Another Bills Monday - and Kirstie Rae's Birthday!

Due to some scheduling confusion, the Bills Review that we were supposed to tape on Saturday night, ended up being recorded last night between 9:30 and 10:30pm. A fun time was had by all. Except, this was almost back to the regular season schedule for me. That's when I would rise early on Monday to tackle my 9 to 5 job, and then spend a hurried evening of fun with the family until heading back to the office from 9 to 5 again (pm to am, this time). Those were really long days. In fact, it was two days in one. So, when I would get up on Tuesday morning at 9am, It felt like Wednesday!

Today feels like Wednesday.

It's my fault this time though. Our show was a bit shorter, and I was also very efficient this time, so I was actually done with everything by 1am. That's good. But then I had some other things to clean up, and since I was in work mode I finished a few other things, and before I knew it, it was 2am.

Then I was hungry.

So, I went downstairs, and brought the laptop to read or something while I ate. Instead, I ended up watching a free TV show I got from the iTunes Music Store. (They are offering the pilot episode of a new TV show, Conviction, for free... a pretty cool idea that I think will catch on.) So... I went to bed at around 3am.

But, I still wasn't tired. So I laid there. And laid there. Who knows when I finally got to sleep.... but it doesn't feel like it was that long ago. :-)

Yesterday was a typical Monday... got up pretty early to get a jump on the week. All was fairly normal. Got a few new clients. Finishing up some current jobs. Good day. Then I made a nice chicken/pasta dinner - which was strangely a hit, even with the kids. And then we did our Monday night routine - a visit to the library! :-)

We got back just in time to squeeze in the last A-Team episode on the DVD we have, and then you know the rest. (If you forget, just skip back up to the top.)

Today is Kirsten's birthday!!! She's two today. That's one of the projects I stayed up working on. (A nice birthday poster for her - a family tradition.)

Happy Birthday, Kirstie Rae!!! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Sundays Are Not Computer Days

Perhaps it's the new job - where every day is spent facing this lovely CRT Monitor? Maybe it's just that I am better at making my day off really a day off? Maybe it's that to go to my office now, it's an intentional trip up at least two flights of stairs?

Whatever it is, it's not very easy for me to get to the computer for even a short blog on Sundays! :-)

Oh well.

I'm still doing a MOSTLY every day in 2006 blog here. And that's good.

Yesterday - though computer free - was excellent, as usual. A nice full day of rest and family time. We slept in again - though the boys were much more ready to get up than Mom and Dad. :-) (That could be because Dad was up till 4am the night before working on his book, I suppose...)

We actually didn't leave the house at all yesterday. We cleaned up a bit, played some games, watched a DOUBLE-HEADER of the A-Team and just hung out together. It was mostly nice. (Sometimes little boys get a bit rambunctious in such a situation near the end of the day, after a few donuts... but, other than that...)

I did stay up late on Saturday working on my book. In fact, I completed the initial selection of material to include. That was good. Now I will organize that, then go through and make changes that need to be made. Then I will proof it. Then I will send it off to a couple people to proof again... It's a fairly long process, but it's worth it. There's a lot of great stuff in this book. Looking forward to making it available to peoples.

We were also supposed to record the Buffalo Bills Review last night - well, really on SATURDAY night - but there were scheduling issues, so we will do that tonight.

Today is looking like a fairly normal Monday, so... need to get back to it!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Not What I Expected

This is my first chance to sit down and write today! Ha! Crazy. And I don't even have time now.

Yesterday was great. I am really learning to love Fridays. Everyone else seems to relax (as gauged by my incoming phone calls and emails) and I can catch up on stuff I missed through the week. Very cool. Then in the evening, I feel all caught up and relaxed --- usually. This was one of those. That was nice.

As for today... It has been... interesting.

Please visit my regular blog for the story from today. It was... unexpected. :-)

More tomorrow...

[Posted from Jen's Computer in OUR KITCHEN in Palmyra, NY.]

Catching Up, and Jesse James' Birthday

I posted something here last night, but it was hardly a helpful account of the previous days' events. :-) So, I thought I'd try to catch up this morning.

Wednesday the kids did come home just before noon. Alex very excitedly came all the way up to my office to show me his new hand-held, electronic football game. :-) He's an excitable kind of guy. I love that. :-) Grandma's back was hurting for some reason, so Grandpa unexpectedly came along - which was nice. They helped around the house, played with the kids, and I'm sure Jen loved having her parents here all day. She loves them. :-)

We had a nice dinner together that Mom (Grandma) made, (which was nice!) and after they left I think we played a game together, or maybe just watched the Olympics. I can't recall. It was almost bedtime anyway.. so we did something fun, and then went to BED!

