My wife got a job yesterday! We finally have income after two months of scraping for every dime to make ends meet. It’s only a temp job scheduled for four weeks, but there is a good chance that her job will be extended indefinitely. She’s actually making more money than I was at my old job so that is very good. It looks like I will get to be a stay at home dad, which is very good because I love spending time with my two little munch kins.

In book news, the only person who bought my book was my mom. Which honestly doesn’t surprise me. I didn’t really think that people would be too excited about buying a book of stories that they could read for free here, but I thought I would give it a try.

As always, I know that I don’t write a lot of stuff here, but I have a lot going on in my life right now. The blog has had to take a back seat to the rest of my life. I’m sorry to the very few loyal readers who look forward to when I post, but I gotta take care of real life before I can spend time taking care of my hobby.

Lots of news since last time I posted. I found out Monday that my job laid me off, permanently. Alicia was also fired from her job about a month ago because she had to have a limited availability because of child care. So now my family has no source of income so we are trying very hard to find new jobs. I just finished applying for unemployment this morning, so that might help with some of the bills, but we could really use your prayers right now.

On a lighter note, however, I’ve used the free time to publish a book using Lulu.com. The book is called Wounded Souls. The book is a collection of flashes that I have previously published here and on “365 Tomorrows.” It’s nothing new, but I hope that some of you will like to have a copy of those flashes printed with some nice cover art, courtesy of my lovely wife. The book is 60 pages including the Creative Commons license text. The price tag is $9.95, which is honestly more than I would like to charge for the book, but that’s the lowest price that I could charge and still make a reasonable profit using Lulu. Check it out if you get the chance, and please consider buying it.

I just had a very interesting experience on the way to work. It has been snowing all night long and put down a few inches of snow. The highways weren’t good but I figured that I could still get to work just fine, and I didn’t have any points to use to call off either way. I was almost there and going the speed limit on the highway when I tried to change lanes back into the right lane and my back wheels hit a patch of slushy snow. I fish tailed and went off the road. I didn’t hurt, or hit, anything, but I had to call off work (my boss gave me a vacation day considering the circumstances). I managed to drive my car back around enough to be only about 10 feet from the highway and got stuck on ice. I had my mom bring my wife out and attempt to help me out, but before she got there five cars, one cop, and a tow truck had stopped to help me. I told the cars to go on, and the cop insisted on staying until my mom got there to make sure that we could push the car out. The tow truck showed up only about a minute before my mom, so my wife just paid him the $50 to tow me out onto the highway. I was expecting the cop to give me a ticket for failure to control vehicle, but I was just about 200 feet from the city limits so he had no jurisdiction. Judging by my skid marks on the highway I was only about 10 feet from hitting the city limits sign and a few others right next to it. I guess I have a lot to be thankful for today.

Just letting you all know that I got a new camera and have posted a ton of new pictures and should be posting even more soon.

With his eyes closed, Mark felt the warm sun on his face. The heat brought back memories of his childhood, when he would run and play in summer days. But just a few months ago he thought that he would never feel the heat of the sun again. The boys over at Sky Reclamation Service, however, could do miracles. It was the first sunlight that earth had experienced since the nuclear war ended three years ago. Eternal winter finally gave way to new summer.

Of course, there still weren’t any green plants, and other animals were no where to be found. But Genetic Reclamation Service was already at work on bringing them back. Even if they never succeeded, Mark was happy just being able to feel the sun on his pale skin again after all these years.

Mark inhaled deeply. Yup, the air still smelled like he remembered it, nauseating, but at least he didn’t have to breath with a mask over his face anymore.

Mark opened his eyes and saw the ocean out in front of him slowly beginning to thaw in the light of the new sun. Mankind had put earth through hell, but that was over now. He knew that he would live to once again see more hot summer days.

Steve and Akiva both sat with their backs against the tree in a grassy field. Akiva was staring at a pocket watch that he had recently acquired.

“You know,” Steve said, “I used to have a pocket watch just like that.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. My father gave it to me as a gift when I turned 13. It was a family heirloom. He got it from his father at 13. I loved that watch. It was engraved on the back with the words, ‘To my beloved son, Benjamin.’ That was my father’s name.”

“What happened to it then?”

“I was angry. I forget what about now. Something pithy I’m sure. I threw the watch into the road. It was run over by an 18 wheeler. I tried to collect the parts, but it was so badly damaged that I couldn’t get it to work again.

“I wish that I could go back in time and change the past so that I had never thrown that watch, but I know that you can’t undo the past. That makes me wonder, if you can’t undo the past, can you undo the future? Isn’t the future just somebody else’s unchangeable past?”

A few moments passed as they both just sat there in silence. Akiva finally broke the silence, “I think that you can undo the future.” Akiva got up to walk away, but stopped short and handed his pocket watch to Steve. “Here, you can keep this.”

On the back of the watch was engraved,
“To my beloved son, Benjamin.”

I know it’s been way too long since I posted here. I guess I’ll start with the most important news first. Christian James Lee Weirick was born on October 19. He weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and 21 inches long. He was born with a cleft lip which was fixed just last Wednesday, January 9. All went well with the surgery and he was allowed to come home that day. His stitches did get infected though and we had to take him to the emergency room to get antibiotics for it. He gets his stitches taken out this Thursday. Other than that all seems to be going good and I’m very happy to be a daddy.

As for the money troubles I mentioned last post. Alicia is still on maternity leave due to complications arising after the pregnancy, but  money isn’t as much of a problem because I have full-time job working at PPG. Money is still tight but we have enough to pay the bills. God gave me the job at just the right moment.  I have a lot to be thankful for, and life is going really well for me and my family.

If you didn’t notice I moved my blog, again. I decided that weblogs.us was just not the right product for me at this time and wordpress.com seems to fit my needs for the moment. I’m still writing in my spare time and will hopefully post more soon.

Just to let you all know that Larissa had her first birthday party on August 19. I just uploaded the pictures to my web album. And I finally updated my photos link in the header to point there instead of to my Flickr account. Check them out.

I know I promised these a while ago, but I finally got around to scanning and uploading Christian’s ultrasound pictures. I also put up a couple of Larissa’s ultrasound pictures. Check them out at my web albums, or just watch the slide show.

I know. I know. Don’t kill me. Life’s been busy and I don’t have a computer. Updating takes time, and that’s something that I have precious little of these days. But Alicia is going to kill me if I don’t update.

He is a boy. He weighs about four and a half pounds. Best guess at the due date is October 23, although right now they expect him to come early because he’s HUGE! At least he is for Alicia who measures only 5′1″. I know that I still haven’t uploaded the pictures, but like I said, I’m busy and I don’t have a computer. I’m gonna try to use my mom’s computer some time soon so that I can scan the pictures and upload to my Picasa Web Albums.

Alicia and I got married on March 28th. The plan was that if it was only one day before my birthday that I wouldn’t be able to forget it. I think she underestimates my powers of forgetfulness We’re still living in the same apartment and working at Kroger. Money’s very tight and I have no idea how we are going to get the stuff that we need for Christian. I’ve been trying to get a better job hopefully at PPG, but so far I haven’t been able to get anything. Kroger doesn’t pay for maternity leave so when Alicia has to go off work we’re going to have a very hard time making bills. I just keep praying that something opens up so that we can make ends meet.

Which reminds me - Alicia has decided to convert to Christianity. She was technically claiming no religion at the time of my last post even though I still called her a pagan. Just thought that you all should know that.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to update more frequently and get those pictures up, but we’ll see what happens. In the meantime here are some pictures of Larissa.