A Year of Change

There’s a nice steady shower outside at 6am this morning. They said we might get a little bit of snow mixed it but it looks like all rain. I covered all the plants in the garden last night and took others in containers into the garage. Our storm is supposed to last until tomorrow afternoon. So far it doesn’t seem as bad as they made it out to be on the news, and we sure need the moisture after four days of 80 degree weather.

I’m trying to stay off politics for a while but it’s so hard when our President is already in campaign mode rather than trying to fix the economy. I guess it’s just the sign of the times but to me it seems most politicians are more interested in keeping their jobs than actually tackling any of the tough choices we need to make as a country. My mother in law (who I disagree with usually politically) said the other day that California is not going to get out of their mess until we raise taxes. Now I don’t necessarily agree with this premise (I’m more of a cut spending type guy) but at least she, who you all know is 80 years old, has the wisdom to suggest a “fix” that no politician in CA will take because it’s unpopular and will hurt their re-election chances. The point is, our elected officials need to make a choice, cut spending or raise taxes, your choice, pick one or the other but just do not sit there and do nothing. Ok, I’ll stop now, enough political musings for the day.

The misses just woke up and came down. We didn’t see each other much yesterday and today she works the late shift again, I think 2 until 9:45. It looks like her income is going to go down this summer as she’ll have to cut back her hours with the boys out of school. We’ve tried to find a solution but it doesn’t make much sense for her to work for $10 an hour and pay a babysitter $10 an hour. The littlest one had a great time at the zoo yesterday and the oldest passed 3 levels of music on the recorder. This is good and bad and he was very proud, as he should be, but then confided it me that it was easy and he didn’t even have to study! You get the point here, things comes too easy to him as he’s pretty smart. It would actually be good for him to fail now so he understands that everything in life won’t always come easy, better now than when he’s 20!

We had soccer practice last night and the boys scrimmaged the girls. They both practice next to each other on the same field and occasionally they play against each other. The oldest played really well and the boys pulled out a 3 to 2 victory. One of these days the girls are going to win one which will devastate the boys. The girls coach, who we know from school as she’s the librarian, told me the girls never play so hard as when they play the boys!

Well that’s about it, I have “Day in Denver” meeting tonight at school as I am the one (as Mom’s working) who will be joining the oldest on his field trip on the 20th. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do but I guess that’s why they have the meeting. So time to run as it’s fast approaching 7am and the kids will be up shortly. Of course we’ll need to wake them,  otherwise they’d sleep right on through the morning. Looks like the rain has turned to a sleet now and it’s coming down pretty good, this is actually better as it’ll soak into the grass more, rather than just run off. Colorado in May, they say if you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and it’ll change, you gotta love it.

Have a great day and take care,

Today our youngest has his field trip to the zoo. Mom managed to switch shifts with another girl at work so she’ll be going to the zoo from 9 until 2 and then to work from 3 until 9:30 pm, sounds like a long day. Yesterday was really windy here but warm. I guess there’s a lot of fire danger in the mountains, hope nothing bad happens. Today is supposed to be fairly warm with rain and maybe snow coming in tomorrow.

It’s Mom’s first day back at work and she’s not looking forward to it. Last night was game night and the 4 of us played the game of “Life”. Before that the boys played basketball outside. L.O.L. was in the hospital all day as she had problems with her oxygen. This is the second time in the past month and both times she had vodka drinks with the next door neighbors the night before, hmmmm. Finally the misses told her last night that if she’s going to have a drink now and then, she needs to drink wine, not vodka! L.O.L thanked her saying she didn’t put the two together, drinking the night before and then having trouble the next day breathing. So with her in the hospital for tests all day, (they of course found nothing wrong) Bunkie was up at our house for most of the day. On top of all this, the night before (when L.O.L. had drinks at the neighbors), the neighbor lady said she’d give Bunkie his shot. Well it turns out that she bought the wrong size syringes and gave the little dog a triple dose of insulin which could have killed him! After my wife found out, she called the vet who said to skip the morning shot and wait until the night. The misses also had to go buy the correct size syringes. How’s that for drama yesterday!

