A Year of Change

What a great holiday! I’m sure everyone understands the importance of the day and just what it means, if you don’t, I suggest you pick up a bible. I really haven’t delved much into religion as I think that it’s pretty much each persons right to believe in whatever they want. I would however suggest, that if you do not believe in Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you do pick up a bible. If that’s too much for you, start with a book by a really smart man named C.S. Lewis and read his book Mere Christianity. You might know his name from the Narnia movies but he was foremost a noted author who chronicled his journey from being a non believer to a christian. The interesting thing about his books (he wrote many on the subject) is that he lays out proof that even the staunchest atheist finds hard to ignore. For us, embracing God provides an inner peace that can be found nowhere else. I’ll stop here as we’ve never been ones to espouse our views on God or religion as we think that’s a personal thing but we are happy to discuss it with you if you like. In any case, Happy Easter on this holy day to each and everyone of you. Know that you all are in our prayers (us and the boys) daily.

Happy Birthday to Grandma Dixie!!!!

Now onto the day, yesterday started out fine but by around noon the oldest one was melting down a bit (after 2 cinnamon rolls) so I suggested we call Jennifer to see if she could hang out for the day. This made him feel better and 10 minutes later he and I were in the car and off to her Grandma’s to pick her up. We loaded her bike up and headed home where they began to play and alas, everything was now fine. They road bikes for a bit and we let them go down to the park on their own as long as they took Mom’s cell phone with them. He checked in on schedule (too bad that nowadays you have to have your kids “check in” every 30 minutes due to safety reason) and then called and asked if they could stay at Uncle T and Aunt B’s for awhile. Of course I said yes. A bit later, we played football in the front yard with the youngest and his friend. Jen, who plays softball, has quite the arm and can really throw a football!

All this time Mom was busy planting flowers in the front yard that she had bought earlier in the day with her Echter’s gift card from Christmas. In a few hours she transformed a pile of dead grass and flowers into a colorful Spring like setting outside our door. Soon it was 5;30 and time to feed the kids so the misses and I whipped up some dinner and we all sat down to eat. Then it was time to color some Easter eggs with the boys and Jen sitting down and getting busy mixing and dipping 24 more eggs. It was just about then when her Mom showed up to pick her up. We were all pretty tired from the day and it wasn’t long before it was bedtime.

It’s just about 5 am now as Lacey the lab was barking non stop at 4:15. I had no choice but to get up and feed her or she’d wake everyone. I guess I’ll go to the gym since I’m up or maybe I’ll see f I can fall back asleep. We’re all going to the 8am service at church and then later we’ll be up at Grandma’s hunting Easter eggs. Word has it that he’s hiding the eggs up there this year. Later in the day Grandma will join us for an Easter dinner of ham, scalloped potato’s, and a bunch of other good food. It’s just us and Grandma as Aunt B has her parents coming over.

So, take care, enjoy the day and once again, God Bless.

Thankfully the weekend is here. It was a busy week and now we have Easter tomorrow. Last night we went out to dinner with our 4 doctor friends. It was Chelsea’s birthday and we all had a nice time. 3 out of 4 of them are running the Boston Marathon a week from Monday which is quite a feat. Keep your fingers crossed as it looks like the misses is going to get the design job for the dermatology office. The only hick up is they have a new owner at their building and the lease is up in a year and they need to see if the rent is going up a bunch. They’re pretty sure they’re staying since they’re one of the largest tenants in the building so the new owner will probably do whatever to keep them, plus they have no where to go. Chelsea also wants to hire the misses to help with the decorating of their new house that they’re moving into next month. Looks like the misses is now officially a designer, we’ll have to get some cards made!

The boys colored Easter eggs with Daniella, our favorite babysitter, while we were at dinner. The wholes house smells like eggs after Mom boiled 24 for the coloring fest. I’m off to New York Tuesday morning for a quick 48 hour trip. Today the youngest is supposed to have a soccer game at 9am but last night when we got home we had to perform some minor surgery on his toe. It seems that while we were at the doctor a few days ago, and he was at soccer, he took of his shoes after practice and got a large splinter in his baby toe that got infected. No one noticed until last night and we had to get the splinter and puss out so it wouldn’t get any worse. Boy can he be loud when he wants to, he screamed at the top of his lungs as it hurt pretty bad. On top of that, it turns out the oldest one has strep throat! We had taken him to the doctor 2 days earlier and they finally called yesterday to say he had strep. We’re having Grandma over for Easter tomorrow but don’t worry as he’s on antibiotics now and won’t be contagious we’re told.

