Happy Thanksgiving!!

Today commemorates the 7th anniversary of me coming to terms with the fact that I was going to lose my hair. Thus, in a preemptive strike, I shaved my head. I had only planned on seeing what I was going to look like when the baldness came, but even after letting my hair grow for 7-8 months afterwards, it was never quite the same. That is the only time I've let my hair grow for more than 2-3 months (usually 6 weeks) since that first cut.

So this morning, I celebrated this tradition and shaved it all back off.

Tammy's making candied yams for dinner today while I'm making pumpkin pies. I'll have pictures (and if you're good I may even share my recipe) later.

I just wanted to make sure I got the Happy Thanksgiving out there before the day got away from me.

Seriously, So Blessed

Ok, so I decided I didn't have enough blogs to read, and I have friends who have blogs that I didn't know about, so I started looking around.  Checking blogs that my friends read, and trying to find other people I know or, at the very least, interesting blogs to read.

From Steph's blog I found Christi's blog.  And from Christi's blog I found Seriously, so Blessed.

I don't know who she is (from what I have seen, NOBODY knows), and I'm ok with that. She's a local blogger who has taken it upon herself to satire the "mormon blogger mom."  And she's hilarious. 

Check her out at http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com

Tammy and I have been sitting here reading and laughing (often hysterically) when we should have been getting ready for church.  Tammy finally dragged herself into the shower commenting on how I needed to get the princess into a dress.

So I wrote this blog instead.  The shower just turned off, so I guess I had better get moving if I want to be less than 20 minutes late.

Family Update

Ok, so here's the latest on the Casper Family:

Tammy is working from home, doing some data entry. She has also been interviewed (and possibly hired, pending the results of a drug test) for a second from-home job doing customer service. The data entry work is paid pre-tax (so I get to figure that out, yay!), and doesn't have any insurance benefits. The CS job does have benes, but they don't start for 90 days.

This leaves me in a bind... Zion's offers some of the most ridiculous health care options I've ever heard of (only slightly cheaper than Cobra). For $200-300/month in premiums, we can have somewhere between 25% and 75% coverage on any medical expenses that exceed $5,000-$10,000 in the calendar year. This means we have to pay, minimum, $200 every month to the insurance company in order to guarantee partial coverage of expenses incurred in excess of, again minimum, $5,000. They offer no co-pays. It's all out of pocket until we reach the $5,000 mark. Then they cover a range between 1/4 and 3/4 of our expenses.

My question is this: In what way is this insurance? Other than being able to document "coverage" so that when we get real coverage we can prove that we don't have "pre-existing" conditions, this is hardly insurance at all. It's a scam. I even called Cigna and Aetna to double-check with them that I was reading the benefits chart correctly. The Customer Service people I spoke with were as shocked as I was. They verified I was reading it correctly, but they said they had never heard of such awful plans, and had no idea that their companies were involved in something so terrible.

If I go with Zion's I'm locked into it until next November unless I quit, which is at least a possibility, as I've applied with UTA to become a bus driver (better pay, better insurance, and I'd get to drive around all day). If I don't go with Zions then I really need to hurry up and find another provider till Tammy's benefits kick in at the new job.

On a lighter note:
We went out to dinner tonight at Chili's with my Wife's local family for her brother-in-law's birthday. Cordelia got a little plastic cup of water, pretty tightly sealed, and she brought it home with her. She accidentally dropped it on the livingroom floor as I was closing the door behind us. No big deal, I thought, the cup didn't come open, and only a couple of drops of water escaped (which I didn't even notice, frankly), so I picked up the cup and put it somewhere safe.

As Tammy went to the bathroom to floss some chicken out of her teeth and I was distracted by something else for a minute, Cordy went into the kitchen, retrieved the mop, and brought it to her little spilled droplets. She efficiently missed every one of them, as she pushed the towering mop-handle around without an ounce of dexterity, but with a barge-load of heart and enthusiasm...

I just love that kid.

