Important Light Update

Well, I guess maybe it's not that important.

Last night the lights worked! The sun was out and shining all day long and we had lights! But today it's cloudy again. It was nice while it lasted.

:-)

Where I Live.

Our house is situated on a hill and our driveway is like a "blue" rated ski slope. It's steep to back down in a car. Or walk up. Pregnant. Let's forget I ever mentioned that. Anyway, it's steep.

The previous owners had installed these lights in the yard down the driveway to make it easier to see when backing down. But because it is so difficult to do if you're not used to it, those lights ended up getting demolished by cars wandering into our garden on the way down. (funny story, my friend who ran over the first light actually tried to correct her car and ran over a second one. And they are LOUD when they crack into a hundred pieces...) Anyway, the lights were also electric so once the first light was broken, the entire line stopped working. Needless to say, our driveway has been VERY dark for about awhile.

Right after my son was born, Costco had this great deal on some solar powered lights so I carried my new 10 day young baby and my poor postpartum body to Costco to take advantage of the coupon. They were out of the lights that day. I tried to be polite in the middle of my hormonal roller coaster and sleep deprived self. Rain check please!

This is sorta what they look like...

Costco finally got a new shipment in and I picked up 2 boxes, which is enough to light our driveway and keep a few extras just in case we have another car/crushed lights mishap. These beautiful new lights stayed up on the shelf in our garage just until a couple of weeks ago. But they are now up. I was really excited about these lights and they look great!

The first night, they went on beautifully and I practically wanted to get in my car just to back down with the lights shining next to my car. I didn't though. I just looked out the window a hundred times.

Now, one thing I didn't consider is this: I live in the Northwest. We don't necessarily get lot of this:

This happens to be the sun. It looks hot. Temperature hot, not hot hot, in case you were wondering.

Where I live is a lot more like this:

Cloudy and rainy, sometimes just cloudy, not rainy.

I say all of this because I have noticed that as October has been progressing, the lights have stopped lighting up. At first it was a few that didn't turn on and then about 95% of them and last night... zip. Totally dark. So, I think that the lack of light is affecting my lights. Or, the neighbor's kids turned off all the switches... I will get back to you on this. But I'm pretty sure it's the sunshine.

I'm gonna test it tonight though because wonder of ALL wonders, it's sunny today. Blue sky, few clouds and I can just feel it... the lights are excited. And they should be. Tonight they will be able to do their job and I will be glad to see them light my driveway once again. Unless it's a prank. Then I'll be pissed.

And with that, have a happy day!

The tree that was and other stories

This will be short and sweet. Or maybe just short! ha! Or maybe not.

1. We hired a tree service to come and trim all of our trees. They trimmed all of our trees. Except for the one they cut down and chipped and took away. But they're planting a new one. The only thing that bugs me about this is that you really can't "replace" a tree that was 8 years old. It doesn't really work. Other than that, I'm not seething about this anymore.

2. The other day, I went to the dentist and they froze my entire mouth just to clean my teeth. Thank-you Jesus! ha! Sometime in the last couple of years, something has happened to my teeth and they've become super, extremely sensitive. One touch of that metal scraper thingy (I think it's a scaler... I like my name better) and I will go through the roof. So my mouth was totally frozen. And it stayed that way almost all day. Lovely.

3. Today we were out of coffee and I finally picked some up around noon. Practically an emergency. I went back to bed this morning because I was so sluggy from the lack of sweet, pure caffeine in my body. And I bought a coffee at a drive-thru Woods Coffee (love!) and then re-stocked my home stash.

4. At Trader Joes today this girl with 2 adorable kids (1 was really a NEW baby) asked me about Hudson and we started to talk. She was really nice. As I was walking away, I thought... I should invite her to the play group I'm going to tomorrow. And then I didn't. I kept walking. Lame huh. I'm like this double personality of shy and not shy. Oh well.

5. I'm sure you're riveted by my blog today.

6. On this Tuesday: I will make Lentil Soup, fold laundry, plan my music for Sunday, maybe make some egg salad for lunch this week (thanks Delayne and Angie for the inspiration, bahahaaaaa), eat, and maybe some other things. Oh, send out rent increase letters to our tenants... it sounds cruel but we haven't increased rent in 2 years so really, it isn't. I need to call the tree people back so they can buy us a new tree. And other stuff. Yes, my life is awesome. That was sarcastic but I really do like my life. It's good.

Okay, that's enough. Enough typing for me and enough reading for you. I don't know how much the average person can handle of my ramblings but my inner rambling sensory gland says that I am about at the limit.

Except for a couple of random photos of Hudson on the move...

Look at his fuzzy hair. I can't get enough of it!

Or that face! Even in a blurry shot!

Have a nice day!

Against My Better Judgement

To complete the sentence above... against my better judgement, I'm typing this sentence right now instead of going to bed. It's 10:37pm. Baby is fed, house is clean, my teeth are not brushed but it's coming, I promise.

I had a quick email to shoot off before heading upstairs and I remembered this blog. The place I'm supposed to be writing stuff regularly. Well, "supposed to" as in, I want to do it. I don't really even have anything to say right now. I could tell you about my horrible trip to the dentist today. But I want to write and WRITE about that so it's going to have to wait. I could write about my newly founded cleaning schedule for my house. But that's really a side of my life I'd rather not go into... the crazy, nerdy, boring side.

Yup. Nope.

Nothing to talk about.

So I will head upstairs as previously planned and go to sleep. Tomorrow's a big day. Lots of baking to get done and planning to do for a baby shower on Saturday morning!

