Tools that make me feel like a man

I come from a family of do-it-yourselfers. My father has always had more tools than he knows what to do with and having grown up on a farm he learned how to use them well. I have 3 brothers who have all worked construction at some point in their lives (though from what I hear Doug spent most of his time with a broom in hand). I never took a woods class in high school. I worked at Godfather's Pizza and never worked construction. Because of this (and an unfortunate desk scenario a decade and a half ago) there have been numerous jokes over the years about Jake being a thinker not a worker. I have used this to my advantage numerous times.

Knowing that I would want to get some projects done around the house I hit up my brothers for a list of must have tools before we moved to South Bend (I'm still waiting for the landscaping list). They came through with flying colors and I am the proud owner of a variety of power tools. The list was divided up into must-haves, almost must-haves, would be nice to have, and maybe someday when I have some more money to blow. One of my brothers placed a framing hammer into the must-haves section. He stated that while it is not absolutely necessary there is nothing like the power of a nice framing hammer to make you feel like a man. I have a couple of hammers, but I took his advice and purchased a framing hammer on one of my numerous trips to Lowes. I've got to say that after framing, and roofing my shed over the past few weeks he was right and I certainly feel more manly with my 22 oz Kobalt in my hand or hanging from my toolbelt. Thanks Mark.

The start to finish (sans paint job) of the shed should be the subject of post shortly.

Family Home Afternoon

I finished up a little early yesterday afternoon and on the way home I stopped to see what was playing at the dollar theater. I really love going out to movies, but for the life of me I can't bring myself to pay for the price of a movie, and babysitting these days so we rarely go to movies. It just so happened that "Kungfu Panda" is playing at the dollar theater so I phoned home to tell Melissa to load up the kids. I have been to one movie with Spencer and have never dared take either Jessi or Kristian to the movies so this was a huge step for all of us.

We arrived at the theater and paid our $6 for the five of us to enter then another $6 for the popcorn and made our way to our seats. Spencer sat on the end then Melissa with Jessi on her lap holding the popcorn then me with Kris on my lap. I expected to watch about 15 minutes before Kris got bored and wanted to leave, but to my surprise he was happy as a lark. Much of that was probably due to the fact that he could easily reach the popcorn. The movie was great (I'm a major fan of Jack Black) and I do believe that we have never had 90 minutes where all three kids were entertained so thoroughly at the same time.

I hope some more cartoons come to the dollar theater soon so we can make some sort of routine out of this.

Skadoosh

Tragedy

In February of this month I did a dermatology rotation at at clinic in Cedar. After a few days of getting to know each other I was able to joke around with the physicians, nurses, and receptionists and really enjoyed going into the clinic each day. In this particular office there were two dermatologists and a Physician's Assistant so even though they travel throughout Southern Utah, Nevada, and Arizona to various clinics they always have someone stay behind to keep the clinic in Cedar open. When I finished that month Dr Ellsworth said; "Jake I look forward to working with you when you get back in a few years, if I last that long".

Last Saturday while I was working on my shed outside I received information through a voicemail that the plane carrying Dr Ellsworth and many of his staff had gone down outside of Moab, Utah and all had died.

I knew 7 of the 10 people on this plane and though they were not a large part of my life I do miss them. I don't know exactly what kind of a grief reaction I should be going through, but it is different than anything I have ever experienced. My heart goes out to the families of these individuals.

I have thought a lot about how this tragedy has affected my home town and how this will be one of those days that we in Cedar will remember forever. We see tragedies on the news every day and yet it's just a part of life until it becomes intimate and then the world changes. Some of you may have experienced that with the events of Sep 11. I thought I did too, but it didn't feel like this does.

I'm grateful for my knowledge of eternal families and the Gospel of Jesus Christ for I find a great deal of comfort there. For any of you who don't share my beliefs how do you deal with these tragedies, and where do you find comfort?

New Beginnings

Yesterday was Spencer's first day of school. I had very mixed emotions about my first little one starting school. (I am blaming that on the pregnancy). Spencer has been so excited to start school and has been asking us for weeks when he gets to start, so mostly I have just been excited for him too.

