It’s been a while since I updated; guess I’ve been busy.
In early September, I went in to work one morning and found my computer frozen up and making a loud clicking sound. When I restarted it, I got a screen with a blinking question mark. Uh oh. Our IT guy was unable to fix it, so they had to get a new hard drive for me. And guess who hadn’t backed up her work lately? And it wasn’t just my current projects that were lost, it was my entire e-mail archive (13 years’ worth of work emails), my carefully categorized photography library, stock photos I’d purchased, all my administrative documents including annual reviews and other important documentation, and other things that I am still discovering that I no longer have.
My office has no official daily-backup system; everyone is just supposed to copy their current projects to a central server at the end of the day. Even if I had been doing that, the rest would still have been lost.
The following weekend I went out and bought a new 1TB backup drive for my home computer, since I haven’t been very good about backing that up, either. I think I’m going to bring in one of my older backup drives to use at work as a Time Machine drive. I just know myself and I know I’m not going to remember, every day, to spend 20 minutes copying my projects at 5 p.m. I need a system that does it for me.
We spent more than 2 weeks in September at my parents’ house in Sequim, WA. The weather was wonderful: very cool, some days rainy and some days sunny. Jamie had tons of time with “Ama” and “Diddah” (as he calls his grandparents) and wanted to spend every moment of the day outside. There was lots of room for him to run and play, unlike at home. He had a cold when we arrived, which he promptly shared with everyone in the house. We went to the beach a couple of times, a national park, and then Doc and I spent a couple of days in Victoria, BC.
Shortly after we arrived back home, our TV broke. We had to get a new one; we had already poured so much money into repairing the old TV and there was no guarantee that another expensive repair would actually fix the problem. We got a Sony Bravia and hung it on the wall — and boy do I like having a TV that can be hung on the wall. It’s funny, I don’t think you can buy a CRT TV anymore (old style with a picture tube). Fry’s doesn’t carry them and I haven’t seen one for sale anywhere in a long long time. Flat screen is the way of the future. This TV is full 1080p and shockingly crisp and bright.
In early October, I went to Austin for Debbie’s wedding reception. We had just gotten back from visiting my parents, and we just didn’t feel up to making another family trip with the baby, so I went by myself to represent the family. I had a great time and it was fun to see everyone again, but I missed my boys.
Doc and I (and Jamieson) have been sick off and on for the past few months. It seems like as soon as one of us starts feeling better, another one of us gets sick. Ugh.
We started feeding Jamie chicken a couple of weeks ago, at the instruction of his allergist. We’re not sure if it’s affecting him or not. He’s been somewhat fussy overall, but he often is fussy so we are not sure it’s attributable to the chicken. Anyway, life seems a bit easier now that we are not so carefully watching out for chicken in stuff that he eats. It means that when we go out to eat, we can order him grilled chicken, potatoes and vegetables!
I am investigating the possibility of Rice Krispy Treats as a nonallergenic food. I know that marshmallows are OK; we can use his special margarine; and Rice Krispies have “malt flavoring” in them, which I need to investigate as being possibly wheat-derived. If it’s Jamie-safe, then that may be something we can make and eat as a treat.
Jamie’s language skills are exploding over the past week or two. He has started putting together two and three-word sentences, such as “help me, mommy” and “up daddy,” and is learning to speak new words daily. For instance, yesterday morning he picked up the computer mouse off the coffee table and handed it to me, saying “Boo!” I thought… well, it IS Halloween, but how does he know the word “Boo?” Then I realized that he was pointing out to me that the glowing light on the bottom of the mouse was BLUE! And in the car on the way home from the grocery last night, I said “we’re almost home! Can you say ‘home’?” — and he did. I LOVE the expression on his face after he says a new word or puts together a sentence for the first time: it is pure unadulterated joy. He is SO proud of himself, and he know he has pleased us immensely.
This weekend we held our annual Halloween party. We had a nice sized turnout and a fantastic time! Sadly, no photos were taken of the evening; we were too tired and/or busy talking to our friends and having fun to pull out the cameras. Everyone brought delicious food for the potluck dinner, and Rich brought a great parlour game called “The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow.” Essentially we all played townspeople, and there were a couple of werewolves among us who would eat a villager each night. Our task was to find out who the werewolves were and shoot them before they could decimate the entire town. Lots of lying, laughing, and fun. Rich and Angela came over early and helped us set up and decorate the house, too.
Jamie’s Halloween costume was a garden gnome. He was just too cute in his beard and hat:
He attended a party at his Gymboree class, and we went to the Arboretum on Halloween morning to play in the pumpkin patch and hay mazes.
the moon eclipsed tonight. we saw it for a few minutes through a break in the clouds. it was pretty cool; it turned this nice rusty red color. actually it’s still going on, but it’s awfully cloudy outside. in fact, the weather has just been horrible lately: incredibly sticky and very very warm. i want my cool dry crips autumn days, goddammit!
The rest of the week was spent preparing for Friday’s Halloween party. We had some great decorations (and lots of decorating help) and I think that the yard and the downstairs of the house looked awesome. I’m not sure that we can compete with John and Melanie’s decorations (neither of us have built a real life web slinger, for instance), but I think ours were cool in their own way. The party was fantastic. Tons of people came, and we got some really fabulous photos. I’m going to post them to their own page so people can look and download them, but here are a couple of my favorites: [Photo 1] [Photo 2]. The last guests left some time between 2:30 and 3 in the morning. I’ll write more about the party later