Yesterday was a really hard day for me in the office. I am still trying to learn how to handle customer support. I have mentioned some of my struggles before... no need for detail now. Sometimes it's hard to please everyone. I'm trying to learn a healthy and respectful balance between trying to do that, and keeping my sanity (and guarding my time for other clients). So it was a hard day.

But we had a great evening. We had no plans, so we just kept it a family, stay-at-home night! I made dinner, then we played some video games (Alex had been asking to play his new games with me since he got back home on Wednesday). After that, we finally got another A-Team disc in the mail yesterday (from NetFlix!) and capped a great evening watching one of those - all five (six?) of us on Mom & Dad's bed :-)

It was a fun night.

Another full day today. Starts off with another RunDown over at the BuffaloBillsReview. Gotta go!

OH! But before I do... Today is Jesse James' birthday! He's 18 today! Happy Birthday!!!

(That would be, Jesse James.... Walker... our nephew.) :-)

[Posted from the PowerBook at the KITCHEN TABLE in Palmyra, NY.]

Wow! I forgot!

Well, what a day!

I forgot all day, I think, to post my daily blog here! It started out early, I was up at 7:11, I believe, and did some toe surgery (I will not go into any further detail) and then tested out my latest VHS-to-DVD ... and ended up watching most of the movie! Remember The Titans is a great movie.

Dude. I have no energy to do this right now. Long crazy day.

I'll try and add some more tomorrow.

[Posted from the PowerBook in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Wednesdays

Wednesday is the one day of the week that I always wake up early. There are other days on occasion, when I have extra work to do, or if we are leaving on a trip or something - but I can always count on a good groggy morning on Wednesdays.

And for some reason, I still look forward to them. :-)

I just got back from playing a great game of basketball with Scott and Steve. We were short a few guys today, so we just played a little one-on-one-on-one. That's not my favorite, cause I'm not the best one on two player... :-) but it was still a good workout, and a great time. And for some reason today, I was hitting my shots. That always makes it more fun. :-) Today was quite injurious however. I have a nice laceration on my left hand, and I bent two joints (finger and ankle) the way they are not supposed to bend. As far as I know, that's all the damage I took...

It's after 9:35 now, and I still need to get a shower, and get started on my day. The kids are coming back (with Grandma) today! It's been a nice break, but I am looking forward to seeing them again. (Though I do enjoy the quiet) :-) The quiet will be here one day again. This is the season for life and noise. That's fer sure.

We spent our quiet day yesterday (Jen) working on taxes and (Me) working in the office. I have been copying our old VHS tapes to digital formats on the PowerBook here while working on my other computer. That's been fun. Completed two so far. About 100 to go. :-)

In the evening, we went to visit Paul and Laura, who recently had a baby, then had dinner with Scott and Leah, who less recently had a baby. Was nice to visit with adult friends without our kids. :-) We finished the evening with a quick trip to WalMart - for diapers! Ha! Ironic.

Well, on to today...

[Posted from the PowerBook in our Living Room in Palmyra, NY.]

It's So Quiet...

The kids are gone. We got home last night, exhausted from a fun evening over in Buffalo, and we just went straight to bed and crashed. And we noticed... it was quiet. Super quiet. Weirdly quiet. But, kinda nicely quiet. :-)

We had a nice dinner at Spilios with the Drakes. We went to high school with Dave, and have kept in touch since, but now they live closer than ever, and that's the first time in the 3 months they've been around that we've been able to hang out at all! 90 miles is still a good distance. It was a great night though. They are in a similar place to us, sorting through all of the things we've ever thought about what "church" looks like, and trying to follow God's lead best we can. It was nice to chat with them about the things we've been learning.

We did watch an episode of Voyager last night, but I think I fell asleep at the end. :-)

Today should be interesting. I have no idea what Jen is going to do! :-) Mostly, she takes care of kids ALL DAY LONG. No kids today. Hope she enjoys it.

Me? It's another full day in the office. Time to get started! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Birthday Day

I mentioned on my other blog that today is the birthday of FOUR friends of ours. That's pretty odd, I think. But cool. Two of those friends were even born in the same year! They're like... twins or something.

