Archive for May, 2007
Thursday
Kind of a hot, hazy day here. Slight breeze, mid 80’s. A front of some kind is moving in and we actually have a chance of rain tomorrow and Saturday. We’ve only had 6.4 inches this year and we average 12.4 inches. By this time last May, we had 13.7 inches. So it’s dry. Real dry.
June starts tomorrow. Flag Day. Father’s Day. My birthday!
It’s been a funy week in the news. Honestly, as long as they cover anything but Hollywood, I’m happy. The thinking is the whales made it back to the Pacific. That story ended just in time to cover the TB “pandemic”, which go fired up just in time to drown out the Lindsey Lohan garbage.
Not sure what we are going to do this weekend. I’m looking forward to getting in the pool!
Whales gone
Looks like the whales have made it out into the Pacific… Click here
I took Lily around town with me this afternoon after my lunch with a customer. I took her to my office, ran an errand for Mom, hit the drug store, and the grocery store. Spaghetti for dinner, a quick dip in the pool and now she’s winding down for bedtime with a magazine. I think she likes copying her mother and flips through the magazine. Pretty sure she can’t read the articles.
Very dry here – not much of a chance of rain until the weekend. It’s been 89 or 90 every day this week.
Pfizer has criminal charges brought against them in Nigeria. Can’t say I’m surprised or disappointed. You see what they charge for a bottle of Lubriderm? That alone is criminal. Click here
Mornin’
Dentist appt this morning!
Lily was in a good mood when I left. We played the hug game before I left. I made up a new rule and won!
Good evening…
I missed most of the evening news – Lily was “helping” with dinner and she was sooo talkative tonight. Tired…but talkative. I bought a bag of cherries at the store this weekend and she’s been eating them – she loves cherries! She went to art class today and made a cloud. She was real proud of it. We went a couple of stores down and had ice cream afterwards. We’ve been going to that place that lets you pick your flavor and then pick a topping to mix into it. She gets to pick everyone’s flavor and toppings. Today she had Wacky Watermelon with Gummy Bears…yummm! I was a little luckier – raspberry sorbet and chocolate chips.
Looks like June is just around the corner. Only 22 days until my birthday!
Now this will cause a stir…
Dutch reality TV has contestants vying for a kidney!
What news stories are you reading today?
Poor whales…still up the river… Click here
I suppose I’m as much “for war” as the next guy…but I never liked this lady… Click here
Nightmare birthday party for a 4 year old… Click here
Note: Without getting into specifics… give your kids a hug and a kiss before you leave today. Even if it’s a “dog” kiss. You can ask Lily for one of those.
Dateline: Orlando – Police shoot giant lizard
NOT SAFE TO VISIT!!!
Police shoot giant lizard, but where’s the body? – Animal Peculiarity – MSNBC.com
There goes the weekend…
It was gorgeous here today… high eighties, nice breeze.
I finished painting the bathroom around 1pm and retired to the pool. We swam until dinner! I smoked a slab of ribs which turned out wonderfully!
Lily didn’t nap…again! She tends to skip when Daddy is home! So, here we sit at 7:30 and Lily is already asleep. I might work on hanging the new fixtures in the bathroom this evening!
Memorial Day Weekend….Sunday
Still painting. I’m 95% done with all the trim work. Rolling should take an hour and a half tomorrow morning. I hope to be cleaning up that project by noon.
Lily is whooped tonight. She skipped her nap and spent the afternoon either painting, swimming or playing in her sandbox. She had a hamburger, corn and watermelon for dinner. Now, she’s watching a Winnie the Pooh show and she’ll be out for the night.
I came out of the bathroom at 4:45 this afternoon, just as she was getting out of the pool. I came out ready to go swimming – you should have seen how quickly she changed back into her swimsuit to go swim with me!
Whales still aren’t out of the river… http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18867297/from/RS.1/
Memorial Day Weekend….Sunday
I finished the trim and painted the entire bathroom with the primer from 8a-10:45a and that included a trip to Home Depot. I’ll let this dry for a couple of hours and start the finish color.
Lily helped this morning for a little while – she likes using the roller!
