I returned the rug we bought from IKEA sometime last week. I thought about renting a holiday tree from them (i.e. buy a tree for $x and then return it later $(less than x). They then mulch the trees. I decided not to, though.
We went over to Eve and Karl’s on Saturday to make holiday cookies and have dinner. We brought the Pack ‘n’ Play which LK eventually retired to after tormenting Satchel for most of the early evening. Miraculously, he slept soundly, and we stayed for a long time. I think we left around 11pm… I don’t remember the last time we stayed out that late. Normally we are always at home at 7pm to put LK down for the night.
It was great to see Eve and Karl as always. I think we talked too much about the grim economic times, though; I will have to steer conversations away from it because people can’t stop talking about it. Understandable, I suppose.
We bought a couple of baby gates, but they won’t work out, so I have to return them at some point.
I magnanimously helped the company I had been consulting for out of a jam, although I was tempted to let them crash and burn because they still have not paid me. I regret that now, really.
We had a parent conference at LK’s school/daycare today. It was interesting seeing how the school saw him hit various developmental milestones.
Amanda is on call tomorrow (Thursday) evening/Friday morning after her all day clinic plus after clinic meetings. Hopefully the laboring women wait until 8am on Friday to get to the hospital.

LK had been sick, and then he got me sick. Wonderful. Amanda being the medical professional is immune to everything.

We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at Jane and David’s house. LK and I were both feeling better at this point. Their niece Sarah was there visiting; she is a grad student in political science at Berkeley. She apparently grew up near Wooster, OH. It was a fun time. I saw how convenient a doggie can be as Bo (a yellow lab) vacuumed up all the food that Lonan Kai ejected from his high chair.

We stayed home on Black Friday. Carrie later came over to visit and knit. She was working a sweater for LK that she apparently has to finish quickly before he gets too big. Eric unforunately had to work; Thursday is his normal day off, so the Thanksgiving weekend was just a normal weekend for him. LK started showing signs of another illness… fever, coughing, snot, etc..

We went to the aquarium on Saturday. We bought a family pass because going to the aquarium is a fun diversion for LK. And I like aquariums. We can even take a guest with us for “free” whenever we go.

We also went to IKEA in lieu of our previous early evening walk (because it gets dark at 4pm nowadays). We had an inexpensive $1.95 pasta dinner and well as picking up some toys for LK; we had thought we was really getting bored with the few things that we have. We also got a rug for our living room because the current one is “disgusting” in the words of Amanda. It is too small, though, so I will have to return it sometime.
LK’s sickness was preventing him from sleeping. Unfortunate for everyone in the family except for piglet, who is willing and able to sleep anytime. He later lost is voice due to possible soreness.

Sunday Amanda went grocery shopping with Mandy for the first time in a while. LK seemed to get better and regained his voice.
Today, LK was well enough to go to daycare. I apparently have come down with LK’s second illness as well, so I am sick again. Alas. I wanted to go to the gym today, but that is not going to happen.

I am still hopeful about eventually getting paid for me last job because it is a non trivial amount of money in these uncertain economic times. Otherwise I am “looking for other opportunities” as I always do.

I fixed some things in our photo gallery that had been busted for a while, but I would probably be the only one to notice. I also uploaded all of our pictures for October 2007 and should be done with the rest of the year shortly. So I will only be one year behind.

I had been working a lot, so no time for weblogging. Now, though, a client is being evasive about paying me, which pretty much flat out sucks, but I am hopeful about actually getting paid, because they owe me a lot of $$$. I should have known better, really, but unless they completely go under (possible) things could still work out.
– We bought another car seat because LK blew out of his old one very quickly. He likes the new one a lot better, probably because he is more comfortable, but he still does not like riding the car.
– We visited Pam and Annabel a couple of weeks ago and went to the Aquarium.
– My Xbox broke, I sent it off for warranty repairs, and I now have it back.
– It’s cool that we can stream Netflix movies and videos straight through the Xbox now.
– Susan came to visit.
– I was/am sick, though, so I was not very lively during her trip.
– LK learned to crawl. Good for him. I have a movie of his third successful attempt but still need to find a free way to compress it for web consumption.
– I went to the dentist, and all was well. I had a 30% copay though with our new insurance which apparently does down after every visit. He finished he office renovations on the top floors of the Medical/Dental building in downtown Seattle, and they are pretty sweet. I got to see Sumi the cat briefly (She was taking a bath beside the laser printer), but I was not in the waiting room for long, so I did not get to renew my acquaintance.
– We did some garden maintenance for the winter… took down/chopped up all the tomato plants, pulled the rest of the beets, etc. . I still have to cover up everything to compost right in the raised bed. And we need to plant garlicks and shallots to overwinter till the spring.

I cranked out an outrageous amount of billable hours in the past few weeks. Hence no weblog entries. Of course, when you work for yourself you always feel like you should be doing something “useful” or “productive” and weblogging probably doesn’t fall under those two categories.
Now I need to get paid, which always seems to be a struggle.
But other stuff has been happening, like, say:
– election party at Pam’s with other PEPS people
– farmer’s market in west seattle with Eve
– last farmer’s market in columbia city
– I forgot my credit card in El Sombrero but get it back later
– I was ill, but am now better
– end of baby sign language
– dead Xbox
– I can do a lot of pull-ups again at the gym
– “why is your TV so small?”
um, yeah, blah blah blah, Maybe I should go to bed. zzzz

I should have posted this picture in Lonan Kai’s weblog (this was taken at school), but since I have a dearth of new entries I put it here.