"Christmas Time is Here"

So... tonight I'm at our house and doing the best that I can to pack things up.

In the midst of putting together all of my music books and sheet music, I began playing "Christmas Time is Here" on the piano. It's one of my favorite pieces of all time. Perhaps because of the lush sonorities of a major tonality moving downward to an altered dominant (same reason I love "Blue in Green" by the way)... or because of the emotional connection it has to memories for me.

PJs, Snoopy, cold nights, hot chocolate, family cuddle time. All of which I haven't had enough of this season. There's been way too much "busy"-ness to be able to rest and enjoy good times and good company.

Commuting, nomadville, skype conversations, baby time, and work have taken up this year's holiday festivities.

I am thankful for the many blessings I have (of which I have a lot!), but I just wish that things were given more opportunity to slow down. I miss Liam and Mel right now. Eventually we'll get our house sold and find a new home for the three of us, but until we get there I'm not too wild about the pace that life has us in. I feel like I'm missing too much of Liam's growing up right now :-(

That's what makes me saddest of all.

I'm just tired. Going to bed early on New Year's eve actually sounds pretty appealing right now. I think I need another PJ party with my family (Yay for a new tradition!)... that and a cup of hot cocoa wouldn't hurt. :-)

Greg

Dear "Baby-D"

Dear "Baby-D,"

Your time has come. We have waited a good long while for your arrival and the time is here. Currently your mom is trying to get some rest as this is still early on in labor. I will be doing the same shortly. We want our OB to be the one to deliver you since she has been the one tending to yours and your momma's health this whole time. So, they will be administering pitocin around 4am to progress things forward.

I want to let you know that the way your birth has been so far has been a reminder to your mother and me of how God still hears our prayers. We have prayed all along in the pregnancy for several things. More specifically we asked that her water wouldn't break while she was at work teaching, we asked that I would be with her when it was time to go to the hospital, and we asked that it would happen in the evening. All of which has come to pass.

Her water broke at 5:28 pm today, but had it occured yesterday I wouldn't have been here because I was in a training session for work all day and didn't get home until later.

We have been planning and preparing for you to enter our world. We already love you with all of our heart and will do anything to protect you and establish you so that you may grow on your own.

I'm excited to finally get to share with our friends and family what your name is! However, since you haven't officially been born yet... it has to wait... for now :-)

You are beautiful my son, and I love you very much. I can hear your heart beat right now as we listen in on your world to make sure you are okay while nestled in Mommy's tummy. Just know that your heart has been close to mine for a long time now.

Love,

Your Papa "Daddy-D"

Swaddled

Currently, our most relaxing room in the house is the nursery. I'd say this is a great accomplishment save for the fact that it speaks of the other aspects in our life that are not relaxing- a kitchen full of dishes from my cooking adventures today, items in various "staging" areas to pack away and store or donate (all accumulated from cleaning and prepping the nursery), an office that is in dire need of attention.

Ugh...

But... there is peace in the nursery.

The green paint color that we chose for the walls is called "dancing green." It's vivid, yet quiet; much like how the leaves on the Aspen dance in springtime from the slightest breath expelled from the Colorado Rockies. We have a "sleep sheep" on Baby-D's crib which emits noises to lull you to sleep too: Heartbeat, Rain, Ocean... and whale calls. Whale calls? Well, not sure about that one, but it is there nonetheless.

I suppose Mel and I have great anticipation of what's to come. As we should. As I ponder the future, I consider how I desire to offer our little one a place of refuge- not only in this nursery, but in our arms, in our lives... engulfed by our love. I want to keep him safe. I want to keep my family safe. Financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically.

In light of my dad's recent cycling accident, I have come to the realization that I have entered into a new era of adulthood. It's given me pause to not only consider how to provide for Melissa and Baby-D, but that one day (hopefully in the distant future) we'll be considering how to care for our parents as well.

There is much responsibility to be had and I don't always feel like I am up to the task; however, sitting in the nursery this evening, and the security that's felt here, helps me to realize that we're doing a pretty good job and that it's gonna be okay. It's just that even though I know that God is my rock, and I have the most incredible family collective in the world, I still find myself asking sometimes...

.... Who will keep me safe?

Lack of decisions

Tonight, as I was cleaning up the kitchen and doing my best to tidy up after a cooking bonanza (I can sure make a mess when cooking!!!), I realized a key thing to why and how life can be easy or it can be challenging. It seems like many things are based on decisions or indecisions in my life and unfortunately more often than not the latter can usually occur.

A dear friend of mine from college used to always say, "everything has a home." It becomes my mantra while cleaning:

"Everything has a home, everything has a home. Okay this thing clearly doesn't have a home..."

and BOOM! A decision has to be made. It can be left there to be dealt with later (which is a decision within the indecision), or I can be proactive about it - get rid of it, create space, return it to where it belongs, or rather should belong.

