Merry Christmas to you from Cake-face!

A.K.A. "Madame Mia."

Fa la la la laaaaa la la la laaaaaa!
(Christmas fun in early December)

Here's Mia, looking uncertain of what to do about this "Santa Cwause" fella.

Tuesday morning, I started things off in a pretty grumpy fashion. Stacy is sick, I stayed up too late at Walgreen's on a medicine run and overslept, and to top it all off, I ended up having to go back home and then back to daycare to take some essentials for Mia to enjoy (Well, one of the items was an update for her shot records, so I doubt Mia enjoyed that much, but the point is, I had to drive all over creation twice before heading to work). While I was dropping off the items, I peeked out through a window in the playroom of the school and watched Mia and her class at play on the playground. The scene was one of controlled chaos; five or six of her classmates were racing all over the place, yelling happily, so I had to really look to find her.

Here's Stacy and Mia at the ETMC Tree lighting gala.

I moved to another window that offered a better view of the left side of the playground and there she was, sitting on a little piece of playground equipment that was shaped like a car. She was driving, spinning the steering wheel like the blades of a fan, and she was singing out loud. Mia was looking around the playground, driving, and singing so loudly that I could hear her through the window, her sweet face just showing through the hood of her green jacket. Her eyes were flashy and she looked completely happy from where I stood watching.

After watching her, the things that were making me grumpy seemed insignificant.

Vixen showed up to witness the fun.

Here's Santa, trying to decide what he thinks about this "Mia" character.

Happy Third Birthday, Mia!

NYC 2006
(Take II)

Six years ago, I visited Jud and Christa in Austin, where they were quickly becoming acclaimed for their creativity and talent on the stage. If I recall that few days correctly, we stayed up terribly late writing a grant for their theater company and then stayed up terribly late striking two tons of gravel from the set of Fugitive Pieces, in which Jud was performing. How did we manage to sleep so little and maintain smiling countenances?

Fast forward six years: Stacy and I get pretty wiped out just walking and breathing in NYC. Here we are after our day of wandering East-to-get-West in Chinatown. We relaxed a bit too much on our river cruise tour of Manhattan, and we snapped this photo to capture our weariness. In my defense, I did try and keep up with Jud, which meant sitting up on the roof of their building for a nightcap and "just one smoke" with Jud. After four hours passed, we would finally head back in for sleep. And, unlike in previously-mentioned fun times, we had to pry ourselves up from sleep in the actual morning so Stacy and I could make the most of our city time.

As you can see below, Jud and Christa were not worse for the wear of late nights and walking and our antics. Aren't they lovely?!


Truthfully, Stacy bounced back rather well (with a little help from Charbuck):


So I was the only one who really suffered.

New York City, 2006

(Yep, it is still there!)

You are looking over at Central Park from the Empire State Building. That park is 2.5 miles by .5 miles--roughly 700 acres--set aside for no purpose than to allow 25 million visitors each year to enjoy an oasis of space in a city where space is the #1 commodity. How cool is that?

Last week, Stacy and I traveled to New York City together for a little sabbath away from the hustle and bustle of Flint, Texas. Did we have a great time? Yes, yes we did!

Here we are in front of the Lions that watch over the NYC Public Library. Notice how I am taller than Stacy here? Yeah, I am standing one step above her. I enjoyed the illusion while it lasted.

Our Mission while in the city was to do it all--shows, tours, museums, food--but we ended up haveing an even better time than we could have planned. We did go to a couple of museums and on a tour, but we spent most of our time wandering the streets, riding the trains, and trying to blend in with New Yorkers.

We stayed with Jud and Christa Jones--they let us live in their apartment in Sunnyside, Queens for the whole time we were in the city. I had not seen these two friends of mine in six years, easily, but the second we arrived I felt like I had just seen them the day before (I hope everyone out there has some friends like these; Somehow, time and circumstance don't matter). Here are the Joneses:

And here are the three of us back in 2000: For some reason, Blogger will not post this photo, no matter what I do! I compressed the photo, cropped it, compressed it yet again, called Blogger and promised my next child as payment for posting this image....nothing would get the job done! Maybe I will try and post it again later. It is a magical photo--I apparently aged 10 years in the past six, while Judson and Christinka seem to look just about like they do in the photo above (aside from Jud's locks, which are considerably shorter today than in yesteryear.

I will try and add more photos and some trip highlights from home this Sunday.

This is Mia's 1975...

