Still Here

I used to try to post every time we did something especially fun as a family and a lot of times in between, but I guess I've just been too busy LIVING to jot it all down lately, plus I'm still at a loss about Billy, and it makes posting about other things feel strange. However, today's odd morning discovery motivated me to share a little something.

I had a rough night/morning with Logan. He started playing games around 3:00 or 3:30 and continued, off and on, until about 5:30, at which time I finally couldn't take it any more and stumbled downstairs to make a bottle. Of course by the time I made it back upstairs he was wide awake and ready to start the day. I changed him and talked to him quietly, but he really just wanted me to hold him up so that he was standing, and I was SO TIRED. By 6:00 or 6:30 he was wailing again (the bottle was NOT his desire), and I was so out of it that I just held him on my shoulder and patted his back even though it clearly wasn't helping. I was turning into a zombie.

Before I go on, let me make an important note that Brian did help by taking Logan at one point. He also comforted Gabe, who screamed repeatedly at peak volume after I woke him up by stopping by the bathroom on my quest for a bottle.

I finally dragged us both downstairs around 6:45 or 7:00 and buttered some blueberry muffins for Tommy and Gabe. Once I, myself, had a half a muffin and a cup of decaf I started to feel much better. As I opened the front door for Tommy and said goodbye I took a moment to ponder the joy that comes with spring; even the rain couldn't get me down when the birds were chirping. I was completely over my early morning struggles and thought it was a great start to my day--and to my week.

A few minutes later, Brian uttered some sound of surprise and concern in the kitchen. I thought either something important had broken... or maybe we had a mouse(?) He told me to come and then directed me to look out the window. I took about half of a second to spot the gaping hole in the middle of our back yard. I believe my exact words were, "Umm... huh. That can't be good." The look on Brian's face agreed. He left his water to boil and stepped outside long enough to take a peek.

He didn't see much, but the hole wasn't terribly far from our septic tank and sat right over our leach field, so we called a septic company to take a look. I later watched a man climb down into the hole and poke at the deepest areas with his foot. He said it was dry and didn't smell, so it probably wasn't due to anything emergent and we should be safe to just fill it in without further worry, though we may want to just lift up some of the fallen sod to check underneath first.

Brian stopped by Lowe's on his way home and picked up a whole bunch of little orange flags, so our back yard is very... bright now! I'm just glad no one was in the back yard when it sunk, and I'm happy that it didn't happen in the front yard, as there were many kids out playing this afternoon, as there are just about every day.

Our neighbor's cat seemed to have a pretty good handle on things today though. He guarded the hole for quite some time, and when he finally did leave his post he slowly circled the perimeter of our yard and jumped up on the fence in the far corner to survey the entire area.

Yes, I was easily amused.

The hole will be filled in as soon as we can do so. In the mean time, I'm just hoping it doesn't sink in any more.

As for my lack of posting about so many other goings on, I can only offer one suggestion: take a look at my photo blog. You may want to ignore some of the extremely odd and/or boring photos; taking at least one photo every single day has found its way of making me a little bit crazy at times. ...Most of the time it's no problem for me; as you all know, I'm picture crazy anyway. However, when I am all settled under the covers at 11:40 PM and then look over at the clock and meet the sudden realization that I did not actually take any photos yet this day, I have a momentary panic, and then I find myself wondering what kind of numskull I am to be that committed to what may be a really silly idea in the first place. Yet day in and day out I continue on with my plan. I admit to have slipped twice. Both days I didn't have any good ideas, but I knew what my backup plan would be, so the following day I just photographed what I was going to photograph the day before, in no special light or anything, as I figure by this point I haven't had a chance to really make this a true photography lesson anyway. Instead the photos I take now will help me look back at all that happened over the course of 2010 for my family.

I have to say that on the first day that I missed my goal I was disappointed, but the second time I just accepted it. I decided that I would still continue on, however, and put my best foot forward. That said, on those nights when I do sneak back downstairs at 11:45 to snap a picture in the dark, my pictures end up turning into strange editing projects the following day, some of which I actually have quite a bit of fun with... others not so much. Those "not so much" photos really just make me feel like a freak, but the fun ones are somehow worth it. :) Ah, the oh-so-unimportant stuff I obsess over! I think it's time for bed.

Until next time.