Back! (sort of)

Hi friends! Michael's wife here. Just giving you the head's up that blogging will commence here at Picky Bear! Cool posts in the making include:

-update on life since April 2011 (two sons to update you on!)

-plans/projects for our house 

-thoughts on suffering

-thoughts on faith

-thoughts on family life

-making hard cider

-game nights/review of new board games we enjoy

-thoughts on my super wife

Okay...so maybe these are just post ideas that *I* would like to see him write on. But I'm hoping I can coax him to at least write about a few of these topics. 

STAY TUNED!!

Baby pictures!!

Well, just thought I should make a blog post because if I don't do it, I'll just keep putting it off and then it will be 6 months will go by. Well, I was just thinking and I don't think I posted any pictures of Josephine on this blog! My wife has been stealing all the pictures! Luckily my iTouch takes decent pictures so I can use it and the pictures are safe from here stealing them and posting them on her blog. Well Kayleen woke up with the mother of all headaches on Sunday so I did something very foolish. I decided to take both girls with me to church by myself. Since Josie is still nursing I decided to go to the latin rite nearby. For the first half of mass I was in the church narthex begging Louisa to behave because she was very interested in wondering around. Well, luckily Kayleen's aunt and Uncle were there and I spotted them after the homily so I joined them for the rest of mass and things were so much better. Louisa wouldn't let her great aunt or uncle hold her but she behaved a lot better. It's funny how Louisa takes her time to warm up to people, especially at church. Every sunday she doesn't want to go see grandma or grandpa but when she visits them at their house she is so much friendlier. Maybe it's the suckers. Well, I only talked about Sunday because I took these pictures Sunday morning.

It may be early but it looks like these girls got the same nose.

Josie is such a smilely girl! It's funny but I could get the almost 4 month old to smile but the 2 year old, not so much.

As far as the table goes, I finishes the routing for the table top and stained it but keep forgetting to take picture of the stained parts. Oh well, at least it gives me a reason to blog about something in the future.

My wife, the celebrity

So for those who were not listening to EWTN radio today at 1:30, or to the encore show at 8:30, my wife was listening to EWTN and they were talking about valuing human life. I recorded her during the encore show. Sorry for the poor audio quality, it's from my phone and Josephine is talking in the background and Kayleen started making comments about her 15 minutes of fame. (Well this is just 5 minutes of it so far, so she still has 10 minutes.)

The caller after Kayleen mentioned a documentory called the Demographic Winter, which is about the decline of the human population and how it could be a bad thing for people especially when you have so many young people have to support so many older people. I looked at the trailers and it looks interesting but with 2 kids and the prospect of a house, (will talk about that in later posts), I don't think I can afford $20 on a DVD. I already checked and they don't have it on Netflix either. Come on!!

Table Update

So it's been a while since I've posted any news about the table I'm working on at my parents. With the rise in gas prices Kayleen and a minivan that is about 5 mpg (Okay, so it's not that bad but the gas mileage is worse than my little gray car.), we have found ourselves not wanting to drive as much. This and also the busyness of two kids and one child's demand to only sleep in familiar placed (i.e. only her crib and car seat and not in another person's bed or in the arms of mommy or daddy) has translated into fewer visits to family. Well last Sunday we went over and I got to spend some time even with my sister distracting me with a rebuttal documentary to the documentary "Super Size Me", called "Fat Head". I watched some of it but tried to save as much as I could to watch with Kayleen. What I saw was very interesting and definitely recommend it.

So with my sister's movie and my nephews to harass, I didn't get a whole lot done. What I did do was to route the edges of the apron of the table on my dad's new spiffy table router! After a few slightly promising practice cuts I moved on to the actual table and was pleasantly surprised when they came out looking great. I was using scrap wood for my practice cuts and with it being smaller and a softer wood, I found it harder than the actual cuts. Here is a picture of the apron:

What's left to do is to route the edge of the table top, stain it, poly-urethane it, glue it and screw it together than Louisa and Josie will have their very own table! Louisa is already very excited. Mommy and I will be able to have her sit at her own table for dinner and mommy and I will be able to have plates and glasses that we will not have to defend from a certain child who is to remain nameless.

