A Year of Change

Well it’s here, the boys 4 day weekend. Yesterday the boys had their Valentine’s Day parties in their classrooms. Of course Lori went over the top preparing for each of them. She’s room Mom as no other Mom or parent ever steps up. This means she does all the work and we pay for most of the things throughout the year for all the kids in each classroom. I don’t know how other parents can stand by and not contribute, time or money, and let someone else do everything. It’s one thing not to chip in any cash, if you don’t have any, but they could always volunteer to help out, which few do. Don’t get me wrong, some contribute and help but most don’t. Lucky I was there as the pizza man showed up and they didn’t have enough money. So I paid, and when I was getting change from the office, I asked one Mom who was helping, how much do you need. She took $20 from me for the pizza man and then $5 that she put in her own pocket. I didn’t think twice about it but when I told Lori later, she said “what”? Oh well, its for the kids right. $25 might not sound like a lot but when you give it every month or so times two (for two kids), it’s over $500 for the year!

Prior to the parties, Lori had another dramatic day at the office dealing with the office manager who shouldn’t be there! Turns out she was fired late in the day yesterday and now with Dr Rodgers in surgery all day, Lori has to go down and supervise her cleaning out her desk so she doesn’t steal anything. Lori will also have to get back the keys, de-brief her and figure out how to process payroll for the staff today. It should be already done but who knows as the lady walked out yesterday afternoon. Lori is a little bit nervous but I’m coaching her up on how to handle it. She’ll be fine.

I need to run to the distributor first and be back by 8:30 for Lori to get to work so I need to get moving. Here’s a comment from Eleanor,

Yup, Thursday is Friday this week as the boys are off until Tuesday. Lori has a staff lunch to see if they can all get along and keep the new wicked office manager, one of the girls calls her Special D as her name is Diane!

Lori went to the doctor yesterday and I went along. She now goes in Monday at 11am for an endrometrial ablation which is some sort of operation that will cauterize her and takes the place of a hysterectomy. This seems to be the best option but of course, it’s not cheap. I’ve never met a medical procedure that is these days. Thankfully the boys and I don’t need anything done. Hell, I’ll just be paying the last payment on my knee operation next week and that was last May! Oh well, I’ll have to figure it out somehow, Lori’s always concerned about the cost to the point where she’ll say, we should just wait. Of course she never considers the fact that she could bleed to death or anything like that, and that’s why I go to the doctor with her!

Here’s a couple of comments from a few of you ladies that are good listeners!

1. Blondie says:

   February 12, 2014 at 7:47 pm

   I am fine and having to watch the Olympics religiously also
   because they are on day and night! I mostly like the ski jumping, downhill and figure skating:) Glad the teacher conferences are going well but sorry about L’s cramps:( Hope all is OK! Hello to all including Robbie, Annette and who ever else reads:)

   Reply
2. Annette says:

   February 12, 2014 at 8:31 pm

   Jean & I went to see Monuments Men. READ the book. It’s so much better, in fact I think it is one of my all time favorite books (and I read alot). The movie had George Clooney so I forced myself to watch. They could have made a really good movie and didn’t. We finally got some rain but not enough, it’s going to be a bad summer. That’s about all that’s going on here.

   Eleanor Tafoya says:

   February 13, 2014 at 1:39 pm (Edit)

   Testing, having problems with I pad. Over

   Looks like your I Pad is working Eleanor, over!

   Thanks for sharing, I’m reading Bloodlands , Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Most people don’t know it but Stalin made Hitler look like a choir boy! Anyhow it’s an important piece of history most people ignore.

   I have a call at 9am and then will clean up around here. Lori needs to be at school by 1:15 for the Valentines Day parties. The boys are filling out Valentines for their classmates right now. I need to get the misses some flowers!

   Time to run, take care and God Bless.

Haven’t heard much from most of you, Uncle T is wrapped up in the Olympics (he watches them religiously), but the rest of you don’t have much of an excuse as far as we know. Drop a comment or give us a call and let us know what you’re up to.

The boys are plugging along at school. Jag had his teacher conference yesterday with a bit of a twist in that he literally conducted the conference with the teacher just sitting in for a  portion of it. Suffice it to say, he’s doing very well and not only is strong academically but also in other areas such as organization, time management, getting along with everyone and all the other things you can’t measure on a report card. We’re very proud of him. Ty’s is coming up today or tomorrow and I’m sure he will be doing just as well.

