I've got a gal

The craziness continues, we have moved on to Kalamazoo. In the ongoing seeing people mission we also got to visit with the Bakers and their new daughter Charlotte. It was really neat to see them and meet their little girl. She mostly just slept, ate, and then slept some more, but really what do you expect from a 3 week old? She was super cute doing it though! Katie brought up going to get some food, but unfortunately due to a bit of bad planning on our part we needed to get back to Muskegon to let the dog out. It sounds like they are going to come to at least part of Thankmas so that will be awesome.

We are now camped out at Jason's house. We got here mid-afternoon and I took a much needed nap. Then when Jason got home from work we went out to dinner at Bilbo's. It was good as usual. Now we are hanging out in his super awesome bachelor pad basement playing pool and Foosball. We are looking forward to Thanksmas and hoping that the weather doesn't wreak havoc with people's plans.

ShooShoo and Aaave

We've been doing well at seeing people. Monday Roland's brother had a rockin' good poker tourney which Roland won (I made the rule that he had to spend the winnings on more Christmas presents for me). Tuesday we had lunch with Roland's grandparents and then I went over to the humane society to pick up the tooth scaler and Oravet for Bleys. While I was there I got to see a buncha people who I used to work with. It was especially nice to see Doc, and I'm hoping there is a way I can get back to see her again. Then for dinner we went over to Ryan and Laura's house. That was really really really nice. The dinner was delicious and super impressive since we only put this shindig together on Monday (way to go Laura). We got to see Jackson who is just about 2 years old and really starting to have a personality. After he went to bed we played cards and just sat around and talked. It was a very good time, but made me miss what we've left behind.

Tip for the day

If you are riding in a car, with your wife and your dog, and you give your dog a little water in a bowl, when he is finished with the water make sure there isn't a motorcycle gang behind you before you dump the water out of the window.

Royale

We have moved on again. We are now in Muskegon for a few days. There is poker with Roland's brother and his holligan friends tonight and I'm hoping to possibly meet up with some peeps in Grand Rapids in a few days. Mid-week we are going to Kalamazoo for Thanksmas this coming weekend. I just hope that people will be available to visit. So if you see a Black Focus with Florida plates make sure to wave!

Oh and everyone be sure to be in Mount Pleasant on December 8th. Rubbles will be featuring the long awaited reunion of Sk88! Then stay on for the not to be missed Burning Bushes.

Left

We're back in West Michigan. We left Canton yesterday and drove up to Big Rapids so we could spend Thanksgiving with my parents. Roland's parents left today for Disney World with some of their friends so we won't be able to see them until they come back next Sunday or so. Right now I'm listening to my dad practice on the piano. I think he is accompaning one of the local school choir Chirstmas concerts or something. He is also going to take me sometime this week to show me all the cool stuff they have installed on the organ at church. Should be sweet.

Roland is helping with the turkey this year so we could brine it (soooo good). My mom made rolls, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. This morning we prepped the stuffing (evil or not) and all that. All in all it's shaping up to be a super meal.

Great Lakes, Great Times

Hello from Michigan! Roland and I arrived in Michigan yesterday after two long days of driving. We covered the 1300 or so miles on Saturday and Sunday arriving at my sister's house in Canton around 8:00 or so. The weather stayed clear until the middle of Ohio and then we got an eensy bit of snow, but nothing much. Today we visited Anne's library and she gave us a little tour. I had a nice nap in the afternoon and Roland made dinner. As a bonus Sk88 held a practice in preparation for their show at Rubbles on December 8th. It was awesome because I got to see Mike and Dan and listen to them practice. Now Roland is watching some football and I'm getting ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow I think we are going to visit the Ikea store that is very near Anne's place, then Wednesday it is on to Big Rapids and Beyond...

Go north

We're leaving tomorrow. I think I'm packed...I hope I'm packed...maybe I'm packed...I hate packing. Part of me is going to be very glad when we get out the door, so I can stop worrying about forgetting something and move to the stage where if I did forget something I will just have to buy a new one or live without. It's really wierd to be packing for winter weather when I haven't experienced temperatures below 60 or so in over a year.

Roland was awesome today and took the dog to the dog park while I finished cleaning the apartment. Then he gave him a bath and scrubbed until he glowed. Now we have one sweepy puppy with pearly white fur. Okay, I guess my brain is fried, so I'm going to go worry about forgetting things again.

That's Cruel

I kind of like this wrap which I found a pattern for over at The Rag Shop (sort of like Hobby Lobby for you up north).



It's too bad I never learned to crochet. Maybe I can get Mom C. to teach me when we are up north. I think if I did make this I would actually make two one in the colors shown and maybe one with these blues.

