A Year of Change

Grandma Dixie called yesterday and asked if Rush Limbaugh was there. I guess she was referring to me from my comments on yesterday’s post but I told her that I actually sparred her and took it easy on everyone as I had many more comments and thoughts I could have shared. It’s going to be a long 5 months until November.

The oldest and I went to Boulder yesterday morning and while there, did some grocery shopping before we headed home around noon. The misses spent most of the day on the couch trying to keep her head calmed down. In the afternoon we watched the George Clooney movie, The Descendants. I highly recommend that everyone watch this as it’ll put your life into perspective. It wasn’t the light hearted comedy we thought it would be but do yourself a favor and watch it. I’m not going to tell you anything about it as I don’t want to ruin it but I can see why it was nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards.

The boys played hard all day and had the neighbor kid spend the night so you can imagine how that went. The oldest had dinner with Uncle T and Aunt B while the youngest ate across the street. The misses and I had some grilled stripped sea bass which was great and that’s about it.

I just got back from the gym and need to get the kids some exercise today before the cool weather arrives tomorrow. They’re all upstairs playing some video game now.

Time to get some breakfast going so time to go. Hope everyones well. The misses wants to get some flowers today but I don’t think leaning over in the dirt with a shovel will do her neck any good. I’ll try to talk her out of it.

Have a great post St Patricks Day, hopefully no one is hung over too bad.

Yesterday I left at5am and was home by 1:45 in the afternoon. Although I drove 500 miles, it didn’t seem all that bad. Meanwhile the misses went to acupuncture and finally found some relief. For the first time in 2 months, she said her head was a 5 out of 10! This is great news as the best it had been before then was 7 or 8 out of 10. Let’s hope it holds.

Last night was the kids school auction which we had to show up for. We arrived around 6:30 and were on the way home by about 8:30 after a few adult beverages and bidding on some activities for the kids. I couldn’t sleep much and woke up at 4:30 and it’s now a bit after 5.

Today is St Patricks Day, whoo hoo. Now we’re not big party people these days but we’ll try to do something fun for the kids. Did you know St Patrick wasn’t irish? He was born in Britain. Also the original color of St Patricks Day was blue, not green. So there’s your useless information for the day.

Not much on tv at 4:30 on a Saturday morning but ladies, I have to tell you, I think this Brazilian Butt Lift program actually looks like it works!

I have a few more loads of wine to ship out on Monday and one to deliver to Longmont. It’s much much closer than Grand Junction where I went yesterday, about 200 miles closer.

I’m sick of all the tv ads being run by the Obama campaign. Sorry to dive into politics, but they just flat out lie. (lots of ads on at 5am also, I’d better switch back to Brazilian Butts!) I cannot believe how they “twist the truth” to fit their agenda. Bottom line is, we need less government. They need to get out of our lives. Here’s a few interesting quotes from history which if you don’t know, is a good teacher and always repeats itself.

“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” – Friedrich A.  Hayek, 1974 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

“Corruptisima republica plurimae leges.” (“The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.”) – Tacitus , The Annals of Imperial Rome

“A black market is a free market operating against the wishes of the state.” – Harry Browne

Chew on those, we’re headed in the wrong direction. Stop intruding into every aspect of our lives. Enough already. Ok ok, I’ll stop for now but sooner or later, we’re going to have to face it or everything we do everyday will be somehow regulated. People are like frogs. Did you know you can put a frog in a pot of cold water on the stove and turn on the heat and it’ll just sit there as the water boils until it’s cooked to death. People are the same way, we just sit around and slowly watch all our rights be taken away a little bit at a time and don’t seem to notice or care. Imagine if your grandparents came back to life or if you were in a coma for 20 years and you woke up. You’d be stunned at what you’re told you can now do or worse, can’t do! Alright I’ll stop as I’m sure I’ve lost some of you already but people better wake up or before you know it, you’ll have no rights left at all. Think about it, it doesn’t matter if you’re a republican or democrat, our freedom is being taken away, enough said.

Time to run as it’s now 5:36. I’m a bit tired, wish I could go back to sleep. Have a good weekend and if you drink, don’t drive! Take care and God Bless,

Last night, the youngest, upon hearing that this morning I’m driving to Grand Junction and back, commented, “Dad, you’re going to be driving on a major highway, one that goes all the way from California to Florida”. When asked what he meant, he said “there’s a highway that goes all the way from California to Florida and you’re going to be driving on it”. In a sense, he’s right. I will be driving about 500 miles today (or half way to California or from Denver to Gallup New Mexico) as I need to deliver some samples to a couple of sales reps in Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs and see a couple of key accounts. It’s 4:15 now and I’ll be on the road by 5, in Grand Junction by 9am and hopefully home by 1:30 or so. Ah the joys of being self employed.