None of our immediate family here were born today, though. So, we're living a pretty typical Monday. :-)

I am noticing now that I do a Monday-Friday job that Mondays are... nuts! First, I have tons of emails to wade through from the weekend, with either new business or follow ups on old stuff. Then, I get phone call after phone call (with IMs and new emails on top of those) with new business for the week. I can't even get started on anything, cause I'm answering the phone, and call-waiting, and voicemail, just getting the list of what I need to do this week!! Craazy!

But, that's good. I am thankful for the work God continues to send my way. And I am learning to operate in this crazy world.

No wonder nobody likes Mondays! :-)

Tonight we're going over to Buffalo to drop the kids off at Grandma's house for a couple days! Nice! And we'll be going out for dinner with some friends who fairly recently moved back to that area. Looking forward to both of those things.

For now, I must continue working on the big list my clients have given me today!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

The Weekend

Oh my goodness. Aren't you supposed to feel rested after a weekend???? :-) Not this one. My head is feeling verrrry tired right now. Let's get this weekend chronicled so I can GO TO BED! :-)

I can't actually remember everything we did yesterday, but I am certain it involved lots of laundry. In between making skyline and some bread for a family birthday party, and doing a little work in the office... I also did SIX LOADS of LAUNDRY. Wow. Now tonight I have been sorting and folding all of that. Insane!

The party was great though. It was a nice relaxed evening. And, we had taco dip and skyline! (Two of the world's greatest foods!) We sang happy birthday in four part harmony to the three birthday kids who were there. (Three were absent) We ate cake. And lots of skyline. A wonderful evening.

Oh! And, we stayed up till 11pm (the boys too!) watching another A-Team! Ha! It was great! But because of that, we didn't wake up till around 10am... and Kirstie not till around 11am!!! Wow! We didn't eat breakfast until noon!!! Crazy. But a nice relaxed morning. We played a game of Lego Creator until time to head to a friend's birthday party. She's one. :-) There were about 40 people in that house!!! Nuts! But again, a lot of fun. Nice to spend a little time with lots of people (though I defintely prefer the more intimate settings... say, no more than 20 people...) ;-)

After the birthday party, it was off to the Apple Store for a little fun while Mom tried on some maternity things. She has made a little money on Amazon.com that she wanted to spend on a few articles of clothing. And, me and the boys love the Apple store! :-) (So does Kirstie... "Apple" was one of her first words!)

We went home to some more Skyline, and then laundry folding.

Now, feeling quite weary, I must sleep, so as to do this whole thing over again.

Monday, here I come!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Skyline Birthday Party!

Believe it or not, this is actually "first thing" this morning. :-) We slept in today (as is our custom on weekend days) and had breakfast around 10 or 10:30... oatmeal! Dad's special blends. I do love to cook for my family. There's just a bit of (self-applied) pressure today as I have a ba-gillion things to do.

But, this is one of them, so here goes.. :-)

Yesterday morning seems like forever ago, but it started off rather early again, and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was awoken by THE WIND. Crazy. All day it blew and knocked stuff down. Our house and the trees around it are mostly still standing. So, that's good I guess. :-) I did have to do some recovery missions though. I think I found everything.

The pace of my web work slowed a bit yesterday. That was nice. I was able to catch up on some emails and follow up phone calls. It's funny. When these few big, demanding jobs were complete, it seemed like all I was doing Friday was lining up next week's big demanding jobs! It never ends! :-)

And, admittedly... that's a good thing.

I finished up in the office around six or so, and then came down and spent a little time with the family before making dinner. We had hamburgers and french fries! Alex's comment was, "Whoa, Dad! How did you make THAT?!?!" :-) That was cute. Glad he likes it.

After dinner, Kirstie and I (and later, Ian) took some fudge around to a few friends. I made an ENORMOUS amount yesterday, so we wanted to share. :-) That was fun!

Then, we topped the evening off with a rousing game of Uno Attack and then we watched an episode of the A-Team after Kirstie went to bed. We stay up a bit later on Fridays. :-)

A nice evening. A nice day.

And today, we are having most of the Walker family over to celebrate extended family birthdays. Along with, of course, Kirstie's birthday!!! I'm making Skyline Chili and home made bread, and some other goodies. Will be a nice evening.

