Talking to Myself Again

Testing. 1... 2... 3... Is this thing on?

I'm toying with the idea of blogging again. Step 1 is remembering how this thing works. I'm still taking plenty of photos (although probably not as many as I once did), which I from time to time post on Flickr or Facebook. However, neither of those work as well as I would like for presenting the photos with more than a few lines of text, so a blog might work better. We'll see. On the other hand, I might just put this back into storage again and forget about it.

Maybe I Should Start Posting Again

July 20, 2010. That was the date of the previous posting on this blog. Over 18 months ago. (*does some math*) 562 days ago.

So.

What to write about?

Well, there is plenty to write about. Trying to summarize a year and a half in one blog post is... overwhelming. So I'm not going to try. I'll just get us caught up to the present.

I spent quite a bit of time becoming addicted to Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), which moved to a "free to play" business model in September 2010. (That might explain the lack of posting.) It's a fun game, but December 2011 saw the arrival of the 800 pound gorilla, also known as Star Wars: The Old Republic. That seems to have tempted away quite a few of the members of our kinship, so I've been playing less LOTRO in the last month or so.

Dawn has been sick. How's that for summarizing 18 months of a person's life? Okay, she wasn't sick the entire time. Still, she's been sick quite a bit. It turns out she's allergic to mold. Which seems to be everywhere. Inside our hourse, for one. And pretty much everywhere outside, for another. She spent much of last winter coming down with a cold which became a sinus infection which became bronchitis which became pneumonia. And she had an enlarged thyroid, which initially they said wasn't a problem, then later said should be removed. Which they did 2 weeks ago. And now she has no energy, because apparently her remaining thyroid didn't get the memo that it was going to need to do double duty.

Orlando is now in first grade. Somehow I managed to go through his entire kindergarten year without posting a single thing. Maybe that also partly explains the lack of posting. I'll try to do better. And there will be pictures. And videos. And amusing anecdotes. And stuff.

P.S. Just before posting this, I discovered that I had a draft post, written on December 31, 2010, still waiting to be finished and published. Well, no way that I'm going to finish it at this point, but I decided to publish it anyway. Oh well.

Year In Review, 2010 Edition

So. I haven't posted here in over 5 months, with very few posts in the months before that. So let's cover the entire year with a single blog posting, shall we?

Home Improvement Repair

Last year it was a new septic system. This year it was a new heat pump to replace our dead/dying air conditioner and furnace.

Back in January, I realized that our furnace just wasn't heating very well. We had someone replace the bit that wasn't working and it worked much better. Crisis averted! Or was it?

Come spring we had someone come out to recharge our air conditioner. A month later, it needed to be recharged again. Obviously it had a leak. Actually, multiple leaks, one of which was in a bit that couldn't really be patched, but would instead need to be replaced, which would be difficult, because they just don't make this style of thingamabob anymore, so even if one could be found it would cost an arm and a leg to fix it, and you're really just better off replacing the whole air conditioner, if you want my opinion. Or something like that.

So we got a heat pump. Which meant replacing the furnace that we had just had repaired a few months earlier. Oh well.

Home Improvement

We've been in this house for 2 years now, and we haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have expected, but we have done a few things.

• Painted the master bedroom.
• Painted the living room.
• Hung new curtains in the living room.
• Began (but haven't finished) stripping the paint from the garage door.

Yard and Garden Improvement

We've also done some work on the outside.

• Cleaned, sanded, and primed Lando's fort and swing set.
• Added a climbing wall to Lando's fort.
• Expanded the size of the garden by 50%.
• Built a compost bin near the garden.

Travel

OIn June 26 we went to the annual Tebbetts picnic to visit relatives, then the next day went to the City Museum in St. Louis.

Holidays

On October 16 we went to the Jack-o-lantern Spectacular in Washington Park.

On December 11, Lando sang with his kindergarten class in a Christmas concert at Clayville.

On December 17, Lando's kindergarten class had a holiday party.

On December 25, we opened Christmas presents!

On December 31, we celebrated New Year's Eve by staying home.

Parties

On December 4, we went to Sarah and Isabella's birthday party at the Riverside Stables.

On December 12, Orlando had his 6th birthday party at Glow Golf.

On December 18, we went to Kyle's birthday party at the Pizza Machine.

On December 19, we went to Adam's birthday party at Midstate Gymnastics.

 

Murder in the Garden

Murder in the Garden, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

I took this photo on the same day as the previous one. It's on the other side of the same bush. Yes, the Japanese beetles are back in the area! Hopefully they won't be overly fruitful and multiply.

Actually, they're very nifty beetles. I had a large insect collection when I was younger, and I really liked these. Of course, I wasn't much concerned with gardening at the time, so my perspective was a little different.

Don't worry; the title of this photo is overly dramatic. It's merely assault and battery, so far.

