A horse, of course

We got an email yesterday telling my wife that the stable her horse is at is shutting down soon.

Real soon.

Real soon like January 1st if we can't pay extra. The extra would allow the caretaker, Melodye, to stay afloat long enough to close the barn in February.

Carrie took it pretty hard, but I think things may turn out for the best. I try to look at turmoil as a catalyst for change. That change can be for the better or the worse depending on how you look at it, what you do about it, and what God plans to happen in the end. Chilly may end up at a stable right down the road for less money than where he is now just west of Richmond. Wouldn't that be swell?  Hopefully, it'll put an end to some of the horse drama. Woe be to anyone who gets involved with owning a horse who doesn't realize what sort of commitment it is. The horse is my wife's, but I get pulled into the drama all the same.

When you buy a horse, you're buying a large, expensive responsibility that isn't easily managed. They're not like dogs or cats where you can pack them in a carrier for a vet trip, or throw them in the backyard to run off some of their energy. Hell, you can throw a cat outside and it's anyone's guess if the cat decides to come home or not. A horse? You have to have a large truck. Then you have to have a large trailer. Then you have to have a stall, a field, and then you have to trust that an animal that large isn't going to flatten you. And then you have to take care of the horse with training, cleaning and feeding. This takes time, time, and more time. Unless you are blessed with land, all of this has to happen on someone else's land. That means more travel time for you and you have to get along with whoever takes care of things when you're not around. If you know all of that and you're still up to the task, the more power to ya, but it's not something I would've chosen if my wife wasn't in love with her horse. The poor guy has been starved, ridden ragged, afflicted with Lyme disease, and generally booted around from place to place. I think things will be much better when Carrie has recovered enough to ride again and Shane is older and not so demanding. At this time, I don't think selling Chilly is a good idea, because he's such a large part of my wife's identity. Instead, I'm praying this recent drama will herald a time of horsey happiness.

 Also, I'm praying for the lady who was running the barn, Melodye. She was a Godsend to us for a long while, and I hope things turn around for her. The barn shutting down is hard on us and everyone who stabled there, but it's much harder on her. She's losing her chosen livelihood. It sounds like one of the reasons we got such short notice, was because Melodye didn't want to ruin anyone's Christmas by announcing doom and gloom beforehand.

I took the time to write this between breaks of running up and down the stairs to make sure Shane is sleeping well and breathing steadily (new father syndrome). It took me over an hour to get the little stink to fall asleep and I'm going to be mad if he doesn't allow for me to have at least a half an hour break. I don't want him waking up Mom either. She worries too much and doesn't take good enough care of herself unless I force her. I wrote about the horse stuff for a change of pace, but Shane is really the little tyrant who's running my life ragged right now. He's healthy, pooping, and driving Mom to the brink by sucking her dry and then demanding more. Also, the little man is getting really good about holding his head up during tummy time. I'm looking forward to when he does more than eat, sleep, poop, and stay awake when he's supposed to be asleep. In the meantime, he's damned cute when he doesn't cry.

New dad out.

Wind, wind, wind....

It was colder than a well-digger's butt when I went to get the mail today. The wind cut right through the pajama bottoms. I probably should've gotten fully dressed. I shut the door and shuffled upstairs to read the mail where Carrie was nursing Shane.

A few minutes later, Carrie looked out the window and said, "Hey! Cliff is walking up to our door." I started down the stairs to greet him, and to my surprise, I was looking right at him through the open door. Wide open (and cold). I'd forgotten to deadbolt it when I'd come inside! Cliff smiled, waved, and then asked for me to help him with his Harley which had also blown over in the wind!  It's no hurricane, but the wind is brutal for an average day. I shut the door to get my coat on, and when I opened it I was in for another surprise: my cat Max came streaking in!  The little runt ran home free out the wide open door, only she must've decided it was too cold!  Talk about good fortune. I remember the one time she got out of my apartment and I had to chase her around the building. She normally likes to hide and sleep at this time of day, so I may not have even noticed she was missing for hours.

Then, on a final note, I was helping right Cliff's motorcycle when a magazine blew up in the wind by my foot. The pages were flapping open and lo and behold, a centerfold. A naked, Playboy one. It wasn't Cliff's so I took it inside to throw away rather than let it float around for some kids to find.

Talk about an odd start to the day!

A Belated Merry Christmas!

Merry belated Christmas!

Christmas started awesome. My wife and I were able to actually get a few spurts of sleep in between feedings. We didn't rise until after noon. Shane, the little bugger, started cluster feeding like crazy the day before. Carrie was worried that she wasn't producing enough milk, because the little stink was insatiable. He drained all the milk from mom and all of the energy from mom and dad combined. Dr. Google said that he's probably having his first growth spurt. Sleeping in Christmas morning was exactly what Carrie and I needed.

Around 3:30, my family dropped by to visit. It was great! I haven't seen them nearly enough lately. The truth is, I've been feeling somewhat isolated. My wife has been feeling uncomfortable and very anxious since the pregnancy, so we haven't had many visitors for her health and sanity. Stress caused her to go into an early labor at around 26 weeks, so I didn't really push for many visitors. We just focused on trying to keep her relaxed and as comfortable as possible. Carrie's parents came up to visit multiple times and Carrie's mom came up  for almost a week to help with the new baby (a huge thank you), but aside from them, next to no one was able to visit.

Anyway, the family + Billy came up and that was awesome. Christmas is supposed to be spent with your loved ones. It was great to hear everyone laughing and talking. My family is extremely full of life (aka: not quiet). Also, I was extremely excited to show everyone my son for the first time. Aside from Mom and Dad, the rest of my friends and siblings haven't met Shane. Carrie didn't want any visitors at the hospital, and because I wasn't the one in pain from surgery I didn't press for it (I would've loved to have had a revolving door of friends and family, but needs come before wants.) My mom got to hold Shane for the very first time, and I had a great time catching up with everyone and opening presents. We'd bought some Chocorooms from Costco as a gag gift (if you see the box, you'll know what I'm talking about) to go along with all of our gifts. My family was extremely generous as well. Patrick in particular. With no job, and no income, he brought a box of books, a DVD, and some Amazon gift cards. Christmas Eve, his "finger slipped" and he "accidentally" bought me a game on Steam as well. Where'd he get the money? Drugs? Nay. It was his inheritance from when Grandpa passed away. Thanks Pat. Billy was there too, because "Mom had called in the muscle" to help Matt drag in a mini-fridge that we'd gotten off Walmart.com. Once again, thank you to everyone for coming to visit!

This journal got interrupted just like all of my last attempts. Shane finished eating at 10:20 with Carrie and I sent her to bed. In the past 3 hours, Shane has been wide awake for all but 30 minutes, drank 2 similac bottles, had four dirty diapers, and had me play pacifier patrol. I eventually had to wake up Carrie because he's still hungry. Last night, he'd driven her to the brink. She was in tears and stressed and at the end of of her rope. I sent her to bed and I ended up sleeping on the floor in Shane's room and feeding him formula to get Carrie a long rest. It did the trick, and she was ready for action the next morning and made me feel like a million dollars with her thanks. 

Carrie's still feeding so I should go back upstairs. Hopefully I wasn't gone too long to finish this. 

Shane's first bath

Well, we found something that Shane REALLY doesn't like: bathing. He got his first bath today, and he pooped on me and the baby bather. I ended up switching shirts too, because Shane figured that if he was getting a bath, I should have a golden shower. He hollered almost the whole time, so Carrie and I made it the quickest sponge bath we could. We'll try again later in the hopes that he'll be less surprised about the feel of water on his skin!

Today was the first day we left the house for errands as a family. Milk was in short supply, so we drove a mile to the neighborhood Giant. I stayed with Shane in the car, while Carrie went inside. Shane isn't old enough yet that the doctors would recommend he be around a large group of people/germs. I made a bunch of phone calls while I was in the car to try and catch up with family. Overall, that seems to have been my job so far as a dad: to fill in the gaps.

Whenever Carrie handles the feedings, I try to hang around the room. I can't help with the actual feed (obviously), but I play errand monkey. If she wants ice water, needs Shane to be held/burped/changed, or needs her meds then I "fill in the gap." At night, I'll read out selections from Baby 411 while Carrie nurses to answer questions and generally just be morale support. When the feeding is done, I swaddle Shane and stay with him to make sure he's goes to sleep. I send Carrie to bed, because she has a harder time resting than I do. Lately, the little stinker has had a tendency to pop his eyes open the moment I lay him down. Then, he wriggles like a worm until he starts to break free from the swaddle. I end up playing servant and constantly replacing his pacifier to keep him placated. My goal is for him to go to sleep, so I try to keep the lights low, avoid making too much noise, and do the minimum intervention for him to go to sleep. It doesn't always work. I was up for an hour and a half with Shane last night and ended up changing him, feeding him formula, and then changing him again amongst other antics. My son, the little pig, had just fed off of mom until he was on the verge of sleep, and then drained 45 ml of formula 45 minutes later. I suspect he's starting his growth spurt.

Speaking of growing, the kid is strong! He's holding his head up and pushing off my chest for tummy time, and he can arch his back and bridge with his legs when flat on his back. I've heard a couple of noises from him lately that weren't wails either. I think Shane is developing to the point where he's going to be more social. Carrie swears she's been seeing him smile some lately, and I've caught the tail end of some suspected smirks as well. It'll be neat to see what kind of person Shane is as he grows up! I know he's here right now, but it feels like I've still yet to really meet him. At the moment, he's a cute, poop machine that makes mom and dad run around at his beck and call.

I'm almost done reading Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli. It's a funny story how I found the book. I was helping with a feeding one evening and I prayed a quick prayer I pray from time to time: to be drawn closer to God. Later on that night, Carrie asked me if we had any 9v batteries. I knew the answer was probably "no," but I went around the house looking anyway (it never hurts to look and you can always be proven wrong). I checked all of the obvious places, and then checked a few places I was pretty sure weren't going to pan out as well. One of those places turned out to hold a book I didn't realize I had.

