3 lbs 7 oz!  They did an official weight on Sunday and that was it!  *Takes cowboy hat in hand and waves it in the air shouting "yee-haw!"*  They also tried to bottle-feed her for the first time yesterday also.  Isabel and Ben said she tried a couple of times, but was like, "Now what?  More changes?  I don’t think so."  She apparently didn’t quite ‘get’ what she was supposed to do.  The reflux is still there, but is going away little by little.  She is a little resistant to change, just like the rest of us.  I have a feeling that Ben is going to appreciate having Doctor Dobson’s book after a while.

Well, I am starting to feel better, but I still have some coughing going on.

What in the world is a pet for, anyway?  The definition I found in Encarta, (Since I don’t have an OED yet.) was:

pet  [pet] noun (plural pets)
1. animal kept at home: an animal kept for companionship, interest, or amusement

Now, if an animal is kept for companionship, interest, or amusement, why do you leave it outside in the middle of winter and the only attention you give it is when you remember to feed it.  Why do you let it run around the neighborhood caterwauling at 2 A.M. or howling at the end of its chain?  How is that your pet?  If it’s not your pet, why do you keep it and why do you think I want to hear it?

Still feeling a little peeved but I don’t have enough grumpiness to get a full-blown tirade going.  Oh well.

Remember, The Good Book says, "a righteous person cares about the animals he owns, but even the tenderest feelings of the wicked are cruelty."

14 and ½ inches long!  Margaret got to go up to see her and said she actually had some meat on her legs.  This was exciting.  It would have been more exciting if I had seen her myself, but no, I have to have this croupy, cruddy, cough thing going on, plus the digital camera is gone phooey.  I have a couple of Isabel’s black and whites to put up in the gallery, however.  She is a real artist when it comes to photography.

Has anybody bothered making any of the dreaded New Year’s Resolutions?  Time’s a-wastin’.  I had written some notes about being more organized and less of a procrastinator but when I looked for them on my desk, I could not find them, so I figure it will wait until tomorrow.

Go lay down!  Not you, the stupid dog!  You can get up.  Every time I cough, she thinks there is something very wrong with me and comes and puts her paw on my knee.  When I chase her away, she is certain that it is serious, so she comes right back.  If I ignore her, she puts her cold, wet nose right on me wherever she can get at.  She does not do it right away; of course, she waits until I am intent on doing something else, then she sneaks up on me and gets me, usually on the underside of my forearm.  It is all very annoying.

You want to know what else is annoying?  I’ll tell you what else is annoying.  Why do people think that signs are meant for everyone, except them?  Well, besides the obvious contempt some people have (soosan) for speed limit signs.  If the sign in the park says, "Keep your dog on a leash at all times while on the trail" why is your stupid, ugly nasty little yapper an exception?  And no, I don’t care that "He doesn’t bite anyone."  I don’t want to come around the corner on a trail and meet a 200 pound Great Dane without a human attached!  "Oh, he’s friendly."  A number of years ago one of my children was deathly afraid of dogs.  I mean screaming, running, crying terrified, even to see one on the leash across the street.  We never knew why and they have since overcome it rather nicely, but your quaint little remarks about it when you are responsible to keep the stupid creature on its leash in the first place just don’t cut it.  Who do you think you are?  And of course, you can’t call the cops, because even if they would respond to such a call, it would not be a priority and the idiot letting their cur roam free would be gone.  Not to mention what your nasty, vile, reprehensible creature has done in the middle of the path that I have just stepped in with my new $250 Tony Lamas boots!

Here’s another thing, too.  Sunglasses are NOT a cool fashion statement when you are carrying on a conversation with me.  Take off the sunglasses and look me in the eye. 

And where are people’s manners any more?  Do you think when you chew with your mouth open that I want to see that train wreck?  Or hear it?  And when did bodily functions become acceptable table talk?  And whatever happened to "Excuse Me," "Please" and "Thank You?"

