9 years.

….7% of 5.02 mb…

I’m sitting here waiting for a 5 MB stock photo to download over a dial-up connection. Yeah. That’s 45 minutes.

It’s not like I can do any other work on the project. I’m waiting for the damn stock photo.

‘Course I can’t surf the web either. That just grinds everything to a halt.

I’m truly in the wrong line of business to be living this far out in the sticks. Why should I have to switch to a redneck vocation just to live like one? Perhaps that’s the key. One facilitates the other. But which enables which?

…24% of 5.02 mb….

So I’m writing and I don’t know what to write.

As far as the baby update goes, Lyn has Gestational Diabetes (Wikipedia it, I can’t right now, doing so would surely cause time to stop all togheter) which basically means she’s got to rest and do pretty much nothing as well as alter her diet and check blood sugar frequently. A drag to say the least, though at least it’s been good that my mom is here to help out, otherwise her Doctor was gonna hospitalize her and yours truly would have had to bail on work even earlier (insert sounds of pandemonium here). Mom goes back on the 5th of September, so assuming I can clear it with the EI folk with a note from the doctor, that’s my official ‘P’ day – the day I start Parental leave – even though actual baby due date is the 27th. No one – doctors included – really think it will go the distance though.

…57% of 5.02 mb…

4 months leave. Sept. 5 to Jan 5. I haven’t had that much time off in at least 7 or 8 years. Even when I was unceremoniously dumped by Kentville Publishing a few years back, I think I was only off 2 months – and it was in a panic – we had to pack up and move everything to the States in short order. I packed our entire house (Lyn was pregnant then with Emma) into 2 Uhaul trucks myself in 24 hours – in the snow. I look back now and it seems odd, neigh unbelievable, like it was someone else that did it. Nuts.

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4 kids, 4 moves – 2 from one country to another. Thyroid Cancer and 2 throat surgeries. A string of unsatisfying and disappointing jobs. A spontaneous firing. Financial distress.

Giggles. Sillyness. Backyard afternoons. Trips for Ice Cream. 1st steps. 1st days of school. Scary thunderstorms and a crowded bed. A secret family vocabulary that only the 6 of us will ever get. One adult and 3 kids watching tv on a couch made for 2 people. Sprinkler runs.

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. I love my wife, Lyn, and my kids and I know they love me. This renders download times inconsequential. Happy Anniversary to us.

File’s done.