This morning Lori goes to the doctor and it’s a good thing as she’s been having cramps (sorry men) so its time to figure out the next step. We’ll keep you posted.

Too many crazy things going on politically that I just can’t even start, lucky you! I haven’t been to the gym for a few days so I need to run and get there this morning. I thought I was getting the flu yesterday but after 4 or 5 cups of tea and a bunch of vitamin C, I feel better this morning.

Time to run, take care and God Bless.

That’s right, lots happening at work, both mine and Lori’s. It seems at Lori’s, Dr Rodgers came storming in yesterday to fire the new practice manager (which she should) after one too many faux paux’s. This lady is a wreck, border line crazy. She begged Chris (Dr Rodgers) for one more chance and now the entire office is supposed to have a lunch or something to try to clear the air. Personally I don’t think she’ll last the day as this lady has done irreparable damage to her relationship with everyone that works there. They all can’t stand her. She’s the type of lady who could go off in a fit of rage, like work place violence! Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. This all makes my work look pretty calm. After all, people are pretty relaxed when they’re drinking wine!

The boys have a 4 day weekend. Friday is a teacher planning day and Monday is President’s Day. My buddy Matt came over yesterday afternoon for a visit. It was good to see him as he’s been working a lot and then was sick.

I tried to get up to go to the gym but was too tired. I did run to the grocery store to get some milk for the boys instead. Too bad we don’t have a dairy cow that we could just milk in the morning, ha ha. I think that’s how Grandma Dixie got her milk when she was a little girl.

Not much else, guess I’ll try to roust everyone from bed. Looks like I’m the only early riser in this family. Take care, God Bless.

Yesterday was kind of a wasted day, Mom took the boys sledding, I ran to the store and we lounged around watching tv most of the day. We needed a break after going out the night before. Today we’ll slide back into our groove.

It’s cooler this morning and we might get a dusting of the white stuff but in a couple of days, it’s supposed to be in the 60’s! We can hardly wait for the warm temperatures as this has been a winter for the books.

It’s 6:17 now so time to get everyone moving. It’ll be Spring before you know it, do you all remember when I said it’ll be winter before you know it? Time sure flies by, I can’t believe how fast it goes. Oh well, enjoy the day, in fact, enjoy each and every day!

Take care, God Bless.

Cool temps are back with it reaching about 25 degrees today but that feels like Spring! Yesterday Lori, the boys and I used some of their Christmas present from Grandma Annette (Fandango cards) and went to see the Lego movie. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone over 12 or 13. Will Ferrell is in it (his voice and them him) which made it somewhat tolerable. At least kids movies these days throw is some adult humor recognizing that someone has to take the kids to the movies! After that the boys played outside.

Mark and Carrie called around 5pm saying they were picking us up in 5 minutes to go for a cocktail as they’d been cleaning all day. We ended up at Simms Landing sitting at the bar for an hour or so and then picked up the boys and went to their house to visit some more and watch the Olympics.

That was about it for the day other than the usual gym trip and washing the car. I’m hoping to get some cleaning done in the basement today but we’ll see. Take care and God Bless.

p.s. Annette, I’m sure we sell to Russells in Vail from time to time. Hope Serena is well, we sympathize with her medical bill fiasco as we too are going through the same thing times ten! We had a little back and forth the other day (Lori did) on Facebook trying to explain why Obamacare is the main contributing factor to her situation, not sure if she (or any young kids) understand, ha ha.

Aggggghhhhhh, that’s how we felt after 2 hours with 200 kids, a bunch of cotton candy and soda and lots of games! The carnival started at 5pm but we had to be there early as Jag was working the nacho booth for student council. Ty and his friends settled in fast and were off working all the booths. Finally the time passed and we decided to round the boys up. It took 15 minutes just to find them! Anyhow we made it home by 7:30 just in time to see the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I know a little bit about Russian history so it was pretty interesting to me.

Earlier in the day Lori and I went to the Container Store to buy a bunch of storage containers to stay on task of cleaning things up around here. Of course we didn’t use any of them yet but we will.

The boys want to go to the new Lego movie today, aggggghhhh! I guess we’ll try to take them if we can get some things cleaned up around here. It warmed up finally yesterday to about 40 degrees but everything is still covered in snow, hopefully it’ll keep getting warmer as I think we might get snow early next week. I think we’re all pretty tired of winter around here.

Think I’ll run, Ty is eating some cereal here on the couch with me and I need to get to the gym. It’s 6:24 so we slept in a little. Hope everyone is well, take care and God Bless.

