Today was our first Saturday. The guys went out in the afternoon and then we all went out in the evening. One of the stores that John and Sean frequent is going out of business (maybe) and he was having a special sale today and they had promised him that they'd try to go. John had forgotten because he's not used to having Saturdays but Sean remembered and said, "Dad, we promised Rick we'd go to his sale today. We can't let him down. He's expecting us." So off they went. LOL They came home for a few hours and then we decided to go to Arby's since they have chicken again. John really likes it but Sean doesn't eat roast beef in any form. It's a little scary for me as they have "The Great Sesame Ceremony" in their kitchen at the beginning of the shift. I just got beef on an onion roll, dug through it twice like some sort of wild animal and found four stray seeds (which would have put me out of commission for at least three days minimum), prayed I didn't miss any more seeds and took my chances. So far so good but it's only been five hours and it can hit up to ten or so. You can easily see why we don't go there often. After dinner we poked around in Wal-Mart for awhile and then they dropped me off back at home and headed to the swap meet for awhile. I am not a good swap meet companion.
We're having fun dreaming with the tax money. We have a list of needs and wants. Can't wait until it gets here so we can start making some of the dreams reality. At Best Buy I saw a very nice Toshiba netbook for a good price. I am planning on that one. I don't need anything major, just something to access the Internet on that's mine so I don't have to vie for time on Sean's. All I do is listen to my music on YouTube, go to email, go to Facebook, write in my blog and read the blogs I follow. I also surf around and read stuff but nothing very intense. No games or anything like that. If/when I get an iPod I'll be going to iTunes as well. I'm a very boring computer person. To me it's basically just a reading room with communication and music sections. LOL Sean and John are the ones who use computers to the last ounce of their ability.
Incidentally, John's first weekend almost got sabotaged by work. When we were out yesterday he had forgotten his phone on the charger. We didn't worry about it because I had mine so we weren't phoneless. When we got home and he checked it there was a call from work. They wanted him to work a shift over where his friend Russy works. Luckily they had already covered it by the time he called them back. The overtime is nice but we have SOOOOO been looking forward to this first weekend that we were glad he had missed the call. He wasn't in trouble because he's not on call so he doesn't have to be tied to a phone. He also doesn't have to go in if they ask but he's not the kind of person who tells them no unless it's too close to his normal start or stop.
Not much else going on in our corner of the world. I hope everyone is having a good weekend.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Our First Weekend In Years
Today starts the first weekend we've had in years. John has worked at least one weekend day and usually at least part of both since 2008. Now that he has the new schedule his weekend actually started when he got off work last night at 11PM. His work week won't start until Monday at 5PM. We decided to celebrate by eating dinner at Pizza Hut which we haven't done in a long time. After that John took us for a drive out to see where their new hit is. It's an HOA way out of town. For those of you familiar with Tucson, it's past the mission out in the Black Wash Floodway. As John says, "Bring a lunch. You'll need it." They're in trouble if they get an alarm call while they're out there because it will take over an hour to get there and they only have 15 minutes on those. Methinks the powers that be didn't look at a map before adding it to this patrol.
Like I mentioned earlier, we got our taxes done today. Of course, that means that we are dreaming now. First we have to take care of the practical things that need to be done like tires for the car and a few other things that it needs. We also need to pay off a few things as well. After that we get to have some fun. I'm going to get a netbook and an iPod. I miss mine since I let it go last year. John wants to get a laptop and probably an iPod as well. My netbook and his laptop will make things much easier around here as we won't all be vying for time on Sean's laptop. As for Sean, he's dreaming of the 3DS but they don't come out until March 27 so he'll have to wait if he decides on that.
In other news, the crud is still hanging on with John and I. I won't go into gory detail but will suffice it to say that this stage isn't pretty. I just wish it would go away and not return.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend.
Like I mentioned earlier, we got our taxes done today. Of course, that means that we are dreaming now. First we have to take care of the practical things that need to be done like tires for the car and a few other things that it needs. We also need to pay off a few things as well. After that we get to have some fun. I'm going to get a netbook and an iPod. I miss mine since I let it go last year. John wants to get a laptop and probably an iPod as well. My netbook and his laptop will make things much easier around here as we won't all be vying for time on Sean's laptop. As for Sean, he's dreaming of the 3DS but they don't come out until March 27 so he'll have to wait if he decides on that.
