Long December

It's been a quite a December so far. Cal finds new ways to amaze us with his development everyday, we just wish we could put together a few days of sleep. He's on quite a run of back-to-back illness, having just gotten over a nasty stomach virus that was going around and now moving on to a cough and cold. Add to that the teething and you've got some pretty rough nights for everybody. He still finds a way to be happy and smiling and he is beginning to "talk" more each day. We've also been trying to introduce food, but we having had much luck yet. So far we've tried squash, banana, applesauce, baby oatmeal and sticky rice. He did take a few teeny bites of squash but that was it. He seems to do best with self-feeding, rather than having the spoon in his face. We're going to keep at it and try to do some avocado next.
He really enjoyed meeting Santa for the first time this weekend, as you can see from the photo. I love how well he does around new faces, it seems like the more people he's around the more fun he has. If it wasn't so insanely cold I would like to take him out to a few stores in the stroller, he really enjoys that. I pushed him around Fleet Farm last weekend for a good hour and he didn't fuss once.
I'm excited for this last full week of work before the holidays. We've been extremely busy but I imagine it will all end around Friday. Ang and I have finished our shopping and plan to wrap everything this Saturday. We both are off work on Christmas Eve, so we plan to make Lefse that morning before heading over to my Dad's for dinner.
I've finished quite a few HTML/CSS online training exercises over the last few weeks. I've got my foot firmly in the door of website design, I just need to start building my portfolio page online when time allows.

UPDATE:
Cal took a few good spoons of sweet potato last night! He didn't do the usual "icky" face and gag, so I think we could be on to something. Still are going to try some avocado soon.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
Cal took a few good bits of avocado last night. He used his fingers and we fed him from our fingers. Improving every day!

The Best Laid Plans

I don't know what it is about the Fall, but every year around this time I get really inspired, reflect on my life and think about what changes I can make for the new year. This year I've decided to take the initiative towards adding HTML/CSS to my professional repertoire, possibly resulting in an eventual career change. I've been doing production, printing and graphic design for over 10 years now and I'm running out of real estate to move forward.

My first steps are to learn some of the basics via online courses (Code Academy, Lynda.com) and then plow through a few choice books that have been recommended. After I get my feet wet, I would like to build my own portfolio online, which will serve as both a learning tool for me and example of my capabilities to employers. Plans change and things are bound to come up, but I feel satisfied with my first steps and motivated get started ASAP.

I'm looking forward to a stay-cation next week, since I have Thursday - Monday off of work. The following Tuesday Cal goes in for his 6-month checkup, after which time we should have the green light to start introducing rice cereal and food - very exciting!

I had a great time at the Wild game last night with Kris, they continued their winning ways, beating Winnipeg 2-1. This year has been one of the only times I miss having cable to watch the games, but I just can't justify all that money to watch one channel.

I've still got quite a bit of Xmas shopping to do, I try to have most of it done by the end of November. This year might be the first time I don't have any video games on my wishlist, since I've all but retired from my Xbox and don't have any plans to buy a Xbox One or PS4. However, I still have all my Rock Band stuff and would like to host another party sometime, it's always a fun indoor winter activity. Maybe we can give Cal a tambourine?

I've Had Better

Hmm. Feeling tired and crappy during this lovely, rainy, cold and rotten week. Cal has been sick and not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time, for so long now I can't remember. Now I'm sick and Angie's sick too. The furnace at work was broke Monday - Wednesday, so I got to enjoy work + sick + freezing my ass off. Then, today I find out I'm no longer being considered for position I applied to. How nice of them to notify me on Halloween, would it have been too much trouble to wait until Friday? Oh, don't forget we get to turn back all the clocks Saturday night, so it's get dark at like 3pm now!

Looking on the bright side, in regards to karma, next week should be pretty damn awesome, considering all the bullshit that keeps piling on this week. See you then!

Crosby Sweaters

Just a quick post so I could upload the logo for my fantasy hockey team, the Crosby Sweaters. After a little confusion over goalie stats scoring in week one, the Sweaters bounced back in week two, lead by Sidney Crosby's hat trick.

It's a long season and anything can happen, but as Sidney can attest in the photo (above), when you look good you play good.

October, Meaning Awesome

Picked up a few materials last night for a small scale bathroom project. My dad and I are planning to replace the vanity, countertop, faucet and sconces in the main floor bathroom this Friday. I also bought two LED bulbs, and I must say, I'm really impressed so far with their performance. Yes, they cost $13 each, but the light they emit looks very bright and clean, they use a fraction of the energy of a conventional bulb and they are guaranteed to last 10 years. It's safe to say, I'll never waste my money on CFL bulbs again. This concludes my LED bulb rambling, thanks for listening.