Yea, it’s warming up today, finally. It’s been a long stretch of cold weather with temps at zero or below. Hopefully its over!

Lori was at work as usual and I was on the phone, as usual, and the boys were at school, as usual. Jag had PTA after school and Ty had jump rope club. Mom went to book club at 7pm and was home sometime after 10.

Ty woke me up at 5, he’s the new Lacey, to go downstairs. He took a shower first and now is here with me on the couch. I think he wants to work on his spelling words before his test today. Tonight is the school carnival. Jag, being on student council, has to work at it for 30 minutes so we’ll be going, what fun. (that’s sarcasm)

Not sure what we will do tomorrow. Lori and I would love to just jump in bed and watch a movie but I’m sure we will be doing something with the kids.

That’s it, time to run, God Bless

Today you are not supposed to be outside for long with exposed skin, it reminds you of the movie The Day After Tomorrow it’s so cold. The high here at the house today hopefully will get to 10 but maybe not. Good news is the snow is dry as all the moisture has been sucked out of it. Even Mojo would rather be inside.

Yesterday I shoveled June’s walk as she had called and offered Jagger $25. We both went down at 7:30 before school but it was so cold I had him get in the warm running truck. Turns out she hadn’t had her driveway shoveled at all since it started snowing a week or so ago! I would have never done it for $25, maybe $50, as the snow was so deep. I did it anyhow and then took the boys to school.

Lots of schools are closed due to the weather but ours is open. Later in the day I went back to try to get some more of the caked on snow (that she’d been driving over) off and then stopped to finish another neighbors driveway as I saw the old lady out there shoveling but go inside before she could even get it a third of the way done. She didn’t see me but will see a shoveled driveway next time she comes outside.

Lori made it home around 3:30 and Ty had D.I. until 5:30. Then Mom and Jag went to school for Outdoor Lab information night. Then we all jumped in bed trying to get warm after putting blankets along the doors. We also kept the faucets dripping all night to make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. Tomorrow it’ll be in the teens, thankfully.

It’s 5:11 right now and I need to get to the gym so I have to run. Ok, 6:01 and I’m back and yes its cold but not that bad to me but then again, I’ve always been a cold weather person. You can always warm up but you can’t always cool off! I just woke Jagger up as he likes to get up at 6am. I took his acceptance letter to Manning (is school next year) yesterday, lots of Mom’s were dropping them off.

For some reason it seems like a Friday. I think we might go skiing or snowboarding this weekend, we’ll see.

Alright, we’ll see you tomorrow but before I go I have to mention this. Yesterday the impartial Congressional Budget Office (repeatedly touted by Obama) released a report saying Obamacare will cost 2.5 million jobs over the next decade! You’re not going to believe it but the Democrats went on tv and actually said this is a good thing as people (who lose their jobs) will now be able to spend more time with their family’s or start a business of their own! I honestly don’t know how they can say this with a straight face. Let me get this straight, it’s a good thing that you lose your job as now you can spend more time with your family, of course without any money! If it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be believable now would it.

Oh well, guess I shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore, take care and God Bless.

Ok, it’s cold, really freakin cold, and this is coming from a guy that loves the cold weather. Lori has been, in her words, “chilled down to her bones” which makes sense with her low blood count. Mojo wanted right back in after eating breakfast and is lying beside the fireplace in his bed. It’ll stay this way for another day or so and then climb to the 40’s by Sunday. Back east they close schools for this but not here in Colorado!

Yesterday Lori left before 9 and arrived home a little after 5. First she had her hair done and then was at the office for the rest of the day. Today will be more of the same without the hair appointment. I’ll be hanging around here as I have about 4 or 5 hour long calls scheduled.

I need to get everyone moving as they’re all still wrapped up under the covers. You might want to run your faucets tonight if you live in Denver as it’ll be even colder. No politics today, not much to say when they continually lie to your face, on both sides. Just as a sample, yesterday they passed a so called Farm Bill that really doesn’t do anything for farmers but has some pork or wasteful pet project for almost every Congressman there is. How about 20 million to study catfish or 1 billion to promote McDonalds overseas and it goes on and on with much worse examples. What these people, if you can call career politicians that, don’t understand is that we just do not have the money! Hold on people, get ready, it’s coming down right before our eyes yet most of us still ignore it. Ok ok I’ll stop.

Time to run and get my hot coffee, God Bless