today was an emotionally draining day.  all is well though.  slept at my mom’s last night, woke up to return to the city around 10.  Brought a dolly back from my mom’s to help me wheel in the deep freezer i bought off craigslist yesterday.  I always told kallie that we can justify more freezer space when there were more than just 2 of us.  When she told me she was pregnant, I knew I had to make good on that promise.

Deirdre came over around noon and we talked and kind of caught up on what’s been going on with each other.

It doesn’t even feel like Christmas eve.  It’s silly warm outside.  Without anyone else reminding me about it, it’s easily forgotten.

Talked to Kallie for a bit around 4:30.  She comes back late Tuesday night and I think we both want it to come quickly.

I was supposed to play bass at church tonight, but they couldn’t get a drummer, so it didn’t really make sense for me to play.  As a result, I lost motivation to go as our holiday services are usually pretty thin.  I want to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but I need to find my own way to do that it seems because just going through the motions, traditions, and symbolic rituals seem to distract me from the tangible reality of the coming of our Savior.

I’m starting to think more about my daughter.  I’ve been focusing on having a baby, that i’d have to feed, change diapers, and all that jazz.  I was also aware of the stress of having a teenage daughter, keeping away the boys, but what I’ve forgotten about is that time in the middle.  There’s going to be a girl that will instinctively look to me for direction and also admire me, provided I do my job right.  I’m going to have a relationship with this girl.  I’m going to want to make her happy, I’m going to love her, and she’ll love me.  I’m going to have to learn about her, what she likes, what interests her.  It’s not just me changing her diapers or telling her what to do, it’s relational and even more organic than a rule setting father.  I decided I wanted to buy her a stuffed animal.  I want her to have something that she connects as being given to her from her dad[ddy].

I started repairing some damage ceiling parts in the office, started tearing down some stuff, but then realized the last time I used the joint compound, the lid was on tightly and it all dried up.  Quick hop online found that home depot is closed until Monday.  I had been hoping to get some painting done today and tomorrow so it would be dry by the time Kallie came back and the fumes would be gone.  Not sure what I’m going to do about that yet.  I started doing some other things on my list, but I’m really quite exhausted already.

9pm  – I’m spent.  Merry Christmas to everyone.  Good night.

This one will be a story, within a story…where’s Christopher Nolan when you need him?

I wanted to make some martini one night, and I didn’t have any vodka.  Deirdre and Jordan were out and planning on coming over later, so I asked them to swing by the state store to pick up some vodka for me.  They wound up at my mom’s house, got distracted and lost track of time, and the wound up staying late enough to miss their chance to stop at the state store on their way home.  They mentioned their predicament to my mom, and she said that she thought she actually had a bottle of vodka that they could have.

The fact that my mom had a bottle of vodka was unusual alone, but as we would find out, this bottle of vodka was no ordinary bottle of vodka.  She went into her bedroom and pulled a tall blue box from her closet.  This box had been in her closet for about 10 years, when it came from my grandfather’s kitchen, where it had been sitting for another 20 or so years.

As the story goes, when my parents were living in Maryland, near Washington, D.C. in the late 70s,  my grandmother had gone down to spend some time with them around Christmas.  While she was down there, they went to the mall, and in one of the stores, my grandmother found a lady’s purse with a wallet in it.  My grandmother took it to the counter, but with her faith in humanity, she decided she did not trust the clerk not to take the cash, so she decided she would take the responsibility to return it to its owner herself.  They went home, looked up the person in the phone book, and the lady on the other end was delighted to know she had her wallet!  The lady gave her address to my grandmother to return it in person.  As they approached the house, they realized this was The USSR Ambassador’s house, and the lady’s wallet was the ambassador’s wife.  In exchange for the good deed, my grandmother was given this box of vodka, straight from the U.S.S.R.

And here it sits; unopen and slowly becoming a part of world history as an product of a country that no longer exists.  I was flabbergasted that my mom would just send this 35 year old bottle of vodka up and expect me just to crack it open and drink it.  This is a unique item!  this is an heirloom!

Updates have been few and far between around here!  I can’t remember the last time I did a personal update, but i don’t think it’s been this year!  I was trying to make an update at least once a month before.  Let me see what I can recap for you…

The wedding plans go well.  We set up TallHalls.com for the wedding blog and information leading up to the event on September 5th, 2009.  I guess I need to get around to posting there as well…

I sold the truck last week.  Moved Kallie’s car onto my insurance and we’re officially a single car couple.  Kallie will be driving to work once she switches jobs, but I walk, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to manage fairly easily with just 1 car.  I barely drove the truck anyway.

