#photo #Family

Last night we sat down to do our annual pumpkin carving.  As usual we all enjoyed ourselves and, I think, we had some pretty creative pumpkin efforts even if they didn't turn out exactly like we had hoped/expected.

Emily is finally getting to the point where she is strong enough to do some of the cutting herself so she managed to cut out one of her pumpkin eyes before needing help.  Shannon is finally able to attempt to express her creativity in her carving and this year she gave herself the difficult task of carving the Pillsbury Dough Boy into her gourd.  Lisa decided to get a bit retro and she created a hippy pumpkin with a big peace symbol for an ear.    Meanwhile, I decided to try for my most detail oriented pumpkin yet and I attempted to carve out the Cat in the Hat.

We don't have any cool special tools like a dremel to do these with; we use a razor blade, a grapefruit spoon, and some old broken up pumpkin carving saws that came in a kit.  Needless to say our tools aren't really quite sufficient for the job all the time but I'm still happy with how they all came out.

Here's a slideshow of the pumpkins both in daylight and glowing at night.  Enjoy.

#Family #FunStuff #Entertainment

I suppose now is the time were we should be looking back at the past year to study our success and to learn from our failures. To be honest I'm not sure that's a very easy task. Heck, it seems hard enough just to identify events that might qualify in either category. However I think one success for me has been my increased involvement in my community. I created the website whyhuntington.com last year and because of that I have met many great people and have had the opportunity to help on a few different projects. I've also had the chance to speak with the media in terms of the local newspaper, television stations, and our university radio station about what I think are the positives in Huntington and how we can address some of the negatives. I doubt my voice carries much weight but it's been cool being able to share my thoughts on the subject and perhaps, slightly, help set a direction for positive change.

My efforts to get involved and help bring about change are also the source of one of my failures this year - my effort to join the Cabell County Board of Education. I am glad I tried and I think my primary effort was well executed I think I could have handled the pettiness of the process much better. I should not have lost my temper with Ted Barr (RIP) who was, at the time, the board president. Regardless of what I thought of his tactics I should have kept my cool and expressed my opinions in a more constructive way. I'm not sure how I could have done that but I believe I could have done better.

Another big victory for us was getting a better handle on our finances. While we are no-means perfect at saving money we have done much much better. This started a couple years ago really when we decided to take half of any pay raises or sudden windfalls we got and to put those directly into a savings account that is difficult to tap into. Sadly, we've tapped a few times anyway but at least, at this point, we have something in savings. A nice plus to saving half of these bonuses is that you still get to enjoy the increase a little bit while at the same time you are saving money without feeling any pinch. This is a tactic I want to teach the kids in the upcoming year and, since they have no expenses, I'd like them to start saving half of all income they receive - or maybe I'll get them to save 40% and have them find a charity for 10% that they can donate to each year.

All of our financial preparations couldn't have come at a better time because as 2009 comes to a close and we approach a new decade our family is deep in a period of uncertainty; specifically concerning Lisa's career. Her company was purchased earlier this year and after the merger happened no personnel decisions were immediately announced. Instead we were told we had to wait until January 8 to find out her fate. Thus we are looking at the new year as a time of change more than we normally might. If Lisa does get laid off she has decided that she would like to try and be a stay at home mom. This will cause us to seriously escalate our efforts at living life more frugally as her income will be sorely missed if we continue to live as we do. However, we think it will be possible based on what little information we have at the moment.

In November I hit my 10 year mark with Strictly Business. It's pretty amazing to me that I've lived anywhere this long let alone worked for the same company for such a big chunk of it. I don't technically hit my 10 years of full time employment until May or June but it's close enough for me. It is nice having a sense of job security right now more than ever!

So that is last year - what's up for next year? First off I'm thinking of running for the Board of Education in a real election. Lisa's job situation will have a major impact on that decision so I'm still holding out on throwing my hat in the ring. There are, I believe, 3 seats that will be up for election so I feel like my odds might be pretty good. I am also hoping to help the Tree team for Tomorrow get the tree planting progressing. We raised a bunch of money but so far we haven't actually planted any of the seedlings yet. I am also considering getting involved, somehow, in an after school computer program at Shannon and Emily's school. It is just an idea I have floating in my head so I don't know if that will happen or not but it's something I'm tossing around.