More later...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Windy

I was actually awoken today by the wind. That doesn't happen every day, ya know. :-) We had some serious wind around here. Just crazy weather in general. It was 60º at midnight, and now it's around 30 degrees, and will be around 10ºF by tonight!!! There's a strong front coming through, causing wind gusts of around 60 mph. So far our house is OK, but I had to go around the yard(s) and pick up some things we had on our deck. :-) I think I got everything.

We'll see how the rest of the morning goes. Supposed to be strong winds till 1pm or so.

We got to hand out with some family we don't get to spend much time with last night. The Andersons came over for dinner and to hang out for a while. Matt & Lorie Anderson adopted Jen's brother Jeff's kids after he died. So they are our adopted family :-) It was nice to hang out with them. We had a big breakfast dinner.

Other than that, it was another long, slighty frustrating (just because of who I am, most likely) day full of work that was mostly done, but never complete. It is nice when we can wrap stuff up and complete it. :-) But I was up at 6am yesterday, and worked till about 4 or so, at which point I just stopped, and tended to my GregsHead.net blog. I needed to do that. For me. It was nice.

I was so tired last night though, that I fell asleep before 11:30 while we were watching our nightly Star Trek Voyager episode. :-) Been a long week.

Well, I get to write a column for the Buffalo Bills Review, and then back to work!

[Posted from the KITCHEN TABLE while eating BREAKFAST in Palmyra, NY.]

Early In The Morning

"Beeep... Beeeep... BEEEEEEP!"

That's what I woke up to this morning. I really don't like to wake up to alarm clocks. Not just because it's annoying to be jarred from blissful sleep by a tiny electronic (annoying) noise, but also, it's usually just too early! I think God made our bodies to wake up when they're done sleeping, not when our alarm clock says we are.

Starting off early this morning again, this time with no interruptions, and hoping to conquer... I mean... complete a couple of these accounts that seem to hang around, taunting me. :-) I do feel busier than ever - overwhelmed really. I just went to sleep last night almost in a daze. Oh, and I was back in the office from 9:30 till midnight. If I get a chance to, though, I'll tell the good side of this story on my main blog.

It was a nice day yesterday... basketball with four other friends in the morning. That was cool - two on two with a sub is nice for us old guys. Ha! I just remembered, the first guy to leave was the young 19 yr old guy! :-) After that, I worked in the office till time for a baby appointment. That went well. Baby is doing great. It's almost time to meet the little kiddo. Then we came home and I finished up in the office (till about 6), and came down to a nice dinner from Jen. Then I quickly went up to the Baptist church about a block from our house to record some songs for a friend (and one for our niece). :-) That went well, but we started 30 min late... so... I was a bit late getting home.

When I did, the Stupins (well, most of them) were in my house.... it was quite noisy with their kids and ours. :-) We got to hang out with Tracy a bit and then our neighbor, Amy stopped in and hung out for a while. By the time they left, we got the kids a quick snack and it was nearly bed time.

Long, full day.

Time to start this one.

[Posted from Jen's eMac in Palmyra, NY.]

Let's Try This Again...

Blogger was down this morning, so first of all, it took 35 minutes before I could even get to the page to write the blog, and then it took another 10 minutes for it to tell me it couldn't publish due to a system error. Nice. Well, it's back up, so here was my previous post.

It took 35 minutes this morning for blogger to decide to cooperate. Now I don't really have time to write this post. :-(

I am headed off to play some basketball this morning. We finally have more than just two players, so it's a little more fun. :-)

We had a great day yesterday for V-day. I made little heart cards for everyone to find in the morning, and Jen did the same, except she stuffed hers with goodies :-) We went out for a special dinner at Athenias, a local family diner. Then I bought Jen a dozen donuts (she's been wanting those) for dessert.

We topped off the night with an episode of the A-Team. :-)

Gotta go! Almost time to start!

[Posted from the the PowerBook in our Living Room in Palmyra, NY.]

Happy Valentine's Day :-)

Oops! It's the first day of trying this, and I almost forgot my own plan! :-)

Monday ended up being a fairly typical day: working on websites from 9 till 6 or so, and then making dinner for the family, heading out to the library and then a bit of shopping we needed to do. But, for some reason, the kids were quite rambunctious and in being so, lost their privelege of Monday library night. (That is a great family tradition, so that was a very sad thing...)

