toddler + macbook + water ... oh dear

Some of us were sitting down for dinner the other night... I thought Elijah was with Sharon in the bedroom, but after a strangely silent minute or two, I realized the peculiar sound I was hearing was coming from the master bedroom. I came in to see Elijah pounding my dad's Macbook with a water bottle, water everywhere. I grabbed a towel and tried to wipe down the keyboard. There was water coming out of the touchpad, oozing out of the keys, coming out from the battery underneath... not to mention water all over the desk and on Dad's paperwork and books. We took apart the Macbook and dried it out and let it sit till today, but it won't start up. Hmm.

Last night I was in the kitchen working on dinner when I heard a "boom...boom boom boom!" At first I didn't give it much thought, but a moment later Ben came out of his room saying he thought a truck had overturned. Sure enough, directly behind our house, an SUV had rolled over a few times on 288. I don' t know the extent of the injuries, but the highway was closed for a few hours and they had Life Flight land out there... :S

a little update of what's going on...

...Jesh has been staying with us during his winter break. I've been playing tennis now and then, and spent time at Leah's since she has finished exams and is on her break. We've had people over every week, and I've been doing all the usual things like studying, cleaning, and cooking. By the way... I have a bad case of "cooking block" (my equivalent of writer's block) and have had no cooking ideas lately. It's rather frustrating. Fortunately the men in the house are fairly willing to eat anything that is food, but I'm rather distraught that I have no new ideas. :S It feels like everything I can think of has been fixed recently!

My sister is coming with her two boys today. She will be here a little over a week, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Some of the guys are going out west next week, and I'll admit I would really like to do the same -- especially since it's a park I've been really wanting to go to ever since I first knew it existed! I've been in the mood for getting out on an adventure lately. Maybe our family will be able to do something together while Sharon is here. Even if it's only a trip to the beach, it will be so nice to have all of us together again! It's been a couple years since that's happened.

grocery shopping at midnight

My mom went up to College Station with Jesh on Monday, to make him food and such during his finals. They took her car and left his here, but it drives so horribly I wasn't sure if I might end up stranded somewhere in Pearland. I took Dad's car tonight after he came home from work (and we ate, and had worship, and I finished my shopping list) and finally headed out to get the grocery shopping done. I must say, it was nice shopping in such an empty store, but I'd rather be more awake next time. There was only one register open and the person ahead of me had a verrry full cart and lots of coupons... I browsed through "Bon Appetit", a food magazine, while waiting -- I saw lots of good recipes but I was only half awake so I kept getting advertisements confused with articles. I'm pretty sure at least half of the magazine was advertisements. On the way home KUHF was playing some Debussy-ish piece, with a wandering piano that kind of drifted in and out...

Anyway, I've finished my late night bowl of cereal and I'm going to head off to bed now. I have the feeling the above paragraph makes little sense and is very confusing, but I don't feel like proofreading at the moment. :D

...

I've been fairly busy lately, but that's not really my excuse for not updating any sooner... actually I don't have any excuse at all. :D
We've been having people over, which has been really nice. Thanksgiving day we had a quiet meal here with Jesh. In the evening Ben and I went over to Jack Brook's Park and met a few people who'd arrived to play tennis, and then went over to the Smith's to eat dinner. Friday we had Caleb and Leah, Mr. Whear, Mark, and Hayley over for lunch. From there we went to Brazos Bend and met up with a few other people. I discovered when it was too late that my camera didn't have its picture card in it. That means I missed getting a photo of an alligator with all her little babies! :( Saturday evening we had Carl, Steph, Claire, and Mr. Alisdair Fraser over for dinner. Yesterday was my little brother's birthday... who is now eighteen (!!). John and Sam came for dinner.

Tonight Caleb and Leah were here.

beach

Well, with Thanksgiving almost here, I've been trying to get some baking done, but not really succeeding. This is partly because I am very tired for some reason, and also because I've been doing things like going to the beach instead... So productive, I know. ;) Yesterday the dog and I went down to Freeport and spent a few hours at Surfside. It was fairly quiet, and I enjoyed myself. So did my dog, although she was ready to go home after ingesting too much saltwater while attacking the waves.