I just took a break to run the oldest to school for him to take his recorder (a kind of flute instrument) test but the teacher wasn’t there yet. So we’ll wait for 5 or 10 minutes and I’ll load both boys up and head out again. (Mom’s showering getting ready to go to the zoo.)

We have soccer tonight and I think (hope) this is the last week. I have a feeling we have one more week for both boys to make up for missed games due to snow. Hopefully I’m wrong!

Not much else going on except the daily grind (try to pay bills, etc. boring stuff) and making sure the kids get some good exercise. I’m not sure what we’ll do for dinner but I’ll need to find something as it’s too expensive to go out.

Gotta run as it’s time to try to get the boys back to school early for his music test.

Have a great day and God Bless,

It’s a lovely spring morning here in Colorado. Our malamute is calling (howling) for his pack…that would be, the kids, the Mister and myself. I love to hear him…however at 6:00 a.m. I am not sure the neighbors are too thrilled. The woodpecker is just as loud, so if and when the neighbors are awakened they can’t blame it all on our furry fellow.

Mother’s Day was really enjoyable. First thing in the morning our youngest climbed into bed with a bag full of goodies he made at school for me. I took the dog and our oldest boy for a walk while Dad worked out on the elliptical. Our youngest didn’t want to go if he couldn’t ride his bike, so he opted to stay with Dad and work on a project. I had a great conversation and wonderful one on one time with my son while we exercised our four legged family members. When we got home from the walk the Mister loaded up the crew and took them grocery shopping for a surprise dinner while I prepared a chili relleno casserole and a fruit platter to take to Grandma’s for brunch. Uncle T made bacon, sausage and cinnamon rolls and we all had a wonderful time at Grandma’s.

After brunch we were off to get ready for flag football. Grandma joined us and we had a fun time watching the game, although we don’t quite understand the rules of “Flag football”, it was great to see the kids having such a good time. Of course it was the hottest game of the year and all of the adults got a bit too much sun.

Dinner was fantastic! Hubby cooked muscles in wine and garlic and mini lobster tails with butter and garlic..Delicious. I am sure our breath will be appreciated by all we talk with today. The Mister cleaned up the kitchen while I went down to L.O.L’s. She had fallen and cut her shin…she had gauze and duct tape on as a band aid, so I came home and retrieved our first aid kit to redo her injury.

The kids had a hard time winding down after their bath and shower. We’ve said this before…they are like puppies when they get out of the water.

Today Dad has a lot of work and I am enjoying my last day off by volunteering at school and watching a Mad Science program I set up as part of an enrichment program for the 3rd grade class. I hope it goes well.

Time to get breakfast going and lunches made…

God bless and enjoy your Monday

LLF

Just exactly what makes a woman a mother? And I don’t mean, the person who gave you life, I mean what encompasses the meaning of the word mother? There are many women in today’s World that are not mothers in any sense of the word. There are others, like my mother in law Dixie, who embodies the word mother in every sense of the word. Then there’s those that had to make painful and difficult decisions, putting their child’s best interest first rather than caring about themselves. In my wife’s case, she considers herself very lucky to have two mothers that both care and love her very much. Not being a woman, I can only imagine, but to me the real work which earns a woman the title of “mother” begins after the child is born.

We fathers have our own challenges, but it seems that Mom is the one who the kids always run to for comfort, is always at fault, takes the brunt of any conflict, usually gets stuck with most (if not all) of the cleaning, cooking, laundry, taking care of the pets the kids promised to take care of, and on top of that, also has to take care of the father. In our home, Mom is the glue which keeps us all together. I don’t mean financially or even emotionally but she has this unspoken presence that binds our family together.

Each of have our own stories from growing up but in my case, my Mom was the mother, father, cook, cleaner, banker, chauffeur, chief bottle washer, etc. Now we had some tough times, but looking back, there’s nothing I’d change about my childhood. Everything that happens to you when you’re growing up goes into making you who you are today. Under this logic, we can now praise and thank our Mom’s for all our successes and blame them for our failures. You see, Mom, sometimes you just can’t win! Now being serious for a moment, being a Mom I’m sure is rewarding in many ways but it can also be one of the most thankless jobs out there. I wouldn’t trade being a father for anything and I’m sure my wife, and all you mothers out there wouldn’t trade being a mom either, but I’m sure glad I’m the dad and she’s the mom!

