Bah! Time!

And as predicted, it's been 6 weeks since I last blogged. This time business is an odd thing.

Actually, I'm surrounded by odd things at the moment. We had a baby last month. She's... odd. I talk to her and I play with her (as best as she can play) and there are times I get frustrated that she can't just say "Dammit daddy, you SUCK. My ass is wet because I peed, and I can't change myself. Just change my damn diaper so I can sleep!". I finally managed to reconcile things in my head so that I can think of her like a PC with just one error message (and a loud siren). I guess a mechanic would imagine her like a car with just one dashboard light or something. Either way, it means that I have to switch to a diagnostic routine, which suits both of us fine.

Currently, the diagnostic routine consists of

1) Check diaper

2) Check last feed time. She likes to feed randomly between 2 and 4 hours after the last one, dependant on last feed volume. Generally, 1oz = 1 hour.

3) Check she's not too hot or cold

4) Attempt to burp, first on lap, then on shoulder (Burp 2.0).

5) Peer at her, she might just want some interaction

6) Bounce on knee. If successful, implement Bouncy Seat Protocols

7) Lay across lap and pat back. Doesn't always work, but means she's screaming at the sofa and not my face

8) Wander around the house bouncing and talking machine code.

9) Give her to her mom to soothe.

I hate having to resort to 9. It doesn't make me feel like a bad daddy, I know how awesome the Mom Power is (I was small once too), but I also know Bam needs her zzz and rest time too. If I can find ways to chill the baby out without having to get her to do everything, it takes some of the pressure from her.

We do have a way cool baby though. She managed to avoid the whole squashed-up-purple-cone-head look that most babies get. She's ahead of her milestones (which I shouldn't count, I know that noobs often punch above their weight with a bit of twinking), she's not been too difficult to deal with (other than early constipation, separation anxiety and gas like she's been eating skunks in the night). A lot of the stuff we've been through is trial and error - she's learning as much as we are.

I do have some random observations and tips for other 'rents (more accurately, 'rents to be). If anyone ever reads this, they might be handy.

1) Diaper bags. Pack twice as much as you need, because you'll need it. The day you say "oh, I just need 2 diapers" Baby will lose 2lbs in weight through crapping. The day you think "Oh, I'll only be out an hour and I did just feed her" Baby will demand more food in 10 minutes, and you'll get stuck in traffic for a week. The day you forget to put in a change of clothes, you'll need it. Babies have a sixth sense for stuff like this.

2) Whatever you do, it'll be wrong. Not just wrong, Wrong. BIG W Wrong! Whatever decision you make, another parent will think you're a terrible parent for it.

• You co-sleep? You'll roll over and kill your baby!
• You put her in a bassinet? Don't you care about your lonely baby? She's SO LONELY!
• You use disposable diapers? You're killing the planet!
• You use cloth diapers? You're still killing the planet AND making more laundry!

You can't win, so don't even try. Everyone does the parenting thing differently, and babies still make it to adulthood so they can screw it up themselves.

3) Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are times we've been stressed and tired and grumpy, we picked up the Batphone and called in reinforcements. We went out for a drive and a snack, and came back to a perfectly calm baby and our version of Mary Poppins ready to sail off on her umbrella again. Sometimes baby just needs someone else to soothe them, they can pick up on stress and stuff.

Of course, baby does her best to help me (and her mom) out. If she's hungry, she does her rooting reflex and leaves hickies on my arm. If she needs changed, she waves her arms and pushes downwards. She knows the processes well enough now that if we get her in the right place, she'll start to settle in anticipation - the best example is taking her to the nursery for changes. Once she hits her changing mat, she'll lower the volume and relax so that changing goes faster. It's pretty awesome :)

We have had some rough patches though. We thought she had a UTI on Christmas Eve, so we went to the Pediatrician's office. They didn't have a catheter small enough to get a sample, so we went to the ER. We were stuck there for 5 hours, and neither of us had fed or slept all day! The urine test was clear, but they wanted to do a blood work-up... and they SUCKED at getting blood from Bella. Everyone was traumatized, she was screaming and her mom had to go outside. The 4th attempt I nearly punched the lab nurse because she was digging for a vein (in a month old baby, wtf?) and so the ER nurse took over and managed to get a good draw from her hand. Relief!

