Bad Day

I am feeling MUCH better now. If I had posted a few hours ago, I don't think I could've said the same.

It sometimes doesn't take a whole lot to get you in a better mood. In this case it was two things: (1) Our money situation is much better than I thought (more on that later), and (2) I StumbledUpon the coolest website today: Musicovery. It is a web radio with a really unique format. I won't go into explaining it, but you MUST check it out. After being bummed about the events of today, I decided to go with calm/neutral music before starting the money stuff. I am now listening to selections from the positive and medium energy level of the chart (the first pop radio song I've heard tonight is playing right now, Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape"). What I really like about it is that it gives you an opportunity to hear music that you wouldn't get to hear just listening to the radio. Lately, I have become more and more disgusted with the state of popular music in the US for various reasons. One of things that bothers me is the "homogenization" of music, where a small amount of very similar music is actually aired on the radio. The average Joe listens to it, accepts it, likes it, and buys the music, without ever getting a chance to hear something different for a change. The above link is completely different, and I love the opportunity to hear something new for a change.

Anyway, on to my bad day...

Maybe it was because it rained non-stop for the last three days, or maybe it's because Meg's dad went home yesterday, or maybe it's the fact that there are less than two weeks left this summer, but I woke up in a funk this morning, and it was down-hill from there.

First off, I have been putting off 'money stuff' for quite a few days now, because I had expected it to be really ugly. We've been hosting a lot of family this month, which has involved extra groceries, extra traveling, and extra trips out to eat. Max has amassed over $500 in vet bills already with his hypothyroidism. The Saturn needed new tires and an oil change ($250, which is a bargain actually--thanks Dad!). The air conditioner had to be repaired twice this summer (to the tune of $400). Well, the wad of receipts in my wallet was telling me that there must be NO money left in the account.

Meg had originally scheduled us to go get a family portrait done today. I explained that with our current money situation, that it probably wasn't the best idea, and could we wait till September. She understood, but I could tell she was disappointed. So, I suggested that we do something fun and free today, and we came up with the idea of going to Gloucester Township Park, packing lunch, having a picnic, and then letting Maddie try the swings and maybe the sliding board.

Well, after packing everything up, I checked my e-mail and discovered that RAM I had sold to someone over eBay turned out to be defective. Now, I was only selling the RAM because I had won it in another auction, and it turned out to be for a desktop and not a laptop. I had no idea whether it worked or not, but didn't have any doubts. Well apparently I was wrong, and I also neglected to specify a return policy, so I am stuck having to refund this guys money when I get the worthless stick of RAM back. So yes, more money out the window...

...but I was going to have a good time with our picnic; the weather was actually nice for a change. We got to the park, and parked by the toddler playground, only to discover that there was no picnic table there... no big deal, we'll just walk to the next area, and then walk back when we were done eating.

So, we found a picnic table got all of our food out, and got almost halfway through lunch before we started getting attacked by vicious yellowjackets. And it wasn't too long until one of them STUNG MADDIE and the picnic was over. Meg and I panicked at first and prayed that she wasn't allergic. After about 30 seconds of crying, she calmed down, and you would have never guessed that she had just been stung. However, a frantic call to my mom was still in order. She instructed us to head to the grocery store and pick up some meat tenderizer and to watch Maddie for signs of an allergic reaction.

To our relief, she was fine, and nothing is left but a red patch on her arm now. However, it put a damper on our free fun picnic.

My job for the rest of the day was one that I have been putting off. At the beginning of the summer our attic fan stopped working, which means that on hot days the heat just stays trapped in the upper level of the house and the air runs all day (probably why it broke twice). Well, some diagnosing at that time led me to believe that a long stretch of wire needed replaced. I would not be able to do this on a hot day, since it gets to temperatures of over 100°F in the attic. Well, with the cool weather we've been having, I haven't had an excuse, so I got up in the attic today and replaced the wire. This was not easy to do, even with the cooler temperatures, because I do not fit in an attic very well, and there is very little light up there. I even almost fell through the ceiling at one point.

After several hours and a lot of sweat, I was finally finished. I flipped the circuit back on, only to find that the fan STILL doesn't work!!! I was hungry, tired, and sweaty, and I had no desire to figure out why it still didn't work, so it will have to wait until another cool day.

