It has been way too long since my last post on here and lots of crap has happened, so I will split the post into manageable chunks.

Llano River:
First of all, Ellen and I took our annual Spring/Easter trip to a bed and breakfast on the Llano River (www.llanoriver.com). Overall the trip was enjoyable. It couldn’t compare to how great our Big Bend trip was last year, but it was fun all the same. The primary reason that we wanted to go to the Llano river was that we had heard great things about the fly fishing there. There are so few opportunities for good fly fishing in Texas (especially south Texas) that I didn’t want to pass it up. So when Good Friday finally arrived, we jumped in the car early in the morning and set off on the 4.5 hour drive. We finally arrived around 3:00, settled into our room, then immediately hit the river.

After 2 days of fishing, my initial assessment of the experience was that the location is beautiful, but the fishing is a little lame. We caught dozens of sunfish, but only a handful of the famed Llano River Guadalupe bass. Not only are the Guadalupe’s few and far between, they never get very large because they are the only fast water species of bass and have evolved as such… I must say that they are however a beautiful fish.

As far as the B&B, it was quaint and more rustic than I’d prefer for the price tag. We could have stayed at the Hill Country Hyatt for about the same amount on money. I suppose the lesson learned is that we have historically enjoyed camping over the B&B experience. It is much cheaper and always a bit more adventurous. There are some nice parks around the river to camp and the great part about the river itself is that it you can essentially wade anywhere and if you are in the river or on the bank it is public land. So my final assessment is don’t miss an opportunity to visit the Llano River, just use public water access, and bypass the Bead ad Breakfast. Photos at Flickr.com

The Deck:
I have been talking about building the deck in the back yard for a few months now, but I finally ordered the lumber and set to work two weeks ago and knocked it out in two days. The lumber was much cheaper at Lowes than I had previously experienced at Home Depot and they delivered right on time… another feature that Home Depot didn’t achieve. Overall the process was smooth. The hardest part was that since the deck is ground level and I framed it with 2×8’s I had to do a fair amount of digging to create trenches for the frame and the joists. I also had to haul all the 2×6x16 planking through the house to get it into the back which was a feat in itself. The final product however turned out just as I had hoped and I am sure will really make our yard a lot more practical. Photos at Flickr.com

The next project is to build some sturdy planter boxes and benches back there…

Bayou City Art Festival:
My brother was accepted into the Bayou City Art Festival, a nationally renowned art show. Although nearly 1000 artists from around the country applied, only a little over 300 were accepted. Most of his colleagues told him not to expect to get in on his first try. Not only did he get in, but he won 1st place out of all the festival participants! As if that exposure wasn’t enough, someone at Channel 12 News got a hold of his story and was so inspired by it that they asked him for an exclusive interview, which aired the weekend of the festival and can be seen here www.click2houston.com. He has had an amazing journey over the last 2-3 years and I so proud of him. I hope that this exposure makes a huge impact in his business.

From now on I’ll be more diligent in posting so that you don’t have to read an epic chronicle like this again…

The song of the day is Rue The Whirl by Boards of Canada.

I spent the weekend landscaping our back yard. We have a tiny postage stamp of a yard, but its incomplete, soggy, weedy, nastyness has been driving me crazy since we moved in. I have been planning the project for some time now. Phase I, the planting stage, is what this post is about. Phase II will be the deck that I am going to build in a few weeks (more on that later).

Our town home is so tall and situated in a way that the sun never really hits it directly resulting in a really shady and damp environment. I have spent the last couple weeks looking for trees that would thrive is just such an area. My first choice was a Japanese Maple, but they are so expensive that I decided not to buy one and ultimately selected Yaupon. Although Yaupon needs a bit more light, I read that it is a pretty hardy tree that will survive in low light (not to mention I got a decent sized one for under $150). In addition to the tree, we purchased an assortment of shade loving shrubs to plant around it.

Once I had all the plants, I set to work on digging out the bed, and I was unpleasantly surprised. Our soil is pure clay, or as they call it in Texas, “gumbo.” Everything here grows in it so I am not too terribly concerned about survivability, but I had to dig it all up and carry it through the house (we don’t have backyard gate access) and into my truck to dump elsewhere. Aside from the tremendous mess, that stuff weighs a ton because it is so dense and saturated with water.

Even thought it was a lot of work, it was great to be outside all weekend. This is the best time of year in Houston, mid 70’s and sunny. I think the final product looks great too. Although the shrubs are small now, they will eventually grow up around the AC unit and conceal it (hopefully).

I know that this is probably a really boring post, but I wanted to show off the newly landscaped yard. I posted before and after photos on Flickr for all to see.