Tonight we have the kids school auction which the misses insists we go to to bid on our own stuff to support the school. I suppose she’s right but I’d rather stay home, especially today as I imagine I’ll be pretty tired by tonight.

We managed to keep the misses on the couch for most of the day which helped a bit. We did receive the mri report from the doctor and it appears to say that about 4 or 5 discs are degenerative and compressing. This is all genetics that was sped up or aggravated  by the person at physical therapy a few months ago when this all started. The misses is determined to get better and really doesn’t want surgery but we’ll see. Today she has acupuncture again which we hope will help. I feel so bad for her as I know you all do too as I can’t imagine having a head ache for 2 months!

Well time to hit the shower and load up the car, maybe the misses will write some today as I didn’t think I’d have time to do this and told her she’d have to opine today. Take care and have a good weekend.

Look, we’re all tired of this head ache crap, the misses more than anyone but it is what it is. Yesterday we had an acupuncture appointment scheduled at noon that I was driving the misses to, but she insisted that I go to Colorado Clays to shoot a round of sporting clays with a couple of friends. For those of you that don’t know, this is a place where you go to 15 different stations shooting 6 to 8 clay pigeons at each stop that are randomly flung in different directions in the air. I wasn’t going to go but she, being selfless, told me to so I did. Boy what a nice break and fun time it was. I love shooting, especially shotguns and it was good to pop off 125 rounds at clay birds flying through the air. I should do that more often as it’s a real stress reliever and just good old fun. In fact, one of these days I should take Uncle T as he’d probably enjoy it as well.

I made it home in time to get some taxes in the mail and then go get some chicken to bbq for dinner. Once again the streets were buzzing with kids playing in the mid 70 degree weather. They say some changes are coming next week but it looks to stay nice through Saturday at least.

Acupuncture helped a bit but I guess it’ll take a few more treatments to see any real change. The misses right arm and hand froze up when she was brushing her teeth yesterday morning from the nerve in her neck shooting down her arm. Today I’m making her stay in bed with no movement all day long! We’ve got to kick this thing and any movement seems to aggravate her neck so today we’ll try no movement at all.

It’s 5:20 am and I need to get a half hour of cardio in and then make breakfast and lunch for the boys. other than that, same old same old, you know the drill. Surprisingly I’m not sore at all from shooting yesterday, must be all the weight lifting that’s paying off!

Take care and have a great day, the misses is in for another acupuncture appointment tomorrow so we’ll keep you posted, keep your fingers crossed.

My Mom told me yesterday that in the past week or so I sounded worn out. Well she was 100% spot on but now I’m back! I luckily seemed to have kick the shingle thing and finally  got some much needed sleep over the past 2 or 3 days. I didn’t sleep as well last night, (waking up at 2 and 4 before getting up at 5:30) but the previous 2 nights I slept until after 6am. After I dropped the kids at school I went to the gym for a much needed hour plus workout. So, today I’m paying for it with sore muscles from head to toe. The misses had a little bit better day now that she’s under my care as I limited her activity as much as  I could. She did aggravate her neck a bit around dinner time by cooking and doing the dishes. I don’t know what I was doing then as I should have been doing it.

The youngest had soccer and Mom had to take him as I had to run and pay some last minute bills to avoid late fees. Then both boys played hard outside until after 7 again. We’re trying to get them used to daylight savings time but as far as they’re concerned, if it’s light out, it’s playtime. This had made for some rough mornings as they just don’t get enough sleep. It’s hard when it’s 70 degrees out and every other kid is outside playing, to make them come in. I hope by next week we’ll get in a groove. The misses did get her hair done which gave her a lift and today she gets acupuncture at noon. We’re hoping this helps, keep your fingers crossed.

Everyone is still sleeping at 6:22 and the big dog is lying at my feet. He goes in today for a bath to get all cleaned up for Spring. We have to time it as there’s no point in taking him in if rain is in the forecast. I can hardly believe it’s already mid March. You can see some flowers popping up in the front yard and we’ll need to get the sprinklers turned on soon.