Flower by our House

Flower by our House, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

These very large flowers were planted by the previous owner on either side of the garage door. They're beautiful! And we want to get rid of them! Seriously, the are gorgeous, but the plants are too big for that space, and they droop out over the driveway This will be more of an issue once we finally start parking both cars in the garage.

I Love Spring

Our redbud tree is in full bloom. One of many reasons why spring is my favorite season.

New Friends!

When I saw that the weather forecast for Thursday was 64 and sunny, I decided it would be a good time to use a vacation day so that I could enjoy the nice weather.

My hope was that we could do some yardwork and then spend some time at Lincoln Memorial Gardens. We succeeded in the first, but never got to the second. But that's okay, because we made a new friend!

While I was out in the driveway cleaning all of the trash out of the car (quite an undertaking!), I noticed a woman walking by with a young boy about Lando's age. They paused at the end of our neighbor's driveway, so I called Lando over and pointed them out, asking him whether he wanted to go over and say "hi". Lando always wants to greet anyone who walks by our house. Except for this time. For whatever reason, he suddenly decided that he wasn't interested. Luckily Dawn came out just at that moment, and after she pointed out that the little boy was playing in a puddle, Lando just as quickly decided that saying "hi" was a good idea.

The woman's name is Jessica and her son, Marshall, is 4 years old. He has an older brother, Jack, who is in kindergarten this year. While Lando and Marshall played in the puddle, Dawn and I talked with Jessica about raising kids, the joys of home ownership, and how we came to live in Springfield.

It turns out that Jessica used to live in Colorado, less than 20 miles from Manitou Springs where Dawn lived! And it turns out that her ex-husband grew up in Centralia, the same town where I grew up! Somehow or other, we've all wound up in Springfield, living within walking distance of each other.

Eventually the mini-playdate migrated to the front porch of our house, and we exchanged phone numbers with Jessica. It looks like we managed to actually find Lando a friend he could play with in the neighborhood! For that matter, perhaps a friend for Dawn and I as well.

It's amazing how having a kid can both isolate you from your old friends ("Sorry, too busy, Lando needs to go to bed early") and introduce you to possible new friends at the same time.

Games Night

Our friend Ann hosted a games night last weekend. That's right – we actually left the house and spent time with other adults!

Well, Dawn spent time with other adults, playing a game called Apples to Apples. I mainly spent the night downstairs playing pool with Lando.

I've no idea why Lando looks so forlorn here. I doubt it was anything Maddie said!

Notice Lando's shirt? That's right – Super Mario Brothers! Yes, he is a Nintendo child! He wins races in Mario Kart fairly regularly now and has actually made it through the first level (1-1) of Super Mario Bros. Wii. Lando and I spent most of the evening downstairs playing pool. Lando has enhanced the game of pool with his own custom rules, most of them taken from Nintendo games, including obstacles and boss monsters.

Also, notice the cat with the jack-o-lantern body in Lando's hands? That's Pumpkin. Notice the lack of Giraffe in Lando's hands? After 5 years at the top of the totem pole, Giraffe has finally been displaced by Pumpkin as the toy that Lando carries with him everywhere! We're not sure why, but perhaps it's because Lando's hands are now large enough that Giraffe's long-suffering neck was too skinny to be a comfortable fit. Whatever the reason, Pumpkin is now top cat!

Can you say "cute overload"? That's Anna on the left (Ann's daughter) and Maddie on the right (daughter of Donna, who is providing the lap for this meeting of toddler minds).

Aww!

Look! It's Cute Thing 1 and Cute Thing 2!

And that concludes this installment of "Little Kids Being Cute Just by Existing"!

Family Portrait

I'm not sure whether we've ever taken a real "family photo". Lando needed one for a preschool project, so we decided the fireplace would make a nice backdrop.

Lando is standing on the fireplace hearth; he's tall, but he's not that tall!

After we took this photo, Lando was sick, so he didn't go to preschool. Then there were 2 days when preschool was closed for a workshop and parent-teacher conferences. So it wasn't until more than a week later that we were finally able to get this photo to his teachers. I haven't seen the result yet.

Speaking of parent-teacher conferences, we met with Lando's teacher, Mrs. House, to find out how Lando is doing. The short version is he's doing great! She did say that he doesn't like to dance, which was no surprise to us. Whenever the kids are asked to perform something like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "I'm a Little Teapot" (or whatever it is the kids do these days), he doesn't want to do it. We've noticed the same thing at Funshop, as well as at the preschool holiday shows where the kids put on a performance.

So far, despite his high energy level and friendly nature, he is not interested in being a showman!

Artist in Residence

Here's Lando demonstrating his artistic talents in the area of painting. (This was actually from 2 weeks ago. I'm a little behind!)