Zach Dotsey

Milly doesn’t like loud noises.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that she buried her head in my chest when Amanda was vacuuming and this past weekend when the blender was being used she’d get real tense and grab me really tight.

Tonight we went over to Anna and Barry’s, as they made a birthday meal for me.  All the Frazelles were there, plus Amanda’s mom, Karen, who is staying with us tonight, Amanda’s grandparents and my brother, Adam and Hannah’s boyfriend, Christian.  After they sang Happy Birthday to me I mentioned to Christian that this was the first time I had a rock star sing that to me.  The band he’s in, Rio Bravo, will be recording a studio album next week.

We tried putting Milly down for a nap while we all ate, but she wasn’t having it and we got her back up part way through dinner.  We had the pack & play set up in Anna and Barry’s room and went to put her down in there a little later, after we and she ate.  Barry and Earl were back there, and before we could put Milly down Barry accidentally caused a very loud noise that left my and Amanda’s ears ringing.  Milly didn’t do anything at first, out of shock I think, but then she started crying and wouldn’t stop.  We got her calmed down eventually, but there was no way she’d let us put her down, and it was getting on past her bedtime.

After a few minutes we decided we needed to get on home, hoping the drive and familiar settings would make it easier for her to go down.  I hated to leave so soon after eating when we were planning on hanging out for a bit, and I think Barry felt bad, but we really had to get her down.

Milly did well in the car, but once we got her upstairs she cried every time we laid her down in the crib.  She’d roll over then stand up and once she got up she’d be happy, but of course she then didn’t want us to leave.  Eventually I just had to go ahead and leave, and I think she was quiet by the time I got down the steps.

Amanda and Karen were tired and didn’t want to play Puerto Rico, so we just watched a little TV before they went off to bed.

Other than all that, my day was taken up with work.  I don’t feel like I’ve been as busy as I’ve been in the last few months, but it is getting busy once again, just when things were calming down a bit.  I don’t mind being busy, I just want it to be more manageable than it has been.  Manageable might not be the right word.

Zach Dotsey

Small group was great tonight.  I just thought I’d go ahead and mention that.  I don’t usually put a whole lot of detail about our small group meetings because a lot of it can be personal for people in it, but everyone shared some stories tonight, and it just felt like such a great night.  You know you’ve got a good group when people feel comfortable and trusting enough to be able to talk about deeply personal things.

The weather was nasty today.  It was cold and it rained hard.  I got to go out in that weather to pick up a check halfway across town.  The good part of that is that we were able to make some big changes we finished up a couple weeks ago for a website live.  The bad part is I had to drive through all that mess.

We had a good time this evening.  The Chick-fil-A at Mayfaire was celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday by having the Cat in the Hat (or some chick dressed as him) there along with some birthday cake and balloons and the like.  Amanda and I went early and grabbed some food for ourselves and the place quickly filled up with kids.  Milly was looking all around, taking it all in.  I don’t know if she’s yet been someplace that had so much going on in such a small area.  Amanda loosely tied a balloon to her highchair and she was very entertained by that.  She was really intrigued with the Cat in the Hat once s/he made hir way over to Milly.  I think she mostly liked the red and white striped hat.

We also let Milly have some small bites of cake, a couple of them with a minuscule amount of icing on that.  Needless to say, she really liked that.

After we left Chick-fil-A we went to the Frazelle house to pick Kirsten up and bring her back to our place to babysit Milly.  Anna usually brings her, but since we were over halfway there, we didn’t see the sense in having Anna go all the way out to our house.  We hung out there for a couple minutes and Milly got passed around a bunch.

Kirsten told us that Milly was good for her tonight, which is good because I had to ask Milly why she was acting bratty this morning.  She ate her first four ounces really fast, but then refused to eat the other two ounces I made for her.  As we usually do, I made oatmeal out of the leftover formula, but she was having none of that, so I wasted a good bit of both formula and oatmeal.  She also would not hold still at all while I was trying to change a gooey poopy diaper.  But she was sweet the rest of the day.

Carolina beat Miami tonight.  Figures.  Way to build the Heels’ confidence before the Duke game, Wake and Miami!  I suppose it’s alright though.  It’ll get their hopes up before Duke (hopefully) obliterates them this Saturday.

