At the end of the day I feel like this should be yet another “what a busy day” post. Jennifer is vaccuuming up sawdust in the bedroom. There are power tools strewn about the garage. Jen and I are both tired, and Anna is asleep. Let’s try to reconstruct this.

Last night I was working on a project for work which kept me up after midnight. Anna came in at 6:35 as usual, but Jen and I had both been awake already for a few minutes. While the girls went downstairs for breakfast, I set up in the garage to rip the remaining boards for my office floor, and cut 1×4 boards to hang up Jennifer’s cabinets in the bedroom for her new desk. After the floor was finished (except for the baseboards, which I’ll hopefully finish next week after a fine blade for my miter saw shows up), I started hanging the cabinets. It’s 10pm now, and we just finished. What a pain in the butt.

Jen spent the middle the of day helping out with the Kidsville promotion at North County Fair. Sounds like it was a complete success; I bet they’re going to very well. Either Jen or I will be down there again tomorrow.

Anna has entered a very amusing stage in her development. Last night, C. came over to babysit while we went to see The Bourne Supremacy (two thumbs up). Before we left, Anna, who was a little apprehensive about seeing us leave, told C., “Tomorrow I’m going to the mall and you won’t see me, ha ha ha!” This morning she said a similar thing to Auntie K. on the phone. Officially, we don’t approve of such behavior, but it’s pretty funny to see a three-year-old snubbing her elders.

This evening as I was getting her ready for bed, she kept saying “Knee how!” and flopping down on her knees, head down and hands stretched in front of her. I was mighty confused, especially because she wanted me to do it too. It turns out that “Ni hao” is Chinese for “Hello.” The things you learn from your kids.

Yesterday, I managed to ride to work and back, including a stop to pick up Anna on the way home. On Tuesday, I brought the bicycle trailer, my clothes, and Anna’s helmet to work and left them all in my cube. Wednesday morning, I rode to work. Although I felt like I was riding sort of slow, I ended up five minutes faster than normal. The way home was more challenging. I rode over to M.’s and picked up Anna. At first she was excited, and she didn’t even complain when I stood up to climb the first hill–a 10% grade. We then rode less than a mile before complaints of “I’m not comfortable!” and “I can’t see!” erupted from the rear. After a short stop her helmet was adjusted. The middle part of the ride is, thankfully, downhill, and few complaints were heard. When I came to the dreaded hill on Carmel Mountain road, we had to stop for:

• helmet adjustment
• an ambulance passing by
• helmet adjustment
• general reassurance
• helmet adjustment

This does not make for an easy climb. Finally, on the home stretch we only needed to stop a couple times, but the poor condition of the bike lane made for a somewhat worrisome ride.

In the end, it took nearly an hour to ride home, but I proved it can be done. Next time I believe I’ll have to trade out the snacks and books for the DVD player. We’ll see how many complaints I get then.

We currently have enough furniture in the garage for another bedroom. There is a desk, two large dressers, a small dresser, two hutches, three bookcases, a table and two chairs… all waiting to go out. Plus, there’s a bunch of new Ikea furniture waiting to come in.

Anna’s new room is just about ready for move-in. The smell of new paint (pink) is almost gone, and all the furniture is out.

I took Anna for a ride in the new bike trailer. It makes hill climbing pretty challenging, especially because she doesn’t like it when I stand up. I’m trying to decide if I want to ride to and from work today.

What a busy day. I took the day off from work in order to install the new floor in my office that I had been intending to install last weekend (see previous entries). With my nifty fearsome new saw, I made quick work of the floor. At 9am, the room was carpeted, and at 4pm, ta-da, there was wood on the floor. The only work that remains to be done are a few boards on the edge for which I will need to borrow use of a table saw, and the moldings, for which I’ll need to borrow a nail gun.

I managed to leave my computer desk in the room throughout the process, which was nice because I could play the morning’s recording of Dave, Shelly, & Chainsaw, my beloved radio show. After the floor was in, I moved in some of the big pieces of gear which have been sitting in the garage and family room all week. Now I just have to go through a ton of junk in the the garage, and sort it back into the room.

After dinner, Anna and I put together a new bike trailer I bought last night so that she can accompany me on bike rides. We’ll try it out in the morning after gymnastics. It should be a good way for me to get some exercise while giving Jen some time off.

Current status: sitting in the “back office” (backyard), wireless, enjoying adult beverage.

After spending most of the morning ensuring that my backyard adirondack chair did not suddenly fly upward into the cloudless Southern California sky, I decided to go out and run some errands. Actually, “errands” doesn’t seem like the right word, as it implies a level of productivity and effort that I was simply not up for. What ended up happening is that I went to the Container Store and wandered around looking for things for my office. I soon bought some drawers on casters, some bins on casters, and some bins without casters. Hopefully this will allow me to have some amount of reconfigurability for the new office/guest room. One good thing about driving a small sedan is that it imposes a more significant limitation on one’s spending than does a credit card.

