All a twitter

To those who read this on the blog, you will notice that I have added
a new widget on the left. This is the outlet for my twitter feed.
I've noticed that I've been spending more time on Facebook as of late,
and Twitter is able to update to both the blog and to facebook. I've
been updating the twitter feed much more often.

Then again, there's been some trouble with the wifi on iPaq, and I was
a bit against the idea of doing blog posts. Turns out all it needed
was a reboot, and it fired up like new.

Plus, over the past couple months, I have devoted quite a bit of time
to reading. I just recently finished, "Day of the Triffids." Super
creepy book. Highly recommended. It did take me quite a while to
read, and there was some parts that were quite long and not all that
interesting. The scary thing is that what survival is like! There is
a whole lot of time when the only thing you are concerned about is
staying alive. And what would happen if you were the last person left
on earth? It would get insanely quiet and lonely. I was especially
pleased with the ending, which I didn't entirely see coming.

After reading this, I wonder if I would be able to finish reading Lord
of the Rings. The biggest problem I had reading The Two Towers was
when I got to the second half which is JUST Frodo, Sam, and Golem. I
was bored to tears. I set it down, and that was about five years ago.

Rini is getting extrodinarily big. She's nearly 25 months old, and
she's nearly 92cm (3') tall! The other thing that shocks me every day
is how much more she is talking. We are much more vigilant about what
we watch on TV because she is picking up on everything.

Her favourite DVD was once her Ni hao Kai-Lan collection, but she's
started to branch out into the Pixar movies. She loved WallE to the
point that the DVD was scratched up really good, and I had to get it
resurfaced. She has figured out how to open up DVD cases, pop out
DVDs, and she also carries the discs properly with one finger through
the hole. But she still holds it like a plate every now and again.

The funny thing is that I don't feel like it's been a long time since
I've written anything, because I've been writing a letter to Tristan
every week for the past... Eight months. That has a good summary of
the week, yet I never post it on the blog, because for some odd reason
I think that there are somethings too personal to post on the blog.

Might also be the fact that I keep writing him all the Redneck jokes.
Don't know if Jeff Foxworthy would sue me for doing that.

Bloody good time

Not to be taken in the English sense, I could say that our FHE tonight was a bloody good time. Or a blood product good time. Doesn't quite sound the same does it? We went to the Canadian Blood Services clinic on the University campus, and it had been a couple months since I last donated, and close to eight months since I last donated plasma. It was a combination of blind ambition and stupidity that prevented me from donating for quite some time, because I had the goal to reach 50 donations by the time I was thirty. Well, I did it, but then my arms hurt so bad because I was picking up Rini after donations, and my blood vessels weren't healing properly. I didn't have a close up of what they looked like, but I will warrant a guess that the camera would have done a CGI zoom into my body had I been the star of an episode of House, just so you could see just how poorly my body was attempting to repair itself.

Rini had a bit of a time getting used to the fact that Mommy and Daddy were not going to be sitting with her the entire time, but she was fine after we changed her diaper. Funny how that works sometimes. That little girl is going to be two years old as of twenty minutes past noon tomorrow. I know that I want her to fifteen years older now so she can donate blood too, but I'll worry about that when the time comes around. For the moment, she loves the food and sitting in the comfy chairs! It was rather cute how she would sit in the chair beside me as I was finishing up with my phlebotomy.

Wasn't the most structured FHE, but we did open with a prayer, sort of. We said a prayer before we left for the clinic. Mind we didn't do any gospel lesson attached to blood donation. Although it is an act of service, since blood donation is strictly a voluntary basis. Literally giving of yourself so that others can live a healthy life. I would think that would be the best kind of service there is, and in order to participate in such service, you have to keep yourself in a state that qualifies you to donate. First, you have to be in good health. You can't donate if your blood is going to make the other person sick. Or dead. Too many white blood cells and antibodies can do that. Second, they have to be sure that you don't have any diseases that can be carried by blood such as STDs or malaria. That's not to say that you can't travel internationally, just be careful. You also have to have a healthy blood pressure, or else they are going to have to question the quality of the blood vessels.

Service would be the best kind of lesson to teach our children. Even if it's something as simple as getting a 16 gauge needle in your arm and staying still for half and hour. Less if you're donating blood.

Still can't believe that little girl is going to be two years old tomorrow! Fifteen years, and she'll be able to donate. Yeesh! I'll be forty-five! That's a bit of a start. And Caitlin and I would have just celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary!

