A Year of Change

The east coast is supposed to get hammered by a combination of storms they say are historic. They said this last year and it didn’t happen so a lot of people probably won’t take it serious this time. Hopefully it’ll miss land again. Next weekend it says it’s supposed to snow in the mountains where we’ll be hunting which is great news. I could use a new coat but will have to layer up with the stuff I have. Christmas should come before hunting season each year, that would be much more useful.

It’s Friday and the boys are excited for the weekend. We did get a bit more snow last night but not too much. The misses finished cleaning out the spare room and fixed the downstairs bathroom door with some WD-40. She’s pretty handy from time to time.

It seems time is just whizzing by these days. Hard to believe it’s almost November. I’ll be so glad when the election is over so we can all get back to normal. Hopefully we can all get along and heal no matter who wins.

The youngest learned how to tie his own shoes last night. We’re all very proud of him and he’s thrilled too! He just pointed out I have 769 new emails on the I pad, how can one guy get that many? Well it is a few days worth but still a lot. The kids are trying to figure out how to un-freeze the I pad and delete all the messages without having to select each one, so far, no luck but there has to be a way.

I’m excited to go pheasant hunting tomorrow and then we have the big Bronco game Sunday night. My good buddy Luke is going hunting with us and he just got back from British Columbia where he went goat hunting. Looks like I’m going with some guys to the game as it’s too late (and chilly)  for the misses and the kiddos. Hopefully we’ll win, we just have to!

My mom’s too funny. I haven’t seen her in a while but we did talk on the phone yesterday. It’s good to catch up with her, she and I (whether or not she admits it) are a lot alike! This is more and more true the older I get. I won’t go into details but we think very much the same.

The boys are eating breakfast and messing with some game on the I pad. They love that damn thing. Today there’s a new one coming out and millions of people with no money will somehow come up with the cash to buy one. Windows 8 also comes out from Microsoft and looks pretty cool. It’s touch screen technology where you can do things with the swipe of your finger. There’s always something new isn’t there.

Time to run, hope everyone is well, have a great weekend and root for the Broncos!

It’s here, the first snow of the season. We’re supposed to have a break until this afternoon and then more snow through the night.

I just returned from the gym and it’s 6:30 so time for all to wake up. The misses feels a bit better than yesterday but is still, you know, the same. Hopefully we’re half way to her being pain free.

The boys both went to the trampoline gym yesterday after school and Mom tagged along. Today it’s back to a full day of school, thankfully. I have so much going on I can’t even think of what I have to do today. Thankfully the govt hasn’t cashed our tax check yet. I couldn’t figure out why I had some money in the bank and then I discovered why. Wouldn’t it be nice if they never cashed it! Not very likely.

I need to go get my hunting license today as it’s fast approaching. It’d be great if it’d snow like this a week from today or tomorrow as it brings the elk down from the high country and means less climbing for me! Even if we don’t get an elk, the best part of hunting is just hunting. Being up in the mountains on top of some peak as the sun comes up is so peaceful. It’s like nothing else matters. Everyone should experience it sometime.

Time to run as it’s almost 7am. Not much else going on except the endless barrage of political ads hammering us day and night. I don’t think it much matters anymore as everyone probably has their mind made up. We sure do!

Take care, stay safe and healthy and God Bless.

Tonight, maybe, we’ll see our first snow fall of the season. I hope so as it’ll make pheasant hunting a lot more fun on Saturday! Yesterday afternoon when we arrived home from the hair salon and grocery store, we jumped right in and did a quick clean of the house. This pretty much means pick everything up, vacuum and do all the dishes. The misses made chicken sausage and roast vegetables for dinner which everyone enjoyed.

This morning the misses has a doctor appointment at 10am. I think I’ll try to drive her so she can stay on her pain meds. Yesterday was not a good day for her head. Our lawyer sent a few emails and it seems that the therapist who manipulated her neck that first caused her headache, has conveniently omitted or lost or didn’t submit the records that document her hurting the misses neck. Surprise surprise, right. Nothing much surprises us anymore. It’s often hard to find people or companies that will “do the right thing” these days.

The kids halloween costumes are almost done. They of course are both custom made by the misses. We’ll have to send pictures.

Both dogs just came bounding in from their morning play time in the back yard. It’s almost 6am so time to get moving. Hope everyone is doing well, glad to hear from some of you even if you don’t comment all the time. It’s good to know you’re reading daily and enjoying the blog. God Bless.