Will finish post tomorrow. Sleep beckons.

Life in the time warp

Life with Shane is measured by feedings. There's a feeding before I go to sleep, and a feeding when I rise each day. They are my alpha and omega. Each feeding includes diaper changing, burping, feeding, and takes anywhere from 45 minutes to a over an hour. Shane eats around 8 times a day, so it's a full time job.

Every other segment of the day falls into the "between feedings" category. These can be characterized by sleeping, trying to accomplish laundry or some other chores, playing with Shane, or sitting in a vegetative state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. The amount of time between feedings is variable, so it's impossible to really plan on anything. Any activity I do needs to be something that I can start and stop if Shane needs me. You'd be surprised how long it takes me to write some of these journals! TV, the internet, and a little reading are now my activities of choice.

Shane is worth it, though. He's already impressed me with how strong he is. He's not even two weeks old, and when I laid down with him on my stomach for some tummy time, he could already pick up and hold his head up for a few seconds. He kicks like a mule, and can swing his arms around like a windmill. He's starting to resemble me a little more, too. Every time he cuts loose a big fart, Carrie looks at me and says, "Your son."

Yesterday was scary for Carrie. We have a cat with an infected eye, and lo and behold Shane had some yellow gunk forming in his eye. She started to panic, and I had to force her to calm down. We called the doctor, and the doctor confirmed Dr. Google's prognosis: a blocked tear duct. It's common, and if it doesn't work itself out by Monday, the doctor will look at it during Shane's two-week check in. We're trying home remedies such as cleaning out the eye and gently massaging the area between Shane's nose and the corner of his eye. Carrie is very worried for Shane's health and safety, and she nixed a visit by Matt today, because someone at my parent's house has a cold.

Today, we're going to give Shane his first bath. His umbilical cord stump fell off yesterday afternoon, so we're in the clear. For now, it's time for some football. It's the fantasy football playoffs! I gambled and put Vincent Jackson in Thursday. It was only his third game, but it paid off big. Hopefully, big enough to win.

Later!

What will the world be like...

My mother and father were born in the mid 1950s. America had been victorious in WW2, my grandfather was back from a tour of duty as a cook in Japan, and my great-uncle long returned from fighting with the infantry in Europe. The Great Depression was over, Eisenhower was a good president, and the baby boom was booming. It wasn't all pretty, though. Communist Russia weighed high on many American minds, but at least the Soviets were a visible enemy rather than the terrorist boogeymen of today's world. Vietnam hadn't started yet, and I think overall it must have been an optimistic time to have children.

I was born in the early 80's. At the time of my birth, America was just ending a severe recession. Giant mainframes were becoming personal computers (there was a famous 1984 commercial with Apple), Reagan was in charge and over 50% of the country was thrilled about it. While I was still young, the Berlin wall fell, and the US kicked some butt in Desert Storm. Interest rates were through the roof, but overall I think it was also an optimistic time to have children.

What about today? My child is born into a time period when there's a recession, foreclosures left and right as a result of a real estate fallout, the federal deficit is looking to go into orbit, and the military is chasing terrorists. I can't help but think that Shane isn't being born into the most optimistic of times. Technology can do amazing things, but at the moment, I think that it's at the stage where people still need to find a healthy balance to some of the advancements. A simple Google search can bring up hardcore pornography for a young kid browsing the internet, video games consume the lives of adults and children, and any time you buy something it becomes obsolete by the next Christmas.  It doesn't seem like the most optimistic of times to me.

But I have hope. By the time Shane is older, I believe the recession will be over and things will be looking up. Technology will be being used in more classrooms making for better instruction, medical science is advancing at a quick rate, and the world is becoming more and more connected through the global economy. I'm thinking that the little bugger will be lucky enough to see a base establish on the moon! (I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be old enough to see that one, as well.)

That's all in the future, though. We've got to survive the present first. Shane had a nice upchuck earlier that had Carrie in tears. If you're reading this Shane, let me tell you: your mom loves ya like crazy. Whenever you hiccup, she hangs at your bedside and hopes that they aren't paining you. Min has an eye infection, and Carrie makes her mom and I wash our hands with soap AND with instant hand sanitizer after we handle her. She's taking no chances that you could catch whatever Min has. If you're in the room, the volume on the TV switches back and forth as I raise it to hear, and she lowers it so you won't. Sometimes after you're done feeding, she'll hold you sleeping in her lap for hours. She's told me straight up that she wasn't a baby person at all, until she met you. You're different and she's crazy about ya.

You're a lucky kid. My concern is that she'll stop worrying about you and start worrying more about her own health. She needs to get more sleep if you'll let her. My fingers are cross that after I'm done writing this, and your mom's done feeding you, you'll let us get in a three hour nap before we give it another go.

Officially a father

I've officially been initiated as a father...and more than once too. It's harder to be initiated if you have a daughter, but a son? It's going to happen whether you want it to or not.

We took Shane in for his first check-up Monday. I filled out a wad of forms, many which were asking questions about things that could not have possibly happened yet. You know, typical doctor questions. Has the patient been out of the country in the past five years? No. He hasn't been out of his mom for much more than five days, do I really have to fill this out?  Isn't it obvious he doesn't smoke or drink alcoholic beverages more than three times a day?  I like to think I'm at least a decent father!  I limit him to one beer bottle before bedtime, and not an ounce more!

Anyway, we were at the doctor's office. Carrie and I cart Shane into one of the examination rooms where you sit on that bench/table thing with wax paper running down the middle of it. The nurse comes in and asks us to unclothe or son. This we weren't expecting. The nurse assures us it's alright and lays a liner down that we're supposed to place our bare baby upon. I remember taking a deep breath and mentally crossing my fingers that Shane doesn't start pooping all over the office or spraying pee. He may be small, but he packs a surprising amount of pressure.  Thankfully, Shane had already peed and pooped up his diaper, so we had a window of opportunity.

7 lbs 12 ounces. Go Shane!

We trotted victoriously back to the examination room and before we could get Shane dressed we started to hear ominous noises.

Poop-sign.

First, there's a little poot. Then, things got a little wetter. Within a few seconds, Shane is dropping his load (a very healthy grey poupon) on the exam table. Rats! At least we saved a diaper. I picked him up and held him while Carrie and the nurse started damage control. It's when I'm cooing and bouncing him, my stomach starts to feel warm.

Warm....and wet.

I held my son against my chest for maybe another second or two as the gears started turning in my head. I looked down and confirmed my suspicions. Yep. The kid was peeing all over my chest. If we were at home, I'd have just held him close to save the floors and carpets, but we're at a doctor's office. I turned him slightly to the side and let the rest of his load arc out and hit the wall. If there was a baby merit badge involving distance, he'd have earned it. Doctors have to clean those rooms after patients and it was the nurses idea to strip Shane in the first place, so I wasn't feeling to guilty.

I was feeling proud.  My boy's got a healthy wee-wee. He saved me a diaper too. Heck, this may mean he's going to grow up to be an environmentalist.

I have officially survived my initiation as a father: my son has peed on me.

Ready for the night shift

Went upstairs at 4 and slept from 5-8ish. The shift started off pretty slow. It's like little Shane is trying to recover from being so hyper last night. Well, we also made some strategic changes during the day. Grandma Nancy picked up a different kind of pacifier when I noticed he didn't like his current ones as much as he'd liked the ones at the hospital. We've also stopped using all the 'swaddle mes' and 'sleepsacks.' Shane does much better in a simple swaddle. It's too bad all of the receiving blankets we received are too small for him. I could do a baby burrito wrap in the blankets we had, but he's too strong. He powers right out of it. Thankfully, we had a couple from the hospital that are just the right size (for now).

All of the literature I've read talks about how parents have to be careful nothing covers a baby's face because they aren't strong enough to clear their airways. Shane can buck like a bronco. I tried putting him in the bouncer yesterday in a 'swaddle-me' (which leaves his legs semi free) and he was flipping on his left and right and trying to bridge right out of the sucker. If we don't swaddle him before trying to feed, he can use his arms to push himself off Carrie's chest before he latches. Let me tell you, we may have a future sports star in the making here. With as much as he's eating, I wonder if he'll grow into some of the height on Carrie's side of the family.

So far, things have been more intense than I had expected. I'd imagined watching SG-1 with Carrie whenever the baby was on sleep breaks, but it doesn't work like that. I imagined that I'd work on some writing too. What I'm really doing is checking every five minutes or so to make sure nothing is blocking Shane's nose. He flinches and I'm grabbing a pacifier, just in case. I could have accomplished quite a few things when I started my shift if I'd realized he was going to sleep like a rock the first two and a half hours. What I did was sit on the couch watching the Santa Clause 3 and keep a constant vigil so that I could guarantee Carrie some sleep time.

I'm  looking forward to tomorrow. I think we're getting better and better and the whole parenting thing and every day is one more day towards walking, talking, and playing catch. My parents are supposed to visit, and Carrie's dad is coming up for the day as well. Scheduling all of that may be a pain, but I want to show my boy off. On top of all that, it's football day. That seems like good baby programming. I don't have to watch every play and even the commercials tend to be funny. If I miss something, they'll show a replay if it was something worth watching. If it was really worth watching, they'll show it in an endless loop to make sure that I see it, remember it, and talk about it with all of my friends. Football's like that.

Well, blog for the night is done. I planned ahead of time, and dropped my bible off in the room. I plan on doing some of my Sunday worship in the quiet with my son.

Stay classy.