Can you tell I am feeling grumpy today?  That idiot’s dog in the park set me off.  I don’t really have $250 boots, but it doesn’t matter.  I should be able to walk on the trail unmolested.
But I must say, there are some good things going on.  My wife and I went to lunch yesterday and the hostess seated a young couple with two children next to us.  They were probably 5 and 8 years old and I expected the worst.  Was I ever in for a pleasant surprise!  They were soft-spoken, said "Please" and "Thank You" to the waitress, didn’t fight or bicker or throw food or anything at each other.  The parents didn’t scream and yell at them every couple of minutes, but they had a nice, quiet lunch and spoke in normal conversational tones!  They just behaved.  It was beautiful.

Then a couple of teenage young men came in and got the other booth near ours.  Here again, they said, "Please" and "Thank You" to the waitress and spoke to her like she was a real person and then, get this, they paid their bill and brought back an appropriate, even generous amount and left it for a tip!  I was really impressed.

As the Good Book says, "Life is full of surprises, sometimes."

Hi everyone.  I was offline yesterday as our phone wouldn’t produce a dial tone, just a little static.  Called the phone company, they came out and found a critter had chewed the cable!  Our dog isn’t the chewing kind, so it had to have been something else.  Maybe a stupid skunk.

I didn’t feel like doing much on the computer the last couple of days anyway, but we need to have the phone.  I still feel pretty cruddy, but not as bad as the first day.  I figured I would blog, er, online journal, a little bit so you would all know I am still here and no, you can’t be rid of me that easily.

We had some snow and cold temps.  It was light and fluffy because the temperature was around 0 F.  When it is warmer, the snow is wetter and heavier and good packing snow, perfect for snowball fights and making snow forts and snowmen.  The fluffy stuff is what the skiers love.  Yes I live in Colorado and no I have never been skiing.

The temp here in Colorado Springs went up just enough to melt the snow a little, then when the sun went down it froze over, creating ice.  Fun driving.  Actually, you can usually get around okay if you just go s-l-o-w.  Four wheel drive does nothing for ice.

I really don’t feel good yet, so I will leave you guys for now.

Remember, the Good Book says, "watch out for the other guy, he may not be watching out for you."  Or was that an old Public Service Announcement?

Woo-hoo!  She is a 3 pounder, now!  I am really excited about that.  I have the Colorado Creeping Crud again, however and am not a happy camper.  I hate being sick, especially when I have things to do.  They are letting Savannah be next to her mom’s skin more now.  This is a good thing.  Taking medicine isn’t.  I always have a strong reaction to meds, so if something makes a normal person a little drowsy, I crash.  Perhaps that is why I don’t feel like I have much to say this morning.  It’s in there somewhere, but it doesn’t want to come out.

This tsunami thing is really terrible.  I can’t imagine what the conditions are like, especially when someone like Colin Powell, who has been around the block a time or two, says, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

You know, we are living in the last days of time.  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  One thing about earthquakes is that whenever there was an earthquake in the Bible it was caused directly by God.

The Denver paper ran an article about giving to the relief efforts.  It said that while most Americans watch the news and ask, “How can I help those people?”  Con men sit and think, “How can I scam someone using this?”  If you decide to do something, make sure you check out the organization first.  Things you especially want to ask are:

If I donate money to this organization, how much of the money actually goes to help the people and how much is eaten up in overhead?

Is the money earmarked specifically for this purpose or does it all go into one big fund that this organization then disburses to all the causes it supports as well?

If I donate food, bottled water, clothing or other items, how will they be shipped?  When will they be shipped?

Is this an organization I would normally trust or donate to?  Have I received help from them in the past?  What was that experience like?

You guys can probably think of other questions as well, which you are welcome to leave in the comments section.  I don’t have any links to organizations because I haven’t checked any out yet.  Just make sure you know where your money is going or what is going to happen to your stuff.

Remember, The Good Book says, “It is better to give than to receive.”  (Especially in this case!)

Welcome to the New Year!  Where are the jet packs and the flying cars and stuff?  Ah well.

