Yesterday was my first day back at work in a week. That’s always fun, right? *Sigh* On my drive to work I got a call from my wife saying my daughter was crying because I went to work. My daughter had been asleep when I left the house, so I hadn’t said goodbye. So, they were going to visit me at work during lunch and we were going to have a picnic.

On the way to my office, my daughter saw a man and said: “Look! That guy has a pink shirt! He stole it from a lady!”

For the record, I have nothing against pink shirts and haven’t said anything like the above. I have no idea where my daughter got it, but it’s hilarious. My wife tells me the guy didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t hear, or maybe he has a good sense of humor. Hopefully it wasn’t the President of the university.

If I was with my daughter, the guy in the pink shirt probably would’ve been some type of 300 pound bodybuilder. That would totally happen to me

On the Fourth of July we attended a huge picnic at one of my cousin’s house on a farm. We had a pretty good time, mostly because the skies were overcast but not rainy, making the July weather bearable. My daughter (2 years old) even got to climb in one of those huge inflatable bouncy things and jump around a bit. I went in too, in part to shield her from the bigger jumpy kids. It was a heck of a workout, I’ll tell you that!

Anyhow, to the point of this post. Much of my family was at the picnic, including my uncle. This particular uncle loves to attend auctions and is always buying old tools and Amish made things. He told us he has lately been buying old books and even brought one out to show us.

First of all, just the thought of old books made me happy. Then, the book he had was published in 1917 in Altoona, Pennsylvania and contained tons of information about local history. Most interesting to me was information about the American Indians that lived in this area. I find this stuff fascinating.

It was one of those moments that I wished I were a speed-reader with a photographic memory, so I could capture all that information in my brain. I’m not, so all I did was have my Dad write down the names of the American Indian tribes on a piece of paper for further research.

I wish I got a picture of the book. The one above is from Wikimedia Commons. I think my Dad has the book right now, so maybe I’ll have him take a picture.

So yeah, I like old books. Not much of a surprise, right? I may have to get to some of these auctions, to see if I can score some of these books myself. Just don’t tell my wife, because I’m not sure we have the room for MORE books

Very tired today. I only got 4 or 5 hours sleep last night. In the meantime, here a picture my wife took of me on Father’s Day that I thought was pretty cool. Yep, I can bend time around me. We’re not sure how we achieved that effect.

I look a bit different without the beard, eh?

It’s 12:36 at night and we’ve just returned from the July 4th party at my cousin’s house.  It was a good day

Well, today was a contrast to the day yesterday. I only left the house to drop some bills off at the post office (stupid car payment and natural gas bill). However, it was still eventful.

I got the grass mowed, which we needed. It wasn’t so much that the grass grew that much as they weeds around the grass grew. I’m not one of those types to spend money on having my lawn treated to eliminate weeds, as I’m cheap and it’s silly. So, it needs mowing at least once a week.

We also planted a few Asiatic Lillies in the flower bed. They are my favorite type of lilly. So colorful.

We began the potty training in full today. We are starting the daughter on big girl panties. She did pretty well, although she had a few accidents (though I’m told we aren’t to call them accidents). She was so proud to wear underwear. She told me she had My Little Pony on hers and wondered what was on mine (polar bears). Such fun.

By the way, I wrote a post at beagooddad.com about a potty training book, so you may want to check that out.

I have other news, but will wait for a little bit to share that. It’s not writing related, but still good news.

The above photo is of the book I just finished reading, The Discworld Graphic Novels. I very much enjoyed it. The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic are two of my favorite Terry Pratchett books, so it was cool to read them with pictures You can view and read the pages of the book here.

SzélsőFa has been running a guess the movie contest on her blog. It’s great fun. You should check out the latest installment.

Well, I hear explosions around me which can only mean one thing: the Fourth of July is near.  Tomorrow we’re heading to a cousin of mine’s farm about two hours away.  Plenty of home baked food and sunshine are in my future.  It should be fun.  I’ll post tomorrow if we get home at a reasonable time.

Keep the comments coming!

When I said I was having a “stay at home” vacation, the home part was a bit of a gray area. We really didn’t spend much time at home, but it was still a nice day.

First, we had lunch with our friends who are moving to Ohio next week. We all had a good time, but it was bittersweet. Bedsides being really nice people, they also have a son around nine months or so old that I know would be great friends with my daughter in a few years. We’ll keep in touch though, which is easier nowadays via cyberspace!

After that, we headed to the pool for a quick swim. Yay! My daughter had a great time playing with her My Little Ponies in the Kid’s Pool.

