From .com to .sg to .fr

I saw this ning that my blog "suffix" if you can call it that has changed again. When I blogged from the US my address was zufeltzoo.BlogSpot.com. After a while we moved to Singapore and maybe a year after we arrived there my blog address shifted itself to zufeltzoo.BlogSpot.sg. Well, this morning I logged in and was surprised to see we are now .fr and I'm wondering if I'm in France? I find it incredibly interesting how the internet and computer algorithms that send targeted marketing ads to you and all of that work. Big Brother is everywhere now.

"I'm Too Long Winded for Facebook"

If you know me at all, you know it's true. I'm just glad I finally heard someone put my feelings into words. I heard someone D.J. on the radio say it in a conversation on the morning show. A smile immediately spread from ear to ear and I finally felt I had words for my feelings about Facebook. Facebook is all about the one sentence (or less) status update. I can't express myself that concisely. I have to rewrite my emails a zillion times to shorten them, but reviewing them only makes me remember more stuff to write. If you read my blog, you'll see I have an incredible knack at making a short story long. Seriously, have you ever had a conversation with me when that wasn't the case? To be honest, this particular personality trait I posess does bug me. A lot actually. Wish I was different. I don't know. Can't seem to help it. All I know for sure is that, "I'm too long winded for Facebook!" Admit it. You're smiling right now because you know it's true...

For the Sake of the Camel

Did you notice I've actually posted pictures a couple times lately? Not much, but a few here and there. I'm trying folks, but sometimes those little details are the thing that breaks the camel's back. Therefore, for the sake of the camel, I'm only doing what I can do and not feeling bad about it. For months I was terrible at posting at all because I wanted it to be perfect with picture properly placed. That proved to be an effective plan. I missed months and months of writing down the funnies and other things in our lives. Now they are gone forever. I'm still taking the pictures. And some day when I'm old and grey, I'll have all the time in the world to match them up to the stories I write. For now, I'm lookin' out for the camel as much as I can.

700

This is my 700th post. Seems that I ought to have something profound to say. Thought about it for three days. Nothing. Same thing happened when I passed 100, 250 and 500. Nothing. Brian said I could make a list of my favorite 700 words. That would take forever. So lacking some great idea, we'll just say that after 700 posts in about 18 months of blogging, I must be addicted. I'll leave you to do the math on that one. Anyway, I haven't been able to find a hobby I could stick with since we got married 10 years ago. Don't think I didn't spend oodles of cash on scrapbooking paraphernalia trying to make that work, take classes in cake decorating and wish and dream about doing other expensive things, but nothing ever stuck. I guess blogging must be my hobby. Here there is the list I can come up with. Sorry it doesn't have 700 bullet points. I do enjoy a good math problem though, so consider it 7 x 10 to the seventh power. That at least equals 700.*(see note) Why I love blogging:

1. The price tag is right up my alley. Free.
2. I can do it at 2 am in my pajamas when I can't sleep.
3. No mess to clean up or junk strewn all over my dining room table from it.
4. Grandma and Grandpa love hear stories about the kids since they only see them once a year.
5. The only way I know to "use" all the pictures we take of the kids.
6. Practice my writing while documenting the story of our family. Someday this will all be a real treasure to our kids to read (or maybe it's just ammo for their future spouses to ridicule them).
7. Seriously it's my therapist. I can say whatever. Let it all out. Think through my thoughts and feelings outside myself and get perspective. So yeah. Daily therapy sessions so a wonder for my soul and sanity.

*Thank you Generation Z. You are correct sir. Even though at one time I boasted the title of mechanical engineer, I have long felt firm in my conviction that my brain has since turned to mush. A near useless gelatinous substance that resides in my huge melon that is no longer capable of holding onto information any more complex than where the pink crocs were last discarded or how many minutes are left in an episode of the current cartoon. My error in math has proven the point! 7 x 10 to the seventh power does not equal 700. It is 70,000,000. Thanks for the comment, made me laugh at myself at least. Wonder if anyone else caught it. For the record though, had I written it out in number form 7 x 10^7 rather than text I think I would have caught it.

