amazing

DRIVE!

For those of you waiting for your camera… I haven’t mailed them yet. Just a little bit of honesty for you. My 15th wedding anniversary was yesterday and I “lost” my glasses. (More on that in my next post.) But I’ll try to get them mailed by this weekend. 

While you’re waiting you need to head on over to my new favorite web comic: Drive. It’s an amazingly clever and absolutely brilliant comic by artist Dave Kellett. It’s an ongoing story, not a non-sequitur, so you really need to put on your nerd pants and start at the beginning. If you’re anything like me then you love humorous sci-fi stories set hundreds of years in the future. But don’t let me spoil it for you with spoilers. Click that link and settle in. 

  

How long will I love you

abouttime-hero

This is my absolute favorite song right now.  I can’t get it out of my head.  Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney and Ben Coleman cover it on the About Time soundtrack and I heard it for the first time when I watched the movie.  Since then I can’t stop listening to it, singing it, playing it on the piano.  Here are the lyrics and a couple different versions of it, including the original by The Waterboys and one by Ellie Goulding.

How long will I love you?
As long as there are stars above you
And longer if I can

How long will I need you?
As long as the seasons need to
Follow their plan

How long will I be with you?
As long as the sea is bound to
Wash upon the sand

How long will I want you?
As long as you want me to
And longer by far

How long will I hold you?
As long as your father told you
As long as you are

How long will I give to you?
As long as I live through you
However long you say

How long will I love you?
As long as stars are above you
And longer if I may

The Waterboys

Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney and Ben Coleman

Ellie Goulding

A Serious Condition

 

(That’s my husband on the right wearing the seriously ill scally cap. That’s his dad on the left with the seriously rad moustache.)

Today is Father’s Day.

Over twelve years ago, my husband Nick was afflicted with a strange condition that reshaped him and changed him into a new creature. The condition: fatherhood.  His new identity: father.

At first the symptoms were subtle, as my abdomen grew, no significant physical changes took place in him.  But after Meghan greeted us for the first time, the condition began to manifest itself in more pronounced ways.  At any given time, Nick could be seen rocking her to sleep or changing a diaper.  His speech patterns changed as he began making cutesy noises in the general direction of our infant.  Strange for a man in his twenties, enjoying the prime of his life.  But the condition had taken root and there was no known cure.

Over the years the condition has only worsened.  Consider these manifestations: getting kicked and peed on when our daughters went through their “climbing into our bed at night” stage, sleeping in uncomfortable hospital chairs when both of our daughters were hospitalized (at different times), missing out on events he wanted to go to because we had family stuff planned (and it was more important to him), swimming with our daughters (he hates to swim), watching cartoons almost every single day, working hard to make sure our diabetic daughter has never had a lapse in insurance coverage, eating the food Sammee makes for him, wearing jewelry that Meghan made for him, quitting his recording studio to spend more time with his family, spending copious amounts of money on special curriculum for our dyslexic daughters, enduring the pain of stepping on beads time and again to support his daughters growing jewelry making enterprise, listening to Let It Go way too many times to count, dressing up in costume every single Halloween simply because his daughters asked him to, and the list goes on.  Seriously, I could go on forever.

I’ve seen fatherhood change my husband in many ways.  He is more gentle, more patient, full of humility and kindness.  Being a father has left him more sensitive to the needs of others and made him a better listener.  Fatherhood has caused him to be more self-less, investing time in others that he could be investing in himself.  He is interested in learning and improving himself as well as teaching others and helping them to improve as well.

Though I doubt scientists will find a cure for this affliction any time soon, I sincerely hope they never do.  Sure you can avoid the affects of this condition if you stay far away from your offspring or if you actively try to remain selfish and ridiculous.  But really, why would you?  As far as I can see, becoming a father is one of the best things that has ever happened to my husband in his entire life.  I’m proud to call him the father of my children.

The Funny, Little Elf and The Ghost

It’s story cube time again in school, my friends. If you enjoy a good tale made up of random ideas drawn from 9 picture die and told by an 11 year old and an 8 year old (with the help of their clever mother), then this is the story for you.

I now present to you: The Funny, Little Elf and The Ghost

Once upon a time, there was a mysterious lock… on a door… in a house. No one knew what the lock went to.  It was magical.  Now, there was a funny little elf.  This elf would take his funny little elf bike and ride around the neighborhood until one day he saw a new house.  It was mysterious and weird to him because he knew all the houses in the neighborhood, he knew everyone in the neighborhood and he knew everything about the neighborhood.  He went up to this mysterious, new house and knocked on the door.  When no one answered right away, he tapped his foot loudly and huffed then knocked impatiently, even louder.  Suddenly, a ghost answered the door and went “Bbblllllbblblblbllll!!!”  The elf jumped practically out of his skin!  He was confused by all this and annoyed but mostly confused.

He went home to ponder the meaning of it all.  He pulled out this lucky abacus.  It always gave him the correct answers to the most difficult math questions so he was sure it could help him solve the mystery of the new house with the magical lock.  He stared at the abacus for days.  Finally, he knew what to do.  The abacus told him to fly a rocket up into space and look down on the earth and say, “What’s wrong with you world?”  He had to do this because the abacus told him to.

When he came back down to earth from space, he landed on his house (with a mouse in it) and crushed both the house and the mouse.  (It was a sad day for the mouse’s family.)  He was extremely mad about all this so he found a tree with a large tree trunk, big enough carve an entirely new house out of the trunk.  He decided to live in the tree from then on.

However, while all this was fun, it still hadn’t helped him solve the mystery of the house with the magical lock.  He knew he needed to look for clues.  So he dressed in his very best Sherlock Holmes costume and began to search the neighborhood for clues that would tell him the secret of the house.

First, he talked with a tree that had a face.  The tree said, “Bblbllblblblblblbl!”  The elf replied, “Oogie, oogie, oogie.”  To which the tree said, “Well, sir, I don’t know anything about the house other than that there is an old man living in the house that died yesterday!”  At this the tree used his mighty branches to push the elf down into a mud puddle.  Now, the elf’s feet were ever so dirty, as well as the rest of him, but mostly his feet.  He went to go wash off his dirty feet and happened to find some footprints… covered in gold!  He picked up the golden footprints and made millions of dollars.

With his newfound wealth, he hired the world’s best living detective, Batman.  Batman called the Justice League and they all went over to the mysterious house to solve the mystery.  What they found has astounded everyone who has heard this tale. They found a….

And then the funny little elf, grew to be an old man.  He never told anyone what they found.  But he did move into the house and had lots of girly tea parties with the ghost.

The End.