365

Happy new year! I'm writing this half an hour before the year switches over. Cool, but totally just the way time works, right? Seconds and hours go by all the time, quite literally, and it's no big deal. But maybe it should be. I guess it's important to think that every second you're doing something, maybe you should be doing something else, something more important. Not to say that reading a novel, relaxing, being lazy or taking time to yourself is important, but really, this is something i must remind myself of often.

Okay, i'll post a picture when we get home. I posted it now. Duh.

365

Oh Kay, sorry to Karen and my readers! Our little server sitting next to my desk under a very small stack of video tapes (three, VHS, labeled "Peru Videos", "From the Family at DORDT" and unlabeled besides a merge of the capitol letters M and H) must have blue-screened or otherwise crashed, since last Tuesday sometime. The poor computer was sitting there waiting for someone to come along and push the power button. Probably someone told it "This statement is a lie." and it was desperately thinking "But if it is a lie, then the opposite is true, and it would be true, which means it would be a lie, but if it is a lie, then the opposite is true, and it would be true..." etc. Or perhaps the digital equivalent of that.

Beth's readers too.

We made it home safely, and i left every picture i took while at The Parent's house there, in a folder on one of their six commonly used computers, but Antony will get a CD to me soon enough. It's good to be home. Our bed is going to feel really nice. Our house stayed clean while we were gone. My computer monitor is huge, sharp, and clear. Josiah's hair is a mess, but he pulls it off incredibly well. Like, there's huge matted masses in the back and front. If he was really a Kentucky back woods kid, one might expect him to have hair like that, but then he'd smell funny, and not be able to converse about theological matters. It's a long drive, and i'm so thankful that Karen and i have been married so long that our conversations can be deep, like discussing evolution vs. creation and the state of our country, and really understand each other so well. It makes for more rewarding conversations than "You know, that George W is an idiot." "Yeah, i think so too. Wait... what do you got against idiots?"

Okay, we got home safely, and i really have to go to bed now. And since it's the last day of the year, i'm totally assuming that it's day number 365. There's 365 days in a year, right? Like, 24/7/365 is what stores say to mean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? Yeah, i thought so.

361

Still tired, had sick kids late last night, and am still enjoying family.

It's interesting watching my brother JJ cook. He enjoys it, and is supremely professional about it. Which means he's fast! He arrived with a large box of premium ingredients and a fancy knife, and became a blur of motion, as he chopped tomatoes, sausages, peeled and chopped garlic, assembled the stuff with hearty dollops of spices and olive oil and about 20 minutes after he arrived, we had delicious gnocchi. It was great! All the prep he did would have taken me at least twice as long.
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360

A picture of Antony jumping must mean that we find ourselves in Kentucky with the family! Phoebe is here with her boyfriend Sam, who's level headed and sensible. Josh (JJ) has spent time with us, seasoning food and providing fun interactions at all times. Antony and Josiah seem to have pent up creative energy, and they want to film Captain Sarcastic 4 during this trip. I totally cannot edit that, though.

Today has been, for me, a tired day. We arrived at almost four in the morning, and the sleep i did get was annulled by my silly decision to stay up working on a cardboard model of a Harley chopper, Japanese style. But i quit working on that when both Houston and Katrina decided to barf all over the place. This is the first time Katrina's thrown up since she really can express herself, so it was cute watching her look down at the mess, and look at me with this expression like "Uh, what in the world is this stuff? It's gross."

Luckily, my olfactory subsystem still is not working optimally, so i can clean it up without being bothered by any offensive odors. So, in order to get myself a little more sleep, i'm going to ignore the call of working more on my model, and simply brush my teeth and hit the sack. Mmm, sack. Houston and Katrina are both taking up bed space i'd like to use, so we'll see if i can squeeze in.

359

It's Christmas! We've hung about the house, played with toys, i took a nap, we drank a toast of sparkling grape juice in honor of Jesus' birthday, and got ready for our visit to my parents. A good, low key Christmas.

And once again, my numbering scheme was totally off. Yesterday's post was 368. Sheesh.

Right now, Houston's over there telling Karen the Christmas Story, with only broad hints, and Karen's writing it down for her post today. Go check it out!

368 Annual Anti-Consumerism Rant (sorry)

Today we spent the second half of the day totally with Karen's family. We had a really good time being together, eating, socializing and giving each other gifts. We left two people's gifts here at home. Whoops. But Eric forgot to bring his present for me too, so we're even.