Drums

I think I've got the site (and sk88.com) switched from the old host to the new one. Not without problems I'm hoping that the switch will limit some of the down time and email trouble we were having with the old host.

Also, I see that blogger beta is available for general use. I'm a little leary of switching...just a general sort of feeling. Any thoughts from other bloggers?

Adorn

I was looking around flickr in the I-made-it-myself group and found these. Very cool, but I don't think I can deal with the asymmetry.

Mental

I've been working on a craft project for about a month now and I've finally finished. It is going to be a gift for one of Roland's cousin's kids and I started it mainly to be able to play with my embroidery machine. It turned out to be a rather large(r than I was expeciting) project and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

One side of the quilt is a Tic Tac Toe board.


Each tic tac toe piece has a crab embroidered on one side and a turtle on the other.


The other side of the quilt is a checker board.


One corner is embroidered with the turtle, another with the crab. However, all the corners are actually zippered pockets with room to store all of the pieces.




On the turtle side all of the white squares are embroidered with tone on tone shell and on the crab side a tone on tone nautilus. It was hard to get a picture of these, but you can see it a little better if you click on the picture to make it larger.



I embroidered a small turtle or crab on the back of each piece to represent a crowned checker. So instead of stacking the pieces you just flip it over to reveal the picture.

Infinitesimal ballet

DrJ does it again. I can't help but link to this. Which, as she blogged, is a biology geeks dream.

No one ever said

So here's the thing that bothers me. Life isn't fair. You know that, I know that, we're all slapped in the face with it every day. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, people purposefully do bad things to one another. But I used to have a refuge, in television. The shows that I tend to like were like CSI. You have a mystery and through whatever fun sciencey technique was being highlighted that week you solved it. Very Sherlock Holmes. Now it seems that every show that I enjoyed has decided that we need a dose of unfairness. One of the main characters is hurt (emotionally or physically) in every episode I turn on. And usually the writers seem to go out of their way to point out the unfairness of the situation. A dirty cop, a judge on the take, or some such. It makes me not want to watch the program anymore. But now it's getting to the point where every show I used to like is doing the same thing. If I wanted to hear about corruption or other injustices I would just turn on the news.

Now?

Now that the Baker's have their little girl I keep wanting to call and congratulate them. But I can't figure out how to pick a good time. Babies being what they are and all, any given moment might be when Charlotte or Katie just got to sleep, or are in the middle of a nap. Katie mentioned the she was looking forward to catching up on a little sleep after she finished up work and before the baby came, but then she had the baby all of two days after she stopped working. Not much time to catch up. I guess I'll stick to adding another congratulations here. So...Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Welcome Charlotte Jane Baker, born yesterday afternoon. Cheers to the new parents, Henry and Katie. We can't wait to see you and meet your new daughter.

Split

So it was a really crappy day. I'm trying to change web hosts and it's doing very poorly at this stage. I think I'm going to need to have a marathon phone session with Jason. I already tried the help people and I couldn't even get the concept of switching hosts through to them. Then we got painted out of our apartment. We went out for a bit and when we came back there was a maintenance dude out there painting the floor of our landing. So how do we get in? Oh you need to wait at least a half an hour if not an hour for that to dry. And did we get any warning that this would be happening? No siree bob. What happens when I got to the office to ask what the deal is? They lady there laughs at me when I explain the situation, tells me that the guy who is doing it "just sort of works on his own thing" so they don't really know what he's doing or when. She also "only works on the weekends so she has no idea what to do" and her only response other than to laugh at my predicament is "I don't have a magic wand" so she can't even tell me if there was any notice/memo that we might have missed. We not only get a newsletter each month that would have been the perfect place to post that sort of thing, the complex manager has the time to post fliers about her Tupperware parties all the time. One would think a similar operation could warn people that they weren't going to be able to get in or out of their apartment for a while. Then after about 2 hours the dog has to go out. No problem right? It's been 2 hours now. I open the door and there he is just starting to paint the stairs. Sheesh.

So it was a really great hour. Dave, Bleys, and I went to another event full of doggy fun today. The lady who coordinates pet therapy at the humane society sent out an email earlier this week about a water park that after they close for the winter allows a few days of dog splashing fun. We drove over there and it was an absolute blast. There were quite a few dogs there, but not enough to make it crowded. For the most part a very well behaved group too. There was even a dog who learned to play in the water from Bleys. The owner took heart when I told her about Bleys' swimming history. He totally didn't dig the water for about a year and a half and then one day he just jumped in like he'd loved it all the time. It was so much fun that it's tempting to go back tomorrow!







Watch as the adorable puppy attempts to fetch the plastic mini-basketball only to be thwarted and return empty handed.


Look carefully at the attempt to bat the ball into submission with his paws (what are you a cat?). Finally see him succeed and triumphantly return with his prize.