Hamin Lee!!!!
Ok, let's put it into perspective. She's only coming 2 days early. Instead of August 11th its August 9th. So, that will give her a few days to sleep and chill out at home before we go to Kentucky and see the Mammoth Caves. So, its all good.
Time - ok - daily allotted time - is finite. I have been away from this blog because I'm spending all my computer time lately on SparkPeople. If you want to get healthy, better yet - lose weight - this is the site for you. It is awesome. I was going to post my url, but decided that since I don't know who visits my blog I don't want everyone to see my weight so I didn't. If you're interested in this please email me.
All of my other time has gone towards outdoor work, exercising at the YWCA in the mornings on Monday and Wednesday, then Diversified - the new gym near my work on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday after work. I have a personal trainer and he's teaching me great stuff to help me with my knees and my shoulder. I love it. He pushes me but I tell him when I think its more than I can handle. He only lets me talk him into that if he sees the shake in my muscles from the weight. So far - I feel great. He's never pushed me to the point that I don't feel like exercising the next day. I was pretty upfront with him and said I just can't afford that. To keep losing weight I need to be able to exercise every day. So................then after all that time is taken up - there's not much left. So.......sorry otto - I know I've been lax on Monday Madness. Well, that's all for now. We got some rain so I'll be mowing grass now.
So........ what makes condo girl take a break you ask???? Dental work. When I was in South Carolina I broke a tooth. I was lucky it didn't crack down to the nerve. (thank you Jesus). So I dodged the bullet of the 'root canal'. But today was step 1 in getting a crown. My poor little tooth has been ground upon, the gum tissue all around it is very sad and sore. I loved the nitrous oxide. Its a relaxing little trip while you're under. Too bad you can't take a tank home until the tylenol kicks in. All the funny things you think to say you can't because the dentist is working in your mouth.
So...... tonight I created a new recipe and added it to 'sparkpeople'. I got a bunch of great emails and pictures from Ha-Min. It looks like they came on Sunday - not sure why I didn't see them. Oh well, she sure seems like a happy girl. I can't wait to meet her in person.
Today as I was driving to the dentist I realized how smart it was and how much more relaxing to allow time for the drive. When I scheduled the appointment in my work calendar I gave myself driving time. I always cut it too close - but today I didn't. It was so much less stressful. Then when I came home and my tooth hurt, even though I kind of thought I should go out and do more weeding, I took a nap to let my mouth get unnumb and let the tylenol kick in because my poor tooth was throbbing. Then I made dinner and continued with laundry. How much less stressful then working outside until 9, making dinner and doing laundry afterwards. Then I realized - who asks all these things of me. Okay - that'd be 'ME'! So........ the weeds will be there tomorrow.
Ok, I really think I should live in a condominium. A little outdoor work is enjoyable; even therapeutic. But gosh, yesterday I mowed grass from 3:30 - 7:30 and today I've been weeding around the house and digging up mounds of dirt for 3 hours and I feel like there's no end in sight. I want to enjoy life and not spend every minute away from work - working. There's got to be more......... I think I need to go on a trip. OK - so...... rather then complain about it, I decided to ask Rich to help me. I know he's been working on the remodeling, but its going to rain tomorrow and he has more muscles then me. So I continued weeding by my hosta and he and David started digging dirt and moving it. So now, its 7:00 pm and I'm going to get cleaned up and make supper, do laundry and bills. Things will get better. Its just a busy time right now because of spring - cleanup the beds after winter.
The sermon at church this morning was awesome. Being a Christian should be enough. You know what salvation is, you know that all things on earth are temporal, and still the world can drag you down. Today at church it was a great refresher on how to have a happy spirit. The reminder was that today we celebrated 'Pentecost'. What enables you to have a free spirit??? The Holy Spirit. How do you strengthen that spirit within you? Read your Bible, go to bible study and church. The more you strengthen that spirit the more readily you can pull yourself out of the dolldrums of life. Well, have a good day. This one is starting off great. Thanks Pastor Schulz :)
Yesterday I blogged a brain dump of my random thoughts. Posted it for 5 minutes then decided it was a little too much personal disclosure. So......... that'll keep you guessing.
Getting stuck in my brain...
Where is Ko? Why doesn't he call or write? Aren't we important to him? Why do I get so emotionally invested? Am I setting myself up again???
This week's questions; all about birthdays! Have fun and thank you for playing each week. =)
1. Name one thing you received as a gift on your last birthday.
Dinner out to Red Lobster
2. What would be the "perfect" birthday gift?
a massage
3. Do you look forward to birthdays?
nope
4. On your birthday, do you treat yourself to something special each year?
I don't cook all day (I know what you're thinking - I don't cook a lot of days - haha)
5. Do you bother keeping up with your horoscope on a regular basis?
nope
6. What zodiac sign are you, and do you think you fit the description for that sign?
Leo - and yes - I'm outgoing and can be gregarious. I can growl like a lion - that's for sure. (ok - I know that's not part of the 'Leo' description, but it just fits with the lion thing).