We went on to the Cingular store after picking up some books that we had reserved at the library and exchanged our regular cell phone plan for a new Go Phone plan. Basically, it's just a pay as you go card. You buy 100 minute cards for $25, and they last you 3 months. (Or less, if you use them up, I suppose.) We did get a new number in the process as well. It was a good move I think, even though I had to pay $120 to cancel our one year remaining on the contract!!! (That's two months of service, so, in 2.5 months, I will have saved enough to justify leaving the contract early. That contract thing is a pretty good deal for them cell phone companies...

Lastly, we headed to Wal*Mart to pick up a few things. There were many Valentine's Day shoppers there. We also spotted a few friends as well.

It was a nice relaxing evening, that ended pretty nicely - except for Kirsten confusing her bath for a toilet!!! That was gross, and will cause me to think twice about offering to give Kirstie a bath next time..... But, after that, it was a nice peaceful evening. Jen & I watched a Star Trek Voyager, and then I worked on my book after she went to sleep. I am about half-way through the initial process. It's coming together nicely, and should be a nice read once it is all put together. :-)

OK... time to get back to work!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Weird...

Somehow, I just noticed that the Feb 4 post is gone. That was the one from our retreat in Montrose, PA. That's ... fascinating. I guess the gremlins got it.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Let's Try Something New

I'm not sure this will actually work, but since I missed posting yesterday again (that's #2 for 2006) I wondered if I might start some routine by doing this "first thing" in the morning when I get to my computer. (Yes, you're right, the time is now after 10:00am... this is not actually first thing, but, it's close enough.)

Actually, it was not a question of first or last or anything yesterday. I just was only at my computer for about 5 minutes total yesterday. I was up very late Saturday night writing for my main blog site, and doing a few urgent things for a couple of my clients (my choice, not their request) and then Sunday was our family day. The only time I was on the computer, I was paying bills (about 11:00 at night) and then I browsed the Newsvine.com site, and posted an article there again.

If you'd like to check out the Newsvine site, just let me know. I can get you in on the Beta version, or you can just wait till it's open to the public.

Yesterday started off kind of slow... It was a week with not much sleep, so by Sunday, my body was dragging. In fact, I slept in till just after nine this morning! (I did feel a bit better today...) We had a nice breakfast, and then packed up to go do some shopping. We spent an HOUR at the grocery store because everyone and their brother was out yesterday at 1pm. It was nuts. Never seen that store so full. Then, we fought our way through the mall traffic for a fun visit to the Apple store, and it looked like Grand Opening day! We could barely fit in the store there were so many people there!!!

Amusing story from the Apple Store:

I happened to don my black Apple Eastview shirt that morning - not thinking we'd make a trip to the motherland - and it was quite warm in there, so I took off my coat. I was definitely conscious of the fact that with the staff wearing gray shirts that blended into the crowd a bit more, people would think I could answer their questions! While that was true, and in some cases, I think I know even more than some of the employees, I didn't think they would appreciate me offering folks advice. :-) I managed to avoid it most of the time, but once I stood up to go check something out, and instantly a man just started talking to me.

"Do you have a version for kids?" or, something like that? I don't know, it was kind of shocking, just starting right in like that. But my replay memory allowed me to sort of hear the question again, and I answered, "Well," I chuckled, "I don't actually work here..." A surprised, confused look washed over his face. "I know, it looks like I do... I got this shirt at their Grand Opening, sorry about that. But," I continued, "I do know a lot about this stuff..." and I proceeded to explain that Apple just recently offered a new 1GB iPod Nano that was a bit more affordable, and perhaps something he'd like to check out for his kids. And, they also lowered the price on the iPod Shuffle, making that an excellent option as well.

I should get a commission. :-)

He thanked me, and went up to check out the iPods.

That was too funny. :-)

So, we got home about 3:30 and quickly put the groceries away and made lunch for everyone. We ate lunch and then watched an episode of the A-Team as that was about all Mom and Dad could do at that point. :-) Once that was over, we started making dinner, and cleaning up. Our friends the Towners came over for dinner, and we had a great evening together. It's fun to share a meal and talk about life with folks. I think we're in pretty different places in our journey with our Father, but all of us have a longing to know him, and love to talk about what we are learning of and from him, so it was a perfect evening. Good pizza and chocolate cake, too. :-)

OK, I will switch to posting here first thing in the mornings starting tomorrow. Let's see how that goes. :-) I still can't guarantee posts on Sundays... going to have to figure out how to do that one when I'm not at the computer.......

:-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Five-Minute Version

Ok, it's 11:55, so here is the five-minute version of today.