It’s hard to believe it’s already Easter, where does the time go? Soon it’ll be the misses birthday, so start saving your pennies!

I could go on and on about politics (you know me) but guess I’ll give you all a break today. We all sat around at dinner though, democrats and republicans, reciting law after law that has come out that makes no sense to anyone. It was eye opening to see a mixed group of people all shocked at the governments never ending implementation of useless law after law. Think about it (I know I said I was not going into politics but just go with me for a second as this is just a general observation) every congressman and senator are now calling for an investigation into the GSA employees who spent $820,000 on their trip to Las Vegas and then mocked being told not to spend our taxpayer money in video’s! It was a blatant, in your face, we don’t care what the laws are, we’re doing what we want, event. The point is every congressman and senator are now on their high horse investigating waste in the government which, duh, has been going on forever! Where were they last week or last year? Last week it was Trayvon Martin, this week a government agency spending money that’s not theirs.  Oh and by the way, 90% of black kids are killed by other black kids, not white hispanic people. What is a white hispanic person anyhow, the guy was hispanic. But of course that doesn’t matter to the race baiters like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton does it? All they want to do is get their faces on tv. I’d better stop as I feel myself drifting into politics, ha ha.

It’s 5:49 and I’m dressed and ready to go to the gym so I’d better go while everyone is still sleeping. We’re having ham tomorrow as cornish game hens went up over 100%! Ham is up 45% but don’t fret because the President says the economy is improving even though last month was the record 40th month in a row with record government deficits. Alright I’ll stop, sorry, really, I just get so frustrated at the spin they spew out that most Americans just gobble up because they said so on tv. It’s like they believe if they say it over and over, everyone will believe it even though it isn’t true. I guess they keep doing this because it works. Sorry sorry, I just can’t seem to stop myself so I’d better go.

Take care, Happy Easter and God Bless you all.

Most of the morning was spent getting ready to leave town at 1pm for our 3 o’clock doctor appointment. We were stuck on the highway for about 20 minutes while they were scaling some rocks (taking them down) in one section near Georgetown. We arrived just before 3 and after 20 minutes of paperwork, we were taken back to a room.

First off, the same as last time, Dr. Corenman’s assistant doctor comes in and does an exam which consists of an interview, some new x-rays, and checking the misses neck and back out physically. While waiting I was reading Dr. Corenman’s book on the back and spine that is written for other doctors. It happened to be lying on the counter. Eric, (Dr. Corenman’s assistant doctor) remembered us from our last visit and we shared some stories about our boys. After 30 minutes with him, Don (Dr. C) came in. He talked to us about the whole story since the injury to date, performed some tests on the misses, read through her history and manipulated her neck in different ways. Both doctors kept coming and going looking at x-rays and the mri we brought with us with his 2 nurses. We had 4 people 100% dedicated to the misses and her issues for 3 hours! The mri we brought from workmans comp was, according to Eric, horrible. He said Dr.C wasn’t going to be happy when he saw this. That must be why they took about a half a dozen x-rays. Without going into all the details, we now have a clear complete understanding of where the misses is at and what to do, step by step, to get her problem solved. We’ll start with more injections, this time in the proper place, hopefully Monday in Summit County which is about 30 minutes closer drive for us than Vail. If that doesn’t work, then some kind of epidermal that does something and if that doesn’t work, then some procedure where they inflate each disc to see or do something. Now if option 1 does work, then we also have some options there such as burning or cauterizing the end of the nerves so the misses will have no pain. The headaches could also stop all together with injections in the proper place. Lots going on. The good news is, for as bad as the misses neck is, she has no neck pain! She is in for some lifestyle changes though, as from this day forward, no impact activities like running. We also need to sell or trade in our road bikes (the ones like ten speeds where you’re hunched over) for mountain bikes where the misses will be more upright. We also need a new bed (agggh $$$$) and she should use only a thin pillow. Swimming, biking and the elliptical are all good as is hiking and walking. It all comes down to genetics for the misses and her discs and surrounding tissues. We asked if workmans comp will try to say this was pre-exisiting to get out of paying and Dr. C said that he has her records from a few years ago and can prove that it’s not. He said he’s in court all the time and not to worry about it as he’d handle it.

