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Dedication: A Prayer

Before she had a name, she was a hope,
A dream, a prayer breathed in her mother’s heart.
Before she had a name, she had our love
And all the family she’d ever need.
Before she had a name, sweet Annabelle,
We loved her more than any words could tell.

She has her father’s cheeks, her mother’s ears,
Her precious little features oh-so-cute.
She has her father’s nose, her mother’s eyes
That shine when new, exciting life delights.
She has her father’s chin, her mother’s smile,
And every little bit is beautiful.

Now every day, we face these little fears
As she falls down, or any time she cries.
Now every day, we watch the things she does,
Amazed how fast our little girl has grown.
Now every day, we wonder what she’ll be,
What great works by her hand this world will see.

Our god and king, our lord, give her wisdom
And sight enough to learn from her mistakes.
Our god and king, our lord, give her your grace.
Teach kindness, patience, truth, and charity.
Our god and king, our lord, give her your care.
Protect her, and remind her you are there.

In your son’s name, and through his gift we pray,
Wash Annabelle with your love, all her days.

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Journal Entry

Monday, October 1st
After our busy weekend, Monday was another pretty slow and restful evening at home. I pushed AB in her swing some, checked out my new grass in the back yard, and got violently bitten by a billion mosquitoes. No fun, that last bit.

I also finished my homework for the week, played a little bit of Heroes, watched Heroes and How I Met Your Mother with T–, and went to bed fairly early. It was a nice, quiet night.

Tuesday, October 2nd
Last night, as all Tuesdays recently, was mostly taken up by the marriage seminar. I got home around 5:15, talked with T– a bit, and went to my office to work on some things. Around 5:45 D– showed up to watch AB, and T– and I had supper, then ran out the door.

This session was our fifth class, out of nine. That’s still a month of classes left. Still…it’s probably a good thing.

After that, we ran by Blockbuster to return some movies, then we let D– go home. T– watched some Dr Phil, and I played some Heroes, and that took up the rest of the night.

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Journal Entry

Wild weekend. I’ve said before, and I’ll stand by it. I’m doing too much on a weekend to keep my blog updated. I don’t really apologize for that. Problem is, if I let Wednesday and Thursday slip, then that easily becomes a weeklong backlog.

Err…not that any of you really care. I’m just explaining that to me, probably.

Friday, September 28th
I called Thursday’s relaxing evening a calm before the storm. I was being silly, but Friday really did end up being a hell of a thing. Well…as much of a hell as you can get, spending ten hours motionless in front of a TV.

Halo 3! That’s what I’m getting at. K– got his free 360 back when, and this is really the first game any of us have been excited about for it. And, really, most of the excitement was K–‘s. Sort of like the Harry Potter finale, I didn’t much care about Halo 3, in spite of the fact that we’ve all had some really good times playing the Halo franchise over the last five or six years. Those times even got a starring role in the early parts of Josh’s Story, actually.

But, yeah, I thought it’d be fun, but I wasn’t that thrilled. K–, on the other hand, has been bouncing up and down on his toes in the throes of his excitement, for at least a month now. And, eventually, that got infectious, so when he started talking about having an all-night Halo 3 party Friday night (it was released on Tuesday), that actually sounded like a lot of fun.

We got B– and E– involved (E– is a magnificent bastard when it comes to Halo multiplayer), and D– showed up for a while, and we shipped the wives off to a night of cropping photos, and K– even got some of those gamer chairs just for the occasion. Sweet. Pizza and soda and alcohol finished off the rest of the required supplies, and we settled in to play.

I actually showed up around 6:30 Friday afternoon. K– ordered the pizzas around 7:00, and got enough to share with B– and E–, who showed up shortly after. We ate and talked with them for a while, then played while they watched for a bit to give them a feel for the game, then they left and K– and I settled in to seriously cover some ground.

We’d heard that the game had about 6-10 hours of gameplay in the main campaign, and it was our goal to make it through it. Now, we’re not as young as we used to be, but hey, we’d have the whole weekend to recover, right? So he bought about six gallons of the limited edition, marketing hype Mt. Dew Halo 3 Game Fuel (just Mt. Dew with extra caffeine and some ginseng), and I brought over some Sugar Free Redbull (and about a gallon of Vodka) and we started out the night with Vodka Game Fuels (or Rocket Fuels, as B– was calling ’em), and ended the night with Redbull Game Fuels, when we got to that 1:00/2:00 zone where we couldn’t afford alcohol if we wanted to stay awake. But, yeah, all around we were just gulping down the toxic chemicals.

