Verbisaurus Blogicus

Monday, 31 December 2012

This is the end, my friends.

I know no one likes to read about other people’s illnesses, so I’ll spare you the details from the last few days. Today we were all at 90% (or so), so we actually got some stuff accomplished around the house. Most noticeably, I got to cross off one more item on our “to do” list on the fridge thanks to Jennifer’s diligence with one project this afternoon. She also made significant headway on another item on the list. Our Saturn also got its much-needed and much-delayed oil change today and, despite the cold, I took the kids to the park and we bought snacks at the local Super America (where I fortuitously found a penny, messing up much of what I wrote earlier). That was Isla’s first time leaving the house in eight days! This evening, I left town for the first time since last Tuesday to attend a New Year’s Eve party. And, well, like a typical family with a seven- and a two-year old, we only lasted until about 9:30. So there you have it…that’s how we spent the last ~0.3% of 2012.

Above: Isla barely getting enough blood to her cheeks to keep them alive.

I’m pretty sure I’ll keep blogging here…just not gonna do it every day. My hope is that I spend about an hour thinking about my blog and then another hour actually writing the blog each week, instead of zero minutes thinking about it, and about four or five hours writing it each week (like I do now). My hope is that I’ll both have more time for other endeavors and improve the content of what’s here. Of course, that’s all predicated on the idea that people read this. So, if you do read this, even only occasionally, please leave a comment. It gives me the encouragement to continue.

Thanks for reading. See you in 2013.

Saturday, 29 December 2012

From the “The only constant is change” department:

I’ve talked several times here about my decision to keep track of how much money I’ve found during the year. And, well, now it’s time to take an inventory. I suppose there’s a really tiny chance that I find some money lying on the sidewalk sometime in the next 48 hours but, with snow covering anything, it seems unlikely. I’ve also often found money in the hallways at work and at school but, of course, I won’t be attending either anymore this year, so those options are out. And I suppose I might go to a store in the next couple of days but…I’m gonna try my darndest not to. So, I’m not likely to find a penny on the floor of any store.

That being said, I found $17.93 this year. I haven’t found anything since a measly penny I found back on the 11th and, ever since, I’ve been hoping for just a little more to put me over the $18 mark but, again, that seems unlikely now.

December marks my least successful month, in terms of money found. I only found twenty-one cents all month, down from my previous low of 37 cents (a dubious record I set last month). Winter months are harder, since I stay home more, and it gets darker earlier.

You may recall that, early on in the year, I was gunning to double my haul from last year. Last year I found $13.68, so while I’ve clearly bested that, I’m not likely to find the remaining ~$10 I need to double it in the short time remaining this year.

Anyway, that’s it for the money-finding this year. I’ll keep track again next year, ’cause I think it’s so much fun. And, as always, I’ll keep you posted if anything interesting turns up.

Sunday, 30 December 2012

 On the other hand, a list I will not be maintaining next year is my list of books I’ve read. Well, at least not the online version. Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of not keeping track on my own lists here on my computer. But this Word Press version on my blog is annoying to have to update. The resulting list is kind of a mess, too. It’s also redundant. So, from now on, I’ll stick to my Excel version exclusively.

This year, as you can see from the list, I read 75 books. This only includes actual books (not magazines or brochures) that are 48 pages or longer. It also only includes books that I’ve never read before. I know Owen and I read at least four books that I had read before (including, most recently, the very enjoyable The Triumph of the Swan), but I didn’t list any book I had already read.

This was, indeed, a perfect year to publicly list the books I read. For one thing, I read for a variety of reasons – books I needed to read to review, books I had to read for class, those I read (or listened to) for fun, and those that I read to my children. Secondly, this was a record-setting year. Back in 2000, I read 71 books, and that was my zenith until I broke that record earlier this year (I wrote about that here).

There are still over 24 hours left in the year, but I doubt I’ll be adding to the 2012 list. I have an audio book I’m listening to in my car and, even though I’m nearly done with it, I don’t expect to listen to anymore of it until the next time I drive to work…which won’t be until 2013. Also, I have a few books I’m working through the old-fashioned way (i.e., reading them), but I don’t think I’ll be able to polish off any of them as soon as tomorrow. So, all those will likely go towards 2013’s tally.