So from me, I just want to say thank you to my Mom and to all the mothers out there that are part of our family and made each of us who we are today. We’re very lucky to have each and every one of you as mothers, mother in laws, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. Today is the one day of the year when you are to be recognized and thanked for all your hard work. So today when you’re doing the dishes after the party, or making the food, or putting bandaids on scraped knees or giving the kids a bath and fighting to get them to go to sleep tonight, take comfort in knowing that you are appreciated.

Now on to the day, soccer was painful yesterday, not the games themselves, but the commute to and from each game. For me and the oldest, it took almost an hour to drive almost half the way to Cheyenne Wyoming (guess it wasn’t that far but it was a 3rd of the way anyhow) for his game. His team and he in particular, played really well. It was zero zero at halftime but we lost 3 to zip. Our goalie suffered an injury early in the second half so the oldest was “subbed” in for him. The goals scored were actually not his fault but that of his team mates who didn’t let him get the ball. (long story but we have a few kids who are real ball hogs and hurt the team more than help it) Anyhow we finished up about 12:30 and headed home on the highway. We arrived home at 1:30 and pulled in at the same time as Mom and the littlest one who had just finished up their game and a quick trip to Target. Later in the day, the misses pointed out I had super red knees. I didn’t notice but it seems an hour in the Colorado sun, sitting watching soccer without sunscreen, had turned my pasty white winter knees into bright red flesh hot to the touch. At least we remembered to get sunscreen all over the boys.

The rest of the day was consumed by a brief nerf war and the kids playing with the neighbor boys. We cooked up some chicken legs for the boys and the misses and I had some super hot green chili made by one of her friends the day before. This batch was so hot, we had to try to dilute it with chicken stock which didn’t really do much except water it down. We all fell asleep pretty quick and are rested for today’s celebration.

We’re off to my Mom’s at 11am for a brunch as we have football at 1pm. The rest of the afternoon will most likely consist of the all the neighborhood kids playing together and maybe some more planting.

In closing I need to say a special thank you to the love of my life and our boys Mom. You see she does a fantastic job loving and taking care of all three of us “males”. She puts up with every toilet seat always left up, clothes all over the floor, (it seems none of us can use a clothes hamper) , drinking right out of the milk carton, and all the other things real men do! She doesn’t get enough credit or praise for all she does, but she is truly amazing and we love her very much, we’re very blessed as a family.

So to all of you, we’ll be thinking of each of you (and try to call you all today) and hope you enjoy your day.

Stay safe, healthy and thankful for all you have and as our oldest says, peace out!

After a few hours of hard work, our garden is finally planted. It’s not real big but you’d be surprised how much food you can get from a 6X4 foot bed. We planted tomato’s, cherry and 4th of July (these are called this because the first harvest is ready by the 4th of July), squash, zucchini and yellow, peppers, jalapeno and anaheim, a bunch of strawberries and 4 or 5 different herbs. The boys want to add watermelon and pumpkins today.

We have 2 soccer games today with the oldest boys being about an hour and 1/2 away. We’re going to try to carpool as it’ll cost $40, or more, in gas to take him. If we can’t find someone to go with, we might just not go as that’s just too much money these days. The littlest ones game is in the usual place about 5 minutes away. Both are at the same time so if we do go to both games, we’ll have to split up.

We had some friends over for an impromptu dinner last night which ended about 9pm. The boys who have been studying native americans in school wanted to shoot their bows and arrows last night, so we set up the targets in the backyard, got them all geared up and let them have at it. They’re both really good shots! They have traditional archery bows which are the kind you think of when you remember archery as a kid. There are new fancy bows with pullies and complicated sights but I opted to get the boys the old fashioned kind when they first discovered the sport last year. If they can shoot these, they can shoot anything. It’s also good exercise, mental and physical, as it takes concentration and strength to shoot their bows. The evening was then capped of with them wanting to watch Dancing With Wolves. This all started with the oldest being on a day long field trip at school called Day on the Prairie where he met an 80 year old native american who made the teepee’s in the movie Dancing With Wolves. We spoke with his teacher yesterday who said it was quite magical and very interesting. To get comfortable for the movie, the boys went down to the basement and dug out all our old animal hides. This included a 10 foot wide buffalo hide, mountain lion, 2 bear skins, wolf, coyote, raccoon, fox, beaver and various indian relics. When they get going on a theme or idea, they’re all in. I thinbk they get this from their mother!