Okay, a big long rant follows, but i don't want it cluttering up my main page. So if you're interested, read on after the break.

But Karen's family does a really good job of not buying into the idea of Christmas as a time when you simply buy things because you're Supposed To. We got and gave many home made gifts. Karen's blog entry goes into detail, and you can see that there's not a lot of high dollar, flashy presents being thrown around. Thank you, Karen's family!

My favorite part was giving away the paintings Karen and i planned and i painted. Chellie and Eric's paintings, which have a Farmall tractor, walnuts and a Farmall logo. And i don't think i'll post the rest tonight, since i don't want to be guilty of bragging, and i want to go to bed. Just let me say that giving stuff which is totally personal and hand made is so much cooler than simply purchasing some crap and shoveling it in someone's lap. Michelle totally loved her shirt yesterday. I think people totally loved their paintings. I kick myself repeatedly, and figuratively beat my forehead with five pound soup cans for merely buying stuff for Karen and not making her anything. People love totally personal, handmade gifts!

Rant follows.
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367 Merry!

Today was a really good day. For such a good day, it's interesting that the very worst part was having to wake up. Yuck, i hate waking up. But i did, dragged my just-barely-not-sick-anymore self downstairs to get ready for work, but when there i took some bottles back and bought a few last-minute presents. One was this one for Michelle. It says "I touched Lenny Kravitz's butt." That's true, actually - due to extraordinary circumstances, Michelle did touch Lenny Kravitz's butt. I'm not exactly jealous, but that's still pretty cool. Oh... i made the graphic which i ironed on to that shirt.

Then, while still at work, i made most of this really cute dump truck out of cardboard for Houston's 2005 ornament. It was super cute just naked cardboard, but since it's an ornament, and for a little kid, we decided it should be yellow. So here's how it turned out. Totally cute. I give God all the credit. I have talents which often amaze me, so clearly they're not something i can pridefully take credit for. But i'm still really proud of that little truck. It occurs to me that you can't tell how big it is from those pictures... hang on... here you go. The flash is not kind to that little truck.

Then... actually... Before that, Travis and Brooke spent a couple hours over here. It was awesome to see them. Katrina and Houston simply love them, and it's clear to me why they should, because Travis and Brooke are totally cool, quality people. But our kids love them so obviously. It's so cute. Like, there's just chemistry there or something.

Then after they left, we ate Juanito's Famous Shepherds Pie, which tasted pretty good i hear. See, i can't smell anything, which makes it freakishly bizzare for me to eat something with such varied texture, which i doused with fresh ground pepper. I could feel my teeth grinding the peppercorn shards, but i couldn't taste (smell) even a whiff of pepper! It was incredibly weird. Right after i didn't properly taste the supposedly delicious food, we opened presents, which is always a very nice moment. I got some sweet sk8er shoes, jerky, and plenty of underwear, and Karen got a paddle brush and a couple Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books. Houston and Katrina got enough to make them very happy with the heady rush of aquiring stuff, without overwhelming them, and encouraging materialistic obsession. At least that's what Karen and i very carefully attempted to accomplish. I think we did very very well.

While we were still opening presents, Karen's childhood friend who shares her name came over! We had fun finishing up the present opening, put the kids to bed, and sat around talking like adults. We talked about politics! Consumerism! Evolution! Clothing styles! This led to me unveiling the Largest Pants in the World, which Karen and Karen promptly tried on. Ah, golden moments of pure refined hilarity. And now, it's late, and i'm going to bed.

356

I'm working on something, and i work early in the morning, so i can't really post very much. I felt better today, but Houston totally had the gross part of the flu last night, and Katrina was sad too. So i think a lot of sleep tonight would be pretty much perfect for all of us tonight.

I think i actually fell asleep sitting up in the rec room at work today. Some girls were using my paints to do art, and were totally being perfect, and i just got done writing my last daily observation thing, and a girl got done and said "Juanito... Juanito" but i guess she'd actually said it four times. So yeah, i was asleep sitting up, with my head leaning on my arm.

um... 355

Right. An astute person pointed out the error of my ways. Turns out there's MORE than three hundred days in a year.