Today is my little sis’s birthday, whoo hoo! I’m sure she’ll be whooping it up, Happy Birthday Robi.

Yesterday the youngest stayed home with a slight fever and a stuffy nose. In the am I ran down to meet our new attorney for the misses issues after I met with the owner of Applejack. I need to be back at Applejack this morning after I get a 9am haircut. I’m taking the misses with me and leaving her there so she can get an update as well. I’ll go back and get her later as I don’t want her driving when she’s on pain medication.

Here’s a quick comment from Grandma Annette, thanks,

Ok, are you out there? We’re not sure although I did receive 37 new comments yesterday, just none from any of you, hmmmm.

Ok, where do I start, yesterday the misses and I hit the upstairs spare room and cleaned out 6 large bags of trash, 4 large bags of clothes to donate, (she) almost finished up the youngest guys halloween costume, roasted a couple of chickens along with some vegetables, made a cherry pie, washed and put away 3 or 4 loads of laundry, while I cleaned the basement and shredded 3 months worth of old bills and other stuff. So, what did you do?

The oldest left at 9:30 with Jen for Anderson Farms to hit the 3.6 mile corn maze, go to the pumpkin patch, have some lunch and whatever else they do there. The youngest played around here and at the neighbors until we all met up for dinner around 5pm.

This morning I have a conference call and then will head downtown to a lawyer to discuss the misses situation. Meanwhile she has an appointment at noon to discuss the remodeling of a doctor’s office so it’s a busy day.

In fact, it’s a busy week. Tomorrow I have a haircut at 9am and she has an appointment to get her hair colored right behind me at 9:30. Then I have an appointment at Applejack Liquors at 10 and then I’ll be off to Greeley for an appointment. Wednesday is early release at school (12:30) and the misses has a doctors appointment that morning while I have a couple of meetings in Boulder. Thursday it’ll be cold and rainy but I need to find some time this week to double check my rifle and make sure it’s sighted in for elk hunting in 10 days or so, meaning probably a trip to the mountains to a range. Friday it might snow and I have 4 calls set up right now and Saturday I’m pheasant hunting out east about an hour or so from Denver. I think the misses is also throwing a halloween party that night. We’ve been invited to at least two parties that evening as well. Then Sunday the Broncos play the Saints at 6:30pm. On top of all this, the youngest guy seems to have a stuffy nose and a cold and he’s trying to pass it over to me first!

The following week is even worse as I’ll be leaving for the mountains on Friday morning for a few days.

I just yelled up to the misses and the boys as it’s after 6 and the oldest has inter-murals. Both pups are at my feet anxiously waiting for Mom to come down the stairs. They seem to like her best!

Time to run, lots going on as you can see. We need to try to get the youngest well and try not to let his cold spread throughout the family. I’m trying to break the cycle by downing 6 to 8 vitamin C pills a day. Hopefully it’ll work.

So stay safe, stay healthy, take care and God Bless, and don’t be afraid to comment!

Either no one read the post yesterday or everyone is prepared for unknown eventualities. Hopefully it’s the later as we just don’t have enough stuff for everyone! But in all seriousness, do you all believe there’s nothing to worry about like the national debt, the price of food and so on? Or, like most people, do you choose to just ignore it until it’s at your doorstep. I’ll move on but there’s a lot of people a lot smarter than I that are taking steps to protect themselves and their families. Even the government is running tv ads now telling you to have extra food and water and supplies on hand. That didn’t happen when we were kids, now did it.

So yesterday the kids played hard. The youngest went to his friends for the whole day and didn’t come home until after we arrived there for dinner and all went home at 9pm. Meanwhile the oldest was with us until about 4pm when he went to his friends and then went to a Halloween party dressed as a zebra with him and his parents. He said there was a belly dancer there and he and his friend jumped up and danced along with her! We’re hoping his friends mom took pictures!

It was 80 degrees yesterday but only in the mid 60’s today. I’m determined to get the basement clean today and maybe the upstairs spare room. I have to accomplish something today.

This morning at 9am the oldest is going with Jen and her family to Anderson Farms which is a big farm with a giant pumpkin patch. I think they also have a corn maze. I think we’ll send the oldest with Mom’s phone just to be safe. He’ll also be under strict instructions to stay with Jen and do not separate in the corn maze.

