Frustration
April 6th, 2009 by jhaefele
Like Old Times
April 2nd, 2009 by jhaefeleI was at UMSL yesterday, and was caught by surprise when I walked into their instrument storage locker room:
I felt like I was stepping into a time warp, as I looked at the floor and saw the exact same linoleum as what we had in our kitchen in my house growing up.
I can still remember playing with Matchbox cars on the floor, using the spaces between the “tiles” as roads, and the areas around the round designs like roundabouts.
Growing up surrounded by flooring like that, is it any sense that my interior design sense is nearly impeccable?
Warning!
April 2nd, 2009 by jhaefeleI was practicing in a storage room at work the other day, and during a break, I happened to glance over and see this against the wall:
A closer look revealed this:
Good to know that warning labels go well-heeded.
My Ridiculously Smart Son
January 7th, 2009 by jhaefeleSo, I’m definitely NOT one of the parents who just expects their kids to be gifted (contrary to what the author of “Stuff White People Like” says). However, Ian has been flooring me with some of the things he’s done. The most recent of these happened about a week ago, when he, at 3 1/2 years old, sat down with his DoodlePro (a.k.a. Magna Doodle) and proceeded to write his name. Backward. Upside Down. And it was perfect; he flipped the thing over, and there was his name, perfectly legible, including the “N”, which I was sure would be a stumbling block.
Ridiculous.
Things Are A-changin’
September 26th, 2008 by jhaefeleFor anyone (emphasis on the “one”) who has ever read this, I am switching blogging software. I’m in the process of porting over all of my old items. Please bear with me.
Book Club, Party of 1
March 31st, 2008 by jhaefeleI’m Feeling: Reflective.
I’m Listening To: Kim Possible is on TV.
I’ve begun a new undertaking. I’ve been looking for some non-fluffy reading, and wanted something I hadn’t already read. So, I decided to read all of the books that the students at SLUH read. I figured I’d do a quick review here of each of them. I am in no way informed enough to be a legitimate literary critic. But if you want my take on them, here they are.
The first book I chose was Lord of the Flies.
This is actually a book I’d been wanting to read for some time. I liked it. (I’m going to edit this later to finish it).
I’ll Get Better (Perhaps Not)
December 3rd, 2007 by jhaefeleI’m Feeling: Fine.
I’m Listening To: Indigo Girls – Despite Our Differences
We set up this year’s Christmas tree last night. We had the tree in the stand with lights on it on Saturday, but no ornaments or skirt until last night. I think it turned out well:
It’s got a bit of a lean to it, but most of that is by virtue of its being a real tree – it has a decent crook mid-trunk. Having never done the real trees growing up, I can say that I’ve really enjoyed it since being married. The whole process is fun, from going out with the family, finding the perfect tree, bringing it home, and setting it up. Every year the arrangement of all the ornaments changes drastically based on the breed of tree and how its branches grow, and the tree itself gives a different flavor to things.
One of the best parts, though, might be the prep work and process of decorating – I have a lot of ornaments, and they almost all have some significance to me. We’ve tried to do the same with Ian’s ornaments, and now with Hadassah’s we’ll do the same, putting the year we give them the ornament on it, and if they get one from someone else, the name of who gave it to them. It’s awesome every year to be able to pick out the ornament my grandparents gave me in 1983. I also love the fact that so many of my ornaments are pretty tacky. For instance, the plastic Santa with a felt suit on, bowling. That’s one from the early 80′s as well. Awesome.
As a side note, it’s very telling to me that I need to update more often, considering that three posts ago there’s a picture of last year’s tree.
It’s Been Too Long…
June 28th, 2007 by jhaefeleI’m Feeling: Pretty good.
I’m Listening To: They Might Be Giants – Podcast (Episode 27A)
It’s been entirely too long since I’ve posted anything here. Ugh. Mostly just a matter of laziness. Things have been busy, though… really busy. We’ve had our second child (more about that in another post), Ian turned 2, and we’ve been adapting to our new, somewhat busier life.
So, suffice to say, I’m going to try to write more soon, but can’t make any promises.
No More Comments… :-(
January 16th, 2007 by jhaefele In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve disabled the commenting here. Not my preference, I promise. The spam just got to be too much. It was really aggravating. So, I might try any one of a bunch of different things, one of which will be to switch the blog software I use from Nucleus to another with a better spam blocker.
I Don’t Update Enough
January 10th, 2007 by jhaefeleI’m Feeling: New-Yearsy
I’m Listening To: Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek
I’m not going to do anything as stupid and doomed-to-failure as making a Resolution to update this more often, but I would like to at least pretend to try. For the extremely small handful that pay any attention to this, I apologize.
It occurs to me that this blog may be a little misleading as to my musical/entertainment tastes and the diversity of those tastes. Looking back, it seems like about 75% of my posts mention me watching or listening to Scrubs or Nickel Creek, respectively. I think this is for one of two reasons:
- I often post in the evening after Ian goes to bed, which is when WGN shows two back-to-back episodes. Not that I don’t love the show… I think it’s one of the three funniest things on television right now, contending with My Name Is Earl and Antiques Roadshow. Incidentally, I liked the new host of the Roadshow (Mark L. Walberg) when he was on the now-defunct game show Russian Roulette, though he doesn’t have quite the same freedom on PBS as he did then.
- I write posts a lot in the morning before I really get going at work, or during my lunch break. Since my laptop has nowhere near the capacity that my home machine does, my selection is pretty limited at work. Also, Nickel Creek works well as in-office music.
Anyway, we had a good Christmas and New Year’s. I’ll try to write more on that soon. The thing I wanted to focus on now was the fact that, while I like real Christmas trees (perhaps I’ll get pictures from the hunt up soon), I always have a sneaking feeling of regret when the holiday is over, and we kind of give up on the tree. This year, we had intended to take everything down on Friday, the 5th. As a result, we stopped watering the thing on the 3rd, so the remaining water would be drawn into the trunk, and we wouldn’t have to be as careful about sloshing water everywhere when we moved the tree to undecorate it.
My least favorite thing about good intentions is that I’m so categorically bad at making good on them. The tree sat until last night (the 9th), so it had a full week without any water at all. It was, shall we say, brittle? Taking it down was interesting. I moved the tree onto a sheet, where we took off the beads, ornaments, and lights. When we got done, it looked like this:
It was pretty bad. The floor was absolutely covered. Ian had an interesting night… he had soiled his pajama bottoms, so we took them off of him, he was walking around the needle-covered floor, so I put his cool new Spider-Man slippers on him, and he found the hat he got for Christmas, so Hannah put that on him. He then looked at me, and said one of his new words: Cheese. So, I snapped a shot. He reminds me just a little of Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation
I really do hope to write more soon. Thanks for hanging in there, if you have.