About Randy Pausch...

It is noon, and my son has finally fallen asleep for his morning nap a few hours and a cup of coffee late for me to join him in the quest for a more rested state of being. Unfortunately for me, lucky for you, because now I have some time to kill and a caffeine rush that is causing me to be able to type fast enough to keep up with the thoughts racing through my mind.

I thought this might be a good time to explain the two links I recently added to my side bar. (See side bar...they are the two links below everyones names and above my daily comic strip kick.) For my birthday this year I was given the gift of choosing my own gifts, both from my parents and from my husband. Naturally, I gravitated to the bookstore where my eye was caught by this little book under the best sellers and listed for 30% off. As a good Dutch girl, how could I resist such a deal, and for some reason I decided to go for it. This book was called The Last Lecture and was written by Randy Pausch.

To give you a brief overview, Randy Pausch is a computer science university professor in his late 40's who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in September 2006. Last August 2007 he was given 3-6 months of good health. In September he gave a "Last Lecture" at the university where he used to teach as a way to leave behind a legacy for his 3 young children. The book is written with the help of a journalist Jeffrey Zaslow and is based upon this lecture. It was finished in January 2008, published in April, and is now already a best seller, thanks to a huge following that grew up after the university lecture made its way to the internet. If you would like more info than that, feel free to check out the sites that I've linked. The first is to a blog that Randy has set up that updates his health status and various other life activities, and the second is to the webpage for the book. If anyone wants to read the book, I of course own it, and you may borrow it, as long as you promise to return it. :)

I'm not completely certain what it is about this book that has so struck me. Honestly, while I was reading it I couldn't put it down, not entirely a shocker for me, but since I generally am not hugely into non-fiction, also not completely normal. (It's taking me weeks to get through a couple C.S. Lewis books I've got here in the house, and I happen to LOVE C.S. Lewis...figure that one out...) But there was something in both the style of writing and the story itself that has touched me. It is the kind of book I wish that I could write...except that I don't have nearly the inspiration, wisdom, or life experience to drive it. The story is heart-breaking...a man not even 50 struck with cancer, aching to find a way to tell his children how much he loved them, children who are so young they will probably barely remember him, probably one of the biggest reason he has so desired to find a way to leave them this legacy. His oldest is 6, the youngest is not quite 2.

My caffeine jolt is fading, so I'll just say this, to a certain extent a lot of hype happens when you hear of such sensational stories as this. Is the book really so good to deserve it all? I don't know. But I do know one thing: this man who is going through so much is able to do so with astounding optimism, and I believe it is that optimism in the face of such despairing circumstances that has sparked the interest of so many. If you read the book, you'll have to tell me what you think...

Sick baby

Well, Reuben has pneumonia. He woke up with a fever this past Saturday, and it didn't go away all day or Sunday, and still had it Monday morning. When I called the doctor's office they said to take him right to the hospital, so I got to spend my birthday in the ER! Fun yay. They ordered a chest x-ray because they heard something funny in his chest, and turns out he's got a bit of pneumonia in there. He's on antibiotics for it, so hopefully that will clear it up. He's been rather out of sorts with it, and not sleeping well either, so we're both pretty tired at this point. His fever is gone, which makes him a little more like himself again, but he still gets cranky easily and needs more naps than usual.

Otherwise not a whole lot new going on. Tim continues to be busy at work with no signs of slowing down, although they have completed the move to their new location, so hopefully he will start to be home on-time at night again. Reuben figured out how to climb stairs yesterday!! The kitty was sitting up on the landing, and he wanted at her, so up he went! Tim and I couldn't believe it...looks like I'm going to have to watch him on those things now...

Here's some updated pictures:

My garden

Here's some pictures of my garden.

These are two of the garden before I planted everything so you can see it as a clean slate.



Here's the whole thing as it looks now, or at least as it looked two days ago. We've had a lot of rain and things are really starting to shoot up. In case you're wondering, the newspaper between the rows is to prevent the neighbour cats from digging around and pooping everywhere. So far it seems to have worked, although I got lazy and didn't put enough around my carrots and I need to replant that row because they haven't come up. You can also see that we have a maple tree in the next yard over because there are helicopters everywhere.


This is my little corner of flowers, some daffodils and some other random flowers that were growing in our lawn that I transplanted.


Here you can see my morning glories coming in along the fence. You can see my onions and lettuce next to them.


And that's it! Still haven't gotten around to putting in my beans, mainly because it's been yucky weather the last couple of days, but I'm hoping to get off my lazy behind and do them tomorrow. The coffee grounds I sprinkled around my flowers seems to have prevented that squirrel from coming back for the rest of my daffodils, so I may end up saving up more to put around the rest of my marigolds. Either that or I may invest in some garden sheeting...but then, that costs money, and spare coffee grounds I have plenty of as I do enjoy my morning coffee. Well, off for now...