Nothing really terrible happened today, but it was really just one thing after another. So, after a relaxing dinner, a bowl of cookies-n-cream ice cream, and some "calm" "postive" music, I got to work on the money stuff. Yes, we went way over budget this month, but we actually had enough of a cash cushion that we are still in good shape. I happily told Meg that we would actually be going out to eat tomorrow (as we usually do on Fridays).

Tomorrow I am going to spend the day planning for the start of the school year. Being prepared like this will also make me feel better about the end of summer. Things are looking up.

I should be doing something else

Mini-posts: Ikea & the Desk | Yard Clean-Up & Parents Visit | Harry Potter & the Visit to the Past | Meg's Family Visits

Ikea & the Desk

My desk and the rest of the family room are a mess. I sometimes have a bad habit of
starting a project, and then getting distracted and not finishing it.

Today, we went to Ikea, which is basically like a playground for adults. Our main goal (besides just having fun) was to buy a small desk for the family room.

Way back in December, I decided to abandon the whole "office room" idea, because I didn't like that I had to be isolated from Meg and the baby if I wanted to work. So, we moved my desk into the family room and did so rearranging. Meg said she didn't need a desk, and that she preferred to work on the couch.

However, Meg has decided that she loves me SO much that she likes to sit next to me at the desk with her laptop. Only problem was the desk was not big enough for both of us, so off to Ikea we went to buy a small simple desk to put next to our current one.

So, I spent the rest of the evening after putting Maddie to bed assembling the desk and baby-proofing the desk area by moving dangerous stuff out of the room, and bundling all of the wires through split tubing (other great Ikea buy- $3.99 for 16 feet of it).

Well, I had gotten to the point where the old and new desk were usable again, and here Meg and I sit, on our laptops, while the rest of the room looks like a bomb hit it. You know Newton's 1st Law of Motion, "Objects at rest tend to stay at rest." I am finding it very hard to get motivated to finish the project tonight.

I always love how ambitious my plans are, (both in teaching and life). I am an over-planner, I always plan to do a lot more than I actually do accomplish. When thinking about a project, I might think it would take an hour, but then it actually takes 3 or more. It happens all of the time. I think Meg now automatically triples the amount of time I say that I am going to be working on something.

Well anyway, my original plan was to finish this desk project AND continue working on my Elements of Music posters for school (which, as you might expect, is taking much longer than I planned!), but I right now am shooting for just getting the family room back in order after posting this.

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Yard Clean-Up & Parents Visit

Now on to an update on life. Lately we've been entertaining a lot, which I quite enjoy. First off, it was my motivation for finally getting the outside of the house cleaned up. I will have to post some pictures if I think of it, because I am very happy with how everything turned up.

Last Saturday, I spent all day out in 90 degree heat (yeah, I'm crazy) and got the back yard mowed, trimmed, swept, and de-weeded. I also cleaned out the shed, strung white Christmas lights around the pool deck for extra light for night swimming, and added a few Tiki torches and citronella candles to keep the bugs away.

Sunday we had my parents over for dinner. They thought the house looked nice, and it was an enjoyable time, but dinner did not go well. Part of my weekend cleanup project was cleaning the grill, since it hadn't been done since before we moved to Pine Hill (in the summer of '05!). The result of this dirty grill was that I always had these flair-ups that would burn the food. Well, I forgot that after cleaning the grill, that I should probably cook things a little longer. The burgers we had were a little too pink. No biggie, we just nuked the pink ones in the microwave, but still, it was a little embarrassing.

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Harry Potter & the Visit to the Past

Monday Meg and I had planned to go down the shore for the evening, but our plans were foiled by rainy weather. We decided to drop Maddie off at my parent's, and see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Despite the fact that it deviated from the book a little too often, I enjoyed it. OOTP (as us geeky Potter fans call it) is the book that I had remembered the littlest from, so the movie was a nice reminder. Before I read Deathy Hallows last month, I went back and read Half Blood Prince just for a little refresher on what was going on. We also watched the first four movies, since we had them on DVD, so those story lines were fresh in my mind as well. I definitely feel like I need to re-read OOTP, but I plan on starting from the beginning of the series again and reading all seven books. I expect to see the story in a different way now that I know how it ends.

Not only did I get to see a great movie, I also got to visit my former workplace. Since I started teaching, I have only seen a few movies. Cinemark is a bit of a drive from where we live now, so we usually went to someplace closer. However, since we had to drop Maddie off at my parent's anyway, we decided to go there. On the few occasions that I have been back to the theatre since I stopped working there, I've always had that nervous but excited feeling that you get when you meet and old friend who you have not kept up with. I LOVED my job at Cinemark, and still miss it occasionally. But, truth-be-told, I am not much of a movie person, so after I stopped working there, I never had much of a reason to go back.

