minus7

I am SO tired.

I've been going to work early every morning and working late. On top of that, I haven't been going to bed until 11 every night, because by the time 10 rolls around I'm wide awake and enjoying the time just sitting around with Stac, so I'm in no mood to go to sleep. It's definitely taking a toll though, my ass is really draggin' right now. The extra money will help get us through this holiday season, that's what I keep telling myself. Over and over and over and over and...

I'm pretty sure I was going to post earlier this week about something really cute that Bekah did, but I haven't been able to remember it. Dang it.

Maybe this is what it was... On Tuesday(?) I went to work at 5:30 in the morning, and thus was able to punch out and go home at 6. Much later than the 3:30 I usually get off at, but earlier than the 7 or 7:30 that I've been coming home. Anyway, when I walked in Bekah came running and gave me a huge hug. "Daddy, you're home EARLY!" heh-heh

I can't wait for these long hours to be over.

In other news... Christmas shopping is pretty much done. The kids are making out like bandits, let me tell ya! It's too bad they won't appreciate it. I kid you not, the first one to utter the words "I'm bored" in the coming months may just find themselves laid out on the floor before they even realize that I hit them!

Ok, break's over, I better get back to it. Slave to the grind, and all that.

Been watching a lot of CSI. I think we're in season 5 now. Season 4 was, of course, 5* good!

Earlier this week (possibly even last weekend!) we watched Kissing a Fool. I think I've seen it before. It's ok I guess, nothing to write home about though. 3*

On deck: MirrorMask.

Saturday night Staci had to sing at a women's ministry thing, so I was at home with the kids. Shortly after getting on the computer, the pastor came online. We started talking and he invited the kids and I to come over and hang out, watch a movie, eat some popcorn. So we headed into town.

We watched MirrorMask. Yes, I watched MirrorMask with my new pastor! LOL Too bad it sucked. Ugh. We had a good time though. 1.5*

When the girls got home we ran for some pizza and then watched The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe. That took us to midnight and then we went home. 4*

Today we've watched quite a bit of CSI which is, of course, great. But then we watched Here on Earth. Not only was it a teen movie, it was a sappy teen movie! 2.5*

And now we're watching Rescue Dawn, which isn't as fun as I had hoped. It isn't bad, but it isn't real exciting either. 3*

So I guess what it amounts to is I'm not picking really good lately! I need to pick some big, explosive, summer type movies for a while or something! heh-heh

Still a lot of work going on here, so there hasn't been much to blog about. I'm still going in an hour early every day (6am) and then let the workload determine when I go home. Last week I left an hour early once or twice, but since I came in early I still had full 8 hour days. Sometimes I leave at my normal time, which is an hour of OT in this case; and sometimes I leave an hour late which gives me a 10 hour day.

This weekend was pretty full, but I'm going to wait to post about it until I have some pics to upload with it. Maybe tonight...

Computer problems at home are kicking my ass, and making me very grumpy. Vista is totally pissing me off, I'm going back to XP Pro tonight. Hopefully. Maybe I'll find out that it isn't Vista that sucks but my fancy dancy new computer. Oh... that would suck.

Anyway, I will post about the kids' Christmas programs (yes, plural) and their piano recital with pictures AND VIDEO, once I'm back up and running. Hopefully things will be fixed tonight and I can post after Adventurers tomorrow. We shall see.

The Vista -> XP conversion is not going real well. I have XP installed now, but it was a major headache and took forever to accomplish. The good news is I learned about some things that I had no clue about before, like slipstreaming. The bad news is that Dell doesn't even offer XP drivers for my system, so getting things back up and running is going to be a real pain. I actually had to physically remove my network card to get a model number off of it so I could Google the manufacturer and get a driver. Ai-yi-yi! If the network card doesn't work right away with this driver, and I do mean IMMEDIATELY, I'm reinstalling Vista and praying for the soon release of service pack 1.

Hi Pat.

Well, my computer finally seems to be working at the high rate of speed for which I purchased it! After some thought I came up with the idea that all of the slowness was related to USB drives. After working in that direction for a bit I must've done something right (first time all week) because now it's fast as fast can be again! There are a few little kinks to work out, but none of them are "deal breakers."