And after all that, everything came back clear! It's that kind of thing which really makes me know I'm a daddy though, so I learned a little from it. Hopefully Bella won't remember it!

Woah!

Two posts in one day? Woah, I'm like a professional or something!

Stuff I fergotted to mention in my last post. The dumb supper went ahead with us at the ER, and was a great success. There was enough foods for us to all try that night (well, morning), and to feed everyone on Saturday too. Nom nom nom.

My page-down issue is fixed. Turns out it was the stoopid keyboard being stoopid. Someone smarter than me in KoL diagnosed it, and taking things apart and blowing on them fixed it for now. woot! Someone earned a beverage at the next Con.

Done now, for another month. :P

Dagnabbit! another month!

I am instructed to update this thing. I need a post-it note or something to remind me. And a list of stuff that happened to blog about. Meh.

Samhain (Sah-WEEEEEEN! *thwap*) was interesting. We did all the cooking and catering for a dumb supper, which is a meal held in silence so you can listen to the dead talking. We prepared a 5 course meal, starting with cucumber slices with dip, then a nice salad, miso soup, venison and beef in raspberry vinegarette with roast potato, and a brown betty for dessert. We had a big garage sized tent sorted out, everything was ready... and Bam slipped in the mud and did the splits.

So, off to ER. They checked her ankle, tentatively diagnosed a break and sent us up to L&D for monitoring. By "sent" I mean called the on-call doctor and totally DIDN'T call L&D. So they discharged us, we waited in the waiting area for 10 minutes, then they worked out they'd have to re-admit us to send us upstairs. Fail.

Long story short, baby is fine, Bam's pelvis is likely cracked, definitely overstretched, so she's ow-ow-owing around just now. Nothing can be done until the baby hatches... due in 7 days and counting.

Other recent stuff... Bam went into labor... in the middle of the night after being up all day. Got to the hospital, did all the fun, and was given the choice to walk around to speed things up or go home. Walking = no, so we went home and slept. If we'd stayed and tried to keep going, she'd have been too tired to push anyway, which sets up a c-section.

Temperatures are dropping now, so we took Catface in last night. Need to remember to get a flea collar or something for her. She's a sweet old cat, all she wanted to do was sleep and when we moved around too much on the bed trying to get settled she wandered off... to the baby's car seat. I got her out of it and retrieved the nice, soft, clean baby blanket... and she got straight back in again. Silly Catface! I had to put my coat over it to stop her and it'll all be washed again today. Moar washings.

Nan and Mumbert fly out here in 6 days now. We're looking forward to showing them around and showing them off to people. Bam won a 16x20 canvas print from UPrinting (woot!) so we're planning on taking a nice picture with everyone. Fingers crossed the baby arrives in time to be in it too, then we'll have 4 generations! woo woo! Something else more in her control than ours,

Doc says that Bam is ready to give birth, we just need the baby to trigger hormone release and stuff. I've tried bribing her with hugs, ponies and unicorns. We've tried telling her she needs to come out because her mom hurts, we've Reiki-ed, we've baby sifted, we've tried caster oil, cohosh, raspberry leaf tea and everything else we can think of. Baby is stubborn like her mother!

