cookbook is not done…

It’s close to the end of this year and we’ve been busy with Owen.  I’ve also done a lot on creating a multi-user online jigsaw puzzle.  Hmm… wasn’t I suppose to be making a cookbook?  I think I started creating software to manage the cookbook and somehow made a puzzle instead!  Oops.  Well, we’ve got one more month to go to put together a cookbook…

Owen

Owen, a set on Flickr.

Although this year we are putting together a cookbook. We kinda have our hands full with this little guy.

Not a year in review

hmm… last day of this year. I suppose I could go into some kindof review or something. But, I do that enough already. I’ll just try to draw a picture of now and then cycle back a little.

Typing this entry while sitting on a wood chair which is at a table that my monitor and keyboard are on. Also on this table is my newly acquired powerbook, and a half eaten pumpkin pie with a mug of hot chocolate. I’m in the midst of figuring out a good way to keep multiple computers that I use to be synced up. I’m also trying to setup some kind of system to back things up better. Namely all the pictures Carla and I have taken in the past. Last night I organized them into directories for each year. I’d like to filter through them and maybe mark the ones that are worth saving…

Carla worked last night, and I froze in bed without her. Our place is pretty cold without the gas heater going, but can’t really leave it on since there is no thermostat. After not getting much sleep cause my feet never seemed to warm up under the covers; I finally found out that one of the blankets weren’t covering my feet. After that I slept a little better.
My goal last night was to get things more organized on my computer… err computers. I thought I’d try google’s Picasa program out thinking that it would solve all my picture problems. It’s not for me. There are a lot of cool things about how it does things, but not the way I’d want them done. Maybe I’m just use to managing pictures the old fashioned way. Before using Picasa, I started to import some pictures using the powerbook which had a newer version of iPhoto on it. I haven’t used iPhoto for a long time. I kept looking for the simple things it did before, but got real frustrated when after I imported the photos; they put your photos in a single file called the iPhoto library or something like that. Now, I’m sure I could have opened up this library thing of theirs and got to the original photos, but I’m so displeased at the direction that apple is taking that I just quickly figured out how to export them into another directory of my choosing. Apple is a big company and therefore evil.

So, aside from the fact that I don’t like ‘user friendly’ apps to help me manage my picture problem. I think this past year we’ve gained much in a lot of things. And since I like to be so different I’m not going to do a “year in review”. Hah!

Tonight I’ll drink beer. Next year should be even more interesting!

quick summary for the past few months

(I actually had a different subject, but my blogging app was a bit dusty since I moved my stuff to a new computer. Luckily I’ve learned my lesson about saving files before sending them off. Of course I don’t spellcheck, that’s for wimps.)
Of course a lot has changed since my last post. With each day things progressivly change, but I think I might have missed writing about these small changes. hmm. There was one day that things changed a lot. That day we found out that we were pregnant. I mean the previous days leading up to it, we thought maybe… but on that day with the test showing it. Yeah, lots have changed since then.
One thing I noticed is I haven’t made any blog posts since. Oops. Not sure why I didn’t. Maybe I just had a lot on my mind, or I wanted more time to reflect? Anyways, I’m trying to get back in the habit of writing about our experiences about this year. It’s been a crazy year for sure.
We started off this year quitting our jobs, moving to Wyoming with just a few of our items we could fit in Van. Working on a farm and living in a trailer. Then suddenly thinking: hmm… we are having a baby and need to, uhh, retire from our early retirement. So, off to Oregon to find jobs. Didn’t find any jobs in and around Portland, so decided to move back to Salt Lake.
Now we have both found work at our old companies we left. Carla and I are taking “Baby Comes Out” classes and are doing what we can to prepare for the new baby.
Funny, how we went from learning a lot about farms and gardening with organic methods to learning about how to have a baby naturally. I knew I didn’t know much about pregnancy, but it’s really surprising about how much most people don’t know. It’s like how we first became not so ignorant about the fact about where all the supermarket food comes from.
Well, that’s a quick update summary for the past, uhh, six months? Ack. Uhm, no one really reads this, right? Perhaps in the near future I will have more posts that might go into detail a bit more. Maybe the posts will be entertaining… maybe they’ll have pictures? At least I named the blog correctly: Each New Year I get all excited about writing in the blog and slowly write less often as the months go by. No, just kidding. This new year we will continue our tradition of rolling the dice. The things we choose will be less life changing as last year since we have a bit more responsibility. It’s a good tradition and I hope to continue this.

Learning is fun

Today, we are starting a bit earlier to get more stuff planted across the creek. Yesterday we planted a bunch of stuff over there and in the afternoon both of us were a bit more sunburnt. Silly us, we should have thought to bring some sun protection. I think my nose got the brunt of it, tho. My right knee was also a bit sore after yesterday from squatting down and moving from one plant to the next. It was either do that, or bend over while standing which can really kill your back. I guess we should do more stretches and stuff through out the day.
I view all this that we are doing as a great learning experience. Everything from how to move around the plants without killing yourself to the rather unknown science of how plants live. Oh, and in my free time when we aren’t creating our own meals or watching episodes of “Lost”, I spend trying to figure out and test my web framework I’ve been developing. So, I guess I’ve managed to keep busy doing lots of stuff.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this post. I just wanted to link to this other blog that I’ve been following: “Coding Horror”. It’s an interesting post about what motivates us. Well, the post links to the author’s site where he sells a book about the subject. I watched the 10 min whiteboard video and it was pretty entertaining. If you have nothing else better to do, I would suggest watching it.
Well, anyways, time to do stuff and ya know learn a few things in the process as well as get really cool tan lines.

Oh, I just looked back at my post and noticed I said “rather unknown science of how plants live” and thought I should probably explain myself better.
I don’t think humans will ever know everything there is to know about plants. I think we just know that if we do “A” then “B” happens. Like, if we plant it at this time with a plastic mulch layer, and then continue to water, weed around it, and then manage to somehow control the bugs… We might just get the plant to make something that we can eat. Do we know exactly why this works? Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well, I don’t think it is. I also think there is always a better way of doing things, but then I come from a programmer background so of course there is always a better simpler solution to a problem. Hmm. I think I opened a can of worms. mmm worms.