Amish you, playground.

Did you know there are 2,000 Amish households in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that use electricity generated by solar power? Did you know that the nation of Bhutan, since 1972, has measured its Gross National Happiness? Well, it has. And, according to whoever measures it (I guess they are like emotionomists), 68% of Bhutanese people are happy, as of late. I wonder if they measure it every quarter.
Well anyway, it turns out that the emotionomists in America right now are predicting that this quarter was the lowest GNP we’ve had in the U.S since 1982, which ironically was a really good year for me. Anyway, the Country was officially in a recession that year, so I guess they will start saying we are in one soon.
But I digress, the point of this was not to bore you or ruin your day. It was that, while I was hearing this on NPR on the way to work today, I was thinking about a piece of art, maybe Travis McKinney style, which has the word Recession! Painted across the top in red, as if it was a movie poster for Aliens Attack, but the rest of the poster is kids at recess. Maybe some girl with pig tails on the swings, or no, how about there is some kid on a merry-go-round, and a bully (ironically a Bear Market) just keeps spinning it faster and faster. Anyway, that is totally random. I just thought it was interesting that recess is always good when it is you taking the break, but when it’s the somewhat unrepresentative metric of our GDP, recess is bad. Maybe the poster could be a line of industry, government, regulation, Monsieur Lassez-faire, the developed and the developing, Unions and Management, all sitting out at recess with their backs against a brick wall because they all told on each other for the same thing. The poster could also have all the Amish in the background, playing hop-scotch and kickball. If I were in the picture as my elementary age self, I would have been sitting out at recess too, but probably for laughing at whatever face Eric Hutts made at me in Music class.

Here are some pics!

I've finally uploaded some picture. Blogger takes so long to upload them that I have to put them on ritzpics and transfer them. That's why they have that icon on them. Also, some of them are sideways, which is unfortunate. If you want an electronic copy of any of these, please let me know and I'll email it!

The first few days

Here are some things I have experienced in the past couple days…
My wife is the bravest person I know, and I cannot imagine something that is better for a marriage than coaching your wife through labor and delivery.
Watching my child being born will go down forever as the most incredible experience of my life. With a whole lot of reasons to be worried about the state of our world, this scoffs in the face of pessimism or worldliness. It is the most incredible proof that the foundation of our humanity is only love.
I cannot tell you how honored I feel. I will spend the rest of my life trying to deserve the role of dad in Carver’s life, and in the end I know I will still not deserve it.
Until now, when I have imagined God saying that He will never leave us or forsake us, I imagined His voice being very calm and matter of fact. Now I am pretty sure that when he says it, it is with a weeping and heavy thankfulness over us.
I have had a million new thoughts in the last 100 hours or so. I will only share a handful here, mainly because they are just too big and wonderful to share at all.
I can’t imagine having the desire to write about anything other than my wife and child from now on. That is why I’m changing the name of my blog. Plus, I feel like much more of a dad and a husband than I do anything else, so they take precedence over hypothesizing (my former aim). I hope you enjoy my thoughts about this from now on.
Here is Carver James Stonerook, asleep after some tummy time.

You didn't know this...

but I am working on making a quilt. Don't judge me. It is blue and grey and green and white, so far. I will post a picture of it when I'm done.
The reason I mention this, though, is because I just had an idea of what my NEXT project will be, and believe me, I'm pumped about it. Only a handful of you will think it is cool, maybe just Sam and Steve McCready, or I guess any of you who want to be Tobias McIvy for a year or two or eighty. I am a huge nerd.

Where palm and pine are blowing

Well, we fooled 'em again, huh guys?
Unlike Aly, who can't get into football, even Gator football (which is fine, really), I am pretty sure I actually bleed orange and blue. The reason for this is not some singular "I like Florida football because...", but is more of a beautiful matrix/web of wonderful things about Gainesville, its people, and its college football team. After the game the other night, as we ran around in the back yard at Shady Oaks throwing lawn chairs and each other into the air, Danny said to me something along the lines of, "So let me get this straight, we just won a National Championship again, and you're gonna be a father soon. I'd say life is okay huh?"
Amen and amen, Danny.

As a disclaimer, I do not think the goodness of life is dependent on Florida football.

Everything's bigger in Texas...

At least that's what Texans think. Now, some of you may be from Texas, which is fine. I do know a couple of Texans that I really like. They are both A&M fans. The rest of Texas though? I say give it back to Pancho Villa. Last night after Texas' terrible display against THE Ohio State University Buckeyes there were three remarks made by Longhorns that are worth repeating.
The first one is from Quan Cosby, who caught Texas' winning touchdown:
"Ohio State is the best defense we've played all year," Cosby said. "They've got a ton of guys who are going to have great careers in the NFL."
Does this guy have any clue who he is talking about? This is the same defense (with some personnel changes) that got destroyed by LSU last year and The Mighty Fighting Gators two years ago.
Mac Brown, Texas' head coach said he will still vote for Texas with his number one coached poll pick. Is he running for class president? They almost lost the game! To number 10! Come on Mac!?!
The third remark was from Johnny Moxley himself. Heisman runner up who has less first place Heisman votes than Tim Tebow. He said that after last nights performance there is no team in the country that can beat them.
I really don't understand these folks. I can only hope that on Thursday we blow Oklahoma out of the water, and end all of the chitter chatter.
On another, more important note, we went to the hospital last night to see our friends Betty and Jon's newborn baby girl. Her name is Sawyer Grace. I picker her up when we walked in the room and she looked perfect. My first thought, honestly, was that we should arrange her marriage to Carver now, because I was instantly so amazed by her. Then my next 1000 thoughts had to do with how we could possibly get Val's water to break. I have never wanted anything as much as I want to hold, smell, see, and hear Carver.