I didn't think about this until after reading Granni39's answers, but I agree with her....... love is the best gift of all. My addendum to that is, the daily acts of love are what mean the most throughout the year. Words can be so damaging. I've delivered them and received them. I know how bad they can hurt. The tongue sure is a dangerous weapon.
What are your thoughts on the results of Survivor? I really wanted Yau-man to win because he is a 54 year old man with integrity, tenacity, and all that true survival in life requires. The game was quite a good reflection of real life because once again it was a slippery underhanded person that cut the good person to their knees. At least Earl won. He had integrity. He didn't alienate people, he did his part.
From Monday Madness http://mmadness.blogspot.com/
This week's questions are straight off the top of my head again...
Here we go! Thank you so much for playing and have a wonderful week ahead. =)
1. Which web browser do you prefer? Internet Explorer - just because I'm lazy. I hear Firefox is better and safer, but its just easier going with the default. Of course all the people who write viruses know this too.
2. Are you a PC user or MAC user? Currently PC user, a MAC may be in my future.
3. Will your next computer purchase happen within the next year (do you think)? Probably not. Remodeling is too expensive. We're getting all tapped out.
4. Will you purchase your next computer at a local store or via the internet? Probably a local store. If its a Mac it will be Pam's local store in Grand Rapids.
5. Have you had any experience with Windows Vista? Nope.
6. What are your feelings about this new operating system (if any)? I haven't heard that much, except that my itunes may not work with it and I love my iPod - so............ its one more reason to switch to a Mac.
I had a nice Mother's Day. I was supposed to work, but another team needed control of the system, so I didn't have to so......
Of course the day started off with church. David and I played in handbells for the last time before summer break. I also had the tech job and that went well. We came home and I just decided rather than starting on cleaning the bird cages and feeling sad because Rich and David didn't offer, I came right out and asked David to see if his Dad would be willing to clean bird cages with him for me for Mother's day. David was a trooper. He did it. He helped Richard without complaint. While they were cleaning bird cages I scanned in and prepared the forms for Ha-Min to register at Bay City Western. Then of course I called my Mom. We took Mom out for Mother's Day brunch last weekend after the Christian Education Service. I also gave Mom a little gift then since I was supposed to be working this weekend. Natalie was visiting at the time and Linda had also stopped over, so I think it was all right that I didn't go over today. Then Rich and David went to Menard's to get some building materials. While they were gone I started weeding my flower beds. Boy I used some muscles I hadn't used in a while but there's something therapeutic about getting down in the dirt. I was a little nervous about spiders and toads in the back corners of the flower beds but I toughed it out and never saw a one! Then I cleaned up (that's the great part about playing in the dirt, you know you've got that wonderful shower to look forward to). I started laundry while Rich and David cleaned up, and then we all went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant...... Red Lobster. I got home and worked on more laundry and David finished up his homework (stuff he 'forgot' about). I suppose the kid deserves to cut himself some slack this late in the year after getting all A's all year long in every subject. We watched Survivor and I worked on more laundry. I was pretty happy with the results of Survivor. One guy shy of who I wanted most to win, but at least the guy who won had a brain and some decent ethics. Well.......... I've got to ................. you guessed it ................check the laundry, and then go to bed.
Pastor Starr created this lovely Mother's Day Slideshow - Happy Mother's Day Mom. I love you!
What a miserable week this has been. Its pretty bad when you have to cheer yourself up by saying, well....... nobody died.... Anyway, we moved a huge project into production after 2 years of very hard troubleshooting and on and off work. I say on and off because we have so many other projects, this is the project that always got put off. Finally, we started running one line of business (our writing of homeowners insurance) into production under this new version of software. Someone in the company made a huge mistake back in 1997 to basically rewrite the source code to pull off all kinds of pretty things. Sadly this prevented us from being able to upgrade........ ever since. Duh - this is programming 101. Is your code portable, upgradeable, migratable??????....blah blah blah.
So any way, after a 16 hour day at work we migrated to production successfully. There were still problems. We worked through them. None of them were actually that big when you consider the immensity of the project. All records were retrievable in production. All data was sound. There were a few duplicate records to contend with in one view, but that had been there since the code was running in development. Hello.......that's why the person who was supposed to be looking at development should have caught it. Anyway, we backed off those dupes, got the single recs displayable - life was good. Any accolades????? Nope!!!!!! I guess that comes from inside????