It ended up being a different day then both of us expected. First off, we had to wait outside for 35 minutes for all of the buses to get there so that all the kids could go inside together. To say Spencer got a little antsy is a major understatement. While waiting outside, some of the boys near by got to shoving (they were getting pretty bored too) and in the process Spencer got shoved. And of course, being my little sensitive Spencer, he began to cry. So the boy that shoved him called him a baby for crying and this of course got Spencer crying even more. I calmed him down and then it was finally time to go inside and Spencer got excited. I got excited to to take Spencer to his class and find his desk, and all those great things I remember my mom doing with me, however, the school doesn't really do that. Parents were asked to leave the kids in the foyer to ease the separation process. Spencer was expecting me to take him to class so that didn't ease his separation process much at all. Apparently he calmed down as soon as he got to class.

When I picked Spencer up he was crying once again. The teacher informed me that he was sad he had to leave his crayons at school because he wanted to leave them in his backpack. I got him to the van and calmed him down and things got better again.

Spencer said he had an okay first day of school and when we asked him what he did he said he sat a lot. After some prodding he told us he painted, and made some buildings with blocks, and got to listen to some stories. And then followed it up with but we really sat a lot. He also let us know that he was sad because he wanted to play the Clifford game he found but his teachers wouldn't let him. Apparently it is going to be a bit of a transition for him from preschool. He was used to mom dropping him off each day in the class and then having lots of scheduled "free discovery time", which he absolutely loved. I am sure he will get used to it quickly, it was just hard to see him have such an up and down first day when I wanted everything to go so perfectly for him. So I stewed most of the evening about if he was going to be okay on the bus today, and if he was going to come home crying every day (he gets that from his mom), and on and on.

All of these worries vanished this morning when he woke up and couldn't wait to get on the bus and go back to school because "he loves school". I guess I am lucky that Spencer has a shorter memory than mine :)

Our First Garden Success

So luckily out east, it doesn't take much to grow a garden. Mainly just plant the seeds and then attempt to keep the chipmunks from eating them. (Jacob has a great solution for this, but we won't get into that here). About 1/2 of our garden made it past seeds which consist of the squash and corn. Yesterday we picked our first 2 squash from the garden. I am so excited. So far this is the only produce we have seen actually growing but I am hopeful for more. We have a lot of leaves and blossoms so I figure that means veggis will follow. If not, I will still be happy with these 2 guys.

Greatest Athlete Ever?

With all this talk about Michael Phelps being the greatest athlete ever I feel a need to firmly establish my post as a fence sitter. While 8 gold medals in one olympics is more than any other olympian it can't really be compared to many other olympians. There is no sport other than swimming where it is even possible to win 8 golds. That said the way Phelps dominates his events is absolutely amazing. The only thing stressful about his individual events so far as been waiting for the start of the race because once the competitors leave the blocks it's over. The way he won the 200 free reminded me of the original dream team where the competition is so far behind it's laughable.

Is Phelps the greatest athlete ever? I can't answer that question, but he definately deserves to be grouped with the Jordans, Tigers, Gretskys, Ruths, Owens's and Marinos of the world.

Synchronized Diving, are you kidding me?

I would like to begin this entry with a list of new events I think they should add to future Olympics. First of all I think we should have synchronized 3 point shooting, you get extra points if you get the ball to bounce twice on the rim in the same location before going in, though a miss is an automatic tenth deduction. We should have synchronized sand volleyball spiking with teams of 4 where the bump, set, spike are in synch between the two pairs. Let us not stop there we can go to synchronized curling in the winter Olympics. When baseball comes back we can have a synchronized homerun derby. You might guess that I am currently watching synchronized diving. This is very near the top of my dumbest sports ever. Let me first say that I am in no way saying that synchronized diving is easy, rather it is just stupid. First of all it is a judged competition which already eliminates it from my list of real sports. The dives aren’t nearly as impressive as those done in the normal diving competition (speaking of which why don’t they have a skydiving competition, that would be cool), but since they are synchronized they suddenly warp into something that the world needs to see. I think the synchronized diving teams should get fools gold medals.