We walked out, with the misses headache up a bit, but this was intentional through the manipulation so they could isolate and determine the actual source of her pain. So while she was a bit sore, we finally have some answers and a sense of relief that we now know exactly what is going on and have a plan on how to fix it. Lucky that I decided to pay out of network on my own a few years ago to go see Dr C or he wouldn’t have the records to validate that this is not pre-exisiting and was caused by their treatment on the misses. Also lucky that I had met Don at the first wine dinner I ever did in this business and have stayed friends for the past 11 years. Of course we took him and Eric a few bottles of wine as usual.

Say what you will about medical care in this country but there’s a big difference out there. In all the previous appointments we’ve had over the past 3 months, the most any doctor spent diagnosing the misses was about 10 minutes! As I said earlier, we had a team of top doctors and nurses totally focused and dedicated only to her for 3 hours! It’s frustrating to know that if the system allowed it, (meaning people didn’t have to be rushed in and out), and if all doctors were as educated and cared as much as these guys did, we could have been a lot further down the road to recovery sooner than we are now. This has nothing to do with health care for everyone but rather the health care system that forces doctors to get through so many patients in a day to get paid. Excessive malpractice insurance costs and regulations are the root of the problem, not the fact that everyone doesn’t have free care, at least according to the doctors. I knew this was the right thing to do (getting her up to see Dr. Corenman) as we can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Time for me to get to the gym so I have to run but the misses can tell you more when you talk with her. Thanks to Uncle T and Aunt B for helping with the boys again! We couldn’t have gone to all the docs this week without your help.

Take care,

I think the misses is still doing better but she could be in pain and just be keeping it to herself. Today around noon we’re off to the world famous Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail for a 3pm appointment with Dr. Corenman. We’ve been waiting a month to get in and we were lucky as he’s usually a 3 month or more wait. We should be home around 5:30 and thanks in advance to Uncle T for again getting the boys…..Oops….We both thought the other had already asked Uncle T.  I’ll have to call this morning:-)

We didn’t see any comments from yesterday’s post (the last part on radiation) which is ok but hopefully you are not just brushing it off as “the sky is falling” jibberish. I’ll leave it alone but it is real, even though you cannot see or smell it. Enough said.

The misses is waiting to find out if she got the job redesigning the doctor’s office but it looks good. She’s still off work for another 2 weeks at least which is good as she’ll need to quit when they want her to go back. She just cannot do that kind of work anymore. The snow is all melted and it’ll be 70 today which I’m sure will be good for the grass.

There’s lots of things going on in politics but I’ll leave that alone too as it’s really all the same stuff. Besides there’s no changing anyone’s opinions anyhow. That’s the sad thing about politics today, no matter what side you’re on, you are not going to change your mind even if there’s reason to, that’s indisputable in black and white. If you like Obama, nothing is going to make you change your mind, and if you don’t, the same is true. We are all so polarized, just like the politicians in D.C., that I don’t see us ever coming together. Too bad my dad is gone as he’s the kind of guy that could have made people come together. Hopefully something someday will bring us all together. History shows war is about the only thing that unites the country, hopefully it won’t take that!

Oh well time to go, I’d like to go to the gym but don’t think I have time as it’s already 6am. Maybe I can get in 20 minutes downstairs on the elliptical machine. Take care, wish us luck in Vail and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Here’s your quote for the day,

Good morning.  Yesterday, we got the boys up early and dropped them off at Uncle T’s on our way to the pain management doctor.  The drive was slow in the slushy snow and wow was I ever glad to have the Mister as my chauffeur.  Once there I opted for local anesthesia  and no IV drip.  The doc was fine with that since I handled it fine last time.  After they wheeled me in to the o.r. they used an x-ray to position the the needles and in they went. I had 4 the first time…waited 15minutes to see if they did the trick and then went back in for 4 more in the back of my head.  The doc pushed on the nerves to check if that was indeed where he needed to place the needles and just a few minutes later I was done.  My headache went from an 8-9 to a 5-6.  Oh, happy day.  I just took it easy last night and went to bed early.

