Put me Back in!

What? You're still here?

2011-11-19T09:13:00.001-07:00

I thought you would've left a long time ago. I mean, don't you have a family you want to see? No, huh? You don't have a family? Oh, you mean you don't want to see them? Oh. Ok, well, let's get started then.

So, it's almost the end of 2011. Forrest is 8. We've had kids in diapers for 8 years. But recently Rebekah transitioned the little ones to pull-ups. That's somewhat momentous, but we're still trying to finish housebreaking 3 kids. Serenity has a bit of a lazy streak, so Rebekah has been using the paddle to remind her and that has greatly improved her bladder control. Little Clell is actually doing really well. Which is bizarre because he's all boy. Of course, he has trouble pointing but so do all guys (so I hear from women). Trin is funny because she is so gung-ho. I mentioned I needed some socks and she went and found me some. That's happened more than once. Both her and Forrest really thrive by doing stuff for others--well, me.

Last weekend I spent 4.5 hours rerouting our kitchen sink plumbing. Our house is weird because instead of one main line that everything taps into, there are lines for almost ever drain running to the septic tank. Our old 1.5" kitchen sink had been invaded by rust and tree roots so it would plug at the drop of a hat. Or at the drop of some pasta down the garbage disposal. Anyway, I have more work to do but sickness has laid me low. The whole family has been sick, but so far Rebekah and I have been hit hardest.

I've been working a lot. Almost every day. Sometimes late at night or early in the morning. Frustrating. I'm hoping/praying for something else, but for right now this is still where God wants me.

complain complain complain

2011-10-29T09:09:00.001-06:00

I played a game a few years ago where I had to take care of people as if I was a god. Of course I was a lower case g god and not very powerful. I seem to remember that I ran out of trees and without trees, well, you're up a creek without a paddle. I also remember how FREAKING WHINY the people were. Fast forward a few years and I can now relate to kids. Man they are whiny. But then I think about myself and man am I WHINY. So, acknowledging there is a problem is the first step to solving it. Or is the first step to solving a problem getting a big club. I'm not sure, but I think I prefer the latter. I think a big part of experience/wisdom is knowing when to whine and when not to. I probably only whine about 95% as much as I used to. I also think a big part of child rearing is beating, I mean training, the whine out of them. I was pondering entitlement the other day and I realized that we are born feeling entitled. My kids feel entitled to watch TV, play the Wii, eat Chinese food, etc. So, it's a constant effort to train them into learning that it's a right, not a privilege. Wait, I think it's the other way around. When I was at the college that will not be named, the authorities used to say that working was a privilege, not a right. Think about that for a second. Society treats work as if it's a burden and if your job sucks Indian Kosher Dill pickles then I get it. But not starving is nice too. Of course, I just found out that the poor can now get cell phones since that's a basic right. Only 70 minutes though. Just laugh. Just laugh or you'll cry.

Rebekah is off shopping. BTW, my touchpad wants to turn Rebekah into DEborah so if you see that in here, no I am not cheating. I don't have the desire, money, time, energy, desire, soul of a serpent, etc. To cheat. I'm sitting here with the girls watching Fineas and Pherby or something. All I know is my touchpad keeps wanting to auto-correct it to something else. Sigh. Ain't technology great. But I was amused that the Platypus did a HALO jump which is high altitude low opening. See, you can learn things from inane cartoon shows. Liberty just said to me "I want more." No please, just a demand. See what I was saying about entitlement??

The boys and I went to Fairfield this last weekend and together with Melodie and her two Kids, Curtis and his boy, and Tyler and his two oldest and Mom and Dad we climbed up a hill and dug up a time capsule that we had buried a little over 20 years ago. In the process we learned how pirates lost their treasure. Dad made good instructions but it's amazing how 20 years later you can end up a few feet off digging through roots and rock for naught. Thankfully, Tyler saved the day with this memory and perception and found a rock that matched one in the picture. So, we only dug two holes. We left one as a "decoy" hole. We meant to do that. Really. What do you mean you don't believe me? Aaah, Libby just "asked" me. Now she's saying please. I am such a mean Dad.

Let me leave you with a phrase I remember seeing on a sign in grade school: "Stupidity is not a virtue."

Bigger is better

2011-10-08T11:39:00.000-06:00

wow. It's been a rough week for me. Work has been crazy stressful. Thankfully, I think I'm 95% ready for winter.

I was looking at Titus and noticed how big he's getting. It's a bit sad to be so busy and overwhelmed so much of the time I don't enjoy my kids like I would like to. Oh well, hopefully they'll take care of me when I'm old and infirm. I give that about two weeks. I guess I figure old age was something that didn't really start to happen until, well, older. But when I hit 30 I started having trouble with my tendons. That seems to be one of my biggest problems. My foot hurts pretty bad at times because the tendon is sore. Doesn't seem to want to heal. I guess that's why some people start to live on ibuprofen. My brother Curtis' Father-in-law died before expected and I think one of the reasons was because he took a lot of ibuprofen. Most people get slowed down by stomach pain first.

Argh. I don't like winter. I don't like to say hate, or I probably would. But at least winter keeps bugs and weeds down. But kids are cooped up. Less sun, blah blah blah. I did hear about a light used for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD. Somebody has a morbid sense of humor). I think it's called a blue light or something. But if you use that apparently it helps you wake up, so even if you're not "sad" you can use that for a natural boost. Go find it on amazon. It seems to work, the problem is it's expensive. Isn't that always the way?

Life is hard and getting harder. But, before we ever had kids I knew that I wanted my kids and my family to NOT have everything. When I was growing up I remember not having butter (or margarine) and drinking milk was a luxury. You'd think that would scar me. I spose it did, but in the reverse way. I was not spoiled & it was good for me to do without. It makes you push yourself & learn to do things yourself. And that means your kids have to participate in the family. Recently, I bought some fruit firewood. The boys worked hard with minimal yelling. Time was of the essence because daylight was waning. So, hopefully my kids learn and apply some of the great lessons that I was privileged to learn when I was growing up.

Yes Virginia, I am that awesome

2011-10-01T10:49:00.002-06:00

So, nice to talk to you again. I've missed you. Why don't you call? Or write? Or text? I do have unlimited texts ya know. I mean, back in the day when it cost money to make a phone call outside of your city I understood that you were just cheap, but now? Now I just think you don't really like me very much. But that's ok, because I don't like you very much either. I mean, I have a life you know. Why right now I'm sitting in my easy chair typing out a message on some bloggy thingy. I mean, I'm a busy man. I don't have time to say, put a stamp on a letter that's been written for over ten years. But even if I did, there's no way (no freaking way) that I could muster up the time to walk it out to my mail box. But even if I did have time, there's no way I have the energy to walk 50 feet and risk getting hit by a drunk Harley rider returning from the local steakhouse. I mean, are you really so selfish that you want my kids to go childless? How dare you! I am not sure how you sleep at night. Tell you what, let's just let our relationship atrophy into a dried husk of a once plump and juicy friendship. Just like that snake-skin we found outside by the wood pile.

[The preceding was a public service announcement meant to nobody and everybody about nothing (not everything) regarding nothing (not everything). It wasn't meant with malice aforethought unless I change my mind and then it was. Oh, and in case you're really really dense this is just a funny blog post in my twisted and corrupt mind. But if you're that dense, you probably aren't reading this anyway which means I'm killing precious bits and bytes. I'm gonna stop now]

Too tired to care

2011-09-28T21:27:00.001-06:00

Oh long day. At work we had our first go live w/ SAP. It was for payroll and even though I'm not involved directly we had to do a lot of support. So, I finally got out of there around 7:30.

Rebekah is frustrated with the school setup that we have. It's k-12 which is free which is nice and has some accountability which is good, but they keep making it harder on mom's. It's getting more and more rigid. Now the boys are supposed to have a bunch of meetings which is a waste of time. I told Rebekah if it's not something we can avoid or work around we'll just have to do something else, which of course means more money which we don't have for curriculum. Man, it just keeps getting better. Oh, wait, no it doesn't. Oh, I was being sarcastic. I told you I was tired.

The kids are doing well though. Rebekah isn't quite as well off. She hurt her shoulder somehow, and it has been slow healing. I bought her a sling the other day but it's hard for her to stay immobile for long.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now.

The liberty and i

2011-09-17T09:57:00.002-06:00

last night I went outside to work on stacking some wood. I didn't have a lot left and didn't want to deal with kids so I figured I would just do it all myself. But then I looked behind me and saw liberty was trailing. I didn't think anything of it and went out and started putting little pieces of wood in a wheel barrow. As I was working I noticed Libby all on her own start picking up wood and putting it in the wheel barrow as well. I kept working and she kept working. When I started unloading she handed me the wood. When I gave her instructions she obeyed the first time. She was the perfect little helper. She got two pieces of mom's special chocolate as a reward. Where was serenity you ask? She was inside playing some educAtional game keeping the babies distracted. Where were the boys? Riding their bikes around outside. I wonder if all boys are lazy? I know I was and still am.

old man winter

2011-09-15T19:40:00.000-06:00

is on the way. But, why is it a man? After all, aren't women known for their frigidity? (psst I don't think that's a word.) Unfortunately, either way winter is coming and I am not ready yet. Rebekah and I spent a lot of time over the past month cutting up wood from various trees and branches as well as burning a massive brush pile. That was a little scary because there was so much brush that if it got away from us we could have very easily suffered a building meeting its untimely demise. We had the hose ready and tried to clear away burn lines so we could burn just a little bit at a time. Sounds good in theory, but the wind makes fools of us all... Well maybe just people trying to burn brush. Anyway, it was going nicely, but then the wind picked up and started to push our existing burn into another pile. That displeased me greatly so I desperately tried to wet it down but it was burning so fiercely that I decided that it was scary so I frantically sprayed it down until we finally got it way way down. And then the wind died. It was mocking me. Daring me. It knew that time was of the essence and I needed to burn the brush as fast as possible. But did I dare? Yes I did. I fooled it by burning the pile on the other side of the direction rate wind was blowing. That way I didn't have to worry about the fire encroaching on my turf. Needless to say, after a long day I emerged victorious. But we still have to get wood to burn, oil to burn, pellets to burn (I like to have options) a chimney to clean and repair and some wood to split. So, you can see why I prefer 100 degree days over winter.

the kids and family are doing good. Some mild sickness right now, but not too bad. School has started so of course my wife is ready to throttle somebody, but that's to be expected. I think that I just measure time in when something got broken. I finally fixed our burned countertop. That was damaged five years ago by someone that I will not name to protect the guilty. I replaced a section of our stupid cheap counter with a butcher block. But I can't keep up. Within the past week the kids have damaged 4 separate items. But I guess that's part of being a parent. I will send them an itemized bill later.

aacch!

2011-09-03T10:27:00.001-06:00

watching some stupid cartoon and the statue of liberty sounds like Rosie Perez. I'm typing this on rebekahs touchpad. A neat device but I will take a physical keyboard over virtual any day. The funny thing about the touchpad is that HP killed it and discounted it 66% and then it took off. Ironically,HP wanted to be the number2 tablet and in death the touchpad achieved their goal.

well, I just got back from Vegas. I had a conference there. I was surprised how cool I thought it was. I can't adequately describe it, but for a guy who doesn't indulge in the "sin" of "sin city" I thought it was pretty cool. Just don't take anything from the guys on the streets because they aren't tracts. But when I thought I couldn't be impressed any more I found something else cool. Have you ever ridden on a circular escalator before, thought not. Well, breakfast is calling so remember what happens in Vegas will haunt you the rest of your life.

2011-08-08T21:30:00.002-06:00

Titus stepped n a nail today. thankfully he was (at least) wearing sandals. Half the time the kids run around like indians w/out shoes. I think it's mostly just laziness on their part. But Titus stepped on the nail and squawked. I looked over and for awhile I thought he had just hurt his foot. But as I watched him he started really crying. That's when I figured out he had stepped on a nail. Then I was mad as I wondered where the nail came from and how I had missed and left a board around for the kids to step on. Then I got mad because I realized that Titus had been hammering nails into a board and he stepped on one of his. Needless to say, I'm not the parent you come to for sympathy. Of course, my Dad wasn't really sympathetic either. Although he probably was nicer than I am.

All I remember about our trip to Canada was that it was expensive, they didn't have free refills standard, and I felt more comfortable in Buffalo than in friendly Ontario. Oh, and their money is silly. I mean, pictures of kids playing hockey and sledding? Give me a break! But the kids actually traveled pretty well. Much better than I expected. Of course, that probably had something to do with the Nitrous Oxide we pumped through the vents (we wore gas masks).

I've been watching the Top Gear (UK) and it's very interesting. I find it amazing that we don't share so many words and phrases. Although I find it annoying to see how much resentment there is towards America on a show such as that. It's subtle but pervasive. I actually have seen far more negative comments about Americans than French which disappointed me. Cheese eating surrender monkeys are so much fun to mock. Considering they review more French vehicles than American it seems applicable. Oh well, it just reinforces my belief that all other countries have "USA Envy."

I need to go take a shower as I am still somewhat covered in sawdust. Toodles.

Oh Canada!

2011-06-29T09:50:00.003-06:00

Our home and and native land, something something something, something something something. Although I'm confused. I thought it was the "native american's" land. And if so, what are they doing in Canda for Zeus' sake? I mean, it seems a bit silly. Oh, I suppose you can argue that yes, it is North America but everybody knows that "America" is slang for USA. Try using it in some other fashion (even out of country) and I'll bet you have some confused people. Anyway, my summations are as follows after my brief exposure. 1. People are fairly nice. I mean compared to New Yorkers who I interacted with yesterday. But heck, everybody is nice compared to New Yorkers. I bet the Taliban are of a sweeter disposition than NY'ers. OK, maybe that's not super fair. I really only interacted with a few yelling at us where to park. They actually had people flagging us away from the park parking lot. I didn't realize that's what they were doing until later. I would've been highly irritated (slightly above my normal state) but they did save us $5 and we didn't have to walk that much farther. So, Arrogant New Yorkers: 1. But then Rebekah and I hunted down a Pita Gourmet so we could get some Gyros. The Chick taking our order was rude to everybody. Irritated Tourist: 1. But then, the guys making the food did an awesome job and went out of our way to be very considerate. So much so that I told the guy he was "awesome." I bet you don't get told that everyday by a stranger do you? So, all in all I like New York better.

Our trip has been enjoyable but expensive. Our hotel was a good deal and is nice. But prices at the Denny's next door are literally twice what we pay at home. So, we haven't been to Denny's yet. Add tip and taxes (about 20%) and most meals are around $40. thankfully, we've avoided most of the tourist traps, so our meals have been good. We did find free refills at a fast food joint and there was one family restaurant that was advertising free refills. It's amazing to me how much being able to drink four cups of coffee or three glasses of iced tea means to me when I can't have it.

We went over to the US side yesterday. That was interesting. The border guard asked specific questions which were polite but a little unnerving. I forgot our hotel's name for a minute, but Rebekah knew it. Coming back though was a little odder. The Canadian dude was very cool. Wanted to know why we went over the US side. all reasonable questions, just a little hostile. maybe he doesn't like americans. Wouldn't surprise me.

So, last day of away from kids vacation. gonna check out a cable car ride. Ideally, the cables are nice and sturdy. If not, I love you Mom and Dad. Have fun with the kids!