It's Saturday, so I slept in! We all did. I woke up at around 9:15 or so, and the house was still quiet. So, we just laid there in bed until we heard the first sounds of life. It was nice and relaxing.

Once everyone got up, I got to work on the song sets for tonight's concert, and while I was shuffling papers around, I watched the rest of the movie Cold Mountain, that I had not finished last night. (It's a long one!) It was good, just... a bit much in some areas. See my GregsHead blog for some reaction from the movie.

We watched some Olympics today in the afternoon, then played a rousing game of Lego Creator. A great game. We highly recommend if you have little ones (esp boys) in the house. :-)

At 5:15, Jen & I headed off to our concert. We have sung there before (Calvary Church in Newark, NY) but never when it was NOT Christmas. :-) Nice to do some of our other songs. Nice to not have the kids with us. :-) We spent time with some friends, sang our songs, and packed up to go home by 9:00pm.

We watched a bit more of the Olympics before kids bedtime, then Jen and I just relaxed while watching the Olympics in our room. She's asleep now, and I'm going to work on my book!

There ya have it! The day in under 5 minutes!

See ya tomorrow!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Making Progress and Microwaves

It's the weekend!!! Will be the second weekend in a row where we are singing! Last weekend was the couples retreat in PA, and tomorrow we're singing for a couples (Valentines Day) dinner concert put on by a church nearby here. It will be fun. Kind of a long night for our babysitter! The program involves us and a drama team, as well as dinner and dessert.

Today's big news... we got our new MICROWAVE! The one we got for our wedding pretty much tuckered out, and it was time to replace it. I saw it come in so I went downstairs and set it up right away, and Jen made lunch in it! :-) Nice!!

(We don't usually make major purchases like this, so that was an exciting part of the day!)

The rest of the day was filled with IM conversations a plenty. With folks from literally all over the world! But inbetween all of that, I did manage to pretty much finish what I needed to this week on one major project I was working on. That was great. Nice to get it all up and working properly. That doesn't always happen. So, it's good when it does!

We spent the evening cleaning up the house after dinner, and reading some library books, and we even put together a puzzle of the US. It's a cartoon sorta map - and it's so big you have to put it together on the floor. It was fun! And then we told stories we remembered from each one of the states. (We've been in 43 for sure, not certain on a few of them, but, 43 makes for plenty of stories!) :-)

Oh, I also posted another RunDown at the Buffalo Bills site. That was one of my IM conversations today. A friend from a past life IMed today (not really past, that was just funny to say) and told me he was looking for Bills shows on iTunes, and found the highest rated one... and it was ours! Small world moment there. :-)

Hope to get more work done on the book tomorrow, before the concert that is. Friends are coming over Sunday evening. The Towners. It's always fun hanging out with them.

For now, I have 5 minutes till tomorrow, so I better get this published....

[Posted from the living room couch on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Today Has Come and Gone

Thursday, February 9th, 2006 has come and gone. It began early today (again) as I got up and finished a personal project I was working on. I made a nice little booklet (with help from my friends at Copy Central) for Jen - and for me to cook stuff for Jen) :-) I got up early, and sorted all the stuff to bring up to the copy shop for binding and laminating, and was back by about 9:40 or so. It was a nice day for a walk.

Got some good work done today. Jen made some great potato soup. She's definitely pregnant, cause she's doing some really weird stuff lately... like... cooking. :-) It was great! I enjoyed it immensely.

I made good progress on one website I have been working on. That was encouraging. Tomorrow will be a few more challenges. But I'm up to it.

Today is our nephew Dylan's birthday, so we called him and sang Happy Birthday. We also enjoyed some birthday cake in his honor. (He lives about an hour and a half away!) :-)

We watched an episode of the A-Team to close out our evening. :-) It's fun to watch old TV with my boys.

Had an interesting discussion with Ian. He has been a little scared lately about robbers breaking into our house, and other scary things. He has a very gentle spirit. I understood his fear, but we talked about how it can be silly to be afraid. We spend all our time worrying about what we're afraid of, and we don't really get to live life. God loves us, and he's in charge. I can't promise bad stuff won't happen, but I told Ian that God promises he'll be with us.

Those are cool moments.

Well, 10 minutes before February 10th. Time to call it a night.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Cheating... Sort Of

Well, it took me all day, but I finally got it mostly done. :-)

Today was spent moving files, setting things up and not much else.