We've also started a "new" MMO. AO are doing a deal just now, so I resurrected my fr00b bank account and made some new toons. Currently I'm playing melee - a martial artist and a 1hb doc, both Trox. We'll see how long they last, but I'm enjoying AO not blowing up my lappie. It's very tempting to try and find $$$ to reactivate my main account and wake up W1, but I think things are going to be too busy to devote time to an MMO in the coming months. It's a nice diversion anyway :)

Also, for some reason my laptop hates me paging down. It generates random characters and increases the volume (bizarre, because Fn + page down = volume down). Bam looked stuff up and thinks it's something to do with an antivirus conflict, running 2 AV programs at once. I *do* run 2 AV programs, but one is passive (Clamwin) and the other is active (Avira). It only started in the last few weeks since I updated Avira, so I think I need to boot that out and switch to Avast. Hopefully that'll fix it, it's damn annoying!

Maybe I can update this next week when something else has happened... :P

Long time no... stuff

Hello blog. It's been a while. Nearly 2 months it seems. That's odd - it feels like just a week or two ago I was blogging, and then I stopped.

I have more respect for people who actually keep a blog. I can barely keep a diary, the only way I know stuff has happened is to write it on the whiteboard calendar, then transfer it off at the end of the month!

It's been a busy 2 months. We now have a nursery. We now have piles of baby things (thanks to some awesome help from the Universe and a great baby shower). We're 35 weeks done today and I had predicted that we'd be going into labor, but at least we're prepared if we do. The changing table should arrive in a few minutes... baby can take longer if she needs to.

I do like the nursery, mainly because I painted it. It's often said (at least to me) that having children is a chance to do the stuff you didn't get to do when you were small. I've somewhat taken that to heart, and intend to poop all over the house, throw things, and throw up as much as possible.

Kidding!

I've somewhat taken that to heart, and tried to make Bella's room the room I wanted when I was small. I didn't want to repaint the entire thing, there's too much to move and too much to do otherwise. So, behind the crib (opposite the windows) is a tree, painted on the wall. It needs wildlife still, but it's winter so they're all hiding (honest!). It needs a little doorway under the crib in the trunk, and I can see a million little bits which needs touched up ... but I'm assured it's perfect. Yesterday we moved the crib into it's final position and made it up (with the *awesome* Mushroom crib set my wife won from bTrendie). After doing everything else, I had a rummage in the Box Of Things Not Dealt With (tm) and found the Twilight Turtle which she also won from bTrendie (we're kinda lovin' bTrendie at the moment :D) and turned it on to see what it looked like.

Wow.

Seriously. If that thing had been around when I was small I'd have killed for it. I'd have beaten other children and stolen their pocket money. I'd have washed cars. Hell, I'd have stolen cars. It's the most awesome thing ever! It projects a star map onto the ceiling, but because of how the nursery is designed it actually projects mostly on the ceiling but partly on the tree. I don't know where they got their estimates for room sizes - I think you could set one up in Wembley and still hit the stands!. Light blue (or green) stars don't show up on the dark tree surface, but they show wonderfully on the light wall around it, so it gives the effect of seeing stars THROUGH the branches! It's epicly cool!

I've already said I want one for in our bedroom too... I'm currently plotting how to spend as much time in the nursery as possible. Baby Bella, I love you to bits... but I'm afraid I'm going to be playing with your toys a lot. Blame my father - he did exactly the same!

Fun in the kitchen!

I'm a passable cook, or so I'm told. I maintain that Bam is far better in the kitchen than I am, because she really does make fantastic food. I can't remember what she made, but a few weeks ago I ended up leaning over to the belly and yelling "This is why your friends will want to stay for dinner!" - Once our little one starts to get a taste of her mom's cooking, she's going to be set forever.

When I cook, I have a few terrible habits. The main one is that I cook for me - everything is seasoned to my taste. On the upside, it means I'll eat anything I've cooked. Literally. Even if it's burnt and crunchy, I'll eat it. Used too much spicy stuff? (Bam has a magic Chinese chili sauce for making sushi with, it's like flaming death in a bottle... and I *always* use too much) I'll eat it. I'm totally indiscriminate when it comes to my own cooking.