If it’s Saturday night, it must be time for a bad Hallmark movie
Really worked in the bathroom again today. I sanded all the wall mud I had put on to cover the holes I cut. I put texture on all the sanded areas. Then I got to work painting the trim with a primer. The old color was green and the new color is light grey, so I went with a primer. It’s a pain to paint twice, but it’ll look better. I got about 98% of the primer trim done by 4:45p when I quit. I took out the old towel bar which was put in by cutting 4×4 holes in the dry wall, so they had to be patched too. I should get an early start tomorrow and I expect by the end of the day to have a coat of grey on the entire bathroom. Lily is such a BIG help. She spent the afternoon wearing her “mock” and painting a wall white. I’m also ripping out the baseboards and she helped pry them off.
We went to Lowe’s this morning for a few supplies and Lily made a race car in the Kid’s Clinic…
Friday night bubbles
What a thrill this must be. Staying up a little later than usual, skipping a bath and playing in the pool instead. And to make it even more fun, your father adds some soap to the water for a crazy bubble-filled hot tub!
Memorial Day Weekend…Day 1
Yes, I got Friday off. Took care of a few things this morning, about four phone calls through the day (Mostly from those darn Canadians who don’t recognize Memorial Day Friday) and ran to the office late this afternoon to make sure all was well there.
I spent the day in the bathroom. No – I felt fine, thanks. I was cutting up drywall and rewiring some outlets. I took one outlet and made two separate ones. I also split up the electricty for the light fixture and wired it for two. By noon, I had about 8 feet of drywall cut out and the wiring done. I had to chisel away some of the concrete wall behind the drywall to make room for the new outlet boxes. Once that was all in, I patched all the drywall. It’s drying now and I’ll sand it tonight. A little texture and I’ll be ready to paint tomorrow. New mirrors and lights will go in on Sunday. Lily was a big help – usually right at my hip with her safety googles on asking if she could hammer.
We played in the pool for an hour or so before dinner. Lily went in again after dinner. She’s good and tired now!
Here’s a mystery…
Actually, I’m on with UPS right now trying to figure this one out…
Why does a package going via overnight delivery from Miami, Florida to Bartow, Florida have to go through South Carolina?
And the kicker to this whole thing is there is nothing UPS can do about it until the package is actually late, which won’t officially happen until midnight.
So even though it is in South Carolina – somewhere it clearly shouldn’t be – it isn’t a problem to UPS.
Thursday
Warming up outside…feels like Memorial Day Weekend!
We had a quick dr. check up this morning. Painting a bathroom this weekend. Probably a one day job…unless Lily helps. Then it’s two days.
Not much work going on tomorrow, so I’m at home for 4 days! Yippie!
I’ve been following the whales out in California all week. What a sad sight. Click here
Lily’s brain
During lunch today, someone said something that reminded Lily of the dinosaur that’s at MGM. It’s a twenty foot tall dinosaur that houses an ice cream stand in the park. Poor Lily tried to remind us about it, or ask a question about it, either way – we just didn’t understand what dinosaur she was talking about. She tried and tried, she offered descriptions and other things but we just didn’t get it. You could see her little brain working SO hard to come up with it and it just wasn’t happening. At some point, she was upset (probably because we laughed) and it was apparently important to her that we acknowledge where this thing was. We even searched for some pictures on the computer hoping we’d find it.
Diane and Lily went up for nap and after about 5 minutes…EUREKA! Lily was able to jog Diane’s memory about what the dinosaur was. We were even able to pinpoint what was said at lunch that reminded her of the silly thing.
But poor Lily – just couldn’t quite get out what she wanted and was so frustrated.
What’s in a name?
Ok, this is interesting, given all the discussion we’ve been having about picking a boy’s name. It sounds like we should be able to take a look at the kid before we decide what his name should be.
Lily still wants her new brother’s name to be Pig.
Swim video
I’m not really sure how to explain what Lily is doing here. It has come to be known as the Ribbit-ribbit dance and it’s done quite often when she plays in the pool.
Watch her tread water! When she is at the camera, she’s asking me to turn the screen around so she can see herself on the camera.
Enjoy!
It’s a paycheck
There are some things I like about my job. Don’t get me wrong – the list of things I don’t like grow everyday, but that’s another story. For the most part, it’s the same things, they just bother me more and more and more with each passing day. Anyways, I digress…
Today I got to go have ice cream with Lily in the middle of the afternoon. How good is that? She had Wacky Watermelon and I had a scoop of Chocolate.