Tomorrow’s Mothers Day, I’m still not sure what we’re doing but it’ll have to be late morning as we have football at 1pm. I think we’re going to my Mom’s but am personally out of the loop on this one. It was warm but a bit overcast yesterday with 80 degrees in the forecast for today. My little sister commented yesterday that she was recently diagnosed with skin cancer and reminded us all to wear our sunscreen! It seems a lot of people from our generation are now getting diagnosed with this. It’s not surprising as we all lathered ourselves up with baby oil or something when we were younger trying to get as dark as we could. I guess now it’s time to pay the piper for all that sun! Hopefully none of us will get the bad kind.

Lot’s of flooding in the midwest, I wonder if it’ll be raining for the Kentucky Derby today. We’re pretty blessed living in Colorado as were not really a tornado (at least in our part of the state), hurricane, earthquake or flood type of state. It seems like there’s more and more natural disasters these day but I’m sure things like this happened in the past as well.

Time to jump in the shower and see if we can hitch a ride to soccer or else we need to decide if we’re going to drive or not. I’d stay home but have a feeling other parents are skipping this game too and we don’t want to leave the team hanging or a man short.

We hope you all have a great day and enjoy your weekend, until tomorrow, God bless,

Yesterday was a day of planting for the misses. She started off the afternoon by noticing that the soil she bought was not organic, even though its name was Organic Choice, and that it also said “not for containers” after she had panted herbs and strawberries in, you guessed it, containers! So with my help we loaded half of the bags back into the truck and headed back to Lowes to swap out our bad soil. (she kept some to mix in with our dirt in our garden beds) The rest of the day was spent planting new flowers and moving around ones already in the ground. I think she actually dug up and replanted more flowers than planting new ones. I cleaned out the garage after finishing my work day and then we loaded the boys up and they were off to soccer practice. This took a bit of coaxing as the eldest had leftover french toast (coated in brown sugar) and both boys then had a yogurt. This was over 50 grams of sugar that went right to his brain and the mind games were on. We knew we had to get him to practice so he could “run” the sugar out of his system. At dinner we all noticed (Mom knew before) that Mom’s chest, shoulders and a semi circle at the top of her back where her tank top came down, were all bright red! It seems 4 hours in the sun planting her garden without sunscreen, had caught her by surprise. She really got a bad case of sunburn. Looks like for the next 3 days she have to be wearing a shirt that has a high neck line, something she hates.

Dinner was quick and then after a bit of back and forth it was determined that Mom had promised our youngest a trip to Target, today, for a $3 toy he earned for getting 10 out of 10 on his spelling test. He was quick to point out that a promise is a promise so there was no way out of this. After a few minutes of discussion it was determined that I (who didn’t promise) would take him to Target, and Mom and the oldest would go give Bunkie his evening shot of insulin. By the time we got home (of course it takes 20 minutes for him to decide which toy he wanted) it was 8 o’clock. We rushed to get them into bed and they went to sleep fairly quick, by about 9. I was looking forward to a good nights sleep.

The night started out ok until I was awaken at 12:30 by the misses talking in her sleep, actually it was more like screaming in her sleep! You see she had a bad dream that some people had broken into our house, drugged us and were still here! After a quick tactical assessment of the house (you know how I am), it was determined that all was safe and secure. Now of course after waking her and calming her down, I was now awake where I stayed for at least the next 2 1/2 hours until 3am. She of course feel right back to sleep. You know how sometimes you’re woken up and can’t get back to sleep because you’ve missed your window? Well, that was it. Oh yeah, the youngest, right about 2 when I was almost just falling back asleep, came in as he too had a bad dream. So after being kicked, inadvertently, for the next 30 to 45 minutes, I think I fell back asleep by 3am. Today I need to get a deadbolt on the door that leads to our garage as this is about the only weak point of entry to our home. Not that we really need it (have 1 lock) but I’ve been meaning to install one for a while, so might as well get it done while I’m thinking of it.

