2) get a new “big girl” bedroom set for Keaton, complete with bed, dresser and some more storage in the way of bookshelves and likely a toychest or something, 3) move Keaton’s existing convertible crib/bed and changing-table/dresser into the now empty toy room.  As the toy room is currently bursting, however, we practiced the art of reduction quite liberally first before any of this musical furniture business could begin.

What’s more, there are things in the toy room that aren’t toys (at least not Keaton’s toys) which’ll need a new home.  Take for example dad’s Pac Man cabinet… or the bookshelf full of books and CDs and DVDs… all that had to go somewhere.  The plan for this was also multi-phase.  Again we began by simplifying and donating everything we could part with from the bookshelf, including the bookshelf itself, and old Wal Mart job we’d had since moving here.  After that the Pac Man machine moves into the family room, where it fits almost-like-it-was-planned tucked away into a little cubby intended for an in-wall entertainment cabinet.  Problem is there’s currently a huge old-school tube TV in there right now, so that’ll have to go.  That means dad gets to get a new slim, small HDTV which’ll get mounted above the cabinet (a nice bonus).  Alongside both the Pac Man machine and TV will go some shelves to hold the few books, DVDs and CDs we’ve deemed keepers.  The homeless tube TV and it’s cheap Wal Mart stand also go to charity.

In our modest home any “cleaning” that doesn’t involve a good deal of stuff-elimination is something like squeezing a balloon: you might reduce the size of the part you’re focused on but you’re really just moving the problem around and inflating another part.  And to you “Dave you’re gonna break down and buy a bigger house” naysayers I’m happy to say that my focus (stubbornness) on not up-sizing to accommodate a collection of things we don’t really need (not counting the new baby) remained strong even throughout the trying exercise of finding places to put more things than we have places for.  Shockingly, for the time being Sharaun shares my staying-put mentality – also in the face of the same “where are we going to put this?!” frustration.

I mean, I’ve been so successful at sticking to my guns on things like this in the past… what could go wrong?

Goodnight.

We will miss you dearly Mimi.

Sometimes I’m torn between my desire to go to sea and my doubts about my ability to handle it.

Not in reality, of course, but in my fantasies of being asea.

It sounds so romantic; months and months of just the water and the horizon and the family.

Also sounds a little The Shining; months and months of just the water and the horizon and the family.

I think I could get along.  I’d grow a beard.  Captains should have a beard.

Sharaun might hate it though.  Keaton probably would too.

Maybe we’d all adapt.  Maybe I’d hate it.

I wonder how one sets about becoming proficient enough at sailing to commit themselves to the swells for a prolonged period?  Get a boat and take a class?

We get sabbaticals at work.  Every seven years we get paid months away.

Months I could be spending with my family in the spray.

Goodnight.

It’s Tuesday night and Sharaun made a rockin’ southwestern chicken chipotle soup for dinner.

I love soup.  Sometimes I think I could eat soup all the time.  Nearly every one of my lunches, when taken at work, are comprised of soup and bread.  I love the primeval quality of soup as a way of preparing and presenting “food.”  I picture soup (and stew) as the third evolutionary step beyond first raw and later flame-cooked in formation modern cuisine.  For some reason I always go back to the mental picture I formed in my head as a kid reading The Lord of the Rings when Sam cooked Frodo the rabbit stew in Ithilien.  Such a good scene.

The baby is kicking now. Not that I can feel yet, but enough to get Sharaun’s attention. I looked back to my entries when Sharaun was pregnant with Keaton and was helped in remembering that I didn’t first feel her kick until about four months before she was born. If that’s any indication I should be able to feel what Sharaun’s already feeling in just another few weeks. In addition to that big milestone out on the horizon, an equally big one is looming even closer. I’m talking about the big boy/girl reveal which is scheduled for tomorrow morning (as you read this).  I thought about turning the whole blog from its standard green to either pink or blue for fun… but I haven’t done any stylesheet modification in preparation so I doubt it’ll happen.  More than likely I’ll just get trumped again by Sharaun posting on Facebook.  Maybe look there if you’re impatient.

Me, I’m excited.  For whatever reason I’m convinced that the good Lord’s gonna give us another girl.

Goodnight.