Finally Friday

I'm so glad that the weekend is here. I've been looking forward to it since...um... Monday. And I am writing this on my home computer. And I posted pictures on past entries. I am very proud of myself.
We are going to the Art Museum tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to it.
I watched a preview of the upcoming season of The L Word. Oh boy. I love that show, and I really love that preview. Can't wait to see what they come up with this time.
It's 10:30 and I am exhausted. Am I that old already?

Winterize Sprinklers..Check!

The sprinkler company came this morning and winterized the sprinklers. And there is no damage done. What a relief! And then I realized that my boy had a orthodontist appointment scheduled for this afternoon that I forgot about. There was no way I could leave work and after staying up longer then usual this morning, Shell wasn't going to be able to take him either because she'd be sleeping. So I rescheduled it for next week. I can't believe I forgot about it. I probably wouldn't even have realized it if I hadn't gone in my planner to write down the sprinkler company's information for future notice. Why do I have a planner if I don't check it often enough to notice things like this??
I really want to add pictures in my posts. But I only post while I'm at work, and I don't have my pictures saved on this computer. I really need to get on while I'm at home and do this. But once I get home we are finishing dinner preparations, eating dinner, making sure homework is done, going to Karate 3 nights a week and spending my hour a day with my wife. Most nights I'm busy until the kids go to bed and then I just want to sit in bed and fall asleep to something I've recorded on TV. What an exciting life I lead. Ha!
I talked to my best friend today. I'm so glad he called. I suck so bad at calling people. Especially him. And my sisters. And the very few other friends that I have. Why? Well see reason above for why I don't get on the computer at home. Then add in that I kind of feel that I don't have much to add to the conversation. That about sums it up. Basically I just suck. I really need to work on this.

Winterize Sprinklers..Uh Oh

So as responsible homeowners living in Colorado, one must have their sprinklers winterized when the weather starts to turn cold. Well...we procrastinated on this and the damage may already be done. We were right on top of it last winter, had it done in enough time to have the aerate and fertilization done as well. And then this year rolled around, and we didn't. To be honest, I did call the place we went through last year and they had already finished for the year. I called a couple of other places (this was a couple of weeks ago) and they were done as well. I figured we were screwed and stopped calling. Yesterday there was a light dusting of snow when I woke up and I thought that I'd better give it a try again. I found a sprinkler and landscape company who will still do it. The scheduler called me back this morning and said that it is VERY rare for the actual sprinkler pipes underground to freeze (that was my big fear), but pretty likely that the backflow preventer did freeze. If it did, it will probably be around $150 to replace it. The winterization costs about $75, so let's hope that some miracle occurs and the backflow preventer is fine. Please, please, please! She is supposed to call me back and let me know when they can get out to do it, hopefully by the end of the week. It's only in the low 30's today, but tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be in the low to upper 40's, with it dropping back into the 30's this weekend.
Speaking of this weekend, we are going to the Denver Art Museum on Saturday. It is a Free Day so we are taking the kids for their first visit to an art museum. I'm sure that my girl is going to love it, I hope the boy will too.

So much to catch up on...

It is the Tuesday after my fantastic 4-day Thanksgiving weekend. I really enjoyed my days off. A (not-so) brief run down:

• Thursday (Thanksgiving Day): We went to my parents for dinner, it was sooo good! While there, we worked out our strategy for Friday's shopping. Shell didn't get off work until 6, so it was up to me to hit the early sales. The girl is getting a Nintendo DS, and Circuit City had the best price so that was my first stop. They opened at 5am, I was in line at 3:50 and was about 20th in line. Luckily this is not a hot item this year, as I was in and out of the store in less then 10 minutes. Yippee! Then on to Gordmans to pick up luggage for my parents and a dog bed for the hounds. A quick drive thru for hot chocolate at Starbucks and I was at Kmart at 5:45. I got what I needed there, and then stood in line FOREVER! Talked to Shell as she was leaving work to head to Penneys. After Kmart, I headed to Kohls. Didn't have any luck there, so went to Target. Shell met me there, and we shopped. We checked so many things off our list that day, it was great. The kids stayed overnight at my parents on Thursday, so I could get done what I needed to. After we were done, Shell went home to sleep and went back to pick up the kids and eat Thanksgiving leftovers. Took Joe to have his follow-up bloodwork and he weighed 5 pounds more than he did 2weeks ago. Yay Joe! The bloodwork looked great too. What a relief! I was so tired that night, I did get up at 2:50am after all, that I was asleep before Shell left for work, probably about 8:45. I slept all night.
  