Enough about me….the boys had fun with Uncle T. As usual and they too went to bed early.  The youngest fell asleep at about 7 and the oldest stayed up until 8:30 or 9 reading his newly downloaded book…The Hunger Games.  I took the boys to see The Hunger Games on Monday (the last day of spring break).  When the oldest came home yesterday he really wanted to read the book and check out the differences between the book and the movie…so we downloaded it onto his Nook and away he went.

The youngest is reading one of the book in the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series…he even took the book to school to read in his free time. Yea!!

Today we have no plans other than all of the calls the Mister needs to make for work. Tomorrow, we go to Vail for the appointment with the neck and spine specialist and we will once again need to hit up Uncle T and Aunti B to pick up the kiddos from school and keep them until 5;30 or 6.  Are you up for it???

I am handing off to the Mister…have a great day….

Ok, I’m dying to dive into politics and cut and paste noted Nobel Prize winning scholars who say Obama should be embarrassed about telling the Supreme Court it has no right to overturn his health care bill. Who the fu$k does he think he is? Oh well, nothing he does surprises me anymore, it’s just sad, really really sad.

Anyhow in the interest of providing some news that actually affects all of us and will help us be healthier, here’s a reprint about the radiation from the disaster in Japan. You see while we’ve all forgotten about it, the radiation is now everywhere in the Pacific ocean and all along the northwest coast. Our government tells us it’s safe but independent studies show this is flat out not true.

Read for yourself, this is not political and you need to know what’s really going on, please please read on,

5.)  MEAT:  If a animal eats any leafy vegetable all along the West Coast, that animal has consumed radiation, and is poisoned.  This is any animal from cows, pigs, goats, sheep to wild deer and other game.

If you eat the above foods from areas with high radiation levels, you are eating radiation and feeding it to your children. Slowly the radiation levels within your body will build up.  This is PERMANENT.

Infant mortality rates across the United States have increased by more than 35% since the nuclear disaster, according to a court statement by Dr. with independent scientist Leuren Moret, MA, PhD.  A study published in The International Journal of Medicine indicates that more than 20,000 deaths right here in North America can be directly attributed to the release of radioactive material from Fukushima.

Radioactive isotopes of the type released from Fukushima have a half life of 30,000 years.  This means that we must permanently change the way we prepare our food.

• Wash your food with soap and rinse it in filtered water. 
• Be aware of the origins of your vegetables, fish, game and seafood.
• Keep abreast of radiation levels to help monitor where your food is acquired.
• Use only filtered water for drinking, cooking and ice.

So, what do you think? Do you think this is a bunch of hogwash and are you going to just ignore it? Is it because you can’t see or smell it? It’s real people, debris that’s radioactive has washed up on the shores of Washington, Oregon and California and been quickly picked up by people in full radiation suits, does that bother you? Only you can decide whether or not this is a real threat to you and your health. I’m glad we don’t live in California because we’d move. This isn’t a republican or democrat thing, this is a whole world thing.

Here in Colorado we filter all our water anyhow and have been doing so for sometime. A year or so ago a doctor and his family took a long time to shop at the misses store and when she was helping them, it turned out it was taking so long as he’d buy nothing from California, no veggies , dairy or meat. Since then we too have been avoiding everything from California. It’s easy to see why the government doesn’t tell anyone the truth, can you imagine what’d happen to our economy if all of a sudden everyone stopped buying stuff from California?

I’ll stop now but you need to decide for yourself. This isn’t me ranting, it’s the truth from scientists, let’s see, eat and drink radiated food or not, hmm, it’s a pretty easy decision for our family.

In closing, how about the man (or transgender woman) who will be competing in the Ms. Universe Pageant, WOW!

Take care, have a great day and buy a water filter, they’re only a couple of hundred bucks and we can tell you what to get if you want one. God Bless,

We leave at 7am for more injections for the misses this morning. Thanks to Uncle T for getting up early to have the boys over for 45 minutes and then taking them to school, it’s a big help! We’re hoping this helps, last time she got some relief and we’re at the point where we’ll try anything so we have our fingers crossed. This time they’re going to give her 2 shots and then have her wait 20 minutes and if the headache doesn’t go down or away (yea right) they’re planning on giving her some kind of 3rd injection. Later in the day, around 2pm, the misses has another appointment with the Concentra doctor where we need to get a few referrals for an appointment Thursday.