Ugh
Don’t get me wrong, I like the half hour or so I get to spend reading the paper and having a cup of coffee. But I terribly miss home by this time Monday morning. I just love our weekends. We have really, really good weekends. We (Diane, Lily and I) do everything together. We mowed the yard, grocery shopped, swam in the pool. We did a little shopping, worked in the backyard – tons of stuff. But now I have withdrawal. If I didn’t have a truck stranded at the US-Cananda border, I’d probably chuck it all and go home.
The garden is winding down. I’m going to try and keep it going throug the summer with something. Haven’t figured out what yet. I pulled up the first crop of corn yesterday. Still pulling two or three cucumbers a day! I have some HUGE sunflowers – maybe 9 ft tall and still going. And tons of bell peppers – more than we can eat. Note to self: we only need ONE bell pepper plant.
Yes, I got my parking space today. I haven’t seen Babe-a-licious yet, so I don’t think she’s here. I would have beat her here anyways.
Lily is going to a late art class this afternoon, so I’ll have a late lunch and sit with Diane while Lily goes to class.
Ah…Friday
It’s a warm, hazy Friday. The skies are threatening to drop a small (albeit welcome) shower.
My day has been spent frantically trying to get a load of pineapple across the US – Canada border. I don’t know how they do things in Canada, but it sounds like the whole country is run by a couple of squirrels and three drunk mounties. It’s a holiday Monday in Canada, so unless I want my trucker to spend three days at the border, I’ve got to clear this load in the next four hours – a process that needs four days.
So while I wait for phone calls from customs et al, I’m browsing the internet….
Guy leaves $12000 per year to the “first lady of the land” in his 1912 will… Click here
$500 million shipwreck found… Click here
Minnesota man pays parking ticket with dog poop… Click here
It’s a good day…
I think I’ve got my parking space everyday this week! Take that Babe-a-licious!!!!
Duck, duck, duck….goose!
The ducks are back. Again and again we’ve chased them away. As soon as they land, we rally everyone in the house to go chase them until they fly. They always fly two or three big circles around our house hoping we give up and and go inside so they can land again in the middle of the pool.
This morning we chased them away and watched as they flew around the house again. We decided they finally got the hint and headed to the lake for the day. When I left for work…
…they’ve found a puddle up front left by the sprinklers which ran over night. Crazy ducks.
Oh, fires in New Jersey too! Click here for Story I haven’t checked on the Florida fires this morning but on the weather last night, they were warning that the winds are expected to shift and we could have more smoke.
UW students have strange traditions…
University of Wisconsin student gets head run over by truck.
What? Is it possible that history repeats itself?
What are you reading today?
What you can do about gas prices… Click here for Story
This kid’s family gene pool needs a little chlorine… Click here for Story
Christmas idea for the “Shark-a-phobic” in your family (ok, who are we kidding? I’m talking about Joel here)… Click here for Story
If we are going to mention Joel, we should give a “shout-out” to my other Brother, Tommy. I, personally, love the Caveman commercials for Geico…. Click here for Story
Ok, coffee break is over – everyone back on your heads.
NJ beaches are da bomb
One reason people like Florida beaches so much is that there are hardly any large areas fenced off with signs that say “Danger: Unexploded Ordnance Found”. Such is the problem in Surf City, NJ where more than 1000 pieces of World War I munitions have been found during a $70 million restoration. The city plans to open the beach by Memorial Day, but might have to pass an ordinance to limit how deep sand castle builders can dig.
NEW JERSEY NOT SAFE TO VISIT!
ahhh….
I hate when I don’t blog for a couple of days. I don’t know where to start off.
Let’s see….Lily had her 3 year old check up yesterday. She’s 37 inches tall and weighs 34 pounds. Not bad. We were afraid we would be scolded by the pediatrician for having a 3 year old with tan lines, but we weren’t.
We had a nice weekend at the beach. Beautiful beach, some good food and a nice hotel. Made for a nice, short vacation. Diane may not have enjoyed it as much – she’s to the point where she can’t bend over and pickup seashells.