Sorry if this post is randomly put together. I came in to write about the table and remembered the movie and needed to hurry to help Kayleen with the kids.

Ash Wednesday

Well lent is officially here. Actually for Eastern Rite Catholics, lent has been here since Monday. I went to a Roman mass today so I actually did get ashes so it kind of felt like a double dip, I got an anointing on Monday and then get the ashes today to give me strength for the fast, so I should have super strength to avoid candy and soda. Here I am at work with my ashes. My hair is so long that I don't think anybody noticed them. At least no one said anything.

Even before lent started I was starting to ween myself off soda mostly because I had finally succeeded in getting kayleen addicted to soda (Which she is very bitter about since I'm giving it up) and also it is probably healthier for me. I've done google searches to see what the con-soda people say and looked for anything the pro-soda say. Unfortunately it's sort of a one sided argument. I'm thinking it's a conspiracy against those who don't drink coffee and are looking for a way to get caffeine. I like mint tea but they all say de-caf.

Well, I'll end this post with a video. I had wished a friend a happy lent but just got a strange look and disapproving head shake, so to really lift spirits here is a clip from the movie Spinal Tap. Unfortunately I can't embed the video so just follow the link.

Happy Valentine's Day

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Valentine's Day to my lovely wife! St. Velentine, Pray for us!

I'm making a table!

I'm home sick right now because Louisa, being th kind and sharing girl that she is, shared her cold with me. I know I can't be upset with her, this is just what happens with kids. I just to be less nerdy since some people think that a lot of the things I do are nerdy, I won't make a SQL table. Kayleen wanted a kids table that should look something like this when it is done:

Okay, maybe not. Maybe not even close. Kayleen wants a children's table and they are pretty pricey at the store so she asked if I would make one instead. I haven't done much wood working but I thought it would be fun. I'm working on it at my parents place with my dad and will post pictures of it's progression. It has been slow since I actually started it just before Josie was born and I haven't been able to get over to work on it much but last Saturday I finally finished the tenon and mortise joints. Now I just need to route the table edges, glue the joints, stain the wood and possible forgetting a couple other steps but shouldn't be too much longer.

Popsicle joke idea

Kayleen was eating a popsicle and the joke was "what did the momma bear say to her cub?" my answer was wrong. My guess was "you are un-bear-able!"

Test of a gift

Well it has been almost a month I think since I last blogged, or was that in November? I got an apple iTouch for Christmas and am testing it to see how well I can blog on it. So far it's a lot slower because I have to use the screen keyboard but this keyboard is light years better that my keyboard on my phone. The keys that I'm trying to type actually get pressed for the most part. The bad thing is that I can't add picture which is a shame because this thing takes pretty good pictures. I'm still not an apple guy bit I will admit that the iTouch is a fun toy. It's amazing also because I can watch netting movies on it!

Oh, and as far as updates, Kayleen had a baby, she has hair. Merry Christmas! And happy feast of St. Stephan for the west. The feast day is celebrated tomorrow in the eastern rite so I'll song the wren song tomorrow.

Favre or Farve?

Pat, just let them man pronounce it the way he likes it.

Better late than never?

I signed up for JibJab a few months ago because Pat really liked the card I made for him on their website but they don't let you keep the card unless you are a paying member. So I got some ads for their Halloween card and didn't make time to make one until now. I guess Frankenstein is always in season, right?

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

And here is the monster mash!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Halloween

I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween! I know I'll be doing my parental duty and protecting my daughter from candy by eating it for her so she has enough room for her vegetables. The things I do for her.