It’s supposed to be 80 degrees today and the misses has a lot of work still to do in the garden. Today she needs to dig up a bunch of mint, prepare the beds and get the squash and tomato’s in. I’ll need to make sure she is all lathered up in sunscreen. I did remember to make her wear a hat yesterday as she had a touch of skin cancer on her ear last year and was explicitly told by our dermatologist friend to cover her ears when in the sun!

I’ve got a few reports to digest for work and a few calls to make, but it should finally be a pretty easy day. This is good as I could use a break. We meet with the principal of the school at 10 am today to lobby for our oldest boys class of choice next year. You see due to budget cuts there are a couple of classes we don’t want him in. Next year in the fourth grade, 1 class will have 1 teacher (this is the one we want!) the 2nd class has 2 teachers each sharing responsibilities (not as good as there’s no one person in charge) and the 3rd class is known as a “flex class” where they will be mixing 4th and 5th graders, (we want to avoid this one at all costs!). I personally don’t think lobbying does much good as it hasn’t in the past, but hopefully the misses year long volunteering, her extra work on various school functions and her procurement of a smart board for the 3rd grade class, will carry some weight. We’ll let you know in the fall.

We have two soccer games tomorrow and Mom and I will need to split up as they’re both at the same time. Flag football is Sunday and we’ll all go to that together. Mothers Day of course is also Sunday and I’m not sure where the big brunch is but it’ll be somewhere in the morning. Other than that it’ll be working in the yard and maybe a backyard bbq tomorrow after soccer. I think the misses got cards out to all you “mothers” out there so they might not get to you by tomorrow but they are on the way!

So, no politics today, don’t you feel blessed, go enjoy you day and we’ll see you tomorrow.

God Bless,

Good morning…the sun is peeking over the horizon….the sky is colored in pastels and our neighborhood woodpecker is working away on the telephone pole across the street.

Thank you to all of you for the wonderful birthday wishes.  I have a new spring T-shirt for almost everyday of the week, a mandolin slicer that does sooo many fancy things, sooo quickly(I can’t wait to use it). Fast Snap Jim sent a great photo album of the “Camera War” of 2011. That was the camera war from my mom’s 80th birthday bash, between our boys and Grandpa Jim…very funny.

The boys both made giant “Happy Birthday” art work cards for me, the youngest brought in a bag of tissue with a very special gift…his prized blue surfboard rock and the oldest was a bit sad yesterday as was the youngest(they both made gifts in art at school), but weren’t able to bring them home yet. They are both so sweet.

Grandma, Uncle T and Auntie B all came over to celebrate and have a piece of gluten free birthday cake.  The cake was yummy and the company delightful…thank you.

I have all kinds of pretty perennials to plant in my front garden and great veggies and herbs to plant in containers. We thought we would try containers this year in case of hail. My sweet husband took me flower shopping yesterday and it’s going to be in the 80’s for the next 4 days so I have my work cut out for me getting everything planted.

The boys are still sleeping. They want to walk to school again today, but time may be an issue this morning. Whoops, I hear the them stirring, so I am handing off to the Mister…

It’ still a bit cool this morning but supposed to warm up a bunch. Mom had a great time yesterday and is finally settling into a more relaxed frame of mind now that she’s had a couple days off. I’m glad for her as she deserves it.

We attended the youngest boys teacher conference after school yesterday and he’s doing very well and is all set to head into the second grade. We didn’t have enough time yesterday to get in our family nerf gun war so this will be first up this afternoon.

