Wherein I’m no longer wearing a winter hat but am waving a flag
The storms on Sunday were quite intense. We were driving down to my parents in Elgin to have a Memorial Day party and were caught in some of the most intense rain I've been in in many years. Streets were flooded, ditches were running over the tops of roads, dogs and cats were living together, mass hysteria. Or maybe it was just a lot of rain, lightning, and thunder.
Anyway, the quick jump to 90 deg yesterday was nice. A bit hot when mowing the lawn but I'll take it over having to wear winter clothes at the end of May.
We all went to the Crystal Lake Memorial Day parade yesterday. That was a lot of fun. Pretty short but, for Nate and Lily, just the right length. We parked in the train station parking lot and literally walked 10 feet forward to put our chairs in the shade right along the parade route. We brought water and snacks but still, I walked down the street to get popcorn from Pop's Corn Crib (a CL staple). I bought flags for the kids to wave [which lasted for all of 2 minutes 
]. Three marching bands, lots and lots of Cub and Boy Scouts, veterans, and police and fire. Lily was not sure what to make of it all and just stared and stared; Nate was pretty good but was a little intimidated by the loudness of the marching band so hung back a bit.
Looks like the warm weather should stick with us for this week. Hopefully that will translate into productive play (and some yard work) in the evenings.
unlocked
I'm happy to have left LiveJournal for regular posting. But I miss one features: friends-only posting. The only way to do that on my blog would be to provide people with their own usernames and passwords, which is just silly.
So this summer, which has been difficult, has seen a number of draft posts written and discarded for just such a reason. (This is really why I've not been updating the blog...because I can't figure out how to say what it is that I want to say.)
And now, despite the difficulties we've had, I don't want summer to be over. I am not ready for fall. I need more time in shorts; more time at a pool or at a beach; more time being warm. I definitely need more time to visit with people. (It's only slightly ironic that I completely forgot about Valpo's homecoming this weekend. 
)
But fall is here. Schools are in session. Lives are busy. The autumnal equinox was this week and the days are already so much shorter. As a result outdoor evening activities are becoming less and less frequent. I just feel like I'm losing time while losing the light.
So it goes.
warmth
It's not always easy, commuting for more than two and a half hours a day. That's a lot of time spent away from home; away from family; away from what I want to be doing.
So, while Nate and I were outside in the twilight of the evening, enjoying the campfire we put together in the backyard, I was able to reflect a bit on what living where we do provides for us. I'm happy at and in my home; warts, responsibilities, commutes, campfires, and all.
Summer
There is a specific type of sadness in the cricket's call. It sounds, to me, more like a lament than a mating call.
The nights are growing longer and cooler and Summer is ending.
Expansion
The major north/south road to our neighborhood is loaded with construction this summer (and next) but this is a good thing.
Not only are they putting in turn lanes and lights at much needed locations, they’re also building a bike path from, essentially, the high school to Veterans Acres Park. Which means we’ll (eventually) be able to ride our bikes on neighborhood roads almost the entire way to the park with only a short section of a “can-be-busy” road to ride on.
But it’s a bit of a ways off...not until next summer will the bike path be ready, baring any more delays from weather or labor disputes.
The one down side to all this construction was the need to remove a lot of trees along Walkup. Some of the trunks were easily 5 feet in diameter and the loss has removed a lot of shade and beauty from the roadway. So, that’s a bummer. Maybe they’ll plant some new trees along the bike path (one can hope).
Overall progress can be tracked on the construction project’s website:
http://www.walkuproad.info/
How to test your back
There are many things one can do to test your back, but my method this weekend was to seal coat the driveway.
The cost of hiring someone is about equal to buying the seal coat myself but there's an advantage: the quality of the seal coat I purchase is much higher. Thus it's longer lasting and more durable. In fact, it was looking like I would be able to do it for /less/ because the quality seal coat was going further (thanks to last years application).
