On the Road Again
I drove over 500 miles this weekend! I took a half-day off from work on Friday to drive to S’s and we went into Philly to see the George Strait concert, with opening acts Miranda Lambert and Tracy Lawrence. The show was awesome and our seats were excellent! George Strait was on stage for just about two hours; he could have sung for hours more as far as I'm concerned. We hadn't seen Tracy Lawrence in concert for ages and he was still as good as ever.
I spent the night at S’s and drove home Saturday morning, getting home around 2pm. I didn’t have time to stop and check out the new Cereality on the PA Turnpike, but I definitely will the next time. I was home long enough to go to the grocery store, then I had to get cleaned up and M. and I went to my work’s holiday party. We weren’t going to go this year since I already knew how busy I was this weekend, but with the fire and everything, I thought it would be a good idea to go. We actually had a good time and stayed until about 9:30. H. spent the night at my mom and dad’s, so it was strange being in the house without her Saturday night.
I was up bright and early Sunday morning to drive halfway back to Philly for my college friend D’s baby shower in West Chester. The shower was a very nice event and she received a ton of cute little boy clothes. My thoughts will be with her all day on Wednesday when she’s induced. I made it back home around 3:30pm, just a few minutes after my parents and K&K had arrived with H.. I missed her so much! I hadn’t seen her since I dropped her off at school Friday morning. Everyone stayed for dinner, which I threw in the crockpot before I left for the shower – perfect!
I haven’t done this much driving in a long time. I had lots of thinking time, listened to some CDs I hadn’t listened to in awhile (including all George Strait and Tracy Lawrence on the way to Philly on Friday to get me in the mood) and also came up with a cool idea for a new scrapbook. I need to flesh it out a little bit more, then I’ll share.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
TV Shows on DVD
One of my wishes came true - the first season of "Life Goes On" is coming out on DVD in May. That would make a good Mother's Day present! I'm also happy to see the first season of "Grounded for Life" as well as "Charles in Charge" (shut up!) are forthcoming. But please tell me why Lifetime is putting out DVDs of "Strong Medicine" and "1-800-MISSING" when they haven't done anything with the much-better series "Any Day Now?"
One of my wishes came true - the first season of "Life Goes On" is coming out on DVD in May. That would make a good Mother's Day present! I'm also happy to see the first season of "Grounded for Life" as well as "Charles in Charge" (shut up!) are forthcoming. But please tell me why Lifetime is putting out DVDs of "Strong Medicine" and "1-800-MISSING" when they haven't done anything with the much-better series "Any Day Now?"
Monday, January 23, 2006
There and Back
I feel like Lois Lane at the end of Superman II, after Superman has erased her memory and she sits down at her typewriter and says, “What’s happening in the world?” The new year is off to quite a start and I don’t even know where to begin.
I came back to work on the third, after eleven glorious days off over the holidays. A short week was even shorter since I took a half-day on Friday the sixth so N. and W. and I could go the annual weekend-long scrapbooking event in Gettysburg. We had a great time again this year, our second year. N. stayed up all night the first night and I think W. stayed up until 4am both nights. I only made it until about 1am both nights, but I accomplished a lot, getting halfway through my 2005 family album (January through the beginning of July). This time last year, I was finishing H's first-year album. Since then, I've completed my 2004 family album and an album of our honeymoon.
Being away for the weekend throws off the whole schedule and I was planning on catching up as the week went on. My birthday was on Monday the 9th and we celebrated with cupcakes that H. picked out at the grocery store. Then on Tuesday, everything changed. Just before lunch, there was a small explosion at work and we all had to evacuate for a couple of hours. It wasn’t very serious – the sprinkler system extinguished the fire before the fire department even arrived – but we spent the rest of the day following up on the incident.
We skipped tumbling class that night since I left work later than usual. Around 9pm, M. was out in the garage and heard an announcement about an explosion at work. That couldn’t be right; they must have been talking about the incident from the morning. And there was nothing on any of the TV stations. He heard it again while I was trying to find out more information, but I didn’t believe him. Finally, I called the fire department and they confirmed there was a second explosion, much worse than the first. So I spent the rest of the night on the phone until the 10 o’clock news, when I saw the first pictures of the fire. Based solely on those pictures, I thought there would be nothing left. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well Tuesday night.