I want to tell you all that there are still nice people in the world.  I was looking up Savannah Melodies on the web and came across a very nice website that sells the plants called Scarbrough’s Garden @ http://daylily.net/scarbroughsgarden/garden.htm. Well, it seemed to me a user friendly site and they invited questions.

I had a very pleasant correspondence with Mr. and Mrs. Scarbrough which I had planned to cut & paste here but was having trouble with the web-based e-mail format transferring correctly without a bunch of work.  I told them about Savannah and how I was interested in the flower but that I have a notorious black thumb.  They e-mailed me back saying that they would send me a free one in her honor and were confident that it would do well here, even under my hand!  Isn’t that cool?  I think it is a very nice gesture and wanted to share that with you.  They have a very nice site and I would recommend it.  If you are interested in growing any of the things they offer, please consider them.

In other news the Lake Superior State University has issued its list of words and phrases that should be banished from the language for Mis-Use, Over-Use or Uselessness at http://www.lssu.edu/banished/ among the words and phrases?  Blog!  While you are there, you may also wish to click on the link that tells about the Unicorn Hunters.

Our New Year’s celebration was not as eventful as Christmas.  We had church and a chili cook-off afterward.  Since I became a teetotaler sixteen years ago, the holiday has become more reflective and restful.  The kids go outside and bang pots and pans and the Ad-a-man club shoots fireworks from the top of Pikes Peak.

We did celebrate my little buddy, Dale’s birthday, though.  He turned 40 and we gave him a big black bag full of as much over-the-hill stuff as we could find.  We (Russ and John and I) went to the ARC and got him some caps and slippers and other wardrobe enhancements.  We even found a "Grumpy Old Men" hat like Walter Matthau wore.  I gave him a six-pack of prune juice and a jar of prunes as well as a "Depends."  We had great fun at his expense, but, well, it wasn’t our idea that he turn 40.

We are praying for the families of the victims of the tsunami and earthquake.  I would like to refute the allegation by the UN’s Jan Egeland that the U.S. is stingy, however.  I would, but I won’t take the time.  Whenever there is a disaster anywhere, who is the first on the scene?  Americans.  Often times privately funded organizations.  Who was first on the scene when hurricanes devastated Florida?  George W. and Jeb Bush.  Monetary or humanitarian aid from which countries?   Well, Americans have always been both fiercely independent and magnanimous at the same time, since before we became a nation.  Religious "heretics" came here to escape persecution because they wouldn’t go along with the status quo but stuck to their values and beliefs.

I don’t have all the numbers handy on all the unpaid loans America has given and all the money we are giving as a nation to this problem.  You can’t really add it up because they call for helicopters and we divert 37 from their current military mission.  We have private organizations and radio and TV stations and churches that take up the cause.  Anyway, I am proud to be an American and proud of our Texas Cowboy President who represents the core values of the majority of our country.

As the Good Book says, "Fear God and respect your president."

The Good Book says, "Thou shalt not kill." Also, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee..."

-------

Real bedside conversation between me and Abigail, while looking at Savannah:

Abigail:  Dad, could this baby have been aborted?

Me:  Yes.

Abigail:  That’s sick!

Me:  Yes it is.

Well, we are up to 2 lbs 9 oz now!  Over 2 ½ lbs!  We have cold germs running through the house again, so we won’t be up there again for a little while.  Aarrgghh.

I had been worried about my friend Sam, whose blog http://samsam.blogdrive.com/ I read every day, lives in the part of the world where the tsunami hit.  He hadn’t added a new entry and didn’t e-mail me back right away, so of course I feared the worst.  I e-mailed a friend of his, whose blog http://jincruise.blogdrive.com/ I have started reading because Sam had a link to it on his blog, and she said he was okay and not in the danger zone.  I guess if I would have looked at a decent atlas, I could have figured it out.  She thought it was perhaps that he was away from his broadband connection and just relaxing at his home.