Good Night!

Puh

Little pet peeve for a Monday morning.

Who hates electrical cords, camera cords, computer cords... all of this connecting stuff that collects. We have A LOT of cords at our house. And no matter how often I organize, wind up and tape or just plain hide them, they end up coming out of their little hovels and cluttering up my life.

Even wound up, this looks messy.

And here's my big bag of homeless cords in the closet.

We can't seem to get rid of them because they do have a home somewhere and what if we "need" one of these someday???? Yes, I know, valid question. I don't have any answers. Sorry.

But I don't think technology is leaving our lives anytime soon and "cordless" only goes so far so I guess I just have to deal with this. Life is so hard.

I'm out of words for now. Time to wash the floor. Yes, I know, so awesome!

Jack Johnson - The bliss of it all!

Last night Luke and I went to the Jack Johnson concert in Vancouver at Roger's Arena (formerly GM Place). Let's just say it was EPIC!!!!

Zee Avi played first.

She was great and quite the voice... but I was about ready for her to stop playing when she did. It was good but not what we came to listen to.

Then up was a band called G Love.

Their music was cool, their lead's voice was not my style at all. AT ALL! And by the time they were done, I was like... Enough already! And where's Jack?

We had to wait (gasp!) for the stage crew to switch out all the instruments, reconfigure the stage, etc. (side note: I always wonder the pressure the guitar tuner must feel to make sure he does his job right. There's nothing worse than an out of tune guitar and there's a guy that's in charge of making sure this doesn't happen and runs in and out with new ones for the musicians. I wonder if he or she has nightmares of an angry musician starting to play out of tune... probably not.)

Eventually they were ready to play. Pandemonium! Sold out! And yes, we're WAY up there!

And it was beautiful. They could've played all night. It was SO good. I guess it's extra special to me to hear really super, duper good musicians play because I'm a musician and I have so much appreciation for what it takes to be THAT good but I think it was just so good last night that it would've been amazing had I only played the pots and pans as a toddler.

What I liked about last night in point form:

• Jack Johnson is really BETTER live and his albums are already so great! It's lame when a band is a total disappointment in concert. Then you know the real artist is the producer.
• Jack, the person, is obviously in love with his wife and kids, made pretty clear in his music and the stories he told. That always adds to my appreciation of the music... knowing that the guy singing is also just a good guy. Jerks can be good too but they're also just jerks. You know?
• The upright piano was an AMAZING piano. It was cool!
• Zack Gill, who played it, was cooler! He could play that thing like... well, I don't know what but it was so awesome! Blues off the charts! And he could sing. That deserves another point.
• The piano player could SING. He harmonized mostly with Jack but there was with one song where he just dished up some serious vocals. It was a meal in, and of itself. It was one of my favorite parts of the whole concert!
• The stage was really basic, big curved screen behind... nothing to take away from the musicians.
• The bass player was extremely good, nothing sloppy, very layed back. Cool.
• The guy sitting next to me... he had an odd habit of shouting out f-bombs with all sorts of interesting twists to them. I finally laughed out loud, it was so ludicrous and he apologized to me. I just told him it was fine and that he sounded like he had tourette's syndrome. Ha!
• The drummer was totally the opposite of what you always get at a concert. He didn't do a single showy number or anything. He was very steady. He also had good posture. I'm fairly sure he's a really nice person. He had that look. And his name was Adam. Even God liked that name for his human. ;-)
• We danced silly and had a great time!
• Earl, the guy who scanned my ticket at the door was very nice! He was probably in his 70's, was very nice and had sympathy when I forgot my glasses in the car. Policy is that once you're in, you're in. No leaving. But he re-entered my ticket into the system so I could go to my car. Thanks Earl! I was able to see individual people on the stage because of you.

I must say though, it was my first time being away from Hudson for more than a few hours. And we were not just away from him in time but also distance. That was weird to me but my mom and her husband Jan watched him, had a great time and offered to watch him again soon!

The best part of this whole night was having a REALLY good date night with Luke. I love him! We have so much fun together and this time was no exception. We stopped at Tim Hortons to grab dinner on the go plus 6 donuts. And yes, we ate them all. We talked and pre-funk'd to Jack's music in the car. We bought over-priced snacks and gave our own reviews of the bands before the headliner. We danced. We laughed and then danced some more. And then we went to pick up Hudson and that was just as sweet as the entire night.

Thanks Jack Johnson for coming to Vancouver and giving us the chance to go out and have a really good time!

Books - contrast

I've read a couple of books in the past month and I figured, why not tell you about them!

1. Promises To Keep by Jane Green

This book started out okay. I was at least drawn in to turn the page and see what happens next. The characters were good and well thought out. The problem for me was that I hit this point where I knew exactly what was going to happen. I was reading in bed, turned to Luke and said... "blank is going to happen and here's why." The author built her case way too clearly and it just got too predictable for me. I was so irritated with this that by the time I was supposed to feel emotion for certain events, I just wasn't there. So, overall, not a bad book, but not the best book either. If you've got a limited amount of time to read, pass.

2. With Friends Like These by Sally Koslow

Yes, yes, yes!!! I haven't read a book in awhile that really kept me guessing and wanting to turn the page. I found myself reading for Hudson's entire nap while my house lay in shambles around me. The book had 4 distinct characters who are friends and really goes into the intricacies of friendship. I loved the characters and was so thankful that I couldn't identify with the problems they all faced. It was SUCH a good book.

And just when I'd like to type more, my boy is waking from his nap so I gotta go. But #2 was by far the better book!