This year we’re planting things we actually know how to grow. Squash, (various kinds) strawberries, peppers, (hot and mild), tomato’s and maybe some green beans will be the bulk of what we do this year. Our rhubarb and raspberries are going strong already and we’re swimming in mint. We’ll have to pull some of that to plant the other herbs such as rosemary, sage, cilantro and thyme. I’m sure we’ll find some other things to try out this year, the boys want to grow watermelons and pumpkins of course. We’ll need to wait and see how much room we have. They had baby goats for sale at a farm a few miles from here, Mom almost bought a pair! That would have created some havoc around here for sure.

We’re so tired of the news and the politics surrounding the Bid Landen thing. If you think about it, outside of his name, he’s kind of been Mister Irrelevant for a long time now. The real concern is all these uprisings in middle eastern countries and their governments trying to hold onto power. Hundreds if not thousands have been killed in Syria and Libya. Let’s also not forget Iran who must love all the attention not being on them for a while. We need to get back to worrying about the economy, jobs, the falling dollar, rising gas and food prices and all the other things that affect us on a daily basis. I don’t know about you but I thought it was kind of inappropriate to see all these young kids on tv celebrating his death. Don’t get me wrong, glad they got him, but we kind of looked like what all those fanatics look like overseas when they kill Americans. Funny thing is most of the people in the pictures celebrating looked like college kids or younger, they must have been 10 years old when 9/11 happened. I’m just not into celebrating death of any kind. Oh well, to each his own I guess. I’m sure the current administration will milk this for all it’s worth trying to distract the public from the real problems we face like $4 a gallon gas and 475,000 first time filers for unemployment this week, the highest number in over 8 months, some recovery huh?

Ok, I’ll stop for now, don’t want to ruin the nice May day and Mothers Day which is right around the corner. We hope everyone has a blessed day,

God Bless,

Today is my loves birthday! Everyone is excited around here and we of course have a big day planned. It will start out with Mom making her famous hot cross bun french toast. (sounds like just another day with Mom making breakfast, huh) She made this for Easter an it was such a hit she was convinced (or pestered depending on how you look at it) by the boys until she agreed to make it again.

Before we get into the day, a brief update on yesterday as my mother in law was quite sad (according to her as we spoke on the phone) after reading the post. So, in short, the bank fixed our problem and charged us zero in fees, I found the missing $500,000 in revenue for the Company, and although the multi million dollar deal is still dead, we might squeeze out some compensation for our hard work and ethical business practices. So, just another day, but surely a better one than yesterday!

Now to the day at hand, Mom had a massage and manicure yesterday and arrived home just in time to grab the boys and head up to Grandma’s for a visit. We then drove down the street to our local greenhouse and she picked out some flowers,  a few herbs and 3 squash plants that she’ll plant today. First though, she’s headed to hot yoga at 9am. They let you go for free on your birthday! I’ll pick up her cake at 2 and then we’ll have family over around 5 for a little celebration. She selected a gluten free almond tort which is basically a white layer cake with butter cream frosting and shaved almonds on top. I think there’s also almond paste between the layers, anyhow, it’s real good. We thought about going to True Grit during the day today but I don’t think the timing is going to work out, can’t believe we still haven’t seen this movie.

She’s into the second of seven days off and so far is really enjoying it. I think kicking it off with a mini spa day yesterday was a good idea. (mine if anybody cares) It’s supposed to be warm today and even warmer, approaching 80, by the weekend. The whole family is having a nerf gun war after school. (these are the kids toys that shoot neoprene bullets at pretty high velocity) The boys are pretty excited as they’re pretty good with those things. Mom walked them home from school yesterday and they want to do the same today so I’ll drive her down there at 2:45 and they’ll all hoof it back to the homestead. The oldest had soccer last night and they both have it again tomorrow. The season’s almost over, I think 3 more weeks. The oldest is pretty tired of it this year as his coach (and his high school son that helps out) seem angrier this year. I think one of his teammates parents is going to take over next year. My wife says it’s kind of a mutiny as our coach doesn’t know this, but he’s starting to swear and is getting more and more frustrated as the season goes on. He is a good guy that means well, he’s just losing his patience and his son is the real problem as most teenage boys are. Oh well, just another day huh?

