Lift Up Your Hearts!

On Saturday, September 6, 2008, at 6:35 p.m., Heather delivered a beautiful baby girl!  She weighs 9 lbs. 3.5 oz. and is 20.75 in. long.  That may sound like a big baby, but she's a pound lighter than big brother Noah at birth.

The name of the newest member of our family, the first girl in over 26 years, is

Faith Elizabeth Daley

Everyone is very happy and doing well.  As time permits, I'll publish a longer version of the story, and you can follow it from a more direct perspective on Heather and Jon's blog.

Jon:  If you had to pick, would you rather have a live mouse or a dead mouse in your house?

Heather:  A dead mouse.

Jon:  Then I have good news for you!

I'm tired and have too much to do.  Therefore, I'm procrastinating.  I'm putting our guesses about Little Baby Daley's arrival here where it's easy to update as they come in.

JW:  September 1, 11:00 p.m., girl, 8 lbs. 5 oz.

DL:  September 2, boy, 10 lbs. 2 oz., 22 in.

JMD:  September 3, 3:00 p.m., 9 lbs. 15 oz, 21.5 inches.

PW:  September 4, 3:00 a.m., girl, 7lbs. 12oz.

SS:  September 4, 19:56, boy, 4210 grams, 51 cm (7:56 p.m., 9 lbs. 4.5 oz., 20 in.) 

LW:  September 5, girl, 8 lbs. 8 oz.

HD:  September 6, 6:00 a.m., 9lbs. 8 oz.

SL:  September 6, 9:06 p.m., boy, 9 lbs. 6 oz.

NA:  September 9, boy, 9 lbs. 9 oz.

More to come.

Holcomb Farm has posted the winning photographs from its 2007 Photo Contest.  My favorite is the third prize winner.

Last night our neighbors called to ask if we had noticed a terrible odor.  They had just returned home after a few hours away and smelled something awful as soon as got out of the car; it was so strong they couldn't tell if it was widespread or localized.  We stepped outside of our house and smelled no more than the normal hot-and-humid Florida vegetation smells.

Until we approached their house, that is. We were then hit with what was, indeed, a foul odor.  But not, I was certain, a what-died-in-here? odor; it was something chemical rather than biological.  Don't get started on the truth that biology is also chemistry; I'd say it was an inorganic smell rather than organic, but that's not true either.  I know what I meant, and you would, too, if you'd smelled it. (More)

We celebrated my birthday with a three-way phone call (Florida/Pittsburgh/Basel), good wishes from family and friends, and a dinner at the Kobé Japanese Steakhouse.  We'd been to the Kobé before, but that was probably 15 years ago.  Their teppanyaki service doesn't remind me in the least of our experiences in Japan, but that doesn't mean the food wasn't good.  We didn't even spring for the $80 Wagyu beef; the $18 sirloin was quite delicious enough.  And the $15 birthday bribe was worth a bit of mild embarrassment.

Today was a bigger birthday, with a slightly bigger celebration.  For our part, we once again joined the Greater Geneva Grande Award Marching Band for Geneva, Florida's genuine, old-fashioned, small-town Independence Day celebration, the only Independence Day parade in Central Florida to occur on July 4th.  I love Geneva's celebration—I hope that it is not a bad sign that the cow-chip toss game used plastic "chips" this year—and I love the band even more.  It was 15 years ago that we first marched with some of those great folks! (More)

For a monolingual person, I have an inordinate love of languages.  Not only is multi-lingualism increasingly important in today's world, but it does wonderful things for the brain—from increased brain growth in babies to decreased dementia in the elderly.  I wish the great resources available for teaching young children another language had been around when our kids were little, and I wish I had more aggressively pursued what there was.  Be that as it may, I am only a language dilettante, enjoying learning a few phrases of Japanese before our trip there, brushing up on my minimal high school French, and listening to the language CDs from the Hippo Family Clubs.  I wish I were multi-lingual, but face the reality that at my age it just isn't going to happen.

