Several months ago Calvin lost my iPod Nano. I’m not sure how but it’s gone and he was the last person seen with it. I have a work iPhone that I’ve been using to listen to podcasts and library audio books. However, I really need to get my own. I’ve always been annoyed with how rigid Apple can be and as time goes by, I’ve been getting more and more annoyed. So, I decided to try replacing my iPod with something else. I mainly used my iPod for podcasts and audio books. The audio books are library subscriptions from Overdrive so they needed the ability to do WMA DRM. I don’t need a huge amount of space because I don’t keep the podcasts or audio books indefinitely so 4 -8 GB seemed like a reasonable choice. Plus, I prefer smaller players.

After researching a bit, I decided either the Sandisk Sansa Clip or the Sony Walkman would fulfill my needs. I was leaning toward the Sansa Clip but wanted to touch it in person so Jaeger, Calvin, and I took a field trip to Best Buy. In person, the Sansa Clip screen looked too small. So I instead started comparing the Sansa Fuze+ with the Sony Walkman. I was pretty sure the Sansa was Overdrive compatible but wasn’t as sure about the Sony player so I went with that.

I bought the Sansa Fuze+ but when I got it home, I saw that I had gotten the “+” version which had significantly worse reviews that just the plain Fuze. Most of the users seemed to complain about the touch interface which I had some concerns about in the store. I hadn’t opened the package yet so the user reviews convinced me to return it and get the Sony Walkman instead.

Well, the Sony Walkman was a disaster. In many ways, I like it. I think the interface is reasonable and Overdrive transfers audio books to it beautifully. However, even though it’s supposedly Windows 7 compatible, I couldn’t get it to work right on my computer. I spent at least 6 hours trying to get it to work correctly. The only way I could get it to work was by telling Windows it was a USB drive. This kind of worked but it was cludgy and the (minimal) software that came with it didn’t recognize it as a valid device. Windows Media Player did but I discovered, to my surprise, that WMP does not have podcast capabilities. Eventually, I got it mostly working using Winamp. However, then I realized that the Walkman didn’t have bookmarking capabilities. That is, if I paused an audio book to listen to a podcast and then went back to the audio book, it’d make me start at the very beginning of what is usually a 60-90 min segment and I’d have to painfully fast forward until I reached the spot where I left off. I spent 12 hrs (8 of them asleep) convincing myself that I could live with this. However, by mid-day today, I had regained my sanity. To my surprise, but delight, Best Buy took back the Sony Walkman and didn’t even charge me a restocking fee in spite of the package obviously being opened.

I’ve mostly resigned myself to getting another iPod Nano. I did look for other mp3 players that had bookmarking capabilities but the reviews were pretty lackluster. However, I’d really rather not get one of the new Nanos. My main complaints are 1) they’re too small and 2) I don’t like touch screens. My iPhone’s touchscreen I tolerate because work pays for it but it’s not my favorite way to interact with devices. So, I’m considering buying a used Nano instead. Still not sure . . .

On a completely different topic, I think I’ve run out of useful books to read about selling houses. (You may recall from previous posts that we’re seriously thinking of selling our house in a year to 18 months.) I’ve now read around 8 books on the subject and they’re starting to repeat each other so I’m going to quit for now and just read a refresher course when the time gets nearer. My favorite books on house selling that I’ve read are:

• Seven Steps to Sold by Donna and Shannon Freeman – Nice general overview written in a friendly tone.
• Home Staging that Works by Starr C. Osborne – Discusses all aspects of how to make your house look it’s best to buyers.
• How to Sell a House Fast in a Slow Real Estate Market by William Bronchick – This book had more detailed steps than the Freeman book. It would probably be especially useful for “For Sale by Owner” info. He offers info such as it takes 100 people walking through your home to get 10 serious buyers to get 1 buyer in a position to make an offer (i.e. marketing is very important). He also provides tips for various aspects of marketing such as when taking pictures of the front of the house you want it to be at a 20 degree angle instead of straight-on.

Calvin Moment

• Today when I took Calvin to the park another child was filling my hands with bark chips and telling me it was “banana pie.” Calvin overheard this and picked some of the chips from my hand and pretended to eat them. I think this is the first time I’ve seen such abstract pretending from him. Normally, he will use our cell phones and pretend to talk on the phone or pretend to be driving a truck. However, the prop always is intended to represent what he doing.

