I finished Chapter 19 last night. Very stoked. It’s moving along quite nicely. Chapter 20 is currently Offline Web Applications. But I think I need to re-order it to put Web Storage before it.

The other thing writing this is doing is making me more and more interested in writing a new theme for this blog. I’ll make it HTML5, but I’m not sure if I’ll use my art for it or not. I’ll have to think about it. Of course, that isn’t going to happen until after the book is completed.

In Jaryth news:

• He was driving with Mark and they passed the place where we had the (minor) accident in the truck last year on July 4th weekend. And Jaryth says to Mark “Truck broke!” Holy cow, he remembers that?
• He refers to the shed as “the big door” only now he’s starting to call it the “shad” and I am calling it “the big door.”

Jaryth was downstairs weeping piteously. Mark could not console him. I had no idea what was wrong. Then suddenly he was calm again. Phew, the crisis is averted.

Then

“I want that!” he yells. And before Mark can respond, “Where’d the zombies go?” Followed by some more crying.

I can tell that having a son that is probably going to be a gamer just like his dad is going to result in a lot of humorous statements. He plays Plants vs. Zombies, and when he asks to play he says “I want to feed the zombies.”

Of course, that is my fault, as I noticed that since he’s only a toddler and doesn’t understand the point of PvZ he tends to let the zombies through fairly frequently. Thus I said that he was clearly feeding them. He was concerned that the poor zombies were going hungry, so he feeds them his own brain. That’s the generous soul he is.

Of course, now he’s back to playing Tozzle. Tozzle is an extremely loud game that he plays at full blast volume almost every day. He plays only three of the puzzles in it: the windmill (which he calls the “mim mill”), the train, and the planes. When he builds the “red one” (the plane with red markings) he then finishes and tells us that we are going to the airport. “We take a plane to Bibi’s house!” he announces over and over.

Our current process with our son goes like this:

1. wake up between 7am and 8:30am
2. play hard all morning
3. lie down around noon for around 15 minutes, but don’t fall asleep
4. play hard all afternoon until about 4pm
5. fall asleep hard, and nap for an hour to two hours
6. play hard until mom is exhausted (any time after 10pm) and then lie in bed fighting with her because he’s not tired at all

8 hours of sleep is barely enough for me, and I’m not convinced it’s enough for him.

We have determined that if we can get him to stay awake at 4pm he’ll go to bed and sleep around 7:30 or 8pm. But that period from around 4pm until 6pm is killer. We can’t seem to keep him awake. He has fallen asleep while eating, while playing, watching a movie, reading a book, and more. We then shake him (gently), talk to him, carry him around (hard when he weighs nearly 60 pounds), try to get him to play, and nothing wakes him. Yesterday he fell asleep on the couch, and when we told him we were going to feed the animals (a chore he loves to do) he woke up enough to say “I want feed animals” and then he was asleep again, and continuing threats did not wake him again.

Any suggestions? How do you keep a toddler awake when he doesn’t want to be so that he will sleep when we want him to be asleep? I’m desperate (and tired).

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order:

• Eat less junk food – ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day
• Bake my own bread
• Eat NO feedlot or factory meat. I want to only buy or raise my own grass fed meat and poultry.
• Have an artisan turkey for Thanksgiving in 2011
• Eat 5+ veggies and fruits per day.
• Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
• Go to the dentist every six months.
• Grow a vegetable garden – and expand it every year. This year I’m expanding to potatoes.
• Work out 30+ minutes per day (beyond our daily walk).
• Cook 3-4 meals a week.
• Read to Jaryth every night.
• Write a novel.
• Grow my site to be in the top 20 sites on About.com.
• Let’s get real, I want my site to be #1!
• Build an eco-friendly house.
• With a tower.
• Ride my horse 3-5 times a week, regardless of weather.
• Go on trail rides with Betsy.
• Paint and draw.
• Create a website for swapping books with other book artists. Or (and) mail artists.
• Pare down my stuff to be more minimalist.
• Make cheese.
• Eat only locally-grown (within 100 miles of here) food.
• Support more local artists, farmers, shops, etc.
• Give something to someone every day.
• Get a tractor.
• Chickens – for eggs and meat.
• A small cow – for milk for cheese.
• Meditate 3-5 times per week.
• Yoga.
• Writing down what I eat.
• Journaling every day.
• Learn to make sushi I made sushi on Thursday night (photos to come soon)
• start seeds for veggie garden indoors (for earlier harvests)
• clean out the creek so that it flows better
• plan a nut orchard
• plant fruit trees
• give away at least 100 books in 2011
• clean my office
• write at least 1 review of an app or book that is pending per week
• build a bookarts swap site
• build at least one of the domains that I own
• move one site off of my home server onto its own site
• send more postcards – 1 per week at least
• read 100 books or more in 2011 (I’ve already read 14 – check out my GoodReads profile to see what I’m currently reading

For this week, I’m focusing on the following:

1. Making a salad (or some type of vegetable) for dinner every night.
2. Eating junk food only on Saturday and Sunday.

What are your goals and plans? I’ll help you achieve yours if you help me with mine!

Jaryth liked licking the icing. I also learned that marshmallows must be eaten on a stick (courtesy s’mores we had last summer). He yelled “stick! Stick!” over and over until Mark gave him a toothpick.