The big breakfast is almost done and it’s approaching 7am. I was up at 4:15 and at the gym by an hour later. When I got back home at 6:30, everyone was still asleep. I hated to wake the birthday girl but it was time to get up. Only 18 days of school left including today, what are we going to do! We’ve had no rain so I need to run the sprinklers again this morning. There’s tons of snow in the mountains, the most in years, but little rain this year so far.

They’re milking the Bin Laden killing still on the news. It’s to the point that the oldest just asked “why do they keep bringing it up? they already killed him”. Next was “where’s his body?”, when told it was in the ocean he replied “I’m not going swimming in the ocean again as there’s a dead guy in there!”. He now just said “why do they have this on the news? Don’t they know kids watch it?” We’ve now moved on to fart sounds and more important outbursts like “all the french toast is mine” and “when’s it going to be ready”.

He just whispered to me, “dad, we still have to get Mom a birthday present”, I think we’ll go back to the greenhouse for more things to plant. They’re now both playing with some toy and Mom’s calling us all for breakfast so time to go.

Hope all of you are happy and well, don’t forget to call the misses today and wish her Happy B Day, Mother’s Day is coming fast and I know we have a lot of “mothers” reading this, so we’ll be talking with you all over the weekend. If you are not going to be home, make sure to let us know how to get ahold of you, (Dix, I know where you’ll be),

God Bless

Yesterday was a roller coaster. It seems everything going on in our lives was turned upside down. Several big things from my work to various business deals were right, then wrong, on, then off, then on again. I still haven’t worked it all out but hope to have a clear picture of all by the end of today.

My day started with the misses accidentally picking up my cell phone when she went to work. After driving myself crazy and retracing my steps all morning long, I found it in her pocket at work. I drove everywhere from the bank to the store, the gas station and the car wash and any other place I had been between 7 and 11am. I even drove to her work and searched the car she drove thinking I might have left it in there. I called it numerous times (I usually find it in the kids bed this way) but couldn’t get an answer. So, it was in my wife’s pocket at work but she couldn’t answer. I was home on and off and I guess she called but we seemed to just always miss each other. Later in the day there were two messages from her and my mother both telling me she had my cell phone. That helped! Anyhow I finally thought to go into her work to see if she had it. This was my last resort as I thought if she had it, even if she was busy, with me calling it several times, she would have picked up for 2 seconds to say, “I have your phone!”. I walked into her work and she said “I have your phone” while checking out customers. I politely said thank you and my life was back in order.

Next I was off to my bank to try to get them to cash my monthly draw so I could put it into my personal account to cover my $2600 in property taxes that I had to mail on Saturday the 30th. (that was the deadline before a penalty kicked in) Unfortunately the 30th fell on a weekend and I get paid on the 1st which caused some timing issues. Anyhow the bank, even though they love me, couldn’t cash my check as it was made out to my business. Anyhow they said they’d watch for my draw coming through in the morning but didn’t think it would. I went to bed crossing my fingers that this wouldn’t come through. Well here we are Tuesday morning and wouldn’t you know it, I’m overdrawn by $2100! arrggghhh! The misses had made 5 little charges at work ranging from $1.60 to $5 which will now cost me $39 each in overdraft charges! These along with the property taxes means $225 in charges which frankly just stinks. I’m headed to the bank in an hour to try to work this out. Oh well, just another day,

Next up was a business deal I have been working on for quite some time. It was a pretty big deal (in the millions) that fell apart due to one of the participants inability to understand what is fair and what isn’t. In short, he tried to change the deal at the last minute and will end up walking away from $3 million in cash! I tried to save the deal this morning but just got off the phone and the other party feels that he was playing fair while the other party tried to take advantage of him so I don’t see this coming back together. This is very disappointing as it would have virtually gotten us totally out of debt and changed our life! I guess God has different plans for us. Oh well, just another day,

Next up this morning is finding about a $500,000 discrepancy in April’s sales report. It has to be there somewhere as all previous reports show the revenue but I need to work it out. Hopefully I’m not way off in my head math, I’m pretty good with numbers so I doubt it, just need to find it. Hopefully this won’t take the whole day to reconcile.