When we first arrived at the theatre on Monday, I was surprised at how it had not changed much at all in the way it looked. I had expected that anyone who I worked with 3 years ago was long-gone, and that my days of free movie passes (employees got discounts, and managers were usually allowed to give out a free pass to a friend here or there) were over. Well, as soon as I walked into the lobby, I was greeted by Doug, a manager who I had worked with. He was still working there, along with Allison, another manager I had worked with. I was very excited to see both of them, as it had been years. And though I did not ask or even expect it, Meg and I got to see the movie for free.

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Meg's Family Visits

Later in the week, Meg's family (her mom, Grandmom & Pappy) came to visit. While these visits sometimes prove to be a bit stressful (more so to Meg than myself), this particular visit went very well. It felt a little bit like we were running an Inn. Mom had her room downstairs (in the old office room). Grandmom and Pappy stayed upstairs in the guest room. We always made sure to have coffee brewing in the morning, and to have a a variety of foods available for breakfast. They made use of the pool, and even took a day trip to the shore. On Thursday night, I did the cooking (much more successful this time)-- we had grilled chicken, pineapples & peppers, rice pilaf, and salad. Meg's family RAVED over the food, which made me very happy, especially after Sunday night's fiasco. It was such an enjoyable time that I was actually a little sad to see them go on Friday morning.

Okay, we'll your updated now, and I am tired now. Maybe the family room can wait until tomorrow, we'll see...

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Do You Read This Blog?

Okay, so I ripped the idea off of Meg's Blog, but it seemed like a good one, and I was curious. Now, move your mouse to the right and vote!

Me in Springfield

Check out my Simpsons avatar. You can make your own at www.simpsonsmovie.com

Time Flies!

Yeah, it's been a while since I blogged. Summer feels like it has been busy, but really, when I look back at the first half of the summer, it does not seem like I have accomplished all that much. Life is different now, being a dad, and this is definitely not a bad thing. Normally, I would be bummed at the fact that school is starting in a month, and that I have gotten so little accomplished this summer. But, my priorities have changed. House projects, school work, and going back to school just don't seem to be the big deal they were before. The worst part of the end of summer is going to be not spending so much time with Maddie. We have had so much fun this summer. She has got a real personality now, and simply melts me with her smile. She is so awesome that I hardly mind the regular baby maintenance stuff: feeding, changing diapers, bathing, etc... difficult, smelly, or wet as they may be, it is still time that I am spending with Maddie. Let me tell you, if we could afford it, I would be a "stay-at-home dad" in a heartbeat. But unfortunately, we can't live on one teacher's salary.

I know I said I wasn't going to dwell on what I did and did not do this summer, but I was reading a blog post from earlier this summer (50 days ago to be exact), and realized I have accomplished several things on this list, and if I haven't accomplished them it is for a good reason. I also still have a month left to get some more of this stuff done. Let's see how I am doing.

House Projects:

• Lattice around the deck - Can't do it- not enough money left in the budget.
  
• Repairs throughout the house (e.g., no toilet paper holders in either bathroom right now) - Fixed the toilet paper holder! And I have been doing an excellent job on keeping up with house maintenance. The interior of the house is looking the best it has in a while.
  
• Beautify the gardens - The exterior is a different story. There was only enough money to redo the side garden. The front I fixed up last week, and looks really nice. I am going to tackle the backyard, which is currently overgrown with weeds, this weekend.
  
• Clean out the shed (again!) and find a way to keep it more organized - I haven't even touched it yet. And if it was messy 2 months ago, you can't even imagine what it looks like now. Another project for this weekend!
  
• Clean an organize some of the messier areas of the house - As I said before, I've been doing great with this.
  
• Make weekly and monthly cleaning checklists and stick to them! - Checklists made and working great!
  

School Projects:

• Write my own recorder method book - Need to do yet
  
• Make 'Elements of Music' posters for my classroom - Working on that right now

The rest of these school-related things are on my nightly to-do list after Maddie goes to bed I am feeling excited about the new school year (did I mention I am getting an ActivBoard permanently installed in my room!), but I do want to start not only prepared, but overprepared, so that it is less likely that I will fall behind.