Unfortunately it’s right near where they found the chopped up body of the poor little 10 year old girl last week. They still haven’t found the creep who did this and it now seems he, and/or others, are toying with authorities by trying to grab other kids here and there. There’s just a whole bunch of child predators coming out of the woodwork. On top of that, 2 teenagers were shot yesterday morning across town. It’s a really bad violent time here in Denver for some reason. Truth is it’s bad everywhere, we just notice what’s happening here because we live here. As I said a few days ago, all crime is up nationwide for the first time in 20 years. This is because more people have nothing to lose and when you have nothing to lose, you do desperate things you wouldn’t normally do. For example, turns out 2 of the 3 kids arrested for killing 5 people the other night were the sons of a baptist minister! They had no job (and of course no education) so they decided to rob these people and ended up killing them. It’s just sad, really sad. Doesn’t sound like the good ol days now does it.

Ok ok, I don’t mean to ruin your Sunday but it is what it is out there. Personally we try to focus on the good things and ignore as much of this as we can but often it’s right there in your face. Lots of kids, including ours, are scared and very aware of, for example, the predators, as they talk about it at school everyday. Not only do all the kids talk amongst themselves but the teachers (as they should) bring it up to warn the kids. Kids shouldn’t have trouble sleeping because they’re worrying about crime and bad people, it’s just not right, but is the reality we live in.

Anyhow let’s all focus on the beautiful fall day out there and have a great day. We hope everyone is doing well and will have a great day. I was reminded by the boys that Christmas is only about 64 days away! Imagine that, the kids being aware of when Christmas is!

Take care and God Bless.

After the youngest guys Field Day, the misses and her friend began canning all the beets we brought home from the farm. It was quite the job but first, back to Field Day. The youngest is really coming into his own as an athlete. He was amazing yesterday in all his events. I’d bet (and not just because he’s my kid) if they picked the top overall athlete, he would have won! If he wasn’t first in an event, he was second. From running to hurdles to the long jump, discuss throw and more. In the hurdles I looked at the misses and asked “can he even jump over one of those”? You see they are full size hurdles and most kids in his class either stepped over them or knocked them down when jumping (or trying to jump) over them. But he gracefully loped over each one like a deer, while running faster than anyone and looking at us and smiling as he was racing! All the parents on the hill watching with us were amazed and laughing with us as he was beating everyone and smiling and kind of waving to us as he was doing so. In the long jump, he jumped 8 feet 6 inches which is pretty darn good for someone his size. Anyhow he had a blast and his older brother, due to his good grades, was out all day helping as a Field Day helper. He was very supportive of his brother and looked out for him the whole day. They really do care for each other, despite the brotherly fights they can get into at home.

Now to the beets. After school, Jen came home with us again and Nick came home with the youngest. The misses headed off to Carrie’s to start on the beets. The kids all played until about 6 when Jen’s mom came to pick her up after work. These days parents need help from time to time and we’re always happy to do so. The boys and I arrived at Carrie’s to find the girls boiling 3 giant stock pots of beets. They were now working on the brine. It contained apple cider vinegar, all spice, black pepper, sugar, orange peel, cinnamon sticks cloves and probably something else I didn’t see. After peeling the boiled beets, they put them in this brine and reboiled them before putting them in the jars. First they strained all the stuff from the juice. Anyhow in the end, they had 18 quart jars filled with great tasting beets all sealed up for storage. Lot’s of work for 9 jars for each family. The cool thing is we know where the food came from, how it was grown (no fertilizer or pesticides) and every single ingredient in it. On top of that, the girls had some much needed experience in what has become a lost art, canning. Not many young people do this these days. I was saying I don’t know how they did this 50 or 100 years ago! Even 20 years ago when they used to put wax or paraffin or whatever it was on top of stuff like jelly. You see you can’t let the jars or anything get contaminated as if germs or bacteria get into the food, I guess you can get sick.

Today we’ll be working around here de-cluttering some more of the mess known as our house. I think tonight we’re supposed to go to some other friends for dinner. I think the misses plan is to keep our social life full to keep her mind off her head. I did talk to our doctor yesterday who called from Vail. He told me not to agree to see any of the doctors their attorney wants her to see on the Request for Independent Medical Examiner, as they are all “insurance whores” in his words. I guess this is all the way this process goes but what a racket. I could write 10 pages on what’s going on but I’ll spare you all. Let’s just say it’s a mess. No one, especially insurance companies, want to ever take responsibility for what they say they’ll do when they take your money, kind of like the government! Ha ha, I slipped that one in on ya, didn’t see that coming I’ll bet.