In between she is presenting her design board to the dermatology office that she has designed a new reception area for. I hope they don’t “cheap out” and go with her plan. It looks great and the office really needs it but those doctors on a whole are pretty cheap!

As I said, the boys head back to school this morning. They’re not too excited but once they get there, they have fun and enjoy it. We have a bit of snow this morning, quite a change from 2 days ago when we were sunning ourselves by the creek lathering each other up with sunscreen. We really need some moisture though as the paper said this morning that this is the driest April 1st as far as levels in reservoirs go, ever recorded. It looks like it’s going to be a really dry summer, not good. Out here in the west they say water is more valuable than gold. This year I’m sure that’ll be true!

Mom’s in the shower and the youngest just joined me on the couch. Our tv remotes have died again. This happens every few months and we just have to go down to Comcast and they give us new ones. Time to run as I need to print out some work to take with me to the misses doctor. I just finished up our annual Spring pre sell and came in $250,000 above goal. This is our most successful event of its kind ever. I should get some kind of bonus or major award (that’s from the movie The Christmas Story, remember the leg lamp?) but that’s not very likely.

Time to run, I need to finish up the laundry I have going and jump in the shower. Hope you all are well, if we have any change with the misses, we’ll be sure to call today. God Bless.

I woke up early and headed to the gym and made it home by about 7. The misses and the youngest were just getting up while I was drying off the car from the car wash. We ate breakfast and Mom made sandwiches for our picnic lunch later in the day up at the creek in Boulder.

We hit the road by 10am and arrived up at Boulder Creek by 10:30. It was already half way full with people, mostly college kids, sunning themselves, jogging, riding bikes and taking walks. We set up camp next to the river and the oldest nudged me and then whistled “thwee thwoo” at two college girls in bikini’s next to us laying on towels. He’s growing up fast! The boys started exploring in the creek which was very cold from the Spring run off. It wasn’t long before they found a rope swing hanging from a tree over the creek. The youngest was the first to grab it and swing out over the creek and eventually fell in up to his waist. This went on for awhile and soon some girls with their Mom joined in. The youngest and I walked up the creek a bit and as we were walking back we saw the oldest swing out and lose his grip and fall sideways into the creek. He of course got up saying he was fine (as there were girls around) but I could tell he dinged his knee. He soon shook it off as he took off his soaking shirt and was back at it. Some college girls in short shorts and tank tops decided to join in, oh oh, here we go. One of the girls had hairy legs and armpits (Boulder of course) and the misses and I were waiting for the youngest to blurt out “how come you’re all hairy?” Luckily he didn’t.

We ate some lunch while the boys played some more in the water making rock statues by balancing rocks on top of each other. We were getting ready to go when the oldest slipped climbing up a rock and fell to the ground doing a flip and hitting his other knee! This time I could tell he was a bit more hurt. He held it in but asked me if I could help him walk to the car while stifling any tears from the pain. So now both legs were banged up. While we were there our friends called and invited us over for bbq chicken and ribs. The boys were super excited so we accepted. After getting home and taking the tent from the front yard apart and carrying it up to the oldest ones room and putting it back together again, (so they could camp indoors) we loaded up and headed over to their house. 4 or 5 hours later after good food and lots of playing,  we loaded up to head home. The boys are still off school today but go back tomorrow. It was a good fun filled busy day and I’m sure they slept well.

It’s supposed to snow a bit today but right now it’s not too bad outside. I have a bunch of calls today (what’s new) while the boys will get in the last day of Spring Break. Next week I’m in New York for I think 3 days, I’ll have to check my schedule.

Hopefully the misses is getting some good sleep right now. Time for me to run as it’s 5:30 and time to get some exercise. Have a great week, take care and stay safe. God Bless.

Supposed to be in the mid 80’s today and them rain and snow tomorrow. You have to love Colorado. They say if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes! It is also supposed to be windy today which is bad news for the firefighters trying to put out that bad fire that was started by a State controlled burn. Some people are really upset how this got started, rightfully so.