Goodbye Hospital, Hello Home

Shane has arrived and sleep has left the building. I pulled an all-nighter last night. I would've typed in my blog, but it was an active all-nighter. Did I get to sit around and watch my boy sleep? No, sir! He had me walking, talking, dancing, singing, and cleaning poop under threat of crying and waking Carrie. At one point, he dozed off in my lap in a chair for close to two hours. The chair didn't recline, and the room temperature dropped to the point my shivering forced me to get up, waking him. He was such a good sleeper at the hospital, that I can't help but think it was some sort of ploy to make sure we didn't leave him there. Anyway, I stayed up until 7:30ish when I woke my mother in law to take over so I could sleep until 10.

Poor Carrie has it rough. I was able to give her some windows to sleep, but anxiety and pain kept her from being able to do so. With the tears and obvious pain, I don't know how much longer we'll keep up the breastfeeding. Shane did a number on Carrie's boobs leaving nasty looking welts and breaking the skin before we discovered the joys that are a nipple shield. He's got a great grip and she pays the price. There's also the back pain from the epidurals, the blister the size of a 5 inch caterpillar on her thigh, the incision from the surgery... First thing I did this morning, was fill all of her pain med prescriptions and pick up a heating pad to hopefully sooth some of the muscle ache.

Shane is sleeping soundly at the moment (unlike last night). I could have killed our motion-detecting monitoring system when it blurted out a false alarm and almost woke the boy up. Thankfully, I'm in the room typing so I was able to blast off from the glider and turn it off in a hurry. Unlike Carrie, I'm not chained to feeding time so I can take a nap if I need to later. Lack of sleep won't kill me though (mind over matter), so I'm going to try and use my waking hours as best I can to take care of things or sit in the baby's room to lower her anxiety or whatever it is I can do to make things easier on her.

On a plus note, the pharmacist at Wahlgreen's told me she had a four-month year old and that things would get better! I didn't get a receipt for that advice, but I'll let it slide this time. Keep praying for us!

Shanetown

Everyone who told me "everything's going to change" was right. I can now talk about lactation, birthing methods, breastfeeding, discharges, and the pros and cons of circumcision without discomfort. The past several days, my entire world has been narrowed down to "baby, baby, baby." I'm glad that babies aren't rocket science. There's been a lot to learn, but I feel we've made a lot of improvement towards being competent baby owners (also known as 'parents'). Life would've been hell if baby formula involved a series of a hundred steps or intense mathematics ("Did you use the derivative or the reciprocal as your variable in figuring out the amount?" "What do you mean!? I was just going to use a number!") There is a lot to know, but babies are good about forcing you to immerse yourself in baby bootcamp. I can't imagine how taxing all of this would be on someone who wasn't planning on having a child. They're like a

Sleep deprivation has set in as well. Shane feeds about every three hours, which means we're up to feed him three hours. Actually, we're up every two on average. It takes half an hour to feed him, and then more time to clean him, and put him back to sleep, but the three hour-clock has already begun. Supposedly, he's allowed to go for one four-hour spurt without feeding at night, but that's still not a lot of sleep. I'm good about waking up in the morning, but when roused from a deep slumber I don't know my name or up from down. Carrie's a lot better about waking up and figuring out what's going on. Her maternal instincts have kicked in full force. At first, she was scared that she was going to hurt the baby or do something wrong. Now, she's fiercely protective and enjoys holding him for long periods of time. She doesn't let anyone save the nurses and I touch the baby. Carrie is totally caught up in how awesome our son is (that's a 100% awesome for those who were wondering).

Tonight is our last night at the hospital. I'm finally starting to catch up with people I didn't contact my first several days here. There was always a nurse, a nurse tech, a registrar, or someone else coming in to the room to dispense advice medicine, or paperwork in addition to having a needy baby and a hurting wife. It'll be nice to be home, but also rough. There won't be a nursery or a lactation consultant on call. We'll be all on our own. It'll be the real deal! I'm excited. It won't be easy but it'll be nice to have our boy in our house. God, watch over us and please don't have let the cats burn the place down.

First feeding!

Shane had his first successful breastfeeding attempt early this morning! 4 AM and all was well. It doesn't seem like such a complicated process, but there's much more of an art about getting those first latches than you would initially think. It was great. He's healthy, mom is getting healthier, I couldn't be happier (unless it all went much faster! That's life, though).  I need to add Kim's name to the list of exceptional nurses we've had. She was a huge help in showing us up from down.

Today is hopefully going to be a day full of learning for us. Shane came back in the room around 9:30 and had another feeding with Carrie. He slept on her chest afterwords for over an hours before we heard a loud PFFTTT! "He pooped!" You know what poop means? Dad gets to go to work! I took him from mom, and she helped me clean his bum. I was quick enough not to let him pee in my face (always a danger with boys). I got to practice my swaddling technique afterwards. I'll need to be a little quicker in the future. Shane's little dagger-like fingernails let him scratch himself a little. Didn't really brake the skin, but it's something I'll need to watch for.

Overall, I'm thrilled to be a dad. I'm not hyper-excited scared like I thought I'd be, but pretty evenly happy and pleased. I think that maybe it's to even out Carrie a little bit. She's very worried and anxious, but she's been doing a great job and I'm sure it'll be less scary with practice. Shane? He's doing great. He's stronger than I expected and can really wriggle around when you don't want him too. It's still too early to see what color eyes he's going to have, but my fingers are crossed that he gets mine. I love Carrie's eyes, but riddle me vain, I want to see something more than a chin that I know he definitely got from me. Well, I guess he got my blood type too, because he's not the same as Carrie. It's been a while since I've donated blood, so I don't remember what my bloodtype actuall is, but I'm still going to claim responsibility for those genes. The cute part can't be from me. I was an ugly baby. Even my mom says so and she's partial to me.

Quick update while Carrie was in the shower and Shane was sleeping. more to follow!

Shane is here!

Our son is born!  He's healthy, and looks great. I was an ugly baby, so he obviously takes after his mother (and he has the dark hair to prove it!). I cannot describe how happy I am to be a father...partly because it still feels surreal to me. I look at Shane and it's hard to believe he's mine. Oh, he's got my chin, but it's still going to take time to sink in. I'm really happy and looking forward to being a father.


If the beginning of the last post didn't make it obvious, it was a rough delivery. Carrie was in labor for 11 hours, but never dilated more than 1 cm. The doctors said that it was a sign the baby was too big and Mother Nature was trying to tell us that the baby was going to need to come out another way: Cesarean style. It wasn't what we'd hoped for, but I have to give the hospital credit for how quickly they acted. Our doctor made the decision, left the room, and within a couple of minutes I was handed a set of scrubs, and a few minutes after that we were out the door and down the hall.

If that was all that we had to deal with, it wouldn't have been such a bad experience. However, Carrie's epidural failed. Hours into the process, Carrie decided to go the epidural route. It didn't work. We found it out the hard way when several procedures that should have been painless made Carrie miserable (and I learned a new vocabulary term: sacral sparing). The second epidural looked like it was doing its job correctly until they put Carrie on the operating table. The needle moved, hit a blood vessel, and the catheter filled with blood. Poor Carrie started to feel a lot of pain. They tried dumping more meds into her system, but she cried out because she could feel what was happening to her. At this point, they told me "you have to go outside" and dumped Carrie under general anesthesia. I like to think I'm a brave man, and I can count the times I've teared up in the past years on one finger (once). It's really scary worrying that you may lose both wife and child. When I heard Shane cry out and they dropped him in my hands I did tear up. It was one of those odd moments where it felt like my mind and body weren't on the same page. I was thinking one thing, and my eyes were thinking something else. When Carrie started to wake up from her drug-induced sleep, she was annoyed because she's never gotten to see me cry before.

Rough story, but it doesn't end there either. When Carrie started to become more lucid, she was in a lot of pain. The narcotics in her IV (the good stuff) weren't cutting it, and the anesthesiologists kept upping the doses. Eventually, they started using a key to unlock the safety procedures on the little toy pumping the medicine into my wife. Shane was born at 8 PM, and we didn't end up getting out of the recovery room and settled in our new room until midnight. Then, the pain meds ran out and the dispenser started beeping incessantly until it got examined and changed out. Sleep for me came around 1 AM. At 5 AM, the nurses came in with Shane for some bonding time with Mommy and I found out Carrie had been unable to sleep for the second night in a row. She was in pain, sleep deprived, and becoming more and more distressed (especially when there was an hour gap in the refilling of her pain meds). The situation didn't get better until Carrie was given a shot of some sort of intramuscular shot of a different pain reliever. Around noon, she was able to sleep for about three hours and things have been much better since then. We've seen Shane, the parents saw Shane, and Carrie is now on Percocet which is proving much more effective.  I've heard my wife crying and sobbing more than I ever wanted to in the past 36 hours. It leaves you feeling helpless, because there's nothing absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

Even with all of the difficulties, both mother and child are healthy and in no danger. It's amazing, and I can't help but feel so grateful. Carrie was able to get up out of bed when the nurses made her, and she's been acting like she feels much much better. Thank you to everyone who was praying for us. I started making calls to people when I could, and I'll be making more calls tomorrow. Thank you to the nurses who were patient and very helpful. Debbie, Audrey, and Munja all stick out as being exceptional. Thank you God for giving me a happily sleeping son!

All right. Memory preserved and I want to try and get a couple of hours of sleep before they bring in Shane for the next feeding. Good night to all, and to all a good night.

Still waiting on Shane....

It's been a long day and we're not there yet. Carrie and I woke up at 7 AM. I say "woke up," but Carrie apparently never fully fell asleep. I was a lot better off, but the couch "made-of-what-feels-like-wood-boards" wasn't very helpful.

The day started off with an Oxytocin drip for Carrie. She's been hooked up to what I've been calling her "portable Christmas tree" ever since. Our nurse, Debbie, has been excellent. Very friendly, and always positive. The day has been far from easy, though. I think both Carrie and I went into this thinking that an induction would be much quicker than going into labor normally. The average labor time is 12 hours (I think), and somewhere in my brain I was expecting to be holding my son around the time school normally lets out for me. Instead, it's 7PM at night and we're no further along than when we started.