On a completely unrelated note:
I just posted my first book review to my Once Upon a Time... blog ( http://bookoobooks.blogspot.com ). I don't plan on updating this blog every time I update that blog, but since it's new, I thought it couldn't hurt if I did once or twice.

My New Blog

Ok, this is just a quick heads-up for anybody who is interested. I just started a new blog for books I'm reading. I'll read 'em, I'll post about 'em, I'll probably go on and on about some of them.

The blog address is http://bookoobooks.blogspot.com

Everybody is welcome to comment, criticize, recommend, etc.

That is all.

Update

Hey, so it's been a while since I posted, and I think I'm not going to post much right now, just wanted to bump myself back to the top of any lists I might be on, so nobody out there who might occasionally think about us forgets we are here.

Here is a cute pic of Cordy taken while I was making breakfast. I thought it would be cute to hand her the pancake flipper for the picture. When I stepped away from her to take the picture, she was hard at work making sure the eggs didn't over-cook.

Get this... not a single yolk was broken. She's got the touch.

Winter is Upon Us

Wednesday, I was in the shower when I noticed the vague and distorted image making its way through the bathroom window didn't have the usual color-scheme. I immediately suspected snow. Cracking the window a bit, I looked out and was shocked to see that it wasn't just a little snow; the entire neighborhood was blanketed in 3-4 inches of powder.

I shut off the water and hurriedly dressed and got outside to shovel the driveway. You see, in that very moment Tammy was getting Cordelia ready to go to grandma Lynda's house. Grandma was taking all her grandchildren, of whom Cordy is the oldest at 22 months (Garrett is pushing for 5 months, and Madison is barely 3), to get their pictures taken together. Madison had made a special trip out from Virginia for this opportunity (not to mention poor Patty – Madison's mom – is all alone at home right now, because Chad – Tammy's brother – is crazy-busy during election season). I needed to get the driveway clear before Tammy left.

If you never shovel, or just don't have to shovel the driveway clear of snow at your own house, you may not immediately understand why I was in such a hurry. So let me explain: Clearing snow while it is still fluffy and powdery, or even if it's crusty and icy, is always much easier before it gets compressed under 2-3 tons of steel and fiberglass concentrated over 192 square inches of rolling galvanized rubber. Sure, compressed ice can be cleared away, without too much difficulty, with a metal shovel, and I'll certainly have plenty of opportunities to do it that way over the next several months, but why not take the opportunity to avoid that mess when I can?

Anyway, I got it all cleared out of the way before they left, so good on me.

Then yesterday Cordelia found her Disney Princess shoes (which are velcro and still a tad big for her), and slipped them on. She then grabbed Tammy, who was still in her sleepin' clothes and tried dragging her by the thumb out the front door. Since I was already mostly dressed, I convinced her that I'd be more fun outside, so she helped me find my shoes, and she found my jacket for me (she's a very good helper, you see). After switching her shoes to the right feet, I grabbed the leash and we took Argos for a walk around the block.

Argos was almost immediately frustrated, though he would never admit it, since he likes to walk briskly when we go. Cordelia's idea of hurrying is a really cute attempt at running consisting of throwing one foot in front of the other haphazardly in a really awkward, yet adorable, speed-walk. Besides, she was in no hurry. She stopped to step and stomp on every stray chunk of snow that had found its way onto the sidewalk. What would normally be a 5 minute walk around the block, 3 if Argos is to be kept happy, took us the better part of 15-20 minutes at Cordy's distracted-munchkin pace.

When we got back to the house, she still wasn't ready to go inside, so I let the dog in and let Cordy try to drag me around the block again. I stopped her at the property line and instead made a snowball that I threw at her. She thought that was hilarious, so we started making snowballs to throw at Argos who was staring dejectedly at us out the front window.