I better start planning!

Behind Schedule

Yes, I know I said that we would have the comic up and running by now.
One little glitch came up. Web hosting. I couldn't decide whether I
want to have it hosted by Comic Genesis, try to do something
independent, or publish it under another blog. I'm leaning towards
the first, thinking about the second, and just put the third one in
there because I know that it's a viable option. Not the first, but
rather the last option.

A friend of mine told to investigate htmlgoodies.com to get a bit more
prep in writing webpages, and I have yet to check it out. Funny, I
investigate all sorts of other weird things, like the fact there will
be a total solar eclipse on 21 Aug 2017 that will reach it's peak for
2m10s roughly where Missouri and Kentucy intersect, but I don't bother
checking out something that might be educational!

Rini is getting more and more articulate, and bigger too! We measured
her tonight, and she stands 89cm. For the metrically challenged, that
would be about half an inch under 3'. This little girl isn't so
little anymore! She's got height on both sides of her family, and
she'll need it if she wants to keep up with her cousins! I don't know
how tall Ben or Savanah are right now, and now that I think about it,
Savanah must be walking by now! This April trip is going to be quite
the eye opener!

Caitlin is thinking of going as Bigby and Snow White for CCE Expo, but
I'm still holding out for Bob and Dot. GAVIN BLAIR IS GOING TO BE
THERE! Maybe we could do the Reboot thing one day, and then do the
Fables thing the next. Last year we did Girl Genius the first day and
The Incredibles the next. Well, the later wasn't that hard to pull
off since we just wore black pants and our T-shirts. Still made us
stand out in Jennie Bradden's picture gallery.

The convention costumes are on the back burner right now, because
Caitlin is busy with articles for "The Emperor's New Clothes."
Curtain is going up in less than two months, so we need to hit the
grindstone hard in terms of logistical preparations. That reminds me,
we need to get a copy of the script and rehearsal schedule to Morgan.
I wonder if we would be able to lift Drew... Hmmm... That would be
AWESOME! I think this production is going to be all flavours of
awesomesauce. Hee hee.

Takes the mickey out of you

Rini had a touch of illness today. Caitlin was a little concerned
when she woke up late, because usually wakes her up a couple hours
after I leave.

According to Caitlin, Rini was rather listless today. Twice she fell
asleep in her arms, and Rini went to sleep at 7:15p. Seeing that she
got up sometime around 11am, and she didn't nap much today, that
little girl had quite the recovery day today!

You would think that Caitlin and I would have used the free time to
ourselves to do something outlandish and crazy that we can't do when
she's awake! I got out the dictionaries.

Yeah, we live on the wild side. Crickey I'm old.

Comic update: We have three story comics and one sketch fully inked
and ready to go. The fourth story comic has been scripted and Caitlin
is working on the penciling right now. Right now. I'm typing and
she's drawing. It's an interesting combonation. Usually she's
reading and I'm writing.

Things balance quite well with me doing most of the writing, and
Caitlin doing the artwork. We both have ideas on what to do with the
characters, but we're just taking it a step at a time. We know the
stories that we want to cover in time, and they will be addressed.
But you can only fit so much into one comic, and we've found that less
is more when it comes to text.

The creative process leaves you a little drained though. After
plotting out the comics, I find that I'm almost at a loss on where to
go next. That being said, I don't think that we would have been able
to get as far as we have if I wasn't pushing Caitlin as hard as I
have. Mind, I also have to push myself, or else nothing gets done.

The secret of life. "Just keep swimming..."

Unlike Hollywood, this really is coming soon

Caitlin is penciling out the first comic for our webcomic. We have
had to goal to get this underway for some time now, and last summer we
even had a good chunk of story written, and a number of strips planned
out. This came to a halt when a) we lost our internet connection, and
b) I lost the binder. We still have the original character sketches
that Caitlin drew up last year, and those have been very useful in the
planning. We still have the same ideas in mind, but we've decided to
start from a different point. Instead of starting right at the
beginning of the story, we're going to start a little ways in, and
then have flashbacks. We can make it just one image, or we can make a
series of strips out of it. The main thing is that we won't be stuck
in it, it will just be a side story to complement the main story.

It makes sense to me.

I'm going to submit the comic to Comic Genesis as soon as Caitlin gets
it inked. I don't know how long the turn around time is for this, but
I'm thinking that sooner is better than later. Maybe I'm just eager
to start something new, or I'm just tired of thinking that 'someday'
we'll do this.