And that is a thought that both excites and chills me. You see, I can remember some moments from 1975; I was three years old, the age Mia is too quickly approaching. I can recall who I thought my parents were then (they were so tall and capable and lived to care for me, if I am correct). I can even remember trying to see what my parents were doing at the kitchen table, when they played cards with the Millers (who I thought were visiting to see me).

Time has been sprinting since Mia was born and watching it run as she grows makes me pensive about parenting. I get it now, how those old bastards I used to know who had loud, stinky children felt. They had kids and I didn't; they were forced every day to live differently because they lived for someone else. They were forced to see themselves in time the way only people who live with kids can. The world is faster than I knew it in 2003, and certainly so much more so than it was to me in 1975. Summer used to last forever, while now it is only August that has that distinction.

Here's a poem by Floyd Skloot that seems true to me, at least in its dealings with how living with children effects your view of time. Who knew I'd ever come to see life in a similar way as a poet named Floyd? :o)

Kansas, 1973

My daughter nestled in a plastic seat
is nodding beside me as though in full
agreement with the logic of her dream.
I am glad for her sake the road is straight.
But the dark shimmer of a summer road
where hope and disappointment repeat
themselves all across Kansas like a dull
chorus makes the westward journey seem
itself a dream. She breathes in one great
gulp, taking deep the blazing air, and stops
my heart until she sighs the breath away.
The sun is stuck directly overhead.

I thought it would never end. The drive,
the heat, my child beside me, the bright day
itself, that fathering time in my life.
We were going nowhere and never would,
as in a dream, or in the space between
time and memory. I saw nothing but sky
beyond the horizon of still treetops
and nothing changing down the road ahead.

August is a bloody month, it seems. Maybe it is the heat, or maybe coincidence, but this is the month we enjoyed the outbreak of WWI (1 August 1914), Hitler became Der Furher (2 August 1934), the Warsaw Revolt began (1 August 1944), "Wild Bill" Hickock was shot dead (2 August 1876), Germany and France declared war upon one another (3 August 1914) and Anne Frank was captured after hiding in an attic for two years (4 August 1944).

It looks like we are on course with history, with the daily debacle in Iraq and the new conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I am about ready to stop watching the news altogether and to focus, instead, on reading.

Here at work, somehow all employees are required to watch Fox news each day during lunch. I can't even count the number of times I have had to remind at least one fellow employee that Sadam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Almost daily, I tell ya! The only fallacy worse than the "Iraq shouldn't have blown up our building" one is the infamous "Iraq attacked us because they hate freedom." Whoever came up with that ripe one deserves some kind of award....

The Star Spangled Banner

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

--Francis Scott Key

Happy Independence Day!

I took a couple of months off from posting on this site, which may mean that no one will ever check back again. I understand; Why feed the immense dissapointment that you surely feel when you see May's posting still on the front page? Hopefully, this quick post will remind you that sometimes dissapointment is thwarted.

If you are reading this site and you still find yourself dissapointed, then I have nothing much to offer you.

Let's start with a photo of Mia:

Though she is not yet walking without assistance, Mia goes where she wants and plays with a smile on her face. This is the first of a series shot at the St. Paul's Neighborhood Festival on June 22. My sister, Diane Hawkins, took these photos (Bock!).

Mission Week: Every year just around my birthday, our church hosts Mission Week. These days, "our church" means Marvin UMC, Pollard UMC and St. Paul's UMC Children's Foundation join forces and try and do a little bit of good in this all-too-dark world. People form crews and the crews do all or part of several mission projects right here in Tyler. Three years ago, I got to work with "The A-Team" when they converted an old house into a dental clinic (to go along with the medical clinic, food pantry and clothes closet that were already established in the St. Paul Neighborhood). There is something that is satisfying on the most fundamental level about working hard and sweating and actually building something with your hands--and with wicked power tools!--all for someone else's benefit. Working like that always makes me reevaluate life.

All around me, people work hard. We were all tired by the end of the day, but there was not a person involved who did not have a smile on his or her face. People gave up their vacation time for the year to work like this...it was nothing short of amazing, if you let it amaze you.

Each year, Thursday night is the Neighborhood Festival, when we shut down streets in the St. Paul neighborhood and set up games and food booths for the area children. This year I had to work, so I didn't get to go, but Mia went with my mom, my dad and my sister. I think everyone involved had a blast!

Mia plays with her favorite playmate at the neighborhood festival.

Check out this dramatic photo of Mia

Mia really enjoyed eating lunch with Papa during Mission week. Here she was impressing herself with her ability to spear an entire slice of cantalope with her plastic fork.

Mia shoots the tube on the playground

In a pinch, Mia will happily drive a big firetruck to help her uncle Terry get to the site of the fire.