Cordy's unfortunately tiny hands aren't capable of turning fluffy powder into solid masses of snowy ice, so I was quickly converted from a daddy into a snowball manufactory dedicated to the cause of supplying my offspring with ammunition that never launched straight. That got old after a grueling 20 seconds and I started rolling my next snowball into a snowman body. Cordelia was momentarily upset by this change, until she realized daddy was making a big ball (“bau?” she said). The snow was PERFECT yesterday. The snowman took me no more than 5 minutes to build. The hardest part was rolling his lower segment up our steep front yard so he could stay in the shade of the house and hopefully last a few days.

Anyway, here's a picture!


By the way, he's currently faceless, because I was getting concerned by Cordelia's purpling hands. She has mittens, but since we hadn't been planning on playing in the snow, and she had been in such a hurry to leave, we didn't bother finding them. And since she freaked out for the two seconds it took me to fetch the camera, I don't imagine I could have spent any time looking for them once we had started playing in the snow, either.

Halloween

So Halloween was kind of a joke this year, but Cordelia had fun and that's what is really important. Tammy and I had a miscommunication about Cordelia's costume. I was under the impression that she and her mom were working on a costume for Cordy, so I didn't really think twice about it. Tammy, on the other hand doesn't really get into Halloween the way I usually do, so she didn't think it was a big deal if there wasn't a special fun costume. So since I had boughten Cordelia a Halloween outfit (orange with little black cats) a few weeks ago, Tammy had just been planning on putting her in that outfit and then draping her in a black cape that her mom had made for her when she was about Cordelia's age.

When I found that out, on Halloween, I accepted it, because honestly that had been one of the possibilities we had discussed, and then just saying she was "Halloweeny, the Great Pumpkin's Consort" or something like that.

So, as things seem to happen around Cordy, the black cape went missing. We searched high and low for it at my in-law's house with no luck. By the time I got home to get Tam and Cor, we were already half-an-hour late for the Trunk or Treat at our ward, and since the people in charge of organizing the activity this year had opted for 1 hour Trunk or Treat, so that people could go home and man their doors for the kids who weren't coming to the ward, we were running a bit behind schedule.

Sadly, there wasn't a big turn out for the Trunk or Treat this year (last year it was huge... but we also had dinner served before hand, and it lasted 2-3 hours).

When we finished with the trunk or treat, we made tracks for Grandma and Grandpa Healy's house, where Cordy did some more Trick or Treating at Grandma's and then at the next door neighbor's (where she had never been before, but decided it would be ok to walk past the owners and head up the stairs).

After the Healy's we decided to run past Grandpa Ron's house, but he wasn't home from work yet, so we stopped at Teri Gwynn's house just up the street. For any who don't know, Teri's daughter Cindy is married to my brother Stanley, so they're family. While we were visiting, Cordelia decided to unload her spoils right on Teri's floor and start sorting and organizing them.

Once we finished visiting with Teri, Thomas, and Shayleen, we were headed out and planning on just going home, but as we buckled our seat-belts, Grandpa Ron pulled into his driveway and we stopped to visit a few minutes with him. While visiting, Grandpa put some food out for Patches, the cat who at the best of times won't let anybody, even the people she knows and trusts best, pet her. But since she was hungry, she did the unimaginable: She let a small child pet her! This picture was taken after she realized that it wasn't me touching her, so she was exhibiting a little skittishness.

And, as is my nature, I have a video for you. This is a couple of videos spliced together, the first part is from earlier in the month. Lynda (grandma Healy) had just bought a door decoration that plays "Gouls Just Want to Have Fun", and Cordelia decided to choreograph a Monster Mash-ish dance to go along with it. The second half is the dark, oh-so-dark, attempt at capturing the baby's first night Trick or Treat-ing.

Stills

Ok, so I promised to put some stills in the blog this time, but what can I say, I love to be technologically with-the-times. So I compromised. Here is a slide-show I put together made up of various pictures taken starting the day Cordelia was born up until a couple of weeks ago. Please note, not all of these pictures are in chronological order, so if she looks suddenly younger it's because I put the photo in the wrong place. Please forgive me.

The music I put this slide show to is "The Red Aspens" from the album "Key of Sea" by Jennifer Thomas. This was done without prior permission from Jennifer, however she has since given consent (as noted in the comments). 