• Figure out and plan a better way to structure my middle school general music curriculum
• Start the school year with the 1st marking period planned and ready to go.
• Actually prepare scores for the band (instead of winging it, like I usually do)
• Get into school a couple of days during the end of the summer and clean and organize my room, and find out a classroom arrangement that works better.

Family/Personal Stuff:

• Bond with Maddie, and take lots of videos. - I think I have done this the most this summer, as I mentioned above. I really do feel closer to her than ever before. And we have taken lots of videos. In fact there are a few more on the camera I need to download. If you haven't seen the videos yet, check them out here.
  

• Go fun places with Meg and Maddie - As we learned tonight, this is not easy to do. We were all ready to take a night-trip to the OCNJ boardwalk when Maddie came down with a fever, and we had to abandon the plan. Of course, 1.5 hours later, she is fine. But, in general, it is difficult to get out with Maddie's schedule of eating, napping, etc.
  
• Eat better (despite the fact that in the last year I have gone from a 44 waste to a 40!) - I can't honestly say I've been eating better, but I still fit comfortably into those 40s.
  
• Exercise in the pool with Meg - Once again, not easy to do with a baby. Maddie doesn't like to nap. If we get into the pool together, it is pretty much guaranteed that she will wake up the minute we get in. We have taken her in the pool though, and she LOVES it.
  
• Ride my bike - uh, yeah, it's covered with spider webs...
  
• Take walks as a family - We did this the other day, and it was fun, and we should do it more often.
  
• Have Scamp over to play with Max - haven't done it yet, but Scamp is coming over Sunday with the family.
  
• Have friends from school over - I plan on inviting Lisa over, since she is a mutual friend of both Meg and I, and she has a yellow lab who could play with Max. The state of the backyard is holding me back now, but hopefully I will get it cleaned up this weekend, and I'll send her an e-mail.
  
• Have my parents/brother/sister over more - Well overdue, they are coming on Sunday.
  

Computer Stuff:

• Pick a new theme for the blog (may even do that tonight) - did it the night I wrote this post.
  
• Blog as much as possible. Obviously I have failed on this one. I really do need to do this more, so that I don't have such obnoxiously long posts (like this one!)
  
• Set up my sister's old computer in the 'office' as a file server and guest computer - Done! and then undone! I had the computer up and running, and then a week later, I got the blue screen of death, and I really do mean death. Despite several attempts to get it working again, I determined that the hard drive had failed, rendering the computer useless. This occurred while Meg's laptop was sent out for repairs. So the computer she was using because hers broke, stopped working. Well, the old file server is up and running, but now with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so it can be used like a regular computer (the old file server, by the way, it a laptop with a broken monitor).
  
• Finish tagging all of our photos (9,000 and counting!) with the names of the subjects of the pictures - Done as of last night!
  
• Clean up, archive, and reorganize files on my laptop - still need to do this.
  
• Keep Maddie's blog regularly updated with pictures and videos (we've been really lazy about that lately) - we've gotten better about this, but are still pretty lazy.
  

Hobby Stuff:

• Attempt to write an original piece of music for my band to play at school. - I would still like to do this, but I don't know if I will have time. I bought the new version of Finale, which has loads of improvements. I need a memory upgrade though (which is another long, frustrating story--let's just say, read eBay listings carefully before you click 'bid') to take full advantage of the improved VSTs. I did a quick, one night arrangement of the Harry Potter Theme for the band to play at the Halloween Parade, but I would like to try at something original.
  
• Refer to everything above. Most of the stuff on the list I genuinely enjoy doing! - I have been having a lot of fun this summer, and am looking forward to tackling more of this list.
  

Okay, so those 72 days (7 hours, 57 minutes, and 34 seconds now) don't seem like enough. - Scarily enough, there are only 32 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes, and 24 second left in Summer! This post is from 50 days ago, as I said before, TIME FLIES!

After taking stock of the list above, I realized that I have been up to other things as well, which makes me feel a lot better. So, to add to what I have accomplished is this list:

• Re-Read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and just finished Deathly Hallows, which I believe is the best book of the series by far.
• Helped out with music at VBS. I wasn't all-too-much looking forward to this, since I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, but it ended up being a lot of fun, and Meg and I both agreed to help out last summer. I also recently learned how to run the sound board at the church, so I can help out by running it for Sunday morning services.
• Vacationed 'down-the-shore'
• Took two trips to Gettysburg
• Kept the house exceptionally clean

Add those things to the above mentioned red items above, and I can see how those 50 days went so fast.

Well, off to get some sleep. I really need to blog more... so much to say!