The other terrible habit I have is kinda related to that. I'm a taster! I have to taste anything I'm making whenever I judge it "safe". Obviously not if it's raw meat or something like that, but once I judge it ready for sampling then anything goes. Not just the dish I'm making either, I'll liberally sample the ingredients. I've drunk soy sauce and Tabasco straight, if we get new seasonings or spices I have to taste it "raw". My theory is that I need to know what that specific taste is so that my brain can file it and I can pull it out when something I've made needs *just that* taste. It's a good thing. Really.

Last week we ordered Chinese. We don't do it very often, but Bam needed sushi and we had some spare cash, so we ordered some dinners. American Chinese comes in much bigger food portions than British Chinese, but oddly the rice is a lot smaller portion. Swings and roundabouts! Anyway, Bam had sweet and sour chicken, and they forgot the sweet and sour sauce.

She got a nice little tray of chicken nuggets!

Of course, she'd nommed sushi so we didn't find out until the next day. I rummaged around, and found a simple enough sweet and sour sauce recipe so I thought I'd give it a go... and it was delicious! That recipe is now safely in the recipe box-which-is-also-currently-a-genealogy-box-because-I-lost-the-proper-one.

On the other hand... I wanted potatoes and onions tonight. I think it's the Irish in me, but when we get to the end of the month and food is running a bit low, I demand potatoes. so I chopped up a couple and decided to fry them off as cubes... and promptly made them crispy but near enough raw inside. No problem! Little more oil, dropped the heat and covered the pan... now they were cooked but soggy... No problem! Crank up the heat and take off the lid...

And they burnt. Those potatoes were sullen and insolent!

But not severely enough to bother me, and I'm eating them anyway. They're not too bad, but need more salt and spices... a little Tabasco... some Tony's... a little bacon....

Another day :)

Comfort Foods

Comfort foods are an odd thing. I'm always facinated by what people eat to make themselves feel better (and why!). Boyfriend dumped you? That's a pint of ice cream and a cry on the sofa with the girls. Sad in winter? Hot cocoa. Foot gnawed off by green mice? well... I don't think that one has ever come up.

I always think I don't have comfort foods. I'm not really a comfort eating person. But then every so often I get a craving for my Special Sammich. It's only usually once or twice a year, but when I get it I *have* to make it. Nom!

Quick background - all through high school I ate packed lunches. Nan made me 4 ham sammiches every day, and I ate them every day. The once or twice she wasn't in a sammich making capacity, I had to make my own... and I made the Special Sammich. It's a fearsome beast, designed to keep lesser mortals (and most other things) at bay, and I *loves* it.

Prepare as follows (in the style of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster recipe from HHGTG).

Take two slices of brown, wholemeal bread. Relish those seeds, those tasty little morsels, as you relish the stars in the night sky. Each one is a hope and a dream.

Add some thickly sliced cheddar cheese. Delicious cheese, made of old pressed milk. No need for butter or spread to make the ingredients stick to the bread, the cheese sticks firmly out of love for the seeds and fear of the next ingredient...

Slice an onion. More usually half an onion. This adds the essential vegetable component that all sammiches need, and the bite represents the fear that people feel at the very mention of this delectable delicacy. Opinions vary about the best onions, I'm partial to white onions to offset the dark orange of the cheese against the brown bread.

Finally, sprinkle with a little salt, in memory of those who will neger get the chance to sample this fine delicacy. People from long ago. Salt miners. Aliens. Salt mining aliens from long ago. You get the idea.

Add another two slices of bread to cover, press down *firmly* and cut into halves. Eat, relishing the delicious crunch and the wonderful smoothness. Mock the looks of disgust on your schoolmate/flatmate/significant other's faces. They can't withstand the awesome that is the Special Sammich... few can. To beat it is to experience it completely and grok it in fullness.

It's a magical experience, and it's my comfort food :)

A most curious place...