• Saturday morning I got up and mom picked me up at 10am to go shopping with her. We went to Walgreens ( stocked up on wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift boxes and gift tags), Michaels, Kmart (she checked off most of her list there), Hallmark (my sisters b-day present-check), Tuesday Morning (cute things there-must go back), had lunch at Pei Wei (yummy lettuce wraps) and the Restaurant Supply Store (Shell's gifts). We were gone for 7 hours! When I got home, my boy was complaining that his ears were hurting and he had a bit of a fever. So we ate dinner and Shell took him to the Urgent Care. He did in fact have an ear infection, so he got a script for Amoxicillan and they were home by 10:30pm. Off to bed we all went. Whew, what a day!
  


• Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I slept in until after 11! We browsed the newspaper for the sale ads and made our grocery list. Me and the kids went to Wal-Mart and Shell went shopping again. She picked up a few more things off our list. We had hot dogs and mac & cheese for dinner and were in bed around 9ish. It was a great weekend!



• Monday was a busy hectic day at work, but I met Shell at Kmart at lunchtime and we picked up a few more items then went over to Hallmark and got our ornament for this year. It's a Nightmare Before Christmas ornament. Every year we get a new ornament that either says the year or that we can mark with the year. We used to try to find one that symbolized the year somehow, sometimes it works out that way, sometimes not. We also got baby's first Christmas ones for the new babies in the family. We are almost officially done shopping, and it's not even December yet!!
  
  

Counting Down

35 days until Christmas. It's practically here. But we have an almost plan. We sat down over the weekend and made a list of the people we are buying for and what we plan to get them. Excluding our kids. They are going to be the challenge, as usual. But as for the rest, I think we've got a good plan. We are done shopping for my parents. I bought a gift for my best friend, just one thing left to get him. We will do some shopping on Friday for the sales, and after that we should be mostly done. We have scaled way back this year. After the tickets for the Championship Series game, money for Joe's mystery illness, and the tires that both of our cars need going into winter, our Christmas budget has really diminished. We chose names in Dana's family and for my nieces & nephew. My sisters and I are not buying for each other. I do have to get them something for their birthday (They are twins), which is two days after Christmas. Thanks for that Mom! But I think that if we stick to our plan, or at least close to it, we should be fine.
I'm so looking forward to Thanksgiving. Not only do I have a 4 day weekend, but my mom is cooking this year. I love the stuff she makes for Turkey Day. This is easily one of my favorite holidays. No gift giving/buying!! Just hanging out and eating. However, speaking of eating... My blood pressure is still not good. Still higher than my doctor would like. He is now forcefully suggesting exercise. I guess I need to listen now. Since my last appointment, I have not walked one day. And of course the weather is changing to cold today. We are supposed to get snow tonight. I think I need to break out my Walk Away The Pounds DVD's again. Yay!
The Writers Guild strike is now affecting me. Up until last night, all my shows were on as scheduled. Until last night. Then, it was reruns for How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. I love, love, love those shows. I do not love, love, love reruns (Unless I didn't see the episode when it was first run, but with my DVR that rarely happens). So now it's inevitable that my shows will slowly start to taper off as the ones in the can are aired. I wholeheartedly back the writers and what they are striking for. And really, in the whole scheme of things my life is not going to end without new episodes. But once you get invested in a show, it's frustrating to see it interrupted. Oh poor me!

On We Go

It's Thursday and so far so good. We have not broken our "No fast food" and "no Starbucks" vows. We have made dinner each night this week. Well, last night was leftovers but it still counts. My wife hasn't yet complained about doing the bulk of the cooking, and I've just mentally complained about doing all the dishes. It's been a good week so far. And we are going to finish the week on Saturday with an adults only get together. This makes me happy. We are going to have the first (hopefully of many) game nights at Dana & Jeannie's. I love games. Specifically games that are not card games. I don't really love card games. Except for Shanghai. I'm hopeful that we will be playing games I like. Even so, it's a night with no kids. Yay!

One day down...

