Baby Blessing and the Nobel Prize

So for those of you who follow these sort of things, you may know that the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Robert Edwards for developing in vitro fertilization.  
Which seems especially appropriate this year because my little sister and her husband, who have been trying to have a baby for ten years, were finally able to have a beautiful little girl thanks to their third try at IVF.
So we packed the girls up in the minivan and made a whirlwind trip up to Indy to participate in the baby blessing this Sunday.

A Sad Day

The sister in our ward who AM visiting teaches died this morning of cancer.

She was one of those women who just loved people.  Their home was the place to be for many, many ward events, with its huge fields and mountain, the large party shed, the pool, and the great food.  And everywhere Debbie smiling and chatting and making everyone feel welcome.  She was a young woman advisor for many years until she needed to be released because she just was too ill , and I am sad that JA will never get to have her as a teacher.

It hard to imagine the ward without her.

Many of her friends, sisters in the ward, young women and children in the ward, contributed squares to a quilt that AM had the opportunity to do the final assembly on, staying up late all last week to try to finish.  They got to give it to her yesterday.  So glad they did, although I am sad that she was too far gone to get to read all the words of love that were written on it.

The words of a poem by John Donne come to mind:

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. 

In which Pooh Bear gets an iPod

I have finally figured out what I want to be...an Amish alpha geek! 

By which I mean being an early adopter of old technology.

The truth is, I'm pretty skeptical of bells and whistles technology and of people who don't seem to have anything better to do with their life that being a gearhead or surfing the web for the newest you-tube sensation or such.

 So it may surprise some of you that I bought a iPod Touch this week.

But really, I've been looking for a smart phone that didn't require a calling plan for a long time to replace my PDA that stopped working about 4 years ago.  And the iPod Touch pretty much seems to be that.  Sure I can't make calls unless I have wireless, but mostly the value of the smart phone is the opportunity to keep a notepad  for those flashes of inspiration, a calendar to keep track of everything that I forget I have committed to do, and and reading material handy for bus rides and waiting for buses, and long breaks at soccer games, etc....  And the iPod does all that plus let's me visually chat with my younger sister and see her new baby, and let's me listen to the few songs I have downloaded over the years.

But the really cool thing that I finally adopted, that doesn't require an iPod, but actually works really great if you have it, is Pandora.  Yes, the planet with blue people....no, the online radio station that groups similar types of music all together so that you can listen to all your old favorites without having to buy them on iTunes. JP has been using it for a long time, but I didn't really figure out how it worked until he suggested I put it on my iPod.

 Its awesome... I admit staying up wayyyyy too late last night going thru memory lane....

Labor Day-Southern BBQ

We had one of those pleasant surprises kind of days for Labor Day weekend.

We had gone to the regional waterpark Saturday, for what we figured would pretty much be our Labor Day holiday, because we really had no plans, had not even invited anyone to come to our house.


And then we went to church and some of our old friends who now live in Georgia had come up to the ward to visit.  Will give this  family the code name "Can't Get it to Move".  They had come back to visit on a whim, more or less.  So we invited them to our house, only they had already promised their kids they were going to stay in a hotel (with all the exciting things that kids love about hotels).  So we invited them to come swimming and to have a BBQ Labor Day afternoon.  They accepted.

At church, two of the wives who had been great friends, but now lived in Texas and North Carolina had also come up to visit TN for the holiday as well.  So we invited them too.  We will also give the code name "Ouch" and "Walk in Water".

Then our some of other friends code name A-A convinced our friends down in Alabama (code name: sharp teeth) that they couldn't pass up this chance for a reunion so they drove up in the morning, and suddenly we had a remarkable labor day holiday brewing.  We invited a few other families who knew the Georgia family well.

After a short swim with all the kids that seemed to trigger the ire of one of the other homeowners at the pool (But we checked the rules later, and I think we were within the rules),  we got to inaugurate the use of our grill.  For me, it was a profoundly gratifying experience to be together again with so many of the families that had spent great summer nights in our old back yard.

