Working Girl

Julia recently got a job.  She'll be 4 in April, so we figured it was about time to get her to work and become a contributing member of the family.  A friend of ours works for a professor at a local university who is doing some sort of study on young children learning or test taking or something like that.  (This is clearly a friend that Shannon knows better that I do.)  So, she has come over a few times and spends an hour or so with Julia asking her questions, doing puzzles, and testing short term memory.  So far, she's earned 40 bucks!  (I wish I could get paid to take tests.  Especially since taking tests is one of my best skills in life.)  Julia has used some of her money to buy a cash register, which is her new favorite toy.

But things really got interesting when I related all of this to my parents, who asked, "Did she pay tithing?"  Oh.  Yeah.  Tithing.  I remember that.  And we pay it when we earn money.  But for some reason it never occurred to us that Julia should pay tithing, too.  The trick, however, is to explain tithing to a 3 year old who barely even understands what money is at all.  Or fractions.  Let alone making a connection between God granting us abilities to earn money and pay checks and funds for running the church and other related issues.  To further drive home the point that this is above age level for her, there is no tithing lesson in the nursery manual, nor the Sunbeams manual.  So we made it up ourselves.  Hopefully it worked.  At the root of it all, we decided, "When you earn some money, we give a little bit of it to the Bishop, because it's a commandment."  And really, what else is there?

Classical music requests

At work, I've decided to listen to more music while I work, in an effort to muffle the noises from my co-workers.  I love the guys I sit by, but we can get chatty sometimes, and that doesn't make for a productive day.  They'll start talking about something (NFL fumble rates, rate of change of daylight, deepest point in the ocean, how far you can jump a snowmobile, the size of the Chinese navy, weather in Sweden, etc.*) and suddenly you're sucked into their conversation.  For some reason, I'm the guy who always just has to google it in an effort to settle the matter.

Anyway, I'm combating this with music.  Specifically, classical music.  You can find just about anything on youtube, so I'm asking you: what should I be listening to?  Composers are nice, but specific pieces are better.  I prefer long pieces (>20 minutes), other wise I listen to a song for 5 minutes and spend the next 5 trying to pick the next piece; that's not much of a productivity boost.

*Yes, those are all real topics we've discussed.  At length.  I'd say I would keep track for a month and report back on the results, but would probably be ashamed at the length of the list.

IE? Really?

Blogger has some fun stats associated with it these days.  It's neat to see even my rarely updated blog got 284 views in the last month.  My all time most important contribution to the world is my comments on a song about Santa using zebras to fly his sleigh in Africa, which I think I've mentioned before.

But the craziest thing is that 53% of you people are using IE to look at my blog.  IE!  If you're still using IE, any list of reasons not to use it probably isn't going to have an impact.  If you were the sort to pay attention to such reasoning, you would have switched from IE long ago.  Instead, I'll just tell you: Quit using Internet Explorer.  Go download something else instead.  It's really easy.  Go get Firefox (23%), or Chrome (10%) or Safari (5%).  I've used them.  They're good.  Each has it's own supporters who would be glad to discuss their various merits, but they'll all agree on one thing: they're each better than IE.

Oh, and one last thing.  If anyone wants to admit to being part of the 489 visits from the Netherlands (2nd place, followed by Russia (321), Germany (254), France (253) and Iran(147)) I'm kinda curious.

I am an old man

Apparently.

This is probably going to be a theme here, as I do turn 30 in a few weeks.  Recent developments in aged-ness:

- Gray hairs.  A disappointing number have started popping up.  Unless you happen to be trimming my beard, or for some other reason are 3 feet away and staring at my hair, you probably wouldn't notice.  But I've noticed.  And once you've noticed, there's no un-noticing that.

- Back trauma.  As a kid, I remember thinking it was funny that old people complained about things hurting the day after physical activity.  As the years have gone by, more and more of that has crept into my reality.  But today was a first.  I played basketball yesterday, as normal, and last night and today, my lower back was a little bit sore, which doesn't always happen, but isn't terribly uncommon.  The real news here is what happened at church.  I was carrying Ella to nursery* and when I put her down, something Bad happened.  Previously unknown muscles were suddenly on fire.  I'll live through this, I'm sure, but it's not comfortable.