Ups

• It’s been very sunny the past week. Today was downright spring-like with temperatures in the 60s. Calvin and I have been spending a lot of time in the park. Truthfully, dutifully wandering after Calvin in the park bores me. However, even though it can be boring, it is very relaxing and I think the sun is good for both of us.
• I cleaned inside and out of our front windows this afternoon. Yeah, it’s kind of funny to list window washing as an “up” but I feel such a sense of accomplishment when I get around to cleaning something really dirty.
• I started another J.D. Robb audio book, Portrait in Death. I really love listening to the progression in her characters and how their back stories evolve. I’m also listening to At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. This books makes me very glad to live in this time period. It’s really amazing the recent advancements that we take for granted.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin is obsessed with buses and trucks. Anytime he’s in the car now he’s giving me a running commentary on the vehicles he sees. He often demands that I make the “yel oo us” (yellow school bus) come back to entertain him more. He also tends to say the phrase “yellow school bus” with long pauses between the words and then speeds it up at strange times so it sounds very much like an automated voice talking.

Simplification

• More shredding. I also triaged my food storage shelf downstairs.

Down

• I’m gaining weight again. I think this is mainly due to me accidentally skipping lunches. I get too busy to eat and by the time I realize it, I’m starving. I need to work better at eating on time.

Ups

• We’ve gotten a fair amount of sun for the past couple of days. I’ve been sitting in the rocker up in Calvin’s room while I work which allows me to work in copious amounts of sunlight.
• I worked up a proposed 2011 budget for our household and submitted it to Jaeger for review. I think I’ve finally figured out how to get the reports I care about out of GnuCash so I can make intelligent decisions based on past trends.

Calvin Moment

• I had an amusing conversation with Calvin’s primary teacher at daycare today. She was talking about how Calvin was very smart but because he was so smart, he was harder to handle than the average toddler. For instance, she says that if you give most toddlers a choice between two options, they will chose one of them. This is billed as an easy way to get the toddler to do what you want them to do. However, if Calvin is faced with two options that he doesn’t like, he’ll just say, “no” instead of choosing either one. Also, he has figured out that once lunch is over it’s nap time. So, when asked if he’s done with lunch, he’ll always say “no” even if he’s no longer interested in eating. Obviously, I have mixed feelings about this. It makes life a little more . . . interesting . . . in the short term but it’s also fascinating to watch his potential grow.

Simplification

• I’ve continued to shred massive amounts of paper. I don’t know where it all comes from. Last night I finally broke down and went through our “medical” folder and subdivided it into 3 different folders in addition to shredding a lot of very old receipts we no longer need. Today, I cleaned up my food shelf in the basement and dumped food that I’m either never going to use or looked kind of sketchy.

My arm hasn’t completely healed yet so I went and got an MRI for it on Monday. I didn’t realize how long of a process it would be. It didn’t seem complicated. They injected the dye in my arm and then I went straight over to the MRI machine. However, the whole process took about 2 hrs (only around 20 min in the actual machine). I’ve never had an MRI before and discovered that the space is a little more confined than I would prefer. Also, next time I’d know to bring my own CDs to pipe into the machine as the imaging is done.

Tuesday I went back to the orthopedic doctor and he took a look at the images. It turns out that my shoulder had a compression fracture and I also sustained a minor cuff injury (I don’t guarantee all those words are right but that’s what I remember him saying). The shoulder did look pretty impressive on film. The good news is that it should eventually heal on its own without any surgery needed. The bad news is he said my shoulder is likely to ache the rest of the winter. I guess ibuprofen will continue to be my friend.

Ups

• Calvin was fairly quiet last night so I slept very well. As a result, I woke up early enough to exercise this morning.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin seems to be much more into reading books recently. It’s not uncommon for him to bring books for us to read at random times. A couple of days ago, he curled up on my lap flipping through the pages of his book while I read my book. In my view, that’s the idea way to pass the evening with a toddler but it doesn’t happen much He also has been demanding more bedtime stories from Jaeger recently. I think he’s figured out that between potty training and bedtime stories he can delay bedtime by a significant amount.

Simplification

• I’ve spent the last several evenings shredding massive amounts of paper. I even found a bank statements from my very first checking account (though not the first statements from that account).