However, the township tore up about a quarter of our driveway late last fall (to install storm drains) and so I ended up using all the buckets I purchased. (As new asphalt tends to require a lot more seal coat.) Still, I came out of it with a better protected driveway and only a sore back, and legs, and arms, and neck and....
Er...Well, I came out ahead and that's the story I'm sticking with.
clean break
Yesterday I spent a rare day out of the office and in the field, as it were. It was actually a rail yard and therefore mostly gravel and broken pavement and dust and wind.
I was there to film a safety video and it was difficult and hot but overall good. I don't spend many days wearing safety boots and a hard-hat and safety glasses but at least I was wearing jeans and a short sleeve shirt and not a tie.
An added bonus of the day was that we finished up a little early and I was able to make it home earlier than normal. 
helloheather suggested we head out to a community water park and we left a few minutes after I arrived home.
So, it is only a little ironic that, part-way through our fun time at the water park, I broke one of my toes. It would have been more ironic if I had broken a toe after filming all day about safety at water parks, (which I hadn't been) but still. Broken toe thanks to an underwater obstruction that I didn't anticipate.
I didn't go to the hospital or doctor, because nothing can be done with a broken toe (unless it's your big one and this isn't). So, I wasn't going to wait hours of my time and a co-pay for someone to tell me 1. yes it's already broken and 2. the only thing you can do is tape it to another toe. I already know what a broken toe looks like (having broken one on my other foot a few years ago through an even MORE IRONIC SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES).
So, I taped it to another toe and am now hobbling around. I didn't let the injury ruin my time at the water park though. Nate had a blast and so did we. It was a really great way to end the day.
Nathan at Three
I've been struggling with what to say to describe Nate at three years of age. I read through "Nathan at Two" and was intimidated by my own post. I really like it; it was written from the heart and with very little editing. The words swept onto the page.
We've had a busy late spring/summer. It's been difficult to sit down for a bit and contemplate his 3rd year.
Nate is three years-old now. When I think about his first few weeks after his birth I can't help but think of the blooming of the hostas in our yard. I think about, of all things, the All Star Game and the night I sat watching the tv with him, fast asleep, on a pillow on my lap, the sun setting behind our linden tree and the warm air skittering in through the open patio door. He was so small...so fragile...and I was so afraid.
And now, as the hostas again are blooming, he sits and reads books with us. Now he asks question after question after question to the point where he has so much momentum going that he'll ask us things like "what's 'milk' means?" even though he has been drinking milk for two years. He is amazingly curious and perceptive. He knows, right away, when helloheather and I are starting to have an argument and does everything he can to stop it or distract us. It's sobering and sometimes frightens me to think of what else he has absorbed and is absorbing.
As most children his age, he pushes the boundaries. We try very hard to respond appropriately to these forays into freedom. We try to be firm but fair and we try to be instructive throughout. It's tough though and sometimes we fail. If nothing else, Nate keeps us on our toes.
His love for books continues unabated. We seem to run through these phases where I forget how much he loves to read and we end up playing cars or pirates or "chase me" or whatever game he wants and then have only time for a single book in the evening. So the pendulum will swing back and we'll end up reading a dozen books together and he'll ask questions the whole time through. He doesn't just sit there and have a book read to him...he participates and he is engaged.
He's figuring out the rules of this universe, and we're trying to figure him out as well. He's so enthusiastic that sometimes it takes my breath away. Happy Birthday, Nate.
lunch today
1. Sweet potato pie
2. Vegetable tempura
3. Sesame beef on a stick
4. Cumin-dusted fries with mango sauce
5. Fruiti de Basco sorbet
6. Water
summer solstice
Yesterday was the summer solstice and so we will receive one second less light than the day before. Tomorrow: 9 seconds. The march to the maximum rate of change at the equinox has begun.
