Resolutions
It's that time of year again to reflect on the goals of last year. To refresh my memory
1. Remove the final credit card from our budget and build my credit to a better score
2. Lose weight. 136 is still my goal, but exercise is going to be needed to reach it and maintain it. Now just to find a way to do this.
3. Learn something new or improve more of what I know – jQuery and AJAX or .net (C# variant)
4. Potty Train Kathleen!
5. Finish at least one personal project.
6. Finish my business website and begin writing weekly on it’s blog.
7. Begin a “beginner” programming blog
8. Play daily with my girls with their lincoln logs, tinker toys or building blocks.
9. Color with the girls daily
10. Help Kathleen (and Samantha) learn her ABCs, colors and shapes.
11. Learn how to make yeast rolls
#1 - still in negotiations, but almost done with this I hope.
#2 - don't think I've managed to do that but we've been out of a scale for a while and I keep forgetting to buy one that doesn't require batteries.
#3 - the only thing I can really think I learned this past year was cakePHP. I dabbled more with jQuery and Ajax and poked around with C# and .net but I don't think I learned much more than I already knew.
#4 - Well it's better than last year. We've had our good weeks and our bad ones. In order to remind both Kathleen and myself to remind Kathleen I've started a timer, it seems to be working, every 20 to 45 minutes depending on what I think she's doing at the time seems to be helping to remind both of us. Now to start working on Samantha.
#5 - Nope, no personal projects completed I started about a billion again.
#6 & #7 - I haven't done any design blogging. I should but I don't have the ideas to push enough through right now.
#8 & #9 - I don't so much as play with the girls as let them build with them. Kathleen loves to build. Granted the toys are all over the house, but they enjoy them. I don't color much with them either, but Kathleen loves to draw, Sammi just goes with the flow.
#10 - we started this and Kathleen can identify some letters and knows what sounds others make, but we still need to work on that, we bought alot of Christmas presents this year to assist with that process.
#11 - well I did make yeast rolls this year, but they weren't very good, I will have to try again.
I will make some resolutions for next year, but not tonight. Later will be better while I sit down and go through my business stuff and try to see where I want to go from there.
Bells and Birthdays
I've missed out on writing some things so I end up with a lot to write on the days I remember to write. I know it's an interesting title, but my parents uses bells for their dog. It was such a great idea I'd tried to make our own set. I only found little jingle bells and Samantha took them off the ribbon I had them on. Probably not the greatest of ideas, but Mom found some HUGE bells, tie wrapped them on to a chain and put them on a cat collar so we can adjust it on the door knob. It's been on about a week or so and Bubba actually uses them during the day. I don't know if he's ringing them to actually go outside, but I think he is, he usually rings them and then sits down and waits, and then goes outside. It did not take him long to figure it out. We have very few accidents during the day. We still have some and at night I'm sure we do as well, but of the three little children I have he was by far the easiest to potty train.
My parents asked me who would be potty trained first Kathleen or the Dog, I said the dog lol. And I was right.
Kathleen had her birthday party yesterday. She racked up on toys, but unfortunately I will be going to the store today to pick up another Barbie doll for Samantha. She fell IN LOVE with the one Sydney gave Kathleen. So we must get her one.
The birthday party was a bit bigger than the previous ones. We invited three additional kiddos. Taylor who is the daughter of Shea's second cousin, she's about 1 years old, Victoria who is the daughter of one of Shea's highschool buddies and Jacob, who is one of Kathleen's friends at Mam and Pawpaw's church when she goes. Their parents are a friend of the family. We of course invited Addie and Laura as well. AND Gabriel and Sydney were there. It was a joy to have them share Kathleen's birthday with us. We only wish it could have been longer but we understand.
The kids played with Kathleen's Christmas video game - a web cam that hooks to the tv and plays music and has dancing characters while they all dance in front of it. And we brought up Elefun and all the kids caught butterflies. Shea's parents have a pasture they let some local horse owners use, his only real condition was that they come over once and a while when the girls are around to give them a ride. Now I must say I was not at all surprised that Kathleen rode the horse. She actually couldn't wait for it. But it truly amazed me that Samantha rode the horse. Totally amazed me because she freaks out at anything that moves by itself, she wasn't real sure of it the first time and when I took her away she still insisted on riding so we avoided the horse's head and we went around, she rode around in a smaller course than the rest of the kids, but she didn't cry she actually smiled and enjoyed it. She still amazes me when she does something out of character like that. But she did the same thing with the fair rides this year too. It's amazing what a year will do for the kiddos.