Moving right along

2011-06-18T20:39:00.002-06:00

Well, today didn't quite turn out the way I expected but it went well anyway. I had planned for something to break up the routine of the day but that fell through. So, I finished some cosmetic issues with the sink, watched a couple movies and then, finally, got to work on hooking up the swamp cooler. It was pretty easy to hook up the evaporative cooler to the thermostat. All I need to do now is figure out where to put the thermostat in the house. Since all I have to do is run one wire (with 4 small wires in that one) to a suitable location. I hadn't eaten much all day except for some cheetos in the morning (shhh. don't tell my Dad. that's one of his pet peeves :) but finally cooked up some corn dogs. That's the extent of my cooking. I have fish sticks but don't want to use the oven. Takes too long and that sucker has burned me before. So, now I"m sitting here kind of bleary eyed watching Glengary Glen Ross which is supposed to be fantastic. It's about real-estate. But I like to think that I can enjoy a thinking mans movie. Although I'm not sure how watching a bunch of cranky salesmen having a bad-luck streak is haute couture. Well, that's probably a misuse of a stupid French term, but you get the idea. Anywho, I guess things are still going well for Rebekah and the kids. Lots of fun. Cell service is not so good at the house. It's got a metal roof and the exterior is stone so that pretty much bounces all cell signals off. When i talked to her a bit ago she was outside sitting on the swing. Then her phone was running out of juice so she had to go. I'm starting to get suspicious. I guess the shoe is on the other foot a bit. Normally, she wants to talk to me but I'm at work and busy. Well, Church is tomorrow and unfortunately so is Father's day. I don't normally care or pay any attention to it, but apparently other people do. I guess that's all for now.

One week down (almost)

2011-06-17T23:33:00.002-06:00

Rebekah has been gone for almost a week. I am sitting here watching a movie after spending my third evening working on putting in a new (well, salvaged) sink It's finally done. I hope. Took me the better part of eight hours which sounds ridiculous. If you look at those DIY books they might say two hours. Well, let me tell you something. It might take you two hours if you know exactly where all your tools are. It might take you only two hours if you have a replacement sink that fits the existing hole perfectly (I didn't). It might take you only two hours if you didn't have to spend an hour chiselling caulk off. It might take you only two hours if the "new" sink wasn't tweaked and you didn't have to try to bend it, fit it, bend it, fit it, bend it, fit it, bend it, fit it, and then say "fugedaboutit" and call it good enuf. It might take you only two hours if you had all necessary sink lugs/clips and some idea on how to use them. It might take you two hours if you didn't keep dropping the sink clips. It might take you only two hours if you didn't have some clips that were straight drive and new clips that were phillips so you had to switch back and forth. It might take you only two hours if you didn't have... oh I give up. You get the idea.

This week hasn't been too bad. A bit lonely but I've kept busy with the sink project and life in general. I've stayed busy and work so between the two it hasn't been as bad as I expected. I don't miss the kids as much unless I actually see some wee ones on TV or something. I'm very good at being oblivous, so I am leveraging this expertise to the hilt. I think I have some entertainment plans tomorrow so after I verify the sink is good I'll tear into my swamp cooler. Our old one of probably 50 years or so finally could not be patched any more. So, I'm hooking up another one that someone gave us a few years ago. This wouldn't be a big deal, but I bought a thermostat for it on clearance and it's pretty sophisticated. It'll auto turn on and switch from cool to fan and it'll handle both speeds. So, it's pretty cool but it's a project for sure.

Somehow Rebekah made it to Michigan alive. I guess the kids did pretty well which is a major blessing. But because they did two crazy long days (not consecutive thankfully) she was really exhausted.

ok, well, that's my check in for now. I'm ready to pass out, so i'm gonna put the computer down before it falls on the floor.

Stress

2011-05-28T19:09:00.001-06:00

I feel myself growing older. Work has been very stressful and isn't showing any sign of letting up. Rebekah and the kids are leaving soon which I'm not very thrilled about. I think most husbands would be thrilled to have the house to themselves for two weeks. I've got lots of things to do that are frustrating to work on around kids, but I'm not sure which to focus on. Do I work upstairs on my bathroom project which has been largely on hold for the past two months? Or work on miscellaneous household items? Or this, or that? I'll figure something out. I spent the biggest chunk of today putting in a pulpit mic at church. Cutting holes in a $2000 pulpit makes me nervous. I also had to splice some pieces together, but I think the end result is quality and looks well. Doesn't work, but hey, it looks good. No, it works, but we need an off switch for the pulpit mic. didn't even think about that until Pastor mentioned it. Oh well, he just have to move it out of the way when he talks. The pulpit mic is for me and my glorious voice as I lead the congregation in singing. Without me, they would mill about like cats. Yes, I am the cat whisperer. Or herder. Or something. I'm quite tired right now and watching "Men who stare at Goats." Well, I'm more listening to it because it's hard to think creatively while watching a movie. Oh, and point of accuracy regarding this movie-if you're supposedly in Iraq and you steal an old pickup it will NOT be one of the big three. It will be a Nissan or some other product of Godzilla's home town NOT Motor City. Watch the news sometime. I'm right.

Will someone tell my wife to stop harassing me? I give up.

I vant to suck your bloood!

2011-05-13T22:22:00.001-06:00

Went to Dr. today for a variety of reasons. But, the fun part is always getting my blood sucked out. I should really ask for it back when they're done, but I have a hunch they'd give me a strange look and then say, "Are you kidding me?" At which point, I'd have to smile and say "Of course! nobody would seriously ask such a thing." All the while plotting their demise for making me feel stupid for wanting part of me back. While I was in the office today the Dr. was tapping on my face (don't ask) and I was thinking that my mom (when I was lil) my wife (when I was big) and my Dr. (lil and big) all get to invade that private space where I (we) normally scream out "No touchie!" But now, we can add the wonderful folks at the TSA. I am looking forward to flying in June.

Springtime. Sheesh. Rough spring. Winds so strong that I occasionally have to chase my kids down as they start blowing away. Today it was 80 degrees and people were complaining. I like hot. hot doesn't cost me money. cold costs me money. If you're hot take your clothes off. Close the curtains though, cause you don't want to have to register as a sex offender. Then if you're still hot, get an ice cube and rub it up and down between your WOOPS! Sorry, got a little carried away there. Too busy getting ready for stuff. sometimes my brain gets tired and wanders off where it shouldn't.

In about 4 weeks the fam is leaving for Michigan. God speed I say. I will be alone for two weeks and then I (hopefully) will fly to Detroit and meet Rebekah. Then we will go to Niagra falls via Canadia. What about the kids? We're boarding them. Why niagra falls? Cause. that's why. Will I be lonely while they're gone? Sure, but I can blast music loud. Watch movies loud. Whatever whatever loud. OH, and I have a class and a test to take while they're gone so I'm planning on cramming my brain full of tech knowledge that will be out of date within a couple months.

Oh, and I am doing a customer presentation at a local user group. There's only about 100 people there. I hope I'm not nervous. I have decided that the best way to not be nervous is to simply not give a flying rutabaga. Forget this preparation thing. I'll psych myself out if I do that.

I need to find a hobby. this life thing is burning me out.

stabby stabby

2011-04-14T19:08:00.001-06:00

So, there I was in Home Depot, and I'm going through Dexter withdrawals and I just had to see some blood and nobody else was in the aisle so, sigh, i was forced to go all stabby on myself. Not my prefered outlet, but much less prison time go I guess it was a win-win after all. In truth, I was trying to unscrew a setscrew from an ancient door-knob and the screw was, well, less than its self (translation: it was half broken). And of course, I was using my knife as a screwdriver which doesn't sound quite as stupid as you might think. Anywho, push came to shove and I pushed hard and shoved the knife right off the screw into the "meaty" part of my left hand. My first thought was "#!@." My second thought was "Dang, that blood is dark." My third thought was "Dang, I hope I don't faint." My fifth thought was, "What kind of wuss faints at a little blood?" My sixth thought was, "How'd I get down here?" Ok, not really. I didn't faint, but I did feel a little woozy as it was late in the day and I hadn't had lunch yet. So, tried to cup my hand to keep the blood from spilling and getting biohazard response from a bunch of orange-aproned dudes yelling "Swarm Swarm!" I scurried to the bathroom as casually as one can when one is scurrying while holding a handful of blood and burst into the mens room only to find NO PAPER TOWELS! Argh! They had those stupid commie hand dryers. That's great if I want to redecorate the bathroom in a red mist but my goal was containment, not spreading the crimson contagion. So, after spinning around wildly I go to a stall and quickly debate of trying to spin enough paper off those toilet paper misers or grab one of those sani-thingies for the toilet. I decide on the sani-thingy and use it to staunch the flow of blood. Then I wandered over to a nest of aprons and thankfully got a guy who wordless got my band-aid. And then, some women saw me. Thankfully, my tough exterior kept them from voicing their concern to a minimum. Although, as I was walking around later a woman asked me how my hand was. As far as I know I was able to capture all of it but for a couple drops which I cleaned up later. Then I gave up and went and bought a new door knob. So ended my adventure @ home depot.

3 little piggies

2011-03-29T22:12:00.001-06:00

I mean daughters. and in no way am i implying that they're pigs. Well, libby likes her Ramen but not a pig by any means. So, I am watching Dexter, ya know the show about the happy go lucky serial killer, Well, not happy go lucky but a serial killer with a heart. Well, not that either. Ok, well, all the judging aside on why I'm watching such a sick show (try it, I dare you) I was watching an episode and a guy (not Dexter) told his daughter that he wished she'd never been born. And wouldn't you know it, I found some emotions. Buried underneath some peanut shells (i was snacking earlier) I found something kind of shriveled and dried up. I think it's an emotion, not really sure. But I felt some weird pang when I picked it up. Not sure what it was for sure, but I suddenly felt a compelling need to go hug my daughters. So I went upstairs in the dark. I went in the girls room and I could hear Liberty and Serenity but then I felt some little creature near my feet grabbing at me. I leaned down (I can't see anything mind you) and felt around and found some hair and then a little face and then some arms. So I picked her up and then I could tell for sure it was a Trinity! Needless to say I then went and sat down on the bed and hugged and kissed all the girls until that first emotion thingy went away.

Tough Enough

2011-03-02T22:35:00.001-07:00

So, time seems to speed up as you get older. I just turned 35. I wish I didn't feel old, but I have ever since I turned 30. I started having problems with my wrists about that time so this marks the 5 year mark of wrist pain. I think it's tendinitis in the wrists w/ inflammation but all Dr.'s want to see is carpal tunnel even though the symptoms are wrong. Nobody once suggested tendinitis even though the symptoms fit. anyway, I just pray it doesn't get any worse.

Well, we got a new pastor for our church. Our last one, my brother in law, left about 6 months ago. Thankfully we had a guy to preach who is very good. The new guy is ex-USAF so he's got a pension which is a huge relief. We will still be tight on things financially @ the church though because we are losing one family. But, it's God's church and I just have to figure out how I fit into that properly.

Trinity burned herself today on our wood stove. Out of all the kids, she was the last I would've suspected. But, she backed into it and fell down. Her burn is pretty bad, but I came home from work and helped Rebekah put Vitamin E on it and it doesn't seem to be hurting her too much. She's such a sweety. She will just sit with me for what seems like hours. Forrest has said to me that I love her the most. No, I don't, although I may show her the most affection. But that's simply because she is the sweetest. "like" is relative and I like some of my kids more than others at different times. But I try to not favor one and if I have been spending more time with the girls and Clell. Titus is probably getting the short end, but to be honest he is more interested in watching TV than saying goodbye when I'm leaving. But that's ok, he's a kid. He's a good kid and he loves to help me do things. I caught him upstairs in the bathroom after light's out and he was "cleaning." So, I told him good job, pointed somethings out to him that he could work on and left him.

Several people have told me that this is the best time of my life. This may be true, but I've heard from other people that College was the best time of their life. I haven't had the best "time" of my life yet that I know of. I love my family, but Rebekah and I are beaten down with trying to take care of them, our old ancient house and property, our vehicles, friendships, and the the church. I really hope this isn't the best time of my life, but if it is then I'm grateful because although life is challenging I have never been so happy.

Why do today what you can do tomorrow?

2011-01-02T12:46:00.001-07:00

I've been pondering doing this for a long time now (over a year). I thought I'd do a blog post for each one of my siblings and how they'd each played a part in my life. It's a tricky thing to do because I don't like to go back and rehash many of these memories because, well, I'm a guy. But, I shall try and hopefully, even though this is in the ether it will live on somehow, somewhere after the zombie apocalypse.

Down with the sickness

2011-01-01T15:39:00.001-07:00

About every 3 years our whole family gets sick. This Christmas time we won the lottery of illness. The boys got sick first, I came down with a fever before Christmas but didn't get really sick until a few days after Christmas. Trin got sick somewhere between those two aforementioned times. She was so sick rebekah took her to doctor. Trin was dehydrated but they weren't much help other than to tell us that she didn't have anything they could help with. It was difficult because Trin wouldn't drink, eat, take medicine or sleep. One of us had to hold her all the time. It's hard to put into words how impressed I am with Rebekah during these times. She soldiers on with no complaining through these extremely arduous times. She asks virtually nothing of me if she can do it. Sometimes, but not often, I realize that she really needs help and I give it without asking. But because of how tough and capable she is when she does ask for help I try to never complain because I know she needs it.

It's the girl's birthday today. They are still young enough I would like to wait until we feel better but that's probably not the best attitude. the days blur together being sick. Dad always said that you wouldn't feel any worse getting up and doing stuff than you do lying in bed. Probably true. yesterday I forced myself to move an electrical outlet. I felt better then than I do now. I've just been lying in my chair watching zombie and post-apocalyptic tv. of course, that would make anybody feel sick right? Try eating pizza while watching a zombie flick? yech!

Our pump house froze sometime during the night. thankfully, it happened once before so I knew what to do to fix it. Rebekah and I went out and I climbed down into the where the sensor is for the pressure tank. it has a tiny little hose that needs to remain unfrozen. So, with some thawing of the line w/ a heat gun it finally turned the pump on again. We have a heater down there to help avoid such inconveniences, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't plug it in. It's been a hard winter so far, and I desperately want the bad parts to be over (heavy snow, below freezing temps). But I need to adjust my mindset.

well, this sicky is gonna go take a shower.

People say it gets easier

2010-12-07T21:41:00.001-07:00

It's getting worse. As the babies get more and more mobile, the stresses increase. Right now Liberty is quite literally screaming because Trinity won't stay in bed. Clell won't stay in his bed either, but he's in a room with Titus, so that's not as huge a deal. I take one step forward and two steps back on my bathroom project. Finish work eats me alive. I'm not skilled at it and it's so time consuming for me. Then, a little girl puts glue on one of my boards and sticks a painted board onto it. I don't notice so when I go to work with it I find that it takes the strength of a gorilla to pry it apart and some of board goes with it. I guess that's why they call it gorilla glue. Of course, my babies can rip the bezel off of my media center pc that is glued on with the same glue....

Sigh. some days are harder than others, that's for sure. Usually rebekah and I make a good team, but occasionally we both hit our limit. Mine is much lower than hers and gets hit on an almost daily basis, so I guess it's really more a factor of Rebekah hitting her limit at the same time I've hit mine. I'm not trying to complain about the situation, just document. Maybe I can guilt my kids into letting me live in their guest house when i'm old and infirm. I wonder if my kids will be rich when I'm 50? STOP LAUGHING.

Well, take care. And If you see us on the evening news, please don't say "they were such nice people. I never saw it coming."

I'm hurt

2010-11-19T20:45:00.001-07:00

not a single person called 911. I could still be stuck under there for all you know. I mean, don't you have a heart? <sigh>. Well, I made it out of the crawlspace. I was victorious. Almost 10 years of mediocre drainage were put to death by a swift (well, 2 hours) of determined plumbage. I tried to plan for all contingencies since it's so miserably hard to move around down there. I bought a couple different elbows and cut a couple different sizes of pipe to join in so I had 2 different heights and 2 different lengths. Well, 3 if you count the other elbow. Actually, I think I had more than that. let me think. Wow, that's actually a lot of combinations. I'm pretty smart. But when you're down under your house you have to live by your wits. Anywho, it was challenging to cut the pipe fitting off due to the cramped space but I managed it. I had to get kind of intimate with the main drain line but it was cool cause we had dinner first. After I cut the fitting off, I eyeballed it and yep, there was a bunch of gunk in there. But, when I tried to clean out the stub piece that went into the main drain I discovered that it was pretty much totally gummed up. I had to have one of my boys bring me a drill and use that to power through. There was definitely some rust, but after some drilling, jabbing, swearing, and poking I got it cleaned out. I then put the new fitting in and use the fernco couplers to get it all nice and snug. Was a little bit looser than I liked, but I reefed on it until it seemed nice and tight. Rebekah ran the water and no leak! wow. I topped off my final (i hope) excursion by putting a little sensor by the mainline to detect any water leaks. Kind of neat and for only $10 at home depot I think it's a good idea. The main line has a patch on it and it's seeping a tiny amount. At least this way if it gets worse I should find out before the house floats away.

