My oldest, Scott, was so excited to have found a female canary for only $25 dollars on-line the other day.
He had called the guy and arranged for me to stop by and buy the bird.
I thought I was all prepared by taking an older, cleaned out, cage with a big blanket to keep the bird calm during the drive. I drove with the cage in-mind as to not need to stop too urgently. It was a gorgeous day and so I rolled the front windows down, thinking the bird would still be safe under the blanket. I even thought the bird my enjoy some fresh air! However, my my attempts at ‘safe-driving’ were cut short by somebody who sought to take advantage of the space between me and the car in front.
As fate would deliver, the approaching traffic lights were turning red and I was required to step on the brakes at an alarming rate. In the juggle of gauging distances and anticipating the bird cage rolling and while trying to close the 2 front windows, the bird cage fell over and out sprang the bird!
I was surprised at how quickly it navigated the interior of my vehicle and before I knew it, it had flown right out of my window!
I tried spotting the bird to see which direction to maybe retrieve it, but the car behind me didn’t appreciate the delay.
I turned around and headed back to ‘the bird man’, only to dish out another $25 for a lesson well learned!
Poor little bird, I hope she’s ok, wherever she decided to rest.
I could recover from this little accident though, nobody had to know about it. But then I recall that I had called home and told them how beautiful it was and described it’s colour with precision. Bird #2 didn’t align with my previous statements! Gulp… I headed home and hoped for the best.
“It’s kind of orangey” was the first words uttered from Scott!
Doh – my cover was broken, but I remained calm and collected… “Yeah – kind of orangey yellow” was my reply, “it must be due to the lights”. That seemed to satisfy, but I think he knew that something wasn’t quite right.
Scott and my other kids still don’t know what happened on my trip home with bird #1, however it seems to have caused the giggles with Kristy whenever anything about bird #2 is mentioned.
Therefore I vote I should be banned from future pet delivery services!
Better leave some bird food out for Bird #1, it’ll help me sleep better anyway!

Well – that is my foot and Kristy’s mouth!

What a week of fun it’s been! Sunday night I landed on my ankle while navigating over a gymnastics mat in the basement! and Kristy had to have a fractured molar removed! At 7pm on Tuesday, all is calm… me elevating my leg (doing what men do well – relaxing), and Kristy keeping to her busy schedule of teaching gymnastics.

I have to say that Kristy is my hero. What an unbelievable woman she is. Her energy is just so amazing that I wonder how she pushes through.  She experienced toothache Sunday afternoon and finally succumbed to the pain Tuesday morning. A quick visit to Dr. Vogel soon took care of her pain problem though, but she presses on, determined not to have her day fuddled up. What an inspiration she is.

It all started at 3:30 pm on Wednesday, February 13th 2008. We were told we could leave early due to the heavy snow. Everybody left expect me! I had the idea to wait and let the traffic calm down before I would start my trek home. News media was filled with congestion and it seemed to only get worse as the night crept on! One road was closed after another, it was then that I decided to join the jam!

Leaving work at 7pm I caught the UTA Trax (tram) heading south, which surprisingly was not affected at all! Arrived at Sandy and waited for my bus, hmmm maybe it will be late! We left Sandy on the 811 bus after 8:40 and headed south. The drive was fine until we reached the point of the mountain (a high point between Salt Lake and Utah counties).  As we started to wait I overhead a women talking about how she had been on the bus for 4 hours! Our driver was supposed to finish his shift at 6pm, but he was still driving at 10pm!

We arrived gradually in the most northern part of Lehi to a traffic jam! 2 major roads had been closed down and people were unable to get home. The bus driver didn’t want to follow his route and asked if we didn’t mind walking to our cars. It was a good idea since we were moving about 5 feet every 2 – 3 minutes! I walked about 1/3 of a mile, passing other occupied cars that were pulled off to the side of the road! After reaching my truck I turned on the ignition and waited for the traffic to loosen up.

Around 10:40 a guy approached my truck and told me a local church was open and that I could seek shelter there. Traffic in the direction of the church was non existent, I think partly because nobody wanted to venture down the back road due to the huge amounts of snow drifts.