I think the same thing could be said about how time needs to be decluttered, and managed a little bit more proactively in my free time- get rid of it, Create S P A C E, return it to where it belongs.

And so... on that note I must close, for this time belongs for sleeping :-)

~Greg

Wokka Wokka!

Recently I have been emailing back and forth with a dear friend of our family, Lefty. He and I share a similar passion... namely - COOKING!

...That, and having things that need a little TLC and seasoning. We've talked a lot about seasoning cast iron and how I was on a quest to find a good wok and lo and behold... He sent us one! Yippee. It's the traditional shape (i.e. not flat bottom) and has the same joys as cast iron. It'll develop a great nonstick coating from seasoning over time due to it being a carbon steel wok.

So, here it is being used on the grill for the first time to obtain some rip-roaring high heat.

This was my first attempt at making beef and broccoli. My mise en place...

The results!

I think I still need to tweak the recipe a bit, or perhaps try another recipe, but this was definitely a great start to my experience in wok cooking. :-)

-Greg

Three

Three years ago today, I was preparing to become a husband to my beautiful bride. In less than three months from now, I will be a father to the newest member of our family... Well, his name will be announced then. I'm officially in my third decade of life. Mel and I were born three months apart.

For many aspects of our life three seems to be quite relevant. Over the next year of our married life we'll be embarking on SO many new and exciting things! We are anxiously awaiting our little one and I know that I am excited to meet him. Surreal seems to hardly cover it.

I think the most difficult thing I face in writing this blog... is whether to focus on my emotions of becoming a father, or to reflect on what it is to be a husband to my precious wife. I don't know how to do both simultaneously AND effectively. I suppose that's an important challenge to realize as we learn about our newly developing roles as parents - how to tend to our own relationship while concurrently tending to the relationship of parent/child, and family unit.

We've decided to take today in stride. Nothing huge. No blowout budget decisions. Perhaps a nice dinner, and a postponed pottery painting date next week.

We have a lot on our plates these days and our focus is trying to organize our life right now so that we can prepare for being disorganized come October :-) I know that things will never be perfect - we are just working as a team to whittle these mountains down to molehills; one stone at a time. The great thing is... we're making progress! The nursery is looking more and more ready to receive things (rather than just store stuff which it has done for 3 yrs). The office is... well... it's still a work in progress, but it IS better! :-) And Salvation Army? Well... let's just say that it is a good thing that they're an army because we're about to give them a lot. :-D

Yay for tax write-offs!

We'll see what the day holds! I'll try to post an update :-) (But, we all know that I'm not the avid blogger right now... so, we'll see).

Greg

Murphy... and mercies

Sometimes, when you least expect him... Murphy shows up and lays down the law. A few Sundays ago my car was towed from a parking spot where my management told me I can park. Well, "lifted" is more like it because I walked out there as the guy was putting my car up on his rig. So while it wasn't "towed" away I still had to pay One-hundred-and-fifty clams. (Does the hyphening make it feel bigger to you? Hope so. It was a pretty big deal to me that day).

When I got home Mel had been dealing with medical bills and insurance for 2 and 1/2 hours. Needless to say, we were both pretty wiped and just cried and held each other for a while.

It's wonderful to have a spouse that is also your best friend. It's not even that we couldn't suffer the financial blow... it was more the emotional one that was hard.

We have both felt overwhelmed lately. Seems like that's one of our life's themes... but I digress.

So, I'm choosing not to ramble on right now. Sure... I could vent about all the little things that are causing stress (and believe me... there's a lot of little things; I know Melissa has her own list. If only I had a venn diagram right now! :-), but I won't. Instead, what I'm going to do is remind you dear reader (and myself!) of how I have an amazing God that loves me dearly and counts me valuable in spite of what the world may say and how his mercies are new EVERY morning.

Tomorrow's a new day. And, though that new day may have a cluttered kitchen with dishes left to be done, I will have slept the night with my bride by my side and our little one growing in her belly. God is good and there is MUCH that I can be thankful for -- even the little things :-)

Locavore

Not a whole lot to write this morning, but I did want to post this pic! We are fortunate enough to have a farmer's market that is just down the street from us. The above photo is musk melon that I got from there recently.

This year I am growing three varieties of tomatoes, and three varieties of peppers as well. Here is a pic from some Jalapenos that I harvested recently:

DELICIOUS! :-)

Something old... Something new...

Cast iron cookware has been around a LONG time. So has bread. It's only natural that the two should be combined. So that's what I did.

I baked up a batch of No-Knead bread from Sullivan Street Bakery. And it was by far one of the easiest breads I've ever made... that and it was also one of the most impressive.