I was keeping my cool. I was dealing with the stress. I can't say the same for my co-worker. He kept slamming his desk in frustration, swearing, etc. All that did was add to my stress. Now I'm a very expressive person, but when push comes to shove and I'm under stress to figure out a problem at work. I'm heads down - serious - figure it out - no dramatics. I can't afford the energy waste. So....when someone I work with is doing that it is quite disconcerting. When he yelled at me................. look out!!!!!!! Especially when he yelled at me for talking too loud on the phone on a 3 way speaker phone conference call when he's been slamming things on his desk. I've been sucking it up for 15 hours straight. I didn't go home for a 2 hour break to have a little dinner because I live 1/2 hour away. Certainly don't yell at me when you've been having little temper tantrums at your desk every 15 minutes when things that you are supposed to be able to control don't work!!!! I expressed my concern about using a tool that you couldn't control way back. Did anyone listen????? I asked if there was a way to log the process so we'd know where the process was dyig. Did anyone listen?????? You're listening now. Aye - what a week.
Is anyone listening???????? Who takes care of me?????????? I guess I do. So what do I do for relaxation???????? Mow the lawn for 2 hours. hahaha.
I've got to say though, since I need Rich to focus on the remodeling and I'm the new lawn mower of 2 acres. I bought a new rider and a new push mower. The zero turn mower is awesome. Tight spots are tricky, but it sure gets through the yard a lot faster.
See ya -
How do you teach someone to laugh at themselves? I think it makes for a happier person if you know how to do this.
Richard bought some strawberries because he loves strawberry shortcake. I just got back from South Carolina on business and had a lot of catching up to do this week at home and at work, so, since he's now the stay at home, everyday before I went into work I'd say, "you'd better wash those strawberries or they'll start going moldy". Well finally he washed them. Cut them, and............when he asked me what I did with them after that I told him I usually put splenda or sugar on them. Well, today we decided to have strawberry shortcake. I assembled the desserts with cool whip and these little cakes he bought. I bit into it and my mind right away was trying to figure out what was wrong. Too much baking soda in the cakes? A dirty dish with leftover dishwasher liquid? A dirty spoon? Then all of a sudden it hit me. Rich used salt instead of sugar. I was lmao. 
Needless to say, Richard was not. 
I hope he learns to one day. It makes life so much more fun.
Guess what? He proceeded to eat all 3 servings (after adding sugar). David and I had ice cream.
Nothing is ever as bad as it seems at the time. Sorry I was such a downer in yesterday's blog. The computer issue kept me up until 3:00 AM just because I'm a bit obsessive. Bottom line is I am grateful that I have the knowledge to work things like this out and I'm not at the mercy of the Geek Squad at Best Buy everytime I have computer issues. I reinstalled Windows, reinstalled all the patches, SP2 etc., and then my McAfee wouldn't reinstall. In the back of my mind I knew I had firewire on my laptop but the cables didn't match. So....today I called Best Buy and they had a 4pin to 4pin cable for my firewire. So I'm going to use my laptop to make the DVD. Then.......since my X2 machine (built by Dad and me) really needs to be reformatted I'm going to go that route, but now I have a little time. so......nothings ever really as bad as it seems. And I got the poster done for Mr. Towne's door. Not my best work, but in 2.5 hrs - acceptable. Movin' on...... or should I say, keepin' on keepin' on. See ya'
You can't live with them - you can't live without them. I promised the choir director for David's church and school that I'd make a DVD of the youth handbell choir for Sunday. Wouldn't you know it. I can't get my firewire to work on my machine. So....... I go to Device Manager to look at my devices, and what do I see???? NOTHING!!! Big bummer for me. Now I'm reinstalling windows and I hope it works. Fortunately my backups were up to date and the way I'm reinstalling windows I'm not losing data on my data partition. But its a bummer nonetheless. Something I definately don't have time for. After playing catchup all week due to being in SC last week, both at work and at home, I volunteered to make this DVD and decorate David's teachers door for Christian Education Sunday and Teacher appreciation week. I really need to learn how to say no. But I just don't feel like I did as much for the school as I usually do. Of course the way they don't support the good kids and let the little hellions do whatever they want, and pick on my kid, I wasn't feeling really motivated. Oh well, blah blah blah.
Well Rich finally went to the doctor for his cancer follow up. He missed the appointment by 2 months and he's supposed to go every 3 months for a check up. He was busy with the remodeling, and he refuses to keep a calendar or 'to do' list so he missed the appointment. He finally made another one when I asked him how he'd feel about telling his son that he was dying of a cancer that could have been avoided with close observation. Well, that did it. He made the appointment. So anyway, the doctor didn't see any more tumors in his bladder so now he only has to go every 6 months. Looks like the tuberculosis treatment worked and slowed the growth of tumors.