Fat bottomed girls...

2010-11-06T10:36:00.002-06:00

...you make the rockin' world go round. Inappropriate? Yes. Offensive? Possibly. Funny? Absolutely. I mention this because Rebekah woke me up this morning by bringing Trin in to see me and for some reason I turned on the radio. Maybe to see her dance a little. maybe to wake me up. Not really sure. Don't really care. But there I was playing with Trin (and baby Clell made an appearance too) and the song "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen came on the radio. Needless to say this song has given me much amusement over the years and has provided an auspicious start to a day when I have much to do and little sleep on which to do it. I went and played a couple board games with some guys last night which might seem a little lame but is actually quite fun. The most unique game involved cars and violence. The goal was to score the most points in the bloodiest and most appalling way possible. Hitting organic speed bumps (ahem, pedestrians) was first and foremost on everybody's mind. Of course, they're slippery little buggers so it's easier said than done. And what would a violent game be without the opportunity to shoot your fellow players (or flame throw, or land mine, or ram) and wipe-out as you head around turns? Of course, it's modeled on real life where when you crash you get to start over after giving up an accessory card, and taking a minus to your points. I will tell you this, it was a lot more fun driving home later. Unfortunately, somebody must have been through ahead of me because I couldn't find any moving speed bumps to hit. . Last place in life AND in the game.

There I was...

2010-10-28T19:33:00.002-06:00

...holding my jigsaw with pumpkin guts all over me and the saw. My memory was fuzzy. I looked down and in horror saw 4 dead pumpkins. The oldest was obviously a victim of my saw but what about the others? What happened? I started to think back...

It was a brisk autumn day and I decided that I was going to somewhat celebrate the pagan holiday of all pagan holidays-Halloween. But, knowing that i was far too lazy to wander around in the dark w/ my kids I decided to start small and just get some pumpkins. I rushed home from work and picked up my two boys who eagerly had been asking about halloween even though we've never done anything before. We made the quick trip over to the produce stand (on steroids) and proceeded to wander around in the cold not knowing what to do. I prefer my food to be dead, cooked and on my plate. This was a new experience. Finally I asked someone about pumpkins. After giving me a stare usually reserved for dudes and deadbeats, she gave me the low down. If we wanted to, we could take a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and get sweet, juciy, ripe, and beautiful pumpkins there or we could look at a pile of mangy cast-offs. I chose the castoffs. I let the boys pick their pumpkins (of course I had veto power) and then I picked a couple baby ones for the girls. When we got home we started the messy business. I started Titus off first and while he was disemboweling his, I did the two girls baby 'kins. Typical girls. did not want to get their hands dirty. Finally, I got to Forrest's 'kin. I thought it odd that his had a different texture but didn't pay much attention until later. I tried using the same knives on his pumpkin only to bend them. Finally I had a hole in it but cutting was a nightmare. I alternated between a serrated knife and my gerber multi-tool saw blade. Talk about frustrating. Finally, I decided that the risk of slipping and cutting a nearby observer was too great and I went and got a bigger hammer. Figuratively that is. Literally, I got a saw. I came back to the table with a gleam in my eye and a fresh battery. I got the blade in and started cutting. It was beautiful. It was like a knife through butter. Not hot, but not cold. maybe about 60 degrees or so. room temperature if you like it cold or are trying to preserve a body and throw off the time of death for the medical examiner. But I digress. I was careful and finally got the top of the 'kin. And there I found the reason why it was so hard to cut... it was made of gold! Yes it was, wait, no. Well, it turns out it was just really thick-skinned. I'd say it was at least 1/8" thick. probably more but i'm not very good at the maths. less than 1/4 but more than an 1/8. 3/16? maybe? Anyway, everybody was happy. except the pumpkins

I'm not sure using a saw counts as carving

2010-10-26T22:10:00.001-06:00

Sigh. somehow I wiped out my blog post. needless to say, using a saber saw on a pumpkin makes for great fun. if anyone cares to hear the whole story, comment and I'll write it up again. Otherwise, just content yourself with knowing that I have pumpkin guts on my saw.

It's so quiet

2010-10-17T19:15:00.001-06:00

with only two kids around. I don't feel well (flu-ish) and stayed home and kept Trin and Titus. Trin is so mellow that for the first hour she just sat with me or wandered around. Now that Titus is inside he's playing with her, too roughly, it's a bit louder but still much quieter than all 6.

Last week we received a generous gift from somebody anonymously. Well, the week before last week. So, last-er week I guess. Anywho, this gift was extremely timely as I had planned some very specific things for Rebekah's birthday But our bank account went dry which was going to seriously dampen my enthusiasm for spending money. Money isn't important to me until I don't have enough to pay my bills and meet my needs then it's very important. So, the money came in and we were able to get somebody to babysit all day. We were gone from 9ish until 7 that night! Pretty wild huh? So we left our 6 urchins with supergirl Hannah and went to the big city of Boise. After a marvelous fast food breakfast, we then hit the mall in Nampa. I like that mall better. Smaller, less crowded. Even has some guy stores (translation: no clothes). After rebekah came down from her shopping high we went to goodwill. She got some random stuff there but I found a cool home-made bookshelf for $13! It fit our house perfectly. Rustic, yet sophisticated. Ok, not really. It was a neat design but done by an amateur. Probably some kids shop project. But even with some rough edges, I "fell in love" with it. No. No, I didn't. But I did want it. So, I crammed it in the suburban. Next up on the day of fun was lunch at the Brazilian restaurant Tucanos. Now, I'm not big on ethnic food but the way they do it is very cool. First you pay them lots of money. Then you can eat what you want off the salad "festival" and then they bring meat and stuff around to your table. It was in a rotation, so you feel a little frustrated at first since you want your food and you want it now, but be patient and they bring some pretty groovy things around. Rebekah was even brave enough to eat a marinated chicken heart! Sheesh. After eating leisurely we left before we were stuffed (imagine that!) and journeyed to the Outlet mall. It was a bit pruned down since we had been there last, but more stores for the little woman at least. I suggested we stop in the Levi's store and that was a mistake. The chick there started trying to "help" us and rebekah threw me to the wolves. I didn't want her help. I was 15 feet away facing away from her and she tries to talk to me. Doesn't she know how this works? Talk to the female companion of the male shopper. She is the intermediary. I don't talk to chicks about clothes unless I know them. Just another example of the moral decay of America I guess <sigh>.

Anyway, things were good and the money was great and now I feel kind of rotten and I have been having headaches. I'm going to go read a book if I can. Thanks for reading, and remember Keep Smiling!

Clubbing

2010-10-05T21:38:00.001-06:00

I always want to start my blogs with something about clubbing. I'm not sure why, but it's probably because my parents didn't love me enough or they didn't get me the GI Joe w/ the Kung Fu grip or something. Either way, whatever sanity I have sometimes doesn't seem quite enough. God seems to provide (if you're a heathen then I guess insert an empty space where I wrote God) what I need but it's pretty darn close sometimes. The boys have been doing better because we've been keeping a daily accounting of their behavior. If they've been bad they end up w/ a "frowny face" and their reward/punishment is bare bottom spanking. Thankfully, that's been pretty rare because we give them a reality check when I get home. Then they get the opportunity to turn it around but the best they can do for the whole day is and OK. Basically, I define that as "Kids are not small adults, and therefore they will make mistakes and I will not crush their spirits too much." A "smiley-face" is "I about passed out because when I came home my wife wasn't in hysterics and screaming "Why did you do this to me!?!" and I am able to enter the home and go to bed at night w/out almost having a heart attack. Also, you probably did something without being asked and did a good job. Oh, and you ran and got me water whenever I asked for it."

A frowny face on the other hand is much much grimmer. It consists of the aforementioned hysterical wife with details such as "he said i hate you." or lying and bullying the girls or wanton destruction or some such evil that is wicked (as were we all once) children. I worked with Forrest on proper nouns. Ok, forget all the complicated stuff. Proper nouns are nouns that are always capitalized. Get that, then work on what makes them special. I don't do much w/ helping schoooling (yes an extra o for the extra work) but Forrest was working on greater than/less than. Ya know < & >? I remember being confused on those. I swear I was in sixth grade. What the heck? why was I doing that in sixth grade. I gotta be wrong on that one. Anyway, I finally figured it out so I told forrest to picture the symbol < as pacman eating the bigger number. I drew a partial circle (come on, you can picture it) and threw on some eyeballs. I even added teeth. That seemed to help him a lot and it made it more fun to boot.

Anyway, something is always going on here. Rebekah and I are currently in tense negotiations over Turkey Day. Plans changed since her lazy sister moved away. Right now i'm looking at a multiple-hundred $ expense to drive to Colorado. I will stop now before I get in too much trouble. Rebekah gets these blogs. She's shopping right now while I sit here like a zombie. Granted, a zombie with higher brain function, but still a zombie.

We are also looking at refinancing our house. I'm a little frustrated over homeowners insurance of all things because our house is old. Hopefully we can put that to bed soon. I've committed to an appraisal though so if things go belly up now, i'm on the hook for $500. If not, it'll get rolled into the loan (i think). <groan!> See why driving to Colorado stresses me out? Not to mention the 6 small children and an over ten hour drive. Sanity, I'll see you on the flipside :)

Threats, lies and deceit

2010-09-30T18:56:00.002-06:00

another day parenting. I think we do most of the threats with the kids doing the latter two. Some days I worry that we're going to be on nationwide news and not for good sweetness and light reasons. But, I have learned that most parents feel exasperated (that's an understatement) at one time or another. I deal with most of the stress by plugging my ears and yelling "nuh nuh nuh nuh" at the top of my lungs. That's is a small exaggeration. Like lilliputin small. or maybe even only dust mite small. sigh. My poor wife. Can you imagine what she has to go through every day? If we had really docile well behaved children (don't laugh, I think I've seen some demo units before) then it would still be just this side of insane. But no, our kids are typical hellions that hit each other with sticks and get stuff out of the trash and basically behave like drunken frat boys. The girls wouldn't be so bad, but there's two of them and the boys corrupt their sugar and spice into snips and snails. When I was a boy I was offended by that little poem, now I get it and agree with it. I love my boys and they are good kids but the combination of a small house with so many young kids and my wife trying to home school is, to put it bluntly, a nervous breakdown cocktail. I told Rebekah we need to form little bubbles of order amidst the chaos. partition the house. maybe make a DMZ with land mines so she can teach without being pestered. I'm considering all options. Your prayers would be much much coveted. BTW, coveted can be good as well as bad. I mean, you don't have to covet your neighbors wife. Instead, try coveting a nice bell pepper. It's better for you and there's no guilt!

your slightly insane friend,

Grant.

Moving on up

2010-09-20T21:46:00.002-06:00

Or something. I just completed the last step to adding a toilet upstairs. Granted there's a lot of finish work left, but a major step has been completed. Of course, tomorrow I'll get a phone call with more screaming than normal and come home to a house reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. Yes, it's a proud day in this ballard household. Now, if you'll excuse me I must finish watching a show about a serial killer trained to use his craft to right wrongs (not wongs.)

SOS

2010-09-12T20:49:00.001-06:00

Save our Sanity... Please. I don't know what else to say.

The San Francisco Chronicles

2010-09-04T21:19:00.002-06:00

I'm trying to write this blog while watching a movie with copious senseless violence. It's appropriate because my brain is pudding, or maybe oatmeal. I've been working upstairs all day, but I'll get to that in a bit.

So, I left a week ago to go to San Fran for a convention for VMware. Packed. 17,000 people. Too many people. The classes were packed out unless you go to them an hour early. Getting in line for an hour before for an hour class is not my idea of fun. But I finally figured out a good way to navigate the wilderness successfully to make the most of my time. Unfortunately, I got some bad blisters and by Wednesday they were seriously painful. I thought at college I had done a lot of walking, but this took the cake. I made it up to the warf w/ my boss and we ate at a couple places up there. I bought some souvenirs and promptly left one of them when I sat down waiting for my boss to wander back. Stupid blisters. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have put my stuff down. Grrr. Anyway, I never made it to the Castro district (hehe) or anything interesting. But that's cool, because I'm not really impressed by people, or culture, or anything much. I did read a couple local publications while I was there and I surprised that they were well written and not crazy liberal. It really confused me. I guess since everybody is so liberal there anyway, they don't have to use propaganda as much? Who knows. Anyway, it was fun seeing the kids when I came back. When Trinity first saw me she got this really weird look on her face. Almost like she was going to cry. It was quite touching.

So, I've been working on the bathroom project. Estimated time of completion is 2013. But I'm making good progress. I've figured out PEX and run supply lines (mostly). But before I can actually put a toilet in I have to fix the slope on the floor. So, I'm taking up the flooring and putting in sister Joists so I can put the flooring back down and make it level. Well, when I took up the carpet and 70 year old linoleum I found tongue and groove wood and I hated to just destroy it. Thus, I am trying to remove it and reuse it which makes the job much much harder. But, i'm semi-optimistic that it won't be a complete disaster and I hope to have a big chunk done before work tuesday.

well, i'd better go. Baby Clell is up and coming for me.

bend, dont' break

2010-08-30T21:39:00.002-06:00

Or break for all I freakin' care. It's odd how some things stress me out. Although I hate traveling, it doesn't stress me out too much. Thankfully this trip to San Fran was a direct flight and I had a friend going with me. We got in mid afternoon on Sunday and I took my first mass transit train ride. It was freakin' LOUD. I am definitely going to write Ms. Pelosi when I get back. Nobody's tried to mug me yet, but there's still time. A fair number of homeless guys out there panhandling. I wonder if they take credit cards? The conference so far has been less than I'd hoped for but meeting good people and making good connections so it's cool. One of our classes had an ethnic individual that I had no idea what he was saying. The Indian dude before him sounded like a native English speaker comparatively (and yes, I know the official language of India is English. so What!). I brought a webcam so I could say hi to the kids, but I've been so busy by the time I get ready everybody is in bed.

Rebekah told me some news from home today. Makese me want to stay here. Liberty got pushed off of a ledge by our stairway and hit her face. Blood but apparently she's still alive since Rebekah didn't say anything about coming home immediately. Also, Titus put his body through a window of our storm door. Cuts but nothing major. Good, because I need to kill him. (note to Department of Health and Welfare. This is a joke and nothing bad will happen to the boy because of this. His Dad might snap and curl up in a fetal position and cry for a few hours, but that's cool because he's over 18).

Well, I better get back on twitter and see what's happening. I'm starting to figure out why it's so cool. Real time info better than cable news.

The horn blows at midnight

2010-08-20T20:31:00.001-06:00

Well, Rebekah's Grandma sent us some money for Forrest's birthday to use for the whole family so my excuse for not going to the zoo is shot. Going anywhere with 6 kids is difficult at best and my enthusiasm is always very low and I'm kind of lazy so hence my reluctance to go. Oh, and I'm cheap. don't forget that. But my plumbing project is in a mild lull as the parts and pieces i ordered won't be here until next week. I'm spending too much money. Nothing really expensive but it all adds up. I've got the drain lines to the upstairs and I've started putting supply lines in using Pex. Basically, Pex is some sort of plastic-ish tubing that is somewhat flexibile and it's pretty cheap. Copper costs 4 to 6x as much. But, nothing is ever simple and there are different types of ways to do pex and so it can get confusing. I think I picked a good balance between cheap and easy. Anyway, I'm learning stuff. Today at work I plumbed an ice-maker for a refrigerator with a little help with some friends. One of those things that amazes me. I've never been very good at stuff like this, but necessity is a great motivator. Oddly enough though, pride is the biggest reason I'm trying to do so much myself. Of course, I don't have the money to pay somebody either so it works well. Since my Dad did most everything himself (and still does) I try to tackle as much as I can too. I understand better why my Dad got so frustrated at some household issues though. Some things get old. Since my main drain vent is plugged that explains (probably) why our bathroom sink has such trouble. But it's an old farm house. It has character. Much like a third-world country.