It took about a minute to mix together (literally), and it only a little bit of "hands-on" time putting the dough in its proper place; however, it again did not need kneading. What it did require was patience. Patience in the neighborhood of 21-22 hrs. It's the kind of thing you mix one day and bake the next.

But in my baking practices this comes par for the course. As a general rule of thumb: less yeast + more time = better flavor. Also, more water & less kneading makes for a more rustic dough with more irregular holes in the crumb.

Just look at it's structure!

This is the first dough that I've ever produced that was geologic in nature. What I mean by this is that you could actually hear the dough as it came out of the oven. There was snapping and crackling, giant fissures, steam, and on the inside? Absolutely wonderful caverns.

The sound was similar to when ice cubes begin breaking and shattering as they crack apart in a fresh glass of water. But to experience this sound from the crust that I had created was simply music to my ears.

All this and yet another reason why I LOVE my cast iron cookware!

G.

Homemade Pasta!!!

Recently, I bought a ravioli form in order to make a special dinner for my beautiful wife.

I filled the pasta with a beef/spinach/ricotta filling- a recipe from one of my new cookbooks: Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it. It's been a winning recipe book so far! Here's the results!

Mr. Fix-it!!!

Recently, I had the "joy" of replacing the headlight on our trailblazer. I can't remember whether it was the old Mazda protege, or on the Honda civic where I have replaced a headlight before... but this was a little more daunting task. I called the dealership and they said that the repair would cost around $70.00 for parts + labor. I called O'reiley auto parts and found out that the headlight bulb cost a little under 9 bucks. So, yeah... I'll figure out how to do this myself (little did I realize that the owner's manual specifically said for headlights to be taken to the dealership, and when I read about how to fix it online it said to remove the entire front grill).

Well... I did need to remove some components, but thankfully the grill didn't have to come off. Here are the pics!

The non-working headlight on the passenger's side.

My working headlight! :-)

The air filter cover which had to be removed.

The air filter pushed out of the way.

The good, the bad...

... the fixed!!! :-)

So, if a "green thumb" means that you have talent at gardening... does a black thumb mean I'm a good mechanic? :-)

Cheers.

CHORES! a.k.a. I need to get back to exercising!

I think one of the single biggest causes for life's stresses could be from not staying on top of the "little things." Bush had it right (the band that is... ) "it's just the little things that kill."

How come dishes, laundry, junk mail, and spam never seem to end?!? It feels like it's been an uphill battle for years and it's all the more challenging when there are other projects to work on. There's this one spot in our bathroom that's needed caulking for how long, I need to wash the trailblazer, our office is a mess, I want to get our tax return filed (EARLY this year!), there's always budgeting to tend to, grocery shopping & planning, there are boxes that have never been dealt with since we got married, and oh yeah... I'm turning thirty this year.

My body doesn't recover as quickly as it used to. I haven't been running since the marathon. I feel like as soon as I do get around to going for a jog it might help loosen up some of muscle kinks I'm having and as an added bonus it would probably help me deal a little better with the stresses. I'm sure that exercising my spirit would be good for me too. That's probably the even bigger thing that's lacking - prayer, and meditation.

Hope you don't mind me venting a little. I'm open to suggestions as to how you stay on top of it all.

Tour De Houston - ¡A Pie!

Well, I did it. I completed the Houston Marathon. I'm going to do my best to keep this blog post scale tipping towards the positive side of things... but bear with me - I do need to vent a little bit.

So, let me start over... I DID IT! I completed the Houston Marathon which officially marks my second full marathon all before hitting 30!

... Better?

I started training in the beginning of July of 2009 for this race. So 4,5,..6+ hrs on race day doesn't even begin to cut it for what sort of time is committed to this endeavor. Sacrifices are made - Sleep, time with friends, time with family... and a little over 6 months of my life all leading up to this one day.

My goal? A finish time of 5:30 or better. Originally I was shooting for 4:30, but after doing some math late in the game, I realized how unreasonable that would be considering my first marathon in Alaska was around 5:55. So, improving my pace by about a minute per mile was still a feat to hit 5:30. My goal pace was to try to stay between 10:17/mi (a 4:30 finish time) and 12:35/mi (a 5:30 finish time). For the most part I was staying on average at around an 11:30/mi pace.

Per my sister's advice (the well-coached, seasoned athlete) I ran intervals of 6:1's meaning - 6 minutes of running, 1 minute of rest. This was working well until around mile 15 or 16.

Everything blew up on me... my legs stiffened up, my feet began blistering, my eyes stung from the salt infusion, I had digestion pain, and my head started hurting. I tried to start back to running, but when I did a muscle would tweak up on me and the last thing I wanted to do was to get an injury that would set me back from getting back to running in the next week or so.