I talked to my manager on Wednesday morning and went in to work at 10am to a satellite office we had established down the road. Amazingly, no one was injured in the fire and damage was contained to a small area, only about 5% of the entire facility. The next few days are a blur of crisis communications plan implementation. I worked until 8pm on both the Thursday and Friday after the fire and went in for a little while on Sunday, too, writing press releases and updating our corporate website. I had to call my mom and have her come over on Saturday to help me because I was feeling so overwhelmed. I was behind after the weekend away and now I was really behind. She helped me get our very dry, fire-hazard of a Christmas tree down and I was able to catch up on the laundry, too, plus put the rest of the Christmas decorations away. Last week was a little better, although we couldn’t return to our offices until Thursday and we still have to carpool from a satellite lot for a little while longer. I also had to go to a funeral viewing on Tuesday for the mother of a friend of my mom’s, which messed up the tumbling schedule again, so we did tumbling on Monday and Thursday to make up for the two missed days.
By this Saturday, I was completely wiped out and I think my body was trying to tell me that. I spent all day yesterday on the couch with a fever of 102 and could barely move. There was nothing else wrong – no stuffy nose or sore throat. I think it was just sheer exhaustion. I felt completely back to normal this morning. So now I’m back and ready to resume regularly scheduled blogging. I have a book entry I need to post about my first two reads in 2006 and some outdated pictures from the holidays, plus this weekend will be a busy one with a concert, work party and baby shower - all in less than 48 hours!
I feel like Lois Lane at the end of Superman II, after Superman has erased her memory and she sits down at her typewriter and says, “What’s happening in the world?” The new year is off to quite a start and I don’t even know where to begin.
I came back to work on the third, after eleven glorious days off over the holidays. A short week was even shorter since I took a half-day on Friday the sixth so N. and W. and I could go the annual weekend-long scrapbooking event in Gettysburg. We had a great time again this year, our second year. N. stayed up all night the first night and I think W. stayed up until 4am both nights. I only made it until about 1am both nights, but I accomplished a lot, getting halfway through my 2005 family album (January through the beginning of July). This time last year, I was finishing H's first-year album. Since then, I've completed my 2004 family album and an album of our honeymoon.
Being away for the weekend throws off the whole schedule and I was planning on catching up as the week went on. My birthday was on Monday the 9th and we celebrated with cupcakes that H. picked out at the grocery store. Then on Tuesday, everything changed. Just before lunch, there was a small explosion at work and we all had to evacuate for a couple of hours. It wasn’t very serious – the sprinkler system extinguished the fire before the fire department even arrived – but we spent the rest of the day following up on the incident.
We skipped tumbling class that night since I left work later than usual. Around 9pm, M. was out in the garage and heard an announcement about an explosion at work. That couldn’t be right; they must have been talking about the incident from the morning. And there was nothing on any of the TV stations. He heard it again while I was trying to find out more information, but I didn’t believe him. Finally, I called the fire department and they confirmed there was a second explosion, much worse than the first. So I spent the rest of the night on the phone until the 10 o’clock news, when I saw the first pictures of the fire. Based solely on those pictures, I thought there would be nothing left. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well Tuesday night.
I talked to my manager on Wednesday morning and went in to work at 10am to a satellite office we had established down the road. Amazingly, no one was injured in the fire and damage was contained to a small area, only about 5% of the entire facility. The next few days are a blur of crisis communications plan implementation. I worked until 8pm on both the Thursday and Friday after the fire and went in for a little while on Sunday, too, writing press releases and updating our corporate website. I had to call my mom and have her come over on Saturday to help me because I was feeling so overwhelmed. I was behind after the weekend away and now I was really behind. She helped me get our very dry, fire-hazard of a Christmas tree down and I was able to catch up on the laundry, too, plus put the rest of the Christmas decorations away. Last week was a little better, although we couldn’t return to our offices until Thursday and we still have to carpool from a satellite lot for a little while longer. I also had to go to a funeral viewing on Tuesday for the mother of a friend of my mom’s, which messed up the tumbling schedule again, so we did tumbling on Monday and Thursday to make up for the two missed days.
By this Saturday, I was completely wiped out and I think my body was trying to tell me that. I spent all day yesterday on the couch with a fever of 102 and could barely move. There was nothing else wrong – no stuffy nose or sore throat. I think it was just sheer exhaustion. I felt completely back to normal this morning. So now I’m back and ready to resume regularly scheduled blogging. I have a book entry I need to post about my first two reads in 2006 and some outdated pictures from the holidays, plus this weekend will be a busy one with a concert, work party and baby shower - all in less than 48 hours!
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Kidisms
M. was home sick today. When H. woke up this morning, she went in to see him and he said, "Daddy doesn't feel good today." H. asked him, "Did you drink some liquor?"
I can only attribute this to New Year's Eve, when M. and I had a few strawberry margaritas that we made at home. We made one for H. without the alcohol, and when she wanted another one, we told her she couldn't have one with any liquor in it because it would make her sick. Two weeks later, she remembered this. I'm sure she went in to school today and said, "Daddy's home sick because he drank some liquor." I'm expecting a phone call any minute.