Today I picked up my art desk and did some grocery shopping. I think Jesh is coming tonight, but we won't really be getting any company until Friday, so it'll be a quiet Thanksgiving day.

The above picture is from some time last week. It's too bad I didn't get the picture from Matthew's other side...he's wearing a shirt with a fire engine on it. :D

Jenna's birthday

Well, I've been up to the usual, plus too much shopping. The car didn't stay home one day this week. We're continually needing to get this, or look for that... My mom bought me an art desk, which I'm excited about. I don't actually have it yet (it's on order) but I'm looking forward to having a corner of my room designated for junk, or art, or whatever you want to call it. ;)
I almost went to the beach this week but Mom needed the car, and the next day it was extremely cold. (Extremely cold is anything under 70 degrees.) I guess I should stop forgetting that it's November. :P

Jenna turned one year on Thursday, and on Friday Ben and I went over to the Smith's... here's a few pictures:

And I need to run here; baking to do, cleaning to do, laundry to do, and yes, another trip to Pearland for some things I need for tomorrow...

Titles are so hard to come up with. :S

Hello again! I know a few people have been wanting me to post pics, but I've been so busy lately I've not really had a chance to get pictures taken. Here's a rundown of what I've been up to since I last posted...

Last Thursday Mom and I were out all day, doing some shopping. In the evening Ben and I went out to eat with some of the Smith's. My dad also traded in the Saturn for a new(ish) Nissan Sentra that evening.
Friday, I wanted to look up some things online but the internet refused to cooperate. We have satellite internet, and it hardly works in the morning/afternoon, which can be rather frustrating. I mean, if we pay for service, aren't we supposed to get service?? I ended up cleaning and working on organizing the garage instead.
Saturday I did more cleaning, more garage organizing, washed the Echo, gave Ben a haircut, and ran (ok, I drove) to Pearland, basically just to buy sour cream which I needed for the cheesecake I was making for the Sabbath. 518/288 was packed, and I wasted a lot of time waiting on traffic. The cheesecake was quite a success, though, so I guess the trouble was worth it. :P
We had Caleb, Leah, Nat, and the Elliots over for lunch on Sabbath. Jesh also was here; he stayed with us while he was down from College Station.

So, on to a few pictures... It's hard to get the lighting right, and I've not had time to mess with the settings/angles/times of day to get any more decent ones. They're either lit by camera flash (which is very unappealing) or window light, which is so bright that the contrasts get messed up.

The "window" over the kitchen sink looks into the living room.

The dining room would be behind you when looking at the kitchen from the same angle as the pictures above.

My room

The living room still needs some work before I'll feel comfortable putting pictures of it up... :P

um...just one picture

The house is so unfinished looking inside right now, but I thought I'd post just one exterior pic.

There is no room in the garage to park the cars, so the poor Echo is stuck outside until we can get the garage organized. :(

Basically we live out in the middle of nowhere, on a dead end street. (Well, almost the middle of nowhere. You can, however, see the highway from our backyard.) It's going to take some getting used to have to actually drive more than 1/2 mile to get to a grocery store! But we're just about 30 minutes from church, which isn't so bad.

new house

Hello from Rosharon! I really, really like the new house. It's not as big as our house in Plano, but it is well laid out so everything fits together well. Plus it's new. We've never lived in a new house before!

Today Mom and I went to Pearland to get some shopping done, and I was home in time to fix enchiladas for dinner, and now I'm relaxing in my bedroom which has curtains which I bought while out. Finally! I was a bit uncomfortable with with the big, curtain-less window in the bedroom that faces the road. :P We do, however, live on a dead end road, so traffic is nearly non-existent.

We still have no couch (we sold our old one before we moved) -- we haven't even had time to look for one. Tomorrow we're supposed to hunt for a new car. My dad's Saturn started overheating on his way to work yesterday, which was just another reminder that we really need to find something different as soon as possible.

