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?