Length of Day - 15h 16m - Tomorrow will be 0m 9s shorter
Source: http://www.wunderground.com/US/IL/Crystal_Lake.html
I always get a little melancholy around the summer solstice because it seems like I'm just getting into a summer stride when our evenings begin to peel away like that of the skin of an apple. Slowly as we revolve and rotate, the length of our day is stripped and discarded. And so I have striven to celebrate our summer solstice each year. I want to revel in the maximum amount of light afforded us on this day.
Sunday I was awake close to, but not at, sunrise in order to view (and photograph) the last event of this years Great Galena Balloon Race. The weather did not afford us much sunlight, however, and we had to make due.
After arriving home in the early afternoon, we hatched a plan to eat an early dinner and headed out to a CL institution: The Freeze. Nate had his very first ice cream cone last night and I think that is celebration enough. He enjoyed the ice cream and was amazed when I took a BITE of my cone. (He actually said "wow!" when I showed him what I had done.)
We followed up ice cream with a visit to Veteran's Acres for swings and playground equipment and a pond with various bull frogs, turtles, fish, ducks, and one confused goose (who seemed to treat a mated pair of ducks as friends, if not parents).
While we missed the actual sunset of solstice, this was a very successful solstice celebration.
Notes notes notes
- lots of people coming later this week. lots to do around the house. i should buy charcoal...and beer.
- swing set is finished (save the anchoring of the swing arm legs). i certainly could not have done it without the help of my father, and fathers-in-law, and nate. he helped by keeping us on task: "wait wait, you forgot the slide!!"
- moved rocks for a fire pit. hopefully we'll be able to try it out this weekend. lots of branches (some very dry, some green) to use up.
- having a new 1TB hard drive for photo and video storage has lifted a big bundle of stress. we have enough external storage for backups (for now) and should be set for a while.
- in a related note: i really need to do something about hellophotos.com. the load times are getting pretty long. i don't know if migrating to the latest version of the software is going to help...but the thought of migrating 11,000+ photos is daunting.
- 42 days from now we'll have the same amount of light during the day as we are having today. while i do enjoy celebrating the summer solstice, i'm also a little melancholy at the thought of the light beginning to retreat so soon. we're just now getting consistent warm temps...
- i've started using a twitter account (which updates facebook) to note positive things that have happened to me. i don't think it's going to last very long (by that i mean i'll get busy and find excuses to do other things than update twitter) but i hope that it combats some of the cynicism that has been hanging around my brain for far too long.
- somewhat ironically: i cannot keep up with the amount of information being thrown at me. between facebook, twitter, and flickr, i just can't keep up. this is not an aggregation issue, this is an absorption issue. for example: i have just finished watching the dvd's from season 1 of a canadian tv show called Intelligence. i could only tell you a couple of the characters names. the sub-plots fly like falling maple leaves in the fall. it's a good show and i like it...but i just don't have the capacity to absorb it all these days. so i don't try. the problem with this is the effect spills over to other areas of my life. i get so full that i don't remember important dates or items on my to-do list, let alone what my friends are up to.
- our anniversary is this weekend.
that is all...for now...
saying cheese
Packing up after the end of our Cousin's Camp-out weekend in July.
Nate saying "cheese!" in the most earnest way!
I know, I should be fixing cetan.org and posting all these wonderful (to me) archive finds there, but I'm lazy and this works...
Why is fall in such a hurry?
To go from our 90 deg days to highs of the upper 60's and low 70's, one might think that fall is in a rather big hurry to move in and start leaving her clothes sitting on the bathroom floor.
I'm not ready for such a commitment. I'd like a few more warm days please. This last winter was so very long, I'm not ready for jeans and long sleeve shirts yet. I feel like I'm just getting into a good groove of shorts and sandals. The fact that the sun is setting before 7:30 now is most distressing, please let me hang onto something of summer...
a tiny kick to the sinus
Being sick sucks. All three of us being sick at the same time sucks even more.
But being sick on a weekend like the one we just had? That's just cruel.