We won, though, and that makes it all worth it. Around 4:00 AM, we finished the story, watched the credits, and then decided to play some multiplayer instead of going to bed. That kept us up until about 6:00, when we finished a first-to-25-kills game of infinite rocket launchers. Then we went to bed.

Umm…remember I mentioned a couple posts ago about my high blood pressure? Well, I’ve been entirely off the caffeine for three weeks now. Then, in one night, I drank all of it. So, even though I crashed in the incredibly comfortable guest bed around 6:00, I didn’t get to sleep. I was too busy ODing on caffeine. My heart was pounding, I could feel my pulse in my head, and there was no way I was going to fall asleep.

So, I dunno, there’s some moral to the story there. I finally fell asleep around 7:30, then woke up at 11:30 to head home. Oh, I guess that makes this Saturday.

Saturday, September 29th
So, yeah, I got home around noon, had lunch with T– and played with AB, and learned that our reduced cable lineup wasn’t going to be showing the OU game. (Oh, if I’d known then….)

T– had had a pretty long night with AB waking up (more on that later), and so she suggested I take the baby over to K– and N–‘s to watch the game with them, and leave her with an afternoon to nap and watch movies. So D– came by and picked me up, and we went over to watch the Sooners get humiliated by Colorado, and that was no fun.

Then we dropped the baby off with T–, and D– and I went up to Best Buy because he wanted to buy a new TV. Cool, cool. That took more than an hour, though, and kinda pushed our dinner plans back until they became lunch plans on Sunday. Well worth it, though. He got a very cool TV, and we were even lucky enough to have E– swing by with the van to help us get it to his place (so he didn’t have to wait three days for delivery). Sweet.

After that, I went back to the house to watch some TV with T–, but I faded fast, and ended up in bed around 9:30. I slept.

Sunday, September 30th
So. Sunday morning I woke up for church, helped T– get AB ready, and then discovered during the sermon that I had finished my story and didn’t really have a new one to work on. Instead, I finally wrote out AB’s dedication poem that T– asked me to start working on a while back.

I didn’t quite finish it, and wasn’t ready to show it off yet, but when I got out to the car, T– asked me what I’d been working on. For humorous effect (and not at all to actually deceive my wife, I want to make that clear), I told her that I’d been working on a poem about how cool the Cowboys are. For your classical entertainment, I’ll provide a copy of the verse I recited off-hand:

Romo, Tony Romo,
He’s no homo
No matter what Dan says.

This year, maybe this year,
Watch without fear,
As we make all the plays.

Playoffs, in the playoffs,
Without a loss.
Superbowl starts today.

Man, I’m good. Okay, I didn’t do all of that off-the-cuff, but I got a chunk of it, and T– thought it was so funny that she asked me to finish it. All of the sudden I’m Alexander Pope up in this piece.

Anyway, I was actually working on the dedication, which I’ll likely post here once it’s done. I’m happy with it, so far.

Lunch was Texas Roadhouse, which really hit the spot. Then we came back to our place to watch the Cowboys tear the Rams to pieces, which was fun. It’s looking like a good year, even with the injuries.

After that, K– and N– went to the song service at church, and T– took a nap while I worked on my homework for the marriage seminar. Then we all went up to Poblano’s for dinner, because T– said she needed some margarita and everyone suddenly caught the bug. That was fun, and most delicious, and N– had a “Buy One Entree, Get the Second Free” coupon, so it was even reasonably priced (until you count the margaritas).

Then everybody headed home, and T– and I watched some TV, then headed to bed pretty early.

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Journal Entry

Thursday, September 27th
Last night was a pleasantly relaxing one. I finished typing up the first draft of Royal Holiday and got that to D– and T– for reviews. Then I got home and talked with the wife a bit, and then went back to my office to play some Heroes for about an hour. I finished the Human campaign.

Then we had beef fried rice that was really good, and played with AB, then we ran up to Blockbusters (and stopped at Braums on the way home) before settling in to watch the season premier of Earl. Pretty good stuff. The Office was on last night, too, but T– didn’t want to watch another hour of sitcoms, so she went to bed around 9:00 to read some, and I tried to play some more Heroes. Unfortunately, in the first game of the Demon campaign, it keeps crashing after my second fight. I’ll have to see if I can figure that out.