*Yes, Ella goes to nursery now.  Yes, it is glorious.  Of course, back muscles sending Morse code pain messages out during church still make it hard to pay attention to a lesson.

Self-Locomotion

What with the new year and all, we've gone and done something silly.  In a fit of can-do-it-ive-ness, our family made a goal to move ourselves 1000 miles this year.  No, we're not moving to a new city, state or country, but we will be transporting ourselves as much as possible, before our weary bones collapse in our stationary beds at night.

The basic "rules" are these.  (Rules is in quotes, because let's be honest here, we made them, and we can un-make them and generally cheat however we see fit.)
1. We will walk, run, hike or ski (x-country) 1000 miles as a family.  Biking doesn't count, and I haven't thought of any other methods of moving our bodies along a path that would qualify that we are likely to do.  (See that rules out swimming for distance -- we aren't likely to do it, and even if we were, it's way more work than just walking!)  Things like basketball, which certainly involve running don't count.  I don't have to justify why not to you!
2. Each individual's effort counts.  If the whole family goes on a 1 mile walk, we mark down 4 total miles.
3. Trips must be at least a quarter of a mile long.  This limit needs to be short enough that the girls can contribute in their own way, but long enough that we aren't trying to "nickle and dime" our way, here.  None of this "well, I walked over to the neighbors to borrow an egg, that's like 85 feet."
4. Trips only count if you didn't have to make them anyway.  This rules out all the mileage at the grocery store and things like that.  Essentially, we're trying to measure effort above and beyond what any couch potato has to do just to keep themselves fed.  (I suppose they could be having those potato chips delivered?)

More rules may be forth coming, should they be necessary, but since only 4 people are playing this game, only 3 of them can form sentences, and only 2 of them even know about the game, how many rules could we possibly need?

So far we're 12.35 miles in.  Yes, in 14 days.  I realize that we're a bit behind pace.  I realize that the goal is probably a bit over-aggressive to say the least.  1000 miles is about 20 miles a week!  Winter is tough.  Who wants to go on a walk when the high today was like 19°?  Who wants to run in the snow?  But we'll see how we can do.

And besides, we've got a whole extra day this year to get it done.

Blood Suckers

Last week Shannon and I went to get a Health Risk Assessment done.  That's fancy talk for having someone check height, weight, blood pressure and doing some blood work.  Essentially we get paid to do this by my job.  This was also the first time Shannon has been around when I actually had blood drawn.  I've told her the stories, but somehow, she didn't quite understand.

Basically, they take my blood, and right about when they're done, or even a few seconds afterwards, I go white as a sheet, and remain that way for about 10 minutes.  During this time, I get lots of attention, as no health care professional will let me stand up, or do anything, and they start pulling out treats and drinks and all sorts of stuff!  It's great!  After a while, they let me go, but Shannon didn't let me drive home.

Once more, I survived the blood suckers, and no, I didn't (nor have I ever) pass out.

Brown Baggin' It

How 'bout them lunch-toters,

Ain't they a bunch?

Goin' off to work,

A-totin' they lunch

It's bit a bit over 5 years now that I started working full time.  As Shannon has stayed at home the majority of that time, she's made me a lunch to take to work almost every day.  She must love me.  It's cheap, and it turns out that I really don't mind eating the same thing just about every day.

Totin' them vittles,

Totin' that chow.

Eatin' it later,

But a-totin' it now.

Inspired by Shannon's dad, I also started re-using the brown paper sacks I brought my lunches in.  As a kid, I'd undoubtedly thrown away thousands.  But I'd keep a little stack at work and bring them home every week or two.  So, there'd be a dozen or more bags in circulation at a time.  Gradually, they'd wear out, rip and get thrown away.

Look at them Lunch Toters,

Ain't they funny?

Some use a paper sack,

Some use a gunny.