I made it to the church and spent about 1.5 hours there waiting for the storm to die down. Which it didn’t so I finally gave in and started to drive home. I got about a mile away from the church and realized the road ahead was closed due to a snow plough blocking the road. At this point I should mention that my truck is a rear wheel drive and during my maneuver my front wheels went off the road. I used a bouncing technique to finally get back on the road and started for home using another route.

Apart from snow covered roads and a few snow ploughs, I was able to reach my house just after 1am Thursday morning!

Kristy (who was teaching her gymnastics class) was caught off guard and had to make arrangements for somebody to watch our kids,  since they were being watched by a baby sitter already. Kristy was unable to reach home so instead made her way to her mothers house and stayed with them till the morning.

All in all it was a commute that I will never forget. But I’m sure glad it’s over!

I threw the towel in and forwarded all my email addresses to my one main Gmail account. I’ve been running this setup for just under a week and take a guess at how much spam I now see? 1 a few days ago. The really nice thing with Google’s gmail is that if, by chance, you do get a SPAM email, you simple flag it as spam and help all the other gmail users to not see it. It works great. So great in fact that I just switched Kristy over to the same setup.

Now I can spend my time on email that I want to read and not accidentally delete it due to my frustration of being overwhelmed with a TON of spam! Looking for a great reduction in SPAM? take Google’s Gmail for  spin …. it’s free.  2 Thumbs way up for Google

At first I thought maybe something happened with a friend that upset him, but then I saw a veteran standing at the front of the school and I noticed Scott looking at him.  I realized they had, had an assembly where they had some veteran’s come and speak to them.  I asked him about that and he closed up a bit.  I could tell it had something to do with how he was behaving.  I then asked him if that was why he was sad.  He replied, "Yes, but it is a happy cry, sometimes people cry when they are happy MOM!!"  Yes, of course they do I told him, but you seem sad, not happy. 

After quizzing him some more he finally told me that they were told a story about the flag that made him a little sad.  He also said that one of the veteran’s shook his hand.  "It was cool, mom!"  He asked me several questions about our country and how come we have freedom and others don’t.  He then, with tears in his eyes told me he was glad to live in America!  That he was happy about our freedoms.  I realized that he was understanding a little bit the great sacrafice these veterans have made to keep our country safe and free.  We proceeded to have an in depth conversation about the army today and what they have to do to protect us.  He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to be one of them or not.  I told him he could make that choice when he is older. 

The neat thing about this to me is that my little 6 year old helped to remind me, his 31 year old mother, what veteran’s day is for and how important it is to remember them and to be grateful for what we have.  I am glad that he got that message today.  As young as he is he came to understand what it means to be an American.  He is a good kid and I am proud of him for showing his emotions for our country.

But construction is not only limited to our highways – but also to our basement! I have 3-4 weeks left to get it finished. I’ve completed about 95% of the sheetrock (plaster board) and I’m not looking forward to the mudding part. Kristy’s brother (Steven) came round the over night to give my some points (which really, really, REALLY helped). Thanks to him I should be able to get a good looking room out of the deal.

The time limit has been imposed by Kristy – aka – delivery of our 4th child. Even though this one room has been a work in progress over the past 3 years, there has never been a feeling if urgency as there is right now. 

We’ve found 3 baby pine ciskins dead in our back yard together with a decreased bird population attending our feeders. I was worried that only the babies seem to be affected, but my friend and avid bird watcher (Gary Grubb) proposed that the baby birds were feed by their parents (who didn’t ingest the poisoned food, but rather regurgated) and therefore past it onto their young.

We held a funeral service for our little feathered friends (who Scott and Toby had called Chester and Max) . They even made little grave stones out of popcikle sticks and paper. They only saw the two birds, Kristy later found the 3rd. It’s sad to see, especially when we’ve watched mature birds feed and later bring their young with them and feed them right here in our back yard. It was fun to see these little birds flap their wings as their parents shoved food down their necks. But such is the great circle of life, which is bigger than us all, but will forever teach us the ultimate lesson of life.

So the next time you’re thinking about Tru-Chem’ing your lawn – remember the Sparrows which will fall and hopefully choose a more natural, safer approach for getting rid of the weeds.