The Wild kick off the season tonight, fall colors are in full swing and the Halloween decorations are going up, it's my favorite time of the year! I'm anxious to see how the younger Wild 2nd power play unit does this year, specifically newly acquired Nino Niederreiter. Not only does he have an awesome name, (they call him El Niño) and jersey number (22), he is Cal's favorite player. :)

Daycare Begins

This week is Cal's first week at daycare and so far it's going pretty good, based on the feedback from the staff and how he's slept in the evenings. Last night he actually slept from 9pm to 3:45pm, and he has been going back to sleep much easier after feedings since he started daycare. Angie is back at work, which is now a juggling act to find time to get everything done and pump etc. She is doing the drop off in the morning, while I'm doing the pickup after work. It's crazy how fast the time goes by, we get home, eat dinner, go for a walk and the next thing you know it's his bedtime.

While the Vikings continue their downward spiral, I look forward to the Wild season starting next week. It's going to be hard to watch games, but the Wild on the radio is better than the Vikings on TV. Work is pretty steady now, I'm thinking it will stay that way until the holidays.

This weekend we are making our annual trip to the Renaissance Festival with Jeremy and Kelly. I'm looking forward hanging out and having a few drinks, hopefully the weather cooperates. 

Too Hot To Trot

We are at the beginning of a week long heat wave, with temps expected to reach 100 degrees on Monday. Bad news for a couple of reasons - it's going to be a long week at work without air conditioning, and we can't take Cal for a walk or anything outside. All I have to do is make it to the weekend, and then we have nice weekend planned in Duluth. We plan to take Cal on his first road trip and stay at a hotel on Lake Superior. Hopefully it will be cooler, especially with the breeze coming off the water.

We hit the State Fair for a few hours yesterday, before it got uncomfortably hot. We ate some cheese curds, sunnies in a boat and finished with a twist cone from the dairy building. I snagged a nice pair of Minnesota Wild lounge pants (on clearance) at Fan Central, and a few other free goodies from the DNR building. We had planned on doing the Renaissance Festival this Saturday, but decided to push it back until late September when the temps are more fall-like.

Calvin & Jobbes

Cal is 7 weeks old today! It’s already amazing to look at pictures we took and see how much he’s grown. We now have a pretty good idea of what he likes, but more importantly, what he doesn’t like. Sleeping would have to be number one on the dislike list. He is capable of sleeping of more than two hours at a time, but for one reason or another he just doesn’t do it. Perhaps it’s the size of his stomach, gas, the temperature outside, or maybe the fact that he loves us so much he wants to stay awake. Either way, it’s something we hope will eventually work itself out in due time. In the meantime, he loves bath time and going places in the Baby Bjorn carrier, he eats like a champ and craves activity and stimulation. He just has a hard time being idle for long periods of time... who does that sound like? Angie is convinced she gave birth to me!

In other news, work is really dead. Ever since the week before the 4th there hasn’t been much to do around there. I continue to look for new employment opportunities, specifically a place that offers 401k match, annual performance evaluations, air conditioning, and a lunch room. Just today I applied at large format digital printing company near downtown St. Paul. The main problem is my job doesn’t have one universal title, it’s been classified as Printing, Desktop Publishing, Production, Graphic Design, Marketing, and everything else in between.

I’m really excited to go out fishing for the first time this season, and maybe even more excited that our friends Steve and Jess just picked up a small fishing boat! I recently purchased a new Shimano Citica baitcasting reel which I’m anxiously awaiting to arrive. I also picked up a new St. Croix medium casting rod to pair with the reel. Consider the fact that most of my xmas and birthday gifts from last year were fishing lures and you can see how anxious I am to get on the lake. Once my new rod and reel is setup, I was thinking about going down to the river to get it fine tuned, maybe even catch a fish or two in the process.

One Amazing Gal, One Amazing Cal

It's been over two weeks since our son was born, but the details of our special day have yet to be shared. It's hard to find the time lately to sit down and write, but it's friday, my boss is out of the office and it's almost quitting time, no better time than right now.

I remember being woken up by Angie at about 3am on May 28th. It had been roughly a day since we'd been in for a baby check-up, and we'd both gone to bed that night thinking labor could get serious at any moment. As it turned out, labor was getting serious for about three hours, but Angie was too nice to wake me up until now. She was having regular contractions about every 5-10 minutes, so I decided it was time to call our Doula, Jessica and let her know that things were happening. After laboring at home until about 5am, we both decided that it was time to get to hospital, before it became too uncomfortable.