Christmas and Computers
Well it has been an eventful few days. On Monday my computer completely died. It's been interesting not having on. I did finally get my laptop fixed. I had tried to install norton internet security and the avg kept erroring on uninstall so it broke the whole computer. Thankfully nothing important is on my laptop so I just reinstalled it. However when I do that it doesn't have the ethernet or wireless driver so I didn't get around to downloading all that until today. So my laptop is now functioning and I can keep up with my email and the likes with out bugging Shea.
It took three days to get the loan approved for my new computer. It's a dell, it's much better than what I had: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q8300 (4MB L2, 2.5GHz, 1333FSB), Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
It has 6G of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I bought the latest version of Office with it and a 3 year warrenty. The only bad thing is that I won't get it till the middle of January. It really kinda sucks but I'll live.
Christmas was good. The girls made out like champs.
Kathleen and Samantha got a tent to share, a tinkerbell sleeping bag each, a princess dress up trunk from Grams T. Grandma and Grandpa got the girls a leapster 2, 1 game and a battery charger with 4 rechargable batteries, each. Santa gave them a buzz lightyear stuff toy and blanket, and a princess basketball, panties, m&ms, a toy story flash light and a little pet shop figure. I started a new tradition with the girls gifts from us. Something they need, "want", a game, read, and wear.
They needed more sheets for their bed so they both got a mickey sheet set. They got their "want" which isn't necessarily something they wanted but something I thought they'd like - Sammi got a large truck carrier with about 20 little cars inside it, Kathleen got some playdoh and a white board drawing and lettering set. They got the Elefun game to share (catching butterflies in a net). They each got a colloring/activity book to "read". And a red "christmas" tunic and legging set they can wear after christmas still.
They got from Shea's side of the family different things. Sammi got a talking truck she's afraid of because it moves by itself, some Barbi dvds, an outfit and a princess drawing book and a bath set. Kathleen got a dance video game to play on the tv, a simple "simon" game, an outfit and a bath set.
Mom and Dad also sent the girls a collection of books and coloring books that they love.
We also had the first of Kathleen's birthday parties. We had cake and icecream and she opened up some presents. She got a fairy popup tent, an arizona fleece sweat shirt, a tinkerbell blanket and some drawing books from us. She enjoyed it.
I got the new super mario brothers game for wii and Shea will probably be getting a smoker for christmas.
All in all we had a good day and I think everyone enjoyed opening presnets with both my parents and Shea's. It was a good day.
Christmas Dinner
Christmas is fast approaching. Next Friday is the big day, and one in which Kathleen cannot wait for. She is constantly talking about Santa, I think next year we'll have to start writing letters to Santa.
Tomorrow is the family party, which hopefully will be a good time.
We had Christmas dinner tonight, the Saturday before Christmas. As is typical for here, I have no idea what we are doing on Christmas day, so in order to get the left overs that come with Christmas, I baked us a half a ham and made some mashed potatoes, and we finished off the biscuits I made for breakfast this morning. It was yummy, but my tatos were missing something and I'm not quit sure what it was.
Thus far our Christmas plans consist of opening presents when the girls get up while we web cam in my parents so they can watch the girls. Mam and Pawpaw might make it for present time, last Christmas we had to wake the girls up as they arrived before they woke up lol. I expect it to be the same this year or at least close.
I hope to have some cinnamon buns and hot cocco and coffee made while we open presents. I'd have egg nog but neither of us like it so there is no point in wasting that holiday tradition.
Tomorrow is a busy day, I have to make some smokey mac and cheese in the afternoon before we head over to the party. I will probably have to go to the store even though I had hoped I wouldn't have to. I ran out of salt, which is a rare thing and I'm pretty sure I'll need it tomorrow too. I should also pick up some drinks as I'm not sure if anyone will bring anything, so I want to make sure we are covered at least.