Please visit her site: http://www.jenniferthomasmusic.com and if you like her music, buy it. I do, and I did.

I'll be adding a Halloween post soon, though I'm not sure when.  I got a very brief video of Cordelia at Trunk or Treat, but we'll have to see if the light from my camera is bright enough to have made the video watchable. 

We Love Our Puppy

Cordelia and Argos have been practically inseparable since we brought him home almost a year ago. Here they are playing on the kitchen floor.

I think I'm going to try posting just some pictures sometime soon. The videos are great, but they can be a hassle to prepare and sometimes take forever to upload. Plus, photos are usually higher resolution and Cordy is always cuter in high resolution.

No, Absolutely Not, No Way, No How, Nope

Yesterday was Cordelia's 22 month birthday. And as you can tell from this shocking home video, she is getting plenty of practice in for her Terrible Twos. Tammy and I are really excited and looking forward to the joys of parenting a two-year-old.

All I can really say is that it's a really good thing they take a couple of years to reach this stage... if they came out like this... well, I doubt the world population would be a concern. Ever.

Pop Rocks

Well, this video is self explanatory. I was hoping for more shock or surprise, but it's still cute enough to put up for friends and family to see.

Struggling With Algebra

Cordelia, the wonderfully bright child that she is, loves books and apparently is interested in math, too. Here she is taking the initiative of getting her hands on the teacher's edition Algebra book and searching for the perfect equation.

Just moments later, she suddenly and surprisingly showed off her latest immitation of mommy and daddy. The camera was there to catch it as it unfolded! (It's really quiet so you may need to either turn up the volume or just know that she's clearing her throat)

The Long-Suffering Tammy

Well, Tammy has submitted her resignation to Granite School District, though she’ll be finishing out the month. This has been a long and difficult decision for her, and it’s got me a little worried about finances, since she makes more money than I do, and we are generally only barely getting by, month-to-month, but it was a decision that needed to be made.

For the past three years (since about the time I met her) Tammy has been teaching high school math in Granite District. The first year she taught at the Juvenile Detention Center where all of her students were in a locked-down facility awaiting trial. She rarely had the same student for more than a few weeks at a time, though she often that the same students come back every few weeks or months. It was a very disheartening job, so the next year she moved to teaching at ARTEC West, which is still in the youth correctional program, but this school is an open campus (for most students), and a mental health facility, as many of the students are suffering from chemical dependence issues or come from backgrounds and situations that have rendered these children incapable or unwilling to integrate successfully into a mainstream public school.

Unfortunately, the level of professionalism brought to the facility by the “advocates”, who are not teachers or even qualified mental health professionals, but are actually just paid volunteers who come with the presumed intention to help communicate the needs of the students to the school faculty and vice-versa. However, these advocates, more often than not, actually turn out to be nothing more than enablers and excuse-makers for the students.

After two years of the frustration of working in that environment, Tammy made the somewhat difficult choice to leave friendly co-workers who she truly enjoyed working with, and made the move to mainstream public education. She began at Kennedy Junior High School in August of this year, and had regrets almost from the start. She was given 7^th and 8^th grade algebra and pre-algebra classes. Since receiving her BS in Teaching Mathematics and Statistics, she’s been teaching in structured environments, but in public school, the sense of entitlement that seemed to be a symptom caused by the advocates at ARTEC has been replaced in mainstreamed students by a vacuum, a lack of respect for themselves, their fellow students, their teachers, or anybody. Making things worse is the lack of disciplinary actions available. She can send students to the principal’s office, but that doesn’t do anything. She can call the students’ parents, but she can almost never reach them, and when she does, there are other problems, including the fact that many of these parents don’t speak English; and occasionally there is an appalling lack of interest by the parents.