For the first four hours or so,Carrie resisted asking for pain meds. When she gave in to getting an epidural, it was with the thought that she could relax and maybe even sleep. So began the problems. The position of leaning forward to get the epidural was very painful for Carrie. When it went in,


time out for c-section.

Everything is going to change...

I'm not as nervous as I thought I'd be. It's not that I'm not nervous, it's just that I don't feel a crushing weight or anything like that. I suppose that's because largely I'm a spectator here. Carrie's the one feeling the pressure. My job is going to be moral support for Carrie and acting as calm and collected as possible for her sake.

We checked into the hospital just before 8 PM. Carrie dropped herself off at the emergency room (she wanted to drive) and then I drove off to hunt for parking. We signed in, and we've been parked in the room ever since. The hospital has done it's best to make what's clearly a hospital room look homier (if that's a word). There's cabinets, a rocking chair, and even a (fake?) wooden headboard attached to the hospital bed. If it wasn't for all of the high-tech monitoring equipment, baby care station, and hospital bed they may have even pulled it off. We've spent the last three hours talking to the nurse, setting up monitoring, medicine, and drawing blood (Carrie's least favorite part). The Ravens - Steelers game has been going on in the background since 8:45 or so. It's been a great time-killer, and I've been making sure to keep Carrie updated on her fantasy stats. Hopefully the sleeping pill will take effect soon for Carrie. It's after 11 PM now, and I think they said they were going to give us a 6 AM wake-up call.

I've spent a lot of this weekend thinking about how different life is going to become. There will be no more "give me five minutes to see if this game finishes" or "I'll just sleep in/roll over/hit the snooze button and get up later." The world is going to shift from Mike-time to baby-time. I got a sneak peek at what that feels like when I shifted to married-time, but baby-time is going to take things to a whole new level. I don't know what sort of sleep pattern Shane (and therefore Carrie and I) is going to have, so I don't know how many extended activities will be possible. While folding and putting away baby clothes today, I decided that I should try and write a journal of every day. Nothing big, but maybe just something I can show to Shane later or to keep people informed. I don't want anyone to feel left out. There's just so many people to call, and supporting Carrie takes up most of my time. I'm writing this in the dark as she's trying to sleep. It's too dark to read any of the parenting books I brought with me (last minute cramming), so I think I'm going to try and get some sleep for tomorrow. After all, who knows when I'll get another chance for six glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep?

Two days until BBDay

Two days until "Baby Birthday" and counting.

I'm going to be off work for the next 8 weeks or so thanks to FMLA leave. I have the sick leave saved up so that I'll be paid throughout (nice!), but I'm still worried that my classroom is going to explode while I'm gone. Logic tells me that it won't, and maybe it's just pride that makes me think I'm that integral to how things work, but the feeling remains. I stayed late Thursday and Friday trying to make sure everything was ready. I know I forgot things, and I hope Mrs. Mitchell will be able to improvise. One of my students has been DREADING her impending arrival. He even wrote down "Mrs. Mitchell" for the answer to his bonus question on a quiz yesterday. The Question? "When does the nucleus disappear and when does it reappear in mitosis?' Clearly, his mind was on other things!

Last night, I couldn't really focus on much. I watched some TV and played some games (lost), but I kept thinking about BBday. I think a lot of it was also just worrying about my classroom/job. Today, we slept way in (later than I wanted, but Carrie sleeps better if I hang around), and we've done a ton of work since. Hours and hours of laundry, cleaning, cat pots, and trying to make sure that the house will survive on its own for a few days and be ready for us when we return with Shane in tow.

My wife has decided to hover over my shoulder at the moment. She's been trying to entice me to watch SG-1 while I've been writing this. First, she started singing the song, then she prepped the PS3 and has been watching the back of my head, and now she's hovering behind me. Do you think she's looking forward to it?  Thankfully, I happen to love SG-1 as well, so I'm off for now!

Induction is scheduled

Carrie's induction is scheduled. If the baby doesn't show up this week, we report to the hospital at 8 PM Sunday  to overnight and start in the morning. I'd wanted to write, but I've had a hugely hard time focusing lately. The baby is near.

I'm really looking forward to being a father.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Happy sleep off the food day!

I was really glad I got a chance to see my family last night. I've been seeing a lot of Carrie's family, but next to nothing of my own lately. Everyone gathered at the Jeffers' house (my other family) for pie and company. Everyone just has a zest for life, is full of energy and ready to tell a good story and laugh. Kathleen's story took the cake (poor Stu).

Kathleen just recently got offered a new job after sitting in an interview for two hours smiling and nodding. The interviewer spent the whole time talking about hunting, the parts of the deer to eat, and boiling the kidney or brain in piss (or something along those lines). Ka said he never once asked about anything on her resume or her credentials. At most, she was asked if she was easily offended or couldn't handle diversity. She said "no," they called the next day, and she started the following Monday. That's not where the story ends, though.

On Ka's third week, she got to go on a business trip for a week. While on said trip, she managed to leave behind the car keys! Stu's been forced to ride the city bus until the keys get mailed back. Apparently, the people on the bus call him "Whitey," because he's the only one on the bus. The bus also starts and stops every few feet giving everyone whiplash (which may be why they're so cranky and less than nice). As Kathleen is telling us the story, she's smiling the whole time. "I feel so bad!" Ka said. Bill replied "Yeah right! You've been laughing the whole time! You think [Stu's] misery is hilarious!" Everyone started laughing at this point and started apologizing to Stu about Kathleen.

Everyone was in a jovial mood, so it was a great time. We watched some football, told stories, and poked at each other. Good times! Today started off with some traveling and work but it's been otherwise uneventful. We had a marathon five hour cleaning session yesterday morning, so there's not too much left to do. Honestly, I feel restless. It's like there's something important I should be doing but I'm not. I've played some games, read some, watched some Avatar episodes...., but there's that feeling that I should be doing something more. If anything, I should just be enjoying the quiet time that will soon disappear when Shane arrives, but I'd prefer if he was already here. Carrie was sick last night and kept moaning and acting like she was dying. She feels better today, but she's been passed out on the couch for the past two to three hours. I think I'll go read some Acts and then some Terry Pratchett and try to figure out what to do with myself. Hopefully, I'll get some writing or even grading done.

Bye for now.

Football!

Originally, it was supposed to be a surprise, but my father-in-law, Tony, took me to a Penn State football game this past weekend. Carrie let it slip about a week early to make sure I didn't run off and make some sort of plans. Tony and the rest of his family are die-hard Penn Staters ("They-are-PENN-STATE!"). I have no loyalty to Penn State, but I was thrilled at a chance to see FedEx field. I watch the Redskins lose their all the time, but only on TV. What Tony was offering me was a chance to see a football game (always good), a chance to see FedEx field in person for a change (even better), and the tickets included an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET (Touchdown!). That's a winning combination!  I wouldn't even have to worry about the skins losing for a change.

The drive to the stadium took around an hour and a half if memory serves. Beltway traffic is dismal at the best of times, and our route took us over to the dark side: Maryland. The land of no turn signals and weaving cars. Thankfully, we survived. The game was worth the trip.

A few notes about watching a game in person:
1) I miss the commentators (at least when they're good). There are no stats, there is no discussion of strategy, there is only the crowd when a play is live. In between plays, the loudspeakers will blast the beginning of a song. The music starts to get in your blood, pump you up, and then they turn if off for the play. I'm so used to watching on TV, it almost felt disjointed for me for most of the game.

2) At the end, when the game was on the line, the whole stadium was pumped and excited. Crowds can be highly infectious. It was tame for most of the game, but around the third quarter, people started getting excited. There's something about an excited crowd that draws me in as well. It's contagious.

3) You can never escape commercials. They blasted them on the jumbo-trons. I could be saving money on car insurance with Geico or protecting myself from Mayhem with All-State.

4) Prices aren't only elevated, they're practically a felony in progress. Eight dollars for a Bud Light. Fifty dollars for a Penn State polo. I wouldn't be surprised if the prices went up even higher for a professional game.

5) Driving out of FedEx field sucks. It took an hour to move out of our parking space and travel an hour on the main road. The first 40 minutes were spent within 30 feet of where I was parked. I do not kid. I couldn't help but think how awful it must've been watching the Eagles destroy the skins the Sunday before in the cold rain, only to then be stuck in a parking lot near midnight (in the cold rain).

The rest of the weekend was spent on plumbing and home improvements. My father-in-law did the majority of the work, but I lugged things, sawed lumber and pipes, and did whatever I could to help. My in-laws have been extremely generous, but I was still glad to have some quiet time after they left on Sunday. I like people, but I don't recharge my batteries without peace and quiet. How much of that do you think I'll get once Shane is born?  Seven pounds, nine ounces. I better enjoy the sleep while I can.

The future?

Today I got videotaped in my classroom for a little bit. Well, I was in a video at least. One of the students in my classroom is involved in a pilot program involving an iTouch. Someone came in to videotape him using his iTouch. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but it really is a useful piece of technology. One of my coworkers showed me an app on her iPhone that simulated all of the phases of mitosis a couple of day ago. You had to pinch the membranes together to activate cytokineses and pull the chromosomes away in anaphase. It makes learning large vocabulary words a heck of a lot more interesting than it normally is.

It's amazing to me the rate at which technology is spreading for better or worse. There's a lot of really awesome application that even I can think of. Look at my student's iTouch. It allows him to communicate when he otherwise would have difficulty. If we hooked it up to the internet, it could be a study aide or even turn boring lessons into something more interactive. Who knows? Maybe we'll have classroom sets of iPads or iTouches in the future instead of laptops! I was psyched today reading about a contest designing moonbases for the year 2069. I want to be alive when that happens!

Information used to be a difficult to obtain resource. What you could learn and recall was a huge part of your education (and it still is). Nowadays, it seems like it's more useful to teach how to find knowledge or interpret what you find rather than teach knowledge itself. Why teach the kids what the population of the United States is when a simple Google search will give them an exact number? Google is on their phones and with the way technology is going, it may even be imprinted on their brains one day (there's an app for that!).