Anyway, today was pretty icky. Work was fine, so all my "i feel great" hours were spent dealing with anxious, needy teenage girls. Actually, i got a ton of work done on some of our gifts we're giving to Karen's fam. But simultaneously with leaving work, i was troubled by, hem, urgent bowels. And i've been dealing with that ever since. Yuck. Then after church (which was largely a rehash of the redemptive story which runs unmistakably throughout history, from the table of contents to... i don't know where it ended, i was, um, indisposed) we came over here to open presents with Beth. Beth is such a sweetie, and we both love her so much. I don't need to say any more, but i will because she's kind and sensitive and easy to talk to and cute. Partly my enthusiasm is due to me not feeling well - i get really huggy when i'm sick. I have to keep reminding myself that it's usually not okay to hug your coworkers every ten minutes. When i come home, Karen gets enveloped immediately by my clingy self, and she asks "Aw, are you sick?" Yep.

But that stuff about Beth is totally true.

The rest of the post talks about bodily functions, so please don't read on if you are Beth, or easily grossed out.
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254

There's a picture that could be an album cover, eh? It was super dark but The GIMP's magic "Select contiguous regions" tool turned it into that. That's how i did the creepy one from a few days ago too.

Karen felt so under the weather today, she was on her way to China! Heh... like kids digging a hole... heh heh... under... heh... never mind. She felt horrible. I felt pretty bad too, i've got the influenza, it would seem, but i felt good enough to try to make Karen's life easier. So she stayed on the couch in various states of consciousness most of the day. At one point, her state of consciousness was "un-" so i wandered in to turn off the TV. It had been on a mind numbingly dull sewing show (hosted by a lady named Sue) but when i walked in, i was presented with the Boohbah show. I've linked to their website before: The Boohbah Zone.

Okay, here we plainly have the result of severely altered states of consciousness. The website is an excersize in the absurd, but like dude, the show is seriously trippy. I seriously stood there staring at the TV for seriously five minutes with my jaw hanging open and my thumb poised over the remote, forgotten. I realized what i was doing, and tried recreating it for the camera, but here's what i got - it fails to capture the moment.

There's swirling, trippy colors. There's a hallucination like soft focus effect on everything. There's bizzare squeaks and bubbly sounds, and even many of the songs are either totally arrhythmic or regularly rhythmic with complete breakdowns where the rhythm doesn't stay true at all. The main characters are fuzzy, fat-suit aliens, whose enormous glassy eyes track the camera with a slightly jerky motion, like the swivel linkage needs adjustment. They squeak, they run into each other, they fall down, they get in furry ladles which spin around and take off, doing curlicues in the sky. Then child laborers do repetitive motions like crawl in a tight circle (on a computer generated platform of swirly light) and then whack their feet on the ground. For five minutes of the show.

The whole product must have been from a couple of stoners who combined severe amounts of acid, combined it with genetically modified weed or crack or meth or heroin, and sat around drinking shots trying to come up with the weirdest show to pitch to their television employers. "Dude.... hold on dude...... okay, like... what if... they can retract, like, their whole face into their neck?" Really, it's like the show is a tool for kids to be able to put their future chemical experimentation into some kind of context. "When little Billy had his first bad trip, we had to hold his hands down to keep him from scratching himself until he bled! I wish we'd let him watch more of those Boohbas!"

253

Houston discovered making musical instruments today over at his grandma's house today. Karen's mom watched the two children while we hobbled our sore butts all over the mall and Target, shopping for the few select Christmas gifts we've not gotten yet. At three stores we spent less than seven dollars, and especially at Dick's Sporting Goods [their homepage] we probably spent the least amount of money as any of their customers. Since, like, a t-shirt is like sixty bucks there. Sure, it's a high tech, name brand microfiber t-shirt, but dude, it's a t-shirt. Okay... when we had a little vacation in Myrtle Beach one year, we browsed a store with what looked like garment dyed, stone washed raw silk t-shirts for sixty dollars. But they were simply beautiful to look at and touch, so if i was ludicrously rich and all the world's social problems were alleviated, i'd wear nothing but those.

Um, i wasn't going to write very much today, but i guess it's too late for that. So i'll go ahead and explain why we were hobbling around. It's because we both have the flu. We ache. Beth's friend Diana asked me "How you feeling?" and my autoresponse kicked in with "fine!" She looked at me with piercing eyes and i said something like "Oh... uh, actually i feel pretty gross. Stuffy and sore and achy." I'm so so so glad i don't get sick (like the English sense of the word, as in vomit) like Karen does. It hurts my heart when she is like this. Meer. Right, so the reason Diana looked at me like that is because she read here that i'm not feeling well. So hi! I might not feel well, but i'm Not! Giving! Up!

