The morning started foggy. I was worried we weren’t going to see the eclipse too well because of the fog. And if the sun was eclipsed, would it be strong enough to burn off the fog? So I tested with the monocle before the eclipse started, and yes, I could see the sun’s full disc on my hand. So that was a relief. I was using Mark’s monocle to shine the sun onto a piece of white paper. Later on I put up a shade around the monocle so that the image would be clearer and easier to see. My friend got into it with a colander, but it was harder to see the eclipse than my method. 
When we weren’t watching my monocle viewer, we were watching the NASA channel on my iPad. That made it feel like we were watching the eclipse with tons more people, even though everyone I called was either busy or not answering their phone because they were watching the eclipse. When it got near totality (we were in the around 90% totality zone) Jaryth looked at it and said “the sun looks like a banana.”  And it really did! It also looked like the Cheshire Cat at one point. After totality, Jaryth got bored, but I didn’t. I set up a time lapse with my iPhone. At first I was holding the phone and propping the screen up on my leg. I sat like that for several minutes. But then even that was too boring for me, so I created a makeshift studio with my blankets and the tripod and left it running until the eclipse ended. [caption id=“attachment_1462” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] My makeshift time lapse studio - so long as the dog doesn’t t knock it over.[/caption] I had a lot of fun with this eclipse. See you again in 2019 or more likely 2024… Did you view the eclipse? How was it? Let me know in the comments below!

I’m getting really excited. This time tomorrow I’ll be outside with a pinhole box, a monocle, and a tripod attempting to watch the eclipse. #eclipse2017

This is the closest I’ve ever been to a total eclipse–we’re around 92-94%.

Preparing for eclipse

Mark prepared a pinhole viewer with a box. And set up his monocle on a tripod and showed me where to aim it. I’m all set.

Yesterday was tough. We had a power outage most of the day, and we spent a lot of that time driving around looking for someplace that had power so we could get some lunch and make sure we had enough gas for the generator. The power was out for several miles around us and it took a long time. But I was still able to get my novel up to over 5000 words. The words were just flowing. I was shocked at how fast it was going. The story isn’t moving along like I’d expected, but it sure is fun to write. I only got around 830 words written on my non-fiction project, but I had a lot of fun building the examples and playing with the CSS to write it. But today I really flew. In the morning I worked on my non-fiction, bringing my total there to 5233 words. That was two more articles. I put one live and kept the other back to save for a week or two. I then didn’t get the chance to work on any NaNo until after J went to bed. He was insisting both that my laptop was his laptop, and that I needed to close it so that I could take him to New York City. He has suddenly decided that I need to fly with him on an airplane to NYC. He wants to go there and then call Daddy over FaceTime from there. But eventually he was in bed and I started writing. Three hours, virtually non-stop brought my novel up to 10,242 words! I’m 1/5th done! I’m so excited. This year it really feels like winning is within my reach! Go me!

I’ve always felt that life is never dull, but sometimes I help it along a little too much. What’s funny to me is that over-scheduling seems almost natural, but these days my idea of over-scheduling is much less rigorous than it used to be. I used to schedule myself with 60+ hours of stuff to do in a week. “Sleep is for the weak” was my motto. These days, I like to sleep. I think having a kid helped me realize how much I like to sleep, since he does his best to deprive me of it. Jaryth believes that mornings start sometime between 4 and 6am. I instituted the rule of no TV before 7am and no video games before 8am. This kept the sound down a little until he started watching “The Tigger Movie.” That movie is evil. Evil, I tell you! Firstly, there’s the theme–where Tigger no longer wants to be “the only one” and wants to find his family. Finding his family is fine, but why does that mean he can’t still be special? But what’s really bad is the bouncy song. Jaryth likes to imitate it. He bounces off the walls–yes, he slams himself into the walls and bounces off of them. We got an exercise trampoline which he likes to use to start his super-dooper-alley-ooper bounce on. And since you’re crashing into things you have to make the crashing noises at the same time. Luckily he hasn’t tried bouncing off of sleeping (attempting to) mommy. But that’s not why I’m busy. Some of the things I’m doing right now include:

July 25, 2012  Update I couldn’t do it. I spent all month trying to get a Ruby dragon, and yesterday I got one. The egg was going to hatch today. But Jaryth played the game this morning, and he sped up the incubation (using all my gems) and then sold the dragon egg for gold I didn’t need. When I found myself almost crying because of this, I realized that I needed to stop playing this game. Dragonvale has been deleted from my iPad, and Jaryth hasn’t realized yet. I’m sure when he figures out that it’s gone, he’s going to scream bloody murder. But I couldn’t stand feeling angry at him over an animated image. No game is worth that.

