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.

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. But I won’t be at work until it’s over.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our current process with our son goes like this: wake up between 7am and 8:30am play hard all morning lie down around noon for around 15 minutes, but don’t fall asleep play hard all afternoon until about 4pm fall asleep hard, and nap for an hour to two hours 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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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!