Additionally, she even has some students that don’t speak English, and Tammy doesn’t speak Spanish or Vietnamese (the languages her students who don’t speak English are fluent in). This change has been overwhelming, but would have been tolerable if not for increased illness. Since she became pregnant with Cordelia, Tammy has been sick. An ovarian cyst burst when she was only 6 weeks along, about the same time she developed morning sickness, by 10 weeks, she couldn’t breathe if she was lying down. She saw every imaginable specialist in breathing, heart, back, lung, asthma, or allergy that each previous doctor could think of, none of them could put a finger on the problem. Once Cordelia was born, she could breathe again, but has had intense chronic back pain ever since. In recent months, the back pain has been occasionally debilitating, resulting in an ER visit several weeks ago (they discovered that she had Strep Throat, but it was completely unrelated to her back pain). About the same time that the back pain became so bad, she also became constantly nauseated. For the past 2-3 months, she’s not been able to eat more than about one meal each day, because after only a few bites she becomes ill. Her doctor had her go in for an ultrasound of her gall bladder (no result), he prescribed her an antacid, in case of ulcer (no result), currently she’s taking yet some other medication he prescribed (no result as of yet).

So she is resigning for medical reasons, and she’s going to start working from home. As luck would have it, the job her mom does from home has an opening and can start her training this week (from what I understand it can sometimes take weeks or even months before they have any openings). We’ll keep everybody posted about how it goes.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Yowza!!!!

So today I took Cordelia shopping, leaving Tammy home alone to grade homework. We took our time, first Wal*Mart, then Sam's Club, and finally PetCo. Cordy was excited to go see the animals. They had a beautiful short-hair black cat named Venus who I wanted to adopt the second I saw her (as I always do when I see cats in cages). They had their usual stock of bunnies (both floppy and non-floppy varieties), ferrets, fish, birds, and rodentia. While we were admiring the little white mice, we got to watch a treat. I crack up every time I watch this.

Enjoy!

Ahh, My Child, the Prodigious Wonder

Cordelia has loved music from the moment she was born. The first song she ever heard was Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer, sung to her when she was but a day old by her daddy in and attempt to calm her down. And it worked. Since then she has seemed to have an affinity for music, and is drawn to pianos and piano-like instruments (such as organs and her little-tyke piano-xylophone thingy).

Last week at church, Cordy and I were tracking down Tammy who was still in the Young Women's room (for anybody who is unfamiliar with the LDS church, "Young Women" refers to girls ages 12-17, so the "Young Women's" room is not the lavatory, it's just a room where the young women meet). I opened the door and Cordelia pushed through and climbed right up onto the bench and started plunking away. I pulled out my camera-phone and took the following vid.

Various Cordelia Vids

This is a catch-up video blog. Lots of vids of Cordelia doing cute things (as defined by her parents).

While video chatting with Grandma Gwen, Cordelia wanted to spin, so I was spinning her. Argos decided he wanted to spin too, so up he jumped. It was cute and all was fun, until...

Went to the fair with my dad, my brother Shän, and his family. That's my niece climbing up the tire.

There were a couple of other nice videos that I was going to put up here, but they were too big. Maybe if I get brave some day and resize them I'll post them, but for now these two will do for this blog.

App-O!

The other day, I was in the backyard playing frisbee with Argos and Cordelia, when Cordy found a freshly fallen apple. She picked it up, despite my assurances of “It's yucky! Ick!” and requests for her to put it down. She brought it right over to me and said, clear as day, “App-o.”

Excited, I asked her if she wanted to eat an apple, and she nodded approvingly. So we went inside, I grabbed a nice crisp Gala apple off the counter and handed it to her, while my video recorder initialized on my phone. The following video is what happened next.

Yardwork

A month or so ago, I was raking up apples that had fallen from our two backyard apple trees, and Cordelia wanted to be outside with daddy. She's a great help around the yard, and has been all summer. Earlier in the season when I was uprooting dandelions, she helped by taking freshly popped weeds and depositing them in the pile of weeds next to the green-waste bin (which had strangely gotten further and further away as I picked and dug and pulled). So, since I knew how much she loved to help, and since we have a rake that is just-her-size (it's for raking small areas, like flower beds, I believe), I got it out for her and she went to work.