Good Quotes

"Fall seven times, get up eight." - Japanese Proverb

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." - John Quincy Adams

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." - Chinese Proverb

"Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never." - Winston Churchill

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance." - Samuel Johnson

Events of the Day

So I got a call from Hooray this morning, he wanted a copy of the boys' school supply lists so he could pick up what they need. Instanly suspicious, I asked if he'd like me to pick up half, which was the arrangement last year. No, he said, he's gonna have the company pick it up and write it off as office supplies. Oh goodie, I think, doing my happy dance, more reason to open his company's books at the divorce hearing. Not to mention he just saved me $50 or more. Probably more, considering the guys need new backpacks this year. Maybe I should've added lunch boxes to the list too.... Oh well, if worse comes to worse I'll crochet them some ;o) Of course I had to tell GiGi, let her know what's going on. She's mad at me cuz I offered to pick up half. Bad JR! But she'll forgive me, she always does.
Also, Hooray was wondering if he could still take Aerrik to Kim's wedding back east. Now, I do remember receiving a wedding invitation, and I do remember Hooray saying he should probably go since Kim comes out here for family events, but I did not recall any mention of taking the child. But whatever, I don't actually have a problem with it. He'll only miss 1 day of school and that's only a couple weeks in to the year, so he shouldn't be too behind just yet. But what, you're flying? Yeah, I figured it'd be cheaper the driving, the company is gonna pick up the tickets. Yeeeessss..... If an audit ever comes around it's gonna be sweeeeeeet. So I guess that leaves me with Even and Chris for an extra weekend, which I don't mind at all! Gonna have to do something fun with Chris though so he doesn't get too jealous of his big bro.
There's not much else going on in my world... Either waiting for child support or the Power Ball to hit... Which reminds me, I need to get a ticket, it's up past 150 million. And yes, I know my odds are better with the state lottery, but that's a lot of money there! And for a buck for a night of dreams, why not?
Nothing new on the romance end. I sent Tex an e-mail asking what his current situation is. Got the strangest answer, ours having been a strange relationship. I had an incredibly brief dream, virtual message by power of the mind, saying to effect that Ruby and psycho momma are there. I'm almost positive it was an intentional message and not a figmentation of my imaginaries. We just work like that. And after that message, I stopped waiting for an e-mail response. Actually, the dream was in e-mail form. Tex handed my basically a 2-D computer screen with the message on it, and that was it, darkness. Cool, huh? As far as I know I'm getting together with Scot next week, but I haven't heard from him in about a week either. Suppose I should e-mail him... NM hasn't written in a while either. Last I heard he'd hurt his back. I should e-mail him too... Started talking with Sax a few days ago, older but seems really nice, I wouldn't mind chatting more. I wonder if I'll remember all these code names a year from now...
This weekend the LC gang is getting together at Lesley's for a BBQ. I wish she'd write me back with her address, that's gonna make the place hard to find! I'm trying to talk 110 and Jae into going out afterwords, I really do want to check out the Cowboy Lounge. Or even just anywhere! I need nightlife! Poor me is going stir crazy. Not so much this week as in the past, I'm feeling very centered this week.
My newest project seems to be Ash and I'm always worrying about her. She's making some great strides and I'm proud of her, but I'm worried about her falling backwards too. I know she's got a lot of stress going on, and in her position that's the last thing she needs. I worry about Rach too, wish she'd check in more. And where the heck is Butterfly?
I've been considering re-working my site, but haven't found the time or ambition for it yet. Business is picking up, back to 8-10 ads a day. I also want to play with this blog and see if I can customize the look, but I'm afraid of the coding language since I don't know CSS. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I like the conentration right now. Also been wanting to write more. I brought my story here to work, but I can't seem to pull it open and go. Guess I'm worried it either won't happen, or it will and I'll get interrupted and lose it.
Oh well, guess I should get back to not working, ciao!

The Simple Life

I had the nicest weekend with the boys. I made it clear to them before they came down that I had absolutely no money, and that included not even enough gas money to drive down into Denver to do thigns we have memberships for. I needed all the gas I had to get them back to Hooray's. Well regardless I still wanted to have a nice time with them, so I focused on just paying attention. Friday night after dinner, I asked them to go for a walk with me and I took them to a really neat new park I've been wanting to check out. It was a little further than we'd normally go, and Chris was ocmpletely pooped when we got home, but we had a great time! Then the older boys played in the sprinklers with Austin and Tyler. Saturday we went to the park again, and took the neighbor kids with us. We had a nice picnic lunch and spent a couple hours there. In the afternoon, we watched a movie and I played video games with Chris while Aerrik chattered to us about the website he was looking at. That evening after Even went to bed, we pulled out the polymer clay and made things together. On Sunday I spent the morning switching between watching Aerrik play computer games and reading through a Lego magazine with Chris and digging for dinosaur bones in his plaster chunk (we have 5!). Just spenidng a little time with them was so special, we didn't have to go any where for that. And even better, since we weren't ruishing here to there, it was all more relaxed than it would normally be. Oh, and I even got them to do a quick 2 minute clean-up with me. We had the whole house picked up in no time!

Fore!