I’ve hired my first non-family employee. We’ve got one week behind us and already she’s where I hoped she’d be after 6 weeks. The office is as clean as it never was, and all my filing is done (I hadn’t put anything in a file cabinet since October). Sure makes for a nicer day out of the office for me when someone is there.
The state is still burning. Something like 230 fires now. The closest to us was the Upper Hillsborough fire. 137 acres, officially and about 25 miles away. The summer rainy season is trying to get started so the rain might be helping some areas.
Vacation day
we are off to the beach for the weekend. check back for updates
Busy, busy, busy
Sorry, been kind of busy this week. I’ve updated the webpage and to make it up to you, here are a few extra pictures.
Lily diving
Lily sneaks up on the ducks
“OK, Dad…turn it on!”
Cucumbers for dinner! And lunch. And breakfast.
First named ‘07 Atlantic storm forms
Ahh….we are just 22 days from DEFINITELY NOT SAFE TO VISIT FLORIDA season!!
FIRE!!!
The Forestry website is currently monitoring something in excess of 200 wild fires in the state of Florida right now.
It’s obvious this morning because of the smoke / haze in the air. It’s stronger than I’ve ever seen it – it’s like the fire is down the street. Just a good (bad) combination of wind and smoke. But it’s making my eyes burn. It’s so nice outside (we didn’t have the AC on at all yesterday) but you can’t open the windows because of the smoke.
Thanks Tommy for the picture… here is a picture of a fire burning near my brother’s house.
Tired Tuesday
Lily was up again this morning at exactly 3:10am. This time, she needed to go potty. I told her “fine, go use our potty”. Of course, the lights all come on, the exhaust fan and a flush. From the bathroom I hear, “Since we’re up, we can go look at my ladybug” (see yesterday’s post). Now, this is the second night (morning) in a row I’ve had to have the ladybug conversation. And for the second time, she’s upset I won’t take her out. I decide to nip this one quickly – let’s go outside. It’s 3:20 in the morning and Lily and I are outside admiring this glowing ladybug. Lily’s wide awake – she’s talking a hundred miles an hour about how cute it is and that she wants to get more. There was a glowing flamingo at Lowe’s too – she wants one of those. I told her if she went back to bed and slept nicely until morning, I’d go buy her one today. She tried, but was back in our bed an hour later.
It’s art class day so Lily skips her nap. Considering she’s been up since 3am, this could be a long day. For me, for Lily and for the art class teacher!
Enter Generic Monday Headline Here
A lot of my vlog entries end up in Lily’s journal and this one is no exception.
Lily found a light up lady bug at Lowe’s this weekend. It takes batteries and turns on at dusk and off at dawn. Lily went to bed before it came on last night, but I showed her how it worked in the dark closet.
Well, at 3:30 this morning, Lily comes down and wakes me up. She grabs my arm and, wide awake, says, “Hey Daddy, I’m going outside to see my ladybug”!
Is it Monday yet?
Well, we are all pretty whooped tonight. We’ve been going nonstop since 7am. We’ve had lots of sun, lots of swimming and plenty of dirt. We mowed the grass, hosed off the porch, bathed the dogs, smoked chickens, fixed sprinklers, polished our “new” grill, and picked vegetables. I’ll bet Lily spent 6 hours in the pool. It’s amazing how her swimming has opened up the pool to her. Last year, she’d just barely stray off the steps. Now she covers every inch of the pool – back and forth, back and forth.
The corn is amazing this year!! The stalks are about 8 feet tall and each one has two big, fat ears of sweet corn. I haven’t grown corn like this in years. We picked our first cucumbers today too.
The ducks are back. We have a pair of mallards that have moved into our pool. Lily walked outside and came in yelling, “It’s Spring! It’s Spring! The ducks are back again!” They stayed all day – moving from one side of the yard to the next while we mowed. Even the dogs barking and playing ball in the pool didn’t scare them off.
Alaskans tussle over new cruise ship law
Thanks for the link Darrell – I’ll be sure “shake the tree” when I take my next Alaskan cruise – but don’t hold your breathe – it won’t be any time soon!
I love Saturdays
We’ve had a nice morning around here. We began with homemade blueberry pancakes, of which Lily ate three huge pancakes. We’ve changed the air filters, put up a shelf in the closet, cleaned the garage, put together the grill (which works GREAT by the way) and had lunch. Lily hasn’t left my side all morning. She’s just as dirty and grungy as I am but a real treat to have as a helper. Actually, the way she talks, it’s like I’m the helper and she’s the boss. She keeps checking my work and telling me what to do next.