Yesterday was a success. Why you ask? Here's the thing: After the money spent to make Joe well again and the stupid bills that won't pay themselves, we are faced with the sad fact that we have no savings. Six weeks before Christmas this is very hard to swallow. So before we went grocery shopping on Sunday, we sat and made a plan. A "Absolutely no fast food purchases" plan. This may sound easy to some, but we are family that sadly eats a lot of fast food. Not just as a family, but Shell and I purchase a lot of it during our lunch times at work. Me and the kids pick up "a couple of hamburgers" on the way home from Karate at least once a week. And Starbucks, oh Starbucks! I LOVE LOVE LOVE their Caramel Frappuchino Light. I have one at least once a week, usually more. These things add up to a lot of money, not to mention a lot of calories and fat. So, we vowed to make it one week with no Starbucks and no fast food. And since Shell is not working overtime this week, we are eating dinner as a family most nights. This puts most of the burden of cooking on her, I usually make the side dishes when I get home if possible. So although we spent a lot more at the grocery store, I'm sure it will balance out. We followed our plan yesterday perfectly. Woo Hoo! How sad is that? If we can really do this (and we have to), Christmas may be possible after all. Still not the way we usually do it, but maybe better than we thought.
I am hopeful that in the absence of fast food and the sinfully yummy Frappuchinos, I will lose some weight too. I weighed myself yesterday morning, and it was the same as the scale said at the doctor. Usually their scale reads higher than mine. Not this time. So this is now the heaviest I've ever been. I've got some work to do.

A New Week

It's Monday. Of a new week - finally! Last week sucked so much, I'm so glad it's over.
The new office person for Utah was scheduled to be here with me last week. Her flight was supposed to arrive at noon on Monday. She missed that flight and had to fly standby arriving at 5:00. Ed (service mgr) took her and I to dinner to meet and get acquainted. We went to Joe's Crab Shack, and while I don't "do" crab, I had a delicious steak and yummy shrimp. Anyway... Tues morning when Ed went to her hotel to pick her up, she was still asleep so he had to wait and then when they got to the Enterprise (the company was renting her a car while she was here) she discovered that she forgot her Drivers License. And it went downhill from there. Needless to say, we flew her home early on Thursday. So now they are back to square one with no office person in Utah. The phones are forwarded to my office, where I will now dispatch service from. Yay!
Then my Joe dog. He was a lot sicker than I realized. When I got to the vet to meet Shell, his prognosis was not good. He was very dehydrated and his body was in shock. His heart was racing but his blood pressure was almost nonexistent. He was not very responsive. They started him on an IV with fluids, and said that he would have to go to the after hours urgent care, but that it was very possible that he would not survive the night. After 2 hours on the IV, we left there and took him to the Urgent Care where they hooked him back up to the fluids, added electrolytes and and antibiotics. At that point they weren't really sure what the cause was, the concern was getting him stable, which he was not. He was being carried everywhere. He was down almost 10 pounds from his normal weight. He was a very sick boy. Overnight he had an incident of blood pressure crashing again, but they were able to get him back on track. When we picked him up Friday morning, he was a very different dog from the one we dropped off. He walked out himself to greet us. He was still a little dehydrated and had more of the IV antibiotics to go, but he was on the road to recovery. We took him back to our vet where he spent the day attached to his IV, getting small bites of food and getting lots of love. I picked him up after work and got his feeding instructions, and his course of antibiotics. It's still not completely clear what happened, but they suspect it was gastroenteritis that just hit him full force. So now he is at home and finally yesterday started acting like himself. We are so relieved.
The last of the (not so) fun from last week: After spending about $1200 on Joe, Shell learned that they cancelled overtime at her work for at least the next 2 weeks. So our Christmas money went to Joe's bills and I'm not sure where we are going to get the money to replace it. Christmas just got a lot tighter. Bah Humbug!

This is how Joe spent almost all of his evening after getting home.