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Isla continued her sickness today, and both Owen and Jennifer claimed to be falling victim to the same bug. For the first eight hours or so, I felt pretty good. A friend of mine, Grant, came over to assist me with some computer issues.

As you may know, I volunteer as editor of The Minnesota Atheist, which is the newsletter of, appropriately enough, the Minnesota Atheists. A few days ago, Jennifer updated our computer which has since left it operating better than it has in over two years. The problem, though, is that I need Mac’s Pages to create the newsletter. I thought I had a back-up copy of this program but, if so, I can’t find it. I found a trial version, which I promptly installed. But for some odd reason, I couldn’t paste into Pages from Word. So, I put out an urgent call for assistance, and by 2:00, Grant was here making everything all better.

At 3:20, I went to the dentist’s office for my six-month check-up. It seems like a stupid time to go, I know, but I wanted to get my second cleaning in during this calendar year and, well, this was a good day since I didn’t have to go to work and was able to go whenever they were open.

By 6:00 this evening, I could tell that I was getting sick, too. This should be a great next few days.

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Yep, still sick.

I had a fever that alternately gave me the chills and hot flashes. Jennifer and Owen were also sick, and though Isla appears to be getting better, she’s still firmly rooted in the “sick” camp.

So there’s not much to write about today. I updated this blog, forced myself to work on the newsletter, and read a book for a while. This afternoon, I took a 2+ hour nap.

In the evening, after Isla had fallen asleep, the rest of us started watching the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was actually better than I was expecting. Jennifer lasted to about the halfway point, then decided to turn in for the night. Owen and I stayed up and watched the rest. After that, I asked him if he wanted to go to bed. Typical for our kids, he said no, so I told him to just sit there and relax. I worked on the newsletter a little more and then, about 20 minutes later, told him we were heading off to bed.

Oh, and by the way, here’s the wood robot that was waiting for the kids on Xmas morning…

Friday, 28 December 2012

Another sick day.

On the one hand, this is a great time to be sick, because I’m home from work anyway. On the other hand, it’s a lousy time, because I had all these starry-eyed plans.

For one thing, I planned to brew some root beer during my time off, and at the moment, it looks like that’s not happening. For another thing, Owen and Jennifer had planned a play date yesterday with some friends. That had to be cancelled. And today, Jennifer was going to spend the day at her parents’ house and then leave Owen there for two nights. But that, too, has been cancelled.

Meanwhile, Isla is at about 90%. Which is good, I guess. However…it’s extremely difficult to be in a house with healthy kids when Jennifer and I are sick. They’re not exactly filled with compassion, and they don’t limit their normal non-stop requesting. Isla didn’t even go down for a nap today, and she spent a good chunk of time today thrashing about and crying over extremely trivial things (even for a two-year old). I guess she doesn’t like it when her parents can’t cater to her. I think she’s a bit stir crazy, too.

All in all, a pretty shitty week off of work.

My wish for this holiday season is to get to enjoy the last three days of the year like I want to.

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

Well…Xmas started off pretty good this morning. The kids opened their gifts, and Jennifer and I each got a gift from Owen (scarf and hot chocolate mix for mama, Star Trek glasses for me). Owen ran around the house looking for clues to uncover the Wii, which was ultimately hiding in the coat closet in the foyer.

No sooner did we rip open all the packaging, however, than we noticed Isla was sick. Jennifer took her temperature, and got a reading of 102 (relax, it was Fahrenheit, not Celcius). So, Jennifer volunteered to stay home wiht Isla.

I felt really bad about this, and even offered to stay home instead, but Jennifer pointed out that Isla would probably want to nurse a few times. And I left Thanksgiving early when Isla was sick for that holiday.

So I showed up at Jennifer’s family’s holiday party – I brought the food Jennifer prepared, and I added the wrapped gifts to the appropriate piles for the dice game.