Ups

• Jaeger is back from his trip!
• Calvin and I both survived Jaeger being gone for 5 days.
• The house has been cleaned and has mostly recovered from our benign neglect in December.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin’s obsession with planes continues. Last night he was talking about planes in his sleep. It was cute but not entirely restful to hear variations of “hanes! hanes!” being muttered. He also is enjoying other large mechanical items such as buses and trucks. Now that he’s forward facing in the car seat, he is continually pointing these out to me.
• Calvin has taken to ordering the cats around. In fact, I think his first real sentence is officially, “Fi ease moosh” (Five, please move).

Simplification

• Got 3 boxes of donations packed.

Downs

• I don’t think I sleep as well without Jaeger. I had the worse time falling asleep last night.
• My arm is still bothering me. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn’t get comfortable enough to go back to sleep. At least I had no trouble getting up in time to exercise.

Ups

• I really love being back in my normal routine. Traveling was interesting but it’s really good to be home.
• Got up and exercised before Calvin woke up this morning.
• This was my first normal “day off” in about a month. I spent it by wondering to various thrift stores and used furniture stores looking desperately for a table I could stand that would last a couple of years. Our dining room chairs are dying by pieces and all of a sudden its condition seems to be deteriorating rapidly. It’s a dining room set I picked up for a couple hundred of dollars in the thrift store the first year we got married. However, it’s really not Jaeger’s style. In fact, it’s not really my style anymore either. I couldn’t find anything used that I liked but I did find a new version for “too much” money that I think would work good for many years (Note: I think it’s priced appropriately for it’s quality, it’s just hard for me to spend multiple thousands of dollars on anything).
• I started reading a new book called House of Havoc by Marni Jameson. It’s one of the more practical home decorating/organizing books I’ve read recently and it’s given me a couple of ideas of stuff to do with our house.

Calvin Moment

I picked Calvin up from daycare and took him to the park. However, by the time we got to the park, the sky was cloudy. We had dressed warmly so Calvin and I resolutely started down the path to the playground equipment. When we got there, I realized that the equipment was still covered in snow. Last week, Calvin got to watch 3 dogs play in the enclosed dog park area. Remembering how fun this was, he walked over to that area of the park and sat down patiently waiting for dogs to appear and entertain him. I tried to explain that was unlikely to happen as the park was completely deserted. Instead, we decided to go to Petco and gawk at the animals they had. Calvin seemed have almost as much fun looking at the pictures of cats on kitty litter as he was with the real animals.

Simplification

• I cleared off my desk and worked on packing more items into boxes.
• I got a bunch of empty spice jars that match my current jars for Christmas. I had fun filling the jars up and alphabetizing my herbs and spices (yes, I can be obsessive but only in completely useless areas)

  I shredded lots of stuff but have boxes left of things that should be shredded. I wonder if I’m ever going to get through it all.

Ups

• I got the top floor of the house cleaned today. Because of my long vacation and hectic schedule right before leaving, the house hasn’t had a really good cleaning for quite a while. It was good to clean and get things organized. I also finally carried some boxes of Calvin’s old clothes down into the basement for storage. (We’re not planning to have another child but I figure since we have the room we might as well keep stuff in case someone around us could use it.)
• I finally got around to weighing myself yesterday and discovered I didn’t gain a significant amount of weight the entire time I was gone. Given the amount of Christmas candy I ate at my mother’s house, this is somewhat miraculous. My next challenge is to find time to consistently exercise again. Assuming I get to bed at a reasonable time, I’ll probably try getting up early tomorrow.

Calvin Moment

• We have started eating our dinner meal together as a family. Up till now, I’ve been feeding Calvin earlier in the kitchen. This was due to him wanting to eat earlier and the mess he caused. We have now put a sheet under his high chair at the dining room table so he can start being part of the meal with us as we eat. Unfortunately, this means he eats later which makes him grouchy. However, other than that, the experience has been going well. Tonight he serenaded us with his version of the ABC song. He can’t really sing it but he approximates the tune and random sings various letters like d e a d d d d.
• Calvin dislikes eating food that isn’t at room temperature. Knowing that, I pulled out his serving of broccoli soup a good 45 min prior to when we ate. However, the first time he tried it he complained that it was hot. I tested it to make sure it was a reasonable temp and told him, “no, it’s lukewarm” at which point Calvin gravely responded with “uk arm.”