I would very much like to get more involved in the girls lives than I am currently. I feel like I am just a weekend dad and that bothers me. I'm not sure how or when I will be able to do that but it is, beyond making sure I stay employed, my biggest priority for the upcoming year. I'd also like to get my aches and pains healed up so I can start riding my bike and maybe playing frisbee again. I know, there is only so much time in a day so I'll probably not get all of this done to my satisfaction but I want to make an effort of it.

Finally, I want to finish the few home repair/improvement projects we have started in the past. These include, but are not limited to:

• Bathroom Drywall Repair
• Back Patio Repaving
• Secret Door Trimming
• Kitchen Floor Trimming
• Upper Patio Trim
• Bottom Deck Handrail Replacement

I hope to get a few of those done in the first couple months of the year. Hopefully I'll have reported the good news that I finished them here on my blog by April!

#Family #MyLife

Well, fall has managed to sneak up on me and I haven't posted in, probably, over a month. I'm a disgrace to the blogging community! Be that as it may I have decided to throw out a new family update to keep my diasporic friends and family informed. You can thank me later and, yes, I made up the word diasporic; sue me. No, please don't sue me I can't really afford to defend myself - in fact, just forget about the diaspora I suggested and focus, instead, on what follows. After my bad luck bike ride where I ended up with two broken chains and a flat I don't think I've made it back on the trails again even though I did replace my chain. I think I need to tweak a tooth on my second chain ring and thus I've been making excuses to not ride. Not only in blogging have I been a slacker. However, I have not just been sitting on my ass. No, I've been out playing ultimate frisbee again, which, truth be told, has been a blast. Sure, I've sucked - but I've had a lot of fun. I've played once or twice a week over the past three weeks and it has been a great change of pace. My left Achilles tendon doesn't care much for it - but the rest of me is feeling great. In a completely unrelated topic my website, WhyHuntington.com, is still going pretty strong. It has never gotten as many other contributors as I would have liked but it's going OK. Because of it I have been asked to speak at the Create WV Conference being held in Huntington Oct 18-20. I'll be a speaker in the Business Tracks session on "Why West Virginia?" This will probably be my largest speaking audience since High School Debate so hopefully I don't make an ass out of myself. Shannon and Emily are both busy with school; Shannon in 3rd grade and Emily in Kindergarten. They both have homework every friggen night which is a real drag. How much homework should a kindergartner have anyway? Granted, Emily needs to work a bit harder during the day, in school, but sheesh I'm not sure they both need to have so much to do every night. Shannon is working on a solid "C" in her conduct grade becuase she is such a screwball. She talks, pretends like she's sleeping, doesn't turn in homework - or tests for that matter - and is generally a non-model student in class. In large part this is our fault becuase I don't think we've really instilled much responsibility into her so now we are trying to think of some ways to get her to me more responsible. I'm not entirely sure where we are going with that but hopefully, in the long run, we'll pick a winning strategy. Emily, on the other hand, is no better. She doesn't really listen in class, does her own things, and makes up excuses for why she can't do things all the time instead of trying to figure out how she actually can do something. This whole parenting thing is no walk in the park let me tell you. Of course I have no idea how to make her not be a total slacker - but we are trying and hopefully, again, we'll figure out a good strategy for straightening her out a bit. Even with these past two paragraphs as evidence against the girls, in general, they kick ass. They are great. They both keep the house full of joy and creativity. If you're a friend of Lisa's on facebook you've undoubtedly seen some of the breakfasts they've made for her over the past few weekends. They crack me up. I'm pretty sure there still hasn't been a day in Shannon's life where she hasn't made me laugh and smile. Emily is super excited about her upcoming birthday and everyday she comes up with something else she wants. I don't think she'll be getting any of the things she has asked for. She knows her birthday is in the fall so when she heard fall started she was pretty certain it was her birthday. She cracks me up. Lisa just had her birthday and I threw her a surprise party to celebrate the birthday she had while I was in Hong Kong. While she had an inkling I was doing something she didn't realize the scope of the crowd that would be there so I partially surprised her which was cool. It is really hard to schedule, plan, and pull off a surprise party for another adult living in the same house. Especially if the party is in the house. The next time I try that I'll see if someone else will host it or I'll have it at a place. Lisa is working, working, working and hoping for good news around Thanksgiving when she will find out if her companies merger will leave her unemployed. Hopefully the new company realizes what an amazing asset she is and they keep her. Otherwise she will get to fulfill her second career dream (after being a pharma rep) of being a stay-at-home mom. If we thought the budget was tight now I can't imagine how frugal we'll have to become if that happens but I imagine we will figure out some way to work it out. I know our annual vacation will be on the kibosh, as will TV, internet, and any eating out ever. In fact we would probably have to sell our house and move to a much less expensive residence. It would be an interesting change of pace. Our babysitter has been pretty sick lately so Lisa has been with her at the Hospital a lot lately. She was diagnosed recently with several pulmonary embolism's so she was admitted to the Hospital a little over a week ago. Now she is on some blood thinners that are insanely expensive (for a variety of reasons). She also has no health insurance so, initially, we were really concerned about her financial health as well. Fantastically, the state of WV stepped up and gave her a medical card for the next six months which basically covers all of her medical costs. Every six months they will review her financial status to see if she still qualifies. What a great program! I know some of you may be bothered to see the government interfering in health care - but I think she is exactly the type of person who should be getting help. I'm sure there is a lot more I should be saying right now but I can't think of anything so hopefully this will be enough to sate your appetite for all things Rawlinson in Huntington.