Working for a water company brings about a whole new type of conspiracy theory, delivered by free-thinking farmers with too much time on their hands. Too much time because they have little work to do due to the shortage of water. AT least this is my theory of why these allegations keep popping up. The general cry: Where'd the water go? We had all that mountain snow melt, where is it? Someone is keeping my water upstream. Boulder is stealing it. Plainly put (and in my opinion), water runs downhill. The further you are form the mountains, the less snowmelt affects your water supply. Not to mention most of the snowpack was gone by March and we've since been dealing with record highs. Not just record highs, the hottest temperatures for this area since they started recording temperatures! So what does this have to do with anything? Well, a well-meaning rancher/farmer was in here today decrying how Colorado has more golf courses per capita than any state, Florida included, and why were we wasting water on all those courses when her hay wasn't growing? Sounds like a mission to me....
Just who DOES have the most golf courses per capita? Please note that most of the following information comes from here: www.sportometrics.com, a site I picked not because I'm sure it's correct, but because it was the only site I could find with a list and pretty graphics.
Just which state has the most golf courses per capita? Florida definitely comes to mind. A few others claiming to be "it" include Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota (on many sites), Utah (though with some digging they say they're the biggest in the desert states), Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. (incidentally, both Ireland and New Zealand claim to have the most courses per capita in the world) According to sportometrics.com, the most courses can actually be found in that most unlikely of places, North Dakota. Boasting a proud 13.89 courses per 100,000 people (how many holes are in .89 courses?) we have a winner! (according to me and sportometrics anyway). Where do the rest of our claimants fall? In actuality, Florida is 15th in this list! Michigan tops out at 11th, Wisconsin a bit better at 8th, and Hawaii, Minnesota, Utah and Pennsylvania aren't even in the top 25! Neither is my own state of Colorado, so neener neener to the rancher/farmer lady.
After speaking with a co-worker, we decided in the end what REALLY matters is the amount of golf courses compared to the amount of square feet of water, which is really what it all comes down to when you're discussing hungry crops. But I think that's a bit harder of a project them I want to tackle... :oP

Beneath the pale moonlight

Of the 6 billion people in the world, surely there is another one who can make me feel like he does.

My Testimonial for FlyLady

Well Flylady, I have a bone to pick with you!!! You’ve caused me so much annoyance and stress! Why? Because it seems every time I go to take a drink, my water bottle is empty!!! I don’t even remember drinking it! The stuff just seems to magically disappear! So I’m getting off my franny once or twice an hour to go refill it, just to find it empty again the next time I want a drink! And if that wasn’t enough, I’m off to the bathroom constantly it seems! Like every hour! *gasp*

Seriously though, thank you. I’ve fluttered and bumped off and on for a couple years now, and just recently re-subscribed. I had decided to make some life changes as my weight slowly crept up and my stress level rose. See, I’m living with my dad right now while I go through a rough divorce, my ex is fighting for custody of our three kids. He refuses to pay any support, so I have no money for my own place. My dad has been so sweet to open his door to me and my boys, but I realized I wasn’t respecting his home like I would my own. Oh, I’d help out, pick up after the kids, do the dishes a couple times a week, but that really wasn’t much help. My new step mom did the bulk of things, and I’d silently justified it to myself because she doesn’t work. Well that’s not right, I live there too! So I re-subbed to remind myself of what I’d known while I’d been living on my own last fall. In addition I wanted to start being more healthy, so using the tried and true baby step method, I was slowly changing things in my life. One of the first things I gave up was soda. Unfortunately, I didn’t really replace it with much, and I was always hungry and always thirsty. Well then came June and your reminders to drink plenty of water! And I sure have! I didn’t really expect to see anything different from it, but in the last few weeks I’ve noticed my skin looks cleaner and softer. Also, my heart burn hasn’t been as bad as it had, maybe because my body has more fluids to help me break down food?

One more thing you HAVE to know. I cooked breakfast this morning. Oh my gosh! I’m a far cry from being back to routines, in fact this morning was the first time in forever that I had my clothes already laid out and got dressed to shoes. But I slipped out of a bed a tiny bit earlier and was quickly ready to start my day. Medicine to the sick dog, milk for the baby, finish packing the diaper bag (which should’ve been done the night before) and it was still 30 minutes before work! Wow! Time for a relaxing bowl of cereal before I left. But wait, I have all this time! So I made up scrambled eggs, put out some blueberries and toasted an english muffin. Can you believe I’ve never made my baby scrambled eggs in his 17 months of life? I couldn’t! We had a nice relaxing breakfast together instead of the rushed bites while running out the door and having him fed by the sitter. And guess what else? It’s 2 ½ hours later, and I’m not starving! Possible because I had REAL food for breakfast? You bet!

I left my house with a shiny sink, breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, and all the laundry put away. Dinner is defrosted in the fridge and I know just what I’m doing with it. My bed is made, even though the sheets need changed. I boogied the baby toys last night so all that is left are the ones he loves and the rest have been FreeCycled to someone in need. As I said, I still have a long way to go, but I know I’m on track. My control journal is out on the counter waiting for me to come home and look at it :o)

Thank you for your wonderful system, designed to fit anybody! Your common sense is nothing short of genius. Oh, and one more thing, I got the calendar for the first time and I can’t wait for August!

FLYing in Colorado

~JR~