Zach Dotsey

There was an earthquake early this morning off the coast of Chile, an 8.8 with a whole lot of aftershocks which  has killed, last I saw, over 200 people.  On top of that it was reported that a tsunami from it was heading towards Hawaii, but I don’t think anything came of that.

In my own life, Amanda got up with Milly this morning, which was nice.  She fed her then put her i n bed with me after she ate.  My baby was in a good mood.

A little later we, along with the Lambeths, ate a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage then went over to the Frazelles’.  Ben mentioned wanting to see them, plus he and Jessica wanted to take Graelyn out to see the beach.  I don’t know if the girls were off their schedules or what, but Milly and Graelyn took turns being fussy, Milly more so.  Since Milly was being so fussy (and Graelyn wasn’t at that point), Amanda, Milly and I stayed in the house while the Lambeths went to get a few pictures.  It was also cold and there are giant pipes running the length of the beach since they’re pumping sand to one spot to replenish it.

Anyway, we hung out with Anna, Barry and Kirsten (Hannah made an appearance as well) then headed on back to the house after stopping to pick up some steaks for dinner.  We also got some cake in celebration of my impending birthday.

We gave Milly and Graelyn a bath together, which was fun.  We used Milly’s bathtub thing and put Graelyn in the seat part with Milly in the deeper part.  They both love baths and seemed to have fun in there.

Milly, as I think I’ve mentioned lately, has been really distracted while being fed lately.  Everyone else was busy getting dinner ready while I was trying to keep Milly entertained (as I said, the babies were very fussy today) and since Amanda, Ben and Jessica had talked about Veggie Tales earlier, I thought I’d pull up some Veggie Tales videos on YouTube for Milly to see what she thought.  Well, it held her attention, and she drank all her formula while watching them.  I suppose it’s the dawn of the electronic nanny era in our household.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that.

Dinner was great.  Ben fixed the steak and we also had green beans and salad.  Amanda’s salad is always good, but it seemed even better than usual tonight, and Ben’s steak was just outstanding.  After that we ate some very yummy cake and sat around talking insurance and politics for a bit before settling into watching District 9, which Ben got from the Redbox at Lowe’s Food.  I don’t think anyone else liked it as much as I did, but I’ve been wanting to see it since before it was in the theaters and I was not disappointed in the least.  I thought it was really, really good.

Harvey was very smelly tonight.  I don’t know what the deal was, but he smelled like fish.  He did yesterday too, but Amanda was able to wipe him down with some Nature’s Miracle to take care of it, but that didn’t work tonight so I ended up giving him a bath.  He smells much better now.

I think the plan is to forgo church tomorrow morning.  As I understand it’s mostly going to be sort of a call for volunteers, and since Amanda and I together volunteer three out of four weeks a month and Ben and Jessica will be leaving, not to mention that we were up later than usual tonight and it will probably be stressful getting the babies all ready on time, I think we’re just going to get up and go grab some breakfast.

It was Upset Day in college hoops.  First, Kentucky got beat by Tennessee then Kansas got beat by Oklahoma State, so the top two teams in the nation, both with only one previous loss, both lost in the same day.  Georgetown, ranked 11, was beaten by unranked Notre Dame and Texas A&M beat Texas.  That one wasn’t a huge upset as they were ranked 21 and 22, but Texas was #1 earlier in the season and I think started out at #2.  In the ACC, Carolina finally got a win, this one coming at the expense of Wake Forest on their own court, which has to be embarrassing this year.  That irritated me because the Tar Heels were tied with NC State for last place in the ACC, but then NC State finally got another win (over Miami), so the Heels are still at the bottom, but now it’s a three-way tie between the Heels, the Wolfpack and the Hurricanes.  Of the three though, the Heels have the worst overall record, so that’s nice consolation.

Zach Dotsey

On Friday I noticed a text message from Elliot Clark from sometime after 2:00 in the morning letting the world know that his and Melissa’s baby, Ella, would be here soon.  I hadn’t heard anything since (and I didn’t want to put anything on here since I didn’t know what was going on), so I texted him and asked how everything was going.  He called this evening and told us that mom and baby were fine.  Melissa’s water had broken but they didn’t think it was what it was until just a little later.  To my understanding, Ella, who was early, wasn’t turned right.  They had actually been scheduled to turn her anyway, and when they couldn’t get it done at the hospital they went ahead and had a c-section.  So, welcome to the world, Ella Jane Clark!  We’re excited about another little friend for Milly.

