Detachment from the world

So last week was a really busy week for me and I got very little sleep between Sunday night and Wednesday morning. I had a ton of school work to do and some big assignments due. So finally Wednesday night I was done with my classes for the week, and I felt so relieved. I finished class and began walking the few blocks south of campus to the Church where Suzy was at Institute to ride home with her. On the way I talked to my little sister on the phone. I got to the Church, stuck my cell phone in my jacket pocket and went in. We stayed there eating and socializing for a while before we left for home.

Thursday morning I got up and began doing some of the work that I needed to get done. I needed to use my phone so I looked for it in my pocket where I thought I had left it. But alas, it wasn't there. Dang! I thought to myself, I must have left it in the car, I guess I have to wait till Suzy gets home. So when Suzy got home I checked the car and . . . no cell phone. Now I was starting to freak out. Where was it. I usually don't lose things like this. We got Suzy's phone out and started calling my phone, hoping we could here it ring or vibrate or something . . . nothing!

We called someone from Church and asked them if they could let me into the Church building. They graciously and kindly agreed to meet me there. we searched carefully the rooms that I had been in . . . still nothing!

By this time I had pretty much given up hope. We decided to activate a spare phone that we had, but had never used. I called Sprint to activate it and they could not figure it out. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with them as the technical support guy made me do the same thing over and over and over, and it never worked, but he did not know what else to do. Then mercifully the signal got dropped. I called Sprint back a few hours later to try again, hoping that another tech support guy would know what to do. Boy was I wrong. I explained my problem and told him what I had done with the other rep and he made me do the same thing, for another 30 minutes. Then mercifully again the signal was dropped.

Friday I woke with optimism that maybe today I would get someone competent that would be able to fix the phone. Wrong again. Fortunately this time though the person did not make me do the same things over and over again. They had me do that same thing once then told me there was nothing they could do to help and that I had to go to a Sprint store. This time I only lost 15 minutes, so I was happy about that.

Saturday we went to the Sprint store at the mall and they were able to correct the problem. So now I have a working phone again, which is nice, but I miss my old phone. I was so familiar with it and this new one is complicated and not as easy to use as the old one was. Hopefully I will still be able to find my old phone so that I can at least retrieve all my phone numbers and other information that I had stored in it. I am just glad that we had a nice spare phone laying around and that we did not need to fork out a ton of money to buy a new, unsubsidized phone.

Great Cartoon

I do not know about everybody else, but I have really grown tired of politics lately, and have avoided bringing the topic up on the blog. However, I have always enjoyed political cartoons. The ironies and satire they point out can be awfully amusing. Yesterday my brother posted this cartoon on his facebook page, and I found it very amusing. So I thought I would share it.

We also want to thank everybody who shared their experiences with Suzy and me about baby stuff. We found all the information to be very helpful, and if anyone else thinks of anything please let us know.

Advice Needed

My mom is coming in two weeks and we're planning to go shopping for a lot of baby stuff. Since I'm new at this whole thing and I have many friends and family who are parents, I'm looking for your advice on baby products. I know all the obvious things I will need, but I would like to know what the most surprising thing is that you couldn't live without. And also, something you thought you would used a lot, and haven't used at all.

Any other advice you have on baby products is welcome. Also, if you have any books on babies that you really like, I'd love to know that too.

As far as life goes, things are going well. Work is going along fine and its good to be productive and earning money. I have been tired, but generally feeling really good. I'm wearing only maternity pants now, but I can still wear most of my normal shirts, although that will end soon I'm sure.

Yesterday we had an enrichment activity at church, which I'm now in charge of. We had a breakfast and a speaker who spoke about depression. The last week was stressful as I was trying to get all the loose ends taken care of. I'm glad it went fairly well and its over!

Time is flying by...My mom is coming in two weeks, and then it will be only a few weeks until Thanksgiving, and then it will be Christmas time which always flies by, and then little baby girl will be coming in only a month or so. We're really enjoying fall here and enjoying all the beauty around us.

General Conference

First I will start with an updated picture of Suzy. This one is Suzy at 23 weeks.

Between General Conference sessions on Saturday afternoon we ventured down a trail near our home, aptly named KC Trail. We walked through the woods, which were very pretty. Parts of the path were quite swampy so the trail had been raised on these wood platforms, some of which were pretty wobbly. This is my favorite picture from that day.

The trail led us across the train tracks near our house.

Me at the KC Trail sign...

After dropping Suzy off at work one day, I was killing time until an appointment I had and was driving around out in the sticks, when I came across this cool bridge. I thought it was a good picture so I decided to post it too.

This past weekend was perfect. The weather was bright sunny and relatively warm (mid 70s) and to top that off it was the official peak time for the fall foliage. Inspired by Elder Perry's talk at General Conference (Saturday Morning for those of you who missed it, read or listen to it here) we decided to go to Walden Pond and walk around Thoreau's old stomping grounds. It is certainly a nice peaceful place (when all the people aren't around, it was packed), but it was a beautiful location, especially with the leaves turning. These picks are us at Walden Pond.

Site of Thoreau's small cabin.

Tradition has it that fans of Thoreau add their own rock to this pile when they visit the site (next to his cabin). This is me tossing my small pebble onto the pile (this one was for Ms. Pera).

Sunday after Church, Suzy and I decided to take a nice Sunday drive through the woods to see more fantastic tree colors. We stopped along the Deerfield River for these.

I have other pictures of the fall here in Western Mass on Flickr, click here to see them.

Yankee Soil in Charleston

So on our way home to Amherst, we stopped for a day in Charleston, South Carolina. We both really enjoyed the beauty of this city. We decided to visit two old historic mansions in the city. One has purposely not been restored. The other one had been restored very nicely. Most of the old homes in the city have beautiful gardens in front of them.

One of the really popular things in the old days in Charleston was to have these "benches" on your porches. They are really fun, they rock side to side and bounce up and down. Though they seem to bend A LOT and there is always this thought in the back of your mind that it might break.

One of the biggest things to see in Charleston is Fort Sumter. It is all by itself way out in the middle of the bay. It was a 30 minute ferry ride out the Fort, then we had an hour to explore before we had to get back on the boat and go back to the mainland. One of the really interesting things that I learned about Fort Sumter is that the whole island was man-made from rock and earth shipped down to South Carolina from . . . New England. Therefore when the South attacked the Fort to start the Civil War, they were actually attacking Northern soil!

Just like at Fort Pulaski in Savannah, there were several cannon balls still embedded in the brick walls of Fort Sumter.

Overall we really enjoyed Charleston and look forward to having a chance to go back sometime soon.