So, I'm going to kind of cheat and put a link here to what I wrote on the Greg's Head blog.

Click Here

That should give you an idea of what today entailed.

[Posted from the PowerBook while watching Star Trek Voyager in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Another Day, Another Hard Drive

Well the big news today is that my new 500GB hard drive arrived. It's the LaCie Big Drive. Or something like that. 500GB, and almost portable. Pretty cool. Now I will have all of my files backed up. I was using this PowerBook to do that, sort of. Just manually. And, it only has an 80GB drive, so I couldn't back them all up.

Of course, this all comes after I lost my other 40GB of back up files. :-(

Oh well. We move on. Glad to have this new device.

It was funny... I saw that it required a signature (I thought) and, since I can't hear the front door very well, I was watching out the window if ever I thought I heard a truck. I never did. Finally, at around 3:30, I just checked out the front door, and it was sitting on my porch! Ha! Oh well, again. :-)

All of the files are currently being transfered. I am hoping the drive is not lost. All appears to be working, but I will do a complete wipe of the drive and reinstall everything.

As for the rest of stuff, I was an Apple support tech today. Several calls, IMs from friends who know I can help with that. :-) I love to, but sometimes I realize later that perhaps I need to make sure I do the other things I need to do as well :-) :-)

Looking forward to a nice evening with the family. Perhaps a shopping trip or two.

The evening is wide open! :-)

[Posted from the comfy chair in my HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

I Sure Can Pack A Lot Into One Day

It was about five minutes till midnight last night when I remembered my Everyday blog again. I had thought of it several times through the day, but whatever I happened to be doing seemed more important than taking a break to write about what I was doing. :-) I knew I would get to it eventually.

Well, the day began at 8am, (early for me...) and proceeded through a huge maelstrom of e-mail. I finished going through and responding to all of that by the 11 o'clock hour somewhere. Then it was time to start in on the several open projects for the day. Some urgent, like some clean-up work from a couple hosting transfers. Those are never quite immaculate.

I came downstairs for a quick lunch, and catching up with Jen and the kids. Ian gave me a cool bracelet he made, which I wore the rest of the afternoon in the office. :-) And I completed a couple projects that were still open from the morning and before. Completing is nice. It's always nice to cross things off the list!

Jen made dinner last night! Like, not from a box, or from left overs! That's big news! And it was great! That was very cool and helpful, and awesome. We enjoyed a nice meal together, and then bundled up for our weekly Monday night trip to the library! It was in the 20s, so Jen and Kirstie went in the van, and the boys and I set out on foot on an arctic expedition, complete with perils such as the giant snow monster, wolves, and several bear traps along the way! (It was fun!) :-)

When we got back home, we aborted an attempt at watching an A-Team episode in favor of a game of Uno Attack! (A new favorite of the whole family!) We played a rousing game of that, which Ian won? Or Alex... I forget. But one of the boys did, and then everyone headed upstairs to get ready for bed.

Then I cleaned up, including our crazy turtle's tank!! It was disgusting! The water was very low (evaporation) and full of nasty green stuff! So, I did that, replaced his light bulb, and cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and gathered the trash to take out, took the trash out and emptied/loaded the dishwasher. Jen came back down as I was finishing, and I made her some french fries. (You know, where you slice up a potato and deep fry it. Not, grabbed a bag from the freezer and baked them!!) We sat and enjoyed those together, and just talked. It was nice.

We finally got upstairs around 11pm, which is when Alex woke up crying, needing to go to the bathroom. He made it, and all was well. About quarter after, we were watching an episode of Star Trek Voyager. That went all the way to 11:55pm.

That's when I said, I'll post this tomorrow. :-)

So, though the date says Feb 6, and that is when all of this happened... I did actually post this while eating breakfast at around 8:30am on Feb 7. :-)

[Posted from the Kitchen Table in Palmyra, NY.]

Super Bowl Sunday

Oh my.

You know, I was actually looking forward to this game today. I had high hopes that this game would be a battle to the finish. Either team could win it. There would be good plays, and a few scores on both sides.

Boy was I wrong!

The game has just ended, and though Seattle had a "chance" at the end, there was no contest. It was one of the least exciting Super Bowls I have watched in a while. Poor play calling and clock management cost the Hawks, yes, but I think those were some of the worst calls by an officiating crew I have ever seen in the Super Bowl. Awful.