Downs

• My arm is still bothering me. I have an appointment to see an orthopedic doctor on Thursday to see what he thinks.

Ups

• Christmas vacation went pretty well. The Megafest was fun and I was relieved by how well behaved Calvin was. He and Yanthor seemed to hit it off which was really cute to watch. We played several games while we were there and I had a chance to watch the new Robin Hood. The movie was particularly fun. The last time I had a chance to watch a full-length movie was back in summer.
• We’re home! Vacation was fun but I love sleeping in my own bed and getting back into our normal routine.
• I finally managed to pay all our bills and balance the credit cards and our checking accounts. I don’t understand how people can go a full month between balancing transactions. I balanced right before we left for vacation but it still took me almost every spare minute for the last two days to catch up. Granted, due to Christmas we did have a lot more transactions than usual. Also, I temporarily lost my credit card right before we left and had to cancel it which did add to the mess.

Calvin Moment

• For Christmas Calvin got quite a few vehicle toys. One of these was a Duplo tractor that had a trailer that hooked to it. Calvin has spent a lot of time driving it around and saying “choo! choo!” He’s not quite clear on the distinction between trains and other motorized contraptions.

Simplification

• We just got home Sunday and I’ve been spending most of my time since trying to catch up. However, I’m hoping to start up my simplification campaign again in the next couple of days.

Downs

A couple of Thursday nights ago (on the 9th) I was home alone with Calvin. He told me he needed to go to the potty so I picked him up with the intention of racing to the potty. Unfortunately, I tripped over Calvin’s little wagon and fell. As I fell, I rotated so I wouldn’t fall on top of Calvin which means I hit my arm/shoulder instead at a weird angle. Nothing broke but it felt pretty bad. I sat Calvin in front of Elmo and called Jaeger and told him I needed him to come home. In the mean time, I called our insurance’s nurse hotline and she said I should probably go to urgent care. However, all the urgent care centers were closed in our area by the time Jaeger arrived home. I didn’t feel it merited an emergency room visit and had already taken 800 mg of ibuprofen so I figured that was the best we could do that night. In the morning, Jaeger got Calvin ready for daycare while I told him what to do. Then Jaeger dropped Calvin off at daycare and took me to an urgent care center. My arm was poked and looked at and I was told it was probably a sprained shoulder and if it still bothered me in a couple of days, to come back for further examination.

The timing of my fall was pretty bad. The following Sunday, on the 12th, I flew with just myself and Calvin to Walla Walla via an alleged 2 hr layover in Seattle (though due to various factors I still had the joy of running through the airport with my toddler in order to board my next plane). Handling Calvin in an airplane by myself is hard enough when I’m fully functional but it was miserable with my shoulder. Fortunately, Calvin was in a pretty good mood. We stayed at Jaeger’s parent’s house for a week and then flew back to Seattle to spend Christmas proper with my family. I was hoping my shoulder would have recovered by that point but it hadn’t. Yesterday my dad took a look at it and decided it was probably some sort of rotator cuff injury and I should get it looked at if it’s still a problem when we finally make it back to Colorado.

Ups

• Other than my arm, this trip has gone fairly well. Calvin was as well-behaved as you could expect a toddler to be for all legs of our flights. Every time I fly with him I am so happy we bought a seat for him even though he technically is still young enough to be a lap infant.
• Jaeger and Willy, his brother, both arrived on Thursday and it was nice to be reunited again. Calvin also apparently thought so as he spent much of the remaining week stalking Jaeger to Jaeger’s consternation.
• Got a chance to wander around Walla Walla a bit and see friends from college.
• Had the chance to eat a pastry at Roger’s Bakery. I love good pastry.
• We opened up Christmas stockings and presents on Friday the 17th. Calvin seemed to like it much better this year than last. He enthusiastically helped open everyone’s presents until the very end when his lack of a nap started to become apparent.
• Sunday Jaeger left to go back to Colorado and I flew to Seattle and was picked up by my mother.
• Got most of Christmas part 3 shopping done yesterday.

Upcoming Events

• Jaeger arrives in Portland tomorrow morning.
• Christmas with the Stone side on boxing day.
• We meet up with Bethany and Josh on Monday.
• Christmas with the McLean side on Monday evening or Tuesday.
• Fly out for Megafest on Wednesday.