I'm in the nursery! *runs around screaming very quietly*

Bam's asleep, so I'm sat through in the baby's room cleaning baby stuff, moving things, and generally goofing around. Foobar (my awesome WinAmp replacement) has decided to play Adiemus for a while, and I'm feeling oddly *creative*. Bam wants us to paint the nursery (probably pink), but I've been struck recently by a lot of interesting wall designs. There's a couple of companies that send me e-catalogs (the only one I can remember offhand is Tatouage Designs), and I love the idea of a nice mural instead of painting the whole room one flat colour. I always wanted a mural in my room when I was small, or a Trompe L'oiel window - Bella gives me the excuse to make it happen!

So I look around the room, and I listen to Adiemus, and I think... "Gee, I used to paint. I used to paint itty bitty teeny tiny things. Why couldn't we design and paint a mural?". I picture a black tree with long branches, either in the corner or behind the crib, with pegs to hang things off, and little accents which she'll appreciate as she's older. I picture the branches extending across the ceiling, and it being decorated with white christmas tree lights. I picture white flowers (or photographs and notes) stuck along the branches in Spring as a surprise ("Look Bella, your tree flowered!). I picture all sorts of things, and it all looks so cool!

Of course, we've already started piling stuff in the nursery, so it's going to be a pain moving it, and we'd need to cover carpets etc... and we don't have any of the original paint so any mistakes are going to have to be worked in... and it's sometimes hard finding time... and we'd have to let the smell die down... and... and... and... it'll probably never happen, but I'll work on it :) Even if I end up running around with a sharpie or something! I remember seeing an awesome technique with a slide and a projector - project the image on the wall, trace it then paint it. I wonder if I could adapt that with some printer acetates and a torch...

We visited the OB today for one of our regular monthly appointments and the results of the ultrasound. Everything is progressing fine as expected and Bella is a happy, active baby. Doc had to run off to a delivery, so we cut the appointment short and covered just the essentials - with things going fine there's not much to worry about anyway. We did have a laugh in the waiting room. It was a BUSY day at the OB today and both Mom and Bam remarked on it. I whispered to Bam that it was mainly newbies so it'd go quick, she was confused so I told her "count the bumps" - half the women in there weren't showing at all!. She had to pass that onto Mom, and we had a quick giggle in the corner. Newbie appointments go way fast when there isn't a bump to deal with!

The next month is going to bring a lot of changes, moreso than July did. My mom is moving, her last day at her job was today! Nan goes off for surgery (shoulder and foot)! We reach viability (woot!) and move closer to the third trimester! We were remarking yesterday how time seems to have caught up again - it seems only a few days ago we were celebrating July 4 and the ultrasound, now we're moving into August!

Basiiiiiil!

Imagine the title spoken (shrieked!) by Prunella Scales from Fawlty Towers. Thanks :)

Having had a quiet day, and being as it's starting to get silly, I decided to harvest the Basil we've been growing. There was quite a lot... probably about half a carrier bag full! Took about 10 minutes to trim the plants down neatly, then another 20 mins or so to pluck all the leaves and put the stems aside... then a few minutes to wash... then 2 hours to dry it all! Gah!

Bam looked out a nice Pesto recipe, so we've got a jar of homemade pesto in the fridge now, and 2 quart freezer bags full of basil leaves in the freezer, and a nice bundle of leftover leaves and stems which I'm trying to dry. We'll see how that works in a week or so (then I'll proclaim it a failure and throw it out, but it's worth a try!).

Yesterday we went over to Mom's for a barbecue - Americans grill a lot! In the UK we have grills built into our ovens, so we can grill inside... I guess it makes more sense when it rains all the time! We cooked some chicken and nommed it - Bam's an awesome cook :) Bella was active all evening, so we took some timeout to let Mom see if she could feel her moving. She did, and she was way excited! It was awesome :)

We're kinda bummed at the moment that we're missing out on Comicon, but it's seriously too far away - the other side of the country! With baby things going on we couldn't go anyway, and we're scheduled to miss KolCon in September too. C'est la vie - at least we'll have an interesting toy to take/show off/threaten people with next year!