We’re heading to Sacramento for Easter for a week.  Should be fun to spend time with everyone out there again!  I think they’re planning Kallie a bridal shower, so everyone should be in.  With that in mind, there are so many events planned in the next few months!  A friend’s wedding this saturday, Easter in California, Greek Easter with the Galis family the following weekend, talks of going camping sometime, another bachelor party in may, then the wedding the last weekend, an Avett Brothers concert or two, maybe a trip to DC or two, and i’m sure work is going to take away some weekend time as well.

Work goes well.  Finally got the bump in salary I was waiting for since last year.  That will help out with wedding funds for sure.  Especially since Deirdre’s the only one living with me in the house now.  Plans are to start moving my desk and other items into the room across the hall from me and turn it into an office/guest bedroom.  I’ve actually been A LOT of time in my room trying to get crap cleaned out and make room for Kallie.  I want to get started on that as soon as possible because it will make it a lot less stressful when she’s ready to move in.  Right now, I’m able to go at my own pace, little by little.

I’ve also purchased P90x. to get my butt in shape for the wedding/beach season.  I don’t want to start until we get back from California, but I’ve done a few sessions of it just to get the feel for it, and it’s perfect for me.  It’s very intense and very scalable to fit what shape you’re in.  I lack the motivation to come up with my own routine, and certainly lack the dedication to stick to a program that I created.  It’s so easy to just pop in a dvd, do whatever he does for an hour, and then be done.  I know a bunch of people that have gone through the program and they love it.  The biggest problem for me will be the nutritional side and eating.  I don’t eat.  It comes with a nice guide there, and Kallie says she’ll help take responsibility for that.  I’ll be sure to take the pictures, but I’m not sharing them until I see results.  I’d really love to be able to dunk again this year, finish a 5k under 20 minutes, and do the urbanathlon again, but under 90 minutes.

I’ve been pretty quiet on the music front.  I have a few tracks done, that i just need to polish and post to myspace, but it’s hard to find the time to dedicate.  I’ve been trying to set up a time to go play open mics with Ben Beitzel, so stay tuned for some live dates.

The LEGO class wrapped up, and it was a total blast.  They said the kids loved it too, and they want me to come back next year.  I plan on doing that, but I’d also like to take a stab at making art using bricks as a medium.  That whole idea is laced with legal problems, as I’ve heard from Nathan Sawaya, but I think I want to start of donating pieces for auction and seeing what kind of feedback I get.  We’ll see how that goes.

Other than that, I feel great, staying positive, staying motivated, staying productive, growing in fellowship and communion with Christ, growing with Kallie, learning from Kallie, enjoying life for what it is, and trying to keep it all going.

1. When did you last sleep in a bed outside your home? - hehe, umm…the night before last?  SCANDAL!
2. When did you last drive someone else’s car? – Hey, my truck is in the shop!  >:(  I have been driving Kallie or Deirdre’s car a lot.  I need my truck in all this snow though!
3. When did you last cook in someone else’s kitchen? – Define cooking.  I think i helped a little here or there with dinner at Kallie’s last week.
4. When did you last care for children who aren’t yours? – That aren’t mine?  that scares me.
5. When did you last do someone else’s job? – If we’re talking strictly work/career, than I have no idea, because no one knows who does what anymore!  As a project manager, it’s just my job to make sure it gets done!

I was talking to deirdre today on AIM, even though she’s just in my basement, and 2 sentences I wrote were the same length.  I love when that happens.

[12:05] S i x f 0 0 t 4: no loud noises in the morning
[12:05] S i x f 0 0 t 4: and yes, 12:05 is still morning

reminds me of an xkcd comic strip: http://www.xkcd.com/276/

New blog topic!  This category will be for the short posts where something particular made me smile.

Kallie and I flew from California to Philly Friday, and Saturday all my family was getting together, but I wasn’t planning on flying back until Sunday night.  I called my family while Kallie and I were in the car, and Deirdre thought that I was on my way there to surprise them.  After realizing how bad I wanted to be there, Kallie and I decided to make an impromptu road trip and got home around midnight.  Kallie and I get to spend an extra day with eachother since she’ll leave Tuesday morning, but the essence of this post was the text message i got from US Airways saying that I would have been stranded at the Philly airport until midnight Sunday since the flight was delayed more than an hour.  I love how perfect everything worked out.

Really, I have to give it up to my body for the past month or so.  It’s been through a lot, especially in the past week!  I have poison all over my legs, probably have some sort of sinus infection following a cold a week ago, and I’ve added a weight routine inbetween days of my ~4 mile runs.  It’s been in a constant state of healing for a while now, and it’s doing a great job.  Even been getting more sun than normal from soccer and the runs.  Good job, body, keep up the good work.  There’s still a rough road ahead of us to get where we need to be for the urbanathlon, or california beach appearance…but each day gets us a little closer.