We have lots to do today. I just had a call from Italy that interrupted me, sorry. (like you knew, ha ha ) Before I go, check out some thoughts below on the future of our country or world. I promise it is not political as far as one side vs. the other, just some musings on our situation in general. I put it here in case any of you want to “opt out” and not read on, but you should!

Do any of you remember the “good old days”, I’ve found myself thinking a lot lately about how things used to be when I was a kid or when my Mom was a kid. Looking at our current state of affairs in our nation and around the world, I have come to the conclusion that the good old days are gone. Anyhow read on if you have the time. As I said, I promise, no politics here.

I wrote this because children being born today, in my opinion, will not be able to look back and remember the near future as “the good old days”. As I write this, the US national debt is at $16.2 trillion with unfunded liabilities of $123.3 trillion. With Uncle Ben’s (Ben Bernanke, not the wild rice guy!) QE3 promising to print fiat money perpetually can there be any doubt that the days of the US dollar being the world currency are numbered. Everyone reading this article owes $442,881 of the nation’s debt and liabilities. If your children or grandchildren can’t read yet, please tell them that they also owe $442,881 as well and thank them for supporting our wasteful spending that got us to this point. Source:  http://usadebtclock.com/, in case you don’t believe me!

Well despite the howling chilly wind, the oldest shined at Field Day. He was virtually unchallenged and 1st in 90% of his events, even with his sore arm. He really seems to be coming into his own athletically. We’re happy for him as he was really excited. Jen and her sprained foot came home with us from school yesterday and will do so again today until her Mom gets off work. The youngest went to Nick’s after school and stayed through dinner before arriving home around 7.

The misses head is still whack, nothing else to say. She toughed it out again as much as any human could.

Now onto a little politics as we haven’t had much lately. Despite the mainstream media’s bias towards the big O, Mitt has surged to a 7 point lead nationally. Maybe the American people are just tired of being told whom to vote for. Here’s a few examples of the media bias, and this is just from yesterday!

Universal Studios’ comedy skit lauds Obama, laughs at Romney, with obscene content, foul language,

• OPINION: CNN Editor Applauds Crowley in Memo
• ‘View’ Hosts Takes Religion, Abortion Shots at Ann Romney
• US Weekly Hits Cost of Ann’s Dress, Skips Michelle’s

So first Universal Studios makes fun of Romney while praising Obama, nice, real nice, hmmm

Second, Candy Crowly receives praise? Are you kidding me, dems and repubs alike slammed her one sided favoritism to the big O in the 2nd debate. She thrust herself in as a fact checker supporting O on things like the question of Libya only to have to admit she was wrong the next morning, yet she still receives praise from her editor???

The View, give me a freakin break. Why would anyone go on this show? Whoopi, Joy Behar, Baba WaWa, hmmm. A few days earlier they chit chat with Mrs. O about how romantic the big O is but slam Ann Romeny on everything from abortion to marriage to why her kids didn’t serve in the military to Mitt being a Mormon.

Last, Ann Romeny is slammed by a meaningless publication about the cost of her dress while it turns out Mrs. O’s actually cost more!

This goes on and on as the dems are getting desperate as no matter what they do, they can feel the election slipping away. Meanwhile Eva Longoria, another person who never had a real job, tweeted yesterday the following,

“I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney. You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic tw*t,

Now trust me tw*t doesn’t rhyme with Mitt, it rhymes with swat! Nice, real nice.

One plus for Mitt is early voting has already started in many swing states, we received our ballots yesterday. This means with Mitt where he’s at in the polls, he’ll benefit from this.

No matter how you look at it, the big O flat out lied, again, in the debate. He did not say that the attack in Libya was a terrorist act, (as he said, remember his smug remark “look at the transcript”) what he in fact said was in general terms that America will not stand for “acts of terror”. Two different meanings the administration is now trying to turn into the same. If he said it was a terrorist act, how come he sent the UN Ambassador out on all the Sunday shows saying it was a video that spurred the attack? On top of that, they now seem to be running with this version of the story hoping the more they say it, the more it will be true. Unbelievable.

He’s just so freaking smug and condescending it makes me sick. He struts out on stage trying to make jokes at his opponents expense. He’s done everything in this campaign except what he said he would before he was elected the first time (seems we’re all supposed to forget about that!) and he hasn’t told us one thing he’d do differently in the next 4 years than in the last. His line is just, “we need more time”. Well, we have no more time. Do you honestly think the country can stand 4 more years of the same? I don’t think so, time to give the ball to the other team, no matter which side you’re on. You see although you’d be taking a chance on Mitt, you know what you’d get with the big O, and for 4 years, it just has not worked. Not even the most loyal dem, if they’re really honest with themselves, can say the country is better off.