I still need to post about the Christmas programs and piano recital, and now that the computer is working nice again I'll get to it. Right now, I'm enjoying a "break" and playing games. heh-heh

(hi miki)

It's been awhile, but there really isn't much to post about on the DVD front. In fact, the majority have been watched in the last few days.

There has, of course, been more CSI. We're into season 6 now. Season 5 was really really good. 5*

Staci put an old Sherlock Holmes TV show in her Netflix queue and we watched disc 1 of that. It was ok, but not something we felt like continueing, so she took the rest out of the queue I think. 2.5*

I recently bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This was my least favorite of the books, but the movie was quite good. 4*

I also bought The Bourne Ultimatum recently, but haven't been able to get around to watching it until today. I suggested it last night after we opened gifts with L&J and J&C, but none of them had seen ANY of the Bourne movies. Can you believe that?! So we watched The Bourne Identity last night. Today, after brunch down at L&J's, they came up and we watched The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum back-to-back. 4, 4.5, and 5*

Right now we're watching The Day After Tomorrow. 4*

Ok, so it's not "amazingly little dvd watching" but more like "amazingly more dvd watching than I thought"! :-D

On deck... Waitress, Black Book, and One Last Thing.

So much has been going on the past couple of weeks.

The kids had 2 Christmas programs in one day. The first was a really really good one at church, the second was a crazy secular program at the school that night. It was called Christmas at Bethlehem Gulch and it was a country western type thing. It was pretty funny and all of the kids did a good job. Bekah was a sheep and Brian was a shephard. I have pictures, if I ever get the piano recital video stuff straightened out I'll post the pics too.

Speaking of... Bekah did great in her first piano recital! Her curtsy was The Bomb, crossed legs and all. It was Brian's second recital and he nailed it. It was a pretty great night and I was super proud of the kids.

Let's see, after that there was more work and a little more overtime, leading up to Christmas.

Christmas was pretty great, even with the Christmas Eve trip to the ER. Staci and I were out to get a couple of last minute groceries and walk around some stores just for the fun of it, when she only half made the step up onto a curb, twisted her ankle and fell. After she recovered her breath and battled off the tears of pain, we did our shopping, got my hair trimmed, and walked around some stores. Back at home we hung out with family and eventually opened some gifts. Shortly after we got home from that, Mom got here. We exchanged the rest of our gifts and Staci was still in incredible pain, so off to the ER we went. At the very least we should come away with some pain med that's stronger than Ibuprofen! Turns out she tore the ligaments in her ankle, so now she has a brace on and some crutches. Oh, and some decent pain meds! heh-heh On the bright side, that was the fasted in-and-out of an ER I've ever experienced.

So, Mom was here for Christmas, which was cool. We didn't do much Christmas day but lay around and watch movies, which I already posted about. I had to work the rest of the week, which sucked, but Mom stuck around until Friday. Tim and Mary came over Wednesday and we opened some gifts with them, got some pizza, hung out and played some games. Hailey wasn't feeling too good, which kinda sucked, but was kinda cool because she was cuddly. :-)

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful until Mom crashed through a deer fence about 2 miles from the house on her way home! But I'll leave that for her to tell.

Saturday we went over to the Pastor's for lunch and to talk with some people about Pathfinders getting started here. We came home at 10pm! LOL It was a good time, even though the Patriots won.

I kid you not, 15 minutes after we got home everyone was asleep except me. Crazy family!

Today we went out for breakfast and then went grocery shopping. I've been doing laundry and watching movies the rest of the day.

Tomorrow I have to work, and I'm already planning on putting in at least 12 hours. I'll have the rest of the week off and I want to leave as little extra work as possible from my buddy to have to take care of (preferably none at all).

We've been invited to a party tomorrow night, so I guess we haven't fallen COMPLETELY off the radar. heh-heh. Not sure what we're doing Tuesday, probably as little as possible. The Pastor will be coming over for supper that night though. Who knows about the rest of the week; I'm sure it will take care of itself.