I'll try to get pictures up in the next day or two. I've been putting it off with hopes I could get the place looking a bit more presentable...and of course, by the time it is, I'd rather just have people over than post pictures, but ah well. ;)

chaos and moving

This is a very quick post that will probably be the only one this week. Moving day is tomorrow! After that our communion begins and I will probably be too busy to update.

Plans have changed somewhat, and no doubt will change several more times before everything is done. We're going to rent a smaller truck and come back after the communion to get the rest. I've been working on packing the kitchen this morning, along with making phone calls and getting final laundry done and trying not to worry too much about the time that is rapidly running out and the mountains of work still left to do. And all on cheap coffee! I ran out of our regular coffee a couple days ago and managed to find a very cheap, generic brand of coffee in the pantry. Nicely put, it's rather distasteful stuff -- but I suppose it's better than nothing. ;)

I'd better run here! I need to run some errands along with a hundred and one other things. :D

(creative title here...?)

Please bear with all the "my dog" posts, I rarely have much else to talk about, and yet people insist I update so this is what they get! :D
Something I find a little annoying is how many people mistake my dog for a Labrador retriever -- I've had people actually insist to me that she had some black Lab in her, and I have to patiently explain that she really, truly is purebred. (Since when do Labs have upright ears, anyway??) People always ask what breed she is and are surprised to hear she's a German Shepherd. It's a little amusing and almost offensive. ;) So the other day I'd taken Neluska down to a creek so she could swim for a bit, and on my way back I was stopped at a very busy intersection, when a man in a truck rolled down his window and called to me, "That's a REAL German Shepherd, for you!" He also complimented how pretty she was, so I was pleased. :D

Well, I think we've got something planned for moving, finally! At last! I'm pretty sure I'll be renting a truck on Wednesday and Ben and I will load it and move down, whether or not closing has been finished with the house in Rosharon. At the very latest, closing should be done by next Friday, so we can just let the truck remain loaded for a day or two if necessary. I can't say I'm really looking forward to driving a 26 foot moving van through Houston, but I'll manage. (There's not really another choice!) There are various other details that make it slightly complicated: how I will even pick up the truck, the three dogs that can't all fit in the truck, the various things that will have to be finished up with the house here in Plano after the communion, and what to do with the car.

I'm rather disappointed I won't be able to see Rachel and Peter while they're over from Scotland. It's not likely I'll arrive down there before they leave, so unfortunately I'll miss them altogether. I guess this means I should just plan a visit to Scotland sometime in the (near?) future. :D

an uninteresting update

Sorry readers, but I really have hardly anything to talk about, so prepare yourself for some rambling, pointless blather. :D

Today I'm supposed to take Ben to the orthodontist because his braces are broken. I thought he went in an awful lot to correct a loose wire and such, and going by the receptionist's reaction, he really does have issues. (When I had braces I never had anything break!) I told the lady on the phone that I was calling for a patient who needed to come in today because a wire came loose and a chain broke. She asked for the patient's name, and when I told her, she laughed! As if, "Oh, him again!" Ben claims it's because of all the hardware that's in there -- chains and springs and etc, and though it's probably true, I like giving him a hard time. ;)

Here's a random picture of me in my kitchen, with my trusty laptop nearby.

I dare say these muffins I made today are simply incredible, and I have no qualms about saying so, because after all, it was the recipe that made them so good! I'll even be generous and share it for those of you who might like to try it. ;) Click!

Meanwhile we're still waiting on closing on the new house. The bank has to have a survey done of the property, so we're just stuck waiting. Feel free to visit me! I've not seen any family for about three weeks! :(

late night update of a sort

The offer my parents put on a house was accepted! I'm still not sure how long it will take to get closing taken care of, but I am hoping we will be moved and at least partially settled in by the time of the communion in Santa Fe.

