This Blog Has Officially Moved

This Blog Has Officially Moved to

www.HollyReed.com

Scope Creep

I started this blog when Robbie was a baby. The original purpose (or scope - if you want to enter my world of project development) was just to keep out of state family up to date on his development and antics.

There's been a bit of scope creep over time - the focus of the site has been getting blurry around the edges. Even so, there are literally dozens of things I don't write about simply because they don't fit within the site's scope. I have other blogs - blogs where I can write about soap or photography. But I don't.

Keeping one blog up to date with fresh material is hard enough. Three fresh blogs - impossible. Besides that, three blogs with narrow focus are still cutting out most of what I'd write about if I had more freedom.

Add to that the constriction of dealing in blogger's interface. I'm a web designer for heaven's sake - I can do so much better!

Soon this site will be at an end....but a newer, better, fresher, and hopefully more interesting one will replace it at a new address.

Stay tuned.

We're Back

We're back from our trip to Oregon. After a bit of a blogging hiatus I just wanted to say "Hi, I'm still alive." Once I finish shaking the sand out of my luggage and camera gear, I'll be posting plenty of photos and video of our adventure.

High Blood Sugar, Child Abuse and Patriotism

If you think about it, an Independence Day parade in the eyes of a child is a lot like a reverse Halloween. The kids stay put, the adults dress up funny and go around tossing candy at the kids. What could be better?

What follows is a pictorial review of the Tooele parade with commentary from Robbie and I. But really it's just things Robbie actually said and things I imagine Robbie would have said if he were older, as sarcastic as me and not nearly so hopped up on sugar.


Best parade spot ever. Right in the front lawn of Uncle Kip's house!


So all-American. I love it.


Hey Dad, while we wait for the parade to start, wanna fight?!


Of course by "fight" I mean tickle.


And hold me upside down.


And put the strength of my bladder control to the test with more tickling.


Ok enough "fightning", let's jump off the stairs!


I have one cute dad, right? Right?


Um, excuse me. I was told there would be candy at this thing but so far I only see a bunch of people jogging past with numbers on their chests.


This is my cousin carter. We'll do just about anything for candy. Aren't we cute? Give us candy.


Ok I'm waiving this flag. When does the candy part start?



Well until the candy gets there, these huge sugar cookies will tide me over.


Mmmm sugar!



Ok Carter, here's the plan. When the candy starts flying, you take out the little girl in white. More for us, Cuz.


I think I see...is it...could it be?? Candy's coming!!!!


False alarm.



Fire truck! Finally, some candy.


Look mom, they're just like my ARMY MENS!


MORE ARMY MENS!


Hmph. They didn't have any candy.


Look at that kid. Look! That's just child abuse.


My mom agrees. Putting your kids to work pushing your political message. Child abuse.


Hmm, I can't read yet, but I scan left to right. So I think they're saying that I should have babies first, then get married, then fall in love. Ok, I'll tuck that away for future reference.


Ok, parade's over, time for dad to shake up all that sugar in my belly with some tossing!


Sugar high? Never heard of it.


My mom thinks she's so smart. She put my huge sack of candy in the car but this nice lady gave us ice cream sandwiches and otter pops. Did I mention it's not even 10:00 am?


Ahh, Grummy and Grumpy and cousin Carter. Life is good.

I Still Can't Believe I'm Going to Put this in Writing

I hate running. I never loved it, but ambivalence started turning to loathing when I was 11. It was at that point that I was outrun on a race track by the 6 year old brother of a friend.

My high school gym teacher didn't help. He'd take our class on runs through town, trotting us around in our ratty gym-wear for traffic and bystanders to view. Of course, he usually ran right behind the stragglers, which meant that at least half the time my friend Jesse and I could count on his company.

Jesse wasn't in bad shape at all but she, like me, was only five feet tall and our stride was bound to be a bit shorter than the rest of the class'. We had co-ed gym, so half my class were boys, many of the class were in better shape and all of the class had longer legs. My memory is a bit fuzzy but the only kid I know for a fact was slower than us was in a wheel chair.

And in the ensuing thirteen years? Let's just say running hasn't had a big part in my life.

And now, at 31 and hopelessly out of shape, I've committed to run a 5k in October. Of this year.

I kind of wonder if my gym teacher does house calls. Maybe I could use the motivation. He was sort of a younger version of R. Lee Ermey. In lieu of Gunny, I have Toby and a progressively more difficult running schedule mapped out in Excel. The goal is to be race-ready in 12 weeks.

Now all I have to do is...well....just do it. Too bad the "doing" is so much harder than the planning.

Mini Vans and Time Machines

Before we even began trying to have children, Toby and I took a blood oath that we wouldn't own a minivan. I'm sorry if I'm offending any readers here, but I think I'm pretty safe on this one. Even if we had 4 or 5 or 15 kids, I think we'd find another solution before opting for a minivan. Even if that solution was a bus.

I'm not really hung up on cars. I can drive just about any brand of reliable car without a drop in my self esteem. But, to me, nothing says "I've given up trying to be anything but a chauffeur and I no longer try to keep the upholstery clean" like a minivan. My personal belief is that they should come with metal grate floors so the graham crackers can be hosed out periodically. Maybe a giant crumb tray like in my toaster oven.

Even Brad and Angelina couldn't make a minivan sexy - and they did try. See Mr. and Mrs. Smith for a refresher.

So where am I going with all this? Just here: this morning Robbie and I had the following conversation.

Robbie: Mom, we should get a slidey-car.
Me: A slidey-car? Explain please.
Robbie: A car with the slidey thingies on the side
Me: A minivan?
Robbie: Yes! That would be so cooooool. The doors slide back and forth! I wish we had one.

I'd never thought of it that way before. But to a three year old, sliding doors probably do seem pretty exotic and space-age. Almost as good as a DeLorean

Thanks for the perspective, Robbie.

Taking "tingly sensation" to a new level.

Old ads have always made me chuckle - especially when they advertise a product we now know to be completely useless or even harmful. When I saw this ad I was at first horrified. Lysol?? Down there? Yikes. I hope it was a milder form than what I currently use to disinfect my trash can. I really, really hope.



But this begs the question. What kind of products do we use that will make our grandchildren shrink in horror? My bet is Listerine. Future generations will probably discover it is the root cause of diabetes or erectile dysfunction. It would figure.