As it also shows you just how Southern we are now.  Friends from 'Bama, Texas, Georgia, Carolina all fixin' to get together for some 'Q.

Hopefully AM or JP will add some pictures of all the kids.

More thoughts on the old house

Our house was first the first real thing I have sold.  Sure we sold our Geo Metro twice, once for $1 and once for $60, but I never sold back my textbook at college, or things on eBay, or such.  So all my negotiating skills came from playing the Bean game.  (Kind of thought this is why you have a real estate agent, but that turned out not to be the case.)

Some of the things I miss the most about our old home is the completely fenced back yard, the gorgeous front yard, and the booth in the dining room.  I wonder if we will ever again have the big backyard parties that we once had.

We dropped off a key we still had to the new owners this week and I saw that the crepe myrtle bush I planted last year finally had its first blooms.  Broke my heart.  Ever since we went to Asheville and the gardens at the Biltmore Mansion, I have wanted to have dark red crepe myrtles.  And I almost did....

Dismantled the playhouse this weekend.  The new owners didn't want it.  It breaks my heart that I don't have a yard that I could move it to as I had hoped.  But it disassembled nicely, just as I had designed it to do when I build so many years ago with the thought that it would move with us if we ever did. I have most of the parts, so maybe something can rise from the ashes.  It was the first major thing that I ever build.  (Maybe the only major thing that I ever built.)  In truth, I probably used it much more than JA, since it was a nice quiet place to sit outside with somewhat few bugs than usual because of the screening.  Some of my most favorite memories of it are sleeping out there last winter during the week that we had the huge snowstorm, sitting in it on multiple times during massive rain and lightning storms, and having my monthly interviews with the kids on Fast Sunday out there.

Some of the DYI projects besides the playhouse we did on the house in the time we lived there:
Replaced the main water line because of extremely low water pressure.  This involved digging it up with a trenching machine.
Repaired the hot water line that started leaking under the house when full water pressure was restored.
Replaced the faulty water pressure regulator under the house to keep the water pressure in the proper range (and may have been the reason we had low water pressure originally).
Built a catwalk system and storage space in the attic.
Blew in another foot of insulation in the attic.
Installed insulation under the master bedroom.
Installed turtle vents to improve airflow in the attic and thus reduce AC bills.
Reroofed the house (after the tree fell on the house.) (With lots of help and supervision of two highly qualified contractor/roofers.)
While reroofing, removed old gables/vents and installed ridge vent, which significantly improved airflow and reduced opportunity for roof to leak.
Installed new soffit vents on the front of the house to improve airflow.
Replaced the garbage disposal.
Repainted all the shutters and the door a new color (green), which we thought made the whole house look a lot more attractive.
After the tree fell down, we almost completely redid the front yard walk, getting it aligned with the front door in the way I had always wanted it to be, but couldn't because the tree was in the way.  This is when we planted a lot of new shrubs and flowers.
Replaced the shower handles in the master bedroom.
Built planter box garden.
Replaced the kitchen sink faucet that was leaking.
Rebuilt the area under the sink that was damaged by the leaking faucet.
Replaced the outside faucet.
Repainted all the wooden benches and walls for the back patio.  We painted over all the beautiful flowers the kids had painted on the inside sections of the walls.
Retiled and regrouted the backsplash for the sink. (Actually regrouted twice, once with brown grout that didn't really match the rest of the area and the second time with the old green grout that matched.)
Repaired soffit area at front of the house that was damaged overtime by water leaking from around the gutter.

Major appliances we had to replace after we moved (how can things work fine when you live in the house and then break down when you leave?):

Water heater.
Refrigerator.

Locks of Love

BEFORE

AFTER

EM finally got her haircut. She was very nervous, but able to endure through it all while I cut her hair. I told her that her hair will go to make wigs for someone in need of hair.

SOLD!!!!

Our house is finally sold. One less house to worry about and also only one mortgage to pay.