I'm not going to harp on the downsides, but they are there. An innocent Google search can lead to a gut-churning porn site or virus with a simple misclick. Misinformation abounds; tact and moderation are hard to find commodities. People have become so used to easy information that when it's not available they go with the quickest answer they come up with (see "missile launch in CA"). Bullying used to be escapable, but now it can find kids wherever the internet beckons. Every day, I have to listen to kids talk about friending strangers on Facebook as they walk down the hallways. I'm glad all of these tools are going to be available to Shane when he's older. I'm not sure how I'm going to teach him how to avoid all of the disadvantages of the technology, but it is something I've thought about more lately.  You know...seeing as I'm going to be a father sometime in the next few weeks if everything goes as planned (fingers crossed and praying).

I haven't posted anything for a few days, so I wanted to post something real quick but it all boils down to me thinking about my impending fatherhood. It's something I'm thinking about more and more with the due date coming up December 12th.  The doctors said Shane may come early so that's even more to think on. I just hope the kid waits until after next week. There's only 2.5 workdays and I'd rather not have to make up an easy workweek. Plus, I'm going to a Penn State game at FedEx field this weekend with my father-in-law, his brother, and my cousin-in-law. I'm a Cornhuskers fan myself, but it will be neat to see FedEx field in person for once. The Redskins won't even be losing in it!

Ah! A free hour!

Free hours are great. Got to sleep in an extra hour before installing the new door knobs and taking inventory of baby stuff with Carrie.

I also woke up to an odd idea for a plot for a children's cartoon that's probably been done before. A guy wakes up and realizes his clock is an hour behind his watch. He thinks the clock is wrong so he changes it to his watch time. Someone else in the know (the mother perhaps), comes in and sees the clock wasn't set for daylight savings time and changes it back. Re-enter guy who sees the clock moved "back in time!" and thinks he's in a time warp. Hilarity ensues.

I think it was looking at all the tiny socks this morning and yesterday that could barely cover my thumb. I'm thinking up stuff for a lower-age bracket. Not much time left to go...

Daylight Savings

Daylight savings tonight. I've always loved being gifted an hour. Giving it back in the spring sucks, but that's something I'll worry about then instead of now.

Monday marks week 35 of Carrie's pregnancy. We started off the day by going to Home Depot and spent most of it doing cleaning and work on the house (the excitement of married life, no?). I won't bore you with details of painting and trying to put cardboard under door hinges to make them close easier. Instead, I'll tell a short story about moulding.

For those of you not in the know (as I wasn't before owning a house), moulding is a strip of something that runs between two surfaces. Usually, it's where the walls meet the floor or the ceiling. Look around your own home and who knows? Maybe you have some, too.  Anyway, the moulding I'm going to mention is a beveled strip of wood mounted where the top of the walls meet the ceiling in our soon-to-be-born baby's room. It's also a cracked, nail-pitted, chipped paint piece of an eyesore that somehow manages to bend and warp so it doesn't touch the ceiling and/or the wall in some places. We could replace it, but that's a lot more work than just trying to spruce it up. Carrie had already repainted the walls of the room and was working on the trim, so she decided to caulk the gaps and some of the nail wholes. Then she started to slap on a fresh layer of paint. A fresh layer of paint that started to bead and refuse to stick to caulk. Whoops. Silicone is apparently a "no paint on me" surface unless you happen to buy the special "I'll let you paint on me" variety. My first thought was to scrape out some of the caulk (which would've been a lot of work), but that got nixed due to our stucco ceiling. Home Depot didn't offer us many options either. The man behind the counter just winced. His advice: "think outside the box." Our solution: masking tape!  We bought a big roll of tape, and while I was trying to fix doors, Carrie smoothed tape across the moulding and painted it. The wet tape bubbled slightly, but it turned out to look a lot better than we'd hoped. You can't even see the cracks anymore! They're covered with tape! That moulding has probably never been stuck up there better than now. I'll probably have to replace it one day, but at least the baby's room is ready.

No writing productivity to report. I've written an outline for a couple of stories, but no words are penned yet. I had to take work off on Monday for a contractor so I'll try to do more then. Today, I tried to help Bill break his League of Legends losing streak. We failed. The streak goes on.  Yesterday, I played a game as Gargas that went pretty badly as well. His ultimate is to throw an explosive barrel that knocks enemies out of its radius. I had pretty poor timing on several throws which caused a chorus of "I hate you, Mike"s over vent. In retrospect, it's pretty funny. It'd have been even funnier if I'd been doing it on purpose. I could have pushed enemies into retreating teammates for laughs, but hindsight is 20/20. I think I'll just stick to my usual fare.

Viking Automotive

Tuesday morning started off fine until the car wouldn't start. There's always a surreal quality my morning as I try to shake off dream-fog. I have a tendency to wake up, fall back asleep but dream I'm awake, and then wake up again confused as to why I'm still in bed or the alarm clock is ringing again. I had to pinch myself to double-check my level of alertness in between failed starts. The VW's original battery had finally kicked the bucket after 7 years and 128k miles, may she rest in piece. Luckily, Carrie was going to work late so I successfully bummed a ride.

The plan was to switch batteries when I got home. However, it turns out Carrie was worried about the car and took matters into her own hands. Our neighbor jump-started the car since her Prius is apparently incapable (Weird, huh? It's half battery), and then she drove to first one and then two Advance Autos to get the right battery. When the cashier rang up the battery ($150), my wife spotted a big warning/reminder on the screen to "not install the battery for the customer." Thankfully, the people behind the counter knew a pregnant women when they saw one and felt like being good Samaratins. They installed the slightly too-large battery for Carrie and sent her merrily on her way. The first I heard about her endeavors was when I got an email somewhere around lunch or science saying "All done!"

The story doesn't end there.

The next day I drove the car to work. No problems. On the way back, things got funky. I was nearing home when I noticed a few warning lights on my dash had lit up. ABS and a picture of an airbag shined up at me. Strange. For the life of me, I couldn't recall when the lights came on. I don't know if I caught it immediately, or if they'd been shining for a while longer. Perplexed, I kept driving down the road when the engine started to sound off. The rattle was higher pitched than normal and why was my speedometer pointing at 0? It made the warning light easier to see, but I was still driving! I pressed down on the gas, but stopped as I listened to the strange sound of the engine. That's when I noticed my tachometer was dead. Praise God, I was almost home at that point. I pulled the car in to my parking space, and shut down the engine. I let it sit for a bit and then when I tried to turn it on again: nothing. The car was dead, and so was my alternator.

I know more about cars than your average joe by dint of hanging around John and Bill. They got me into the car scene for a while until I decided it was too much work. I still remember John drawing a diagram of an engine on a napkin in the break room at the library to show me how it worked. Anyway, new battery dying while driving meant that it wasn't being charged. Alternators charge batteries while you drive, so it was a simple diagnostic.

Repairs were pricey. First, Carrie suggested the place we'd used a coupon for a maintenance checkup on her car (she didn't want to void the warranty). They quoted $880. Ouch. I wanted to call a stealership (dealership) for a price comparison. Carrie told me there wasn't any point, but I figured I'd feel better knowing how much I wasn't being overcharged and a little research doesn't hurt when you're spending a lot of money. The dealership quoted $890. Hmmm. I started making more calls. The next dealership said $1100. A bit discouraged, I was searching around on google maps when I came across a small specialty shop for VWs Volvos, and BMWs called Viking Auto. There were next to no reviews but I clicked on it anyway (partly due to the name...I mean, vikings!). They quoted me $600 + or - $50 and I was sold. Carrie called up AAA (they are awesome) and we were set to go....minus the fact I would have no car.

Irony of ironies, I ended up borrowing the car I'd just sold my sister. I haven't even cashed the payment check yet. Megan was in Chicago and she told me to take the car for the day. All I had to do was change the plates. I forgot. (sorry, Megan!). The cavalier got me to my training in the morning and back again, so everything worked out fine. The viking automotive guys ended up replacing a worn drive belt and removing some corroded/fried wires that half melted the plastic cover of my fuse box to the tune of $712 after tax. It was funny walking in to the shop and having Watson, the owner's dog, run out from under the counter to greet us. Watson even came out with us when the owner took me out to explain what they'd done to my car. I didn't actually ask if the guy talking to us, David, was the owner, but he was running around with a dog at the place so it's probably a safe assumption. Bottom line: I liked the shop. They gave me a "it's not pretty fix, but it's permanent and the alternative is damned expensive" fix on the fuse box, cost hundreds less than the next guy, and I can live with that.

On a side note: Is it just me, or is complaining online the dark side of blogging? It's easy to think of, tempting to do, a quick release if done, and in the end airs out all your crap for anyone to see. Not smart! I chose this story, because I thought it was interesting (being the main character) and wanted something not whine-worthy to talk about. I haven't written too much about writing lately have I?  Maybe this weekend.

Saturday, October 23rd

Today was the baby shower for my firstborn, Shane Malcom. Granted, he hasn't been born yet, but it's still something to look forward to! The reasons for the name were simple.

1) The name should sound like it's spelled.

2) The name shouldn't have some weird pronunciation that everyone is going to butcher the kids whole life.

3) It should not rhyme with his last name (though it's acceptable for a girl). For ex: Shane Wayne is a no-go.

4) It shouldn't be hard to spell. Let the kid have an easy kindergarten and first grade.

5) Carrie and I wanted something Irish/Scottish sounding that wasn't typical american. I like being a mike, but I have so many friends with the same name we just call each other by our last names.

6) No family names. There was no sense to pick one side over the other. Let the kid make his own name.

