Tag Archives: energy

When it rains, it pours

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I have found that “when it rains, it pours.” Well, sometimes, anyway. We have had an appliance crisis lately, with the washing machine and dishwasher both down and out. After struggling with what we should do, pay for repairs or buy new, we decided yesterday afternoon to go ahead and buy a new washing machine from Fisher & Paykel. It is an excellent machine, the most energy efficient and largest capacity of any on the market here in the U.S. Although it is pricey, the energy savings in one or two years will more than make up the difference in price if we had purchased a cheaper machine. Fisher & Paykel is based in New Zealand or Australia, I believe. My sister and her husband in New Zealand say they are excellent. We are still unsure about the dishwasher but figure the washing machine was more important to have in operation again. The new one will be delivered this afternoon and we can then start washing clothes again!

A beautiful fall day

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Today is a beautiful fall day here in Indiana. The leaves are turning brilliant colors, the temperature is around 70 degrees, and the sun is shining. Better yet, the kids — my hooligans — are all either asleep or calmly watching television. In other words, yes, I get an opportunity to write in this blog a little bit, and to reflect and relax a little bit, too.

Today didn’t start out very well. The nighttime was rough. All of the kids except for Keegan have colds and aren’t feeling well, which means that invariably, one or more of them end up in our bed, and I end up in one of their beds. It’s been so long since I slept in my own bed the whole night through, sans kids, that I can’t remember what it was like! I couldn’t sleep for most of last night and ended up watching Nova on PBS, an interesting show on pearls. I fell asleep in the living room and woke up with one of the worst headaches I have had since the meningitis episode a year ago. I had to go back to bed, twice. Fortunately, now I feel quite a bit better, although worn out. Michele is taking a much-deserved nap upstairs. Keegan is holding Cohen.

Things on my mind today: I need to pay bills; I wish I had the energy to clean up around the house; we might do some shopping this afternoon so that Michele can spend some of her birthday money; should I accept the offer to teach another class next spring (’05) for my alma mater, the #1 ranked graduate library school, UIUC GSLIS; if I’m going to start my PhD program next fall, I need to get going with the application process; how am I ever going to get caught up at work; I desperately need a network of Christian friends and community here, and so does Michele; how ironic it is that this is so hard when I’m working for a Christian university in a largely Christian town.

The plan for today

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The plan for today, Saturday, is not very ambitious. That’s what I like ;-) We plan to set up the nice pool my brother Jeff bought for Keegan a few years ago. It’s a 20′ pool and it hasn’t been set up in a while. We skipped setting it up last year because we were gone so much that summer. I just hope that everything works, there are no holes, etc. It will take a lot of work to clean it before filling it up. I also hope we will have the energy to tackle another project, which is to rip out the overgrown shrubbery around our patio in the back of the house, and dig a hole to put the pond into the ground where it belongs. If we can get that done, I can clean out the pond, fix the pump and fountain, and plant the water lily we purchased for it. We can also go shopping for fish to put in it. As it now stands, it’s just serving as a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitoes. Uck. It is such beautiful weather today, a pleasant 70 degrees and a bright, sunny sky. Here’s to a great weekend!

Quiet, Daddy

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I was looking out the window toward our backyard one day recently, when I noticed movement near the door to our garden shed. I thought at first that it was just the groundhog again, the one that lives under the shed. But when I looked more closely, I could see some different colors and knew that it wasn’t the groundhog. I decided to walk out there and take a closer look. To my surprise, as I got near the shed, I could see that it was two little kittens, one gray and the other black and white, playing just outside the door. They were no more than a month old, I’d guess. When they finally saw me, they both scurried away into hiding. Now I know that we have a family of wild cats living in the shed, in addition to the groundhog! Keegan is now learning to play the alto saxophone, and seems to be enjoying it a lot. His first band concert will be in early December. Tristan continues to run around the house with tremendous energy. He doesn’t like it when he can’t keep me in sight, though. He gets very upset when I am not here. Brinley is putting on weight, and her skinny little legs are filling out! Michele says she takes after my side of the family because she makes lots of funny noises. A few days ago, I was joking around with Keegan and Tristan while they were having breakfast, singing silly songs. Tristan finally said to me in a shaking-his-head-at-my-stupidity tone of voice: “Quiet, Daddy!” Yesterday, I heard from our lawyer that the appropriate court papers had finally been filed in support of my adoption of Keegan. The next step will be a visit from the state department of child and family services. I am very glad that after several months of frustrating wait, things are finally moving along. Yesterday, we got a package from my sister, Becky, in New Zealand. It included a gift for Brinley and a letter with some photos of her family. It was great to hear from her! I often regret that we live so far away. Her children are nearly full grown now and it is sad that I have missed most of their growing up period.