dayofgloryandjoy

Stay-cation: Day Four

So maybe I haven’t been entirely successful keeping this blog updated, but I have a fairly decent excuse.  I've been on vacation.  Technically, it's a "stay-cation."  I thought the idea of a stay-cation was sort of pathetic when this term started being thrown around a couple of years ago.  It seemed to mainly be used by local resorts trying to convince us that, really, since we can't actually afford to take a vacation, we should drop a hundred bucks on a hotel room 10 minutes from our house and pretend like we're on vacation.  No thank you. 

But Ben and I decided that this year a stay-cation actually made sense for us.  The biggest selling point of the stay-cation, of course, is avoiding the hassle and expense of actual travel and lugging a seemingly infinite number of baby gear items to and fro.  Plus, we've already done the first plane ride thing with Emeline, going to visit family in Missouri, so we weren't going to be missing any big adventures in that respect. 

Emeline turned six months old yesterday, so this week seemed like a good time to take a break and spend some quality family time.  So we've been taking it easy, eating lots of junk food (because it just isn't a real vacation without Cheetos), and visiting the places we love, or think we'd love but just haven't had time to try out.  It's been lots of fun.

On Sunday we took it easy, ate a nice lunch at Pia's (if you haven't been there lately you must go - they have lovely new indoor dining rooms) and visited with some new Gulfport friends who have a daughter almost exactly Emeline's age.  We've also made a trip to feed the ducks at Wood Ibis Park and made our first visit to the Florida Aquarium. I wasn't sure Emeline was old enough to really get the concept of watching fish behind glass, but she was really interested in everything.

Our stay-cation continues through the end of the week, so I'm sure I'll have some other stories to share before it's over.

The Resurrection of a Blog

As you can see, dayofgloryandjoy has fallen by the wayside a bit over the last couple of years.  To be honest, it never totally got off the ground.  First, Ben started it as a way to post updates about our wedding.  Great idea!  Well, as awesome as our wedding was, apparently there just wasn’t all that much to blog about once it was over.  When we bought our house in 2007 that provided some new fodder, but that seems to have fizzled too – which is sort of a shame, since we do have some pretty interesting house stories (such as “snake in the kitchen” and “strange man ‘breaking in’ to our backyard”).  

So, I’ve decided to give this blog thing a try.  It seems to make sense to give it another go following our most recent Major Life Event – the birth of our wonderful daughter, Emeline Diana Kirby, in February.   She’s turning 6 months old next week, and she’s at an age when – most days – she’ll nap for a while and even occupy herself with toys for little bits of time, so I can actually attempt to get a few things done.

I’m going to do my best to update this thing reasonably often with the glorious and joyful (and sometimes not so glorious and joyful) miscellany of life as a mama/homeowner/wife/grad student/sort-of political consultant.  I hope you enjoy. 

 

 

Indiana Jones and the Legion of the Ant Kingdom

There were these pavers, two wide, buried in the front yard.  We had to dig them up and move them.

It may seem like the kind of chore that was not fraught with peril.  It, in fact, was. 

It seems that every ant that ever existed lives under our front yard.  Millions.  Billions.  Possibly trillions of ants. 

I'm not even kidding.

It's All Flowers and Cake

Check out our new photo album: It's All Flowers and Cake, to the right in photo albums.  There are some mysteries in there, so have fun! 

The Office-to-Sunroom Shuffle

We're moving the office out of the, well, office and into our sunroom.  This will allow the, um, room formerly known as the office to become a real guestroom.

We went with the yellow on the left, if you're curious...

Jolly

And I'd just heard some thing on NPR about not humiliating yourself at your boss' holiday party.

Anyway, thank goodness Santa was there to save the day:

Day of Glory and Turkey

It was a great Thanksgiving in Springfield, Missouri, with a hat-tip to Susannah and Phillip for doing a great job hosting. 

Of course, it was Adam's birthday (34) the Friday after Thanksgiving and Hayden's second birthday in just a week or so, so we had a birthday bash in there as well.  It was a Kirby Family House Party. 

Check out the photo albums to the right (The Bird is the Word and The Bird Is The Other Word) for shots of the good times, including much cake eating, and a requisite trip to the Bass Pro Shop Galactic Headquarters.  It was amazing. 

Family Make Fire... Family Enjoy Dinner with Glass of Chardonnay

So we bought this grill the other day.

It's a pretty good grill.  A UniFlame?  You've heard of it, no? 

Alright, so it's not cream of the crop.  Whatever.  And maybe it was made in China and painted with lead based paint.  None of that matters.  It cooked our first grilled meal at home with tender loving care. 

You could barely taste the lead. 

Check out the pictures for more to the right.

It's Going to Kill Me, Isn't It?

Yes, I believe it just might.

Click the picture.  See that blurry black line on the ground, about the middle of the shot? 
Yes, that is called a Deadly Death Killer Mutilator Bitey Murder Snake.  And I'm pretty sure he's looking for me. 

Duncan took this picture from our office, so that's why it's a little weird -- through the screen and window and all.  She was actually going to go out and confron the Deadly Death Killer Mutilator Bitey Murder Snake, but when she walked out the back door to get a better look, he found a hobo in the alley to kill, and went after him.   

The (Gulfport) Paper of Record

The Gulfport Paper of Record is the Gulfport Gabber. 

It is my new favorite paper, ranking right up there with the Washington Post, the New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Arkansas Times.  You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. 

If you think that it's just another paper that has bravely featured as an advertisement perms for dudes (page 24), then you're wrong.  They have a writer on staff named Cathy Salustri.  Cathy managed to get a Gabber article published on the front page of the paper entitled "I Had a Dream."

It's basically about how she "became a racist."  I am, of course, not down with the whole racism thing.  Racism is, obviously, wrong.  But her piece compels you to think, and you don't get that from a lot of newspapers anymore.  Hair perm advertisements or no.