Sleeping At Last

I have been enjoying a newer CD from Sleeping at Last, and on this CD is a song called "Naive." Not only is it beautiful, but I feel like it expresses so well things that I have felt here and there the past few years with all the changes Kristi and I have gone through together as well as things I have seen happen around me. Buy the CD "Storyboards", it's great!

Naive

Religion is a breeding ground,
where the devil's work is deeply found
with teeth as sharp as cathedral spires
slowly sinking in.

God knows that I've been naive,
but I think it makes Him proud of me.
Now it's so hard to separate
my disappointments from His name.

Because shadows stretch behind the truth
where stained glass offers broken clues,
and fear ties knots and pulls them tight
and it leaves us paralyzed.

But in the end such tired words will rest.
The truth will reroute the narrow things they've said,
and the marionette strings will lower and untie,
and out of the ashes love will be realized.

God knows that we've been naive,
and a bit nearsighted to say the least.
It's broken glass at children's feet,
that gets swept away unexpectedly.

It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds...

If I could take a moment
and put it in a jar,
I'd hold it tight with knuckles white,
so closely to my heart.

If I could catch a memory
and hide it in the sea,
I'd place it beneath the waves so deep,
where only I could be.

If I could take a picture
of time as it passed by,
I'd hang those photos from the clouds,
so they'd stretch across the sky.

If I could take a lifetime
and spend it in this day,
I'd cherish every single second
before it slipped away.

So I'm a dad...

...it's been a long time I know. Things have been a little crazy around the Stoeber household. I haven't flunked out of nursing school yet, and my two jobs are going strong. I started running again in December as I was packing on some pounds again, and I'm trying to run at least 2 times a week even during school.

The most important thing that's happened though is the birth of Kristi's and my new daughter, Adelaide Grace Stoeber. I needed her to come on a weekend for me to stay in school and not repeat 5 weeks, and God was very kind to allow that to happen. Kristi woke me up at 4:45 on Saturday, Jan 23rd to let me know she was in labor. After some grumpy dialogue I cannot recall (I had only had like 11 hours of sleep the past 3 nights due to school and work), we headed for the hospital. Labor went very smoothly, and our daughter was born at 8:13 pm weighing 7 lbs 7 oz. The transition home been great too. It actually has been a little easier than I thought it would be, although Kristi thinks it's been a little harder...which goes to show that it's better for the person not feeding the baby every 3 hours. I've been a little tired, but fatherhood has been great. Watching the whole birthing process was pretty amazing, and looking at my daughter for the first time was also amazing. People ask me alot if I had some type of epiphany when holding/seeing her for the first time, but as great as it was, I think it was pretty much like I expected...my personality is just weird like that.

Our daughter's first name doesn't have a whole lot of significance. It is a city in Australia, and it is a song by Anberlin. Don't worry though, because our daughter's middle name was chosen because it was the name of my grandmother who passed away several months ago. I had the privelege of being in the room with my family and my grandmother as she took her last breath. For me, both birth and death seem like the most sacred of events in the human life, and I appreciate being able to experience both firsthand within a couple of months of each other. My grandmother was a great Christians lady, and as my wife said to Addy tonight, "if she were still here on earth she would be praying for you every day."

In case you were worried, the pets are adapting well. Lucy is mostly upset about all the visitors, and Oliver gets a little grumpy that he can't be in the bedroom when Addy is asleep in her infant napper. Other than that Oliver is just curious, and Lucy is a little scared of her...she'll get used to her though, especially when she starts dropping food off of the high chair.

In closing, I'll give you my 3 biggest earthly fears as a new dad...ready?

1. Being a lame dad - I feel like fatherhood automatically lamifies me a little, so I'll have to work extra hard to be non-lame, although I think I'm fighting a losing battle
2. Parenting in a way that screws up my kid forever - I'm in a Psych nursing class right now, and apparently I have no hope of avoiding this one
3. The next poopy diaper - some of them are worse than others

Until next time...

Adventures with the big GC

So many times in this past month I've thought, "that would be great to blog about." But alas, I am so exhausted by the time I get in bed that I never end up blogging about my experiences and thoughts. Sad I know, but I hope to have some more new stuff up soon.

One event I decided would be blog-worthy is an experience I had with Guitar Center, so I'll start with that. Lately I haven't had the best of luck with purchases. For instance I bought a snare from an ebay seller last year that had a nick in the bearing edge, so I had to send it back to Mapex to have it re-cut (under warranty of course). It turned out to be a great snare; but still, what a pain! Then I also bought a sweet new tweed Blues Junior with Christmas money, and since I wasn't comfortable with the first one I took it back to exchange it for another the same day. You may remember this ordeal from a previous post. There were a few other mishaps with orders from various vendors, but I'll leave it at that and progress to my current story.

I don't have many cymbals, but I do have high quality cymbals. I have this plan for my life where I try to be extremely patient and only purchase musical things that are quality that I will want to keep or can easily get my money back from. Because of this I have very nice cymbals, but only one crash. I like to consistently peruse Guitar Center's national used equipment lists because sometimes stores will list a cymbal for way too cheap. I don't know why, maybe they get it for too cheap from someone and just want to unload it. I found one of these 2 weeks ago at a guitar center in Maryland. The item was an 18" medium Zildjian Avedis crash. I've been looking for a heavier crash to complement my glassy 16" hhx evolution, and since I have been quite the low spender for quite some time now I decided to purchase it, especially since it was listed for a ridiculous price of 50.00.

So, a week went by...no cymbal. I called to check and was told it had in fact gone out, and should be there in a day or two...day 10, no cymbal. I call back and am transferred to the warehouse where a very friendly guy searches, puts me on hold, searches some more, tells me he'll call back, then calls back and says he doesn't think it ever shipped but he won't be able to find it until Monday. No problem, I'm in no hurry and he says he'll next day air it to me.

I don't get a call on Monday, so I call around 3 and work my way to the guy I talked to. Turns out they have no clue where the cymbal is. Someone remembers packing it up but they think they might have shipped it to someone else that ordered some other cymbals, they are really not sure. So I get my money refunded and am back to 1 crash for a while. I kinda felt like complaining some, but seriously, what could I gain? The cymbal simply doesn't exist anymore, and it's not like they'll sell me another nice cymbal for that ridiculously low price. Sometimes I wonder if it was just a cover-up because they realized it was too cheap.

So anyways, when the cymbal arrived I was going to start this sweet series where I went through all my random musical equipment with pictures and fun stories from past memories, but now that will all have to wait. I know you're sad, but at least it gives you something to look forward to. Who knows, maybe it will randomly show up at my house...we can only hope.