I saw my dad soon after my "wall" and he walked with me and even jogged with me for a bit. His presence gave me enough of a boost to start back at a jog... even though I quickly faded after leaving him. Around mile 17 or 18 I saw Melissa and her parents and she walked with me a while too. (On a side note... this race was hard for her AND me as it's the first race we haven't done together. Aside from the Nike women's marathon, but that doesn't exactly count - I'm kinda D-Q'd from that one :-) As Melissa came alongside me I began letting out the tears as I saw my goal disappearing from the horizon. Her smile and positive spirit helped me feel okay about letting it go, but it still hurts to think about it. She encouraged me with how I was just accomplishing something that a lot of people can't even claim... "Who CARES about a 5:30! You're DOING it!!!"

My family is stupendous. Being part of the race support team is no light task. There is a LOT of planning that goes into the kind of race-watching that my family does. With all the street closures, and routes to figure out it can be quite an undertaking. The watching guide that my sister emailed out proved to be an invaluable resource. My parents went around the course on bicycles to catch us at various points along the way, while Melissa and her parents drove around to different spots to do the same. I got a high five from Larry at one of the watching points and loved it!

I really felt like I had two sets of parents this past Sunday. Two Moms, Two Dads, and the most incredible partner I could ever ask for in life. Each of them are unique in the way that they cheered for me and love me... but the bond that is there is, SO deep. I couldn't be more thankful for the family that I have.

There were so many times during the course when I just wanted to see someone that I know... and knows me. It's a kind of loneliness that is hard to describe.

Just before mile 9 is where the Half Marathoner's course does a U-Turn. I actually got to see Lisa and Ashley as they were heading towards me. Pretty cool! Once I passed the U-turn though, it was a completely different race - Less people on the course, less people cheering, and it is where the loneliness began to set in. It did help that my friend, Travis, was just past the turnaround point. He actually got a picture of me when I still felt somewhat decent!

By the end of the course though... I can assure you, I did NOT look this upbeat. Having to walk the majority of the last 8-10 miles, having missed my goal (AND my Alaska time) by a lot, having heard "Funky Town" being blasted over WAY too many PA systems, and having been tailed by an extremely unprofessional and RUDE police officer that was closing the course... Well, it left me as a hull of a person filled with physical pain, anger, frustration, and bitterness. I managed to finish before they closed down the field, and what do I get for all this hard work? Nothing. That's right... no medal, no finisher's shirt, no race mug, no shiny emergency blanket to keep warm after the race. I got someone writing down race bib numbers with a promise that it would be mailed to me. Talk about salt in the wound. This was after being followed by a Houston Police squad car that was courteously (can you sense the sarcasm?!?) ushering the runners along by constantly nagging them over his bull horn. Not to mention the fact that he was calling out to his friend to asking if they had "his crown royal." COMPLETELY unprofessional. The whole end left a really bad taste in my mouth where I may not do Houston again. (I probably will... but that's how I feel while things are fresh. Time does amazing things for forgiveness).

This may be a little retroactive to write about the beginnings at this point in the blog... but I wasn't quite sure where to fit it in. At least this way... we can end things on a positive note - even if it's the beginning:-) So, I woke up around 3:10am the morning of the race in order to eat and get everything ready to leave by around 4:30. Melissa was a trooper in every way about this... not to mention the fact that she was having to deal with her own emotions that morning of not doing it with me. I got a good night's sleep on Friday night and Saturday night prior to race day. Once Melissa and I got settled in at the George R. Brown convention center, I stretched and felt pretty great. Lisa and Ashley were actually able to meet us there and we had a great visit. I even got to hear about Ashley first cyclocross race. AWESOME! I need to get back on my wheels to be able to do that again this fall.

The night of race day, Melissa and I went to bed around 7:30p and slept for about 12 hours. Yesterday was a day to recuperate. Melissa and I called it our "vacation day." We watched a couple of movies and just hung out all day. It was fantastic! We haven't had a day like that in a long time. So... what's next on the horizon? Well... finisher's swag in the mail (hopefully), and other than that?

... to be determined.

Greggy-D

With resolve...

New Year's resolutions anyone? Mine is pretty simple. Walk around the block once a day. That was something I did when I first began to lose weight and start exercising. Hmmm... 2004? I can't remember. This was prior to my bike, prior to my first 5k (which should have been a triathlon), prior to the MS150.

I'm finding that with all the running that I am doing, and with getting older (I do hit the big 3-0 this year... EEEEK!), I can wake up with rather stiff joints. Back and legs in particular. Two things that I know would help with this - a stronger core, and regular stretching.

Walking in the morning certainly helps those. I've been enjoying the time to think. I probably don't pause often enough to have some reflective time and time with God. The walk in the morning gives me a good 15mins to have both. When I come back the coffee is usually ready (in the new coffee pot I might add :-) and I can start my day.

Lately, it's helped give me a more directional focus to my day... and life in general. I'm excited as to what this year holds. Are you?