You ain't NEVER had this much fun.

In order to make good use of the literary device of "Foreshadowing" I'm going to tease you with this picture. Later in this post, you'll see why I think this device is the world's greatest joy dispenser. That's your teaser...

On to the official update:

Rachel started her job about a month ago now, and she's been doing the 9-5 grind for that time. She was gone for training for two weeks, and I stayed home with Norah to try my hand at full-time daddying. The fall-out probably won't be clear until Norah is in her teens. Unfortunately, we didn't really understand how much it would cost to live in Chicago, so we do have a gap in our finances right now. I have applied to several places in the neighborhood looking for part-time employment as a result. You may be interested to learn that Starbucks has the easiest application, grocery stores the longest, and CVS and Borders require a 125 question personality questionnaire just to apply. I had no idea. As of today, we have not landed any part time jobs, but there's another Starbucks not far off, and a subway just down the corner. I'll keep looking.

In other news, I figured it was about time to let the world in on my new little development. I recently read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and researched a little bit into the contemporary meat industry. As a result, every time I think about eating meat, I get a little queasy and sick to my stomach. (That's redundant I know, but that's how it feels.) So, for about a month or so now, I have not eaten any meat. The change has been strangely good for me. I really enjoy the vegetarian diet, and do not miss eating meat at all. I'm still at the point where I think about eating it, and feel a little nauzeous. Now before you start thinking that I want everyone to be a vegetarian and I'm going to try to beat you up with my veggie life, don't worry. I know, it's not for everyone. At least for now, I'm a vegetarian, and so far I have enjoyed the change. That's about it. I'm not saying I'll never eat meat again, I'm just saying that right now, I've adopted a vegetarian diet. I don't know if it will stay for the rest of my life or not. We'll see. At any rate, for those of you who might be feeling badly for me because I don't eat steak any more, I've photographed some of our recent meals.

Here is cereal I recently made. Basically, I roasted oats and almonds with honey, butter and vanilla and added raisins at the end. I like to toss in Cheerios with it. This stuff is amazing. I don't know if I'm ever going to eat cereal out of the box again.

This was dinner tonight. Rach isn't vegetarian, so her side has chicken on it. The whole pizza is mozzarella, spinach, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil with salt and pepper. I made the dough from scratch too. I found I really enjoy making bread.

Roasted potatoes garnished with dill, sauteed spinach and onions and fried tofu with basmati rice. As I write that, I realize that this meal may not sound appealing, but man it was good.

Curried red lentils with carrots and beans garnished with basil and red pepper accompanied by homemade bread cakes. I wasn't crazy about this bread, but Rach liked it so... hey.

The nice thing about eating vegetarian is that it is much, much cheaper than eating meat. I've found that I can go to the grocery store, spend five bucks, and make a meal for Rach and I and have left-overs for lunch the next day. As I think you can see, I'm really enjoying the opportunity to do more cooking.

On the Norah front, she's been doing great. I'm still playing stay at home dad which means a lot of washing bottles and practicing the Hebrew alphabet while Norah naps. (Ok, and watching LOST online, because well, it's free and I'm hooked.) If you could be a fly on the wall in my apartment during the day, you'd hear a lot of "Ma Shmo." "Me Shmo" "Baba" "Beebee" and "What is that? Where are you going? The others are coming! RUUUUUN!"

As I'm sure some of you are dying to see pictures, here are a few recent images of Norah:

Here's Norah helping with the laundry. She stood in here all the way from the laundry room back to our apartment!

Here Rach, Branden, Norah and I all enjoyed a little picnic at the train station waiting for the train. (Yes, those are deviled eggs. YUM!)

Norah hanging out at the bean, trying to catch that little baby above her.

I loved these pictures, I couldn't pick which one to post so I posted both of them.

Here we are hanging out with Uncle B at the Bean in Chicago.

Ok, now on to that forshadowing I teased you with earlier. Here comes. You ain't never, and I mean NEVER, had this much fun.

The picture up top is a photo of Norah's ring game, and in case you don't believe that a ring game is easily the most exciting and fun toy a human being could ever interact with, watch this video. You've never seen me get that excited about beating a video game before... That ring thing sure has something the X-Box doesn't.

Enjoy.