Sooo much stress

2010-07-25T20:29:00.001-06:00

Well, I wrote a post about what was on my mind but with my luck even though heavily sanitized I would've ended up saying something wrong so I deleted it. Them;s the breaks I guess.

Life is stressful as always although a bit more than normal. Won't bore you with why, but if you're of the praying mind then see if you can get something to not bounce off the ceiling for me, mmmh-kay?

We had our big maple tree trimmed a little over a week ago. Between those huge branches and some Poplars that were dead we have a bunch more wood for winter. Of course, I have no more room on my property to store branches. I can't burn the ones I have or I'll lose my carport, my woodpile and my shop. Yesterday I raked branches (yes, there were that many) into a pile in the driveway and burned them. Fire is cool. I like fire. But it's scary too. The local Wendy's burned down due to a careless attempt to thaw some AC pipes. Yep, no more square hamburgers for me.

In other news, my plumbing project is creeping along. I made the mistake of buying some professional plumbing books that were highly rated on Amazon. Now I know all the things I was doing wrong, or rather, not as right as I could be. Gentle Bends, my friend, Gentle Bends. No, that's not a bear! That's Ben, not Bends. Sheesh. I also think I'm going to invest in plumbing supply companies cause their margins have to huuuge! A two foot piece of ABS (4") cost $10!! But, I have the pipe in my closet where I need to drill a hole to run it to the second floor where it shall be its home. I figure I need about another $150 in pipe and fittings just for the drain line. But in different yet related news, while I was reading my expert/pro plumbing I got to thinking that maybe my main drain vent was plugged up. So, yesterday I climbed on the roof with my snake and found that it only went down 15 feet and no amount of pushing or prodding would make it go farther. Well, I think that explains at least part of the problem with our drain that we've had for years. Now, how do I fix it? I guess I'll just try some things. This is technically known as "winging it" and I practice it with great aplomb.

I've figured it out

2010-07-05T19:42:00.001-06:00

For those of you who didn't know, the reason remodels are so costly is because you have the time and expense of the whatever, plus you have the time to move stuff that's in the way. Then you have to move it somewhere else which requires more time and expense. Then you have to destroy somewhat serviceable walls and floors to run pieces through. Then you run stuff through them. Then you spend more time and money fixing them. etc. etc. etc. Yep, good times.

The day after

2010-07-05T09:45:00.001-06:00

Before I forget, I face dialed someone the other day. In case you're confused, face-dialing is an arcane art praticed by budhist monks in outer mongolia and jedi knights (pre-clone wars only). It is similar to pocket dialing but has the added twist of using the face/cheek while on the phone with one's father. It is extremely dangerous and I admonish you to not try it at home lest you invoke a golbal thermonuculear detonation. You have been warned.

Moving on... So, been doing more digging and I'm hoping my communion with the backyard soil is near an end. I have run pipe as of this weekend from the drain line into the basement. Just a trial run mind you. I'm not brave enough to glue it yet. But I've now had a couple nights to think and regret and nothing has come to mind so I think I'll try it. It'll all end in tears I know, but I have to try.

The fourth was interesting. We spent most of the day @ church because we had a monring service, lunch, then afternoon service. Looong day. Of course, then we had to do some fireworks ourselves but it doesn't get dark until 10 or so. Man was it hard keeping the kids behaving until then. And the boys were so excited it was really hard to keep them in line. That combined with the fact that where we had decided to set them off (i wasn't consulted and was too lazy to make people move) was below a tree that is dying. Man, was I scared that something would land in it and we'd have a 4th that we'd never forget.

well, I'm going to reboot my ubuntu now. first linux OS that I've ever used that is easier in most ways than windows. but they have mac envy.

Dirt was never so much fun

2010-06-18T19:39:00.001-06:00

Some parents take their kids to disneyland or on a cruise. zor <gasp> a world cup game! (man, that would be child abuse in my mind). But few let their offspring dig ditches for a family event. Yes, well, I like to have my kids earn their keep. It has the added bonus of tiring them out so much that they fall fast asleep quickly. Unfortunately, sometimes they fall asleep on their shovels whilst still still on the job. Then I have to cut their food rations as punishment. Sad, but necessary.

Ok, give me a break. Have you ever tried to dig a ditch with two 3 year old girls, one five year old boy, and one six year old boy?? it's chaos! First you have to try to find shovels for everybody and then you have to keep the oldest boy from splitting the girls'' skulls open as he shovels. Then you have to show one girl how to use a garden spade while the other girl fills in the hole that you're digging. And while all this is while your other boy is digging up the grass where you don't need it dug up. Let's just say I was relieved when they had to go inside for dinner.

tomorrow we have a father/son firearm extravaganza @ the Sherrif's dept. shooting range here in Payette. Pretty cool. Bring your guns, bring your ammo, and prepare to expend some rounds. I swear I can see a quarter instead of a round fire out of my .357 every time I shoot it. Maybe that's because the last time I bought ammo for it that's how much it cost. Well, hopefully nobody shoots anybody else. But if it happens, I'm sure it'll just be a flesh wound ;)

Odds and ends

2010-06-13T20:58:00.001-06:00

I put up a tire swing the other day. I had been promising the kids I'd do it for about a year but kept forgetting (just kidding, I just didn't want to do it). So, I had the tire (a white-wall no less) but no rope. Something kept tickling the back of my brain. After I killed the spider I remembered that I saw a tow cable in my truck. Since I haven't had to tow anybody (in the past ten years) I decided that my kids (and my sanity) would appreciate using it for a greater cause. I climbed up in a tree right when we as a family had to go somewhere and while my kids were screaming at me, I looped it around a branch. Rebekah came out to hear the screaming, saw me in the tree, and proceded to continue getting ready to leave. It has worked out pretty well, although the nylon has stretched a couple times so I've had to adjust it. The sun will destroy it soon I'm sure as it does with all things plastic, but I figure a couple foot drop isn't too big a deal.

My Dad was here this weekend and we spent most of friday figuring out plumbing issues. He gave me a lot of good ideas and it was gratifying to talk to him and actually have some good ideas already. I think now I am ready to start working. I'm hoping to get the plumbing and a toilet in before the year is out. Seems pretty low expectations to some, but with a full time job and various obligations plus 6 kids I think that's a realistic goal.

In other news, I'm hungry and I am going to eat a sandwich.

Anniversary fun

2010-06-01T21:56:00.001-06:00

three interesting things today.

1. Trinity was so excited when she saw me today that she waved at me. The first wave she's ever done. very cute.

2. The whole family went off-roading (I actually used 4-lo) and enjoyed it. Although, the last hill we went up had Rebekah freaked out a bit. I was a little afraid we might get stuck but Titus really enjoyed it and was kind of making fun of Mom for shutting her eyes.

3. baby Clell was trying to stand on his head for us and just waved goodnight to me as well. He always is at his most goofy when we get him up after his normal bedtime for some reason.

That is all.

Go fly a kite will ya?

2010-05-29T19:00:00.001-06:00

I did some minor repairs on our little picket fence. when i was done i took the boys and we went and flew the dragon kite we bought when the girls were babies. That seems pretty simple, right? Well, it wasn't too hard. I had to fight off the boys cause they were so excited. I was going to fly it over my neighbors field, but since he had just planted some crops I figured he wouldn't appreciate us tromping around. So, we meandered over to the middle school which is close to our house, Titus got pretty tired when I couldn't get the kite to achieve the flight to my satisfaction, so he wandered around playing in a dry irrigation ditch. I made Forrest help me most of the time. After a bit I finally got the kite up pretty far and Titus got to hang onto it. He was able to fly it for a bit before the wind failed us and it returned to earth. Forrest didn't get quite as long of flights but he was able to fly it more on his own. He even managed to keep it from crashing once. All told I was pretty impressed and the boys had fun. I hate to say it but I even enjoyed it a bit. Now if I could figure out some way to put a wireless webcam on there, that would be cool.

My wrists are suffering from overwork. We've had too many outages at work that required long hours, so they are hurting me pretty bad. I can't complain too much since it's been over a year since my last major flare-up. I just have to be really careful with them for about a month.

In other more boring news, i'm close to deleting my facebook account. I guess my anti-social tendancies are flaring up too.

good news and bad news

2010-05-21T21:58:00.001-06:00

What are hills without valleys huh? We managed to pay off some significant debts with our tax return as well as put some into savings for wood purchases, furnace oil, etc. Unfortunately, we had some expenses unplanned for and so my funds for working on a new bathroom are non-existent. But due to my willful ignorance of our financial state combined with Rebekah's difficulty in keeping me in the loop I have taken over the management. So, at least now if we don't have money I know about it. Of course, Rebekah was kind enough to do the finances before because they stressed me out so much. Hopefully, I've matured a little bit and I can manage to be a little more mature about it.

Titus was working on something tonight and I guess he was using my tools to put some "signs" up. Normally, I wouldn't approve of a child hammering nails into my trim but the piece he was "working" on was so beat up that I decided it couldn't look any worse. After that he took a hammer and and pencil and paper and sat at the table deep in thought. Sometime later he went and got a plastic sack and went around the house picking up toys. Without being asked. Very sweet. He frequently asks when we're going to go visit Grandpa too. We need to make a trip that way, but just for gasoline we're talking $70. Tack on some meals and stuff and it's at least $100. <sigh>

Sigh...

2010-05-10T19:49:00.001-06:00

Ever have one of those days when it seems like the only thing that will quench your anger is the spilling of blood? Sometimes I don't understand myself. I just had to apologize to my oldest because he moved a cup full of juice to the wrong table and baby Clell spilled it all over. I think on days like this I need to just withdraw from human interaction to minimize the collateral damage. Speaking of which, Forrest knows what collateral damage is. I bet not too many kids his age do.

Forrest is being home schooled with public school curiculum via k-12. It has been working well because there is a plan and accountability. It works well, because we can ignore some of the secular humanist teachings while still educating the child. Forrest graduated Kingergarten early and was promoted to first grade. The nice thing is that if he's doing well in one area he can go as fast as he wants. But so far he hasn't had any issues so he's working on first grade math and phonics. Rebekah is planning on going over things with him all summer. So, I am pleased. Titus has different strengths and weakness so he'll probably be a bit tougher, but I'm sure he'll do fine too. He'll start up in September. Rebekah is working with Titus and the girls, but oddly enough Serenity knows almost the whole alphabet which is more than either Titus or Liberty. Shows like Word World on PBS help as well.

I think it's interesting how many experiences in my life were invaluable, and others were detrimental. My public school experience had such hugely negative impressions on me due to my classmates that in this day and age it's difficult to seriously consider putting my kids into a school system where teenagers decide they're lesbians and environmental propogranda is the rule of the day. That being said, I don't look down on parents that do use the public school system. Anyway, I am right and you are wrong. And if you don't agree with that statement then you just proved my point.

You are getting very sleepy

2010-05-08T20:59:00.001-06:00

Oh wait, I am getting sleepy. I have no idea if you're sleepy or not. But, I'd guess if you have kids then you are. Today I spent some time working on building a Windows Home Server for my brother. It seems like whenever I try to help someone it gets more complicated and takes more time. Oh well, I usually learn something in the process.I did other miscellaneous things. We have a bad goathead infestation so we've been working hard on that. I've sprayed all the weeds twice and today rebekah and I pulled a whole bunch out of the lawn.

Today was an eventful day for Titus. Rebekah took his training wheels off and the timing was good because he's grown enough that in a few short hours he's gotten the hang of it. Not quite as good as Forrest, but he did really well considering how many times he crashed. We had a little girls bike that I fixed up for him because he was getting frustrated with his But after he rode it for a little bit, I think he decided his wasn't so bad. Now Forrest is riding the little bike and Titus is back on his bigger bike. The boys enjoy playing outside a lot more now that we've greatly restricted their other entertainment outlets. A few minutes ago, Rebekah said that they were trying to put my big aluminum ladder up against the tree so they could climb it. And they have hassled me all week to take a walk. So we finally went for one today. We can walk about behind our house down a field to the middle school. Not much there but lots of room to run. I think the boys will sleep well tonight :)

i need to get back to work on my bathroom renovation project but there's so many outside things dragging my attention away now. I've got 3 trees that I need to cut down. Hopefully, when my dad visits he can help me. I also probably need to try to climb up and limb some branches. But, that's a big and dangerous job. I'm lacking motivation to do much because they're all just "work" and not projects. Well, I'm too groggy to be clever and just want to watch some streaming TV about a vampire with a soul named Angel. In case you're curious, that show was created by the same person that created the show Firefly and Serenity.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Day 2

2010-04-27T11:32:00.001-06:00

Due to Forrest's mouthy attitude and disrespect to his mother, we have implemented a child-wide ban on watching TV, playing computer games, or playing the Wii. This was Rebekah's idea, and I am supportive. To be honest, I wouldn't have gone this extreme but I don't like my kids being entertained too much. Not sure why, as I did it as much as my Dad would let me get away with. But, I must say that so far, so good. It is only day two, so we'll see. I think we need to go at least a week, but Forrest's attitude will determine how much more than that it goes. We may keep it largely in affect, or much more tightly regulate these things from now on. I'm not sure. But I stayed home today (vacation) because I couldn't get to sleep last night due to some various things. We have a goathead infestation on our property. I didn't realize how fast that stuff moves. It's hit the edge of our lawn and on close examination we have two feet of the edge of our lawn hosting those nasty things. I used all my herbicide yesterday and starting ho-ing (not the female kind, but the garden utensil kind). I'm gonna send Rebekah in town to D&B to round up some more. Until them, I'm trying to motivate myself to start focusing on working on our house again. The past couple windstorms have ripped a bunch of shingles off. Scary places too. Hope I don't fall off when try to fix them.

7 Days later (actually, closer to 8)

2010-04-24T11:05:00.003-06:00

This is meant to be a follow-up post about our car purchase, but a lot has happened this week so bear with me. Sunday was our first run with the "burb" and it went well. There are some considerations to factor in loading/unloading but we were pleased. By the way, if this post seems a little scatter brained, it's because I'm typing it while being swarmed by four little ones demanding graham crackers. Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

My follow-up to my car buying experience is largely unchanged. This is good. Occasionally there is euphoria that wears off after a bit of a reality check. Well, I was very happy to have purchased a vehicle that met our needs so certain things were largely ignored. Mileage, certain vehicle features, etc. I have to say though that although our Durango was a nicer trim level, there isn't much that I preferred over the burb. In fact, things like the ride, exhaust/engine sound, dual zone AC in the front, make the burb nicer than I expected. Most importantly I haven't found anything odd like replacement doors or anything to indicate that it'd been in a crash. Of course, I wasn't expecting to find anything like that since I had asked for a carfax first. Always ask for a carfax before buying a car. If the dealership won't give you one go somewhere else. Hometown didn't offer me one, but when I asked it was no big deal and I had it a few minutes later. So, how does this story end? Well, for most people it would be over. For us, we still have to see if they have a spare burb key and I need to give them our spare Durango key. That sucker is expensive so whoever buys it will appreciate having a spare. So, in conclusion, if you're in the market for a new car, do your homework and know the value on what you have and what you want to buy, find a good salesman like Mike Brufffet, find a good dealership like Steve's Hometown in Weiser, and probably most importantly, follow your gut. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to have a good car-buying experience.