By this time I needed to rush to get the boys from school. We headed home for snacks and homework. The youngest bounced back from the previous week with 10 out of 10 on his spelling test while the oldest was at the top of his class as usual. They’re both so smart, you just need to keep them focused. As an example, the youngest has already mastered his spelling words for this Friday’s exam and he only just received them yesterday. It was soon dinner time and I had nothing (or any energy) to cook. So we loaded up the car and went to AliBaba restaurant for some Gyro’s. Both boys love the meat and the rice. It was 7:45 when Mom arrived home from a long tired day at work. She’s super excited for 7 days off, and she deserves it.

It’s sunny today and I’m running the sprinklers now as it will be 80 degrees by weeks end. Mom’s headed to our friends spa for a complimentary massage and manicure for her birthday. I’ve got my hands full with work and need to run as the bank opens in 30 minutes.

So after up’s and down’s and high’s and low’s, it’s just another day. We need to just be thankful to be alive and be healthy and have a great family with a roof over our heads. Hopefully something, just one thing, will turn around and go in our favor. We need a victory, even if a small one, just to keep our hopes up. Life shouldn’t always be so difficult. I’m ok, it’s the misses that doesn’t do well with the up’s and down’s. (sorry honey!) Something good will happen (I keep telling her) as long as she has a positive attitude. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, getting down doesn’t do any good at all, you just have to keep plugging away.

So, God bless you all, until tomorrow (I think I’ll let the misses write tomorrow since she has so much free time now)

Well we had a fun day yesterday and the weather cooperated. The news of the day of course is that Bin Laden has reportedly been killed. The news broke at about 9pm our time last night. Hopefully this will have a positive impact on terrorism and bring some closure to those families who lost loved ones 10 years ago. The problem is that this is such a fanatical movement that there’s hundreds of mis-guided people waiting to take his place. Hopefully the people of the World can wake up and just learn to live and let live.

Now to our little corner of the World. The oldest one’s football game was great. He and the team played well and they won their third game in a row to stay undefeated. The littlest one joined us at 2 or 3am this morning in our bed. At about 4:30 he (or a pillow) knocked a glass of water off the nightstand which woke me and the misses. She has the unique talent of falling right back to sleep while I on the other hand, am up for the day.

Mom works 11 to 7:30 today and then is off for a week. She’s super excited about this break from work which is a whole week. She had asked for this time off as I was supposed to be in Spain this week but opted late last week to send a co-worker instead. I might be in New York Thursday and Friday but am also thinking of just staying home. You see her birthday is this Wednesday and Mother’s Day is Sunday. It should be quite a week. Maybe she can get down to the spa for some much needed pampering.

We thought of going somewhere for a day or two (just local in CO) but that was easily squashed when we checked our finances. We’re struggling (again) to recover from the $2600 in property taxes we had to pay Saturday just to get through the month. So even a brief vacation is out. Hopefully the weather will cooperate this week and the misses can plant her small garden which she very much enjoys. Our rhubarb, mint and raspberries are already going strong. We need to get some squash, beans, tomato’s and potato’s going fast. Here in CO they say not to plant until after Mother’s Day due to the unpredictable weather. (it was supposed to snow yesterday!)

School is out May 31st! That means 4 weeks to go before summer for the boys. We need to line up some day care or plan to occupy them while Mom and I are both working. This will not be easy as babysitters make the same per hour as Mom, unbelievable! We do have the pool for them to go to but need someone to take, watch and then bring them home. I think I just heard the paper get here, it’s real late this morning, probably due to the Bin Laden event. Usually I read the paper first so this has thrown my entire day out of whack! What will I do? Maybe I should just skip it today. If it wasn’t for the sports section, I’d cancel it and save the $12 or $144 per year! It’s a bit after 6 so time to empty the dishwasher. I already fed the dogs, made coffee, folded the clothes in the dryer and put in a new load and now need to get something going for breakfast. First thing to do is get the misses some coffee. She moves much slower than I in the morning. I can rise for the day with the same (if not more) vigor as I did when I was young. I’m pretty much a morning person. So, another day begins, you all stay safe, healthy and enjoy your day. We hope it’s a good one for all!

God bless,