#Family #MyLife

In my ongoing effort to keep the friends and family involved in our lives even though we don't live near everyone I have uploaded a couple of videos of the girls performing their final dances at a dance camp they went to a couple of weeks ago.

Emily

Shannon

If the movies don't play yet that's because YouTube is still doing some post-upload processing on them. I have also turned off comments on the youtube page so if you want to leave a comment about either video please do so here.

#Family

I have updated our families "Passage of Time" page to reflect 2009. It's amazing how much the girls have changed in just one year. Lisa thinks I haven't changed at all since last years photo - I think she is missing my great head of hair!

#Family #Photos

I wanted to jot these two short stories down for posterity sake before I forgot them.

The first occurred Thursday evening when I finally managed to get back home after a day of work and then a late night at the Create Huntington Chat-n-Chew meetings. Emily was still up and she jumped up with excited upon seeing me enter the house. She cut me off as I entered the kitchen and gave me a small golden box with a golden bow. She exclaimed, "For you Daddy, It's a box of love! I blew a bunch of kisses into it for you."

What a great way to get welcomed home.

This morning, Mothers Day, Shannon and Emily were determined to make Lisa breakfast in bed. Lisa really wanted French Toast but the girls can't make that themselves and they insisted that they would make breakfast without help. Finally, Lisa relented and ordered up some nut bread and some granola cereal (milk on the side please). The girls ran downstairs to whip her meal up and I tried to go back to sleep.

A few minutes later Emily marches into the bedroom proudly carrying a plate of food and announces that she has the nacho bread. My eyes opened at what I thought was just a mispronunciation of nut bread only to discover that she was delivering a plate of nacho bread; white bread broken into pieces covered in shredded cheddar. Emily's own recipe as an appetizer while Shannon got the main dishes ready. Lisa was a good sport and ate some of it with a smile. Emily didn't seem to think there was anything odd about the dish at all and happily finished it off for Lisa.

Perhaps the next time you're looking to impress some dinner guests you can remember the simple recipe for Nacho Bread - it's cheap and, according to Emily, tasty!

#Family #MyLife

Our power is still out. It's been about 50 hours now. So this afternoon I booked a hotel room in downtown Huntington. Nothing like spending $78 to visit your own downtown!

Lisa, who should have been home taking it easy, worked today and then picked me up around 4:30. From there we got the girls from the babysitters and then headed home to pack and take care of the animals. I buried a bunch of frozen meat in a cooler under the ice in the back yard, took out the trash, and otherwise got frustrated with the situation at our dark and dreary home. Then we went to the hotel only to be stopped by a coal train so we had to wait 30 minutes while the 167 cars (Shannon counted) passed at a crawl. Finally we checked in and then decided to go out to dinner. I picked the Outback.