And, 10:30-ish, I went to bed. Not a terribly exciting day, but it was nice to chill out and stay home for an evening. Tonight should be quite different, so…calm before the storm, or something.

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Journal Entry

Today, I finished typing up a long backlog of longhand “Royal Holiday” pages. It feels good to have that done. I’ve got about a dozen pages left in the story, before I get to the end. I’m looking forward to finishing.

We’d made some tentative plans to have dinner with K– and N– and D– tonight — something we often do on Wednesdays — but N– ended up with an appointment for a haircut around 5:00. T– was generous enough to skip her plans for the evening, so we were all able to get together for dinner at Friday’s at 6:30.

That was fun, and the food was good. T– and I shared the old Jack Daniels Tower (now it’s just the Sampler, and doesn’t come on a tower, but it’s the same things). Delicious. Everyone else got desserts, too, and we got to try some, which was good enough for me.

Afterward, we came home and played with AB for a while, then D– and I ran up to Barnes and Noble to look around. He found a book he wanted, and bought AB a cloth book for her to play with and chew on. He’d been wanting to get her something of the sort for a while now, and while we were looking we found a “My First Photo Album,” which even has places to put pictures. It was too perfect. She’s going to love it.

Anyway, after that he went home, and I worked on my homework for class. I read two chapters from the book, and now it’s time for bed.

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Journal Entry

It was a really busy week, last week. Some of the highlights have shown up already on T–‘s and N–‘s blogs, but I feel like I’ve got to fill out the form, anyway.

Tuesday, September 18th
Tuesday morning I had a doctor’s appointment. I’ve been getting high blood pressure readings for about a year now (ever since I learned about AB, really), and it got to the point where people were threatening me with sad faces if I didn’t go get checked out.

So I told my boss I needed the morning off, and that I’d maybe take the whole day. My appointment wasn’t until 9:00, though, so I was looking forward to sleeping in. At 6:30, T– came crashing through the bedroom door with a screaming AB and said, “Here, hold her for me while I get a rag.”

I sat up, grabbed the baby, and noticed all the blood pouring out of her mouth. She had fallen while playing in the living room, and somehow ripped that bit of skin connecting the upper lip to the gums, and it was bleeding like crazy. I got her to calm down while I was holding her, and then T– got her cleaned up, but she spent all day going through that cycle. She’d chew on a toy or suck on a pacifier and it would start bleeding again, and she’d start crying and make a huge mess, and then we’d calm her down and try to get the bleeding to stop.

Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was a lot of work, for both of us. So, yeah, I ended up taking the whole day off. I did go in for my appointment, though, which happened to be during the worst time for T–. But, y’know, what can you do?

Doc said I looked good apart from the blood pressure, and gave me a month’s worth of samples for a BP medicine that he said (and N– confirmed) is a really good one. I’ll probably be on it for a couple years, if not for life, but it’s supposed to be really helpful.

And, while we’re dealing with AB troubles all day, we also know we’ve got the marriage class to go to that evening. Last week’s was a tough one, discussing all the things each of us do that hurt the other. Not fun to discuss, not even fun to think about. We both had a lot of trouble getting motivated to do the homework, and we’d kind of put it all off to do during the day Tuesday. Instead, we spent the day chasing the baby, so we were really unprepared for class.

Anyway, right around 5:00, K– and N– called and offered to bring over dinner. That was fun, and brightened up my afternoon considerably. We had fajitas from Taco Cabana, and chilled for a few, then headed up to the church when D– showed up to watch the baby.

I had an uncomfortable experience in class that night, over some confusion as to how “voluntary” the sharing portion of the class was. Turns out, it’s not voluntary, but by the time I learned that, I was in a pretty embarrassing situation, with a big ol’ spotlight on me. That sucked. Anyway, at least now I know for future classes.

I’m glad we went to that class, though. Out of all of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most valuable one we do, because it was good to hear everybody talking about the difficulty they had with the homework, and discussing such things. That was definitely worth being there for.

Wednesday, September 19th
Wednesday night, K– and D– and I went to the movies. We’d talked about going to see Dragon Wars and/or Shoot ’em Up. Then we learned that Dragon Wars was a Korean-made, low-budget cheese fest, and decided to save our eight bucks (which probably is code for “go see it when D–‘s not around to make fun of us”). So, Shoot ’em Up it was.