Amanda and Karen’s big adventure was to go to a place where they could blow glass and make their own things with the Frazelle ladies.  I think Amanda said she made a bowl and Karen made a vase.  Sounds like they had a fun time.

The morning was pretty much just me and Milly.  Amanda’s grandparents, Peggy and Earl Lemons, got here with a kitchen new sink for us.  Well, it wasn’t entirely new, but it was gently used.  They go it from their church, which just got a new sink.  It’s a bit deeper than the one we had, plus the fixtures work much better.  On our old one, you had to push the handle up pretty hard and the sprayer was all gunked up.  The nice thing about that was that even though the spray only came out of one hole, it had a lot of pressure, so it was pretty good for cleaning.

Anyway, they got here around 12:30 I think.  I was watching Carolina play a close game with Boston College to help determine which of them was going to be tied for second last in the ACC.  Fortunately, the Eagles were able to pull out the win.  NC State had a big upset over Wake Forest after that, but for most of those two games Earl and I were working on getting the sink installed.  Michael came over early in the second game while his grandpa and I were on a run to Lowe’s and Amanda and Karen got back just as we were finishing up.  Earl had said to me that he wondered what Amanda might give me tonight if she was really pleased with the sink.  I thought that was hilarious.

Amanda went to a jewelry party thing at the Cains’ house while their other half came over just as everyone else was leaving here.  We flipped around the TV a bit and settled on watching the Winter Olympic sport of curling.  People make fun of it, but we really got wrapped up in it.

Zach Dotsey

Work has been full of a bunch of small update things that I do, thinking that I can knock them out then move on to the big things that need to be done.  Unfortunately, it seems like every time I finish up the small stuff, more small stuff comes in.  So today I made a list of all the things that needed to be done and put them in order.  Hopefully this system will work out alright.  We’ve got five or six sites, whether transfers, redesigns or new designs, that went live in the last couple work days or should be going live by the end of the week.

Milly was good for me today, so that helped.  I didn’t have to put her down for a nap until almost 10:00.  She rarely makes it that long before getting tired and fussy.

Anna came over a few minutes early to drop Kirsten off to babysit Milly tonight because she wanted to come in and see her too.  Kirsten told us that Milly did great for her, although she sneezed a few times while feeding her, which always makes a mess.

Small group was fun tonight.  The reading was several chapters in Romans, but the discussion questions didn’t take all that long and so we spent a good bit of the night talking and joking around.

After we got home Amanda and I watched Lost then she went to bed.  Milly woke up and cried briefly.  The positive to that is that I got to tell her goodnight.

Duke and Carolina play tomorrow.  I hope I’ll be able to focus on work at least a little.

Zach Dotsey

After small group tonight Amanda and I came home to watch Lost.  Even though it was on past Amanda’s bedtime, she stayed up to watch it.  So here is the rundown of some of my initial thoughts.

• Juliette’s message to Sawyer (“It worked”) seems to obviously mean that the bomb worked, but how did she know?
• The bomb did work, because we’re now seeing the reality where the plane didn’t crash.
• But we’re also seeing a continuation of the reality where the plane did crash, meaning reality split.
• Desmond and Jack’s dad’s body disappeared from the plane.  What’s that mean?
• Sawyer is going to try to rip off Hurley.
• More Others?  Other Others?
• The spring water was dirty.  Was the because Jacob had been killed?
• Sayid was definitely dead, so I think he’s now Jacob.  Maybe the spring water will clear up next episode.

All in all it was a good episode, and I’m glad the show is back.  Time for some answers, although I’ve heard that some people will be upset with the finale so I’m guessing not everything will be answered.

Milly woke up two or three times last night.  We changed her feeding schedule on Sunday and she seems to have adapted well enough to it.  Maybe the problem is that I’m used to getting her up from naps at feeding time and she slept too much yesterday.  I made sure to get her up at normal times today.