One last comment: I didn't go through their financing people as I wanted to use my credit union. I have been a member of Capital Educators Federal Credit Union since I was a kid. My Dad --a teacher-- used to have a guy come up once a year and sign kids up. In that many years, there have been a couple of mistakes made when I've done business with them, but the great thing about these guys is the level of service they provide. Anytime anything went wrong, they were obsessed with making things right and what more can you ask for? Happily though, this last experience was flawless as Cecile @ the Kuna branch worked on my loan. The service was prompt and friendly and I got a great rate. So, if you're not happy with your financial institution, I would strongly recommend these guys. They have really been branching out (hehehe. what a great pun) and so it's pretty convenient. I do wish they'd get one over in payette county though, but since they are in the credit union co-op, I can use one of the other local credit unions to get cash out.

Now for something completely different...

2010-04-16T21:11:00.002-06:00

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for a brief jaunt into where many fear to dread... buying a new car! Ok, it's used. But you still gotta deal with normally unpleasant things such as car salesmen, haggling, more hagggling, walking away, crying wives, crying children, kicked dogs, emasculation, and broken bank accounts. My first experience trying to buy a car about a year ago ended in tears, well actually laughter, as I was offered $6500 on my Durango when I owed $17,000. So, needless to say I was dreading this but we just couldn't put off the purchase any longer. After a few weeks of research we settled on a Suburban and found one at Hometown Motors in Weiser. (Here's a link to the vehicle, but it will be gone from the site soon). I was cautiously optimistic because my Dad had purchased his pickup from there a few years ago and he had a relatively pleasant experience from what I could remember.

After much hemming and hawing, we decided to go ahead with "trying" to purchase it. Part of me was dreading this so much that I partially hoped somebody else would buy it before we were ready. After taking care of some housekeeping, we finally got approval from our Credit Union (Capital Educators FCU) this morning for a 3.9% interest rate. So, my wife called the salesman we had been working with and let him know I'd come up about noon. So, I trudged up there with my shiny durango to see if we could work a deal. Mike met me as I pulled in. I was ready to fend off the various tricks. I had super-glued my keys to my hand so they couldn't hijack my vehicle like another other dealer had (ok, I didn't really. But I wouldn't hand them over). So, I met Dan who would evaluate my vehicle and went with him while he drove it. Even that was pleasant. We chatted while he checked things out and the whole thing was painless. It took a bit while he got numbers on the durango. Mike and I chatted about things from drywall texturing to plumbing with PEX. He even offered to help me out and loan me tools. Was this a trick to lull me into a sense of ease so that I would lower my defenses? My cynical self would typically think so, but with Mike I honestly believe he was just trying to be helpful. We had many things in common, not the least of which was the fact that he had twins in his family as well. An identifiable, personable human being a car salesman? What will they think of next?? Anywho, we finally got numbers and right out of the gate they were pretty reasonable. I dickered on one point and without push-back or anything high pressure we came to an agreement quickly. I think we both got fair deals without any real stress. I think that's important in a car purchase and pretty rare. Maybe it's a game to some people, but I don't want to beat somebody out of everything but their shorts (that's my dad's saying). I simply want and need a fair price with good service. The car dealership and salesman need to make a profit too. I could go on, but suffice it to say the experience was actually enjoyable and the people genuinely friendly and helpful. I would strongly recommend the guys in Weiser and a special thanks to Mike B. our patient low-pressure salesman, Dan the friendly and fair appraisal dude, and Jake the guy who put it all the docs together and put up with all my questions while we signed papers. If this experience is typical, I will be a repeat customer. Any of my Oregon/Idaho friends, I encourage you to check these guys out.

Tricycle races

2010-04-03T19:56:00.001-06:00

and plastic egg fights. That's my two older boys for you.

Today I put in a new hot water heater. Since my brother was coming sometime I was in a bit of a hurry, so I decided to be a little reckless. My hot water heater was up on some cinder blocks so it could hook into the water pipes. Instead of taking a couple hours to drain it (it was plugged up with sediment) I decided to unhook it and then move it. Move is actually kind of a euphemism because i kind of did a pull, shove, and then dive. 50 gallons of water is quite heavy and once it started falling off the cinder blocks I knew I couldn't control it like I had hoped so I got out of the way and let it come falling down. When it hit it took out some of my furnance pipe that I had removed and set aside. But, I wasn't hurt and I got it out of the way. Unfortunately, the water was now draining out into the basement. Not a big deal as it's seen water before but the water had to go somewhere. So, I kept putting buckets under it as it drained out for the next hour or so. Then I started working on installing the new HWH (hot water heater). It was the same size, so I knew I shouldn't have any major issues but I couldn't safely lift it up the foot I needed all by myself. I guess the inside tank is glass coated and is kind of fragile. If you bang it around you might break the glass and have a leaking HWH before it was its time. This world has enough pain and sorrow and I didn't want to add to it by crippling a HWH in the prime of its youth. Thankfully, I have a very strong wife so with her help (I think she did most of the heavy lifting) we hefted it up and put the HWH where it belonged. A few tweaks and we were good to go. While I was working on the furnace pipe (el crusho flato) Tyler and Amy and offspring arrived. We chit chatted and all was good and nice.

Lately, I've been rolling with the punches pretty well I thought. But it seems that I keep getting punched. The cynical part of me says that If I start throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums then maybe it'll stop. There's some logic to that as God says he won't give us more than we can take. I just don't want anymore things to load me down anymore. I guess it's all just a matter of priorities combined with offloading the burden to God. Everything seems to work a little smoother if prefaced with prayer.

Trinity (T-bone) and Clell (Sea Biscuit) are walking now. Trin has been a walking fool. Clell walked first, setting the precedent but now he's content to let his sister have the limelight. What a swell guy huh?

Gotta go. Titus just got sick. too much excitement with not enough sleep and he throws up. Kind of weird, but i'm the last person to be critical of someone with stomach problems.

Ok, so here's the situation: Trinity and spiders

2010-03-28T19:15:00.001-06:00

So, I crawled under the house yesterday. The spiders were a little irritated, I think, but for the most part they kept quiet. In fact, I only saw one that was alive, although I confess that I wasn't looking too hard. That one spider (must have been a female) was right in my way on the drain pipe that I needed to work on. Of course, it had to give me a piece of her mind about going where I didn't belonged. I tried to point out that it was my house, but since it wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, I squashed it. Conversation over.

Getting my large frame down there was fun (not) but my boys thought it was cool. I remember really thinking it was neat when my dad was under the house and I remember crawling under too. But i figured my boys would be a little more squeamish and be afraid of the spiders, but boys will be boys and they got under right along with me. Alas, I had no luck getting the cap off the pipe. But I did find out that the drain line isn't as elevated as it should be which is probably related to why it drains so poorly much of the time. But, I learned that I didn't want to run any more bathrooms into that line. So, I get to run a new line. Although that doesn't sound like fun, at least I can do that more on my own terms and can stay out from under the house.

Thankfully, Trinity hasn't met any spiders yet, but I bet they wouldn't scare her. I mention her because it's just the two of us @ home right now. My stomach was bothering me so I stayed home from church and Rebekah left Trinity. She has really bonded with me. I can usually get her to stop crying when nobody else can and if she's really upset a sing a little song to her that is set to "Chim, Chiminey, Chim Chim, Cheroo" and so far that always works. Obviously parents shouldn't have favorite offspring, but is it wrong to return the same affection to a child that seems to prefer you? Me not sure. I've been working harder to spend more time with Clell to avoid any expensive psychiatry bills for him in the future, but although he likes to try and rip my face off, he seems to prefer the mom vs "not the mom." So, striking a balance is always fun. I have Trinity as the wallpaper on my phone and Rebekah has Clell on hers. I think it balances out right?

Spiders fear me

2010-03-27T12:02:00.001-06:00

Not the other way around. Well, that's what I tell myself at least. I'm going to crawl under the house and try to break open the plug on the cast iron pipe underneath my house. I'm realistic. I doubt I can do it, but I need to try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Boressed

2010-03-26T20:54:00.001-06:00

a combination of bored and stressed. I'm at Carl's Jr. right now with the four oldest children. I've got my cool little netbook running Ubuntu netbook remix (linux) and connected to the free wifi. Pretty cool, but a little paranoid that somebody will steal my baby. Not my children. they make too much noise.

Why am I here? because I'm such a good husband and father? Not really. because I was hungry. True, but that's not the reason. Maybe I'm trying to pick up a single mom? Nice guess, I wouldn't have thought of that one, but no. For the free wi-fi? Not that desperate. Because my wife needed to work on finances and asked me to? Wow, you're good! But right now, I'm wondering just how much work my wife is getting done since I see she's posting to facebook. I might have to nominate her to midget status if she's not careful :)

I saw a friend who used to work @ woodgrain today. He and his wife have finally decided to join the rest of zombies and reproduce. The Bible says be fruitful and multiply but I think most people divide. either 2/1 and have two kids or 2/2 and have one kid. Rebekah and I took it to heart and multiplied by 3.

My back has been hurting me prety bad, and I think I've figured out it's something in my neck. I've had a pain in my neck lots of times but they're usually of the child variety.

Titus doesn't feel well, so I'd better post this and check on him. he tends to get sick when he's tired and playing.

Bonding with the boys

2010-03-22T22:41:00.001-06:00

I think it's interesting that "they" (not sure who they is) seem to think that in order to spend time with your kids you have to have "quality time" or direct interaction. My Dad always stated that he thought "quantity time" was more important and I think I agree. Forrest and I started watching Dr. Who and now the boys are hooked and ask regularly to watch it. Since it's a good show with a minimum of language I've been letting them watch it with me. Every once in awhile I have to brace myself ask one of them comes racing over to cower by me because something scary is going on, but it's pretty mild stuff. I compare it to some of the old radio programs that I listen to. Lots of suspense and that combined with "bad guys" and aliens seems to be a winning combination for us guys. I was amused to hear Titus and Forrest playing Dr. Who tonight after dinner. Somehow, playing star wars makes sense to me but Dr. Who? I guess they like it more than i thought :)

Well, after I worked on my fire hazard over the weekend I forced myself to go outside and try to do something with my squealing truck. At least that way I got away from the squealing girls. Anyway, I was pretty sure that it was a belt that was loose, but since I'm not a mechanic like the rest of family I'm stumbling around in the dark. So, Forrest and I went outside and he helped me put the truck on ramps and get things together. I was really pleased with the little bugger. Granted, he's a bit more motivated since when he does well I put some money towards his "Super Mario Brothers Galaxy" fund. But since the kid has been wanting it for at least a year it definitely won't be an impulse buy. The good news i think the noise was just a loose alternator belt. If not, well, I guess I'll just have to club a midget in sacrifice to the car gods and try again.

Tonight I decided that I needed to cut something and my finger still hasn't healed so I got my saws out and started working on making a crawl space in one of our bathroom closets. In case you haven't guessed, using power tools is therapeutic. So, after a couple hours cutting and whatnot, I now have a big hole in the floor. All in a days work right? I am looking forward to communing with the spiders and crawling down there soon to try to tap into the plumbing.

Must do something

2010-03-19T18:46:00.001-06:00

Right now I haven't gotten anything accomplished today other than deal with my electrical outlet. I took the outlet out and the house wiring was good and it didn't look like there was anything wrong. So, I put an expensive GFCI outlet in (no wonder I normally shop @ home depot. It cost twice as much in here). I don't think the GFCI will help with that sort of an issue, but it make me feel a little better.

In other news (if you can call it that) our girls had to go cold turkey on Little Einsteins. But after talking to a friend I started recording Clifford and Curious George. Now my government dollars are doing something worthwhile as my girls are rabid Clifford (the big red dog) fans which is broadcast on PBS. And it's free! I think we'll totally cancel the satellite in a couple months (right now it only has "family" programming) and save $30. But, I'm taking baby steps because I love my wife (and to a lesser extent my family).

Except for Trinity. She ties with Mom me thinks.

2010-03-19T11:30:00.000-06:00

Fun @ 4

AM that is. We woke up to the sound of an incessant beeping. Rebekah investigated as I was totally out of it. She reported that the breaker had tripped and now it was smoky upstairs. I assumed that without power the pellet stove couldn't vent properly and thus it was the cause of the smoke. We had a oil heater plugged into an outlet and so I figured that tripped the circuit. Odd, but not unheard of. I was holding Clell and so Rebekah in her jammies went out and flipped the breaker. As we debated the cause in the dark, a few minutes later I heard a pop and the power went off again. Again, the brave beka went outside, but this time when she flipped the breaker I heard more pops and flashes of light and then one solid wavering light. While still holding Clell I ascertained that the outlet was emitting something commonly known as "fire." I reached down and unplugged the heater and thankfully the fire went out. But needless to say, we were and are greatly disturbed. It was old wiring in the house and now that we think about it we have had some issues before, just nothing near this magnitude. The power to that circuit is currently off, but I have to turn it back on eventually. I am going to remove the outlet and make sure the wiring up to the outlet is ok. Then, i'll put in a GFCI outlet. My Dad thinks that the problem is with the heater since the problem seems to be external to the plug. I hope this is the case as that's a much easier "fix." I'm gonna go get started working on it and if there's anything eventful I'll post back here. If I don't get electrocuted or burned up in a house fire that is :)

itty bitty polka dot

2010-03-17T22:36:00.002-06:00

computer. Well, it's itty bitty at least. No polka dots though. It is blue for what that's worth. I've had my eye on one of these for awhile but didn't really need one. It's a netbook. Too small for most people but perfect for facebook and blogging. I bought it from a friend who is taking the funds and redirecting them towards an iPad. Unfortunately, my wife is eyeing this poor defenseless netbook with a lustful eye. Kind of inappropriate if you ask me. I mean, she is a married woman. But anyway, I am hoping to be able to blog a bit more now. Probably won't really, but the point is that I am happy. I even put Ubuntu Linux Netbook remix on it. Fast little bugger. I think it's pretty amazing myself, but without being able to see it, it's hard to understand. I had it at church tonight (ya know, so I could play Farmville on Facebook during the service) and people just thought it was my Bible. Anyway, I got it for a nice price because I was patient and my friend gets to further Apple's invasion. Win win if you ask me.

It slices, it dices!

2010-03-04T22:27:00.001-07:00

my finger that is. I cut my ring finger really bad with a box cutter tonight. Usually, I use dull knives so the damage isn't bad. This cut was deep though, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stop the bleeding. But, pressure does wonders and a tight bandage seems to be keeping the green (oops. I mean red, my blood is red. not green. nope. no green blood here. move along) RED blood in pretty good. A bit hard to type, but not too bad. The good news is that Titus' little play area is almost done. I have some mudding and trim left to do and Rebekah has to paint it, but I think I'll let the kid move in this weekend. Then I'm onto my super big project--putting a new bathroom in upstairs. Gonna be fun!

Haunting

2010-03-02T20:52:00.002-07:00

Most people like Nostalgia. It's cool when it's controlled and all warm and fuzzy, but I just spent an hour going through a couple old shoe boxes of college mementos and sorting out stuff that didn't have any real meaning from stuff that sort of did. Wow, are those some acidic memories. Not necessarily bad, just traumatizing. Of course, going through all that turmoil enabled me to endure the whirlwind romance with Rebekah later on in life. I was watching a documentary on Joseph Goebbels (google it you lazy bums) and they read from his diary. Man, I guess everybody has the same emotional problems regarding love (and life). Even my friend Kelly admits to being human in this area at some point in his life. Anywho, I found some neat stuff including a MAC-10 tie tack my Dad sent me. Well, nothing incredibly pithy or anecdotally amusing, just some mental drivel emitting since the house is quiet.

I'm confused

2010-02-23T22:16:00.002-07:00

I just read my blog a minute ago and found out that I was a pretty great guy. Of course, I knew that already but somebody felt compelled to login to my blog and write something nice about me. What? No, I didn't write that myself! What do you mean, you don't believe me? Would I do something like that? Well, yeah, but that's beside the point, I didn't do it! Ok, I'm going to hold my breath until somebody confesses.

Grant has passed out and laying on floor bleeding from a bad head wound. Ironically is was his wife that wrote the blog post, thinking that she was logged into her blog. Hopefully, she'll come get him before he ruins the carpet.