I don’t have much else to say, nothing new on the headache front but we’ll keep you posted. At least it seems to have calmed down a notch since she stopped running. All that pounding can’t be good. We did get an appointment coming up with the top doc in the U.S. up in Vail so hopefully soon she’ll get some relief.

Take care and have a great day,

Well I guess I am. Yesterday we texted the doctor and told him we needed an mri. They scheduled one for 5pm last night. Next we said we want acupuncture, they said one of our doctors is an acupuncturist and would schedule the misses asap. Now I’m not sure but it seems as if I (or we) are deciding what treatment and tests to run and the doctor is going along with it. I know I didn’t go to med school, or stay at a Holiday Inn last night (a joke from a commercial if you don’t know what that means) but isn’t the doctor supposed to be directing the course of treatment? My Mom told me yesterday that doctors hate seeing patients with headaches as they can never figure out what the cause is. Well no more fucking around (excuse my language), I’ve taken charge and going all out to get this over. I called Dr. Corenemen’s office in Vail and will get the misses in as soon as possible. We’re looking at new beds as ours is “dead” with too many dips and valleys preventing the misses from getting a good nights sleep. I have told her to stay in bed most of the day as that seems to be where she gets the most relief and I will now approve any exercise she wants to undertake. Just call me Dr. D. Now if I could only get the paycheck that goes with that title. Is it too late for me to go to med school? That’d make a good news story wouldn’t it. Let’s see, I’d be 61 when I graduate, what do you think?

It was warm yesterday and I spent most of the afternoon driving kids and the misses around. It started at 2:30 when I picked the boys up at school and took the youngest and his classmate to d.i. Then the oldest and I went to the hardware store for some mothballs as we’ve seen some little moths around the house. (we put these in each room but had to throw them out 2 hours later as the whole house stunk!) Then it was home for 20 minutes and then back on the road to get the youngest at d.i. Then home for 30 minutes and we were off to the mri. We finally all arrived home at 6pm and forgot we had to make dinner. Luckily I had bought a pizza at the store that I threw in the oven while the boys played basketball or four square outside. Soon it was 7:30 and still light outside (due to daylight savings time) and time to get the boys wound down for bed. The misses and I stood in the kitchen and ate a salad in about 30 seconds for our dinner and I stole a couple of pieces of the boys pizza. At least with all this stress and stuff we’re losing a bit of weight by not eating! It’ll be good to get pass this and sit and eat like a real family again, we just can’t fit it all in right now.

Today the misses is getting her hair done as she needs a lift. I had cancelled her appointment last night but she decided she really wanted to get it done. She’s not feeling too good about herself these days so, as her doctor, I approved her request. Luckily it doesn’t cost us anything. Our anniversary, I think our 12th, is coming up in 12 days, wow time fly’s.

The youngest one just came down and I need to find something for breakfast so time to run. Ok, just made breakfast, err, went to Mc Donald’s. As a doctor, I can approve McD’s every so often. The misses is still in bed so time to now get the kiddos dressed. This doctor thing might just work out as it seems everyone is now listening to me. Funny, give a guy a title and all of a sudden everyone starts paying attention. I should have done this a long time ago. Maybe next month I’ll be a lawyer or a senator, let’s wait and see what challenges we face.

Hope everyone is doing well, we’ll keep you posted on any changes. Say a prayer that she gets better and that Denver signs Peyton Manning as our new quarterback! God Bless,

With daylight savings time starting yesterday, we slept in until 6:30 this morning. In fact, I’m writing this from bed! Last night while we were planning out our week trying to figure out how to get the misses some relief, we tried to think back to what we did last time she had this sort of problem. She kept bringing up swimming but the more we thought about it, we finally remembered acupuncture. This is about the only thing we haven’t tried so this morning we’ll be trying to get the guy on the phone to get her in.

We missed swim team last night as we were both too tired to take them and they wanted to play outside anyhow. Mom couldn’t get off the couch and I was beat from the days activities. The oldest and I ran some errands earlier in the day and then got out our bows and arrows and set up the targets in the backyard to shoot for a while. The boys played hard until about 7:30 pm and then we tried to get them to settle down for bed. It’s going to take a bit to get used to it staying light until 8pm! The flip side of that is it’s now 7am and the sun doesn’t come up for another 15 minutes.