We have enjoyed watching the Olympics. Melissa continues to be frustrated with me for spoiling her swimming trials by announcing the results as she is watching the events. In my defense I didn’t want her to be disappointed when she saw Michael Phelps only qualify 4th in the 200 Free. Speaking of Michael Phelps has there ever been a more enjoyable Olympic athlete to watch? The guy is the whole package. He’s the best swimmer ever, he’s a pretty good interview and he’s taking part in a study where he gets his blood tested for more substances than any athlete in history. Track has lost it’s luster because there’s a steroid shroud over the stadium thicker than that seen in the MLB, but Phelps is distancing himself from that before the accusations even start. I hope he gets his 8 gold medals and I hope he sets 8 world records in the process.

I’m looking for a partner for the synchronized watermelon seed spitting competition in the 2016 Olympics if any of you are interested.

March 19th

That's right folks we're going from 5 to 6 in March. Melissa hasn't been feeling too well lately, but she hides it well. March is a non-call month for me so this was in fact planned down to the date.

As of right now I am laying claim to the trailer at the Corry reunion next year.

The pain of memory

I've been reading through some of my old journals recently. Aside from recognizing what a stupid kid I was in my teen years and early 20s it has been a very bittersweet experience for me. I've been missing a lot of people since we moved away from Cedar (again), but reading through my journals has brought back some of the wonderful memories of places and people that I have not seen in years and I feel a longing for them.

While I love Southern Utah and my family and friends that we have left back on the other side of the Missippi (and some DC area folks) and I miss them greatly I have an assurance that I will see both these people and places many more times during my life so my longing is tempered. When I read through my journals I remember some of the things and people that I loved in Massachusettes, and Brazil. I think about the great friends I made in medical school (though it will still take some time before I miss Pikeville). The longing for these people and places is different than that of home and family. I'm old enough to know that I may never see these people and places again and that causes me great sadness. Some of that sadness comes from knowing that South Bend and many of the friends we make here in the next 3 years will fall into that category.

To illustrate this point I only need to remember my time in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. There were 6 elders in my district and we got along great. We spent every day together for 8 weeks and became very good friends. We all went to Massachusettes while waiting for our visas and each time we were able to get together for mission conferences it was a wonderful reunion. When we left for Brazil after 4 1/2 months I said goodbye to three of these elders and have not seen or spoken to any of them in 12 years. Three of us spent the rest of our missions in and around Salvador Brazil and once again we were overjoyed when we were able to get together during conferences and such. My last companion on my mission was actually one of these two elders and we had a great time. These two missionaries were two of the best friends I have ever had. We have all moved on in our lives and unless we choose to make a point of staying in contact our paths will not cross again.

In the end this is why I have a blog. Maybe someone from my past will read in their journal and remember Jacob, or Jake, or Elder Corry and when they google me they'll find their way to the blog and we can be reaquainted.



If this post seems somewhat random you should know that I want to go to bed, but Melissa has been reading her new twilight book for the past 30 hours and she won't let me turn off the light until she finishes. Personally I don't see what all the excitement is about. This whole vampire/werewolf thing has already been done in the Blade movies and then again in the Underworld series (though I actually have only seen one movie in each of these trilogies).

Spencerisms

For whatever reason Spencer wasn't too happy with me this evening and his emotions boiled over while I was playing with Kristian while he wanted to play with Kristian. It was at this time that he informed me of his future plans.

Spencer: "When I get bigger I'm going to take my brother and my sister and get my own family."

Me: "Oh really"

Spencer: "yeah, and I'm taking my mommy"

Apparently I'll be living out my days alone if Spencer gets his way.*


*Luckily for me Spencer forgets quickly and he forgave me at bedtime for whatever it was that I did in the first place to draw his ire.

Kool-Aid Play Dough

So Spencer has been asking me to make him the play dough that they had in his preschool since we moved here. I finally remembered to buy Cream of Tarter at the store and so we made it today. He is now in seventh heaven. My cookie cutters are spread out all over the table and he has about 5 butter knives but he is happy and that is all that counts. I am going to post the recipe for this play dough as it was so easy and it is really easy clean up. It doesn't stick to everything like some homemade play dough recipes. The best part about it is it smells like whatever kind of kool-aid you used and that is a plus.

So Here it is

Kool-Aid Play Dough

Materials Needed

1 cup flour
1 Tbsp Cream of Tarter
1 Packet of Unsweetened Kool-Aid
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water

To Make:
Mix all Ingredients together. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly. When it thickens, put on the counter and knead.

Store in airtight container or Ziploc bag.