In other news, the crud is still hanging on with John and I. I won't go into gory detail but will suffice it to say that this stage isn't pretty. I just wish it would go away and not return.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend.
He Really Should Start Believing Me
John owes me a Coke because I was right. I told him I would be. You'd think after almost 22 years married he'd have a little more faith in me. :) Here's the deal: Several years ago my Aunt Lucille passed away at the age of 95 or so. My dad was in her will but since he had already passed it went to me. Not a great sum as far as inheritances go but MAJOR to us, thank you so much my wonderful aunt. Anyway, last year in June, long after tax time, we got a form in the mail from my uncle for taxes. John has been stressing over this thing since June. I told him and told him to quit because it wasn't going to affect anything at all. Guess who was right? ME! The H&R Block lady even told him to start believing his wife. LOL
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Retire The Boiler Already
Six weeks ago the boiler broke and we were about half the day without water with no warning. Now two days ago we got a notice that they were shutting the water from 8AM-4PM today to fix another leak in the ancient boiler. Apparently the copper tubing is extremely old and is falling apart bit by bit. We decided to go out to breakfast and then went for a drive to see if we could find the HOA that's been added to John's route. When we got home it was already after noon and the water was still on. We thought maybe they had already turned it back on because sometimes they turn it back on early but we were skeptical as it had still been on when we left at 10:30. Sure enough, they hadn't shut it yet. At 4:15 we were sitting outside on the balcony and the neighbor came out asking when they were supposed to have shut the water because she didn't have any and they were planning soup for dinner. She had to tell her boyfriend to bring some water home if he still wanted his tomato soup. He was not a happy camper having to stop at the store for water after spending a day on the flight line. They got the water back on around 6PM but only cold. Around 9:00 I went up to the store and when I got back the maintenance guy was teasing me for parking in the prospective tenants parking (we're allowed to if the office is closed and we'll have the car moved by 8:30AM). I asked him what he was doing here and he said he was trying to get us hot water. He told me that the people who were supposed to show up in the morning to do the work didn't show up until almost 4:00 and they left before everything was working again. Company's gonna love all the overtime on his paycheck--NOT. Hopefully we'll have hot water in the morning for showers. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Pod People Have Stolen My Child.........
.........at least temporarily. His Astro Goomba Gashapon went missing and he actually didn't get how he gets. He was calm and cooperative and helped look for it. Of course, he was told that all help and sympathy would evaporate the second he started getting how he gets but that usually doesn't make much difference. It took about two hours to find it. Mom finally found it in a mixed bag in his closet. It had no business being in there but as we've told him, when you can't find stuff where it should be you have to look for it where it shouldn't be. After he found it he had to give Dad the full review of all six of his Gashapons. Sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of encouraging him to do that to help with his speech because he does it all the time and reviews the same toys over and over. I'm glad it helped though and it made him confident to speak in front of others even back when he couldn't be easily understood so I guess it was a good thing.
An Interesting Tuesday
So much for the time improvement. Today it took him almost 35 minutes and he dang near went into a frenzy when Dad told him he needs to start when the alarm goes off and I call "7:30, time to get dressed" and be done by 7:35. Then, just to add insult to injury, he walked out the door without his violin. Luckily I had the phone with me and we had money on both of them so John called when I was at the light waiting to make my U-turn. We had to double back and he had to run upstairs and get it. Needless to say he was NOT a happy camper when he got back downstairs and saw that it was 8:11 and then saw the traffic on the street. Since the bell rings at 8:22 that means he only had about six minutes to play by the time he got there.
At least he had a good day at school so his bad start didn't set the tone for the day. They made moon journals that they have to keep for the next week. He was so proud to show us his. He decorated it in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 motif. The drawings of the robots are excellent, better than any fan art that was ever sent in to the show back in the day. (Wait 'til I post up the Tom Servo he made from Super Sculpey in a few days. LOL) He said to me, "MST3K is space stuff right, Mom?" "Well.....sort of." "We had to decorate it in space stuff so that's how I was able to get away with it." Stifled laughter from Mom, "What did Teacher say about it?" "She didn't really say anything." He's pushing the envelope a little but still within the realm of the requirement. On a bad note, they were 10 minutes late getting out of school today because they wouldn't be quiet. Ours was NOT one of the chatterers. According to Teacher he is very well-behaved and is a teacher's dream. According to us he better be because that's what he's been taught at home. On a side note, his behavior at home has been better. It's been quite a while since we've had to have a 10 Commandments seminar. We have those periodically with particular emphasis on #4: "Honor your father and your mother" and #10: "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods." So hopefully that will continue.
