My wife the blogger

At Sparkle Plenty's suggestion, Jess has started her own blog. It can be found here.

In other news, I think I got Sierra to say Manny, but it sounds like "Man-mee" or "Man-man".

Body Parts

Video courtesy of Jess, Mrs. Redbeard.

Also today Sierra graduated to a big girl bed. For the past week she's been screaming whenever we put her in her crib for a nap or down for bed. She would scream for almost an hour in come cases, and she would scream when she woke up, increasingly earlier and earlier each morning. For the past 2 mornings it's been at 4:30-4:45am.

At first we thought it might be the heat. We put the fan in her room, no change.

Then we thought that the light in the room coming through her southeast facing windows were keeping her up in the evenings and getting her up early in the mornings. We nailed blankets over her windows. This temporarily assuaged her crying for one night, then she was back to her old newish habits.

So this morning we took Jess' old single bed out of storage, knowing we were keeping it for Sierra when she is old enough. And now is the time. Taking down the crib was a lot easier than putting it together with no instructions (I had bought it secondhand from a co-worker). We put the bed together in no time although my wrists are quite sore from the ratcheting.

Sierra was absolutely giddy when we got her up in the bed. Now tonight will be the true test - what will happen when we put her down for the night unrestricted.

Desert Island Disc

If you were stranded on a deserted island and you could only listen to one CD over and over, what would it be?

Mine without a doubt would be Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's Raising Sand, for many reasons which I would love to go into detail, but I'll withhold that for the comments section.

How about you? You've been tagged.

[edited 11:30am 6/12/08] WAIT!!! I CHANGED MY MIND!!!

I want Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid as my Desert Island Disc. Utterly brilliant disc, I'm so glad to have been introduced to them, I need to go check out their back catalogue as well. I just listened to it twice the whole way through, and I could do with another listen to be completely honest.

Workplace hijinks and nature

Click on the photos to enlarge.


It was extreeeemely cold the other day so CB decided to wear her fleece on her legs.


I was bored so I needed to amuse myself by drawing a watch on my hand. Notice the time. Never mind my pasty whiteness.


No doggie appearances this week, this was the closest we got - DF brought in a gift she was giving a friend of hers with a Dachshund.


You must bring us.... A SHRUBBERY! Yes, one with red on the tips. Ooh yes I quite like that.


The Zen garden, replete with heelstone.


The dandelions are all but gone, but in their place have come these peculiar red flowering weeds that are actually rather pleasant looking, with their shades of purple in their stems.


A patch of the red flowering weeds.


At the crest of the hill stands what looks like a smokehouse or maple sugaring shack. Definitely abandoned, the sign above what used to be the door says "The Treehouse / Welcome".


The view from the crest of the hill looking across scenic VT route 100 to the hills of Waitsfield.



Clouds cling low to the mountaintops opposite from the lush green football/soccer/lacrosse fields on this leaden-skied day.

Oh, and the Red Sox emptied the dugout last night in a huge brawl. But of course you already know that. We won, too. The game that is, not necessarily the fight.

Random photos from holiday

Sierra sitting in her toys again.


Bleeding hearts from mom-in-law's garden.


Sierra feeding Shelby cubers (ice cubes).


Sierra and her cousin Charlotte in NY. They're growing so fast.


Rebecca (9 days old in the photo) and her uncle Redbeard.