In other news, my daughter Elizabeth has started blogging.  Unlike mine, she is just putting down whatever rambling thoughts go through her head without fixing anything up.  She is at http://www.blurty.com/users/belas/ if you want to see it.

One of the presents I got was a ventriloquist’s dummy to use in Sunday School.  Ben found it (at the Goodwill Doll Sale, I think) and knew I had fixed up another one and thought I would like this one too.  I do, except he is staring at me, waiting for me to name him.  If you ever get one of these or find one of these, and the mouth doesn’t work, don’t toss it!  The heads are attached with an electrical tie, not sewn on, which makes it easy to come off.  Just take his head down to the hardware store (if you still have such a place in your town.  I love hardware stores, especially family-owned for generations ones.  They are one of the most helpful, educational places in the world.  Not like the big box super hardware and lumber and everything else including a lunch wagon stores.) and ask for a spring to fit the appropriate area.  Within minutes you have a working dummy.

My first dummy is a fellow named Herkimer Schnickelfritz Magillicudy, that Margaret found in the trash behind a church.  She asked the folks, "Is this supposed to be out here?"  "Oh yes."  "Okay."  He didn’t have any clothes, so we had to fix him some up.  This new fellow has a tuxedo!

Since I have 6 & 7 year olds in my class now and had 4 & 5 year olds before that, I never had to really learn true ventriloquism.  Kids don’t care if your lips move, they just think it’s fun that you are playing with toys, like they do.  I think I might like to learn how to do it right, though.  For free if possible.  I will have to search the ‘net or get a "for dummies" book on it.

I’ve gotta run this morning, but remember, the Good Book says, "It takes one to know one."

We have always had traditional things we have done for various holidays, like for Thanksgiving we have a big turkey and all that goes with it and I read the poem "When Father Carves The Duck" which i found on the internet at http://www.jeannepasero.com/Thanksgiving/duck.html.  We have it in a book of Children’s poetry that we bought when Ben was little.  Then we pray and eat.  We keep "grazing trays" out all day in case anyone drops over.

Normally, on Christmas Eve, everyone is so busy doing all the last minute stuff that we just order pizza for dinner.  Then on Christmas morning, we read the Christmas story and open presents.  Since everyone is so busy with their new stuff we just eat the leftover pizza from the night before.  We have always had pizza for Christmas dinner.  We set out the "grazing trays" then too.  We keep stuff through the season for just in case.

This year, Margaret’s brother John and his wife Becky came out to visit!  They drove all the way from South Beloit, IL, which is on the Illinois/Wisconsin border just to be with us.  That was really special.

You may or may not recall that we something like a menagerie at our house with 4 cats, 1 dog, 1 bunny and 2 birds.  John has allergies.  Bad allergies.  So bad that we had to take all the grazing trays to the hotel and order the Christmas Eve pizzas there.  We took the party to them.  Christmas morning we went to Ben’s apartment and carried all of the pizzas, presents, trays, some other breakfast foods over there.  So, our tradition was a little jumbled this year.

One of my favorite presents, they are all my favorites you understand, but one favorite I will take the time to tell you about is one I got from Abigail.  It was a Coca-Cola phone.  It looks like it was made form old-fashioned Tiffany stained glass with the logo inlaid in it and when it rings, it lights up inside through the glass and the handset looks that deep, dark., beautiful brown color that is the heavenly nectar.  It is so cool.  I also got a Coca-Cola clock this year.  I got an empty bag and a coloring page from Western Wearhouse because Margaret wanted to get me a new pair of boots or a gift card for some, but wasn’t sure how much it would be.  I guess she didn’t figger if there was any left over I also need a new hat.  (just a little joke there)  I am down to wearing my faithful old Army boots, which are the second most comfortable shoe on Earth.  They are 16 years old, however, and starting to leak a little now.