B– and E– should get it and watch it on DVD, when it comes out (unless they have a strong desire to see it apart from my recommendation). As for everyone else…I can’t think of another human being I could recommend that movie to. K– and D– both enjoyed it, but….yeah. It’s ludicrous. It’s absurd, and probably the most violent movie I’ve ever seen. Crass, out the ass. But it was fun.

After the movie, around 9:30, we came out of the mall to find K–‘s driver-side window smashed out. Someone was probably trying to go for the GPS unit mounted on his windshield, and spooked when his car alarm went off, because there was nothing missing from the car. But, yeah, whoever did it won’t be caught, so K– is stuck with a $150 glass bill. The security guard who filled out the paperwork on it said he’d had a lot of windows broken out, in his time, and recommended a particular repair crew. K– got them out to his place Thursday night, and got that taken care of. Ugh.

Thursday, September 20th
Thursday night we had the church picnic. They claim to do one every month in the summer, but I don’t think it actually happens that often. Anyway, T– heard about this one and I didn’t have any good excuses to get out of it, so we went out to a private park across town around 6:30, and had some pot luck. T– was kind enough to make me a sandwich beforehand, so I wasn’t entirely at the mercy of the old church ladies’ cooking.

In addition to pot luck, the theme for the dinner was “Pie Contest!” (The exclamation mark is part of the title, not my own.) T– baked two apple crumble pies for the event (blogged on her MySpace), and they were amazingly delicious. I’m not a constant fan of fruit pies of any sort, but this one was awesome. It could be the massive quantity of brown sugar melted over the top that won me over. I’m no food critic, but that strikes me as a winning combination.

Anyway, I tried about seven pies. Everybody voted, and they said we’d learn the results on Sunday. So, for narrative reasons, I’ll save that information until I write about Sunday. HaHA! Building a little suspense in the ol’ blog, I am. A writer practices good writing techniques, always. That’s the rule. But, yeah, anyone who’s read T–‘s MySpace already knows the answer. And pretty much anyone who knows her.

Friday, September 21st
For reasons inexplicable, Friday night was the OU game. I know, I know, they’re a college team, but yeah…they played on Friday night. Against Tulsa, who was supposed to have a pretty good passing offense. Nobody was worried, but we’d heard things, y’know?

We had dinner with K– and N– at Freddy’s (always a good time), and then I went over to their place to watch the game. Tulsa scored first, and in the first six minutes game-time, Tulsa put up 14 points. That was a little alarming. Of course, they also used up all of their timeouts for the half, to do that. K– pointed out that they probably had to do that to get their offense some rest, which was a point well made. It was clear they were pulling out all the stops to make a statement early, but once the timeouts were gone, our guys just rolled over them. OU’s final score was in the sixties. Fun.

Afterward, I hung around and watched a couple episodes of Dr Who with K–, who’s trying to get into the series. It’s a good show. I’m looking forward to seeing more.

Saturday, September 22nd
Saturday I’d offered to spend at home, with T–. We’d had a wildly busy week, and we were planning to watch two games on Sunday, so it seemed wise to just set aside some home time. I mowed in the morning, and then we went grocery shopping together. We spent most of the afternoon working on homework for our marriage seminar, and I’m glad we did. We covered a lot of material, and even though this was pretty sensitive stuff, it was nothing compared with the week before, so we were able to talk pretty freely. That was a good experience.

In the evening, most of our work done, we watched a little TV, and then I decided to run up to Lowe’s and grab some storage stuff to help organize the garage, and my office closet. I’ve mentioned a lot of work on the garage recently, and there was really one last major change I wanted to make, rearranging some stuff to make more room for car doors to open. To do that, we needed a new place for T– to keep her catalogs and other work stuff, and she’d been wanting a closing cabinet for that for a while. I’ve also been wanting a set of stacking drawers to organize the cables and connectors and computer parts crammed in my office closet, pretty much since we moved into the house.

So, I ran out and bought all that stuff. If you haven’t shopped for storage solutions, you’d probably be surprised how much they cost. I managed to find what I wanted, though, and brought it home to put together. After that…well, I get a little manic when I’m working on a project, wanting to get it done, so I got the cabinet built, and then I took it out to the garage (and it’s probably 9:00 at that point), and then I spent some time rearranging things out there, and I finally made myself stop working on that to come inside and watch some TV with T–.