She KICKED me!

Well, it was more likely a punch knowing how she was arranged at the ultrasound, but today I *finally* felt baby moving! Bam's been feeling her squirm around for a while, but every time I put my hand on her belly, the baby instantly went still.

I'm hoping it still works when she's born! *waaah!* *waaah!* *poke* *silence* :D

It's the little things that make me a happy bunny. Speaking of which, we had a bunny in our front garden-ish yesterday. He watched us walk up the path, then down the road... and then casually ambled back into the woods.

I remarked to Bam, that's the bunny we could be saving with Geiko. She was amused. It's the little things :P

In other interesting news, Today was Reiki II day. I learned more (which seemed all oddly familiar), I drew funny shapes, I played with my new bear, and now I've got another pretty Reiki certificate. Reiki is awesome stuff, and I can *feel* the difference with my new attunement. I'm looking forward to the next one now (in another month or so, I've practice to do first). Baby greatly enjoys Reiki, it's one of the reasons she goes so totally still when I touch Bam's tummy. Catface also greatly enjoys Reiki (although she might just enjoy being petted, she's a very social cat). The plants are enjoying their Reiki - our little cucumbers have 4 leaves now and the pepper plant is growing more fruit!

I'm a big fan of Reiki, can you tell?

That Darned Cat!

We've sort of unofficially adopted the street stray, Catface, after her owners apparently kicked her out at the start of spring. She's a lovely old cat, best guess at age is about 12, and she's easy to look after, but with the pregnancy and her being an outdoor cat she's currently banished to the Outside.

She disapproves of this.

However, she's not *too* disapproving. Her food (kibbles) gets put out on the windowledge to stop bugs getting to it (unsuccessfully), she always has water, and when there's leftover scraps I usually manage to sneak them out to her without Bam noticing. Or she just turns a blind eye, I don't really know. Catface repays this by guarding the house when I go out and Bam doesn't. Literally, she'll sit guard at the front door and wait for me to 'relieve' her. It's sweet.

She's also brought us a mouse, once (apparently the neighbours saw her carrying a squirrel about a month ago, she didn't bring that to the house, phew!), she likes to lay in the little patch we call the garden, and has to occasionally be chased out of the planter trough with the baby cucumbers in. She's a good cat really, but she likes to push the boundaries at times.

I think it's good training for a baby... just with less fur and more poop. And we can't banish Bella outside if she's a pain. Maybe not all that good training :/

It's a baby!

*mumble mumble* busy *mumble* working *mumble* lazy.

One of those three is right. Probably more than one. Possibly all of the above. A bad blogger is me!

Things have been pretty busy recently. Today we had our Big Ultrasound (tm), which consisted of the Tech pointing and clicking lots at the baby, the baby chewing her fingers, filling her bladder, and generally being uncooperative as possible. She didn't stop moving, she shifted at exactly the wrong times, and I think managed to flip completely at least once.

I can see this parenting thing is going to be fun!

Anywhoo, we decided that the baby was British a few weeks ago because she "drives" on the left. Now we've had it confirmed as throught 99% of the ultrasound she refused to uncross her legs. I guess that's really a good thing, and I'm sure I'll be referring to it frequently in the future (around her teenage years no doubt), but we did get one fairly clear shot. Judging by the lack of exterior equipment, we're having a girl!

Of course, we knew this. We've known this for a good few months now. I know she's going to have dark-brown hair (which is likely to get darker as she gets older, unless she dyes it or something). I know she's going to be Trouble. I know she prefers to be called Bella. I know she likes signing, but demands it be done *properly*. I know these things, because I've talked to her and she's talked to me.

I also know she thinks I'm silly about some things, and that she has to be patient and translate stuff from Bella to Dad at times because I simply don't *get* it. But I don't really feel all that special in that regard. We've agreed that I'll do my best to keep up with things, but I barely understand my own generation and hers is going to be worse. C'est la vie.