M. was home sick today. When H. woke up this morning, she went in to see him and he said, "Daddy doesn't feel good today." H. asked him, "Did you drink some liquor?"
I can only attribute this to New Year's Eve, when M. and I had a few strawberry margaritas that we made at home. We made one for H. without the alcohol, and when she wanted another one, we told her she couldn't have one with any liquor in it because it would make her sick. Two weeks later, she remembered this. I'm sure she went in to school today and said, "Daddy's home sick because he drank some liquor." I'm expecting a phone call any minute.
Fun Phrases
My new favorite phrase is "thigh girth."
Hopefully, I'll have a real entry up soon, with an update about the situation at work, plus the big scrapbooking weekend, which seems like it was a million years ago after the week I've had.
My new favorite phrase is "thigh girth."
Hopefully, I'll have a real entry up soon, with an update about the situation at work, plus the big scrapbooking weekend, which seems like it was a million years ago after the week I've had.
Monday, January 02, 2006
To Do List
Things I Accomplished While I Had Off Work for 11 Days:
1. Baked two batches of cookies with H. on 12/23.
2. Obviously, celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both of which were really great this year.
3. Made cookie cutter birdseed ornaments with H. to hang outside for the birds and the squirrels on Christmas morning (much messier than it looked on the Today show).
4. Completed a scrapbook of our honeymoon (from back in 1998) on 12/28.
5. Installed an external hard drive on the computer to back-up my photos and music.
6. Installed an internal CD/DVD-ROM drive on the computer since I could no longer burn data CDs on the existing CD-ROM drive. (This required taking the computer apart to install it internally and I was actually able to do this without any problems. I was quite proud of myself.)
7. Returned H's duplicate toy gifts to Walmart.
8. Made homemade spaghetti sauce and cooked dinner for 7 on 12/29 (when we didn't get to go to Dutch Wonderland to see the Christmas lights because of all-day pouring rain).
9. Installed and loaded music on my new, free iPod Shuffle.
10. Made strawberry margaritas on New Year's Eve (after getting carded at the liquor store - ha, ha!).
11. Watched the 40th anniversary edition of The Sound of Music (the color was spectacular - I wish I had a big TV to watch it on) and the DVD of The Dukes of Hazzard movie (really, really terrible).
12. Returned ill-fitting Christmas gift clothes to Kohl's and bought new ones to replace them.
13. Hosted two play dates for H.
14. Uploaded 100+ pictures from the month of December to have prints made.
15. Watched Days of Our Lives every day but Wednesday the 28th (and had to call my sister several times to ask clarifying questions).
And honestly, I felt like I didn't do a whole lot but watch TV and lay around on the couch, playing the Disney Memory card game with H. But I guess we managed to squeeze in a few fun activities. Now it's back to work and school and the regular routine.
Things I Accomplished While I Had Off Work for 11 Days:
1. Baked two batches of cookies with H. on 12/23.
2. Obviously, celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both of which were really great this year.
3. Made cookie cutter birdseed ornaments with H. to hang outside for the birds and the squirrels on Christmas morning (much messier than it looked on the Today show).
4. Completed a scrapbook of our honeymoon (from back in 1998) on 12/28.
5. Installed an external hard drive on the computer to back-up my photos and music.
6. Installed an internal CD/DVD-ROM drive on the computer since I could no longer burn data CDs on the existing CD-ROM drive. (This required taking the computer apart to install it internally and I was actually able to do this without any problems. I was quite proud of myself.)
7. Returned H's duplicate toy gifts to Walmart.
8. Made homemade spaghetti sauce and cooked dinner for 7 on 12/29 (when we didn't get to go to Dutch Wonderland to see the Christmas lights because of all-day pouring rain).
9. Installed and loaded music on my new, free iPod Shuffle.
10. Made strawberry margaritas on New Year's Eve (after getting carded at the liquor store - ha, ha!).
11. Watched the 40th anniversary edition of The Sound of Music (the color was spectacular - I wish I had a big TV to watch it on) and the DVD of The Dukes of Hazzard movie (really, really terrible).
12. Returned ill-fitting Christmas gift clothes to Kohl's and bought new ones to replace them.
13. Hosted two play dates for H.
14. Uploaded 100+ pictures from the month of December to have prints made.
15. Watched Days of Our Lives every day but Wednesday the 28th (and had to call my sister several times to ask clarifying questions).
And honestly, I felt like I didn't do a whole lot but watch TV and lay around on the couch, playing the Disney Memory card game with H. But I guess we managed to squeeze in a few fun activities. Now it's back to work and school and the regular routine.
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