Oh well, that’s it, can you tell I’ve been saving up?

Today the youngest has Field Day and we’ll be there cheering him on. Hard to believe it’s October 19th, Christmas will be here in 65 days!

Take care, God Bless and have a great day.

Today the oldest has Field Day at school, he’s super excited. He’ll be competing and collecting ribbons from 8:30 until 2pm. Tomorrow the youngest has his big day and the oldest, due to his good grades, gets to help supervise. Mom and I will try to attend as much of each day as possible.

Yesterday the misses doctor called and told her to step up her medication as she needs to get ahead of the pain. So last night I made sure she was taking a pain pill every 4 hours and then again at 5:30 this morning.

I have more phone calls this morning, what’s new. We did receive a notice yesterday that the company (their attorney) the misses used to work for is contesting her medical assessment and wants her to go see their doctor. We may just have to get an attorney, something we had hoped to avoid.

On a more somber note, there were four more attempted abductions of kids yesterday, unbelievable. One in Arvada, about 5 miles north and one on Kipling and C470, about 5 miles south. The other two were across town. I honestly don’t know what this world is coming to. It seems that the incident a few weeks ago has brought out all kinds of predators. Maybe it’s the same guy. On top of that 5 people were murdered yesterday and then the place set on fire. As I said before, I know this happens everywhere but there is more of this going on than usual. In fact the paper said today that violent crime is up nationwide for the first time in 20 years. They’re attributing it to the bad economy. It doesn’t surprise me at all.

I need to run as it’s trash day and the oldest guy wants to go early to help set up at school for the big day. We had 5 kids come home with us yesterday as 2 different family’s had asked if we could take a kid or two home with us for awhile as they were busy. Being the good friends we are, we (the misses) said yes.

We had a couple of big pieces of our cottonwood tree in the back yard come down in the wind the night before last. Our neighbor had a huge, probably 50 or 60 feet high, tree come down onto his house blocking both cars from getting out of his garage. The wind was pretty bad. We also had the furnace serviced yesterday and found out our humidifier was never working. It’s working now!

The misses and I are on a mission to clean out the house and de-clutter. She’s convinced that we have a musty smell due to all the clothes we have stored upstairs. She could be right! This will have to wait until the weekend.

Stay positive, stay healthy, and most of all stay safe. God Bless

Time sure goes fast, hard to believe today’s post is number 650! Hope you’ve enjoyed them.

The misses head (and she hates me to write this) is just killing her. The doctor said it would be worse for 4 to 6 weeks but she had no idea it would be this bad. There’s nothing we can do about it which is so frustrating. She gets no sleep and no break during the day. The only consolation is this is supposed to end in a few more weeks, they better be right. I feel worthless as there’s nothing I can do to help her, it’s a bad situation.

Yesterday we did go to a small town near Boulder to reconnect with one of my close friends who owns a few restaurants. First we stopped at our friends farm and picked up boxes of beets, carrots, chard, arugula, spinach, lettuce, onions and garlic. All were picked early in the morning and are so fresh it’s amazing. We also grabbed a few of the remaining tomato’s (most were killed during the freeze last week) and some pea tendrils. These are the top shoots off pea plants that taste so good. The misses and her friend are canning beets later this week.

Tomorrow is field day for the oldest and Friday is his brothers. Both boys are excited. The misses has an appointment at the dermatologist on Thursday at lunch as they called her wanting to discuss her proposal to remodel their office. You might remember she gave them a proposal a few months ago. It’ll be nice if this job comes through.

After loading up at the farm we went to Brad’s restaurant in Niwot for a leisurely lunch outside which included risotto with pork belly, tuscan bean soup, fresh greens sauteed in garlic and oil and some fantastic gluten free desserts. Throw in a bottle of nice white wine and it was a lunch that reminded us of being in Europe in the fall. We normally don’t have wine during the middle of the day but anything to help the misses head.

We made it home to be greeted by a message that they moved the time from 11am to 4pm, when they were putting Bunkie down. The misses thought she should go but didn’t want to as it would upset her. I stepped in and told her of she didn’t want to be there, don’t go. This was the best decision for her and she stopped by afterwards to offer her sympathy. Here’s a comment from Grandma Annette who just went through the same thing.