My Husband

2010-02-23T21:37:00.002-07:00

He's outdone himself this week - really! On Monday, he watched the four older kids (and a friend watched the babies) while I went shopping. I left the house before 9am and got home at 5pm, so it was all day thing. While I was gone, he fixed my computer and then worked some in Titus' new room. And when I got home, he helped unload the Durango. Today, after work, he got me a shelf unit from Lowe's. It's better than the one I had picked out, and looks awesome in the kitchen! He put it together while watching the 4 kids again while I took a couch in to town. See, isn't he great?! And you thought he couldn't be a sweet, lovable, and thoughtful fella! :-)

Oh, and tomorrow is his birthday, so that makes it even more amazing...it's his freebie week! LOL

Love you, Grant!

"I Will Survive"

2010-02-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I have lots of profound thoughts that never make it to my blog. that's ok. most is just mental regurgitation that probably isn't that interesting anyway. Since the audience I have is so diverse (three different people) it is sometimes hard to avoid saying things that will offend. Normally, I don't mind offending people. That's not my goal, but if they get offended then I am doing my part to help them build a thicker skin, thus improving humanity. Why this odd post? Oh, they're all odd you say? Well, I had a challenging few hours last night. Nothing big to be quite honest, but they could have been very ugly. For once, family had nothing to do with it. I won't bore you with what happened at work, but suffice it to say I locked myself out of some systems. Then, after cleaning up that mess, I went home @ 7 PM only to find out there was bad news on that front too. Thankfully, Rebekah managed to prepare me for some bad news before hitting me with it. I sat down on the floor while she ejected the kids. My mind races through all sorts of horrible things before she told me. I had time to ask God that whatever it was to give me grace and not get too upset. Turns out that our pellet stove was broken. Instead of throwing a hissy fit as I am prone to do, I asked her some questions and went and looked at it. The auger wasn't turning, but you could hear the motor trying. Rebekah had removed all the pellets as well as the back of the stove so I was able to sit right down and look at it. I was able to quickly figure out that either something was wrong with the motor or the auger. I disconnected the motor and Titus helped me troubleshoot it (he turned on the power when I told him to). That was good. So, I looked at the auger. It sure seemed jammed to me. After messing with it, I finally opened up the stove door. There was a huge pile of pellets in the burn pot backed all the way up. Aha! It was Rebekah's fault. Not sure how, but she makes a cute scapegoat. So, we *think* that we didn't empty the ashes enough and that caused the pellets to stop burning which caused the backlog which eventually caused the auger to jam. We fixed that and I turned the shaft manually and it broke free. Sweet! I rule! I did a little jig like Hitler did after the successful invasion and surrender of Poland (or was it France? I think it was France) and promptly dropped all my tools and went downstairs and ate dinner (It used to be supper but my wife has corrupted me and now I use the wrong word). What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure, but I think it had something to do with Hitler and Obama.

Speaking of Obama, I'd like to take this time to thank President Bush and the Republican Congress of 2004 for passing the additional Child tax credit portion of the Working Families Tax Relief Act. Thanks to that we get a nice return due to the fact that they'll let me have some of my social security tax back before I'm old and the guvmint is bankrupt. Unfortunately, in 2011 (unless Obama decides to feel my pain) our tax refund will be less than 25% of what it was this year. Oh well, to quote some 70's singer "I will survive." Not sure about Bek and the kids, but I'll make it :)

Our girls are mostly normal

2010-01-24T18:11:00.002-07:00

Much to my incredible dismay we had an appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist on Saturday. In Boise. At 12:00 PM. Argh! What's an endocrinologist you ask? Google it! I'm not here to answer questions for people too lazy to use a search engine. I'm here to regale you with stories of triumph over tragedy as well as a some of trial over tribulation. Now, back to my story. So, why were we going to an endo... forget it. Why were we going to the doc? Well, that's an ok question but too personal to put it on the blog. Suffice it to say, the girls have had an abnormality of the hirsute variety since birth. We didn't worry about it since the NICU docs said it was normal, but our ped doc freaked out and wanted to do all sorts of tests. I said we weren't doing that until somebody smarter than her (the Ped doc) told us we should. Obviously I was slightly more tactful than that... slightly. So, 4 months later we got hooked up to a traveling doc who knows something about these things. Turns out the girls are mostly normal (I was pretty sure of that) but their motorcycles might be out of tune or irregular or something when they were older. I forget, but I know he said something about cycles. And apparently cycles have something to do with getting pregnant. I've heard about such things with regard to cars and their backseats, but never about motorcycles. Anyway, i'm not sure what cars and motorcycles have to do with a couple unique little girls but that's ok. What matters is that our girls our "Mostly Normal"

Since I wasted my Saturday in Boise, I'm taking tomorrow off to do some more work upstairs.

Oh! and I was watching American Outlaws with Colin Farrel (Jesse James/western) and one of the guys @ a town meeting is "Clell Miller." cool huh?

Sieze the Carp! quick, before it gets away!

2010-01-17T17:15:00.001-07:00

I really hope that when I'm more old and infirm I don't yearn for yesteryear. Most people's lives seem to have peaked in college. Well, thankfully I went to Bob Jones so that was the opposite of a peak for me (read pit). I know that many parents can't wait for their kids to grow up. I don't really feel that way. Yes, I'm running on the ragged edge of my sanity and of my abilities. But I do love my children and although it seems like all I ever do is yell at them, a friend pointed out that I must be a horrible Dad since the kids are so scared of me (yeah, he was being sarcastic). I think like Paul said (and I brutally paraphrase here) it is best to be happy in whatever situation you're in. The temptation to be discouraged or even depressed can be great at times, but I think that I have less (far far less) to complain about than ever before. Not that I've ever had a truly good reason to complain. I think that the point of Carpe Diem (sieze the day) gets lost. It is too easy to make everything about ourselves. And as much as I like to tell me wife that it is truly all about me, deep in the cockles of my heart I know tis not true. I think that being a parent is one of life's greatest responsibilities. So little of what I do is because I "want to" but rather because my family needs it. But I don't mind because I love my family. But to be honest, there's not much left of me when I'm done. But that's ok, cause I said so.

Oh, and my kids are already growing up too fast to suit me. They always have.

Before I finished this blog post a partially clothed Serenity came and laid on my side while drinking out of her sippy cup.

God doesn't like me very much

2010-01-11T09:57:00.001-07:00

yeah, that's Rebekah and I were thinking last night. Of course, @ 1:30, 2:30, 3:00 AM you're not thinking really rationally. Of course, Rebekah was up a lot more than that. Both Trinity and Clell are sick. But last night they must've had a stomach ache or something because they were really miserable and let us know it by screaming. I was planning on taking this morning off so Rebekah could get some rest so I finally went upstairs and pulled out a mattress that we had put under the girls bed and slept on it. I would've slept on the floor at that point. Rebekah is going to take Trinity to the Dr. this afternoon so I guess I'll be home the rest of the day. Poor little baby girl has a bad fever. Clell isn't doing too bad though this morning and nobody got any toys out so he pulled himself up tot he basket and got some out himself. He's a self-serve kind a guy, just like his namesake.

Other than sickness, things are going pretty well. Christmas was enjoyable but really showed our financial limits. I'm not sure what else we can do and wonder repeatedly if I should look for a job elsewhere. We'd be fine but for all our medical debts, but I know that a little hardship is good for the soul, even though I don't like it. Why don't I get a job somewhere else? Because I'd have to commute to downtown boise in most instances. I don't think I would mind the time but to lose that much from my family every day is pretty hard to take. I guess I'm waiting on the Lord (that sounds better than "I'm procrastinating")

ok, If I don't see you again, have a nice life.

Deep thoughts

2009-12-24T10:56:00.001-07:00

by Jack Handy.

Ok, not so much. I've had a few thoughts that were deep that I seriously considered blogging about but I like to keep things superficial. That way, when the time comes for Operation "Yo Momma" everybody will be surprised.

The Ballard Clan of New Plymouth has sojourned south and east for the Christmas season. We have joined with the Ballard Clan of Fairfield and the Ballard Clan of "Lives right behind Clan of Fairfield" for a family filled Christmas. Notice I omitted "fun." Traveling with six wee ones and the various accoutrements is fatiguing. The packing begins the prior day which is preceded by lots of organization by the Clan Mother. We decided that for safety and other reasons we really needed to take two vehicles. So, just to come visit is costing almost $100 in gasoline alone. Oh well, Christmas comes but once a year. right? Please tell me it's only once a year. So, we made it here safe and sound even though those stupid 1A/5B drivers try to run us off the road. I'm only going the speed limit on a snow covered road through the mountains, silly me. The natural man part of me wishes to see their stupid rig go plummeting off the edge of the mountain and burst into a a fiery explosion. But the redeemed part of me prays for their safety and that of others that may encounter them. One kind of odd sight that we witnessed was a bunch of snowboarders using parachute type sails to pull them over the prairie. Kind of cool. But once again a part of me wished coyotes on them. I'm just very grinchy, what can I say?

Smile, you're on candid camera.

Ouch

2009-12-13T20:51:00.001-07:00

I've been working on the upstairs "play room" for the boys and I put some wood paneling up. Unfortunately the two pieces only gave me 8 feet. I needed 8 feet 2 inches. So, they're barely attached to studs on both sides. Since I need to do the drywall on the other side I was trying to figure out how to cover up the gap that would be left between the drywall and the paneling. So, since we pretty much have exhausted all our funds on wood and Christmas I found a piece of trim outside that I think I can use. I brought it inside and Serenity greeted me and promptly wanted to help. Since I never let the girls help and it was really light I let her carry it. Liberty wanted to help too so I let the girls carry it upstairs. It was cute because they were so excited to be helping. Other than it catching on things due to the length they were doing well. Unfortunately things went horribly wrong when we got to the tops of the stairs and I told them I would open the door. As I was trying to step over the trim, they turned and it caught my leg. Remember in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Luke wrapped the cable around that AT walkers and they came crashing down and exploded? yeah, that's a pretty accurate description of what happened to me. Not exploded as in got angry but more like the crashed and burned. My full weight came down on my knees in a rather violent fashion. Surprisingly, other than saying fudge! as I crashed I kept my expletives and anger to a minimum. My whole body aches (especially my knees and wrist). But after my wife and Forrest picked me up I had the girls come back up and finish. They were so happy that oddly enough I don't regret shattering my kneecaps yet. We'll see about tomorrow.

btw, i hate drywall

forced convalescence

2009-12-02T19:47:00.001-07:00

I guess God decided I needed a break or something because I got sick Sunday-ish. So, for monday and tuesday I missed work. But I couldn't stand the thought of missing another day of work so I compromised and worked from home today. Less strenuous in some ways. Mostly a psychological thing since with the chaos around this house it's usually more restful to go to work. My Dad always encouraged me to get up and I'd feel better. To be honest, I think that may be true for some people but I usually feel worse. After I take a shower my body temp usually is higher and so I'm completely miserable until around 10:30 in the morning. But, whether it's true or not it's important to not "give in" to being sick. At least, not for more than our social mores deem acceptable. I think it's funny that in four years of college at Bob Jones, I never got sick. Ha! Yeah, I did. But when you got sick there you had to check into the campus Hospital "Barge." And to add insult to injury, they charged you room and board! We were already paying room and board once! So, for four years I just suffered and endured. One semester I was sick with some sinus problem almost the whole time. Seems pretty savage talking about it now. We always knew that if we saw a Dr. it was going to be expensive because it was an out of network. So, for the most part we just saw the Doctor on Christmas break or summer vacation. Now the co-pays keep me away unless I've suffered for a month. Well, I'd better get back to resting. I'm planning on going to work tomorrow and leaving Rebekah alone with all the sick kids. Nice of me huh? :)

I remember

2009-11-30T17:50:00.002-07:00

I remember that when I was a boy my Dad was at his maddest when he was trying to do something that should be relatively easy but for some reason he was being thwarted. Usually, because he didn't have the right tools. Frequently, because his tools had wandered off with the help of a small child. We (Probably Forrest my brother and myself) lost my Dad's hammer for a couple years. Thankfully, my dad did have another hammer but that was a sore spot for him I know. I also remember being at a wrecking yard outside Jerome and my Dad was being thwarted at some simple part removal. If memory serves (which I'm sure it doesn't) we shouldn't have needed tools but for some reason my Dad desperately needed his vice-grips. He ALWAYS had his vice-grips. To this day he still wears them as they are an invaluable tool. But on this day, my Dad was without. He was so frustrated that I went hunting through a bunch of wrecked cars hoping to find something he could use. I never found anything, but somehow my Dad got the part off. What should've been 5 minutes took an hour. Why do I mention my father in this blog post? Hang on, apparently Baby Clell is reading my vibe and is trying to steal the show by trying to stand up before he even crawls. Overachiever, sheesh!

ok, so why mention Dad? Well, I have been working on my own little home improvement project of my own. But I have a major deficiency (character flaw) that my Dad doesn't. I lose focus and motivation at the drop of a hat. So, in order to remain focused I increase my planning and organization. But that in turn, increases my stress level. Weird huh? Well, I have so far put in a pellet stove and chimney, tore down two walls, built two walls, drywalled them walls, and done some electrical work. Well, the electrical shouldn't have been too hard. But the only place to put another line in was a junction box. But wow it was crammed with big old wires from days of yore. And they didn't exactly follow code (probably hadn't been written yet) when they did it. So trying to pigtail into that box was crazy hard as my wire nuts weren't quite big enough to handle what was there with what I needed to add. After much hard work, I got it in. But then I realized I had to take it apart so I could put the drywall up. So I did that. After much crazier frustration (because I had less room to work with now) I got it hooked up. Then I realized that something wasn't making connection and I had to take it all apart again! Keep in mind I'm doing this while hunched over at a really awkward angle. Yeah, well, after my assembly disintegrated for the fourth time I was reaching my breaking point (an old southern expression for that is "losing my religion"). My wife came upstairs. Very dangerous. But she braved my foul attitude and and asked what I needed help with. So, with her smaller hands we got it fixed in record time. So, right now I've gotten about 50% done with my project. But the problem is, I'm burned out. Toasted. Fried. And now i'm not sure if i'll ever finish completely. The thought of working on it makes me sick to my stomach. But at least I got the wicked insulation done before I snapped.

I remember

2009-11-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

Favorite quote of the day

2009-11-28T10:12:00.001-07:00

background: Bugs Bunny is fighting a witch. He turns her into a gorgeous female bunny. As he's walking off he says
"Aah sure I know. But aren't they all witches inside?"

It burns! it burns!

2009-11-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

actually, it itches. my head, my neck, my legs. Anywhere that came in contact with the pink panther insulation. Now I'm glad we harvest those guys for their itchy fur. We do harvest insulation from animals right? If not, i'm sorely disappointed.

Let's go back a couple weeks. I was sick and I hadn't cleaned my roof. I mean, my chimney. You'll have to forgive my roof obsession as getting up on it is my primary focus. Last fall (or was it spring? It was one of the four seasons, I'm sure) I had to climb on my roof to try to keep the shingles from taking flight like a bunch of pigs. What do you mean pigs don't fly? Yeah, well, neither did my shingles thanks to my lightning fast reflexes. Anyway, that experience was unpleasant. The pigs flying away with my shingles I mean. But other than pink things giving me trouble, the wind was so fierce that I almost got blown off the roof myself. But, although the weather was foggy that morning, the one that i needed to clean my chimney, I was able to get up on the roof and scratch a little soot off of my chimney. After I got up there, I turned around only to see Titus climbing up after me. The little monkey. He was very careful, but I didn't have the ability to send him back down safely so I just had to yell at him at various times to try to keep him safe. Once I got to a stopping spot, we went down together. He certainly enjoyed himself though.

