Blowing & Drifting

Today is my sixth anniversary of working at Carleton. I’ve now been working at Carleton longer than I’ve held in any other paying job and even longer, finally, than I toiled (for far less pay) in grad school. And a lot has changed in those six years: a new house in Northfield, a second daughter, [...]

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Julia and Genevieve got sweet new beds and nightstands this summer. Vivi took the square foot of empty space on top of her nightstand as a challenge, one she has met with “treasures” – glorious, wonderful, crazy clutter. This is how it looked on Friday. I didn’t touch a thing.* (The blank spot at the [...]

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For whatever reason, today was filled with crazy kid quotes. A few of the best: “It’s time to wrestle for cheese!” Julia to Vivi as they race around with the cheese they stole from me before I could put it on my sandwich at lunch. “Even Jesus poops.” Vivi, going with science where the Bible [...]

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I have never in my life been apple picking, except I suppose when I was a little kid and we lived on a farm with a big apple orchard behind the house. But today, we four went to Fireside Orchard, just west of town, and had a fantastic time. The weather was perfect – cloudless, [...]

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Sunday, I went with the girls to their swimming lessons, offered by Making Waves swim school, which apparently specializes in aquatic miracles. A year ago, Julia would literally cry if she got her face wet in the tub. All summer, and now into the fall, she’s happily swimming underwater, jumping into deep water, and generally [...]

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Genevieve is not happy standing still. Even “waiting” for the kindergarten bus to arrive entails chalking on the sidewalk, singing and dancing, and racing up and down on her scooter. She even invented a new game for us. She would start at the bottom of the driveway and try to scooter all the way up [...]

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Thursday afternoon, the girls decided that they’d finish Shannon’s run with her. They duly changed into their own running skirts and tee shirts, then joined their mom for a lap around the block. They actually ran with her, every step, and enjoyed it. I managed to take this shot just as they finished.

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Sunday morning, I ran the 15km road race that’s a perennial part of Northfield’s huge Defeat of Jesse James Days festival. I ran the 5km event a few times a few years ago, and I’ve long wanted to step up to the “big race.” This spring, after finishing the Almanzo cycling race, I figured I [...]

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Minnesota Public Radio ran two irksome stories almost back to back this morning. The first story described how a GOP leader in the state legislature is attacking local school boards that are seeking to renew tax levies to fund school operations. Thing is, he’s the freaking chair of the education finance committee, and thus has presumably had [...]

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The very best sound a bike can make is the crunchy sizzle of tires going fast over gravel. The second-best sound a bike can make is the crisp crackle of going through dry leaves, like these early fallers on my route home from work.

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The first day of school was a non-event for Julia, who was excited about second grade but accustomed to school, and a huge honking deal for Genevieve, who was reluctant to get too excited about KINDERGARTEN! Right up until Monday night, she kept telling us that she didn’t want to go to kindergarten. I expected [...]

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An amazing and beautiful year in the back yard of a house in Oslo.

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This here is my (first) plate of Thanksgiving dinner. I won’t go into details except to say that Shannon made all of it and every bite was delicious.

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The pond at the end of our subdivision is home to a muskrat which we occasionally see swimming slowly through the water. Yesterday I saw the muskrat furiously chasing a mallard duck – something I’ve never seen before. Just as the rodent caught up to the bird, the duck launched itself into the air and [...]

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At two this afternoon, Julia jumped off a chair in our living room and said she wanted to go for a bike ride to finally figure out the whole two-wheeling thing. We headed out, Vivi zooming ahead of us, and lo and behold it happened! I’ve seriously never been prouder to be a parent.

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