Nonetheless, I should be able to learn, if I put the time and effort into it, enough of a language to get along reasonably well with basic, necessary communication.  Which brings me to the question of why I find myself attracted to almost any language other than the two that would be of the most immediate practical use to learn: Spanish and German. (More)

[Insert whistling here]  (More)

You may have noticed I've been posting a lot recently.  At one point I decided to try to write a post a day for the month of June.  There were two reasons for this.  The first—and this doesn't matter for those who use feedreaders, but not everyone does—is that I want to give people a reason to stop by frequently; if you don't write anything new, people get out of the habit.  At least I did, before I let Bloglines keep track of things for me.

The second, more compelling, reason is the accumulating backlog of things impelling me to write.  Books lined up for review; interesting tidbits of news and commentary I figure folks might otherwise not encounter; and the everyday happenings in our lives, which is my attempt to close somewhat the 1000 or more (sometimes much more) mile distance between us and those we love.  The only problem with this system is that the list grows even as it shrinks.  But at least I'm holding my own this month.  I suppose I could post more often (this is actually my second post of the day), but there is more to life—like laundry, as the persistent dryer buzzer is now reminding me.

Last night we enjoyed an outing to the Texas de Brazil restaurant.  This is not what I would normally call my kind of restaurant:  although I find salad bars, buffets, and all-you-can-eat establishments appealing for their wide variety and options, the high price and the encouragement of overeating make them generally unattractive to me.  However, our friends had two-for-one coupons, which brought the $45-per-person price down from the outrageous to the merely ridiculous-but-acceptable-for-a-special-occasion.  So we celebrated Father's Day one day late. (More)

We've been nibbling on the basil, parsley, and Thai basil from our garden, and the hot pepper plant has been producing prolifically and steadily for a year now, but this week saw the first harvest from our radish, lettuce, and stevia plants.  The radishes aren't quite ready yet, but the baby lettuces were spicy and delicious.

I've never grown stevia before, and didn't know quite what to do with the leaves, but I cut one stem, stripped off the leaves (maybe a dozen), and poured not qute a quart of boiling water over them.  I let that cool and then put it in the refrigerator.  Next I took a quarter cup of juice of a fresh lemon, poured it over a glass full of ice, added about half a cup of the stevia infusion (filled up the glass), and stirred it all together.  It was a delicious concoction.  Still tart, but that's how we like our lemonade.

A week ago we paused in the middle of grouting our new entrance tile to turn around and watch the Space Shuttle Discovery sail through the clouds.  This morning the twin sonic booms informed us it was time to turn on the television to watch Discovery's return home.

And you thought the thrills of living in Florida had something to do with not shoveling snow.

We've lived in Florida more than 20 years and haven't yet mastered the art of gardening in this climate.  After a year or two of being defeated by nematodes, giant grasshoppers, and the need for daily attention, we pretty much gave up, until inspired to try again by Heather and Jon, who managed to get a few good things to grow even at their zero-yard city apartment. (More)

Don't take my word for it; read about Our Big News in Janet's own words (and pictures).  For the really curious, you can find a link to Stephan's blog there.  Hmmm, her webmaster is going to have to make a change, and move thduggie up from Friends to Family on the sidebar.  And while I'm at it, will IrishOboe change to SwissHarp, or maybe SwissFiddle?  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I'm contemplating the complexities of having an international family. (More)

Thanks to Janet reminding me (she'll have to write her own post as to why), I was able to watch NASA TV live coverage of the landing of Phoenix on Mars (and at a much more reasonable hour than she did).  For obvious reasons (the view out our front door) I pay more attention to Shuttle launches than other NASA activity these days, but watching this excitement took me 'way back.  Back to 1969 and the Apollo 11 moon landing...stories from my cousin who worked in the space program...some of the first pictures of the Earth from the moon that were treasured trophies from a Boy Scout (Explorer) program I participated in with General Electric...and even 'way, 'way back to standing on the porch with my father, watching Echo I pass overhead.

Thanks for the memories, Janet and Stephan!