Yesterday we had a soccer game at 10:30 in the morning and they lost about 15 to 1 or something like that, we lost count. You see the other team plays year round and practices 3 times a week. It’s kind of a cult mentality. I personally don’t think 8 year olds should be that committed to any game. Our boys just have too much going on. In fact, tonight they have swim team.

The misses neck is still no better but I did just ask her as I was getting up, how she feels. She said not so bad, so I told her to stay in bed and lay flat. Now she can’t go through life just laying flat, but we do finally get to see the top doc in the country, up in Vail, this Thursday. They  (workmans comp) also called and have approved another injection in two different discs.

Ok, let’s get back to a happy place, today we’re going up the Boulder for a picnic and to play in the creek. I made curry coconut halibut for dinner last night which turned out to be pretty good. The boys asked me to set up the tent in the front yard so they could play in it. They lobbied hard to sleep in it last night but it’s not safe to let them spend the night out there all alone so we had to say no. Oh well, they’ll play in it again today before the rain and snow arrive late tonight.

Easter’s a week from today! Get out your egg coloring kits and Easter baskets. It’s a great holiday as it kind of kicks off Spring. Take care and God Bless,

First off, how come no one told me the article from yesterday’s post wasn’t there? I just noticed and don’t understand as it was when I finished yesterday. I’ll make sure to get it up soon. I guess you all were out buying your Mega Millions tickets instead, so who won? I don’t think it was us but we haven’t checked our tickets yet. Either way, win or lose, it’s ok. The misses and I were driving back from Boulder yesterday with the boys who were in the back singing and we looked at each other and said, we’ve already won the lottery! You see, we have a great marriage, two great boys and are pretty healthy, except for the misses neck. Sure we would like to have an extra $300 million, (the prize after taxes) who wouldn’t? But we’re very lucky even though we have no money.

I did cut the tip of my middle finger off yesterday, guess that wasn’t very lucky. The oldest had asked for my knife to cut open a toy in the car and I noticed he was cutting towards himself so I said to let me do it. Well my phone rang and the guy at Starbucks was handing me my coffee at drive through and bam, I sliced it almost all the way off. I had to ask the Starbucks guy for a bunch of napkins as it was a real bleeder. I held pressure on it until I arrived home and had the misses put a few bandaids on it. Oh well, I’ll live.

I took the boys to the indoor pool but when we arrived everyone was getting out as it turned out someone pooped in the pool! That was enough for us, we turned straight around and walked out to the car. On top of it all, it was so crowded.

Today we have a soccer game at 10:30 and then I think we’re headed up to a creek as it’s going to be 85 degrees outside! The boys are all dressed sitting on the couch with me watching Dennis The Menace, how appropriate as either of them could have played the staring role. We stopped at Target yesterday to buy some new shorts and shirts for them and they’re both in their new favorite outfits which of course they also had on yesterday.

Time to run. I’m going to try to get that article copied here but if you don’t see it, I’ll have to re-write it tomorrow.

Take care, God Bless,

Last night we had chukar for dinner and it was great. The misses wrapped it in bacon (what’s not good wrapped in bacon!) and it turned out pretty good. The kids said it was a little chewy but I think we left it in the oven just a minute or two too long. It tasted just about the same as game hen. Good to know everyone likes it.

Today rather than going into what we did yesterday or how I feel about the direction of the Country or politics, I want to share an article with you all that I came across the other day. I think it will resonate with everyone in some way or another, no matter which side of the political spectrum you’re on. I pretty much agree with everything except I am pro choice. So, here ya go, please read it and pass it on.

Take care and God Bless,

This is getting nationwide attention. Where is Tawas City , MI ? Actually, it is on Lake Huron and has a population of Just over 2,000!! Go figure.

WOW, this pretty much sums up what we have turned into as a Country. I don’t know about you but things sure seem out of whack. I often wonder what my grandparents would think about what’s going on today. I also worry what it’ll be like when my kids are my age. Will they have any freedoms left or will everything they do be regulated? Will they live in a socialistic society for the supposed good of the people”? When or better yet, how will we stop a few who feel entitled from coming up with rules and laws for all of us that most of us don’t agree with? It’s pretty scary if you think about it.

Take care and have a great weekend.