Well, congrats to Pittsburgh, and the Bus. I like Bettis. He's a good guy. Glad to see him win. And Cowher. And, the 6th seed winning the Super Bowl... that's pretty cool.

So, aside from the big game, we had a nice evening with the kids. Finished up our retreat this morning, and then had an AWESOME lunch (the food at this place was FANTASTIC!) and got home in time to order a pizza and wings and get the house ready for the kids and Grandma & Grandpa! They stayed to watch most of the first half, and then headed home. We were very grateful for their gift of a free, kidless weekend!!

Which brings up my last point.

How can my kids, whom I missed on so many occasions this weekend, and when I heard their voices across the street from our house tonight, made me jump up from my desk and run down to greet them - those same kids - how can they aggravate me so much? Their childish mistakes or demeanor. It's really insignificant in the scope of life, but it was so frustrating me tonight. Perhaps I was just tired. Tomorrow is another day.

Indeed.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE (YES!) in Palmyra, NY.]

Just In Case...

We knew a family during my junior high and high school years whose last name was Case. I always thought it would be funny if they named a kid Justin. You know... like, Justin Case. Just - in - case. HA!!!

Dude. I'm funny.

So, we're on out way out the door for a weekend retreat in Montrose, PA. Just me and Jen. (And that baby she insists on carrying around...) We're the music for a couples retreat. Should be a nice time of relaxing, as well as fun to do our music together again. We don't do that much anymore.

I got up a 8am today (earlier than usual) and got myself and three kids ready and headed out to Buffalo by 9am! That was crazy. Everyone had their little bag of cereal, complete with their names written on it, and we watched fun movies on the laptop (plugged into the built-in viewer in the van) --- all the way to aunt Connie's house in Buffalo area! Fun!

But, I noticed as I was heading back here to Palmyra... I miss them already. :-( It will be a nice break to be just me and Jen for a weekend, but I do love my kids. I wanted to go back and get them. Grandma is glad I did not get them, though. :-) She loves them too.

OK... if we're lucky, I'll post something tomorrow here. If not, well, I'll survive. But, here's hoping there's internet at our weekend destination.

[Posted from the Kitchen Table in Palmyra, NY.]

The End Of The Week

I have to stop these 4-day weeks. They're driving me crazy! :-)

And this one wasn't even four days. Wednesday was a very crazy day! Not much time in the office for me. But, all is well. It has been a good week, and I have been able to make some progress on several clients' accounts as well as some work on my book. I found a cool new publisher that I might just use this next time.

More on that later.

For now, I need to keep this brief cause we're leaving tomorrow for a trip to PA. We're singing for a couples' retreat this weekend. The kids are going to Grandma's house, so it will be a bit of a vacation for us too! At least for Jen. She's getting tired these days.

Lots of stress these days in the lives of some friends. I wish I could help more sometimes, but I know ultimately I can't help anyway. Only God brings peace. I am praying peace for all of them.

We'll try and post if we can this weekend. But I can't promise anything. :-) Who knows what the internet situation is at Montrose Bible Conference.

[Posted from the PowerBook in my bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Happy February

It's now the second month of 2006. A lot happened in the first month. And, even better... there was a lot not happening!

(We're enjoying a much free-er schedule these days.)

For a funny story from last night, visit my other blog. We had a little confusion when trying to watch the president's speech online. :-) But after that was taken care of, we actually got to bed before 1 last night! Pretty amazing!

I went to bed early because I play basketball with friends on Wednesdays. It's great! Good excersize, and I enjoy playing basketball, and even better, it's before any of my family is awake. :-) They don't even know I'm gone. That's funny.

So, after b-ball, then a shower, then less than an hour of work, we headed out to a doctor's appointment for Jen and baby. All is great. Baby is doing quite well, and we're just about 34 weeks along. Very cool. We're looking forward to meeting Junior.

We stopped for a quick visit with some friends (who kept our boys during the dr visit) and got home for lunch around 1:00 or so. Whoa... the day was flying by and I felt like I hadn't even started!

I headed upstairs and tried to get some things done, but felt very unproductive today due to the crazy interruptions, and to several projects I kept trying to do requiring outside input before I could continue! Argh! So... I have made it through, but just not as I planned. I guess we'll tackle those other things tomorrow...

We're free tonight. Going to do haircuts. (For all the boys.) And we'll see what else Jen might have planned.

I hope the Dukes of Hazzard fits in there somewhere.... :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]