I finished Chapter 19 last night. Very stoked. It’s moving along quite nicely. Chapter 20 is currently Offline Web Applications. But I think I need to re-order it to put Web Storage before it.

The other thing writing this is doing is making me more and more interested in writing a new theme for this blog. I’ll make it HTML5, but I’m not sure if I’ll use my art for it or not. I’ll have to think about it. Of course, that isn’t going to happen until after the book is completed.

Jaryth was downstairs weeping piteously. Mark could not console him. I had no idea what was wrong. Then suddenly he was calm again. Phew, the crisis is averted. Then “I want that!” he yells. And before Mark can respond, “Where’d the zombies go?” Followed by some more crying. I can tell that having a son that is probably going to be a gamer just like his dad is going to result in a lot of humorous statements. He plays Plants vs. Zombies, and when he asks to play he says “I want to feed the zombies.” Of course, that is my fault, as I noticed that since he’s only a toddler and doesn’t understand the point of PvZ he tends to let the zombies through fairly frequently. Thus I said that he was clearly feeding them. He was concerned that the poor zombies were going hungry, so he feeds them his own brain. That’s the generous soul he is. Of course, now he’s back to playing Tozzle. Tozzle is an extremely loud game that he plays at full blast volume almost every day. He plays only three of the puzzles in it: the windmill (which he calls the “mim mill”), the train, and the planes. When he builds the “red one” (the plane with red markings) he then finishes and tells us that we are going to the airport. “We take a plane to Bibi’s house!” he announces over and over.

Our current process with our son goes like this:

1. wake up between 7am and 8:30am
2. play hard all morning
3. lie down around noon for around 15 minutes, but don’t fall asleep
4. play hard all afternoon until about 4pm
5. fall asleep hard, and nap for an hour to two hours
6. play hard until mom is exhausted (any time after 10pm) and then lie in bed fighting with her because he’s not tired at all

8 hours of sleep is barely enough for me, and I’m not convinced it’s enough for him. We have determined that if we can get him to stay awake at 4pm he’ll go to bed and sleep around 7:30 or 8pm. But that period from around 4pm until 6pm is killer. We can’t seem to keep him awake. He has fallen asleep while eating, while playing, watching a movie, reading a book, and more. We then shake him (gently), talk to him, carry him around (hard when he weighs nearly 60 pounds), try to get him to play, and nothing wakes him. Yesterday he fell asleep on the couch, and when we told him we were going to feed the animals (a chore he loves to do) he woke up enough to say “I want feed animals” and then he was asleep again, and continuing threats did not wake him again. Any suggestions? How do you keep a toddler awake when he doesn’t want to be so that he will sleep when we want him to be asleep? I’m desperate (and tired).

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order:

• Eat less junk food - ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day
• Bake my own bread
• Eat NO feedlot or factory meat. I want to only buy or raise my own grass fed meat and poultry.
• Have an artisan turkey for Thanksgiving in 2011
• Eat 5+ veggies and fruits per day.
• Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
• Go to the dentist every six months.
• Grow a vegetable garden - and expand it every year. This year I’m expanding to potatoes.
• Work out 30+ minutes per day (beyond our daily walk).
• Cook 3-4 meals a week.
• Read to Jaryth every night.
• Write a novel.
• Grow my site to be in the top 20 sites on About.com.
• Let’s get real, I want my site to be #1! :-)
• Build an eco-friendly house.
• With a tower.
• Ride my horse 3-5 times a week, regardless of weather.
• Go on trail rides with Betsy.
• Paint and draw.
• Create a website for swapping books with other book artists. Or (and) mail artists.
• Pare down my stuff to be more minimalist.
• Make cheese.
• Eat only locally-grown (within 100 miles of here) food.
• Support more local artists, farmers, shops, etc.
• Give something to someone every day.
• Get a tractor.
• Chickens - for eggs and meat.
• A small cow - for milk for cheese.
• Meditate 3-5 times per week.
• Yoga.
• Writing down what I eat.
• Journaling every day.
• Learn to make sushi I made sushi on Thursday night (photos to come soon)
• start seeds for veggie garden indoors (for earlier harvests)
• clean out the creek so that it flows better
• plan a nut orchard
• plant fruit trees
• give away at least 100 books in 2011
• clean my office
• write at least 1 review of an app or book that is pending per week
• build a bookarts swap site
• build at least one of the domains that I own
• move one site off of my home server onto its own site
• send more postcards - 1 per week at least
• read 100 books or more in 2011 (I’ve already read 14 – check out my GoodReads profile to see what I’m currently reading

For this week, I’m focusing on the following:

Jaryth liked licking the icing. I also learned that marshmallows must be eaten on a stick (courtesy s’mores we had last summer). He yelled “stick! Stick!” over and over until Mark gave him a toothpick.