It has been well over a year since our last trip to the Outback and I was hopeful it would be positive. Overall it was. My steak came out well done instead of medium rare but the waiter and manager resolved the issue pretty quickly and the meal itself was pretty good. The girls, however, were getting pretty tired so we finished up and headed back to the hotel. On the way Lisa had to stop at the house to get my laptop and so I could put Rosie out again.

Once we got to the hotel Shannon was complaining her stomach hurt so we sent her into the bathroom. Almost immediately she threw-up all over the place; it was a huge mess. I helped her finish up then put her in the shower and cleaned up the mess before trying to login for the final nights "online tryouts" for Jeopardy. Lisa really wanted me to try out. The hotel wanted $10 for the use of a days internet access and I wasn't buying it. The hotel is only one block from my office so, once Shannon was ready for bed, I walked over to the office to login and take the test.

I booted up and my computer crashed. I booted up again and managed to login to the Jeopardy site about 15 minutes in advance. So I waited a bit and finally the test began. It was hard. There is no way I will have qualified for the show. I skipped about 10 questions out of fifty and of the forty I tried to answer I know I screwed a few up. It was fairly frustrating because one was about my favorite Broadway show, Les Miserables, but I couldn't remember anyones names from the show at all. I drew a blank. Boo Bill.

The only way I could have possibly been selected is if the entire west coast that tried out tonight is populated by morons AND the show decides to take pity on me because I'm in West Virginia. For some reason I don't see either of those things taking place. I can always take the test again next year but I doubt I will remember it is even available. Lisa just happened to be watching an episode this year when they mentioned the online tests.

It is now 11:20pm and I'm pretty tired. I have a pretty full day of work ahead of me tomorrow so I'd better get back to the hotel and try to get some sleep.

#Family #MyLife

Last friday the weather here hit a balmy 50's and all the water that was, until then, frozen into the ground, melted and created a muddy mess of the local parks. Normally, a muddy mess wouldn't have much impact on me but on Saturday Mike and I were going riding on our normal trails in Barboursville. As it turns out muddy didn't really describe some parts - more like a soggy bog. The main trails in the woods weren't particularly muddy but they were very very slick thanks to wet roots obscured by wet leaves and intermingled by very wet mud. Overall it was pretty treacherous especially considering I'm not very technically adept.

Normally, where we start we have a pretty big (to me) uphill climb along a grassy rise. I have never managed to complete the climb in one go - my legs and lungs just demand a break. However, last week I raised my bike seat about 4" and it made a world of difference for climbing. Previously I was spending a lot of effort just fighting my own body while peddling because my legs never fully extended. Now, however, the climb up the hill was actually fairly easy and I had to force myself to slow down so as to not pass Mike. Granted, when we reached the top I was still winded but my legs weren't dead and I could have kept climbing if necessary. Plus we went a bit higher for our starting point than usual anyway! I was pretty happy.

The downside to all this great uphill climb is my bike is substantially harder to control with me sitting so high. In fact, while going downhill, I felt like I was completely out of control and I continuously faded off the path. Eventually I just stopped myself, lowered my seat, and resumed the ride. From then on out descent was much more manageable. Fortunately bikes have quick release seats nowadays so changing it depending on my goal is pretty easy. Overall it is the best trick I have learned (beside sitting way back on my bike while on a rapid descent).

The river trail portion of the course was incredibly muddy and in fact it is where things became impassable. Mike was in the lead and his bike just sank into the mud. So we turned around and took an alternate course along the river until we reached a geographical area that wouldn't be on the receiving end of the mountains runoff. The trail was still pretty muddy in places but nothing unmanageable. The worst part of the mud was how much energy it sucked out of my legs to peddle through it. Eventually we hit our final ascent (which, again I had not managed before but my raised seat made more possible) and we got back to the car about 2 hours after we started. I think we rode about 7 or 8 miles. While exhausting and, at times, miserable it was still sort of fun. Go figure?