(history: Rich was diagnosed with bladder cancer 2.5 years ago. He had that large tumor removed but then 2 more came back. So then he had the TB treatment and he hasn't had any since. The deal with this cancer is that we've been told that it is a cancer that originates in the bladder. It is not a cancer due to spread of cancer in the body. If you keep an eye on the cancer and remove the tumors before they penetrate the bladder wall, supposedly there is no risk of the cancer spreading. Of course we blame Dow Chemical and their bucket chemistry for his cancer. Both Richard and I worked at Dow in Research and Development. We literally did bucket chemistry (measured chemicals into open buckets and poured them into reactors). Of course the carcinogens were all in solid pipe, but we had to wear gas masks and open up the reactor covers and do things like climb into the reactor and bust all the built up chemicals off the inside of the walls. While doing so we would hit pockets of unreacted chemicals. Ever wear a gas mask over your face when you wear a pair of glasses? You don't get a great seal around your face. Well, enough reminiscing about that. Jobs like that make me appreciate my current job even more. Actually I worked as a research operator for only 6 years. It was really hard physical mans work. Moving 600 lb drums, working with pipe wrenchs that were 3 ft long, it was what Ko would call a 3D job - Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult. )
Don't you wish there were a way to help your kids avoid all the mistakes you made when you were a kid? As a parent I see that as much as I try to explain things in hopes that my child won't make the same mistakes, many things will only really be learned by living the experiences.
I should have waited to blog my Monday Madness when I was watching TV. Now all kinds of things are coming to mind. Either that or just don't do it from work. Maybe my mind is on work or something.
So, for anyone who's reading this and doesn't know what it is.... Every Monday Otto posts questions and everyone who wants to shares their responses. Look at the Monday Madness link below to see other responses.
I know some of you aren't particularly fond of naming your most favorite and least favorite of things, but that's all I got this week, my friends! Thanks for playing and have a great week. (Also, I really have been sending notifications to you all; for some reason you're not receiving them?) Just check in every Monday, won't you? =)
1. Currently, what television commercial is your least favorite?
Condom Commercials - see - I can't even remember the brand name. I get so distracted when the commercial comes on, as I look to see if my 13 year old is in the room, that I can't even remember. lol.
2. And which commercial is your most favorite?
Hallmark card commercials. I think they're touching.
3. Of the sitcoms that are on during "prime time" how many do you watch on a regular basis? Please share.
none any more.
4. Is there a television series that you enjoy watching that is ending this season?
I thought Lost was but my son says its not really ending.
5. Is there any type of program you'd like to see more of on television?
Nope - I think there's plenty of choice. On second thought........ what happened to just plain humor - no hidden agendas, just plain humor.
6. Is there any type of program you'd like to see less of on television?
One version of Law & Order and CSI will do - we don't need 5 different flavors.
7. Is there a series that is no longer aired that you wish would come back?
X-Files
8. Do you watch re-runs of anything on television?
Sometimes - Surprise!! X-Files. (Stargate, Star Trek Next Generation)
I love the new blogger; even though I had to give up some of my cute stuff for a while. I will try and work in Natalie's calendar gif and some more photos to spice it up very soon. I love the fact that I get an email telling me about comments because before unless you're constantly reviewing all of your posts you didn't even know that a comment was left. Thank you Mom for helping me make the transition. When I brought my old blog back to life I converted to gmail but I hadn't updated my template. Well, little did I know that all of my attempts to get the comments to work were for naught without the updated template. So........comment away. Luv ya'
okay - so here I am in South Carolina. The weather is really nice here right now. I really enjoyed meeting all the CSC people that I've been working with by phone for the past 2 years. They are all great to work with, especially when you can work directly with them without the administrators. Well, I just added comment ability on this blog. Let's see if it worked!
So..........I'm in Columbia South Carolina right now. I've got a nice hotel room all to myself. During the day I'll be busy with the conference. Afterwards I'll have lots of quiet time. That can be very therapeutic actually.
We waited on the tarmac for over an hour after our flight was already delayed by about 2 hrs. So we arrived about 3.5 hrs late into Colombia. Kind of tiring. But, we made it safe and sound. You gotta love that motion sickness patch. It really helps me with the incline and decline. It makes me tired, but nothing wrong with a nap when you're just sitting there getting hot anyway.
I don't know how Ko and Ha-Min handle a 14 hour plane trip though. That must be kind of stressful.
We got settled into our rooms and then went out to eat at a decent seafood restaurant. I had crab cakes - yummy. I feel a little guilty because Rich and David had sloppy joes. A couple of the guys went out for beers, but I declined. Its been a long day.
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