Honestly, I'm still partial to Finnegan, but that's more something you give a kid as a middle name. It's the kind of name that a person with a personality will dominate and make the best of....or it's the kind of name that could make someone the target of ridicule the rest of their lives. That's why it's best as a middle name where if it's not a fit for the kid it would remain 'secret.'  I don't know half of my friend's middle names or I just tend to forget them if I don't dredge my memory for them!

Anyway, there was a bit of drama today. Carrie had a panic attack, and she spent the entire baby shower upstairs in the room we stayed at when we lived with my parents. We were late getting there and it was a boatload of stress, but I'm still glad I got to see everybody. The day was filled with work until around 6. Upon waking there was lots of cleaning, followed by house maintenance, diplomacy, the baby shower (fun), and then back home for cutting the bottoms off doors so that they can swing free. When the plumber finally came to install the new toilet, I was cleaning up and dragging in gifts from the baby shower. He was taking his time, so I dug out the shovel to cover the 'skunk hole' in our front yard. On an odd note: the plumber asked for a little extra cash after he was done because of needing to replace a broken flange. When I started to look for my check book he started saying "nevermind, nevermind." I gave him the five bucks I had in my wallets (minus the 2-dollar bill), and he sped away. It's like he was seeking a bribe of some sort.  

The sad thing is, youtube taught me exactly how to do the whole install a month ago. I watched part of the process and it's definitely something I could've done myself. Oh well. You live and you learn, and frankly I was exhausted at that point. Tomorrow, I plan to write! I have a "surprise" IEP meeting that I almost wasn't told about that I need to have a draft for. Plus, there's that whole "I want to write a book" thing.

I'll just have to wait and see how much I get done. Back to watching Big Trouble in Little China.

Sunday, October 17th

Not much writing productivity to report lately. The only writing I've been good about lately is the filling out of forms for work, posting on the journal, and the occasional vent log that gets deleted instead of posted. As of this Friday, there's a brand new time-killer: Puzzle Quest 2. Carrie and I are both addicted.

After I write this, I'm going to sit down and force myself to do some writing. During the work week, I work, come home, clean and take care of Carrie. In between, we watch an episode or two of SG-1, and I may have time to play a LoL game with the boys online. The weekend is when I should be writing. I had the opportunity to write before Igor's party yesterday, but I've totally binged on Puzzle Quest 2.

Right now, Carrie is bouncing and shouting on the couch about how excited she is about a new spell. I love my wife. Plus, since she's playing puzzle quest, I can't! Time to write.

Moving along...

Things are moving along. It's been tough lately, but we'll get there yet. I'll be thrilled to finally see Shane and I know Carrie will be thrilled to be on track for her body getting back to normal.

Lately, we've been doing a lot of work on the house. The in-laws surprised me last week with beginning an onslaught of home improvement. My father-in-law and I have so far replaced four of the interior doors, and only a closet door and two bathroom doors remain on the docket. Also, to take advantage of the 30% tax rebate and prevent the extra $100s our winter heating bills cost, we have contractors scheduled to give us a new front and back door (the front door is the one I ended up basically laying on as we drove it home).  I sold my old car to my sister, so that's going to cover the cost of both of the doors. It should pay off in the long run and make the house warmer for the baby without breaking the budget.

I thought this article was pretty interesting. http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-13/tech/apple.sexting.patent_1_text-messages-sexting-apple?_s=PM:TECH  It's not so much the "no sexting" as the parents enforcing grammar and practicing foreign languages on their kids phones I thought was hilarious.

Sunday, October 3

Well, the Redskins somehow managed not to lose. I'd feel pretty gypped if I were a Philly fan, though. My fantasy team pulled through, too!

My mother-in-law, Nancy, drove up Friday and stayed with us until Sunday morning. She did a lot of running around with Carrie which enabled me to do some car repairs. I replaced the rear brake pads on my Jetta and I was going to replace the rotors too until I came across a bolt I could not physically turn. I thought I was on a time limit for when the wife and mother-in-law would return home, so I went ahead and left the old rotors (thankfully not that bad looking) on the car. Also, changing the brakes took longer than I had expected due to a nuance to Jettas.

I am morally opposed to cars where manufacturers create parts that require unique tools to service. Apparently, the only way to compress the rear brake cylinders on a Jetta is to turn the piston while you push it in. You either buy a fancy gadget or you sneak into your sleeping younger brothers room and have a random stuffed animal assault him so that he can help you. Thankfully, Patrick had a camouflaged teddy bear in his room I was able to throw at him.I had him turn the c-clamp while I used a set of pliers to turn the piston. Go, go cheap alternatives! On another Jetta note, I'll never forget trying to use the car manual to change a light bulb. It literally said that the task "should be left to a qualified mechanic." A LIGHT BULB. Google came to the rescue and I learned all I had to. Two pulled plugs, no tools required, and ten minutes of enjoying the weather gave me a brand new headlight bulb.

The other odd note of the weekend involves a new front door. Due to our winter heating bills being $100 more than our summer cooling ones (Winter: set at 63. Summer: 72), Carrie and I are looking at replacing our doors which leak like sieves. Home Despot had a high quality door on clearance when we were there Friday, but when we called on Saturday they said they were out. Instead, they pointed us to the Reston location. When we arrived, the doors we were told were there were not. Then when we called back to Fairfax, they found one! Thankfully, Reston managed to find the missing door at the same time. We ended up getting a door that was going in the 400's at Lowe's for $222 minus Nancy's husband's 10% military discount. Throw in the 30% tax credit and you have a fantastic deal. The only catch was driving it home. I ended up half-sprawled on top of the door holding the flopping back door of Nancy's Subaru closed with twine in one hand and holding the "oh shit" handle with the other. I'm proud to report the door is resting peacefully in our front hallway and we all went out to Outback for a victory dinner.

Now, if only I could write more and manage to win a LoL game. I keep ending up on the wrong side of a four on five or with a pair of lobotomized teammates...

Busy, busy, busy

Life has been busy.

Carrie failed her first glucose test and had to go in for Round 2. The thought of pregnancy diabetes really spooked her for a while, but she's doing better now. She's been stressed and depressed lately, but we're 29 weeks down and Shane is still kicking mightily. We'll get through this kid yet. Carrie's mom came up Friday to spend the night and spend some time with Care-bear, which let me drive a couple of hours in traffic to just miss seeing my friend's wedding. That was a bummer, but I was just glad I got out there at all so I could see the ring and yell congratulations from the dock. It was also nice to get out of the house for a change. Maybe I'll get Carrie to go see Toy Story 3 with me this week, or get to armor up and get my butt kicked with the local SCA crew.

I got my second rejection on my Life Choices story. The good news is, the rejection letter said "Much improved" and "do please try me with your next story."  I haven't heard back on the flash piece, but I noticed some editing errors in it when I showed it to my wife. It probably won't pass muster, but it's all practice.  

Speaking of practice: I haven't done much writing lately here or on any stories. I need to get back in the habit. Life gets busy, I get tired and distracted, or I end up playing League Of Legends more than I should. This week I'm going to make a goal to try and guarantee a once a week post here on my blog and to spend at least 30 minutes a day writing. It's not a lot, but every little bit counts.

So, my wife is on bedrest...

In a word, last Thursday sucked for my wife.

The day before, Carrie told me that her foot was bothering her when she walked. I've heard many stories about pregnant women and swollen ankles, so I assumed it was something of a similar nature.

Nope. It was a stress fracture. I got a "I broke my foot" call at work. And that wasn't the worst of the day.

Carrie has been going through a lot of horse trauma. Chilly got starved by a leaser over the long winter, rescued, and now has Lyme disease. Throw in some angry/hurt feelings and you have a butt-load of stress for my wife. Pregnant + Lots of Stress = the beginning of pre-term labor.

At first, I didn't really believe it was happening. Carrie was only 26 weeks in. She said she felt weird, "like a large cramp from a period." We tried calling the doctor. No response. Twenty minutes later, we started driving to the hospital "just in case" and called the doctor again. I still didn't think anything was happening at this point, but I figured if it just turned out Carrie was just having a panic moment, I could easily turn around. If it was real (and it was) then we would already be on the way. I'm new to the whole parenting thing, but having a baby isn't something you want to take unnecessary risks with.

When we called the doctor again, she seemed annoyed that we were already in the car. However, when we finally did get up into triage, Carrie started having contractions every 3-5 minutes. I remember asking the nurse, Jonni (or something like that), if the blips on a machine were contractions. She replied that Carrie "had been having one for the past 30 seconds." I'm not going to relate the whole night in agonizing detail (I could write a short story on the hospital, the hunt for a wheelchair, empty nurse's stations, and attempting to draw blood from a woman who violently hates needles). Instead, I'm just going to point out that we didn't leave the hospital until after midnight. What's the first thing we do? McDonald's.

That's right, we went on a 12:30 run to the Scottish restaurant on the way home because we were starving. Go sweet tea.

I wrote up lesson plans for a sub (since I was supposed to be up in a few hours) and sent them off at 1:30 AM on the dot. Carrie had already passed out from exhaustion at that point. I closed my laptop, said a prayer, and passed out the moment my head hit the pillow. Carrie's been on bed rest ever since.

Fantasy Football

On a quick note: my fantasy football draft was last night. This is my second year doing it and I'm really stoked. I was really lucky and managed to get second place with a losing record last year, so I probably used up all of my beginner's luck and am doomed to defeat and disgrace. I don't care though. It makes football season a lot more fun than watching my Redskins shoot themselves in the foot.

Here's to hoping for a winning season for all my teams fantasy and real.

Full Medieval Panic

I got to strap on armor and fight medieval style for the first time on Tuesday! I learned several important things at the SCA Heavy Fighting practice:

1. When worn properly, the armor will absorb a huge amount of impact. The first hits are startling, but they didn't hurt much after I got used to the surprise factor.