My Poor Joe

Joe is sick. He is my sweet basset hound, and he is a sick dog. Of course I can't get him into the vet until 5:00 today, so in the meantime Shell is calling me to tell me that he is so weak and lethargic that he isn't always making it to the backyard before he lets loose. And loose is the operative word here. Very loose. I am afraid that he is already very dehydrated. My wife is afraid that our carpets will never recover. I am pretty sure this may be a warranted fear.
We got our Joe last August from the Rescue. He was very underweight when we took him in. He has the sweetest temperament of any dog I've known. Although he doesn't really know commands, he notices when the tone of your voice changes and will stop whatever he is doing - right or wrong. For as long as we've had him, he has had stomach/intestinal issues. This is easily the worst I've seen him. The kids were very concerned this morning, because he loves when they wake up. He greets them both with lots of tail wagging and the expectation of petting. He does not lick people. He has accidentally licked all of us about once each. With each one we hoped it meant he would continue, but no such luck. I love him, in spite of it all. I know that Shell does too, in her own way. Our children adore him. I am really hoping that he can make it until his appointment and then they can help him. He needs help, big time.

Joe, just a couple of weeks ago.

Monday, Monday

It's Monday. The start of a week I'm not looking forward to. It should be reminiscent of every week in the last 2 months. I will be training the new office person for our Utah office. I was supposed to do this 2 weeks ago, but that girl chickened out when she got to the airport. Among other reasons, we decided to withdraw the offer of employment. So here I am again. She will be my shadow all week. Thankfully she doesn't fly in until noon, so I have a little time to myself. I don't love the idea of someone watching everything I do. I really work independently; I know what needs to be done and I get it done, but I don't follow a daily agenda. I need to show her pretty much everything I do, and make sure she is comfortable doing it. I will be her 1st contact with any questions she has once she is back in Utah. This is a first for me and I am nervous. I know I am good at my job, but can I train someone else to do it?
On a totally selfish note, having her here next to me all the time means I won't be able to just randomly jump in to check my email or leave blog entries, or just surf the internet during down time. I'm not supposed to do it, she certainly can't know that she can.
On a lighter note, I had a really great weekend. My boy had testing on Sat. for his next belt, and passed with flying colors. He is now a Green-Brown Belt. I'm really proud of him. I think the hard part of his training is now beginning. He is on track to earn his Black Belt next fall. It's going to be hard, but he can do it. His test was from 7:15am to 12:45pm. We went to McDonalds to eat and then went back for the belt promotion ceremony at1:45. That went until 3:30. We went home, spent some time with Shell and then she left for work at 5:15. The kids and I hung out and watched TV and did laundry until we went to bed.
Shell got home Sunday morning about 7:15am, and we cuddled up and went right back to sleep. I finally got up at 10:00 and started some laundry going. She got up at 11:30 and announced that she was taking the girl with her to run some errands. I convinced her to go to the grocery store too. They left, then I took the boy with me to clean my office. We got home and soon after my dad came over to give me my very first lesson on mowing the grass. Yes, I am 33 and had no idea what to do. Growing up, my dad always mowed the grass. Then when I moved out, I lived in apartments. Then we moved here and either lived with my parents (briefly), my sister (even more briefly) or apartments again. We rented a house where the landlords took care of yard maintenance. Then we bought our house and since Shell's dad was living with us, he took the yard as his contribution. He moved out in September, so the grass hadn't been cut since then. It REALLY needed it. Anyway, my dad gave me the general idea, made sure I could start the mower, and left me to it. AND I PROCEEDED TO CUT MY GRASS! I got the front and side yards done and will tackle the back yard probably Saturday. It was a lot of work, being that the grass was about 6 inches high, but it was very satisfying. I did it all by myself - with coaching by my boy. He was very helpful in letting me know when I missed a section.
While I mowed my front jungle, my wife baked a cake and started dinner. It was all so yummy. Oh, and the errand that she ran earlier in the day was to go to Kohl's and buy me 3 new outfits. She is a hopeless shopaholic, and really does love to buy me clothes anyway. But she thought I could use some new things to boost my spirits going into this week. I feel very lucky to have her.

Goodbye October

Hello November.
We had a fun night last night. It was warmer then I expected, and we started at 6:00, so we were able to do a lot of trick-or-treating. And Shell didn't go in to work early, so she went with us. Dana & Jeannie and the kids came along, so did Angie and her kids. All the kids had fun. After the others left, we went over to my parents to raid their candy bowl and trick-or-treat at a few houses by them. Mom was finally able to quit her job at Dish because she got a job as a school bus driver. I'm really happy for her. So now she has 2 weeks off before the training starts - I'm so jealous.