Now to take a total Grand Canyon leap we're going to switch from Sean and school to John and work. Anybody who sees my Facebook statuses may remember that last week and the week before he had to work five extra hours on Monday (his Friday) which made him working from 3PM-4AM. That is no big deal in and of itself but it is when it's because a co-worker doesn't show up and it isn't expected. Well, said co-worker was pulled from Patrol 1 today. They changed up the schedule so that John and the other driver (as hard a worker and as good a guard as John) can handle it between them with no third driver in the mix at all. So now, instead of working 3-11PM Thursday-Monday he'll be working 5-11PM Monday, 5PM-5AM Tuesday, 5PM-4AM Wednesday-Thursday and have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. This will be a much better schedule for us. It will end the hurry to get Sean from school and he and I won't have to walk home from the car wash so that John won't be late. I admit that I will miss those walks though. I enjoyed getting to talk with him and hear about his school day. But this is better. He'll have the same days off as Sean and will be here in the morning to see him off to school and get to spend some time with him before he has to go to work. And the best thing about it is that the change-over isn't going to foul up the pay like it did when he left the parking lots and went to patrol. He finishes out his last day of this pay period on Thursday and then has Fri-Sat-Sun off and starts the new shift on Monday which will be in the next pay period. We're extremely happy, needless to say. *big grin*
Not much else going on. Oh, wait a minute, yes there is! I think the downstairs neighbors might FINALLY be almost done moving out after two weeks. He was in there pounding on the masonry walls making the whole house shake same as when they moved in. I'm assuming they were putting up at that time and taking down today--incidentally, we're not supposed to drill into the masonry, you wouldn't think. We also saw him and a friend carting out the giant wall unit that was right under my chair causing the whole house to shake when they were playing their two-song repertoire (Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London) at full volume. Also, we were privileged to hear yet another fight as he was cracking open the umpteenth beer of the day and found an unpaid bill which had fallen behind said wall unit. Apparently our hunch was right and they are breaking up because he said this was over and he already gave his part and it's her fault this one was missed. All I can say is that at least she got a sudden surge of good taste (as my father would have said) and is leaving the guy. Although personally, I would not have let him back in after he got the aggravated DUI (4x the legal limit) and totalled my car or after he broke the glass table throwing it against the wall, came after me with the table frame and then locked me out causing me to wake the upstairs neighbors (us) at 1:30 in the morning to use the phone to call the police. But that's just me.........I guess some people take awhile to figure things out.
I realize this is long but I warned you I'd be rambling. I'm such a chatterbox on the computer that I know none of you who only know me online would ever believe that I'm actually quiet in person. *grin*
At least he had a good day at school so his bad start didn't set the tone for the day. They made moon journals that they have to keep for the next week. He was so proud to show us his. He decorated it in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 motif. The drawings of the robots are excellent, better than any fan art that was ever sent in to the show back in the day. (Wait 'til I post up the Tom Servo he made from Super Sculpey in a few days. LOL) He said to me, "MST3K is space stuff right, Mom?" "Well.....sort of." "We had to decorate it in space stuff so that's how I was able to get away with it." Stifled laughter from Mom, "What did Teacher say about it?" "She didn't really say anything." He's pushing the envelope a little but still within the realm of the requirement. On a bad note, they were 10 minutes late getting out of school today because they wouldn't be quiet. Ours was NOT one of the chatterers. According to Teacher he is very well-behaved and is a teacher's dream. According to us he better be because that's what he's been taught at home. On a side note, his behavior at home has been better. It's been quite a while since we've had to have a 10 Commandments seminar. We have those periodically with particular emphasis on #4: "Honor your father and your mother" and #10: "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods." So hopefully that will continue.