The house is so quiet and empty here with just Ben and I, but we're managing the best we can. Out of boredom we started working on teaching Neluska to growl on cue. She will bark on the "watch him" command so I decided to teach her to growl when we say "suspicious". She tends to get carried away after a few growls and start barking. Understandably, this is when Ben is sneaking into the room and creeping around boxes while whispering "suspicious", which is clearly an action that deserves more than just a growl. :D

Oh, and after driving my dad's Saturn back from services on Sabbath, I'm a little bit anxious about driving it for long distances again. There were hissing and popping sounds coming from underneath the car that sounded like something extremely hot dripping on something dry. Ben had some complicated explanation having to do with the oil pump not spraying all the parts it should, but as far as I'm concerned, it was a horrible sound and I'm not even sure it's safe to drive the car!!

packing, headaches, ...

Who would have thought four people could have so much STUFF! And without Mom here sometimes we feel a bit lost as to what to do with things. But I can honestly say, even though the place is kind of turned upside down, we've come a long ways. That's a good thing, seeing my parents may have found a house to move into! There's still no set date that we'll actually move, but I'm optimistic.

I had food poisoning or something Monday night and have since had a continual bad headache, which hasn't been particularly pleasant. I've taken pain killers, gotten plenty of sleep, increased/decreased caffeine intake, and etc, and it's not helped at all. Today Ben and I took Neluska to a park down the road with hopes some fresh autumn air would "clear my head." (Autumn air being 90 degrees, but hey, I like it that way!)

Here's some pics from our adventure:

Ben isn't impressed that I'm posting the above pic, but I thought it was hilarious :D

moving!

I spent the day trying to get our "library" packed. There's close to twenty boxes of books packed so far, so I'm about 2/3 done I think. Besides that I've been cleaning and packing other odds and ends and sorting through office related things and trying to keep food available so that Ben and I don't fall to eating convenient junk food. I think we're making pretty good progress with the packing, even though I keep looking around and feeling like I'm not getting anywhere. :)

Dad's first day with the Metro was on Friday. My mom is down there with him, searching for a place for us to stay. All being well we should be moved within a couple weeks. I'm pretty excited -- and I'm not even sure it's completely sunk in yet!

(insert creative title here)

So far I think the massage therapist has made my back worse, but then it's probably a good thing since it means muscles I haven't used right are finally working properly. :) There were a few spots that she commented on this last visit, asking if I'd done a lot of heavy lifting in the past -- which, of course, I did used to do quite a bit. And then she got started on my neck, which I sprained badly years ago from falling out of a tree. I think it actually affected my back too, since work on my lower back revived neck pain that I haven't had in a while.

So... the job that my dad got with Verizon fell through, but it was because he found something better: a job with the Metro that he interviewed for about a month ago. They called him up again this week and what do you know...! Very exciting.

balloon festival

On Saturday Ben and I went to the Plano Balloon Festival just down the road. Our main road was so crowded with traffic for the event it took me 30 minutes just to go just a couple miles. (Supposedly it attracts over seventy thousand people over the weekend.) I ended up taking some other roads that were twice the distance, but a whole lot faster.

There were several dozen hot air balloons that took off... they came back and lit up after the sun went down, which was kind of neat. Balloon rides were available to the public for $250 per person, so I'm afraid we were only spectators from the ground.





They say the statistics for balloon accidents are like a tenth of a percent, but we nearly saw an accident happen. Two balloons went up at about the same time. One of the pilots apparently wasn't watching where he was going, and came up right under the basket of the balloon above him. The crowd below was horrified; it looked like his balloon was going to collide with the edge of the basket above him, and dump it over! The pilot on top barely managed to gain enough altitude to just escape it, but his passengers were able to actually reach out and touch the offending balloon. I didn't even think to get pictures until the whole incident was over... I know, what kind of photographer am I?! ;)

I made a cheesecake on Saturday. As is known by a few people, I am not a cheesecake fan, and yet I continually make it with hopes I will learn to like it. Well, this cheesecake I made I actually like! It was a rather "different" cheesecake, so maybe that's why. Anyway, I'll be keeping the recipe for it. :)

And my dad has a new job! He's going to be working with Verizon.

firefox...