I'm just glad it's not a football headed, tentacle limbed mutant. Whilst I'm sure there's some epic karma payback for birthing a Great Eldar God, I don't think the world is ready for Cthulhu to awaken and unleash her terrible vengeance... and that goes double for a female version of Stewie. I'm happy she's got the appropriate number of appendages and is healthy!

Baby names and winning ways

Today has been a cleaning day, I'm trying to stay off That Game Which Uses Up All My Time (KoL) and use my energy in productive ways. Since there is tidying to do before visiting people descend on us on Thursday, I'm cleaning. It's not so bad - if I wear my MP3 player I can rock out whilst I do it, and I don't disturb Bam too much if she's napping or whatever. Since the Reiki stuff last weekend I seem to have had a bit more energy so I'm making sure I use it rather than waste it. I've been told to watch out for icky side-effects but if this is the worst thing I've got coming then I'm very pleased! Course, it helps that I've been very much living the Reiki principles for the last 5 years or so, and we eat very healthily anyway.

Today's boggling is at baby names. It might just be because Bam and I are freaking awesome, but we didn't have any problem with baby naming. We thought about it for a few days, Bam vetoed the use of Deadpool, other superheroes and video game characters, and we quickly got our names. One set for a boy, one set for a girl, and one backup set for another girl just incase we had twins. We're not having twins (as far as we know). And they're sensible names! They're not strange, bizarre things like Tamisheena or Gorthomax or something which sounds like it should be a drug or an alien race. Whatever gender our offspring is (we find out in 10 days), it won't have silly initials either. They're good, sensible names that out offspring can be happy with, won't be teased about too much, and both sets shorten nicely.

I can't understand why people have so much problem naming babies. I can see reasons to be careful, I can see names to avoid, but that still leaves a million names to choose from. In a worst case scenario, it's easy to look up a rung or two on your family tree and see what your relatives were called and use that - I'm named after my grand-uncle, my father and my eldest uncle.

As for the winning ways in the title... As well as being a sucker for anything free (Blame the Irish/Scottish blood), I'm a competition whore. If there's something I can enter, I'll enter it. If it needs a tie-breaker, all the better. So long as all I need to do is click and type I can happily enter things all day and all night, for the most pointless of prizes. It's not a bad compulsion, and it's done me pretty well over time - in the last week I've won $5 from Honey Nut Cheerios (thanks, giant bees!) and tonight I won a set of calendars for moms.

We *really* need those calendars!

So, I'll keep entering random things, for random prizes. I've never won a car or a holiday yet, but there's plenty of time and oppertunity! :D

Slipping already!

Wow, the whole updating every day thing didn't last long!

It's been a busy few days. Yesterday we spent with my wife's mom and family - Reiki tutoring in the morning and Litha celebration in the evening. Reiki is an interesting thing and something I've wanted to learn about for a while - I've lived by Usui Sensei's principles for years now, and finally learning stuff was very interesting. A lot of it *felt* familiar, like I'd seen or heard it before, but I didn't know how to get to it. Once we got started with the practical work, it was awesome. The group I was working with was excellent and we all learned and grokked.

Litha celebrations were also facinating. I sat out of most of it and kept the dogs company (and their water bowl full, they emptied it twice!), but I was able to watch and learn. Afterwards one of the kids asked me to help her catch fireflies, which I failed miserably at. My eyes can't adjust to light levels fast enough to track them when they stop flaring, and so I always ended up in the wrong place. I'm going to have to spend some time practicing before the offspring arrives!

Today was a cleaning day. After avoiding caffeine, sugar and meat for 3 days, then Reiki cleansing yesterday, I felt it was about time to do some cleaning in the house. We've now got a cleaned out fridge! Hopefully I'll be able to do something else later, but it's rest (and blog!) time for now. I've fallen out of the habit and I need to keep writing stuffs down!

Windy days!