New Front Page
I've always struggled with what to put at my root domain. Mainly because some hosting providers don't really let wordpress work on a base domain, typically ones that don't use cpanel for their subdomains. One of my prior hosts used frames to do subdomains which was really annoying so if you enabled it then you couldn't do anything really with the root cause it was basically just a redirect portal.
Lunarpages lets me put wordpress in so I installed wordpress at my root and now have a life stream which can and will pull in all my online activity to it, as well as provide a landing page for me (and my "users") to use to go to various other sites located on my domain and other useful links I need regularly.
So now I have a working front page with useful information and the potential to do more. I'm thinking of adding in my WoW characters as there is a wow armory link that is really cool thus far. It is something I wanted to do as well. I might do that as well for Shea since he's been bugging me again about a webpage lol.
3.5 days left
There are only 3.5 days left of Shea working. Then he gets two weeks off. It's pretty cool that he gets off the time but he's only paid for like 3/4 of it. So it hurts but it's nice.
End of the year sucks. It brings with it so many worries and so many financial concerns. The house land taxes are due, the car tag is due, have to file taxes. So very not a fun time of the year.
The holidays are always good though. My only concern is that we aren't going to get to see Shea, Sydney and Gabriel for more than the 20 minutes we did last week. It's really a heart breaker, and it really did break the girl's hearts they didn't get to spend more time with them. I can only hope they'll stop by again sometime before Shea has to ship out again. He's leaving in five days so the odds are not in our favor.
I really do hope they understand that they are part of our family and that we really do want to spend time with them. We want to know what is going on with their lives. That we aren't going to make judgment on what they do, where they go or who they do it with, we just want to be included in their lives. Not to find out the backwards way, like they are sneaking around behind our backs. We just want to be involved.
I feel really bad that Shea's not going to be able to see much of his grandson as it is.
All I can do is wait and hope things turn out for the better. Nothing more we really can do. As with all things in our lives.
Being sick sucks
As I'm sure Bubba an attest to being sick sucks!
The girls are at least feeling a bit better. Not 100% but better. It has been a challenge to keep them in clothes. Thankfully today is a bit warmer outside then yesterday.
Me I'm still pretty out of it. I was so bad last night that the only sinus meds i had was a day time formula, so I took it. And it helped enough that I passed out.
Shea and I have been letting Bubba lay in our bed while we watch TV. I think that has spoiled the pup. He's decided that he wants to sleep with us, which right now isn't a problem. In a month or two when he's grown up a little more then I'll be hurting so we'll see if Shea puts him in bed again with us lol.
Never been so happy for an accident
My biggest concern all day yesterday was that Bubba hadn't had a bowel movement. He decided this morning after Shea went to work would be the best time to alleve himself of that problem lol. I don't think I've ever been so happy/proud of an accident in the house before. I would consider it a big achievement too as it was not yucky. Stinky but not the same kind it was before that permeated the whole house.
So yay for accident this morning. Now hopefully on to full on potty training. With our eating and watering scheduled right now it shouldn't be overly difficult lol, but we'll see.
Yesterday he was given food every couple of hours, he'd eat and sometimes he wouldn't. I also was giving him some food when I saw he was starting to scavenge everything.
With a sick puppy in the house I forgot how much he could get into when he got to feeling better. The day before he came home I had cleaned up most of the house. But with him being sick things got to the normal house standards with the girls, their toys and the crumbs they leave behind. Not as big as usual. So this morning even though I feel like crap I spent the time to clean up the office and hall way floors, vacuum up them, even in the corners and edges to get all the "yummies" out of the crevices that got pushed to the sides with the vacuum. And I did a quick once over of the bedroom to get anything that he'd been sniffing at before. He has free reign of those two rooms. And by free I don't mean he's wandering around unattenuated cause it's very rare that that girls aren't attached to him. I have to fight them off of him to let him sleep. He's at my feet now where it's safe so he can rest in peace.