OK, I like Firefox. I really do. But it's beginning to drive me mad.
I have uninstalled/reinstalled/redownloaded it multiple times, but it still insists on freezing up my whole laptop for 10 minute periods while using 300,000+ memory usage, randomly closing windows only to pop them up hours later in the day, and just generally being a pain in the neck. I've run my virus scanner and my adware/spyware scanner and they've come up fine so I don't know what the deal is.

But on a better note, my mom made me go to a massage therapist the other day and discovered I'm a bit out of alignment, and with a few visits the kinks will get worked out and perhaps the back pain I've had for years and years will go away! I'm kind of excited actually, because I'd kind of thought back pain was just something you lived with. :D

Other news... well there isn't really any. I've been doing the typical housecleaning, cooking, baking, grocery shopping, running the dog, studying, not sleeping enough, and getting headaches, and drinking too much coffee, and other routine things. All very exciting, I know. ;)

Texas drivers license, finally!

Does this make me a real Texan now? I've been using my Indiana drivers license for more than a year since we moved here (ahem, I know) and finally got around to applying for my new drivers license. I waited around 2 hours in the BMV which was crowded and had the air conditioning set much too low. And for all of that I only got a little slip of paper for my new "license", because it takes them two weeks to process the info into an actual card!

I'm teaching my dog to throw things in the trash. She caught on very quickly; however, when I tell her she's a good dog she likes to reach in and take out whatever it was she put in, so she can do it again! We're just working on keeping the trash in the can now.

my laptop is alive again

Well a bright spot in this past horrible week I've been having: my laptop screen finally came in! I frequently use my laptop in the kitchen while I'm cooking, and when I was moving my laptop last Wednesday the cord caught on something and jerked the laptop out of my hands. It fell onto our kitchen floor, which is on a concrete slab. The screen promptly shattered; the outside of my laptop still has scars I'm afraid. I ordered the new screen on Thursday through Ebay and then fought with Paypal till Friday before it would configure sales tax right. On the page right before the actual paying page it would show me the invoice including the Texas sales tax and on the next page it would take it off again; increasingly maddening the more times I clicked and refreshed. The following morning it worked fine on the first try, and the seller shipped it within a few hours. I followed the FedEx tracker and couldn't believe that they sent it from its origin (a suburb of Dallas) to Fort Worth, and then to Memphis! On Monday it came back to Dallas and spent the day in the destination sort facility before arriving today. (I've concluded everyone needs to boycott FedEx and Paypal. :D ) But the screen installed with no trouble at all, and I actually like it better than the one I had before.

Where there's a will there's a way.
80 pound dog fitting in a 30 pound dog's bed.

I've been trying to decide what to teach Neluska to do next. Her latest trick, shutting doors, she's got down pretty well. Anyone have suggestions for what she should learn next?

the Heard

We went to a little nature reserve north of us today called "the Heard" and went on an interesting trail through some prairie and wetlands. There was a boardwalk that went quite a ways through a swamp, but I'm not sure how well they keep the place up going by one of the branch-offs we saw at one point...!

Ben posing on what was a hopefully safer section of boardwalk than below
Aww look, it's a teddy bear!

I baked a ton of cookies thinking we were going to do something else on Labor Day, but since those plans fell through I need someone to come help eat all these! :S

home again

Home! Despite a few stops we made it home in about 13 hours. It was a smooth trip with good weather and good traffic. The only unusual moment of driving was when I was in midst of sending a text message and the semi truck ahead of me had one of his tires explode. I'm glad I wasn't beside him when it happened!

On the phone while throwing a frisbee for the dog at a stop in Missouri

Interstate 44 through Missouri

I spent today catching up on all the things I haven't been able to do for the past month while I was away. I also arranged my room slightly to hopefully fit a desk in if I get around to buying one... I tend to have art and other things that belong on a desk piled on my nightstand and around my bed which makes things awkward not to mention cluttered, which I can't stand.