During the dice game, I decided I would keep two or three gifts unopened and just bring them home to Jennifer so she could have the fun of unwrapping something totally unexpected. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very lucky, and only scored three games during the regular play. For the second phase, I was able to steal two more gifts and no one stole any of mine, so I was left with five gifts. I unwrapped three of them, and decided to keep the other two to bring home.

Here’s a funny thing: After a few people had left, Jennifer’s aunt wondered aloud what happened to the purple scarf she had wrapped up. The green scarf went to one of her niece’s, but she didn’t know who got the other one. She even called her other niece (who had just left) to see if she got it. I thought maybe one of my unopened gifts were the scarf, but she said no, those weren’t from her.

Once Owen and I got home, we discovered Owen had scored the scarf. I hadn’t realized this because I won a can of poppycock and, when Owen brought over his gifts to me, I saw he had won a can of the same stuff. Wrong. While my can was, indeed filled with poppycock, Owen’s had the scarf in it. So, if any one in the family is reading this…Owen got the scarf.

Jennifer got to open her two mystery gifts this evening. One gift was a box of Starburst candies, and the other was a wrought iron star with a hook hanging below it (for hanging a coat, or something). Jennifer said it would be good for the mud room. So, her two mystery gifts turned out to be successes. Both her aunt and her grandma, feeling bad that Jennifer wasn’t there to party with the rst of us, also gave Jennifer a couple of gifts, so she got some other stuff, too. 

If you want to read something super funny, it turns out Jennifer’s not the only one who had a lousy Xmas.

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Despite my strong desire not to, we had to pay a visit to the local Target this afternoon.

The first thing I tried to do there was have some prints made of our holiday card. Generally, I think of Target’s photography department as a place where good pictures go to die…but we had stopped at ProEx just minutes earlier, and they were closed. For good.

So I went up to the self-service kiosk and, after waiting about ten minutes for it to become available, I ordered my prints. When I was done, a receipt spit out telling me my total. I then noticed that nowhere at any time was I asked if I wanted glossy or matte. So I muscled my way through the crowd and got the attention of the kid working behind the desk.

ME: Hey, I don’t see on here if I’m getting matte or glossy.

HE: Well we can only do glossy on this machine.

ME: Well I want matte.

HE: Yeah, we can only do glossy on this machine.

ME: Well can you do matte on any other machine?

HE: Yes, if you order from that computer right there.

ME: That’s the computer I was just using. It never asked if I wanted glossy or matte.

HE: You need to select “Prints in Minutes” to get matte.

ME: Oh, well you should make that more obvious. Well, can you just make mine matte for me?

HE: Uh…well we’d have to go back over to that machine and cancel your order and then resubmit it. But you’ll have to wait for the others to be done.

ME: But there’s, like, four other people in line now.

HE: Yeah.

ME (dropping the receipt on the counter): Forget it. I’ll go somewhere else.

Monday, 24 December 2012

Today we spent all day getting ready for the remainder of our Xmas celebrations. Jennifer prepared all sorts of tasty dishes, and I kept up with the dishes for her while she did that. We kept stealing time to finish wrapping presents in our basement. I love it when our house is abuzz with activity, and we were plenty busy all day.

In the evening, we went to Jennifer’s sister’s house for our family Christmas party. My kids swapped gifts with their cousins, and they recieved gifts from their grandparents and great-grandma. I even got a few gifts: a card game and two books!

When we arrived back home tonight, I brought the gifts upstairs and Jennifer arranged them nicely under the tree. She put a few small gifts in our stockings, too. I found time to complete the wood robot, so I stuck a bow on his head and propped him up on a cabinet in our living room. We decided that it would be fun if Owen had to search around the house for his big gift (a Wii), so I wrote out a series of seven cards, and placed them around the house. One, for example, said, “Where do we keep Isla’s bibs?” and then he’ll have to go look in that drawer and there’ll be another card saying, “Where do we take baths?” and then he’ll have to run upstairs and look in the tub. Hopefully he’ll think it’s fun, but you never know with kids.