Stuology

Day 181: The part of South Dakota that doesn’t look like Kansas

We took a quick drive through Mt. Rushmore National Memorial before we headed into work. Not all of the photos are up because my hotel wireless is spotty, but Here is the South Dakota tag on Flickr.

We will be working tomorrow starting around 2:00pm^* until around midnight or later Monday morning. Then we’ll be able to nap and then go at it again around probably 6:00am^**.

I miss my family. I can’t wait to eat a home cooked meal again. I’m already feeling terrible living off of fast food, and it have until next Friday!

*Mountain

**We will know the starting time Monday morning better tomorrow night.

Day 176: Weed or Not Weed?

Look! I did a photo for today!

I’m hoping that someone can tell me what this is. It has overtaken my planter in my front yard. I noticed it sprouting up after the ugly, thorny bush was ripped out. I was curious about it, so I let it grow. It took about two weeks to completely overtake the planter.

Thank-you interwebs! It is called portulaca oleracea. It sounds like I should throw some in my next salad. Or wear it as a amulet to ward off evil.

Here are a couple more photos.

In a somewhat related topic: I like Agave Nectar. It is my sweetener of choice, but I don’t really know of a lot of uses for it. I’m trying to not start my baking hobby back up again nor spending money on cookbooks, but I wouldn’t be sad if this kind of just showed up in my kitchen.

Day 167: Best Daddy Ever

I made pancakes in the morning for everybody. We then lingered a bit around the house. I gave both kiddos a bath. We left for JoCo right when the flood gates opened to take Mac out to lunch. We picked up a gift for him, and then back home for naps. I made Curt some homemade Heath Crunch ice cream. Then we all went out for dinner with Mac’s dad. Ada and James gave Mac the card that Ada and I picked out about a month ago. I’ve been known to get cards for people when I see one that is perfect, and then forgetting that I have it and finding it a year or more later. I hid Mac’s and remembered that I had it. We usually end up with a talking or singing card when Ada assists me. I’m glad she liked this one because it perfectly expresses Ada and Mac’s relationship. It was this exchange from The Simpsons:

Homer: If I said `no’ the first time, what makes you think I’m going to say `yes’ the second time?
Lisa: Nothing, but you may say `yes’ the ninety-ninth time.
Homer: Oh? Try me.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: Oh, okay, okay.

Day 160: Things you don’t want your children to inherit

No, I wasn’t teasing her hair to ready it for an updo. Before I left for the gym, Ada’s hair was in a ponytail. When I got home, her hair was a labyrinth of tangles. I have no idea what she was doing, but it doesn’t matter because I know it doesn’t take much. She inherited my tangle-prone hair. If I wish to wear my hair long, then I must suffer the tangles. It can look like this or worse after sleeping. The best thing for me after my hair gets to a certain length is to keep it braided at night.

I got out the detangler spray and my wide-tooth comb and carefully got them all out while I distracted her with tv.

Change of topic: We have been consuming berries since our stock-up last week. The strawberries weren’t going to last long enough to finish them, so some of them went into homemade ice cream. Today, the blackberries were looking the same, so the rest of them and the small handful of blueberries went into my second batch of ice cream. I ate a spoonful before putting the rest in the freezer. It tastes good, but I do wish that I had a little more for a stronger blackberry flavor. For the last three minutes of churning, I threw in some chopped walnuts. Now I can claim that it is brain food.

Next up on the ice cream front: piña colada. If you have never had Häagen-Dazs Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream, then you are missing out. I love it, so after my piña colada trial, I’m going to give Bailey’s Caramel Irish Cream ice cream a try. It makes really good cheesecake. And maybe someday soon, just for M, I’ll give Nutella ice cream a try.

Day 153: It’s back!

My ring is back from the jewelers. We picked it up yesterday before heading to KC. A new band was made to replace my broken one, both rings had to be sized down to a 5 so they wouldn’t fall off my finger, the wedding ring was re-rhodiumed, and both were then soldered together.

