The 43

You want something to disappear forever? Talk to my 3-year-old. Littlest found the case storing the third season of 30 Rock, which I took out of the library; took a disc out, and placed it somewhere we can't find. We know it was him because he took another one out today, even though I put it somewhere else. We have a few days to find it, but I'm thinking we're buying the library a new DVD. Today, I turned the oven on to warm up some taco shells, eventually opened it up to find something orange and plastic melting in it. Later on, Littlest comes to the oven, looks inside and says "Hey, it's gone!" We think it was a Tinker Toy. Aside from our concern about him opening up the oven ... it just shows that he's relocating things into odd spaces. At least I didn't see a melted DVD as well ...

Today at Littlest's co-op preschool, I was the snack parent. Normally, that entails bringing and preparing an easy snack. Today, instead, I was directed to make pancakes. It was Pajama Day for the kids, and to coincide, Littlest's teacher planned pancakes to be made by the snack parent, which today, was me. I hadn't made pancakes in years, but they didn't turn out too badly. There was no cooking spray for the griddle, but oddly, my pancakes didn't start sticking until the fourth batch. Other than that glitch and the fact I might have used the green scratchy side of the sponge to clean the pan (who knew -- aren't griddles made tougher? -- but I don't think I scratched it that much), everything turned out all right. I should try to make pancakes at home sometime ... and let someone else clean the griddle. (FYI, Pajama Day was successful except that Littlest didn't want to wear PJs this morning. I couldn't figure out why. Eldest had a PJ Day last month ...

No flashbacks tonight. No resolutions to share. No reflections on the past or the future. I'm just enjoying an easy night, waiting for midnight, doing some iTunes maintenance, and maybe having a beer later. Everyone else is asleep, though I might wake Wife up at midnight. All that said, Happy New Year! Bring on 2010.

I declared this to Wife a few days ago, and I'm reiterating it for everyone else -- this decade that is coming to a close was officially a blur. What brought the blur into focus was remembering working the night of Y2K -- 10 years ago. It doesn't seem that long ago. So what blurred this decade so brilliantly? Kids? 30s? Just being busier, trying to get through every day, week and month that we don't appreciate each day, week and month? I'm not sure. I just know the 1970s, '80s and '90s didn't zoom like this. Twenty years ago, celebrating New Year's Eve with some friends, I tried to explain the significance of the 1980s to them, each of whom were born in or around 1970. I wanted to explain how we defined ourselves by the previous 10 years, and how the '80s were what we knew best. Unfortunately, after several beverages, I didn't make as much sense as I wanted, starting off by saying "The last decade lasted 10 years ..." Twenty years later...

Yes, it's almost been two months since my last post, but I had a good reason -- I wrote a novel. I participated in National Novel Writing Month , which challenges would-be writers to pen 50,000 words in November. After years off wanting to write something beyond a short story, and after a few mis-starts, I did it -- I wrote 50,000 words in the form of a complete short novel. I haven't yet to read anything I wrote, giving myself a little more time before I delve back into it. And I really don't think I wrote anything that interesting, but in a way, that's not the point. I wrote a fictional book, fulfilling a lifelong dream. So, last month I poured all my creative efforts into the novel and didn't blog here. I have no excuse for December, but at least I started again before the end of the decade. See you soon.

Yes, the title says it all, I'm annoyed with winter and it's still fall. It snowed here in the Salt Lake Valley yesterday, and was in the 30s again today. Yes, it's supposed to warm up and feel like Utah autumn again, but the snow lost its novelty on me quickly, especially this morning when I had to brush the car off. I do like bundling up and going for walks when the weather is this brisk (and there is now snow to navigate -- fortunately, nothing really accumulated on the sidewalks), but that has been the only redeeming quality of this cold spell. That will wear off soon, too. I'm ready for next baseball season, even though this one hasn't finished (go Phillies, by the way).

Fall finally seemed to arrive in Salt Lake City. By this time each fall, I've already raked a few times, but this autumn was odd. The leaves weren't changing colors and falling off by mid-October. Well, just in the past few days, our maple turned red, our other tree's leaves went yellow, and suddenly, our lawn was full of leaves. I took the boys outside after dinner to rake, and in 10 minutes, we managed a big enough pile for Littlest to jump into. I don't mind raking every fall; in fact, I kind of look forward to it. I know some people curse their trees for the leaves, but I see it as the tradeoff -- the trees provide shade, scenery and oxygen, we rake in return. And, it's a nice sign of fall, even if it was a few weeks late.