He can’t decide what he wants to watch today: “Rocky and Bullwinkle” or “Mythbusters.” He watched an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to pop popcorn with a bomb and with a laser. And all Jaryth wanted to see was the house get “broke all to bits”. And the “big fire!” When they switched to the car driving really fast (Jamie testing if driving fast in rain with the top down will keep you drier), Jaryth wasn’t interested. Then he started yelling “Rocket J. Squirrel! Rocket J. Squirrel!” I guess the ultimate episode would be where they blew something up while Rocky flew overhead.

Jaryth is downstairs yelling “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” Mark replies “Which one? Nemo or Cars?” “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” “You can only watch one at a time.” “Emo! Cars! Emo! He’s gonna swim with Dory!” In this instance “he” is Jaryth referring to himself. I guess he not only wants to watch “Emo” he wants to go swimming with Dory.

Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday - Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is. He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything. What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much. [caption id=“attachment_172” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.”][/caption] What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow. Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.) [caption id=“attachment_175” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

I love reading Marc’s Green Living Blog. I do try to be conscious of eco-friendly or green choices, but his blog offers so much more than just that. Yesterday’s post “Finally, My Flying Car is Here” is a great example! I mean, would you really think of flying cars as something green? I mean, heck, they’re totally important, don’t get me wrong. As an avid Sci-Fi reader I’ve been waiting for the promised flying car for years! But to learn that not only is this car legal to fly with only 20 hours of flying time, but it also gets better gas mileage than my truck. Now if they’d just invent a flying trailer to go with it - or a truck that gets better than 13MPG and can still tow a 2-horse trailer. In other news: Jaryth’s site is back up. So if you’ve been jonesing for pictures like this, your wait is over. I’ve built it so that I can add new pictures by just uploading them into a directory. Lazy, yes, but heck, the photos are on the site again, so I’m happy, and hopefully his faraway relatives are too. ☺ I asked him to “smile” as I took the picture. This is the result. [caption id=“attachment_145” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

I know, I don’t need any more sweets in my life. But Pepperidge Farms hit the jackpot with me with their Chocolate Goldfish Grahams. Jaryth doesn’t like them, but that’s okay, I do. :-)[caption id=“attachment_139” align=“aligncenter” width=“99” caption=“Yum!”][/caption]

Jaryth was a bit scared of his first lesson. But as I told Danielle, his teacher, starting low means he has more room for improvement. He cried less on day 2.

I was talking to my Dad today about Jaryth’s language. He was wondering if we spoke baby talk to him or if we tried to encourage him to speak correctly. I then commented on how we had been trying to get him to use the pronoun “I” rather than “he” or “baby” or “Jaryth” when referring to himself. So, just now, Jaryth came upstairs and was asking me where the remote controlled car was. Mark told him and then Jaryth said “he wants it”. Meaning that he wants to play with the car. Mark then said, “no, you should say ‘I want it’ to say that you want it.” Guess what Jaryth is now saying over and over and over? “I want it.” “I want it.” “I want it!” He cracks me up. He’s still downstairs telling Mark, “I want it.”

What you can’t really see from this picture is that he’s playing Plants vs. Zombies. When the zombie apocalypse comes, he’ll be ready with his biters!

My dad used to say to my brother and I “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” As a kid that statement always bothered me, as clearly I had something to cry about - why else would I be crying??? But now, as a parent, I understand the impulse to say that. After a 10 minute moaning/crying jag just now, I was about ready to “give him something to cry about” myself! But let me set the scene: Jaryth had just woken up from a 1.5 hour nap and was in a great mood. We played with his ball for several minutes, then he said he wanted toast with peanut butter, so we made that. Then he wanted water from the fridge. So he got his cup, and I unlocked the water dispenser. He held up his cup and filled it (about half full) with water. Then I locked the water dispenser. And he promptly got mad and dropped his cup. I kept my cool as I dried him and the floor off, calmed him down, and gave him back his cup and unlocked the water dispenser again. Lather. Rinse. REPEAT I didn’t stay as calm this time, as he started screaming (again) because he was (again) covered in water, there was water (again) all over the floor, and he still didn’t get a drink. I tried to calm him down, but I suspect the statement “you don’t get more water out of the dispenser if you’re just going to drop it on the floor” is what triggered the 10 minute crying/moaning jag. Toddlers can be a lot of fun. But sometimes, not so much.