I'm pulling my hair out

really. I have a nervous twitch or something, and I always scratch the back of my head, and now there's a spot the size of a silver-dollar on the back of my head that aint got no hair. I guess it's stress? I'm thrilled to death that our baby is coming soon, but my body has ways of dealing with stress that my mind isn't clued in on. good thing I'm not vain. mostly.

happy ending

God has answered our prayers!

the power company is going to remove the tree in our back yard, so we don't have to! it was going to cost us at least $850 to take down the remaining half of the rotten tree, so that's definitely good news. plus about half of our garden will get a lot more afternoon sun. so will the western half of our house, but oh well. we're doubly thankful that not only nothing and no one got hurt when the first part came down, but also we dont have to pay for the rest.

there was a time not long ago when I would have stressed to no end about this, so I'm also thankful that God has brought us peace over impending financial stress. I used to SAY I trusted Him, but more and more He's making those words come true. He really does take care of us.

I need a ride

can I bum a ride off anyone living in St. Elmo and working downtown?

soon we will be a one-car family again. for most of the past year I've been driving Joe Staven's little truck while he's been out of the country. soon he will be back, so no more trucky for me. Michelle needs our car for a couple days out of the week, so I'll probably ride the bus those days. I live really close to most of the guys here at work, but unfortunately they dont keep very regular schedules. I thought about biking, but since I have only one functioning eye, I'm pretty convinced I'd get killed out there.

so, would anyone like some gas money?

the tree incident

we've got a few pretty big trees in our back yard. one is a giant hackberry in the back corner that was in two main sections (the operative word here is "was"). one section leaned out over the intersection of 53rd and Virginia Ave. after a brief yet strong storm yesterday afternoon, this half came creaking and crashing down onto the street, snapping a secondary electrical wire and crushing a section of our fence.

thankfully, no one got crushed or electrocuted or otherwise maimed. our neighbor behind us (who owns mojo burrito) heard it coming down, and in his jolly way, gave out a big old "I told you so." he had a pretty clear view of the rotted out trunk, so he knew it was going to come down sooner or later.

there was lots of sparks flying from the electrical line, and all manner of trucks came out to clean up the mess. this of course delighted Dave's 3-year-old, who's pretty much obsessed with fire trucks and whatnot. anyway, all the mess was quickly and expertly cleaned up long before I got home.

unfortunately, there yet remains a north half of the tree, and there's no telling how rotten it may be. and since it's pretty much right over our neighbor's house and car, it really needs to come down. so far the low bid from the tree guys is $850. one of them said the remaining tree is about 6 tons! we're praying that the electrical company will take care of it since there is a secondary line underneath the tree. apparently they're sending someone out, so we shall see.

there are a few pictures here if you wanna see. more to come if and when I get the time to take and post a few more.

free gillian show

May 27 in Knoxville at "Sundown in the City" -- their version of Nightfall, except they do it on freakin THURSday. I'm sure it will be packed anyway.

things to see

I've put up quite a few new pictures on the family site. there's the baby shower, some more flowers, some garden progress, and a few baby preparations. enjoy.

I'm a winner

Ed and I went to a micro$oft geek meeting at the convention center today. let's see if I can remember what the guy talked about: application blocks for .net, visual studio 2005, sql server 2005, and reporting services for sql server. most of this somewhat pertains to my job. enough to stick around all four hours at least. another motivation was the door prizes. the grand prize: a nifty pocket pc (think palm pilot if you dont know what that is). and guess who won? yes indeed. I won! thanks to whoever had ticket #47 for not sticking around, and thanks to Ed for getting in line in front of me when we checked in. the last shall be first...

since I have no use for such a neato toy, it's going straight to eBay. I actually don't have it yet (they're shipping it to me) so I dont know what model it is, but it's worth at least $150 retail, if not $500 or more if it's a recent one. I've entertained the idea of getting something cool like a camcorder, but alas, it will most likely go into savings for mundane stuff like doctor bills.

to top it off: free food and beer afterwards. sometimes it pays to run with the geeks.

motherhood scam

I make it a point to seldom rant in this webspace, but I'm a little ticked at a scam from Motherhood (maternity clothes store) and Parenting (magazine) that just tried to snag us.

we bought some stuff at motherhood a while back. they pretty much have a monopoly on nice maternity clothes. their prices aren't too terrible if you shop carefully. we paid with our checkcard, and apparently signed up for 2 free issues of Parenting. all fine and dandy.

then a $20 charge from Parenting shows up on our check card statement. apparently we had to call to cancel the mag if we didnt want them to charge the card we used at Motherhood. I'm sure no one bothered to tell us this.

to their credit, the lady at Parenting was very nice when we called to cancel and get a refund. but this is clearly a scam, and I'm wondering how many people are snagged, especially those who don't keep a close eye on their statements. of course we'll see if and when we actually get our $20 back.

I remember being disgusted by the wedding industry back in the day (except for DJs of course). the baby industry is no better.

5 years ago

about five years ago I graduated from college. I remember a few details. it was at the Memorial Auditorium. Cal Thomas spoke. I got my diploma: cum laude in English. hugged lots of people. said lots of goodbyes. afterwards we ate at Sticky Fingers. my parents gave me a nice brief case (just like my dad's) and a cool pocket watch. unfortunately I seldom use either now.

all I knew about what was ahead was that I was getting married within a year and working at Greyfriar's fulltime. I had some aspirations about writing for the newspaper or a publication of some sort. which I realized in the form of the intial issues of the Chattanooga Outlook. I was the "senior editor" which means the guy who puts in 40 hours a week once a month while still holding down a day job. that didn't last long.

at the time, I was a little frustrated at myself for such a pile of school debt and few marketable skills to pay it off. but I truly loved college -- I feel like I finally came into my own, or something like that. I definitely learned to think and learn better, but I think I've lost much of that already, most likely due to lack of use. either way, God definitely grew me up a bit.

in July we changed our wedding date from February to August -- one of the best decisions we ever made. I dreamed of starting a family, though I still wondered how I'd provide for us. God knew. I ended up doing websites and whatnot. go figure.

5 years later, we're about to have our first baby. we've been through a lot of crap (mostly in the form of disease and debt), and God has been faithful.

showered

to borrow a cheesy (yet true) phrase that actually never came up this past weekend, we were "showered with blessings."

we traveled 1600 miles between Friday and Monday (for an average of about 14 miles per hour). the travel went quite well -- much better than we had expected in fact. many thanks to those who were praying, and to God for answering them.

the shower itself was great. our moms and families worked very hard on all the details and it turned out quite nice. it was so good to see old friends and family and celebrate with them. it was humbling and a little overwhelming to open all those cool gifts, from the tiny little socks to the stroller and carseat. we have pretty much all the essentials now (and then some, of course), so we feel very blessed. many many thanks to mom and mom and all those who came.

a few more random observations on this whirlwind roadtrip:
- when overly exhausted on the road, Michelle gets very giggly. it's quite fun and easy to make her laugh.
- it takes at least 8 pillows to make Michelle comfortable enough to sleep in the car. really.
- I-81 in VA is a very good road. most PA roads are not. and the best bathroom we found was easily the TN welcome center.
- the dog took exception to our absence. she pooped quite a bit in the house even though she was let out often enough by neighbors. this led to a fly infestation, so we killed over 100 flies for the first 30 minutes we were home. fun. so she wins. no more leaving her on her own.

pictures coming soon.