On the way back I stopped at Net Carbs for a “Snickers” smoothie and a bag of the new low-carb Chee-tos “Edge”. While I was in Poway, I stopped in for other favorite low-carb store, Bisher’s Meat, for a steak and some habanero chicken. Finally, I stopped at the grocery store for the ATM, milk, ice cream, and beer. How’s that for a bachelor diet?

Current status: reclining, out of doors, blogging, drinking beer, and eating Chee-tos.

Update: went back in for a sandwich and another beer. Upon sitting, spilled beer. Maybe I can install a cupholder on this thing.

What a day. Thursday I drove Anna and Jennifer to the airport, then came back to start moving furniture for the painters who were coming Friday morning. Actually, the furniture wasn’t so bad, it was all the little stuff. We have lots of little stuff. Actually we have LOTS of little stuff. I emptied the entertainment center, the breakfast bar, the master bathroom, the guest bedroom closet, and the family room shelves. I moved plants, disassembled the entertainment center, took down baby gates and pictures (photographing their locations first). In the morning I started my office and filled four 30-gallon garbage bags with stuff that I plan to sort through later, after the floor is done in there. Then I went to work for the morning followed by the lab picnic. I’m really tired, but feeling better after a little nap. Tomorrow the painters come again, and I’m guessing they’ll be done by the end of the day. I still have to figure out my plans for tomorrow–they’ll be painting my office, so there’s probably not much to do there, but I guess I can sort through some of the junk in the garage, and buy some of the stuff I need to do the floor–leveling compound, a trowel… maybe some sort of scraper to try to get everything level in there. I wonder how easily the tack strips from the carpet will come up? Also, I should go to the Container Store or Ikea to get some rolling drawers for storage in there. Hopefully Sunday I can get started on the floor, but if I have to do much levelling I’ll probably have to let it dry overnight. Monday I may or may not work depending on how Sunday goes. I’m tired already. Again.

As for the painting, the living room, hallways, and dining room are just about done. The colors seem lighter than I thought they would be, but still contrasty enough that the moldings will look nice… just enough to stand out and make them look like real trim. I may have to re-trim the door frames eventually, though, once I get the hang of doing the moldings. The dining room looks very smart, I’m sure it’s going to look even better once I get the curtains and pictures back up.

Today at lunch I played the most satisfying games of volleyball that I’ve had in a long time. For once, I felt like I could pass, set, hit, dig, and serve at a decent level. I’ve now been playing 2-4 times a week for the last 4-5 months, and I beginning to feel like I’m getting somewhere. Now I just have to work on my shoulder strength so that I can continue to hit without worsening my shoulder injury.

Today I took Anna to her gymnastics class. Normally, Jennifer takes her on a different day, but since she’s going to miss the next class, she was able to go today as a make-up. At first, she was reluctant to join the group, refusing to be part of the toddler train to the first station, but the instructor gently led her along. For the first several minutes, the class literally revolved around her, as though she was anchored in place, and the other children held hands, stretched, and mimicked the instructor while she stood, unmoving.

Soon, she began to imitate the instructor as well, and the warm up station came to a close. Each child picked up his or her carpet square, and followed the instructor. Anna picked up her carpet square and began scanning the parent’s seats, looking for me. I flashed her the I love you sign, and she perked right up and skipped off to the next station.

For the next half hour, the toddlers did somersaults, climbed, jumped, hung from bars, and pranced across balance beams. The balance beam part was my absolute favorite–a three-year-old striding regally across a balance beam on pointed toe is simply the height of toddler charm.

I had the first chance to use my excellent new professional strobe that I bought with all of my birthday loot. My friend R.’s sister, Jennie, has a new low-carb store and needed some photos taken of her food. I brought my camera and strobe and some backdrops that I have been using for eBay product shots. Considering that I’ve never done this before, I’m really stoked that it turned out as well as it did–much better than I expected.

I did learn a couple things for next time around:

• Smoothies need to be poured directly into the bottom of the cup so that the chocolate lining doesn’t flow down the side of the cup.
• There’s something in the smoothies that gives it a grainy look. We might want to leave that out of the drink next time around.
• We need a more specular reflector to light the front side so that the chocolate syrup looks as glossy as possible.
• I should bring some nice glasses to make the smoothies in.
• I need a wider backdrop.

Here’s a rough transcript of a conversation with Anna at bedtime tonight:

Ok, I know that kids are growing up earlier and earlier these days, but I have to admit I wasn’t expecting the “where did I come from?” talk quite this early.

¹ The Greentail Mouse, an awful, preachy book that I don’t think is appropriate for children.