Caitlin and I thought that the best update schedule for the moment
would be sketch Mondays and canon Fridays. It moves it pretty slowly,
hence we are going to have to pack as much story as we can in each
one. I would prefer that the comic does the story telling rather than
having an illustration to complement a novel page. It works for some
people, and I'm not saying that it's bad. Who knows, maybe we'll try
it later. For now, we want it to be pretty straight up.

The other thing that we're trying to figure out is a name. We're
pretty certain but we'll be circulating some ideas to people.

Stay tuned for more details!

Oh and Rini is getting more and more defiant. We have to be a bit
more patient with her, but we've also discovered a few ways to get her
to eat healthy. First, don't give her snacks before meal times.
Second, if you don't want her to drink juice, don't drink it yourself.
We all need to drink more water, and if she sees you drinking water,
then she's fine with it. Especially if you drink it from a Nalgene
container. I have no idea why that works, but communal drinking seems
to be fine with her. I know I don't have meningitis, and neither does
she.

Rini's second Christmas

Last year was Rini's first Christmas, and there were all sorts of wonderful things that happened. The only glitch is that I doubt Rini remembers any of it. Goodness, I barely remember it. I'll just to go back to last years blog and see what I wrote. Hopefully something!

This year we tried to do a little bit of a family christmas thing. I know that it's only Christmas Eve, but before we headed out chez Tolley, we opened up the presents that we got from Grammie and Grandpa Clark (my parents). They are going to be visiting Grandma tomorrow, but I don't know if we would be able to drop by for a visit of sorts. We'll have to play it by ear.

It a drastic departure, this year the Christmas PJ's were cropped pants and knee socks! There were also T-shirts, but the socks were blue and black stripes, and the shirts blue with black cropped pants. For all the grandkids, they all fit like pants, if they fit. It's kind of weird to have solid colours. I'm used to the zany prints that always befit the crazy Tolley clan. This year, solid colour, but the socks are new. Crazy didn't let me down!

Rini might have discovered a new favourite toy with one of the presents from Grammie and Grandpa! There was a felt flower that she absolutely loves. She even dropped her bunny to play with it, and that's saying something! For the six months that she's had that bunny they have pretty much been inseparable.

I've also learned that Rini is kind of funny when it comes to watching movies. Granted, she just turned 22 months today, but she only likes movies that are really cute. She LOVES Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but of that movie, she only likes the part with the little bunnies. She also likes the DVD game, but she runs around and plays while the movie runs for the more part, as she did today when we watched "Horton Hears A Who." Funny funny movie, really cute, lots of smart comedy, good physical comedy, but could not hold Rini's attention. What a goof!

She was quite the character while taking the family pictures, and at first she didn't want to lie down on the ottoman, but when she saw her cousins doing it, we couldn't get her off! We got some really cute pictures, but I'll have to post them later. We'll get the pictures emailed to us, probably before the new year, and I'll be able to do something with them then.

Should be for a wonderful day tomorrow!

Also, it's much safer to drive Elene now. All we had to do was open up the Fresh air vents and most of the moisture in the car was able to equalize with the air outside. Who knew?

Simple things in life

Today, after a crazy day at work that made me realize I need to take
my meds, we went to get some Christmas shopping done. It wasn't that
busy, and we actually found quite a few good things. Mind, Rini and I
had a good time playing in the store. We went up and down the
escalator about a dozen times, and she was getting quite good at
getting on and off without tripping or falling over. I also taught
her to keep both feet in the middle of the step. Simple things, and
I'm sure she won't remember this, but I hope she remembers that I
spent time with her, even if we just went up and down the escalator
loads of times.

I actually got the idea from 'One Fine Day.' George Clooney: "Don't
worry about them, they're on the escalators." And that's what the kids
did! They went up and down the escalators throughout the entire
scene! What are the odds that my daughter acts just like kids in
movies?

On second thought, the chances are pretty good.

The other frightening thing I realized is that I haven't given much
thought towards presents for my parents, sisters, or grandmother! I'm
horrible! And running out of money. Caitlin mentioned that my
parents celebrate Ukranian Christmas, which is on 6 January. So we're
covered, plus I'll have my first paycheck of the new year by then. I
have no idea if we are going to get a Christmas bonus, but judging
from the outstanding accounts that we have in front of us, I would say
that I'll be lucky if I still have a job in the new year!

Ha ha! No, I am seriously freaked out of my tree. Hence the meds.