Trying to shoot this was…interesting. And trying. Since the ring is 1) free of any evidence of lotion and 2) freshly coated in rhodium, it is super shiny. It reflected everything that was anywhere near it. This set up turned out my favorite photo. A low-light shot seemed complementary since dark shadows were appearing in the ring no matter how I tried to light it. The base I set it on reflected light quite nicely. I’m not completely sure about the angle of the base. I wanted it to follow the slight angle in the band setting.

I also uploaded two more using only my desk as the backdrop: here and here. They aren’t my favorite, but better than the other set-up I tried which ended up…horrible.

I’ll probably use a few more photos from the ring session. Ada went with me “to assist,” so I have some photos of other things.

Day 152: Yet Another BBQ Face Photo

The last of the James BBQ Face MF practice session. I like landscape shots so much better. There is another one here, here, and here.

We took our every 6-week trip to Costco today. Mac suggested it this morning along with a trip to Red Robin for lunch. We came back with our usual suspect of bulk items, although the only meat I picked up was one pack of steak and some lamb. We still have plenty of meat leftover from the last trip. I can proudly say that I passed by the double pack of Nutella. The non-food item that we ended up bringing home is a 2QT ice cream maker. And lots of strawberries. Can you guess what kind I’m making tomorrow?

I had a hard time sleeping last night, and now I’m sooooo sleepy. I’m going to try to sneak in a nap.

Day 150: James "BBQ Face" Wisler

I wasn’t going to take or post a photo today, but while we were eating dinner, I decided why not. I opened the window for some light, and decided to practice shooting the kids in MF. Not all of them came out great, but they came out a lot better than AF. I just need to practice until MF is second nature. My next few days posts will be from what I practiced tonight.

Here is another.

Day 148: New shoe (take one)

Here is one new shoe. It is hard to tell from this bad photo that it is open toe. Maybe a good theme for photos would be to retake some of the bad ones. Later, when times allows.

My pulled muscle feels much better today. I’ll be back at the gym tomorrow. Thank-goodness!

Ada has had two colossally gigantamous melt-downs this evening. My mother said she was yawning all day, so hopefully that means early bedtime for her. My eyes are so tired they want to retreat all the way into my skull, nestling deep into the pillows of my brain for a long nap. I’ve got too much stuff to do for that. I’ll sleep when I’m dead–is that the saying?

Day 142: At least my yard is full of good luck

Four-leaf clovers are rampant in my backyard.

Mac reminded me of the other item. The company we hired to survey our yard took over two weeks to only put one flag in our yard, and then they charged us over double what they quoted us. Yes, they never even finished the job. I had forgotten about that, probably because thinking about it pisses me off.

Bacon, it is haunting me. Here is the latest bacon item that has crossed my path. Fortunately this was only in my RSS feed: bacon-scented , bacon print tuxedo.

Day 140: I no longer have any virgin diapers

I put James in the one diaper that has never been used. Yes, I got this before he was born. I know. I also cannot believe how big my diaper stash is. I should go through it and try to sell some of them. If I can part with them.

I decided to put Ada back into Fuzzi Bunz because Pull-Ups are giving her a horrible rash. Or at least, she is coincidentally getting a terrible, not-going-away rash since she has been wearing them. I need to get some cloth training pants because she pees her panties and doesn’t really care and then continues to go around the house and get pee on everything else.

I’m so freakin’ tired that I almost decided to not post a photo a day anymore because absolutely none of my photos came out. None. James was more interested in crawling on me and grabbing my camera, so I tossed the lens cover and took shots while he was crawling to get it and while he playing with it.

The kids have been pushing my buttons since I’ve gotten home. I swear, I’m so close to either running away from home or listing them on eBay. And Ada isn’t stopping. She is doing everything she can to irritate me. I want to scream.

At least I got to work in KC today which ended up being a good thing because the cable modem was down half of the day. I have a deadline, so I would have already been past my breaking point by now. I had enough stupid things go wrong today, and my IP phone not working when I went in was the highlight of my day. As Mac aptly put it at dinner while we were listening to Ada whine and cry because she wanted water, and then changed her mind and wanted OJ and then changed her mind after we got her OJ and wanted water, “This day cannot be over soon enough.”

Oh, hey, Ada is crying about something again. I’m pretty convinced right now that I want to close up shop, so I might as well try to sell Ada’s fitted diapers that James doesn’t wear.

I need a drink.