2. When worn improperly, the armor will not absorb nearly as much. A loose, ringing helm is no bueno.

3. There are gaps in the armor. I have a beautiful bruise larger than my fist on the side of my thigh to prove it. It stung at the time, but was in no debilitating. I acknowledged the hit, shook it off, and kept sparring. It doesn't hurt now either, but it's great for eliciting sympathy from the wife (along with a few looks of "why in the world would you ever do that again?")

4. SCA people are nice. It takes a special sort to help another man dress...even if it is in armor. They also went much slower and would allow me to initiate almost all of the exchanges instead of laying on the hurt.

5. I'm out of shape. I've been trying to work out some in preparation for fighting. Hwever, running around in armor can wear you down surprisingly quick. Also, unlike when I wrestled, you can't just drop against a wall and rest after a match either. You're still encased in an armored sauna.

Basically, when I showed up on Tuesday there were four guys there. Two were doing medieval fencing, and then Will and Ragnar were there to do the heavy fighting. Everyone ended up standing around talking before the action started. Ragnar suited me up, and then Will gave me my first sparring match while Ragnar half coached while putting on his armor. After I was worn out (Will was rearing to go more), Ragnar tossed me a water bottle, and then he and will went at it. Will had tried to recreate a French glaive from a picture, and Ragnar used two swords (Florentine style). They ran all around sparring for a while (Will managed to get backed into a tree at one point), and I eventually got to try a quick match against Ragnar. After we were done, Will and the Baron (now done with fencing) had a sparring match while I stripped down. Carrie sent me a few "When are you coming home" texts, so I watched for a little bit and said my good-byes.

So far, it's easier and harder than I expected. Easier, in that the theory behind fighting sword and shield is pretty simple. Ragnar showed me four basic types of strikes and that was all I needed to know to start. Harder, in that it's much more difficult to time things right, hit where you want to hit, and maintain good form and energy while in motion. In the end, it was a lot of fun and I plan on going back next week.

Lose on a Cruise

Carrie took off work last week and we went on a cruise we booked back in February. At the time we booked the cruise, there was no baby bouncing around in Carrie's belly. We had to get forms signed from doctors, and we just met the deadline of being able to cruise by one day. One day! And we wouldn't have even made that day if the doctors hadn't pushed Carrie's due date back by five days when we got the first ultrasound.

Everything started off wonderful. We drove down to Richmond for a night with my in-laws, hopped on plane for a quick flight and no troubles, and then set up shop in a NY hotel. That night we went to Ninja New York and had a blast. I wouldn't want to pay that much (everything is more expensive in NY) for a meal except for some other great occasion, but the food was great, the ninjas were funny, the ambiance unique, and the magician hilarious. Inger and Pat were a lot of fun and the whole night was a good couples experience. 

I have picked up a new quirk from the experience in the form of a mild fear of NY cab drivers. Wow. Affordable, quick, but if I drove like that I'd be in jail. Even when I used to speed around as a dumb teenager I never weaved that madly. Carrie was more afraid of the subways than she was of cabs, so that was the method of transportation we ended up using.

The next morning, we got to the dock early. There was no line. We checked in in around 15 minutes, Carrie pulled the pregger card, and we were on the ship within twenty minutes before most everyone else! We parked up in the buffet restaurant and watched everyone slowly mill about and load. The day proceeded well until Carrie dropped asleep at 8 PM. 

While Carrie was asleep, I went for a walk around the ship. It was starting to rock a bit in the water. I went all the way up to the top deck, but it was roped off with high wind warning signs. Now, I had carried a composition notebook up with me I was taking notes on. The wind on the deck I was on was strong enough to start tearing the top pages out of the notebook as I held it. It was impressive.

I ended up back in the room around 10 PM and Carrie woke from the last sleep she'd get. The ship was rocking a bit now, but I hopped in bed and went to sleep next to my wife around 11. From here on out, the ship really started rocking. We had a drawer that liked to slide open and shut itself, and eventually the wind was bad enough it prevented the the balcony door from sealing. The annoying rush of wind through a small leak became ubiquitous. The rocking and the wind did not stop. It went from 11 PM Monday to 6 AM Wednesday or somewhere thereabouts.

Carrie was miserable. Before the trip, she had been complaining her growing belly was making it hard for her to balance. On the trip, she didn't feel safe moving about the cabin. I had to steady her anytime she left the bed. On top of that, she started getting sea sick and there wasn't a single medicine proven safe for pregnant women that could help (the doctors and nurses all said so each time we called). Room service was crappy (they couldn't put a milk carton in a microwave), the TV played the same three movies for over 24 hours, and my wife couldn't sleep. 

Wednesday morning, we talked to the Doctor. She recommended that we get off the ship while we could. We took her advice. It was the best decision we could've made and I don't regret it in the least. Thankfully, Carrie had bought cruise insurance way back when and we're in the process of seeing what we can get refunded. The guest service desk was very helpful as well, and I'd like to say our room steward Iputu was very helpful throughout the whole ordeal (there just wasn't much he could do).

To get off the ship, we were required to schedule a flight. Basically, we had to prove we were willing to go back to the US instead of becoming illegal immigrants to Canada (not much chance of that with how cold the winters get).  Delta was quoting $670 each for a flight back to Richmond. That sounded nasty to me (even though the cruise insurance was supposed to pay it) and I thought it would be nice to have at least a day to recover in Halifax, so we called our agent: my mother-in-law. Mrs. Cassano quickly found a flight on US Air for $580 for BOTH of us and booked us at a hotel for the night. I know that the insurance would've paid for the full cost of Delta, but hopefully they'll cover the hotel room since we saved them the better part of a thousand dollars in airline tickets.

Halifax is, in a word, awesome. It was a great city to walk around. The weather was great, good food was everywhere (as was lots of beer), and I got to run up to and walk around a star fortress. Carrie took a nap at that point and I ran up and down the battlements and generally marveled at the monstrosity. I have a strong urge to pick up another Sharpe book or boot up Empire Total War again after the experience. 

Anyway, to bring a long post to the end, we hopped on a boat, got sick, hopped off, and then finally had a good time. We hopped on a plane with a pair of fresh lobsters, Bob and Marley, and flew back to Richmond to spend a couple of day decompressing with the Cassanos and cooking Bob and Marley. The names? Bob came from a T-Shirt Carrie's mom had tried to prank Carrie with that we happened to see in the lobster shop. Marley just kinda followed after. No talented musicians were harmed in the cooking process.

It wasn't the vacation we planned, but it ended up being a good story.

Feedback! WOO!

I got some feedback from Matt and Patrick recently. It's given me a lot of motivation to reread, proof, and as necessary restructure some of my story. It would have been nice for them to simply say "OMG YOUR WRITING IS AWESOME!1!!!11!1" but that would've been next to worthless in the long run. Thankfully, their comments were mostly centered around a few areas that I wondered about myself. Hearing them critique that part of my writing told me that I wasn't being paranoid.

The biggest piece of critique I received was that I can be overly explicit. Instead of letting the reader infer things, I will sometimes spell it out too directly. The first short story I tried to write was an overloaded description-fest. I made Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books look like haikus (great author btw). I've been reading a lot of writers lately to look at how they structure their sentences and what types of sentences they use. Everyone has a mix of explicit and inferred, but it seems to be a bit of an art form maintaining a spread out balance between the two. Matt also mentioned that I may want to hop views less often in non-action sequences. Once again, this was something I was worried about. I got a comment from the first editor to reject me (in person!).

Every writing site on the internet I've read talked about how writers have to become accustomed to criticism and rejection. It's just part of the field. You need the criticism to get better, and you're likely to face many many rejections until your writing is up to snuff and finds the right audience at the right time.

On a personal note: tomorrow, Carrie and I are going to drive down to Richmond to visit her parents. We'll fly out on Sunday to New York where we'll meet Inger and her boyfriend at Ninja New York! Ninjas make everything cooler, and sushi is already awesome. From there, we'll be going on a five-day cruise for our belated one year anniversary. I'm looking forward to it!

Evolving plots

Characters and plots have a life of their own (or at least they do in my writing).

If I wrote a story for every outline I make, I'd be swimming in books in a brand new paper mache house. I feel like I write a new outline every other time I attempt to write. Now, my outlines are usually more general things, but that's not the point here. The point is: my writing seems to take itself in new directions at it's own whims.

Right now, I've been working on another Janod short story. He's at boot camp, and since I've never been through boot camp, I have to rely on research and the stories of my friends who have. One scene I've been working on, has not been working. I've written a few outlines, but whenever I try to commit it to print the magic eludes me. 

I booted up Netflix for some research. I ended up watching a documentary on marine boot camp for an hour and half. Then, I talked to my wife who's ex-ROTC. The end result? I'm no longer going to write the scene in anything remotely the way it had originally formed in my head.  Hopefully, it'll be much stronger as a result.

The same thing has happened in my 'novel.' Characters have changed gender, a pair of throwaway characters gained new life and permanence, and several of the names are still placeholders until I figure out a naming convention I really like. More changes are yet to come!

Personally, I don't think evolving stories are a bad thing. The hardest part is to get something on paper. Once it's there, it can be changed, but you have to get it there! I have (and I'm sure every aspiring writer has) many thoughts of scenes of books that could be. They're all quite awesome, but utterly nebulous and worthless in my head. Until something is committed to print, it has little value. 

With every sentence, some of the apparition from my imagination takes form. As it takes form, the rules of this world start to take hold. Does the scene make sense? Is this what I had really imagined, or are the words changing it into something else?  It can be frustrating when things don't work out as planned, but in a way it makes writing a story more of an adventure in itself.

I'm looking forward to finishing the ride one day. 

Carrie's Car Got hit

It was at the end of my lunch break when my cell phone rang. The number had a strange area code, and I assumed it might be another teacher calling and looking for a substitute (too bad I'm working full-time!).  I picked up up the phone fully expecting a 15 second conversation somewhere along these lines:

Caller: "Hi, I'm a teacher at.."
Me: "Hey! I'm a teaching ESY too!"
Caller: "You are?"
Me: "YEAH!"
'click.'
(I've done this before and found it amusing).