Last weekend I tore down the wall to our attic that I had put the pellet stove in. That was interesting. Rebekah was a big help which was really nice. I miss her not being able to help on a regular basis, but she's trying to get more involved. Doing demolition and then construction with four kids underfoot was challenging. But thankfully, nobody got hurt although I was pretty bruised from hitting my back, head and knees a bunch of times. So, we now have two smaller attics and an alcove that the pellet stove is in. We're pondering putting the boys in the two little attics (they're short, they don't mind lower ceilings) but I have to run electricity and finish it with drywall and insulation. It needs done but it will take some time and money. Oh, and energy. I tell you, I have learned so much having an old house. As the needs of my family keep increasing I am forced to adapt which forces me to learn. The nice thing is it's not a huge pressure all at once. I can see the needs developing and plan. I am definitely going to have to put a bathroom in upstairs next year. It's bad enough sharing with the boys but when a 2 year old (almost 3) girl starts pounding on the door and screaming "I've got to go potty Daddy!" it's a little bit too much to bear :)

ok, my grammar and sentence structure is bad but with the chaos in the house like now I'm lucky I got anything pounded out. As my Dad always used to say, "If you don't like it, you can lump it."

Soooo then...

2009-10-28T20:30:00.001-06:00

yeah. I've been sick. or at least playing at it. Not sure if it's pig flu or not but I figured I'd better make myself scarce at least until the symptoms were milder. I've been out for three days which is rare for even a sickling like me. But since I got since sunday night, I pretty much have been sick for the entire work week. Although, simply to stay connected and not feel like such a leech, I've been working about 4 hours a day from home. This day is getting to be more like 8 though. I feel pretty decent right now, so I'm hopeful that I can get back to a semi normal routine. It's been interesting being home with the kids and seeing what Rebekah deals with every day. I freely admit that she has the toughest job. But hey, she likes it. At least some of the time. I think...

Anywho, half the fam is at church and I put the girls to bed with a perfunctory "good night" answered by wails of life-altering woe. Titus has found my soft spot and used his charming smile and good behavior (he must have been saving it up) on me to watch some cartoons and now he's playing the wii. Personally, I'd like to get back to watching Psycho. I've never seen it before so it's pretty interesting. on a side note, Titus is playing Wii Indiana Jones and finds it quite amusing that by pushing a button he can make the blonde chick from the temple of doom scream. I think that's supposedly her "weapon." silly woman.

Anyway, I still have to get up on my roof and clean out the chimney. Hopefully I won't fall to my death, but if I do Rebekah has it made. I hope she doesn't read this....

Fall is one of my 4 least favorite seasons

2009-10-25T10:08:00.001-06:00

I know people like fall because it's cool and ooh, the leaves change color and stuff. But hello people, Fall is a season of death and dying. The leaves are pretty because they are dying. The days are cooler because the sun is no longer smiling on us. There is less light too. And worst of all, Fall brings Winter. But Winter is just doing its job so although I find it unpleasant, it's like the Grim Reaper or maggots. It serves a valuable purpose. Ok, so my logic is flawed but I still don't like Fall. I've been working hard the past month and a half trying to get ready. I'm not quite there, but I've got most of the critical items crossed off my list. Now it's just the normal fallish stuff I have to worry about. I put a pellet stove in upstairs, but since it's in an enclosed alcove (aka attic) I need to do some re-arranging with a power saw. Last weekend I bought two more cords of wood so hopefully those needs have been met. And we put plastic on the depression era windows. And I sealed up the swamp cooler. And I, geez I'm boring myself.

Ah well, Rebekah has been blogging so I'm not sure that I have to really say too much about the fam. The kids are doing pretty good. Swine flu (I've given up on calling it h1n1) has been running through the area pretty bad, but i'm hopeful the worst is over. I have heard from several people who know people who were put in the hospital by it but no deaths. Of course, they're no vaccine available and by the time there is any it'll be too late to make much of a difference. Such is life. Or death. If you die that is. But then the swine flu vaccine is the least of worries.

I took the kids to a corn maze. correction, I took the boys. Forrest enjoyed it a lot, but Titus was scared of being lost forever. There were three mazes but since Titus wasn't having as much fun and time was an issue so we wandered around a bit. Fed some goats (see facebook for a picture) and then mozied on out. I've had to work a lot this weekend due to problems so I'm missing church now much to my irritation. Well, not much to say of interest. my brain is tired from being up late last night and I have to go to work now.

BTW, did you know they're airing a remake of that great mini-series (and subsequently a series) V? Check it out on ABC.

It's no fun...

2009-10-13T10:06:00.001-06:00

...picking on your colleagues if they are mentally impaired by a migraine. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. dead fish.

For the first time since I've had kids

2009-10-05T21:20:00.001-06:00

I had a knock down drag out (yeah, there should be some dashes in there but you're not my english teacher :p)
... with my kids. 4 of them. The babies stayed in bed. The girls and the boys did a cage match with me. Since I've been exercising and lifting weights a bit, i had a bit of stamina. The girls would launch themselves at me and I'd catch them and toss them at the boys. Of course, Titus did that a bit too but he's 45 pounds so I had to be a little bit more careful when I tossed him. It worked well and although Titus hurt my ear, Forrest's ear, and Serenity's head he seemed none the worse for wear. Everybody had fun and no major injuries resulted. The girls got tired though and ran a little short on patience so I put them in bed and bailed. They screamed bloody murder at me since they were so wound up, but I haven't really heard them since. Right now I'm waiting for Rebekah to get back from the store. babysitting 6 kids. Who would've thought I could do it and not end up in leavenworth?

Avoiding electrocution...

2009-10-03T21:35:00.001-06:00

...is time consuming. I spent a long time today adding three circuits to the house. I thought I just had some simple stuff to do, but avoiding electrocution really slowed me down. You can add a circuit to a breaker relatively safely without turning off the power, but it's dangerous. And by adding three at once it was really slow. Also, none of my circuits have been grounded (the third prong) so I wanted to do that with these. Unfortunately, that required some adjustment to a clamp which once I loosened it enough for the wires fell off. So, I spent 10 minutes saying to myself "I'm gonna die" as I tried to fit it back on without bumping the Idaho Power line. Ok, so the burning (or shocking hehehe) question you have been asking is why didn't I turn the power off? Two reasons. First, because last time I turned it off the breaker wouldn't "click" back on and I had to call an electrician who gave me some tips and tricks. Second, because I knew it would probably take me a couple hours under the best circumstances and I didn't want to further torture my wife without heat and electricity.

OK. I'm tired. Rebekah is blogging pretty regularly which is great, but a consequence is I'm not very motivated anymore. plus I'm tired. Did I mention I'm tired?

Ironically enough, I did get shocked pretty good once but it was inside the house on one of the new circuits that had a tiny strip of insulation stripped off it on the back. I didn't make a mistake but I still got a nice little "shock to the system."

Hey, maybe I"ll go to bed. seems like a good idea since I'm tired. Oh, and sore. Did I mention sore?

Favorite question of the day

2009-10-01T09:03:00.001-06:00

"Do you guys have any kleenex that I can take into the conference room?"

Why? Lots of crying going to take place?

Favorite song of the day

2009-09-23T21:53:00.001-06:00

"I hate everything about you." Not really, but it's catchy don't you think? Just imagine wandering the halls at working singing that under your breath. In my case I think I'd have a visit from SWAT rather soon.

So, funny story. My kids like to go to jail. Or well, "the jail." Why you ask? Have I been a frequent visitor? No, well, not in the sense that one might think. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with me wandering the halls hating people and muttering "redrum." The long of it (we passed short a long time ago, laying on the side of the road beaten and bloody). The long of it is you see, well actually you don't, but you read. So, the long if it is that visitors of the jail in Ontario sometimes need to work for their room and board and they do so in various and sundry manners including wood gathering for humble patrons such as myself. The wood, although of dubious quality at times, is inexpensive and if I stop by at convenient times I can have current visitors help me load the wood while they insult the size of my truck. I usually avoid the latter as my schedule usually doesn't mesh with theirs. Anywho, so for my kids the jail isn't a bad place. that's a bad thing. I know that. I need to call it something other than "the jail." Maybe the center for the delinquent and naughty adult people. my kids would be abbreviating that to "the center" in no time at all.

Another mildly amusing story for dweeby techy people out there (are we all dweebs just because we can bend electronic things to our will by hacking phones, routers, video consoles (let alone computers) that mere mortals can barely operate?).

So, our beefy server that I mentioned on Sunday... What? What do you mean you didn't read it? Oh, so you read it but you didn't understand it? sigh. what am i going to do with you. Anyway, that's not important right now. What's important is that I have your attention now! Ok, so back to the story. So, we had a server and it needed a new processor/memory board which was on a daughter card (no jokes about son or grand-daughter cards please). Unfortunately, HP decided to save a buck and send us one without a processor so we had to move ours into it. Not a huge deal except it needed thermal paste reapplied. Well, suffice it to say that anything with paste and techies isn't going to end up well. Three men (well, two men and one techie chick) entered and the smart one (me) backed away from the thermal paste. The other two spent about twenty minutes trying to spread a thick and unfriendly good evenly over the processor. After awhile they called it good. I ignored them and read my e-mail. Then they kept asking me questions until I was forced to respond with a gentle "I hate everything about you." Then the story gets boring as we put aside our differences and installed the card with no major burnage. We'll see how long the processor lasts before it melts a whole through the server causing thermonuclear detonation.

I still need new speakers for my entertainment system.

Favorite quote of the day

2009-09-21T11:38:00.001-06:00

"Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly. "
Plutarch

Long day

2009-09-20T20:00:00.001-06:00

I try to avoid working on most sundays. but it can be pretty dang hard when that's the official maintenance window. Even so, it's not usually that big a deal. But today we needed to add some tier 3 storage to our SAN. Man is that stuff expensive. Our tier 1 probably costs about $30k per TB. I could be high there, but we paid that much for 10 GB of tier 2 which is crappy SATA vs. fiber drives on our tier1. So, since we need space but cash is king, queen, jack, ace, 10, 9, 8, 7, 5 (but not 6), 4 & 2 (nope. 3 neither) we added our own disk array to our virtual storage software. Slower and more complicated, but much much cheaper. Only $10k for 12TB. We could've possibly done it for about 4k if we wanted to build it ourselves. But, by the time you factor in things like carrying spare parts and downtime it starts to not look like a good idea. We actually tried a Drobo Pro quasi-SAN, but it couldn't produce IDE speeds. Our needs were modest but it failed abysmally in that area. And we had that thing loaded too. It had 8 2TB drives for a total of 16TB raw. pretty impressive for a little unit. We got all that for $3500. Unfortunately, it didn't do that job so that was that. Working on enterprise systems is so weird because the premiums for this stuff is insane. But the industry works on supply and demand so the price is high. Yeah, i know this is boring. It wouldn't have taken so long but our system was configured oddly (at best) and so when we hooked the array to it, Windows wouldn't see it. After much trial and error my cohorts in crime figured out that the setting was configured incorrectly (a setting that they inherited when they took over the system). Once they figured that out, we were golden. Well, brass at least. I wasn't actively involved (thankfully) with that ordeal, but I had to shut down the virtual environment. 60+ servers on 6 hosts don't go down (or up) quickly. But, thanks to the beauty of technology (vmware), about all I had to do was Ctrl-A (select all) and right click and tell them to shut down and then watch watch watch them. Then we moved some stuff around and when we were about all done we powered up one of our beefiest servers (32 GB of RAM w/ 4 dual core procs) and it blue screened in a way I had never seen before. Unfortunately, this server was purely physical so no leveraging the server onto other hardware without pain pain pain. And this was the second most important server in our enterprise. We have one whole division that screams bloody murder if they can't get their reports every few hours. A day or two outage would be brutal. So, we are all looking at each other thinking expletives in our mind. And we're all of one mind wishing that this had happened a year later. But, time stops for no company and the economy be damned the server was almost four years old. Of course, having a piece of hardware that costs $20k minimum to replace is hard to justify when blood is being spilled in the trenches. So, the only clue we have is a red light on the front of the server. After doing some troubleshooting, we figure out that it might be the RAM that's bad. Well, to be honest, I pulled the server out a little and it had pretty yellow lights on DIMMs 5 & 6. It was kind of cool on the inside. Every proc had its own cell board complete w/ RAM and more pretty yellow lights signifying bad things. Unfortunately, swapping the RAM around only proved nothing. Oddly enough, yanking the RAM for the entire board allowed the server to boot. So, the server is up and running with a lowly 24GB of RAM. oh well, HP's gonna love us demanding the send us a new board. We paid about $800 for the warranty. Good investment me thinks.

ok, if you actually read this post pat yourself on the back. If you read it without falling asleep (nodding off is ok), then you may have a piece of chocolate. If you read it, stayed awake, and understood what I was talking about then you might consider getting a life. I hear e-bay is a good place to start.

dagnabit

2009-09-14T16:36:00.001-06:00

Just found out that Forrest has bad eyesight (probably from my side of the family) and is color blind (most likely from Rebekah's side). I guess being color blind passes down through the female side and afflicts boys most often. Although his vision is poor it's not so bad they want to put him in glasses. I mean, I haven't seen him walk into too many walls. But, they'll check it again in a year or whenever he starts getting beat up too much (by the heretofore mentioned wall, not me or any adult types).

It's so quiet

2009-09-12T12:10:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning feeling a bit better and even (for a moment) considered going with my wife on the outing with the kids. It's so hard to do things with as many kids as we have that we have started to find the events that are fun for kids and parents and inexpensive as well. Our two favorite events (well, my two) are the Military swap meet (4 miles from my house complete with rides for the kiddies and a car crushing) and the Ontario Air Faire (10 miles away) which has aerobatics and lots of cool military planes. The best thing about these events is that they are free and not oozing with masses of humanity like the carnivals. Rebekah took the four oldest this morning (leaving the babies with Keren) and will be home in a bit. She said that they were all really good and nobody even got in trouble. That's a medium sized miracle and a a testament to how interesting it is for the kids. I regretted missing it but I would've taken my disease riddled body and gone if Rebekah hadn't done it. But my symptoms have improved after taking a dramatic turn for the worse yesterday. I came home at 3pm and slept until 8. then I went to bed about 11pm and slept until 8am. Then I took a nap this morning. I'd probably still be sleeping but my stupid calves have been so restless. That's the ones on my legs not the the ones in the pasture next door. Actually, I'm not sure if there are any veal on four legs over there or not. I know that there are cows and a bull. I could get up and look, but well, I'm just not that motivated. You see, first I'd have to set my laptop down somewhere. Then, I'd have to stand up. Next, I'd have to lean over and pull the blinds. And the final straw is moving my eyeballs. And it might be all for naught since a calf could be laying down in the grass and I might not see it anyway. All this cow talk is making me hungry. Watching the "Life of Brian" right now. I think God has a sense of humor. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find a massager/vibrator thingy and see if that makes my non-veal calves feel better.

Kids are expensive

2009-09-10T20:22:00.001-06:00

duh! But I was assuming we were talking about food, clothing, medical care, etc. What I didn't fully appreciate was how much damage that they would do to property. Just yesterday my sound system damaged probably 5 speakers because Serenity turned the volume on my amplifier to maximum. I put in a movie which autoplayed and ya know the roaring lion? Yeah well, it was so loud that all my kids were crying and I was yelling because I was so surprised and mad. <sigh>

I spose it was time for my girls to do some major damage. They've been pretty limited thus far. I spose I shouldn't feel bad, my friend Kelly has had his youngest do thousands of dollars in damage. He flooded an upstairs bathroom.

So, hear I sit watching the episode of Buffy where she kills herself to save humanity and blogging while desperately ignoring the static everytime the background music plays.

BTW, thanks to whomever (or whomsever) gave us the generous donation. I'm thinking about starting a telethon. Man did I hate those when I was a kid. I swear, that was the only time there was anything good on PBS. I remember watching the "Flight of the Phoenix" and it took forever due to all those stupid smiling people with their ringy ding telephones. I didn't really like the movie anyway. Who can like a movie where Jimmy Stewart is a model plan bigot. sheesh.

This week has been rough. I first had a bad cold that put me in bed for a day and then today my boss sent me home from work (what a nice boss) because I looked so bad. I'm feeling decent now so I'm hoping a decent nights sleep will help me end this week on a more positive note.