Then I ended up, a couple hours later, setting up the drawers in my office closet and working on that until one in the morning. It’s just who I am. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, Saturday was a lot of work, but I’m impressed how much I got accomplished. The improvements in the garage and the closet were awesome, and like I said, I’m really glad we got the homework done.

Sunday, September 23rd
Sunday morning, after church, we went to K– and N–‘s to watch the Vikings/Chiefs game with a bunch of friends. B– is a long-time Vikings fan, and as I mentioned back in preseason, our old hero Adrian Peterson is now starting running back for the Vikings, so we were all interested in watching it. They also invited my sister’s family over, because J– is a big Chiefs fan (and, y’know, just for the opportunity to hang out).

Early in the game, the Vikings were rocking on the Chiefs. Enough so that B– started cheering for the Chiefs because he felt sorry for J–. Unfortunately, about twenty minutes after J– left (S– had a photoshoot to get to, and needed J– to watch the kids), the Chiefs turned it around and tore up. It was an exciting game. Adrian Peterson was amazing (the commentators kept saying he was carrying the rest of the team).

K– grilled hotdogs for lunch, and they were awesome. T– brought some leftover apple pie, and it was just a big ol’ party. Everyone had a good time.

After that, I borrowed K–‘s distribution spreader and took a bag of grass seed he’d picked up for me, and headed home. In church Sunday morning, they’d said that the pie contest winner would be announced Sunday night. So, T– really wanted to go to that, but I had so much stuff I still needed to get done before the weekend ended (and that necessarily meant “before the Cowboys game started”). So I dropped her off at church, then went home to seed my yard.

The new spreader worked way better than the old drop spreader I’d used, and I was able to seed the whole back yard in about ten minutes. I then broke out some insect control stuff that’s also supposed to be spread like that (which I never used, because the old spreader took so long), and put that out, front and back. D– came over early in that process, asking me if I wanted to hit Best Buy, but I told him I was busy. So he pulled out his laptop and read some webcomics on my couch while I did yard work.

Anyway, got all the poison down and set up a sprinkler, and then grabbed a quick shower, and was able to pick up T– just a few minutes after church ended. That was a lot accomplished in one hour.

And when I showed up to pick her up, she was proudly brandishing her silver spatula! She got second prize in the contest, which was much deserved. If you haven’t already, send her a congratulations for that.

We dropped her off at the house, then D– and I ran up to the barbecue place next to Blockbuster and grabbed a small family deal to go. Chopped brisket and hot links, which was enough for all of us to have heaping plates, and still enough for my lunch on Monday. Awesome stuff.

Then K– called to say he couldn’t make it over, so D– and I watched the game together. It was an incredible game. Both teams were playing really well (Dallas vs. Chicago). In the second half, though, Romo just laid it down. I think we won 34-10. Woot woot.

Monday, September 24th
So, anyway, Monday after I got home from work, I went to Best Buy with D–. He’d finished Bioshock and the anime series he was watching, and needed something new for entertainment. We looked through all the games, but the only one that really tempted was Madden ’08 for the Wii. Then we went and looked at high-end TVs instead. That was a lot of fun. He’s still needing to make the upgrade to HD, and his small apartment (and bachelor lifestyle) makes a big ol’ wall-mount LCD the perfect choice.

Anyway, we were there for a while, then came home and T– made us some chicken crescent squares that are just awesome. It’s a recipe she started on just after we got married, and I always love it. Yumm. After dinner, it was already 8:00-ish. We watched the season premier of How I Met Your Mother, and an episode of Rules of Engagement which is another show in the same vein, but it’s got David Spade. Then we watched the season premier of Heroes, which didn’t really disappoint.

Then D– went home, and I did the last little bit of homework I had to fill out, and then it was bedtime.

Tuesday, September 25th
Yesterday, I found a chunk of free time in the afternoon, and spent a lot of it typing up the many pages of Royal Holiday that I had handwritten (and I’m starting to think it’s going to have to switch back to “Royal Holiday,” which is a shame, because I was looking forward to trying to push the short-format novel). I’m nearly caught up on the typing part, and the longhand part is nearly done, so that’s the sort of news that appeals to my manic drive to complete a project. Wahaa!

Around 4:00, I got a call from T– saying she’d just heard from the people leading our marriage seminar with a reminder that we were supposed to provide the snacks this week. Ack! I suggested chips and salsa, because I knew we had the stuff handy, and it feeds a crowd. She ran up to the store and got some extra chips, and the stuff to make guacamole. It was a real rush to get everything done before the class started at 6:30, but she managed. And she made some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for D– and me. She’s the whole package.