Okay, so i'm going to try to end this post now, with a few pictures. Okay, i'll put them down there (there isn't a "down arrow" so imagine one, will ya?)
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352

I'm getting a cold. It's gonna be a bad one. Yuck. But i'm trying to have a positive attitude, and drinking plenty of fluids and stuff. And even though i'm achy and have sore, congested type feelings in my head, i actually feel pretty good. Because i had a good day, with church and a very smoothly run shift at work. Thanks goes out to Michelle, who - like me - runs a very tight ship but wields Shift Supervisor authority every shift she works, so gets compliance instead of ceaseless arguments. Grr. Arguments.

So, a scalp update: I think it was Friday i noticed whisker feeling things growing from all my bald spots, and since then, i've grown a millimeter or 1.5 more hair. So now the bald spots feel a little like velvet. So the good news is that my poor follicles are not going to just give up and quit growing hair. In a few months i will have enough to reintroduce the locks, via sewing or glue, most likely both. And four years from now, the dreads will hopefully be long enough that i will have cut the hard glue spot out. Check back in four years, eh?

351 - creepy picture

Karen said that the original picture i had up there was pretty much too creepy. So i changed it a little... Here's the more creepy one in case you want to give yourself a mild case of the willies at my expense. See... i didn't take any pictures today....

I don't really have much to say today, because we pretty much just hung out at home while i tried to be a very good home-maker. I got a few tasks done, but left the house messier than it had been (whoops rats) but still fed the kids well and put clothes on them which weren't to hideously mismatched or too small. But Katrina's overalls were kind of flooding. I've talked about Kristen before on my blog - she's the one who reminds me so much of my sister Phoebe. Kristen and i carpooled today, and, yeah, i like her. She's cool. While she was in the car with us Houston whispered in his little shy voice "Show the girl your broken hair." Awww, cutie. And when we got to work, Katrina was so cuddly - i think she sat in Michelle's lap for fifteen minutes straight.

On the topic of work, it wasn't nearly as bad today. But recently, things have been pretty frustrating, i find myself thinking about work situations when i'm not there! I can usually completely sever my work thoughts (when it comes to the kids, at least) from my normal thoughts when i'm not there. I take my overgrown keychain thing from my belt loop on the way to my car, and remove the thoughts of work with them, and lay them on the passenger seat. Usually i pray (consciously) about the upcoming shift while driving down 68th street, but that's pretty much all the thinking i'll do about work when i'm not there. Besides "oh yeah, Frederica wanted me to take my camera with me to work" or "ah! i gotta take my secret Santa gift in today". At Wedgwood (and most social work agencies, i hope) they have counselors/therapists people can talk to for free (some people even get to be on the clock when they're at the appointments) so i think i'd like to do that. People need to talk to therapist types sometimes - someone totally detached and completely confidential - and i'm a people. I just need to remember to call.

350

Oh man, we had another rough shift at work. My morning was, um, lemme see, fantastic since i spent all of it asleep. Mmm, sleep. Karen rocks. I woke up after noon, which made me happy, but had to work at 2:00, which made me sad. But i still got to make oatmeal for the kids and eggs for Karen. I like to serve the ones i love.

And about work: i have to take a grim sort of comfort in this thought; these kids are combative and oppositional against the very people who most want to help, and as much as they annoy us and drive us crazy with their nonsensical accusations of wrongdoing and just as nonsensical threats of intense violence, they'll be moving right out of our lives soon enough. But they'll be stuck with themselves forever. They will craft (and are crafting) their own lives, and the crap they're setting themselves up to experience will really suck, and maybe someday they'll actually apply some of the lessons we're bending over backwards to teach. That seems like a really depressing way to look at it, now that i write it out, but the level of entitlement and conceit are so frustrating. The cruel mistreatment of others, which is allowed by the girls' distorted, prideful view of the world is frankly disgusting to see.

Grr. But i really like the staff i work with. There's a new staff named Andrea... okay, let me restart. I came back from the store or something the first shift i worked with this new girl Andrea. I parked next to this sweet Subaru Impreza 2.5RS, which was the hottest Subaru they imported until they brought the turbocharged WRX here. It's got full time all wheel drive, a 5 speed, an incredibly capable chassis and suspension, blah blah blah, it's a very cool car, and furthermore, the front brake rotors were drilled and slotted, saying that they were upgraded parts. Seeing cross drilled rotors, for me, is way more impressive than a silly coffee can exhaust or enormous making-up-for-other-inadequacies wing bolted to the trunk.