Forrest also got really sick with some stomach bug about a day before my last bout. It's hard to hear your wee ones kissing porcelain. Clell is doing a bit better but I still call him snuffy. So far the rest of the family is mostly healthy and I'm praying they stay that way.

btw, what's decoupage anyway?

Sweet! a movie called Zombieland

2009-09-05T09:33:00.000-06:00

It's as if they read my mind. or my blog. or something. check out http://zombieland.com

Ever wonder how many different iterations of transformers there are/were? Yeah, me neither. But apparently there's a few. Our boys like transformers and I heard Titus singing the theme song "Transformers, more than meets the eye. Transformers, Robots in disguise!" this morning. Anyway, the toys in the stores are either from the movie or the movie or possibly the original. But you can also buy animal transformers which seems odd to me. At least my kids seem happy as long as there are big robots fighting. As I sit here now, Optimus Prime and Soundwave are apparently having a battle of the "lead guitar."

So, it appears that my fly vacuum isn't that original a thought. However, I submit that mine is unique simply because of the pure vitriol backing the destruction. Most of the alternatives use electricity or simply trap the insects. And yes, they do work with spiders. Maybe I could mix and match a vacuum with some sort of spring loaded frog's tongue (synthetic of course) for added range.

Well, Rebekah has been potty training Serenity the past few days. It's been going much better this time. Doing one at a time makes it a wee bit less stressful I think. As cruel as it may seem I think it's healthy to split the girls up a little bit more. We met a nurse in the NICU who was a twin and she was really resentful because everything she did for most of her life was merely one half of the infamous "twins."

I'm desperately trying to get ready for winter. Yeah, seems a bit premature but I have to get at least 3 cords of wood, put on the storm door, put in 2 windows in our bedroom, install the new pellet stove upstairs, buy a ton of pellets, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Clell is still sick. He snuffles a lot. Rebekah took him back to doctor (the one I said we weren't going to anymore) and the Dr. was fairly indifferent but gave her a prescription for amoxycillin. I think after this experience Rebekah will agree with me to switch.

And can someone tell me why clubbing midgets is wrong when it feels so good?

Favorite song title

2009-09-01T11:37:00.001-06:00

For A Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic

Favorite Quote of the day

2009-08-29T09:39:00.001-06:00

"Just because you're better than me doesn't mean you can be all superior."

Busy day today. I have to do some computer workage. Then I have to unload a little pellet stove and get it upstairs (only weighs about 250 pounds) and try to install a screen/storm door. All before 6pm tonight when I have an engagement w/ some nerdly guys to play games but all the people I know are probably bailing on it. Cool huh?

But, Forrest has started school this week and is doing well.

Although, I'm worried about his hearing as well as vision. He might be color blind and seems to have poor vision in one eye (his left). He also failed a hearing test on one of his ears.

As distasteful as it is, due to the increase in medical premiums putting normal private insurance out of our grasp, we put the kids on CHIP/Medicaid. Interestingly enough, we only have to earn another $18k more before we don't qualify anymore. I don't see that as being a danger anytime soon. The good news for the kids is that they will be able to get better care now. Ironically enough, it's harder to get kids vaccinated if they have private insurance. I took Titus in a couple months ago to the local clinic to get vaccinated. They told us that they couldn't vaccinate Titus because we had private insurance. Sad huh?

weary

2009-08-26T20:06:00.001-06:00

just keeping my head down and trudging along. these are the best years of my life so i am told.

sigh. where is a midget when you need one?

first post from my phone. we will see if it works or disappears into the annals of history that never was and never will be.

Taking Chance

2009-08-21T18:43:00.001-06:00

I'm 35 minutes into this movie and my eyes have emitted more saline laced fluid during that time than in all of the past year.

If you ever watch this movie, make sure you can do it in one sitting in peace.

Fascinating

2009-08-20T11:09:00.001-06:00

I was informed by my boss that there was a report/comment (not sure if plural) made that I wasn't at my desk enough. I didn't realize that I had to spend a certain percentage of time @ my desk. I work in the datacenter, the lab, with users, and occasionally take lunch and <gasp> visit the restroom.

What on earth do you do with a comment like that? My boss is happy with me, but apparently somebody higher up isn't? I need to go watch Office Space again.

Favorite quote of the day

2009-08-15T15:43:00.001-06:00

"Man up Fargo"

I can see using this on my kids when they're crying. And my wife using it on me when I'm whining.

Life in the Grant Ballard house

2009-08-15T12:57:00.001-06:00

Soooo, what's been going on here recently? Well, last week we took the first vacation of the year to go visit my parents. My brother Forrest was visiting with his family and I needed some mechanical help so it seemed an opportune moment. Since we had to take two vehicles, for once space wasn't a problemn. Although spending money on gas for 600 miles of travel is very distasteful. So, we embarked on the 150 mile trip to Fairfield. With road construction in Boise and in Elmore county and a lunch stop in Mt. Home, it only took four hours. Four hours. argh! Thankfully, when we got there Forrest and his wife graciously gave us two of the three bedrooms available. But Rebekah still had to sleep with the girls which wouldn't have been so bad, but Liberty woke up every few hours screaming for some odd reason. So, needless to say between that and the babies, Rebekah didn't get a lot of sleep. So, we cut our trip short and headed home on Saturday afternoon. We made it to the Gaskill reunion which will be the absolute last thing of that type we do until our children are much older.

As far as I am concerned, my big focus is on becoming less of a big fat slug. Blood tests showed that I was 60% slug and well on my way to becoming king of slugville (yes, it's a real city. It's 5 miles from Richfield). So, since I don't have any time I have parlayed (I like that word) my lunch hour into a frantic workout session at a gym. So far it's been good. I think i'm down to 59% slug easily. maybe even 58%.

Well, since our health care premiums went up so much we're not sure what to do. I think we qualify for government assistance, but that sticks in my craw. I'm trying to decide which is more important: my conservative principals or my children's health. In health related news, we took the babies to Caldwell to get immunized. A couple days and bad fevers later, they're doing well. Trinity is playing with some toys (the first time ever) and Clell is doing great. Both of them are doing fine on the growth chart.

The girls, well, are girls. screechy, whiny, cute, and adorable. All at the same time.

The boys are doing well. Forrest is excited to start school w/ the Idaho Virtual Academy. titus feels a bit left out. Titus really wants to go visit Grandpa again. It's about all he talks about sometimes. As Rebekah and I were heading back from the Dr. on thursday we went through Parma and saw they were having a double header of the Transformers. I'm pretty lazy (see slug in the dictionary) and thought that I should take Forrest. But I hate to leave Titus out. So, we went on the coldest night of the summer I think. But it went well.

Sooo, long boring blog post but I figured I should do something. I'm not sure if there's anybody who reads this blog who isn't on facebook anymore. I will keep the blog going but I may start posting the pictures on facebook exclusively. Not sure. But my phone takes pretty good pictures and I can now upload them to facebook easily. Still pondering. In the meantime, stay classy America.

Fairfield Bound

2009-08-04T15:53:00.001-06:00

FYI, if anybody is curious Rebekah and I will be heading to Fairfield tomorrow. Oh, and we're bringing the rest of the family too. So, if anybody wants to visit just swing by. Or you could call if you want us to beat the kids into submission first. The girls usually take a nap in the early to mid afternoon. With the babies who knows. Not sure how long we'll be there though so act fast!

BTW, I don't really beat my children but since anything on the Internet can be used against me in the court of public opinion I want everybody to know that only verbal admonishments combined with positive reinforcement are applied to my children.

After our benefits meeting

2009-08-04T12:03:00.001-06:00

Sung to the tune of "I feel pretty" from "West Side Story"

I feel bitter,
Oh so bitter,
I feel bitter, and angry, and dour...

Not really. just trying to figure out where to find an extra $120 a month.

I'm not bitter, honest!

2009-08-04T08:40:00.001-06:00

So, we get some bad news today. They're raising our insurance premiums a chunk. I think I have an idea how bad it's going to be and it's basically going to put health insurance out of our price range. the thought of not having insurance is pretty scary, but even though insurance covered our babies births we still owe over $5k. I think I'm resigned to having medical bills forever.

one of my favorite quotes

2009-07-31T10:51:00.001-06:00

"All I know for sure is that I don't know."

--Grant C. Ballard
Genius Extraordinaire
Hubris Maximus

I have had this conversation with my boss before.

2009-07-31T10:36:00.001-06:00

The very least you can do...

2009-07-30T14:51:00.001-06:00

If you are a born-again Christian is NOT interfere with others who want to serve God. If you're feeling generous, you might try loving people too. Hey, if a crabby punk like me can love people, I don't see why you smiley people out there can't. Just sayin.

BTW, if this statement confuses you then get saved. If it angers you, either grow up or get right.

If you're a midget, then please come here. I have a present for you.

Quote of the Day

2009-07-22T10:02:00.001-06:00

overheard in conversation today:

"We were definitely women but...."

Zombies

2009-07-18T22:27:00.001-06:00

Who wouldn't want their very own domesticated zombie. I'm watching Fido via Netflix (on demand or whatever) which has a plugin for my media center (Windows Vista). This is tre cool because if I'm bored I can just find a movie or a TV show and watch it from the comfort of my easy chair (which actually is a lazy boy) with full remote control functionality. BTW, so far this movie is hilarious. It's showing kids about 10 training in school to shoot zombies in the head. It's set in the 50s or early 60s. Of course, you'd have to have the ability to laugh @ zombies. Unless they're midget zombies. Those things haunt my dreams.

Anyhoo, today our fam spent a bunch of time outside. The carport was a disaster (we have a large carport) and so we decided to clean it out. My wife graciously agreed to help in between feeding babies and stuff. First we started by taking everything out of the carport. Then we had to clean all the leaves and dust/dirt out. Rebekah did most of that. My wife did all of that with a little help (hiderance) from Titus. I went ahead and boarded up 8 feet by 4 feet holes on the other side that used to have lattice work there. Of course, in this heat my strength was sapped incredibly fast. Of course, I'm captain obvious and couldn't figure why my stamina was so lacking (I mean, more than usual). Rebekah egged me into getting into our kiddie pool (which she was wading in). After I finished one of my tasks I aquiesced in order to avoid a fight, i mean a beating, I mean a spirited debate. It actually was quite refreshing. I finally sat down (man would that have been a funny picture. humiliating, but funny) and leaned back against the back of the whale's neck. Yeah, it's a blow up whale. Soooo, a long day. Finally, late in the day Rebekah bailed as the kids were mutinying. I was wrestling with trying to fix a DIY bench that was a monstrosity of neither form nor function. I finally ended up tossing out most of the original creation and reinforcing the bench. Of course, this made it freakin' heavy. And the only person around to help me was little old Titus. But he did a darn good job, even if that thing was so heavy it could have hurt him. Once it fell on my head and conked me pretty darn good. I finally built legs and with little Titus' help I was able to finally get a sturdy bench. Although when I showed it to Forrest he was unimpressed and seemed to think (well, he told me as much) that it wasn't sturdy at all. At which point I picked him up and stood him on the bench. Then I grabbed Titus and put him up there too. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, because that seemed to put lie to his theory that it was still weak and wobbly. It's amazing how a 5 year old can be such a little know-it-all. It's not like we put up with it.

The babies are doing well. The hot temperatures have forced us to turn on the swamp cooler which makes the babies' bedroom too cold. So, they're adjusting to life sleeping in other locations. They'll probably be nomads when they're older. The girls are doing great. They have their own pink sunglasses and run around like little debutantes. I've been watching Buffy the Vampire slayer (by the great Joss Whedon of Serenity/Firefly fame) and the theme song is very rocky and they dance to it. It's cute now, but they'll have GPS locators on them when they're older and no dancing allowed.

From the movie------------------->Oh dang, Fido's restraining collar got broken. He's on a flesh eating rampage now. Oh, I guess it was just flaky. He only ate Mrs. Henderson before it turned back on.

Well, we're having some interesting times in our church. Pray for our church and our pastor. Since we're so small, any little wave is felt pretty bad.

Works is going well. The company hasn't done a mass layoff since February which is nice. They've just been sniping. One here, two there. Tough breaks, but it's a hard knock life (or so Annie says). They're still not in the black, but they hope to break even this year. speaking of work, I need to go remove some virtual serial ports. l8r g8r

funny comment

2009-07-17T20:53:00.001-06:00

Rebekah is playing "Boom Blox" on the Wii while feeding Trinity. This is a game where you have to hurl the wii-mote like you're throwing a ball. Great game. Created by Stephen Spielberg. We found it for $21.49 on amazon I think. Rebekah has played this more than any Wii game yet I think. And it's her Wii!

Now she's trash talking me. Maybe farmtown on facebook isn't so bad...

:)

2009-07-10T23:19:00.001-06:00

From New Plymouth with Love

2009-07-10T08:22:00.001-06:00

from Rebekah

"I was sitting here (when I should be going to bed) and wondering when Forrest's schoolwork stuff is going to be sent out. So I went online and looked again at his courses and stuff like that. These are going to be his subjects this year: Health, History, Language Arts, Math, Phonics, Physical Education w/Lessons, and Technology. I really am excited for him to be starting school. I am planning to add my own Bible course to that grouping, but that will be an after-breakfast thing and all the kids (babies excluded) will be in on it. The person who's idea I'm adapting for Bible time said that they did one verse a day, just discussing what it meant, and also added a character quality in there...the character quality part lasting all week. And after they were done talking, all of them took a few minutes to pray. The girls know what "let's pray" means, even if all they ever say is "Dear Jesus, mumble-mumble-mumble, Amen!"
My Mother (bless her heart) taught all of us kids character qualities when we were growing up and I'm very grateful for that...I want to do the same with my kids. My thinking in training them is to name a quality, like honesty, and then talk about how we can be honest, what the opposite of honesty would entail, and then we can work really hard at being honest in everything all week long. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts that they'd like to share with me?? Really, I'm open for anything. :-)

We've been working on chores every day. It was quite a workout for me at first but then I realized that if I let the boys mark off their own chores as they did them, they were more excited to do them. Titus especially...he loves doing his chores and asks me for more. He's also been helping Grant a lot outside and Grant said he's been great...as great as a 4yr. old with limited skills can be. He can be quite a pill at times too (like complaining all through church, every single service), but he's a sweet little guy. Forrest is helpful the majority of the time but he hasn't learned to handle disappointment very well. The crying is a little hard to take sometimes. :-/ And the girls....well, they're 2 and into EVERYTHING. They are talking very well though. The babies...Trinity has been sleeping through the night for a few weeks now and Clell wakes up just once or twice. He's such a guzzler though that it only takes him about 5 minutes to drink his bottle, and then he burps and goes back to sleep. It takes a total of 10 minutes most of the time. They still don't go to sleep at night very early but we're getting there. I have to remind myself over and over that they are only 2 months...be patient! :-)

How's Grant? The big hairy guy is as cute and lovable as ever! :-)

Love,
Rebekah"

Oh, what a night.

2009-07-08T17:39:00.000-06:00

I finally went to bed about 9. AM. In the morning. Long story short, I got called last night by my boss blathering something about a site server going down and total data failure. So, for about 4 hours I babysat 4 kids and helped get things in motion for some disaster recovery.Then I proceeded to go into the office and work. I won't bore you with the details as I am still tired, but 2 hard drives failed in a RAID 5 array (second time in less than a year this has happened) so we had to do a complete rebuild. The services (e-mail and stuff) are up, but the data is in transit. It's only 200gig! geez. Heck, copying it over a gigabit connection to a portable hard disk taking us an obscene amount of time. I finally bugged out a bit before 9 cause I was toast. I almost fell asleep coming home and when I opened my eyes I realized I was starting to veer into a lane occupied by a very large and intimidating Octopus. Huh? Oh, I mean semi-trailer. Or I guess a semi with a trailer. Not that the trailer really would matter much. anyway, I've gotten 6 or seven hours since then but still feel like I've been wrung through a wringer.

Family life:
It's all about me! Stop asking about the kids. just kidding.

children 1-6 are good
Wife 1 is good
Wife 2... woops. nevermind.