On Sunday I drove up to my dad's house and we resumed work on my secret project. Then, once the main construction was completed we brought it back to my house for the install. We still have some finishing work to do and I have to do some research on a special mechanism to finish it off but it's still very very cool. Heck, even my dad seemed pretty psyched about how it's working out. It's been a cool experience and one, as a kid, I never would have thought I'd have. Once the project is complete I'll tell you what it is and I'll include some photos. I won't reveal everything (maybe) but I think most people who see it will think it's pretty cool too.

My dad lives about an hour away and the weather, while cold yesterday, was pretty clear so getting him to drive down with the project wasn't too hard. On the way to my house the weather person on the radio said there was a chance of light flurries after midnight. At about 4pm it began to snow in earnest and, because it has been so cold, it stuck instantly. We probably had about an inch of coverage on the ground by the time my dad had to leave. Granted, an inch isn't much but it is more than we normally get around here and it was starting to get dark when he had to leave. I felt bad setting him up for such a crappy ride over clunky country roads back to his house. Hopefully he got there without issue.

#Family #MountainBiking #FunStuff #MyLife

I just saw a blog post asking What happened in your mother’s life when she was exactly the age you are now? And I thought, "Hrmm, I wonder..." and so here I am going to guess at what might have happend to my mom on March 1, 1986 (the internet is great for date math).

It is hard to really know what might have been going on with my mom that day. I know she lived in Utica, NY back then (it had been a year or so since she and my dad had gotten divorced) and she lived in a tiny little apartment and she might have had her rabbit Ralph by then as well. March 1, 1986 was a Saturday so I know she wasn't at work. She actually worked on the air force base my dad was at I think, but she worked with the air traffic controllers. I figure on a Saturday she was probably running errands in her little red Ford Escort; not quite the little red sports car she dreamed of but it was, at least, a little red car. Had she gotten the Ford Escort GT she could have at least lied to herself and called it a sports car.

Had it been 1985 and not 1986 on that particular weekend she might have even had my older brother and I over to visit. We lived with our dad after the divorce so we visited mom on weekends and for a longer period (2 weeks I think) in the summer. Once we moved out of the state (to Ohio) our visits were limited to the summer which was vastly more manageable; but I imagine difficult for her. I think the perspective is a lot different from parent to child than it is from child to parent. When I was a kid I don't remember ever experiencing home-sickness. For instance the summer after the divorce I stayed in Dracut, Massachusetts with my Aunt Linda. I didn't really think about my parents much. I suppose some might call that selfish but I always though of it as independent. My mother, on the other hand probably thought about Ted and I. I know now that I have kids it would be much harder on me to be separated from them all year but 2 weeks that it was vice versa.

Since we weren't visiting that weekend she might have been getting her hair cut off. Well, not entirely off but pretty darn short. At some point after they split up mom started to get her hair cut really short. In fact, the first time she got it cut that short I didn't recognize her. She had to come to my school to get me, I was in trouble for something, and as I was walking down the hall to the principals office I walked right past her. Let me tell you - that didn't go over well at all. It was strange though considering, before that, she always had a huge head of curly hair which was suddenly basically shaved with clippers on the side and was kind of poofy on the top. She must have lost 20 pounds in hair with her new coiffure. It wasn't my fault!

By this point in my mom's post divorce life she might have even been in a serious relationship with a guy named John (whom she later married; maybe later that year - I don't remember) he was an air traffic controller she had met at work. Thus, she might have been out doing stuff with him over the course of that Saturday. Maybe ice skating or catching a movie or whatever it is folks in their mid thirties do while dating. Maybe they where just sitting around chatting and getting to know each other better; though I'd like to hope they were out taking advantage of a nice cool crisp day in upstate New York.

Overall, I would imagine she was, just like the original posters mom, just living life. Her life was quite a bit different than mine at that point and I would guess a bit more difficult - but she was making progress towards an entirely new lifestyle from what she had spent most of her adult life living. I doubt if she remembers that day specifically but I imagine she will post some sort of comment here letting me know how bad my memory is before too long.

#Family #MyLife