Dear Soderblogger

Just yesterday Brian and I were having a conversation about my blog. I'm not funny anymore. You started a blog this weekend which I'm totally excited about. To read your take on the quirky things that go on in Thailand will be hilarious. I can hardly wait for your first real post. Welcome, by the way, to our world. I'm sure you have many a posts floating through your head about weird things you've seen in the last two weeks. Anyway, I told Brian about the new "Soderblogger" and he replied that I can finally be your faithful reader like you have been mine. Then I confessed that I feared I may have lost my one and only faithful reader because I was boring now. Brian concurrs. He says I don't write about funny stuff anymore. I think I'm too depressed to think anything is funny these days. Jacob is sucking all the life out of me, no pun intended. All day everyday. My blog posts have slowly become a boring rehash of the details of my everyday drudgery of life. You know, in that annoying sort of way like when people stand in church and give a travel-log-imony instead of a testimony about Christ or a gospel principle. Zufelt Zoo is a bit reminiscent of my mood the last few months though. If you're exhausted, cranky and in demand beyond your ability to perform, you just get too tired to care to write about any of the funny stuff. The Zoo is so bland I'm not sure even I will want to read it again in fifty years. That's sad. Soderblogger, I'm sorry. I really am. Here is my pledge to you: I resolve to look for the lighter side of life again. Find the funny things and write them down. Even if it means not doing the dishes. (you've seen my house...like dishes ever kept me from blogging...yeah right) Remember, Brent, it's all to keep you, my only reader, entertained. You know I can track you now, right? I'll be watching you to make sure I get a hit from Thailand every now and then. In the interrum, until I'm up to speed again, you should check Mandy's Life posts "To the Editor". They are right up your alley and will have you rolling on the floor. And to Cath - I'll try to do more pics. Jacob willing, I'll do better.

My Life as a Rock Star

Ben just saw the Potsy pictures in the last post and asked what I wrote about. At his request he sat by my side and I started reading it to him. I wasn't more than three words in and he was giggling. By the end of the second sentence he was force laughing so hard and so loud it was flat out ridiculous. I hadn't read anything funny yet. Or maybe I didn't realize how funny I was. So goes my life as a rock star. It is hard having an adoring crowd like that. They follow my every move incredibly closely (so close that they are always underfoot getting fingers or toes squished while I cook and do dishes, little bodies knocked over when I turn around or heads whacked with the baby carrier car seat while I try to find my keys at the front door). They are everywhere I am all day every day watching me like short little paparazzi with mental cameras shoved in my face recording all my stealth or stupid moves (I always have to hide to sneak a piece of chocolate from the pantry but I'm getting better at palming things like a magician which at the very least ought to make Brian proud). I just can't seem to escape my fans (they hear that darn pantry door open every time and come running as they yell, "What are you eating?" and they enjoy talking to me through the bathroom door while I'm "alone"). Their faces light up when I enter a room (especially the tiny guy when I come to release him from the prison bars more commonly known as a crib). Yeah, life as a rock star is harder than I thought it would be when I first signed this highly lucrative deal. Only one question. When is my first paycheck supposed to arrive? It's been five years and I'm getting a little worried it might have been lost in the mail.

What to Do On the Road

I love having a laptop and a power inverter. I don’t have internet access on the road, but I have been able to catch up on blog posts from mid-March. It feels amazing to have been able to catch up so much! Seriously, I have single spaced typed out eighteen pages of blog posts and which pictures I need to retrieve to post with them. I’m so excited to upload everything!! I made it all the way to the end of May just before we went to California. Still some big posts (California wedding, Grandma’s funeral, Jacob rolling, sitting, crawling, standing up a few seconds, preschool graduation, family campout, primary talent show, installing baby gates, buying and selling houses out of state, regression on crying it out, Ben progressing in swim team and more). For now, I’m going to revel in the progress I’ve made catching up the blog and hope that my kids have moved onto a new and better stage where I have a few minutes to myself each day rather than running to attend to the needs of one of the three of them at every waking moment. I can’t believe we’re almost to July already. Time used to be so methodical, so measurable and trackable. Then I had Ben and in an instant I had three kids. My first year with Ben seemed to drag, but time has been passing steadily faster and faster with each year. Jacob will be seven months in a week and it seems like he just joined our little family. I don’t want to miss, neglect or forget any of it. Ben is especially fun now since we can do so much together. He is a huge help. I love to work with him, teach him piano/reading/math, play with him. Sometimes my heart yearns to not be bound down by a million other things so I could give him all the love I have for him. On Wednesday last week, Maddie asked me at least five different times through the day to read her a story she loves. Each time was a bad time for me and I put her off. Finally, I had time and snuck into her room with the book at 9pm after she was in bed. I fully expected her to be awake. She is our night owl and usually is up about an hour after climbing in bed. It broke my heart that she was gone. I could feel my heart ache to know I had put her off, let her down and disappointed her five times. She never once complained. It happens to every mother. The stars just cannot be aligned every moment of the day. When they are, I need to be better at seizing the moment and reveling in it because; the days are short lived that she will want to snuggle in my arms and read a magical fairytale story.

Blogging Defined

I saw this quote on a friend's blog today (and by friend I mean one of the "kids" in our Houston church youth program that grew up and got married to one of my other favorite "kids", Bryce, from church...she isn't a kid anymore but a super amazing adult). Anyway, Ali said it and I think her thought just about sums up my feelings PERFECTLY... "...blogging is like laundry.... if you don't keep up on it all the time, one day you turn around and all of your underwear is dirty, but you still don't have time to do anything about it." I have soooooo much blogging to catch up on still!