Now to take a total Grand Canyon leap we're going to switch from Sean and school to John and work. Anybody who sees my Facebook statuses may remember that last week and the week before he had to work five extra hours on Monday (his Friday) which made him working from 3PM-4AM. That is no big deal in and of itself but it is when it's because a co-worker doesn't show up and it isn't expected. Well, said co-worker was pulled from Patrol 1 today. They changed up the schedule so that John and the other driver (as hard a worker and as good a guard as John) can handle it between them with no third driver in the mix at all. So now, instead of working 3-11PM Thursday-Monday he'll be working 5-11PM Monday, 5PM-5AM Tuesday, 5PM-4AM Wednesday-Thursday and have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. This will be a much better schedule for us. It will end the hurry to get Sean from school and he and I won't have to walk home from the car wash so that John won't be late. I admit that I will miss those walks though. I enjoyed getting to talk with him and hear about his school day. But this is better. He'll have the same days off as Sean and will be here in the morning to see him off to school and get to spend some time with him before he has to go to work. And the best thing about it is that the change-over isn't going to foul up the pay like it did when he left the parking lots and went to patrol. He finishes out his last day of this pay period on Thursday and then has Fri-Sat-Sun off and starts the new shift on Monday which will be in the next pay period. We're extremely happy, needless to say. *big grin*
Not much else going on. Oh, wait a minute, yes there is! I think the downstairs neighbors might FINALLY be almost done moving out after two weeks. He was in there pounding on the masonry walls making the whole house shake same as when they moved in. I'm assuming they were putting up at that time and taking down today--incidentally, we're not supposed to drill into the masonry, you wouldn't think. We also saw him and a friend carting out the giant wall unit that was right under my chair causing the whole house to shake when they were playing their two-song repertoire (Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London) at full volume. Also, we were privileged to hear yet another fight as he was cracking open the umpteenth beer of the day and found an unpaid bill which had fallen behind said wall unit. Apparently our hunch was right and they are breaking up because he said this was over and he already gave his part and it's her fault this one was missed. All I can say is that at least she got a sudden surge of good taste (as my father would have said) and is leaving the guy. Although personally, I would not have let him back in after he got the aggravated DUI (4x the legal limit) and totalled my car or after he broke the glass table throwing it against the wall, came after me with the table frame and then locked me out causing me to wake the upstairs neighbors (us) at 1:30 in the morning to use the phone to call the police. But that's just me.........I guess some people take awhile to figure things out.
I realize this is long but I warned you I'd be rambling. I'm such a chatterbox on the computer that I know none of you who only know me online would ever believe that I'm actually quiet in person. *grin*
Monday, January 24, 2011
Will He Hit 5 Minutes By August?
It is unbelieveable to me that it can take Sean a half hour to dress. I have never known anyone with no physical issues who takes a half hour or so to dress. It takes him around 10 minutes to finish getting his pants on and almost as long sometimes for his shoes, not including tying. We won't even discuss the amount of time it usually takes him to tie them. It is literally painful to watch him dress. Part of it is because he is non-stop talking and wandering around the whole time and part of it is because he is so fussy and the underwear and socks have to be "just so" which necessitates getting said item of clothing partly on and then pulling it off and starting over--without adjusting the underwear and/or socks, like they will magically straighten themselves out. I have taken to going outside about 10 or 15 minutes into the process just so I don't lose it and it also helps to speed him up because he thinks I'm waiting for him. This morning John gave him a time limit. He starts dressing at 7:30 and John told him he needed to be done by 7:50. He just about made it. We're getting really concerned about this because he goes into middle school next year and will have PE. There is no way he can take a half hour to dress in a PE class. As I recall we had about 5 minutes, max. Will he hit 5 minutes by August? Time will tell, I suppose.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
I'm BACK!!!
I guess I'll give this another shot. I was talking with a friend about blogging the other day and she was asking me if I had used Blogger back when I was blogging. I said I had and we were discussing whether or not they got rid of the blogs if you didn't post regularly. So I decided to go over to their site and check it out. Lo and behold, up pops my old blog with everything intact. Couldn't believe it after 3 1/2 years with no activity. I figured since it was still there I might as well have another go at it. Of course, I had to fancy it up a bit and change the pictures since Sean has grown quite a bit. He saw what I was doing and specifically asked me if I could put a 10-11 year old picture of him up rather than a little kid picture. LOL Like I said in the "About Me" blurb, I don't have a purpose for this blog so we'll just see where it goes from here and hopefully at least a few people will stop in occasionally to read it. PLEASE comment and let me know you've been here. Thanks for stopping by.
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