As for the rest of me, doing pretty well.  I missed a week of work from the tooth surgery, then a short holiday week from the 4th of july, then another week off for staycation.  I was going to go to yankanuck with Deirdre, mom & chris, and even mike, serah, and Josie, but I decided to sit it out and save money for when i will really need it.  All i would do at yankanuck would be play music and read.  I got a lot done though, and things actually worked out very well for me by staying back.  More on that in the future.

Got a lot coming up too.  Josh Hall Project plays at the Cornerstone Kickoff on august 24th, and unlike instruments where you just have to learn the song and you’re good, vocals need to be in shape to sing.  So that needs to start NOW.  Need to take a trip up to see grandma.  I’ve also decided to sell all 4 of my lollapalooza tickets, with a minor loss, so that I can fly to California for that week.  Details to come, but I’m excited for what might be a new chapter…or even expansion pack, to my life.  I try to keep my head on my shoulders and heart in place for the time being, but I’m praying for open eyes to see what God wants to reveal to me.

"The fact that the team is really young this year shows a lot of potential and exciting games for next year too.  Even if we can’t win this year, we still have a lot of hope and potential for next year too."

 - Deirdre Hall of the Hill District

I called off sick yesterday.  Ended up spending a lot of the time on the phone with family drama.  I’ll end there.

Deirdre’s in tulsa, OK visiting a friend while she has a few days off between her play, Alice sit by the Fire.  So i’ve been home alone with the 3 legged cat.  I’m totally bummed out.

I woke up at 7 today to make it in to work by 8, an hour earlier than i usually do.  I waited at the bus stop for 45 minutes with no bus ever coming, so I walked to work in the snow.  I was 4 minutes late.

A guy from the northpark clubhouse had emailed me back in January after he heard my music online and he wanted talk to about me playing a show for an event they wanted to have.  I talked to him twice over the phone, the second time he confirmed that we had the gig, but he just needed to confirm the date.  I told him I’d stop over on a Thursday to check out the sound equipment and such.  Jordan and I showed up, but they told me that he had to go to the hospital earlier that day because he was sick.  He hasn’t returned voicemails or emails for 3 weeks now.  I don’t know if he’s dead or what.

The project that i’m working on is turning into a department within a few months.  I do not have a position in the new department because I’m considered a borrowed resource.  I have no desire to go back to the helpdesk, but I also don’t have leads for a different position down here yet.

Through my childhood, throw my teenage years, through my adulthood, and hopefully continuing through my life, I’ve had the privilege of having some amazing women play a part in my life.  I won’t rank them, because they all are very important to me, each for their own reason.

• Mrs. Sofran – My kindergarten teacher.  She knew me so well and she was so kind.  I was so fond of her, and I still remember her unique nasal voice.
• Mrs. Sepesy – I don’t know her official title, but she was involved with the academic team and "that group" of kids in high school.  She’s probably the most insightful and wise person I’ve ever met.  Truth be told, I asked her if she married me but she said she would never remarry after her husband passed.  She lit up my life every day I got to talk to her with her personality, sarcasm, and sense of humor.  She really cared about us.
• Grandma Hall – I’ve told her before, I wish I have half of her strength and energy when I’m half her age.  She’s over 80, has had a heart attack and stroke, has had so much tragedy in her life, but she still lives alone and can take care of herself pretty well.  My Grandma is awesome.
• My mom – Of course.  How she raised so many kids is beyond me.  So much has gone on in her life, and she is so selfless.  That’s probably her best quality, besides being my mom.
• Harriet – My post office lady.  I miss her.  She retired last July.  Sometimes, I’d make an excuse just to go in and see her.  I’d send her my heart priority mail if she asked for it.  She was so genuine and sincere, and I felt connected over the 5 years or so of me going to see her.  When I went to Italy, I mailed her a post card from the Vatican.  When she retired, she gave me big envelopes to send books in because I’d always buy them from her.  She kept saying that it’d be so much cheaper just to buy a bunch at walmart and pack the books at home, but I always liked coming in with a book and she’d grab me an envelope without me having to ask.
• Cindy - My first psychiatrist/counselor.  I talked about her in a previous post, but she definitely played a part in my life and forming my mind to make decisions.
• All 4 of my sisters – J’aime, Serah, Keren, and Deirdre.  I try to play roles in their lives too, but I wonder if they know how big a part of my life they are.  They’re all so different, but we all are so close.  I recently heard that we’re an intimidating force when we’re together because we seek each other out and need to be together.  That’s all we’ve ever known and relied on in our lives.

on review of the list…3/10 were my teachers in one realm or another…you’d think I would have learned how to form a better sentence than the title of this post…