We had fresh vegetables and brown rice for dinner to kind of take a break after our meat fest the day before. I have a busy day and will be gone from about 8am on until late morning. I’m supposed to go shoot some trap (skeet) this afternoon but haven’t talked to the guys yet to confirm. If we can get the misses into acupuncture, the shotguns will stay in the case and I’ll be driving her downtown. Now this isn’t playtime as the guys that invited me own Falling Rock which is a bar across from the Colorado Rockies Baseball Stadium and he’s looking at buying a bunch of wine from me. With baseball season coming up in two weeks, I’m trying to get this wrapped up.

It’s going to be 70 degrees or higher all week long which means it’ll probably snow next week! The misses was going to make breakfast but I’m going to do it instead so she doesn’t move around too much and aggravate her neck anymore than it already is. So I’m going to have to sign off now to get the boys fed.

Oh yeah, the youngest one placed 2nd in d.i. and even beat a 3rd grade team and is headed to State! We’re all very proud of him. Have a great week, time for me to get cookin. God Bless,

Another day, same old stuff. Enough said. It was warm yesterday, about 70 degrees and you could feel Spring in the air. We were off early, about 6:30, to the youngest ones d.i. presentation. We arrived a bit after 7 which was a little too early but we got a good parking space. At 8:18 his group had their Instant Challenge where parents are not allowed to watch and then at 9:20 their Team Challenge which we did see. They did great and we were finished 10 minutes later and on the way home.

After a quick stop at the grocery store, the youngest headed out to play with his friends while the oldest one and I headed off to the Colorado Horse Expo. We arrived and walked around a bit and then met up with our friends from Wyoming after they finished watching a horse clinic. We had lunch and then the oldest and I headed for home knowing we’d see our friends in a few hours after the show. I picked up the dog “you know what” in the back yard then jumped in the car to drive up north to pick up our smoked meat for dinner. Meanwhile, Eddie, Lisa and 3 and 1/2 year old Dallie (our cowboy family from Wyoming) arrived at the house after the horse show. The oldest one took Dallie outside and they played all kinds of games. I made it home 20 minutes later and we all visited for the next few hours and ate the freshly smoked meat which was great. About 7:30 they headed back to their hotel with a bunch of stuffed animals in tow from the big bags the boys have designated as ones to donate or give away. She was so cute and talked in a “matter of fact” way. If you’d ask her a question, she’d tilt her head and answer you like a teenager. She’s all of about 2 feet tall in cowboy boots, jeans and a studded belt with her hair in ribbons. They’re a young hard working, good family that have turned out to be really good friends.

The boys had one of the neighbor kids spend the night so they all played upstairs until bedtime. Earlier in the afternoon, while we were at the horse show, the youngest rode his bike up to Tellers, (the new restaurant we wrote about a week ago) for lunch with the neighbors. It was a good ride to 20th and Youngsfield (maybe a mile or so) and he had lots of fun.

It’s going to be warm today and the misses is determined to get some exercise. They way she looks at it is she can’t feel any worse so why not. I’m not going to go into all our crap again but we’re soooo tired of it. Something’s gotta give. Tomorrow we’ll get an mri and then sometime next week head to Vail to see the country’s top neck doc.

Time to run, I too have to get some exercise, sometime, somehow. All the boys are still sleeping. Hope you all are well, enjoy the day and God Bless.

Man, when we get through this, we’ll be able to get through anything. Notice I said “when” and not “if”. We will get through this, just not sure how long it’s going to take. Yesterday was not a good day for the misses and consequently, not a good day for me. She, once again, feels guilty as she thinks when she’s not doing well, I get more stressed out and then I’m not doing well. I probably do but it’s not her fault, but in any case, it stops now! We’re at the point where we just have to stop getting worked up and kind of live with it as the stress is turning out to be as bad as whatever it is that’s causing the problems in the first place. So, from this second forward, I refuse to get stressed out over anything.

I just went up to wake the misses and had to lay down for a second as I was all dizzy, I must have got up too fast and made the coffee too strong this morning! The misses pointed out that my pills say “may cause drowsiness” and “take with food”, but I only took the thing 15 minutes ago! Maybe it’s because I took my last pill yesterday late at night. Anyhow, life goes on as we have the big d.i.presentation this morning and have to leave around 6:30am. On top of that, my head was pounding all night too, I’m kind of stuffed up and it’s got to be sinuses or allergies. Damn, it’s one thing or another, but I’m not gonna get stressed out about it! In fact, I shouldn’t mention stress anymore, plus probably need to quit coffee and sugar!