So, we left AB with D–, and went to class for two hours. Our snacks were a huge hit. I think everyone there complimented either the salsa or the guacamole, if not both. So, y’know, good for us. Woohoo.

I got home, and I was feeling too socialized, so I retreated to my office for some video games. I played Heroes for a couple hours, and made it to bed around 10:30.

And, amazingly enough, I’m finally finished with that update.

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Webcomic

I’ve been reading a webcomic called Achewood, which is…quite entertaining. It’s not family friendly, by any means. But the artist has developed some incredibly detailed characters. He maintains blogs for all of them. It’s wild.

Anyway, I just read this line in an edition of The Phillipe Times’ Friday Facts:

“Soccer is popular everywhere but America. Why, you ask? Because Americans like when things happen.“

I liked that bit. Also, the following image is the first panel in a recent strip…that actually becomes one of the happier things to happen within the storyline, but Roast Beef is just a sad ol’ cat. What can I say?

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Journal Entry

I can’t say it was good to be back to work, but I had a good day nonetheless. As you saw, I had time to do an update for the weekend. I also had some time to take a lunch at Taco Bell, and got four or five pages written on Royal Holiday.

Here’s what I have left: sprint to the docks, Corin scene, pirate scene, brawl scene (straight from the movie, with all ending up in the river), escape scene, full disclosure in an alley outside the palace (also straight from the movie), the Commission of the Swords the following morning (adapted from the movie, but with a much happier ending), and then the words “The End.”

That’s it! Not so bad. I discovered today that I’ve been writing Royal Holiday at exactly the same pace I used for Sleeping Kings, and then I immediately wished that I’d been publishing it in the same way. I miss the feedback, and the format. Anyway, it’s nearly done and I should have it available for review shortly. You can all expect a big homework assignment when that’s done.

Yeah, but most of my day was spent on research and paperwork. I’ve got to get a bunch of Safety Risk Management documents done, or planes are going to start falling out of the sky. (No, not really).

After work, I stopped by the chiropractor and he made me feel less bad (I wouldn’t go so far as to say “good”). Then home to play with the baby and chat with T– until she left to pick us up a pizza from Mazzio’s. It was fantastically good.

Then we got the old band back together to get Dad his mount in Scholo. We packed 323 levels worth of characters (and 13 years of combined gameplay experience) into a Scholo run that only took us to Rattlegore. Umm…for everyone who hasn’t tried that, it’s basically the equivalent of pitting OU’s football team against Utah State. Anyway, it was fun. Still took two hours because the event is slow-paced, but we all had a good time.

That took until 9:30, and then D– and I went for a walk. One of his friends is starting to make noises about a business idea that will develop into what NewMyth was. So I’m trying to decide whether to get all excited about it again and bring that guy in, or review my depressing list of Reasons It Won’t Work, and then email him a copy.

Anyway, that was an hour walk, and then I came home and wrote a description of a boring weekday that ran longer than my review of a pretty eventful weekend. Go figure. I’m off to bed.

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Journal Entry

Friday, September 14th
Friday was a busy day at work, catching up on all the things I’d put off to finish the A/C manual. It was a good sort of busy, though, and I finished the day ready for the weekend.

I came home, and had some chores I’d offered to do for T–. The biggest one was vacuuming the house. I started going to the chiropractor last week (did I mention that?) and he told me definitely not to do any vacuuming. But, yeah, what does he know? He’s just a doctor….

So an hour later, I was sitting on the couch unable to move because of the pain in my lower back. Ugh. It’s not really that bad, though, because I don’t really like to move. So I watched some TV with T– and waited for Mom and Dad to get home from work.

I’d offered to play some WoW with them, and Dad really wanted help getting his epic mount (a rather long-running quest), so I joined them around 5:30 and we spent a couple hours getting mostly done. The end of the quest requires another paladin, and D– had offered to help with that (which would make it easy-breezy), so we decided to call it a night at that point. Good thing, too. I had to go play host for T–‘s parents.

Oh! Before that, N– called to invite us out to dinner which was an extraordinarily tempting offer, but I already had the WoW commitments. I had a good time, though, so I can’t really regret missing out on the Jack Daniels Burger.

