My desk these days

Henry and the hyperbaric chamber

The zaldivars came over

Dinner with friends. Grilled steak, corn, and pineapple, watermelon gazpacho, homemade bread, with Eugene's blueberry pie, homemade strawberry sorbet, and store bought ice cream. Everything was tasty and it was nice to see them. It had been awhile.

Date night

Getting out

Toby as gnome

Family

A good day so far

Homemade bagels, pickles, and pickled squash.
We have to start getting ready for date night dinner at la fiesta.

The chosen photo

We are getting a 16x20 print of this photo made for the dining room. It feels good to finally be making some choices for the walls. We have tons of empty frames that we can't decide where to put them up or what to put in them. Hopefully, this will serve as inspiration.

The AC was broken and we spent a very warm night in the house... now it is fixed. We put up curtains and the house planner in the dining room, finally. I have one more shelf to put up, and then I need to put up bike and tool racks in the shed. I also need to finish the bunk bed. We are thinking about transferring Toby pretty soon to the big boy bed. So there are lots of projects.

It should be a pretty crazy weekend.  We have air conditioning. That is all I can say for sure.

So much going on

Anna Maria Island 2010, a photo by Hamstocks on Flickr.

I just made this list of all the cooking projects for this weekend. Here it is: strawberry sorbet, bagels, bread, pickles, twice baked potatoes, spicy tomato jelly, kombucha, maybe some homebrew, and popsicles. We also have a date night planned for Saturday and friends coming over for dinner on Sunday. The plan is to get curtains up in the dining room tonight, and get our house organizer put up also.

We have some items being shipped. I got an Ipad for fathers day, and ordered this really awesome case for it. It is this custom made Moleskine style case. Neither are here yet. We also have a new computer coming in. Virginia convinced me that we should get an Imac instead of another laptop. I guess with the Ipads it makes sense.

I got this great scale for my birthday. It is a wifi scale that keeps track of my weight in an Iphone app as a graph. It has been helping get trim. I want to see that graph go down. I have been to the gym twice this week. I have also been riding my bike most days and eating less snacks.
The house AC is not working right. The question right now is whether it is working at all. It could be a very warm night for us. The repair person is scheduled for tomorrow.

Geez what else. We have to look through photos. We have a groupon purchase that we have to use this week for a canvas photo print. How to get all this done? But it is all fun, except the ac problem. It is good that so many fun things need to get done. I guess everything is good.

The weekend

What's up now?

I have a lot of catching up to do.

Had a great weekend. All I remember about Saturday was playing with the kids all day. It was awesome.

Sunday morning I slept in. I haven't slept until 10 in a long time. I must have been exhausted. Then we got out the door to look for the perfect Father's Day gift (an Ipad). Turns out that nobody had one available and we ended up ordering it online. Now in just two short weeks, it will be Father's Day number 2.  I took myself to the movies in the evening, seeing both Midnight in Paris and Super 8. Midnight in Paris was terrible. It really could not have been worse. Then I snuck into Super 8 and it was awesome. The best "rad kids save the day" movie that I have seen in a long time. I got to go home happy.

Now the weekend is over and it is back to business. Nayla is starting to feel at home in the house. She drools like nothing I have ever seen before in a cat, and she is still freaking out every night that we are not letting her outside. We will let her out soon, just not yet.

I am going to spend the week teaching myself After Effects. I am too excited about doing motion graphics to rely on other people for that. It is also budget preparation time, so I am sure that will take up a good part of my week. I am also trying to get myself ready for the big autism conference that we are going to in a couple of weeks.

Kind of liking this

New things

This is Nayla, our new old car. She moved in today. I also got a nice bottle of Scotch for my birthday. We are watching the Illusionist. Nayla isn't so into it.

On the way home

Museum of science

Train ride

My birthday in delaware

At Virginia's hs reunion.
This is where they filmed dead poet's society.

Baltimore hotel

Virginia isn't feeling good... again. Stuck in B-more hotel. Could be worse, could be better.

Finally in Baltimore

Much later than expected. The kids are all mixed up. It is after bedtime and they really haven't had a proper meal all day.

Ready for take off

The vacation begins.

On the way to Orlando airport to Charlotte. Then to Baltimore. The new improved plan is to stay in Baltimore and take day trips to Middletown Delaware for Virginia's reunion.

Hoarders

It is now on Netflix and we are watching it... So intense.

Salute to Gil

Gil Scott Heron died recently and I pretty much ignored it. Now I am remembering how much I love his sweet songs and how this record influenced me. From this I started collecting his LPs. I didn't like any of them, and somehow forgot how much I like this. Forget being the father of rap, or spoken word, or whatever. I really love his sweet songs, and that flute.

A new plan

The vacation may be back on for all of us. We will probably be flying out on Thursday for V's high school reunion. This will be an adventure.

We went to get our cat yesterday, but he was nowhere to be found. This is good, because we would not be able to go on this trip if we had brought him home. Watched the game last night with Eugene at Loosie's bar. Another really close game.

I am trying to plan out the week with the vacation in mind. I am going to the gym tonight. I sear it.

Museum of nat history

New music exhibit is a hit.

Video tests

This is a second process for this video. I like it even better.

Mastering the dyson

Play doh

Play doh and chalk on the back porch.

It's Friday

The weekend is looking like a doosy. Henry is not 100%, and Virginia is sinking fast. It appears that we will be in survival mode, with me as nurse.

The vacation we had planned is no more. Maybe we can pick things up next week and get to V's school reunion by next weekend.

In spite of these things I am feeling pretty inspired. Inspired for work projects and home projects. So many good ideas are in view, both with the house and projects I am working on here at the office. If feels pretty good. This comes with having some mellow days to look forward to. Only one meeting and no newsletters next week . I get to catch  up on ongoing creative projects like redesigns and the PSA that I have been creating art for and mapping out. All good stuff.

Other than feeling sick, Virginia has seemed to have an inspired spring in her step, too. We met with two contractors this week, and they both had kind of the same thing to say. We need to get these house ideas fleshed out and drawn out. We need a draftsman to draw the house and get down to specifics. We aren't in complete agreement on the fence, but I have chosen to defer to Virginia's judgment on that (better to be happy than right). She has come pretty far towards my vision of the rest of the house, so she wins that one.

Other things being discussed around here: sending Toby to preschool/daycare, getting me a new bike for my birthday, maybe a date night for our anniversary, I want to work on photo organizing and getting photos in frames and on the walls, hyperbaric treatments for Henry in July, swim classes for Toby, a new running routine for the mornings(got to work on this out of control belly), looking at computers (big apple announcements are coming next week), Autism conference in July, oh and I am really liking the NBA Finals (such close games). 

Kids in boxes

What would Sagmeister do?

Today everything has sort of fallen apart. The vacation is cancelled until further notice due to sickness. Henry will be okay, the wedding will go on, and we will live to travel another day.

I can't help but like this. Design plus life lessons.