Now that I'm back in the old routine it's possible this blog will be forgotten for a while :D

(I don't like thinking up titles)

I'm still in Indiana, and today we went out to McCormicks Creek State Park and did a little hiking. It was great seeing the old familiar trails again. I took my dog along and she had fun swimming and playing in the falls.

eeeeek, so cute! :D



Mike with Eli in a "cave"

I think we're heading home on Monday, all being well.

P.s. Why "Grey Sky Morning"? Quite frankly? No clue. It's been in my head for years and years and I thought of using it as a breeders prefix when I was breeding dairy goats, though I ended up using something else. When I decided to create a blog, it's what came to mind again. I'm not even much of a morning person so it's not like grey sky mornings mean something special to me. It's just kind of random, and I like the sound of it. :D

Greetings from my old home state

Sunset on the way home to Plano from Alvin

I'm in beautiful Bloomington Indiana visiting my sister and her family. I drove up with my mom, Ben, and my dog, on Tuesday. It was a 14 hour drive, and I managed to do it with just two cups of coffee. We drove up through scenic eastern Oklahoma and Missouri -- the views were quite fantastic even on the interstate. It was fun speeding through the mountains going 85 mph while the road cut and wound its way through the Ozarks. It steadily got a little bit cooler as we went north. Oklahoma was so hot that when we stopped for lunch and I took Neluska out she burned her feet on the pavement, and she started limping! We arrived here at three in the morning and I proceeded to get under four hours of sleep the first night.

My two nephews are quite entertaining -- Elijah carries amusing conversations and Noah likes to be held all the time. Sharon also babysits a little girl who is about Elijah's age, and she is very cute.

Noah, five months old

It's been an eventful month, where I nearly lost my mind helping Hayley with her wedding. It's amazing how much work is involved! I'll say the stress was all worth it though. The wedding turned out beautifully, and I'm very happy for my two friends. I really enjoyed my time in Santa Fe, despite never getting a full night's sleep and getting sick in the process.

One thing I especially miss from home: a wireless connection that is actually mine! I've been using the neighbor's connection for the past few weeks wherever I go, and it's not always so reliable.

I'm hoping we can go to McCormick's Creek State Park while we're here, so keep tuned for some more pictures.

Hello, Blog.

Considering I have a relatively uneventful life, the idea of starting a blog is somewhat ridiculous. However, here I am, doing just that. Prepare yourself for the boring. :)

The weather has been superb: hot and dry. In the evenings it is a little breezy so I can take the dog running without us both overheating. She can get very hyper if she can't run off her energy. She walks quietly most of the time, but now and then I let her bounce up and down and bark at birds, and she always gets to stop at her trees. Her trees are the ones that have at some point in the past year had a squirrel in them. She has to investigate them by peering into the branches intently every time we pass them, just in case the squirrel might be there again. There's even a telephone pole she has to check regularly.

I've decided to pick up playing the violin again. I'm not even a fan of the violin (unless it's Perlman, Zukerman, or possibly Heifetz playing) but I like music and as long as I'm pianoless I'm willing to fiddle around in the mean time. (Pun actually not intended.) I am by no means a good violinist. My mom says I have a good ear and read music well, so it's just a pity I can't actually make the violin make the sounds I'm thinking. The bow likes to hop up and down and make shrill noises that make my dog whine, along with various other sounds that aren't really possible to explain. I also don't curve my fingers right, and my wrist either bends in the wrong places or doesn't bend at all. Meanwhile I pretend to play pieces by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grieg, although they aren't actually recognizable unless you have a good imagination.

I've just sent in a mail-in rebate for my new phone. It's a SYNC, which is basically the Samsung's version of the Motorola RAZR, except that it looks a 100 times better. I'm quite fond of it, although I haven't been able to use it to its full potential yet. It didn't come with a USB cord or the MicroSD card it can use, so all the pictures I've taken with it I can't upload to my computer. I also have to buy special Samsung headphones for the MP3 player. All of which can be bought fairly cheaply; I simply haven't gotten around to ordering it.

Um, so I guess that's all for now.

--Merc

P.S. Just look at this incredible 11 year old violinist!