We drove to hospital just as the sun was coming up, listening to classical radio and watching people go to work like any other day. I remember thinking that I wasn't that nervous, and Angie didn't seem visibly uncomfortable. Strangely, the only thing I was worried about was that Angie wouldn't be far enough along and we would be sent back home.

We arrived at the hospital in less than ten minutes, pulled up to the emergency entrance and slowly made our way to the birthing center (we both assumed the hospital would meet us with a wheelchair and assist us, but that didn't happen. Perhaps we looked like we had everything under control?).  After checking in, Angie was placed on a monitor and told to wait until a midwife could perform a check. Shortly after this, Jessica arrived and made Angie more comfortable while we waited. Good news! Angie was already dilated to 6 cm, the result of her many hours of uncomfortable labor at home. At this point, we moved to the labor room to continue the process.

The labor room consists of a fancy hospital bed, bathroom, and a whole bunch of medical equipment. In our case, it also came complete with a birthing tub, 2 nurses and 1 midwife. It was still early morning and we had just started what was going to be a very long day.

Although most of the labor has become foggy to me at this point, the strength, courage and calm that Angie showed me is impossible to forget. She labored in the birthing tub until the water was no longer hot, more times than I can remember. She walked in the hall, the pain stopping her in her tracks. She labored in the bed, in the bathroom, but no matter how much pain she felt she pushed through it. Throughout 12 hours of pain and uncertainty, without any intervention whatsoever, she pushed through everything. Unfortunately though, our baby just wasn't in the right position and we had explore other options.

The plan was to administer an epidural, in hopes that with the aid of pitocin, her "super-sized" contractions would allow things to move forward. That never happened. Our baby was sending us a message, something just wasn't right. Again, we had to explore other options.

Deciding to move forward with the cesarean was difficult. Angie and I were very emotional, it didn't seem like the ending she deserved, she who worked and fought and pushed through so much pain. Why couldn't she push now, when it mattered most? It's hard to describe the feeling we shared, but it felt like this wasn't what we planned and that somehow we had failed.

All of those feelings faded away the first time I heard our baby cry. He was finally here, and he was so beautiful. I remember I thought he had his mommy's eyes the first time I saw him. I still think that. I still think that in the end, our plans were just plans and we didn't fail. We experienced something we will never forget and were rewarded with a handsome little baby boy that we named Calvin Charles McDonald.

(more photos on my Flickr, which can be found on the right sidebar)

Busy Before Baby

We've finished the kitchen! It looks absolutely amazing and I can't wait to take some final pictures to share. I'm going to wait until we can do our spring cleaning and get everything all cleaned up. Big thanks goes out to Don, Linda and Jeff Amey for all their hard work, we couldn't have done it without you.

Tomorrow marks 5 weeks to go until Angie's due date. Last Sunday we got some great gifts and advice at her baby shower. Tonight we start baby classes, beginning with "Caring For Your Newborn" at Regions at 6:30pm. Friday and Saturday we have birthing classes, and we finish up with breastfeeding after that. It's getting real!

The weather continues to be a downer, hopefully we will be warming past 50 degrees by next week. I'd hate to tell our son "... we had snow on the ground in May the year you were born!" On the bright side, we are saving a lot of money, time and energy on the lawn.

Besides the warm-up, we are looking forward to a nice dinner on Saturday at Forepaugh's. I'm also excited to watch some playoff hockey, assuming the Wild stays the course and gets in. In the meantime, I'm working hard on my mug design entry again this year, which needs to be submitted by May 1st. It will take something pretty special to win two years in a row, but I'm doing my best to beat the odds.

Just Kickin' It

I was able to feel the baby kick for the first time the other night - very exciting! Angie is still doing great and In good spirits, even with the sub zero temperatures. We have our next check-up on Monday afternoon.

The Wild lost their first game last night, as they can't all be gold. I'm looking forward to watching another game on television this Sunday at 5pm. It looks like the temps will be back in the 30s by then, too.

This Saturday I'm painting the kitchen ceiling(s) and hopefully wrapping up the working-above-my-head portion of the remodel. At that point, I should be able to screw in the light bulbs and such. Don is coming over Sunday to nail up the tin we have planned for the recessed center portion.

We got sucked into watching "The Taste" on television last night. It's actually kind of interesting because the four judges conduct blind taste tests (like the voice with food) and then make a yes or no decision on that alone. The cook may be a seasoned professional or a home cook amateur, it's all about the food. Once the judges have selected their favorites and assembled a team (like the voice) the cooks are mentored and prepare new items. The twist is, during the next rounds of blind taste tests, the judges could eliminate members of their own team(s). It's a little over dramatic, but at least we get a food related show to entertain us without having cable.