Some dude went to Top Pot

I work downtown close to Top Pot doughnuts, a Seattle icon and ranked highly as one of the best places for doughnuts in the US. (Well, some of us at work actually prefer doughnuts from Pike Place market and others like pastries from Whole Foods.) Anyways, on Thursday traffic was unusually bad and it was because Obama was in town. We joked about how Obama would have breakfast at Top Pot but didn't really expect it. Well rumors started going around that Obama was in fact going to Top Pot. I looked outside and saw where once had been a steady stream of slow moving cars was now clear and there was a man in a suit standing outside. Pretty much everyone in the office headed outside and I came out just in time to see Obama's motorcade turn onto the street. I pulled out my camera to watch him walk inside the store but to al of our surprise he walked across the street and shook people's hands. (Including me!)

This is my video evidence. My smart phone was being a pain and just recording Obama made the video corrupt and it took me a day to fix the video. The audio still doesn't work.



My family has been a little uneasy around me now since I shook the "chosen one's" hand. They have been more accepting since I did confirm to them that I've filled out my ballot for Dino Rossi.

Something to brighten your day

On Sunday Kayleen had an Alter Society meeting which meant I got to watch Louisa at church. As we waited in the church hall I pulled out my cell phone to entertain Louisa, she can be pretty vain and loves to see pictures and movies of herself. (Well, it may be more of a fascination of seeing herself on a screen than vanity.) So I casually took a picture of her by putting the phone in front of me and trying to find the button on the phone to take the picture. This is the photo I got. I was pretty surprised because I couldn't see what I was even taking a picture of.

I have a smart phone so I downloaded an app that takes retro looking pictures, that is why the picture looks the way it does.

Busy week

We've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks and so that is one minor part as to why I haven't been blogging regularly. the other reasons are that our computers are starting to become more and more buggy. We are probably going to need to buy a new computer soon. my computer is having a difficult time connecting to the internet and also it doesn't like having more than one program running at any given time. Sometimes it doesn't even like one program to run at all. Kayleen's computer needs to be replaced for several reasons as well, one is that she is running Vista. The other is that Louisa has kindly removed the extra keys...


Since my computer is not working to well, I'm actually using Kayleen's keyboard. I guess it just makes things take a little longer.

I plan on blogging later on Salmon days in Issaquah, a festival that I went to growing up and something Kayleen, Louisa and I went to last year and two weeks ago. I will end this post with the writings of JoseMaria Escriva that I happened to read yesterday.

"Saints and not abnormal cases to be studied by a modernistic doctor. They were - they are - normal, with flesh like yours. And they conquered."

Barbucks

Louisa's vocabulary has been increasing so much lately. Depending on her mood she will sometimes surprise us with what she can say. I was asking Louisa to say some words and here is one she was pretty good at. I wonder why?



Sorry about the angle and the audio quality, I took this with my phone and didn't realize how they wanted me to hold my phone for taking a video.

Also, here is another deep thought by Pat.

I'm back - Deep thoughts

I am thinking of giving blogging another shot. Looking back it was nice to see Louisa growing up so I think I'll give it a shot what with Josephine's birth coming soon. One of the things that might motivate me is to give these Deep thoughts by Pat pictures every now and then.

Oh and Josephine is due in less than 10 weeks! I've saved up my vacation time so I'll be able to take two weeks off! So I'll have 2 things to look forward to when the baby is born! I'll get to see what Josephine looks like and I'll be able to sleep in until 10, right?

Good day at work

Sorry for my lack of posting. When I post, I like to have a picture or something but I have not taken pictures for a while so I haven't had any to post. Well, not I have a screenshot I can post! YAY!!!

So this last week my company is testing to release a new piece of software but first asked everyone in the company to test it out. They included some intensives to entice people to take the time to do it. One of the things they asked for was the best "sketch". The best doodle would get put on the temporary web site. Well, guess whose doodle won out?

My Snoopy drawing!

How to report the news

I founds this to be very informative.

Louisa's Walking!