Today we had Weather. Big storms full of lightning moved in and there were rotations and funnel clouds and all that fun. I'm a big stormwatcher, we don't have awesome storms like it in the UK so it's all new and interesting. I'm sure it'll get dull eventually.

Nah, it'll always be cool.

Anyway, we stood outside and chatted to the neighbours and watched the skies for the storms rolling in. We're lucky because we're on a hill, so we can see off a fair distance (when the trees aren't in the way), plus the path from the road to the house is aligned perfectly to north so it's easy to check where storms are coming from. It was interesting to see the clouds drifting one way, then drifting back towards the oncoming storms and we only had to go in when the lightning got really bad. We'll both watch for tornados all day, but neither of us fancy being fried!

Since my wife finds it somewhat difficult to run up and down the stairs, she stayed inside and near the house watching the weather and I yelled information down from the road. It was great fun :)

Then the rain started... and it was *epic* rain. Our little garden flooded completely, first time so far. I ran out to put a collecting jar by the garden wall and got utterly soaked, it was like being on a boat in a storm - the water was *everywhere*!

And now that the storm is pretty much passed, were waiting for our electricity and internet to go out. It never goes out during a storm, but usually goes out a little while after. Bizarre bizarre.

Diet

So, having rambled about fruits... today I got a watermelon from the store. They're bigger and heavier than I remember. If that's what my dear wife is going to have stuck in her stomach in a few months time them it's no wonder pregnant women get cranky and beat people who can't get out of the way fast enough.

It's going to be an interesting week. I'm supposed to not eat meat and sugar (and some other things I've fogotten) for a week or so, but obviously Bam has to make sure to eat meat for the baby's development (otherwise it might turn out to be a herbivore! Ack!). Coupled with the fact that we got corned beef to roast today makes me a sad panda. Everything in America has either meat or sugar in... I've a funny feeling I'm going to end up eating just fruit and milk, but still cooking stuff for Bam to eat.

On the up side, it'll make me healthier or something. I'm glad I've never been really addicted to caffeine or anything, otherwise I'd be the cranky one beating people. I'd probably end up throwing my watermelon at them.

Pregnancy is like fruit, right?

Pregnancy amuses me. Mainly because I'm not the one with the cramps, and heartburn, and all the delightful other symptoms that women get... but also because it's described so oddly.

My current amusement is the fetus. When you start, it's a bean... it grows to a plum... then an avocado.... then... presumably a bigger fruit. Although, if your fetus is ever described as a pineapple I'd start to worry. Why fruit? Why not bread? (Your fetus is a crouton! Your fetus is a dinner roll! Your fetus is a loaf!), why not meat? (Your fetus is a cocktail weenie! Your fetus is a steak! Your fetus is a rib roast!). That'd free up fruits for more useful descriptors. You think you've got cantaloupes up there? Well, give it a few months and you'll have watermelons!

Just... don't get pineapples, eh?

People steal my names!

So, I decide to blog at last, and I come across the big hurdle I usually face when blogging. Some sonovabitch has stolen my usernames.

Not just one of 'em either, *all* of them. Any name I've conceivably used online in the past decade is in use. What the hell, people?

It's not like these people are *using* their blogs either. One of them hasn't been updated in 6 years. SIX YEARS. Another is 5 years dead. What's up with that? At least delete your crap so someone else can use it, why doesn't Blogger do that automagically?

"Dear Asshat. We see you've got bored of blogging, and your meaningless droning is wasting our HD space and electrons. Either update your crap, or GTFO. Thanks, Blogger.com" That's all it'd take. I bet a good 30-40% of people don't even have access to the relevant e-mail address any more anyway, that cuts out a few thousand wasted pages... then a bunch of other folks will be motivated to do stuff to their blog and it'll at least dull the pain of someone cybersquatting my identity and making me look like an emo freak (or worse, French).

And all the folk who would then furiously complain? well... they'd be blogging it, wouldn't they?