More than one person has given me a hard time about it, usually good-naturedly.  I'd just tell them I was being frugal, and that someday, when I was rich and they were poor, we'd both know that it was because I had saved all that money on paper sacks.  So it went year in, and year out.  We left St. George and moved to Michigan, and the stack of sacks came with us.  Ever dwindling.

Them food frugal Lunch Toters,

Ain't they wise?

Totin' they lunch,

Made by they wives.

Finally, the day has come.  After 61 months, I asked Shannon to get another package of paper bags for when the last half dozen remaining bags finally wear out.  They'll still probably hang on for another couple of months, but their time is near.  So Shannon went and got a pack of 50 more bags.  Which was on sale.  For a dollar.  A buck.  If I'd thrown the bags away, 250 work days a year would be 5 packs of sacks, or 5 bucks per year.  So, I've saved about $24 so far with my bag recycling.  That means, that by the time I retired, Shannon and I will be able to go out to eat with all that money we've saved.  Maybe even 2 or 3 times!

How to be a Lunch Toter?

Iffa may emote it,

Gitchy wife to fix it,

Go to work and tote it.

(Poem by Mason Williams)

Kanorado

What could be so important as to break my near 2 month blogging hiatus?  In a word: Kanorado.

A year ago, Shannon and I moved far away from our families and my family in particular is spread out quite a bit.  So, we don't get to see people much.  And, even if we visit UT, half of my sisters (and all of Julia and Ella's cousins) don't live there.  So, clearly, we should all get together somewhere in the middle.  But we're in Michigan, Colorado, Utah and Texas.  Where exactly is the middle?  The answer is, of course, Kanorado.  Well, about 3 or 4 miles SSW of Kanorado, but really, who's counting.  So, to minimize total traveling time* I suppose we should all meet up there next summer.  Who's game?

(Carrie is the big winner here, as she can get there in under 4 hours.  My drive will be nearly 20 hours.)
(And because you're curious, before we moved, my family was centered around Teluride, CO)

*Really, this is a "center of mass" calculation for each nuclear family (including my youngest sister with our parents) and assuming "as the crow flies" travel paths.  Truly calculating a minimal total travel time would increase difficulty by orders of magnitude.  I will not be attempting this.

Potty Seat Rotation

Back when Julia was potty training, we got her a little potty seat with ducks on it.  She loved it.  Naturally, we took it with us on vacation, and on one of those trips we left it at Grammie and Opa's house (Shannon's parents).  As adults, we figured this wasn't a big deal.  They didn't have one (my parents already did, as they have 5 older grandkids than Julia), and they cost all of about 7 bucks.  We bought a new one (Sesame Street themed) and figured we were good.  But the new one was never quite the same for Julia.  She used it, but still talked often of the Duckie Seat.  Well, a few weeks ago Grammie finally mailed back the Duckie Seat.  (Turns out they'll do just about whatever Julia wants.  If Julia ever fully figures this out, they'll be in big trouble!)

When the Duckie Seat arrived in the mail, you should have seen Julia's face.  I wish we had a camera there to capture what is probably the happiest moment of her life.  I really can't over state the joy on her face when we opened that box.  So now we have two potty seats at our house.  You'd think that once reunited with her long lost Duckie Seat, she'd never use the Sesame Street one again, but you'd be wrong.  Instead, we have a rotation.  Duckie Seat in the morning, Sesame Street in the night time.  She won't go potty with the wrong potty seat on there.

Shanny Turns 30!

With the whole 30 by 30 thing, Shannon obviously isn't too shy about announcing her 30th birthday to the world. Well, it's finally here. So, I think it's fitting to share a few photos through the years.

She's gone from this little chubber:

To a cute little kid:

And then through a few years that Shannon would only describe as "frumpy". Since it's her birthday, we'll skip past those and on to the girl I met:

And fell in love with:

And then, after I'd scared off all the other guys who followed her around in a pack . . . .

I got to marry her:

So, even at the ripe old age of 30, and as a mother of 2:

(Apparently this is the last picture we took with Shannon and both the girls in it.) Shannon is still my smokin' hot wife:

Happy Birthday Shannon!

(p.s. Shannon, if you're keeping track, and at this point, I suspect that you are, this is number 16.)