However, it was USAA. "Mr. McCruari, your wife is not hurt, but her car was hit..."

I'm glad that the conversation started with my wife not being hurt. Carrie's in her second trimester.

The lady on the line continued to tell me a little bit about what happened, and then told me she was concerned about how upset my wife was. She asked if it would be okay if I could take to her and help calm her down.

Poor Carrie, was really upset. It was a hit-and-run on our 'new' used Prius that we'd bought from her parents. At this point, my lunch break was already over, but I signaled the other IA to go ahead and take the kids to the gym without me. The USAA agent, Carrie, and I spent the next 15 minutes talking on the phone and figuring out who to take the car to and what we needed to do to get a rental.

Praise God, that they called during my lunch break. I wouldn't have picked up otherwise. Praise God again, that Carrie wasn't in the car when it happened. It's a crappy situation, but I'm thankful that it happened the way it did instead of some other way that could've been much much worse.

I called Carrie again during the students' silent reading time to check on her. She hadn't gotten home yet, but she sounded collected. Then I called again the moment I put my students on their bus, and Carrie had already taken it upon herself to contact the mechanics, drop the car off, and pick up a rental. Once Carrie gets into 'work-mode' she doesn't relent until the job gets done.

Anyway, Carrie's driving around a rental Camry and life is continuing. Hopefully, we'll see the Prius again soon.

How to Edit Your Own Work: Part 1 of ?

I've been through high school.
I've been through college.
I've sent emails that I wish I hadn't sent.

Editing is oh so important. I've never had any real "training" on how to edit things, but most of it comes with common sense:

Re-read what you've written.
Try reading out-loud so you can see how things sound.
Always click Spell-Check.

Saturday, I re-learned an important lesson I'd forgotten from my college days: Always walk away before you come back and re-edit.  Why?

After writing, sometimes you have an image in your head of what you meant to write. You may reread what you just wrote and not notice a misplaced there, their, or they're or some other minor typo. I knew this (once upon a time), but it really struck home when I was showing Carrie my quick flash-fiction piece I submitted. She had sat down on the bean bag chair near my computer, and I (sensing a captive audience) pulled up my story to read.

Within seconds, I noticed the first typo.

The whole story had been written in a day, and I edited shortly after I wrote it. It was a quick, fun piece, so I went ahead and sent it out. Now, I'm wishing I'd waited a day and reread it AFTER some time had passed. Preferably after a nap or some form of sleep.

Maybe someone will read this and avoid making the same mistake. Or perhaps someone will read this and smile knowing they've done the exact same thing.  It's a learning experience for me.

So....a word to the wise: Edit all you want, but make sure you come back after you've gotten up for a while.

Time: There's never enough or there's too much.

It's a question for the ages, isn't it? I remember a character in Catch 22 by Joseph Heller who was obsessed with being as bored as possible. That way, he'd be able to wring the most out of every second life gave him.

Today, I've already had a bit of both. The new mattress was scheduled to be delivered between 7 and 10 AM. Who does deliveries that early? The people at Mattress Discounters!  They actually arrived at 8:00, but the damage was already done. Carrie was up around 6:30 and started cleaning. At around 7, she ripped the sheets out from under me to make sure the mattress was ready to be moved. I was stubborn and dozed on and off until about 7:30. I must say, it was nice waking up to a house cleaned to Carrie standards.

The plan was for Kathleen and Stu to come pick up our old mattress for their apartment. They didn't have a bed, and ours kept hurting my pregnant wife's hips so it's not like we wanted it to stick around. However, while we kept going back and forth about the time, Carrie took a nap. A long one (3 hours!). Kathleen and Stu would just have to wait.

While Carrie slept, I suddenly had more time than I knew what to do with myself. I worked on rewriting my second Janod story, played League of Legends, starting reading some Tozer, and tried to kill time. Normally, you'd think time would fly while I got to sit on my bum with Avatar: The Last Airbender on in the background. It felt longer than it really was though, in part because I was constantly expecting Carrie to wake up and didn't really want to start anything. I enjoyed myself, but I think I would've been more productive if I realized how much time I was going to have.

Kathleen and Stu eventually got to come over. They bought Carrie and I Panera as a 'thank you', we hitched up the mattress and bedsprings on top of his jeep, and wished them well. The weatherman wasn't predicting rain, so Stu was proclaiming "we're screwed!" Nothing fell off as they rolled out of the neighborhood, so all's well that doesn't end where the neighbors can blame you.

Hopefully, the rest of the day will be as relaxing as the beginning. I hope to get some writing done, and play some games with whoever is on tonight.

ESY, SCA, and many more acronyms, oh my!

---ESY----
As a special education teacher, my life is inundated with acronyms. At the moment, I'm an IA in an ESY program. That's Instructional Assistant in an Extended School Year program. Long story short, it was a very very busy school year workload-wise and I wanted to work this summer, but take it relatively easy at the same time. I'm not going to launch into my "according to the school system being a SPED Teacher is more about dealing with legal paperwork than actually teaching" rant since it's the summer, but being an IA means I get to focus on helping kids and let the teachers deal with all of the legal documents.

It's great. The teachers I work with are all stressed, but I get to put in a good day's work and then head home with no baggage. Sure, the pay is half of what I could be making, but I don't want to burn out before the school year starts. Last I heard, there's still a 50% burnout rate within the first three years in my profession (though I wonder if the recession had dropped that a bit).

Today was interesting, because I got pulled to be an emergency teacher. One of the Cat B teachers called in and couldn't get a substitute, so the principal re-tasked me when I was signing in. He knew I was normally a teacher, and he needed someone certified to run a class. I had a great day of teaching kids how to tell the difference between a dime and a nickel. Admittedly, it's not something I'd prefer to do over the long haul, but it was a refreshing change of pace.

---SCA---
I dropped by a weapon's practice again yesterday. The Pennsic Wars start this weekend, so most of the regulars were absent (probably scrubbing armor and getting ready). Basically, the Wars are the equivalent of the playoffs and championships for the SCA on this side of the Mississippi. Thousands gather for over a week of battling for territory and revelry in rural Pennsylvania. The loser gets Pittsburgh.

There were only two people practicing when I arrived: the Baron and Ragnar. I talked with the Baroness and another member while the combatants bludgeoned each other, and when they were done Ragnar gave me a run down of the basics of sword and shield combat. He told me that if I showed up next week (when everyone else was out of town) he'd bring some loaner armor for me to clank around in. I just have to bring my own nut-cup (sharing is not caring when it comes to those).

While we talked, the Baroness and a new arrival started fencing. There's not as much running around and loud, potentially bruising thwacks involved (which lowers my interest level), but it can be neat to watch. There's much less movement than one would expect from a lifetime of movies and television, and when the fencers have an open hand they have an interesting habit of trying to grab their opponent's blade.

---Writing---
Currently, I have my flash-fiction piece submitted, and my first BTech story is still awaiting a response. I haven't submitted my flash-BTech story as I'm not sure it's ready to my standards yet. It's really not likely to get picked up (I've never seen them publish any flash-fiction), but I still want to feel like I combed over it before I drop it in their queue. I'd hate for them to start rolling their eyes whenever they see my name in their inbox.

As for my 'novel.' I'm 18k words in. I combined all of the 'acts' into one big word document and put in a few 'intermissions' between the acts. I feel like Act 1 flows well, but I'm worried about things bogging down in Act 2. I leave a lot of gaps in the first act to make the action flow, and I'm trying to fill some of them in so it's slower by nature. I've thrown some comedy in, but when you re-read a joke multiple times it doesn't seem very funny to you anymore. Hopefully, my readers will find some of the jokes funny even if they've been demoted from 'laugh out loud' to 'mild grin' status in my opinion. I could montage and skip more, but I'm trying to build mystery and characters while supplying some answers and setting up the main plot line.

---Keeping up with People---
Between Carrie's pregnancy, chores, fixing things around the house, and work, I feel like I've been having trouble keeping up with people. I've managed to maintain communications with some, but nowhere near as many as I used to. Being married takes up a fair amount of time, and go figure that being married and having a baby on the way takes up even more time. When the little tyke is born in December, time is going to become an even rarer commodity. Please have patience with me if I seem to drop off the face of the planet from time to time.  Thanks!

SCA in the rain

Let it be known, I'm a huge nerd. However, I'm also a competitive nerd who likes competitive sports. I quit Brazilian Jiu Jitsu due to time and money, and I've been sorely missing both BJJ and wrestling ever since.

That's where the SCA comes in. Remember when you used to run around as a kid and hit things with sticks or pool noodles? (No? That's okay, too.) Eventually, you got large enough that swinging a stick at someone would cause some damage and you were too old for that stuff anyway. The SCA looks like a good excuse to run around and go medieval. I'm 100% in favor of fun and violent exercise. Besides, if I want to learn how to write about fight scenes including swords, I should probably learn a little bit about them.

I showed up at a weapons practice a couple of weeks ago, and then I showed up again today. Sadly, a storm front was moving through, so I only got to watch some historical fencing - a longsword versus a rapier-dagger combination. Then the rain came through, and ended the practice before I could strap on some loaner gear.

It looks like a great amount of fun, but I want to try before I buy.  I used to pay $130 a month for BJJ, so even if I have to pay a couple of hundred dollars for equipment, the SCA should be much cheaper in the long run. Yes, BJJ was that expensive, but I really missed wrestling, and (believe it or not) that was fairly cheap for what many of those programs go for around here.

More on the SCA next Tuesday!

Writing -
I had an idea for a quick piece of flash fiction this morning. I sketched it out on a clipboard, and then when it was silent reading/journal writing time at work, I started to type it out. I went ahead and submitted it, because the worst that can happen is I get a rejection note. I enjoyed writing, and it only took a day. At the best, I could be published.

No risk, no gain.