Lily is going to “rest” for a while, although, I don’t think she’ll actually sleep. I’ve just finished hiding the wires to my computer that I’ve had exposed while hooking up my new router and I’ve installed a fan under the computer desk to keep things cool down there.
After nap, we are going to clean off the porch, hose off the pool deck, bathe the dogs and wash the cars. Not bad for a Saturday.
Whenever we get in the pool, before I’ll play with Lily, I tell her she has to show me she can swim from one end to the other. No playing until she does it. She’s really starting to swim that single lap pretty good now. She likes to stop half way and tread water during which she usually talks about what we are going to play.
That reminds me of another thing she is doing…. Everymorning, Lily comes down and plays in the living room until we get up. She usually comes in and uses our bathroom. That wouldn’t be too bad, except she finds it necessary to narrate along the way. We hear about her pants falling off her ankles, that she can’t reach the paper, then she tears the paper the wrong way but “that’s ok, I can get more”. Start to finish, from climbing on to flushing – it’s play-by-play in the bathroom at 7am.
Happy Days are Here Again!!!
THE A/C IS ON!!!!!! THE A/C IS ON!!!!!
THE A/C IS ON!!!!!! THE A/C IS ON!!!!!
THE A/C IS ON!!!!!! THE A/C IS ON!!!!!
Kidney donation to hubby ends divorce plans
Allentown, PA couple reunite after divorce.
Ahhh…Friday
I’m late to work this morning because Alan needed help getting a ditch digger out of his truck. Long story short….I’m an hour late and there was no ditch digger.
By some great twist of fate I did, however, get my parking spot! Someone must have had it when Babe-a-licious got here this morning and they must have since left. I’m front row center! In your face Babe! I got Starbucks, an extra hour at home AND the parking space!
But – I forgot my cellphone at home. Strange isn’t it? When I leave without my phone, I feel like I forgot my pants. I feel weird without it.
I’m sure the question you really have is do I have AC at the office. The answer is NO. It’s 78 in here already and I have no intention of drawing this out. I was drenched yesterday when I got home. I went straight in the pool. I expect I’ll give this an hour or two and I’m out of here today.
So maybe more Vlogging later from home!
Stay-at-home mom’s work worth $138,095
Every year it’s the same thing…stay at home mom’s are worth soooooo much.
Ok…first of all, we can just delete cook, computer tech and van driver from this list. Psychologist? Oh puh-leeze.
And what about the working Dad? Does he get a worth for lawn maintenance supervisor? Pool boy? General contractor?
You know what I’ve learned? The stay at home moms don’t need $138,000… they just need a credit card to shop at the Gap.com every now and then.
No AC….day three
postamble();Not a good sign – it is already 80 degrees in my office and it’s barely 9am.
I just have too much to do here today to go home. I need a fan. And a big ice block.
Lily decided to play the “Hug Game” this morning. One hug after another. Nonstop. I was gladly late to play round after round of the Hug Game with her. I didn’t get my parking space and I don’t care. I got to play the Hug Game.
Lily was actually very good this morning. She slept good last night, ate a good breakfast this morning. She did all of her chores without being told to and went upstairs and got her clothes for the day and brushed her teeth – all without incident.
Close call
After work yesterday, we drove out to the Lithia area to check out a couple of places that offer gymnastics and dance and even a theater place for Lily this summer. The theater place actually puts the kids through a one week mini-camp and they learn and perform The Little Mermaid at the end of the camp. It looked and sounded good, so we took the registration information with us.
Well, sitting there last night, I got to searching the internet on this place. I checked with the state of Florida – the lady that owns the place ( Kids Company) she’s late filing her annual report. No big deal – just an expensive mistake.
I looked at the county tax records – she owns a home in Brandon and has for 6 years or so. All of her taxes are paid, so that’s good too.
I checked the sexual offender listings on the FDLE website and found nothing.
The interesting thing we found was when I checked the county jail. Seems she was just arrested at the end of February for Cocaine possession! We were floored. And disappointed. Amazing what you can find on the internet now.
Gotta go…I’m going to Google my family.