2-0 and 10 Below

The Wild have started the shortened season with back to back wins, and Josh Harding posted a shutout last night in his first start since being diagnosed with MS. Even though the play is sloppy and the timing is a bit off (it's still early, no preseason this year) the team looks deeper than I've ever seen. I'll be interested to see how long the lines stay together before Yeo starts moving people and/or someone gets injured. My hope is the shortened season combined with the Wild's history of fast starts will get us into the playoffs.

It's freaking cold and it sucks. The low overnight tonight is -15, with the windchill we're talking closer to -30. I work in a large shop with huge, drafty garage doors and high ceilings. My co-worker and I have the heat cranked up to 75 but the thermostat still reads 64 in here. It usually warms up about the time I'm ready to go home at 4pm. At least this is my last full week of work, then I have next Friday off for ice fishing weekend.

Wild Wintery Weekend

I'm really looking forward to this weekend, which marks the start of the hockey season. Since we don't have cable (and have tickets to a play) for the opener, the first game I'm going to catch will be this Sunday versus Dallas. Hopefully the team can deliver and pull out a win or two, otherwise it's going to be a chilly start to the season. Literally. The high for Monday right now says -2 degrees. The high. Lows with the windchill are being forecast to -27 degrees. Welcome back Don and Linda!
The play we're going to tomorrow night at the Park Square is a musical entitled Johnny Baseball. Tomorrow is also officially "Hockey Day Minnesota" if you didn't already know. For me, it's more like prime and paint the kitchen ceiling day.
2 weeks and counting to ice fishing weekend in Wisconsin, really looking forward to getting on the lake again. A lot of my Xmas presents this year were fishing related and I'm anxious to try them out. Hopefully we're getting this cold weather out of the way now, so fishing won't be a deep freeze.

Favorite Books of 2012

Using Goodreads is not only fun, it's functional. It allows me to find books I'll actually like (unlike Amazon, which thinks because I've read one book on the Holocaust, I must want to read them all). It also lets me look back over the last year and pick out my favorites and list them here:


Band of Brothers
I loved the HBO mini-series and I loved the book. The series is more visceral and condensed, while the book is a little more subtle and sprawling. One of the reasons I enjoy it so much is the scope is one company, rather than an entire war.

We Were Soldiers
Another book made into a movie, however I must say the book is much more complete. The movie focuses on LZ X-ray only, completely leaving out what transpired later at LZ Albany. Although I may never fully understand the war in Vietnam, this book paints a very vivid picture of being dropped from a helicopter and immediately being surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soliders.

Into The Wild
It's not that the book is so amazing or the story is so inspiring, it's just a great book to contemplate the decisions and motivations of Christopher McCandless. I enjoy the complexity of the tale and sifting through the layers of the story (Survival, Society, Adventure, Companionship, Family, etc.)

Robbing The Bees
A biography of Honey and Bees. Purely fascinating. This is one of the books you find yourself repeating findings out loud, saying these like "did you know that bees..." etc. The book inspired me to take a community education class on beekeeping! While I'm not ready to start just yet, one day I will be and this book was the beginning.

Fully Loaded Thrillers
Collection of short stories by Blake Crouch. A great introduction to the author, very enjoyable fiction and all at a bargain price. Reminds me of "Creepshow" in the way the stories are short, engaging and somewhat macabre.


I've currently about 100 pages into Stephen King's 11/22/63 and it's fantastic, could have a possible nominee for 2013 in the making.

New Year Notes

2012 came and went with a fun night over at Jeremy and Kelly's. It will be the last New Year's we'll spend without the little guy around, as we just found out on Monday that we are having a boy! We weren't actually hoping either way, so the news was bound to be exciting. Everyone on both sides of the family was sure that we were going to have a girl.
We've made some good progress getting the nursery ready. We picked up a crib and dresser from IKEA, as shown here. We were also fortunate to get a Dutalier glider rocker (for free!) from Steve and Jess. For $50 bucks we bought some new cushions off Amazon and it will be as good as new.
Speaking of new, the kitchen remodel project is coming along nicely, too. I'm almost finished sanding the ceiling, I just need to touch up a few final spots. Perhaps this weekend I will be able to wipe it down and do the caulk and primer coat. We'll see, after all it's my birthday this Saturday. We're going out for dinner on Saturday night to Los Ocampo to celebrate. We've never been there before and figure it's worth giving it a try.
There won't be any more Vikings to watch this weekend, but starting next weekend (Jan 19th) we finally get to watch the Wild. It will be a shortened season at only 48 games, but at long last we can see the new, improved team take the ice for the first time. Lets Go Fellas!