My buddy took me to Restaurant Depot yesterday. I’ve never been there before and what an experience. This is like Costco on steroids. It’s where all the restaurants go to shop (you have to have a special card) and the prices are unbelievable, plus there’s no tax! To give you an example, a pork roast that would have cost $60 at Costco was $21 here! It was 16 pounds for $21 or $1.39 A pound. A Callebaut white chocolate bar that would sell for $16 a pound at the misses store was $4 a pound here! Everything does come in “restaurant size” portions though and that’s why we now have an 11 pound chocolate bar sitting on our kitchen counter. You can’t imagine how big an 11 pound chocolate bar is until you actually hold it in your arms! Anyhow my buddy started smoking us a pork roast and a brisket in his smoker last night and will be dropping it off later this afternoon. We have some friends from Wyoming (the young couple that work at our friends ranch) who are in Denver for a horse show, who are coming over with their 2 year old for dinner. That should be fun for the boys as they like playing with Dali. (the 2 year old)

I’m sure we’ll have meat for 20 so if any of you locals need something for dinner, give us a call. Mom’s making us some food as I’m still dizzy and need something to eat. Time to run now as I’m out of material. Hope everyone’s well, take care and we’ll see you tomorrow. God Bless.

I’m about out of options for the misses. I’m not going to spend the whole time writing about her you know what, but think next week I’m going to have to take her to see Dr. Cornman in Vail. Maybe just maybe, the cortisone shot will miraculously work over the weekend and she’ll kick this thing. We’re sure hoping so.

Yesterday, yup, you guessed it, I boxed up some more wine and shipped it off this time to Florida. A few errands, 4 or 5 phone calls to Germany and before you knew it, it was time to pick up the boys. Then at 4:30 it was off to Krav Maga until 6pm. A quick dinner, some snuggling (that means all 4 of us in the same bed) and soon everyone went to sleep.

I slept until a bit after 5 which was nice as I’d been getting up around 3:30 this week. The oldest one is still having CSAP tests at school. I didn’t know but these go on for two weeks! He says he’s doing pretty well and knowing him, I’m sure he’s right. Tonight we have another rehearsal for the youngest guys d.i. presentation which is tomorrow morning. He has a Chinese dinner tonight after practice as their presentation is Chinese or Japanese. All I know is we have to be at the high school by 7am tomorrow, uggh. It’ll go on for a few hours and then we’re supposed to go back for some kind of an awards ceremony tomorrow night. In previous years, we usually skip the evening ceremony as the kids don’t really don’t want to go back to sit through some speeches. We’ll see how the day goes.

It’s after 6 now and everyone is still sleeping. I hollered the time upstairs but no one is stirring. I’ll give them all another 15 or 20 minutes before I go up and nudge them all awake. I don’t have much else to say, glad the solar flares didn’t cause more damage but we’re not out of the woods yet as now our atmosphere is weakened and this year and next are forecasted to be the heaviest in 100 years for solar flare activity. I know this doesn’t mean much to most, if not all of you, since you probably don’t follow or understand it.

Here’s a little blurb to help explain it,

A CME is currently racing towards earth and will strike a blow very soon, sometime on March 8-9, to an already ‘taxed’ magnetic shield. If sunspot 1429 blows off a large X-class flare in the next few days, the resulting CME (Coronal Mass Ejection which can trigger geomagnetic storms that have been known to knock out electric power for extended periods of time.) ‘could’ be a bigger problem for us here on earth, even bigger than whatever happens on the 8th-9th because the huge sunspot will be firing ‘straight’ at us in a few days.

Hopefully nothing will ever happen but there was a 1 in 8 or 12% chance of serious damage to power grids and such. Good thing it didn’t happen, keep your fingers crossed. There’s always something like this going on and you usually don’t hear about it, especially from the likes of the Today Show, but this was a big time event that thankfully doesn’t happen very often. Oh well, not much you could do about it anyhow.

Time for me to run, I didn’t get to the gym yesterday and am determined to go today, not just sure when. Hope you’re all well, time to get something to eat as the pills I’m on are supposed to be taken with food and my stomach is gurgling. I think I’m getting better though, thanks for the good thoughts and well wishes from those of you that I talked to. Man it’s a bitch getting old! Thankfully I refuse to do so and still think I’m 28, ok maybe 38.

Have a nice weekend.