avablog

If I have to read about one more celebrity pregnancy, I am going to lose it. Up yours, Gwen Stefani–you 38-year-old, ab-obsessed hussy. Up yours, Angelina Jolie–you cheating homewrecker, posing as a saint. Up yours, Brooke Burke–pushing out your fourth damn kid from that bikini-worthy body at age 36! *sigh* Bitter much, Leah? Why, yes, [...]

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I took a bunch of pictures around the house the evening, including when it was Ava’s story time. This kid sure does love her stories. Sometimes she likes to take the book when we’re done and read it herself, but she only reads back what she memorized us reading on each page. It’s a neat [...]

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Hi! Look at me! I’m the first parent who’s ever lamented that his child is growing up too fast! In truth, I do have a sense that Ava’s growing up pretty quickly. This morning I sat and looked out my window as the high school kids parked up all the available real estate on the [...]

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The weatherman (or, as Leah says, “weatherperson“) tells us the temp is going to drop something like 70 degrees by this evening. Seriously. That’s crazy. The threat of 45-mph winds and extreme cold (I even heard the word “blizzard” within the first hour of being at work) have already intimidated the local schools into closing [...]

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Thank God for my blog post yesterday, or I’d have no proof that I actually lived through a weekend over the past two days. I hate sitting at my desk on a Monday morning and feeling like yesterday was Friday. But it’s OK. I have my work cut out for me this week, as usual. [...]

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My mom was set to come over and sit for us last night while we went to dinner with friends. But as we were getting Ava ready, she insisted she wanted to stay overnight at Gramary’s. Leah and I weren’t sure, but Ava was super excited and insisted she would be OK. So we agreed. [...]

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One post on one blog is nothing but a plaintive cry against a lack of inspiration and time. But two posts on two blogs… …that’s the start of a meme.

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This image caught my eye this morning as I looked at the front page of the Wall Street Journal: It linked to a story about how successful women are models for how to dress in the business world. Whatever. What struck me was that each of these women has the same leg crossed. Not being [...]

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No, wait. She’s hot. No she’s cold. Now she’s hot again. We’re having a bit of a time getting used to radiant heat in this, our first winter in the new house. We also have a programmable thermostat, which is something we never had. But we’re learning what works. One disappointment for me has been [...]

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All right, so the headline is a bit of a reach here. But I try to make a Marty Feldman reference at least once a month, out of respect. This is Ava’s “eye thing.” She busts this out every once in a while for no apparent reason. Sometimes she’ll do it as she looks at [...]

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Ava and I were hanging out yesterday while I put some new media on our server. At one point, I expressed some frustration at the Apple TV needing to reboot, and Ava — who was on the sofa next to me — put her hand gently on my arm, looked up at me with her [...]

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So we were watching “Sunshine” last night. Perhaps you’ve seen it. Anyway, it was recommended by a friend. It was OK. But I knew we weren’t in for anything too fantastic when pretty much the opening shot was a ripoff of “Alien.”

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Part of the fun of these blog things is turning your readers on to things you like, right? Well, one of the things I like is Dave Hill’s blog. This guy is hilarious. He’s been around for quite a while in various incarnations, but this whole blogging business really suits his sense of humor and [...]

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Hey, it’s been a while, huh? Taken this morning as Ava cuddled under her hearts blanket (which is getting a bit small for her by now).

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The view as I walked into the office this morning: Not bad.

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Any way you serve ‘em up, the end result is still the same: I’ve got some damn old eggs. Yes, that’s right, the result of our UIHC infertility appointment today revealed that we have “unexplained infertility” due to the age of my eggs. At this point, we only have a two-percent chance of getting pregnant [...]

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That number represents our chances of getting pregnant each month, according to the doctor we saw this morning (when we conceived Ava, our odds were more like 18% to 20%). If we undertake IUI, that goes up another 2%. If we do IUI with a drug like clomid or letrozol, we get another 2%. So [...]

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I thought I’d post a little video of our takeoff from Chicago on the way to Cancun, a.k.a. Ava’s first plane ride. It was also her first time chewing gum, which we told her would come in handy if her ears started to pop. She was far more excited about the gum than the plane [...]

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There’s nothing like a trip to a foreign land with a camera in your hand to get you thinking more broadly about photography. It’s not like I need another excuse to shoot, but it would be nice to have some structure to my endeavor. I have friends who’ve undertaken the now-(in)famous 365 days of portraits [...]

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I feel like I need to conclude the story of our vacation departure, since the last y’all heard was that we were heading to the Eastern Iowa Airport for our 6 p.m. flight. Well, the drive to C.R. was completely free of fog…until a mile from the exit to the airport, at which point we [...]

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