I gave Ben a gag gift from the dollar store, a remaindered book and tape set called, "How to Win at Parenting without Beating Your Children."  It was full of new-age claptrap that is worse than worthless.  The real present I bought for him was Dr. Dobson’s, "New Strong-Willed Child."  This is a completely re-written version of "Raising the Strong-Willed Child" full of new research and data, and is excellent.  It seemed, since when she was born she came out with her fist raised and obviously determined to live, and many of the things she does now, appropriate.  One of the paragraphs on the back cover starts out, "They come into the world smoking a cigar and complaining about the temperature in the delivery room..."

Ben and Isabel went to the hospital and visited Savannah.  They took all of her presents up to her, read her the Christmas story, and opened her presents with her.  She would respond to the brightly colored papers and the crinkly sound it made.  We spent the day at Ben’s house, Grandma took her nap in their glider rocker and a great time was had by all.

Margaret is doing better; she is less dizzy all the time and may be ready for work on Monday.  She still has a pain, but I’m not going anywhere.  Seriously, her head itches where she hit (she had an abrasion) and she can’t scratch it.  She really is doing a lot better and it is because people were praying for her.

As the Good Book says, "Santa brought gifts to the Baby Jesus and Rudolph’s nose was the star."  Okay, maybe the Good Book does not say that.

We had another snow, about 7 inches.  This is looking promising for a white Christmas.  Here in Colorado Springs we don’t often have one.  It is VERY slippery, however.  Margaret came out of church, slipped, and fell flat on her back, hitting her head hard.  She had a giant goose egg and was disoriented including some short-term memory loss!  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  All of a sudden, she could not remember what day it was or what we had done all day or where she lived.  She was very upset and so was everyone in the van.  I had planned to take her to the hospital after I dropped everyone off at home, but she wanted to stop at the fire station and have someone look at her, so we did.  They put her in an ambulance and she went to the ER.

I took Grandma and the girls home at 10 MPH, it was that slick, then made a couple of work-related calls and head for the hospital.  Elizabeth had gone with her in the ambulance so she would not feel quite so bad.  It was bad enough for her, though.  She is claustrophobic and they had put a neck brace on her and strapped her to one of those boards I can’t think of the name of because it is 3:04 AM.  We were done in the ER about 1:15 and then had to go get a prescription for a painkiller filled.

I mention she is claustrophobic (which is not, as I thought, a fear of Santa) because not only was she strapped down, but she also had to have a CT scan.  Yes, Carter and Randy, there was something in there.  Of course, I was a big enough brat to ask the doc.  It helped that Margaret was helpless and couldn’t slug me or anything.  They also X-rayed her neck to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself.  They didn’t find a concussion, but I have to wake her up every couple-three-four hours to make sure she knows her name and where she is, etc. so here I am.  Telling you guys what happened, drinking double-strength coffee and trying to focus on writing.

She is actually doing okay as of this writing and says she can tell someone was praying for her because of how much better she feels.

*YAWN!!!*  Excuse me.  Okay, I haven’t gone on this little sleep since the bad old days.  *YAWN!!!*  Oh!  Excuse me.

I think I just go ahead and post this.  As the Good Book says, hmmm...I have too little sleep to put something in here.

Okay folks, unless I update this entry later this will be about it.  I recommend for your reading pleasure this link http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?tab=weblogs&user=sbalak&uid=174359431 which goes to Susan’s blog.  Her tips, for both women and men, are absolutely true.  I especially like the propriety ones, but there is something for everyone.

I will post pictures of the baby as i get them developed.

Here we have a picture of Abigail sitting awfully close to a big guy with a red suit.  We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s "Electric Safari" where they have over a million lights on display with animations and colors, plus getting to see the critters and they had Santa there.  All my girls are beautiful, but the most photogenic is Abigail.  Of course it helps that she likes to get her picture taken.

Over the weekend, I finally met Randy in person, which was fun, even if he does like coconut.  Ah well, I have a friend who prefers pepsi to Coca-Cola, too, so i guess it takes all kinds to make a world.  There may be no accounting for some people’s tastes, but some people are just no-account.

Okay gang, that’s it for now.  Remember, as the Good Book says, "When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy."  Matt. 2:10 (KJV) 

Let’s not forget the baby’s birthday.