Anyway, i had never seen the car in the parking lot before. So i asked Andrea, "uh, what kind of car do you drive?" and she's like "A Subaru." I think i kind of scared her by freaking out a little bit, but she talks about really liking it, getting hooked on Subarus while living in Colorado. I knew she didn't develop that taste here in West Michigan!

349

There's a picture of the seven kids we had running around in our house for a little while today. It was totally awesome. Kids were everywhere, being cute, getting licked by the dog, falling over... yeah, it was cool. Their moms, Karla and Linda are totally awesome too, but they didn't once fall over or get licked by the dog. But they weren't as scared of me as the kids were. After the macaroni and "cheese" (the "cheese" i use is called "Marvella", and it's Save-A-Lot's house brand of Velveeta. Now, Velveeta is already fake... but Marvella is even faker. To read about processed cheese, check Wikipedia's article, where you'll read the words "molten cheese." How cool is that?) was finished, all the kids besides Z (who sat in the high chair where he nearly fell asleep) gathered around the table and started digging in. Everyone ate lots. Katrina ate as though she'd never eaten before. The grown ups kind of stood around like referees, never much more than an arm's length from their little potential juice and pasta launchers. So they stood up and talked like grown ups, but i sat down with the kids and took those many pictures which make up the panorama. Here is a much bigger version of the panorama, one which will allow you to actually see li'l Z back there. And Linda appears one and a half times, and so does little E.
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348 rocks

I worked. On Wednesdays it's like the three of us, me Michelle and Rashard have this contest to see who can be nicest to the others. I'm like "You want something from the store while i'm returning the cans?" and Michelle goes "If you stop by the bagel store i'll pay for you to get one too" and Rashard is all like "You guys want me to stay in school instead of making Juanito come over?" and we're totally "Yeah, awesome! But we're gonna do all your paperwork!" If you're going to have competetion, it sure is nice to try to outdo each other by being nice.

Then i got off work and came home and we all played on computers, did art, cleaned what little mess we'd made, and i cooked some shepherd's pie. Katrina was initiated into the ranks of people who've licked mashed potatoes off mixer blades, and once the piece of resistance came out of the oven, we all clapped joyously... except me, who was holding the hot dish... and scurried to the haphazardly set table. Actually, that picture is pre-oven-cooked. It looked better later. Also, those mashed potatoes are really whipped potatoes. I've heard of "whipped" potatoes, so i thought i'd try the old merangue trick of leaving the mixer on approaching the sound barrier fast mode for a whole couple of minutes to see what happens. Potatoes get all frothy! Foamy even! I used real butter, but couldn't find my salt and pepper mill... so the potatoes were very - if subtly - delicious, mild and unsalty. I used too much chopped onion, and should have thought to get frozen mixed vegetables, not the canned kind... but it was still really good. And and, cumin used to be one of my favorite spices. No longer. Or maybe ours is just stale, since we bought it ten years ago. Heh.

Anyway, enough about cooking. After Karen got home (Karen's done with this semester!!!!!! Join me in joining her in doing the happy dance! Because we're happy!) we were winding down, getting ready for bed. After Houston had his teeth brushed and his pajamas on, he came over and sat in my lap and started a frequently rehashed conversation like so: "When people talk about Santa, it makes God sad." Well... what really makes God sad is when people forget about Jesus, said i, but it's okay to pretend about Santa and talk about him. Then: "Why are you wearing that shirt?" I used to deliver pizzas for Mr. Jim's Pizza, and this is my shirt from there. People would call me up and say 'Could you bring me a pepperoni pizza?' so i'd make it and drive to their house to give it to them and they'd give me like eight dollars. "Oh, that is so sad. That would make me cry." No, it was okay. That was my job to take pizzas to people. "No, i was talking about giving you eight dollars."...... uh.... i guess we're raising a little Dutch boy. But he looks less like a Dutch boy now that his hair is shorter. It's a cute 'do, thanks Mom!

It's really neat being able to hold actual back-and-forth conversations with Houston. He's bright and observant, and his little-kid perspective is so refreshing. And Katrina, well, i could go on for ages about her too, but maybe not tonight. She didn't nap at all today, but instead of turning molten on me she just acted tired and cuddly. We played pictionary and she totally got "Bike" and "Car." She's the best annunciating very-young-talker i've ever seen, i think.

347 sledding! Yeah!

Yeah! We went sledding today! It was cool and fun and we spent a lot of energy combating entropy, you know, by climbing the hill over and over. I really like sledding. Actually... i guess for me it's "snowboarding" even th