"When it's cold outside I've got the month of May.”

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lustydeeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.

--Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur

Here are some photos of Mia to hold you over until I take the time to write again. There have been a lot of things going on lately--most too boring to write about--but my mind has not been on this website nevertheless. I will get back to the narration part of this process sometime, I promise.

Until then, enjoy--

Here's Mia "reading" in the car on the way to school.

Here she is on Easter.

Here she demonstrates how she can walk with her walker (she works so hard!)

The month of expectation...revisited a few days too late.

Well, March has come and gone already, so it is Springtime again. I am writing this on April 4th (late, as usual), so today's entry is something of a retrospective about what March had in store for us.

Kelly visited us from St. Louis, which is a rather large city to be hit with so many tornados, I think. I mean, we are used to trailer parks being demolished, as though nature punishes people who can't afford more expensive housing, but twice in the March/April intersection St. Louis has been hit pretty hard--they had two deaths related to violent weather this past weekend.

Anyway, Kelly came home for her Spring Break, and we saw her twice at dinner, and once at our house--where she was bored enough to actually sniff her own toes! (not really, but that's what the photo below would have you think!).

It was wonderful to get to spend time with Kelly, as usual! :o)

In other news, Mia got to go to her cousins’ birthday party—Ryan was turning three, and Regan was turning one. Things were pretty out of hand at my mom’s house, where the party was held. It was a cold, rainy day, so the festivities were moved indoors, and the weather did nothing to hinder the birthday fun.

Stacy abd Mia don't look like they are having fun, but, trust me: they are having a blast!

Baby Reagan really did have a blast on her first big day!

Ryan enjoyed unpacking her "Dora the Explorer" backpack, and then repacking it.

Here's a shot of the "Dora the Explorer" birthday cake, custom made by Ryan's Gammy (my big sister, Donna).

March was also a fun time for hairstyle experimentation for Mia. We had the "Topknot" look, here demonstrated at church (thought the photo is too dark to see our hair--I am not the one with a the topknot!):

And here is Mia with Pig tails:

Both Mia and Stacy are looking considerably happier than in the earlier birthday party photo. Stacy and I have discovered that messing with Mia's "look" is tons of fun!

Pigtails (and the attention they bring to Mia) are delightful!

Spring is here--Enjoy!

March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy.

--Emily Dickenson

Mia and Stacy have great fun playing acrobats.

I doubt that many people visit this site regularly, but I still feel the need to apologize for letting so much time pass between updates. I try to take time monthly, but some months that's easier said than done.

Not that I've been that busy lately, I guess.

Let's see...Mia is crawling now--she started this new trick while I was out of town (of course!). She is not an afficionado, yet, so she still falls a lot, but she somehow manages to really boogie when she wants to (usually to get away from her mommy or me during a diaper change!). Helpful tip: if your baby is crawling, naked, bottom in air, to escape a new diaper, make sure her puppy DOES NOT have access to said child.... I'll leave the reasoning to your imagination.

Aside from the ambulation of baby Mia, most everything else is ambling along as normal.

Not only does Stacy play well with Mia, but she is a great soother, too. As often as Mia is sick, it's a good thing Stacy and I both like to cuddle our baby girl!

If you have any requests for content sometime, feel free to leave comments to direct me. I will always add Mia photos and stories of her cuteness, but we at the clean, well-lighted place (we=just me in a delusional state) are completely capable of addressing news, weather and sports, and a myriad of other topics as well.

See, all I can think of is Tiny houses.

I discovered a website where Jay Shafer sells designs and/or completed structures that are unique, at least to me. Shafer started living in tiny houses back in 1997—and when I say “tiny,” I mean 100 square feet! He has since sold his first house (it was just too much to maintain) and now lives in one that is 70 square feet.

I am completely attracted to the idea of simplifying to the point of being able to live in a 100 square-foot house. If you could see how much crap we have in our garage alone, you'd understand the attraction, I bet. Shafer claims that his houses are kinder to the environment than large constructions--if only because they require none of the clearing and bulldozing that most homesites need--and he says that he thinks of the land outside of his home as part of his home; the surrounding environ would be a very large "room," by that way of thinking.

Yep, I am aware that I am a hypocrite, who rants and rants about the miseries of living in the "tiny" 1450 sq/ft house we have now, but the fuel for that fire is really the house payment for my little house. A Shafer house would set me back closer to 38 to 45 thousand, total, plus the land, I suppose. The houses are really well built, too.

I don't know what it would be like, really, but I do fancy the idea. Check it out for yourself:

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/index.htm