Boxes, Boxes Everywhere!

I finally got the desktop set up this evening and I'm still surrounded by all our collected crap! We've been just keeping ahead of things and I'm very glad we're done with the moving part. Not that I'm overcome with joy about finding room for everything, but trust me it's nothing compared to all the hauling. As you might expect, my other blog project hasn't gotten anywhere yet, but having the main computer setup so I can download pics is a big step in the right direction.

I've mainly been busy doing my househusband duties of trying to keep the lawn green instead of brown, washing our large collection of dirty laundry (new washer and dryer...yay!), and generally making sure the boy doesn't get hurt while he dodges all of our belongings that are stacked in the dining room. He's been a real champ through the whole thing and continues to amaze me with his happy go lucky outlook on life.

So, as things begin to settle in I hope I'll be blogging more regularly. I won't make promises there since I haven't done so well in the past when I say that, but I think it'll happen. I also have to catch up on friend's blogs that I have accumulated in my Bloglines account. Sorry everyone! I'm sure you miss my witty (or not) comments more than life itself! ;) Now, if I can just find my way out of the boxes maze to find the stairs, it's off to bed. More to come...

Change of Scenery

Well folks, it's been another long pause in entries, but this time I have a damn good reason. We moved into a house! We've been staying nights here since Saturday and have all the large stuff moved. We still have a mostly empty apartment to clean though and have to be out completely by Sunday. It's been kinda weird to be honest since it doesn't seem like we live here! We're very happy though and once my muscles stop hurting I think we'll settle in nicely!

I've been thinking a lot about where I'd like this blog to go since I often feel like I'm showing off by talking about the good side of things. As is always the case, there is bad stuff too but I'm never excited to mention that stuff. I'd like to do something positive with my "blog time", so I've decided to start another one. I'm not ending this one necessarily, especially since the other will be a project based blog that will have an obvious end point.

Now that I've teased it a bit, I'll just say that it has to do with the little room here in the house that I'll be using as a room for my Zen practice. I have a name picked out for the blog and will start on it soon, but I have to do some work on the rest of the house first! And we have to unpack. It'll be up soon however and I'm hoping to make it interactive with my readers helping me make various choices about how to design the room. Stay tuned!

House & Home

Well, faithful readers, I have yet again been away for too long. Usually it's something minor, but this time it's a biggie: My wife and I are homeowners! We just bought a modest house in a fairly well to do town and couldn't be happier about it. I've been dead tired from washing, sanding, and painting and the last thing I've wanted to do is write a blog entry, but it's about time I did, don't you think?

We closed about two weeks ago now and have been working on the house on weekends and spent the 4th over there too. One BIG help has been some rain over the last two days that was light but steady, the kind that the soil can actually absorb instead of these "Global Warming Specials" that give you a horrific thunderstorm with two inches of rain, but in the span of about 60 minutes! It's not that I don't know how to water a lawn, but how much do you water it? What's the best time to do it? I know the answers now, but you wouldn't believe the amount of time you spend learning about what formerly seemed like such obvious things.

So, that's obviously taken up most of my time with packing and watching the boy taking up the rest. He's growing like a weed these days and becoming more intelligible everyday. He's still sticking mostly to one or two word phrases which seems a little behind for his age, but the kid also knows half the alphabet now which is supposedly way ahead of his age. All I know is that he seems to learn more everyday and that can only be a good thing. Larger statistics are pretty much meaningless when it comes to your own kid, although I know they are useful for teachers who have to deal with 20+ at a time. However, in one way or another your child will always been an outlier of some kind...and that's a good thing!

Anyway, the boy is being fussy about eating his banana and keeps asking for his favorite "Appis" known to the rest of us as applesauce, so I best run for now. Pictures will be coming soon, I promise!

Counting Down

Last night after my wife came home, we were sitting in the living room with the Boy and his Sesame Street coloring book. It basically has all the major characters with an emphasis on Elmo (Don't get me started on Elmo since that's for another time). At the moment the Boy can say "Ehwo" (Elmo), "Ocker" (Oscar), "Growrow" (Grover), and "CooCoo" (Cookie Monster). He'll easily point them out to you in a book or when the show is on, but we heard a new one yesterday that made us laugh.

The Boy has always been very interested in The Count and although he will only say the numbers 1, 8, and 9, he tries to count along as best he can. So, when my wife pointed to a picture of The Count yesterday, the Boy said what I thought was "Haha!" which is pretty cute by itself, but we soon realized that he was saying something different. If you remember anything about The Count, it's usually his monicle or his bat like features, but his trademark is a very particular laugh followed by loud thunder and lightning. Well, every time you show the Boy a picture of The Count, you get a huge smile and a hearty "Ah Ah Ah!"

Yes, these are the little things that make other people with kids go "Awww!" and people without kids say "Jeeez!" I used to be one of the latter, but now I find such things as cute as buttons. :)

Long Time Gone

I know I seem to write this same entry every few months and I'm sure it's getting boring, but there has been some really heavy crap going on lately that really makes blogging seem very unimportant. I'm not saying that it is since I find posting to be cathartic, but it has seemed that way. It's nothing I really want to write about at the present time, though perhaps I will after some time has passed.

That class I was teaching this past semester finally ended about a week ago and I'm glad it's over. My crop this year was less than stellar to say the very least. That's not to say that I didn't have ANY good ones, but they were much more scarce than last year. It's good for the resume (the pay sucks) and I like doing the planning, so I'll still do it if they'll have me next year. I'm actually hoping to teach some different courses this Fall or next Spring. We'll see.

The boy is as healthy and spry as ever as he nears his second birthday. I'll get the pictures we've been taking up soon for folks to see, but suffice it to say he's developing as he should. He has this thing where he likes to introduce my wife and I to everyone we meet as if they couldn't tell. He points to my wife and says, "Mama", then to me, "Dada", and ends with a big grin. People eat that up, especially in the checkout at the grocery store. He's definitely a boy now as opposed to a baby, but it's just another step along his journey. I don't bemoan the passing of one stage and just look forward to the next with anticipation.

The thing I most want to accomplish in the near future is to explore what it means to say I'm a Buddhist. As I type this I think I said the same thing in my last post, so excuse the repeat if that's the case. I've been reading a book my mother got me last year called "There's Nothing Wrong With You" by Cheri Huber, who is a Zen Buddhist, and it's not your typical book. However, it is very Zen in turning the responsibility for our lives back onto ourselves, but at the same time realizing our oneness with all that surrounds us. Next I want to start reading a book a friend gave me as a gift last year that I began reading but never finished. I had been planning to start reading that book again, but with the aforementioned "crap" the Huber book was much more applicable. I also have to start seeking out other Buddhists to really learn what it's all about.

So, that's it for now. Hopefully my next post (or more importantly the two or three posts after that) won't be another one of these redundant recaps! Breaking from the cycle? That would be cool!