After that, we headed to the mini-golf course. The above photo is of the welcome sign that greeted us as we walked toward the main office for the mini-golf course. The course is located on campgrounds not far from our house. Here’s a photo of the course itself. It was very nice.

The gold itself was good. I wound up winning the game and my wife had two hole-in-ones (holes-in-one?). The only hard part was toddler-wrangling as my daughter was more interested in rambling off on her own rather than playing golf with us. She kept my wife and I quite busy.

We live right beside a college town, and I work in that college town, but we also live in the middle of Pennsylvania. Sometimes I’m reminded of that, such as the road name I noticed in the drive home: Killdeer Lane. Sigh.

We finally got home around 7:30 this evening, a nice end to a nice day. My daughter somehow stayed awake until 9:30 and that’s without a nap. She was amazingly still in a good mood.

Well, I hope you all are enjoying these little recaps. They are fun to write. More pics tonight. Maybe even one from the pool!

Vacation, Day 2. It was a busy one with no pool

The morning started off well, with my wife, my daughter, and I going to story time at the local library. The above picture is of the building where they held story time. It was my first time at story time, and as my wife says, our daughter is a “squirmy wormy”. In her defense, she was the youngest there. I had a good time, although they did play a quick movie (”The Napping House”) which was a little creepy in that old animation kind of way. My daughter whispered to me “Can we watch a different movie Daddy?” and I agreed.

After that, we all went to the dress shop to meet with my sister and parents to help my sister pick out a wedding dress. My daughter also got the chance to try on several flower girl dresses, and cried each time we put her back in her “regular dress”. She’s lucky she’s cute.

Things went a bit more hectic after the dress shop because the little lady didn’t have her nap. On the plus side, she fell asleep for the evening at 7:30.

Tomorrow, we have lunch with friends, mini-golf in the evening and hopefully the pool in between. Fingers crossed

Today was Day 1 of the vacation. So far, so good.

I thought I’d share a picture of something from the vacation each day, and today’s picture is of my new sandals, bought with the gift card I got from freeandflawed for my Microsoft Paint drawing. I just bought the sandals of Sunday and love them already.

There’s a reason why it makes sense to post a picture of sandals. It’s because I don’t plan on wearing shoes or socks this entire vacation. You may not know this about me, but I hate shoes and socks. I think I’d take a pay cut from my job if they’d just let me wear sandals or bare feet to work.

We didn’t do too much today. I got to sleep in to 7:00 (a whole 1/2 hour). We went to the pool and had a lot of fun swimming and eating nachos and cheese. My daughter really enjoyed the kid’s pool and didn’t want to come home. If it wasn’t for the ominous black clouds, I wouldn’t have wanted to go home either.

When we got home, my daughter took a nap. Guess what? I took a nap too. Can you believe that? I can’t. Of course when I woke up I felt worse than before I fell asleep. That’s the way it is, I guess.

I haven’t done any fiction writing yet. Tomorrow night is the night. I promise I did write a post at BeAGoodDad.com about a potty training book. You can check that out tomorrow (Tuesday).

I guess that’s all for tonight. Check back tomorrow for another picture from my vacation.

Well, I’ve taken this entire week off as vacation from work. You’re probably wondering where I’m going. That’s the best part. I’m going nowhere.

In fact, this will be the first time since I graduated from college that I’ve had an extended time off of work in the summer and I don’t have to travel anywhere. It’s nice to go to places, but I often find I need a vacation to recover from those vacations!

I don’t have much plans this week, besides not burning much gasoline. I’d really like to sleep in a bit, but that’s not going to happen with the human alarm clock in the house wanting to watch The Wiggles. Mostly, I want to not think about work, and spend a bit of time in the sun at the local pool (we have a family membership for the summer). Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to do a little writing in the evenings!

Just so you know I’m having a good time, I give you a picture of me, done by my daughter:

Don’t I look relaxed and happy?

***Spoilers***

This post is going to be about Doctor Who, so those of you who don’t watch are probably going to be lost. Also, I’m going to be talking about the episodes, so there may be spoilers.

I just got finished watching ”Silence In The Library” and “The Forest of The Dead”, two episodes in Series 4 of the Doctor Who television show. My first reaction is wow! These were by far my favorite of this Series. They were probably my favorite since the last one done by Steven Moffat.

There’s really so much to say, but I don’t know what to say. I think I need to go back and watch this a few more times, because I’m still not sure what happened. Have we seen The Doctor’s future wife? How does he meet her in the future?

Also, I like Donna Noble more each week. Donna has come so far since “The Runaway Bride”. Which brings me to: poor Donna!

This was by far the scariest, and best written episode of the season for me.  How can they top this?

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