You know you want one too!

My brother Eric (who has not started his own blog but SHOULD) sent me a link to the coolest table ever and told me that I needed one. It's a periodic coffee table; a coffee table with a periodic table inlaid in the top including samples of every element encased in resin. I won't lie-- I am nerdy enough to think it's awesome. I would love to buy one, but they cost $9500 and I don't have that kind of money laying around. And let's face it, as awesome as this table is (and it is pretty awesome) if I had $10,000 to spend on something frivolous I would probably rather have something from here.

Boy or girl?

I've noticed that when we go out, people assume that Kalena is a boy more often than they assume she is a girl. I would attribute this to the fact that lots of times we have her dressed in yellow or green or white, but it has happened when she's wearing pink too. This made me wonder a few things. The first is: do I just think this because I only notice when people are wrong? Secondly, if it isn't just me, and people really do assume boy more than girl, does this happen to every body (or every baby) or just me? Also, why do people assume she's a boy? Is it because Laura is right, and all babies look like little old men?

It doesn't bother me when people assume she's a boy. It does catch me off guard sometimes though. To me, she just looks like Kalena and sometimes I feel like that should be obvious to everyone. Oh well. What do you think?

Wherein I blatantly steal blog ideas

Before you read this, go read this post at Kirsta's. I'll wait.

Back? Ok. As I was reading this I thought- hmmmm. It's never seemed to me like I have to know that many numbers. So I wondered how many I actually know.

Here's the list I came up with:

Brian's cell phone
My cell phone
My work cell phone
My work office phone (people do not call me nearly often enough to warrant my having 3 phone numbers, but such is life I guess.)
Our address
My parents' address
My office building's address
My parents' house phone
My dad's office phone
Kari's cell phone
My social security number
Birthdays (month day and year) for all my immediate family
My driver id number for my work truck
My debit card number
4 different random letter/number combination passwords with no meaning associated to them
Pi to 5 decimal places
The number of elements in the periodic table. HA HA, just kidding.

This isn't a complete list, I'm sure I could come up many many more (including how many letters are in the alphabet-- it's 26 if you're still wondering Kirsta.)

There are a few I should have memorized but don't:

Any of our license plate numbers
The number of elements in the periodic table. HA HA, just kidding again. (Come on people, I'm not that nerdy.)

As I was thinking up all the numbers I have memorized, I came up with several that I know but won't ever need again. Despite not having used them, in some cases for YEARS, these numbers stick in my head anyway. Here are some of those:

The Colorado license plate we had on the Camry
My cell phone number from when I lived in Denver
The old phone number of a guy I dated in high school. His family even moved while we were dating and got a new phone number but the one I still know is the OLD one. It's probably been close to 10 years since I've needed that.
Birthdays for people I haven't talked to in years.
My address from when I lived at the 4400 apartments
The combination for a lock I'm not sure I have anymore
The number of miles on a truck I drove in high school. Not the exact number, but still-- WHY DO I KNOW THIS?

So I have a bunch of numbers memorized, but I don't feel like it's that many. Why do you suppose this is? I have a theory. When I was in college I had LOTS of stuff I had to have memorized-- numbers, equations, rules about how molecules bond. It was crazy. Now that I'm out of college, I don't have to remember that stuff (and trust me, I don't) so what I have memorized now is a relatively small amount of stuff. So Kirsta, just become an engineer, and by the time you're done it won't seem like you need to know so many numbers!




And now here's a couple of pictures for those of you who stuck around to read all this.

Hanging out with dad

Brian decided Kalena is old enough to learn to use the computer. She's very interested here:


But she's willing to look up long enough to smile for the camera.

Now if only her arms were long enough to reach the keyboard...

Answers

For those of you who played the game, it's time for the answers! To everyone who was impressed with my dad for knowing every quote, I'm here to tell you he CHEATED. I don't think he's read ANY of these books. Dad-- confirm or deny? Anyway, here you go.

1) Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen

I was surprised that nobody got this one. Has nobody read Pride and Prejudice? (Or watched the BBC version with Colin Firth like 1,000 times? No? Just me?) If you haven't read it, you should. (And if you haven't seen the Colin Firth version, come on over! But be forewarned, it's 5 hours long. Totally worth it though.)

2) The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

Congrats to Amy and Ally for getting this one! I love this book; I've read it a ton of times.

3) Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The lovely Kates got this one. (How come your link doesn't go anywhere miss Katie?) I've read this book multiple times, but I'm not sure I would have guessed it from the first line...

4) A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Nobody? I think I read this for the first time when I was like 8. It's a great book for girls that age.

5) Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

My mom pointed out that this could have been one of many Arthurian type novels, but this happens to be the only one I've read.

6) Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

If you've ever read Atlas Shrugged, this opening line would be a dead giveaway. Amy and Katie got this one. Katie actually read my copy of this book while I read her copy of The Fountainhead, another excellent book.

7) Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

Katie got this one too (sheesh, we really do have similar taste in books.) Amy, Brandon is right; you should read this book!

8) Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser

I was not surprised that no one knew this one. It's quite depressing, but still a great book.

9) Twilight, Stephanie Meyer

Katie, Katie, April, and Ally all got this one. Big surprise, everyone's read Twilight;)

10) Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

Another giveaway first line if you've read the book. And if you haven't read it, it is worth reading, definitely.

So there you have it! This makes me want to re-read all these books. I need more time for reading. *sigh*

Let's make it official

I think I'm officially a Texan. Now, I know you're thinking to yourself: Wait! Her driver's license says Texas, she's lived here for 2 1/2 years, she owns a house here, she drives a truck and she works in the oilfield! What could possibly make her a Texan if that stuff doesn't? (And I know you are thinking this because the details of my life are of utmost importance to you. Otherwise why would you read my blog? You think I believe you just come here to see pictures of Kalena? Riiiight. You keep telling yourself that.) Well, I will tell you. A couple weeks ago I went and bought myself a pair of these:

Ariat Fatbaby boots.

And now? I wear them to work. Every day. (Not with my pants tucked into them though, I just liked that picture because you can see what they look like.) Because my office is the kind of place where dressed up means you wear khakis with your polo shirt instead of jeans.

Why these instead of just regular shoes? I'll tell you why. It's because I'm lazy and not a big fan of wearing shoes. I take my shoes off as soon as I get home and don't put them on again unless I'm leaving. Since I'm lazy, I don't want to have to tie and untie shoes every time I put them on or take them off. I wear flip-flops a lot of the time, but they're obviously not winter shoes, and despite how causal my office is, flip-flops are not office shoes. So for far too long now I've been wearing a pair of slip on sketchers tennis shoes. I really should have thrown them out like 3 years ago, (which gives you an idea how long I've been wearing them) but I never did because they were just so easy! It became one of those vicious cycles where I kept thinking I'd throw them out when I got a new pair of shoes to replace them, but instead I never got new shoes because I had those ones.

Anyway, now I have the boots and (Kari will be happy to know) I've thrown away the sketchers and life is good.


*picture from here

More of me being a nerd

I don't know how I've lived for so long with no photo edit software! I was irritated the other night at microsoft photo editor because there's no fix for red eye and pretty much all my pictures have red eye. Sooooo, I decided to see what I could find online for free. Turns out there's a lot out there! I picked one (photoscape) and downloaded it and started playing around. The only problem now is that I'm going to feel like I need to edit all my pictures before I do anything with them! Check out what you can do with this stuff:

Practical edits-- from this:

to this:



Fancy edits-- from this:
to this:
Fun edits-- from this:


to this:
I'm going to spend way to much time doing this, I can already tell.

3 Months

As of yesterday, Kalena is 3 months old. She is keen on getting mobile these days. She rolls over back to front regularly now (she did it first at 4 weeks and then not again for awhile.) Once she's on her belly she's stuck though, which is pretty funny. She tries to move on her stomach, but she mostly ends up just stiffening her little legs out behind her and going nowhere. Anyway, Kari requested more pictures of her, so here they are.

As a reminder, here's what she looked like the week we brought her home from the hospital.



And here she is now. Just chillin' in the bumbo.



Trying to find out how delicious that pillow is.



Apparently the camera is pretty terrifying.



I just thought that onesie was too cute.

The cousins in June. Kalena was about 3 weeks old here.


The cousins in Hawaii. She's about 2 months old here. From the looks of things, she thought Patrick needed to know who's boss.



Here's another picture of her in Hawaii that I stole from Kirsta's blog. Love the expression.

And there you have it. 3 months already. Crazy.

I'm not sure it's gonna work like that...

The other day (or night really) Brian took Kalena back up to her room after her 1:30 am feeding. When he came back down I asked if he had the baby monitor with him. He said yes, held it up so I could see it, turned it on....and then turned it back off and fell asleep. I guess that's one way to get a good night's sleep:)

Time for a game

Ok kids, I want to play a game here, but this will only be fun if you all play along. Here's how it works. I'm going to list the first line from 10 of my favorite books. Then YOU guess the book and author in your comments! I tried not to list anything too obscure, so hopefully you guys will know at least some of these. No fair using google though! Then next Friday I'll tell you the answers, and you can see what you got right. And if anyone else wants to do this I promise to play along. I can't guarantee any right answers, but I will try. Just as a note, I used the first line from the first chapter; I skipped any prologue or preface if there was one. Anyway, here goes.

1) "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

2) "On a morning in mid-April, 1687, the brigantine Dolphin left the open sea, sailed briskly across the Sound to the wide mouth of the Connecticut River and into Saybrook Harbor."

3) "Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened."

4) "Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares."

5) "Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady of Duke Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the headland."

6) "Who is John Galt?"

7) "I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one."

8) "When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money."

9) "My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down."

10) "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."


Guess away! (pretty please?)