Change is always bad all the time always

Looking at my archives today, I noticed that I've been blogging under The Holmes moniker for three years as of last Friday. Of course, I've been doing all sorts of other stuff as The Holmes for much longer, but most of that required little if any effort. But this blogging thing, this whole maintaining the will power to not shut down a free webpage and occasionally write stuff on it, now that takes work.

So after three years, I figure it's time to perhaps make some changes to the old layout. Gone are the black background and the title written in Olde English font. When I was younger, I thought it would be awesome to put "Holmes" in Olde English across the back window of my 94 Ford Taurus, but then I grew up a little and decided maybe that wasn't such a rockin' idea after all. So instead I tacked it to the top of my blog.

I can't say I'm super-pleased with the new layout, but it's a step. I'm glad to be rid of a lot of the widget bling. Some of it may return in time, though some I can say with certainty is gone for good. I made sure to get the blogroll back in there ASAP since I know how testy some of y'all can get. The new header may need some more work, but the picture comes from some graffiti that sprang up one day on a building near our old place. I, of course, was a suspect. As usual.

Holmes Header # 1
March 14th 2005 - March 18th 2008

Big Calm

It's been an odd week. You know what, scratch that. It hasn't been odd. It's been a pretty normal week in most respects except for the fact that I had a couple of days off. The Ash and I are both low on sleep due to a slowpoke tooth that's taking its sweet time emerging in little GooGoo's gumline. I think even old Wolverine would cry if those claws of his popped out slowly and one at a time. But they don't, so he doesn't.

But really, none of those things are all that unusual. No, I think it's me. I'm feeling...I don't know exactly, but something's different. Some internal setting seems to have switched gears. It's not bad or good, it just is. It's like everything is kind of normal right now, and at this particular point in life, that's what's odd. So much has changed in our lives over the past year or two, and at such a pace, with one change paving the way to yet another and another, rapid mutation of life kind of became the order of the day. I discovered a whole new part of my family. We've navigated our way through our first year of parenthood. Ashley started her own business. I figured out something I want to do, really do with my life. I applied for and was accepted into grad school. I found my way back to a type of faith that actually makes sense to me, and actually supports and inspires and doesn't disillusion or disgust me. We went through the insanity of selling our house in the 'burbs and moving to a new place. It's just like one thing fed into the next and into the next and into the next, and now? Well now things are actually kind of levelling out. We're all moved into the new place, my first semester has started, Henry's healthy and growing every day, and for now at least, we seem to have at least a handle on this whole parenting thing...it's like our own personal rhythm section finally locked into a beat that we can groove to. For a while.

I don't maintain any illusions that this state of relative order is anything permanent. Things simply don't work that way. Hell, if there's anything I've learned from reading all the parent blogs that I frequent, it's that parenting itself is an ever-evolving challenge. As I type this, life may be gearing up its next curveball, just waiting for the nod to let it fly. But these in-between times, the periods between the major upheavals, they're just as valuable and inevitable as the changes that preceded them, and I'm thankful to have this one.