Two nights ago Kathleen had a nice fever. Nothing I was overly concerned about I knew how she'd probably gotten the cold - going out side with out the proper clothing on. Since we've had the puppy there has been only one good day for them to go outside and I let them under my supervision. It's really hard not to let them go out into the yard, but it's better until Shea can get the tall grass down. Last thing we need is for a snake bite or worse. I don't even let Bubba get into the worse of the tall grass but he does have to go out in it.
Yesterday Samantha felt overly warm so she must have gotten something too. They've both been fussy so it didn't surprise me any. I went to the store and bought some Children's tylenol - something I haven't had in the house since Kathleen decided to drink the last bottle. I have been very careful with this bottle. However I doubt there isn't a place in the house she can't get to if she really wanted something. All the currently active meds (the girls tylenol and the puppies meds) are on the second shelf of my kitchen cabinents. Almost out of my own reach.
I feel like crap. I felt like crap last night and I went to go watch TV in our bedroom. I managed to watch Phineas and Ferb's Christmas episode and the episode that followed, and got a little way into rerun of Sactuary and then fell asleep and was woken by a dog yip from his pen. It was halfway through the new episode of Sanctuary. Yay! *sarcasm* I missed an episode. Though I probably will get to see that next Friday. I'm so drained.
Much brighter today
Well last night he started feeling better, was drinking water at twenty minute intervals a few laps at a time. He was peeing normally and sometime in the middle of the night he pooped - still the runs in a dark green color with an icky smell, but after my research about what the parvo smell actually smells like I'm pretty sure it's just an awful poo smell and not the smell of "death" that was described. But I guess we won't really know much until he starts eating, which will be in about 30 mins or so.
We slept better last night, or so I thought until Shea told me Bubba and I kept him awake. I really didn't think I'd been out of bed that much, and the girls only came in a few times, and not overly excessively considering Kathleen has a fever.
I was slightly worried last night about her, and around 3am Kitkat, Sammi and I took a luke warm shower. Sammi only joined us because she was awake. They came out when Shea went to work this morning and Bubba was attacking them like it was the first day. The girls were screaming cause he was nipping at their toes. Yeah, back to normal. He's also very hungry. He'll have to wait on that though he'll be eating little bits over the course of the day. He is trying to eat everything in the world.
I had to bring the crate into the bedroom so that I can keep an eye on him while I tend Kathleen. The living room is too cold in the fall/winter so we stay in our bedroom for the warmth, and comfort of a bed instead of the leather couches. The lady at the vet told me if the crate was too big to throw in some boxes to make it smaller so that's what I did. He and his bed can fit in the crate so hopefully this will do two birds with one stone, potty training/crate training and keeping him from over extending himself activity wise (and also keep him from the girls, he's already been sent to his pen to day for biting Kitkat - after Samantha let him out of course).
I'm running on about 9 hours of sleep over the past two days. Which is also another reason we are in the bedroom and Bubba is going to spend most of his day in the pen. So I can rest and not worry about him eating things or cheweing on things he should not.
But all in all things are looking up. I'm still worried but today looks better, he's acting like a puppy and that is not something he's done since we brought him home.
Between Bubb and the girls it took me nearly half an hour to write this lol. So I'm gonna go prepare Bubba some dinner for the first time hopefully in two days he'll eat.
Went to vet
Well the vet called again, thinking it was the day after he'd spoken to me. But it was a good thing he called. I had been going back and forth about whether or not to call him back and let him know what was going on.
At this very moment it doesn't look like Parvo. But it could very well be just hasn't progressed enough yet to tell. They didn't do any blood work, just took his temp and examined him for dehydration. He was slightly dehydrated, so they gave him some fluids in his abdomen, two shots and sent home some medicine for us to start giving him. We are to restrict food for 24 hours and water for 2 only then giving him a few laps every 20 mins or so from then on out. Basically don't over do it.
This is probably all that we will be able to do financially and for that I feel horrible. So we'll deal with the rest tomorrow. And I truly hope that Shea will be home despite needing that money, but since we didn't talk long at lunch I didn't get to ask him. He'll be out of work in a few and I'll have some assistance.
I'm probably not going to sleep well tonight either. Sleep will probably only come out of pure exhaustion. Not sure if the girls can tell something is wrong, but by the way they've been acting I think they do, but we'll see. If we have to make the hard decision I'm not sure how well they will handle this.