The song of the day is Moving On by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. On a side note, I recently purchased the soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. I have not seen the movie yet, but the music is terrific (hence the last two song of the day selections)

It has been several weeks since my last post, primarily because I just haven’t had the energy to write about anything. I few posts ago a told you about how Ellen had an ectopic pregnancy and we had an injection of methotrexate to cause her body to naturally pass the baby. Murphy’s law came into full effect however. While having dinner one night with friends, Ellen was suddenly doubled over with tremendous pain. We called the doctor and she advised us to wait an hour to see if the pain would subside… it didn’t, it actually worsened. So around 10:00 PM on a Saturday night we went to the Women’s Hospital emergency room. After waiting in a small exam room for 6 hours an ultrasound revealed that Ellen was bleeding internally and that the baby was in fact still growing. Finally at 4:00 AM we were allowed to go to our room where I slept on a bench and Ellen was prodded every couple of hours. Around 1:00 the next day we were allowed to leave the hospital. Our options were to get another injection of methotrexate that might work or undergo a surgical procedure to remove the embryo and possibly the entire left fallopian tube. We opted for the surgery and two days later we were back at the hospital for another procedure. Fortunately the sugery went well and the doctor was able to preserve her fallopian tube. After about a week of physical recovery, Ellen was back at work.

Even though we are physically back to normal, the emotional component still really sucks. Ellen is depressed and I’m angry that I can’t do anything to “fix” the situation. We have reached a point where we are pretty bitter with God and have very little interest in understanding His plans. We’ll come around… we always do. It is just hard to walk this road again after having another miscarriage less than a year ago.

I titled this post “Products of Conception” because that is what the surgical paperwork says after all of these procedures. That the “products of conception” were removed. So far all that Ellen and I have experienced in our attempts to get pregnant have been the products of conception and I can say definitively that I hate them.

Song of the day What Must Be Done by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

This post is a bit late, but oh well. I have been wanting to write about how pleased I am that the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. I wrote in a previous post that it would be so wonderful to see the Patriots go undefeated all the way the the Super Bowl just to lose… and what do you know, it happened. It’s wonderful because it nullifies all the records that Tom Brady matched or exceeded and on the flip side it validated Eli Manning who’s been underrated for ages. Truth be told I would have routed for any team to take the Patriots down, but it was especially wonderful to see the underdog Giants and Manning do it.

The game itself was incredible. The Giants spanked Tom Brady, which I have said was the key to beating that team for ages. The Tyree catch in the 4th quarter was spectacular, not to mention the broken tackles by Manning to get the throw off in time. I currently rank it at number one in my all time greatest football games list, with the 2005 Rose Bowl coming in at a close second.

On a totally different note, I made the switch to FireFox several years ago and never looked back. IE has tried to match the features and ease of use, but to me they still fall dreadfully short. The best part about FireFox is that it’s free. Anyhow, I was perusing the Mozilla site today and I discovered this really cool section that has a million plug-in’s and extensions for FireFox. most of them I wouldn’t need, but some are really nifty. I am probably way behind the curve… I asked one of the guys I work with if he knew about this terrific find and he acted like I was a his grandpa asking if he knew about Walkman’s. Either way, you can check it out here…

The song of the day is Umbrella by Midwest Project.

I’ve really blown it on my commitment to write a post every day in the new year, but oh well… I’ve been absent for the past couple weeks because Ellen and I lost another baby. Unlike the miscarriage last time, we didn’t see the heartbeat this time, but it has been tough in its own right because this one is ectopic. An ectopic pregnancy is when the baby implants in the fallopian tube and cannot be carried to full term because it will most likely not survive the first trimester and it endangers the life of the mother. We opted to have an injection of Methotrexate which deprives the embryo of folic acid and ultimately forces the body to abort it. Unfortunately her progesterone levels have continued to rise which may indicate the baby is still growing. If that is the case, we must go in for surgery and either remove the embryo or the entire fallopian tube.

I had to watch Ellen go through the D & C procedure last time which killed me, now I have to watch her go through continuous poking and prodding and possibly another surgery and it absolutely tears me apart. I love her so much and I wish I could take her place. She is so courageous and I am proud of her every day!

The good news is that the fertility doctor believes that the miscarriage and this incident are totally unrelated and there is no reason to believe that we will have any trouble getting pregnant in the future. If she loses the fallopian tube, we will have a reduced chance of pregagncy, but it will not be an impossibility by any means.

Well, I still trust that God is good and that he is leading us through the big plan that I don’t understand yet. Just like last time I think about God giving his own Son to save me… and I am amazed. He is who He says He is and I trust him to take care of us. I look forward to the day when I understand why this has happened and how surprised I know I will be to see how he uses it to His glory. Strangely I am overwhelmed by the beauty that is inherent in suffering. There is a line in The Thin Red Line that sums it up perfectly:

“One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there’s nothing but unanswered pain. That death’s got the final word, it’s laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird and feels the glory”

The song of the day is One by U2.