Anyway, when T–‘s parents got in, we all sat around and talked for a while, and then T– and her dad ran up to Wal-Mart to try to find him an OU shirt. They were gone for over an hour, but they brought back ice cream. We each had a big bowl, and then went straight to bed. Experts say that’s the best thing to do with ice cream….

Saturday, September 15th
Saturday morning John and I watched AB while T– and her mom went shopping. T– and her mom spent a lot of time shopping, Saturday. They only left us with AB for a couple hours, though. Around 11:00 they got back, and at the same time K– and N– showed up, along with D–, to head to Norman for the OU game. N– got us all tickets a couple weeks ago, through her work.

It was a blowout game. Everyone knew it would be. In fact, it was so foreordained that they didn’t even televise it, so it was a good thing we went. A good team is fun to watch, even when it’s mostly unopposed, so I think we all had a really good time. We’ve managed to go to one game a year for the last four or five. It’s been fun.

That did take most of the day, though. We left the house around 11:00, and the game started at 2:15, and we stayed for the whole thing, so we got back into OKC around 7:00. We stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up some dinner and took it back to the house, which happened to coincide with one of T– and Karla’s brief rest stops at the home for the day, so they got to eat. After that, they went back out to Kohl’s (it was nearly 9:00, but the shop didn’t close until 11:00) and took John with them. K– and N– went home, too, exhausted after the day at the game. It is just an exhausting experience.

D– hung around then, and we tried to watch the USC v. Nebraska game, but it got depressing pretty quickly and we had no choice but to turn it off. The commentators were just too infuriating. There are times I think USC could just stop charging tuition, and instead set up a kissing booth staffed by the football team, and fund their entire academic program off the donations of the national sports media. I hate those guys so much.

Argh.

Sunday, September 16th
Sunday morning we went to church and I got two or three pages written on “Royal Holiday” (which, incidentally, is very much on the verge of becoming Royal Holiday, if you catch my drift). During the sermon, McElroy was talking about some famous classic hymn that was written when a dude was inspired during a sermon and just scribbled down a poem, which became the song through an interesting and convoluted means.

Anyway, Karla looked over at me, frantically scribbling in my scribblebook, and raised an eyebrow. I quiet-laughed, as one does in such situations, but frankly, I’m writing a cheap rip-off of a third-rate Hepburn movie set in an overwraught and generic fantasy world, as an aside to a larger and still fairly cliche story. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s really the same thing.

After church, we went to Abuelo’s, and K– and N– and D– all joined us. It was a fantastic lunch (Abuelo’s always is). Then we split up, and the family went back to the house to help T– get ready for a purse party at 3:00. A few minutes before that was supposed to start, D– showed up to take me over to K–‘s place to watch the Cowboys game. Thank goodness for late afternoon kickoffs, know what I’m sayin’?

That was a really good game. N– went to the purse party, but she called on her way home around 5:00 and asked if we needed any snacks (which, natch, we did), so we finished the game in high style. As did the Cowboys. It’s looking like a good year!

Then I went home, and I really should have spent the evening working on homework for our marriage seminar (as should have T–), but we discussed with open, honest communication, and both, in harmonious consensus, agreed that we, as a family, ought to procrastinate. So we watched some Dead Zone and I played Heroes on T–‘s laptop, and it was a good night.

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Journal Entry

Today was a good day.

You already saw my pictures, probably. I’m glad I finally got that done. I’ve found a few more, mostly older pictures (closer to high school age), so people checking out my Facebook profile can remember who I was. I’ll get those up in a couple days.

But, yeah, work went well. I was busy every minute of the day, today, but about 4 minutes before I was scheduled to go home, I finished up my major project. I sent off the email and turned it over to the engineer. He’ll have to review it, and my editor will have to review it (did I explain this already?). Anyway, it won’t be done by the end of the day tomorrow, but I think the people interested will be pretty impressed with what we managed to do nonetheless.

But, yeah, I got a ton accomplished at work, and I know for a fact that it’s quality work. That’s a good feeling. Especially knowing I managed that even under a major rush. So, woohoo for me.

Then I got home and played with my baby some, talked with T– some, and then I suggested a new recipe for a leftovers dinner — meatball grilled cheese — and it turned out so good. And after that, I beat Overlord. And after that, even though it was already time for bed, I somehow convinced myself to go for a walk anyway. D– came over to walk with me, and I just got in. I’ve been pressing it a little harder lately, so my legs are a little sore, but it’s the good kind.

That’s all for today. Hope you’re well. Keep in touch.