well, science is awesome. did you know that an egg is actually just one, single cell? you can see a cell with the naked eye! usually you need a microscope but not in this sake. because it has not been fertilized, the egg has not begun to divide so it stays in its original state. when you bite into a hard boiled egg you are eating a lot of cytoplasm and nucleus-yummy. my students at school have been doing an experiment in which they shrink or blow up eggs. first we remove the calcium filled shell by putting the egg in vinegar for a couple of days. then we put the egg in a solution (hypotonic or hypertonic for those science geeks out there). after letting the egg sit for a couple of days, the students then break open the egg and see the changes that have taken place on the inside of the egg. in the words of bill nye the science guy "science rules."
a couple months ago devin and i commissioned a piece of artwork for our house. abbey, a friend from high school, painted this beautiful picture for our entryway. i love her style. she is amazing and works out of austin. her art has flourished down there and she has been able to sell a lot of her paintings. she was in town and agreed to spend some of her time getting us this amazing picture. we are so grateful. thanks abbey. check out her blog: abbeyaldridge.blogspot.com
We babysat Jami's sister's 5 kids for a few days. It was fun. I enjoyed playing "Dragon Slayer" (I chase them around the basement and trap them in my cave - one of the bedrooms - they're set free by being tagged by someone). The highlight (see lowlight) was the oldest, Andrew, blowing chunks, only to be outdone, seven times, by Jami the next night. Here's a couple of the kids. Ethan's kicking my Wii-little fanny on Mario Bros Olympics and Makenzie's throwin' down her best Miley Cyrus impersonation. Then, finally, I get in on the action. My forearms were sore for the next couple days.
One of the first item’s of business with getting a blog was coming up with a name.We didn’t want to just name it “Devin and Jami’s Blog” or the “The Healeys.”No offense to those of you who did something like that.I just think it sucks as an idea.Okay, that was a little harsh.I actually just wanted to have something somewhat creative.(Side note:I’ve learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, that sarcasm doesn’t always translate well into text, but that’s a subject for another blog entry).Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything really good so I turned to some of the more creative people in my life: my friends from the iPod.I scrolled through my iTunes Library and looked at names of songs and albums and made a list of potential blog names.Some, I thought, were pretty descriptive of what a blog is.Others were completely arbitrary and ambiguous.In my mind, this made them that much more creative, like “The Onion News” which is kind of a random name to use for a faux news source, but once it’s chosen it kind of takes on a life and definition of its own.However, I kind of wanted something that perhaps on the surface might not be too obvious but on second glance is understood differently.Here’s the list I created.It also gives you a taste of our music taste:
Let’s Get Lost (Elliott Smith)
Weird Fishes (Radiohead)*
Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
Simple Life (Mason Jennings)
Life in a Glass House (Radiohead)*
Bird on a Wire (Rogue Wave)
Dev Jam Records (a play on our names, obviously, and the record company)
Godzuki (Sufjan Stevens)
Writing to Reach You (Travis)
A Ghost is Born (Wilco)
I’m with Stupid (Aimee Mann)*
Armchair Apocryphists (Andrew Bird)*
Sweet Illusions (Ryan Adams)
The End of the Internet (not a song, just thought that if you’ve made it to our blog, you’ve come to “where the sidewalk ends” – hey, that’s another idea for a name)
No Man’s Land (U2)
A Man and a Woman (U2)*
In the Ever (Mason Jennings)
Our Endless Numbered Days (Iron & Wine)
There’s No Beginning to this Story (Bright Eyes)
On My Way (Ben Kweller)
The * is for ones that I really liked.I liked “Weird Fishes” because of how random/non-descriptive it was.Plus it was a mini shout-out (is it still cool to use that phrase or has it passed me by?) to probably Jami’s and my favorite band (if we were forced to pick one).I really liked “Armchair Apocryphists” too.I had to look up the definition of the Apocrypha (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apocrypha see the first definition) and felt like it fit pretty good.I went and got Jami’s input on it and we narrowed it down to the three that are in bold.We fasted and prayed…okay we didn’t.We settled on “Life in a Glass House” since we felt like having a blog was exactly that.We felt a little exposed (so maybe Iron & Wine’s “Naked as We Came” would be a good choice too).Plus we could still maintain the aforementioned shout-out.So there it is.After all that work, we were able to come up with the most creative blog in existence…that is until I did a Google search for “Life in a Glass House” blogs and had multiple come up.Well at least we had the best blog for a Devin and Jami…that is until we were informed by a friend (thanks a lot Will!) that there’s a devonandjamie.blogspot.com with a much cuter blog and a cute kid and one on the way to boot.Dang you McDonalds!Dang you and your cuter blog and cuter kids and cuter baby in the belly who is due in 183 days!
For our first picture we knew it had to be a good one. So here's our nephew, SpiderBriggs saving the family room from the terrors of evil menaces such as himself in the next picture. Unfortunately, SpiderBrigs lost. Fortunately he came back as a knight and saved the day using his sword and good looks.