Amanda had lunch with her grandparents (who later came by the house) and at least Anna and Kirsten from the Frazelle crew today after work.  Kirsten was disappointed that Milly wasn’t with her, but was looking forward to babysitting tonight.  It’s been a few weeks since Kirsten has watched Milly and she’s changed a good bit in that time.  After we got home from small group Kirsten said that Milly had been great.

Small group went well tonight.  We went through the chapter pretty fast and got off topic a bit more than usual even, but it was fun.  We had it over at the Kays’ house and got to see little Felix.  He hung out with us all pretty much the whole time, even if he was sleeping through most of it.

Zach Dotsey

It was almost 70 degrees, but once you stepped out onto the beach you could tell it was a few degrees cooler on the sand.  Surfers could be seen up and down the strand, some walking back down the beach to counteract the drift as they headed back out to the frigid water, some sitting on their boards taking a break.  Of course still more were out past the breakers, waiting for a wave to catch, but it wasn’t as crowded as you’d think, thanks in large part to the water temperature.

Barry and I headed down shore a little.  I guess it was the temperature difference causing a fog, but everything in the distance was hazy.  There was a dredging ship off the south end of the island that looked like a castle rising out of the mist.

Today was the first day I have worn a hood while surfing, and it was the first time I wore my own gloves (which I picked up on the way to Anna and Barry’s).  All that along with my 4-3 wetsuit kept me pretty warm.  In fact, I was expecting to get cold at some point, but with the hood, even when I ducked a few waves I never felt like it was anywhere near unbearable out in the water.  The last time I went out surfing was probably a couple months ago and I was definitely out of shape.  The water was choppy and I had to fight to get out so I didn’t do a whole lot, but I caught a few waves.  The main thing was that I got out there, which will hopefully scratch my surfing itch for a little while.

Once I got out for good I sat and waited for Barry for a while before deciding to just head on in.  There weren’t many surfers out anymore and I figured (rightly) that I must have missed him on his way in.  As I was going to wash off my board I ran into Michael,  guy I’ve done Grow Zone with before, and talked to him for a minute or two.

Before all that Amanda, Milly and I went to church then picked up some bagel sandwiches from Atlanta Bread.  Back home we watched a bit of TV (The Soup and 30 Rock) before Barry texted me about the waves.  After we got back we put Milly down for a nap then watched Saturday Night Live while Amanda heated up some leftover white chili to eat.

We started watching Fringe, but I fell asleep.  I was actually planning on taking a nap before Barry texted me.  I caught most of the episode though, and it was a weird one.  It wasn’t weird in the way that Fringe deals with supernatural things, but in that it was listed as a new episode but obviously was out of continuity.  We guessed it was just an episode they taped but never got around to airing.

Once that was done and Milly was put to bed Amanda and I watched Duke take on Wake Forest.  It was a very physical game with foul trouble all around.  The point differential stayed around four for the most part with the Blue Devils taking an eight point lead off a Jon Scheyer three pointer just before the half.  Wake fought back, but Duke ended up going off in the second half once again and the final score was 90-70.

There was a controversial call about halfway through the second half.  Mason Plumlee was going up for a fast break dunk and was fouled pretty hard by Wake’s Ish Smith and ended up hurt for a few minutes.  While I think the foul was out of control, I don’t think it was an intentional foul, which is what it was ruled, even after review.  Duke was already starting a run at that point, but as my brother-in-law pointed out multiple times via text throughout the rest of the game, it was at a debatably crucial point.  Duke was already starting to gain momentum and that helped, but it didn’t help to the tune of 20 points.

Jon Scheyer was kept to single digits (nine), but Kyle Singler had 21, Nolan Smith had 20 and Miles and Mason Plumlee combined for 30 (19 coming from Miles!).  Duke also only hit four of 13 threes.  What’s promising about this and the last game is that Duke is no longer a team that “lives by the three and dies by the three.”  Once they do start hitting them again though, man, they’ll be deadly because of another great thing shown in this game: Duke can score in the post.  The third big point that I am really excited about it just how tough this Duke team is.  The Demon Deacons were very physical.  Mason got hurt and Kyle got fouled once and landed on his face.  6′4″. 190 pound Andre Dawkins went up to block and foul the very physical 7′0″ 230 pound Chas McFarland.  It’s a tough team that does not back down.

Zach Dotsey