It seems at times that our lives are a little predictable, until I go to (finally) update my blog. Now that I review what has gone on since my last update I see there has been quite a few things.
Let’s start off with the best part. Last Thursday was our 5th wedding anniversary. I know there were many dissidents when we started out on this journey, and we admittedly almost didn’t make it, but here we are. In an unexpected way it seems the separation has really helped us both to realize how we are, how we interact and communicate with each other, and what we need to do to avoid getting back in that situation again. We have already been able to diffuse a few situations that previously would have caused us issues. Enough with that stuff though – I took the day off from work to celebrate the day. We took a motorcycle ride down to Malibu and were headed to a place called Neptunes Net for lunch. Unfortunately we didn’t plan things very well and just decided to wing it a little, we weren’t completely sure where Neptunes was. We drove and drove until we hit the Ventura county line and decided me must have passed it. We drove back to a Starbucks, to warm up a little, and asked where Neptunes was. The barista told us the place was 10 minutes in the direction we just drove nine minutes returning from! We left Starbucks and headed back the way we came – come to find out we were about 200 yards from the place when we turned around. Oy…. We had to pick up Hayden from school in an hour so we didn’t have time to stop an eat unfortunately. We’ll have to save that for another day. At least we got to go for a ride on the bike, I know Nickey really likes to go for rides and I like taking her. I kept thinking as we were riding along the beach how lucky we were to be able to ride on PCH in Malibu on a nice sunny day. Not a perfect anniversary celebration, but a pretty darn good one.
Hayden has been in his new school for a few weeks now and has been going through his usual “adjustment” period. He tends to test the limits of what he can and can’t get away with in a new situation like this, which always ends up in a meeting with the teacher. This was no exception. We met with the teacher last week, which ironically is about the time he backs off and starts to conform. I assured her that he would most likely be a much more attentive student after our meeting, which so far has been the case. He’s a great kid and, like his parents, a rebel at heart. As Nickey has noticed he is not afraid of adults and has no problem challenging them when he can. I wish I had that kind of moxie. Even though it’s definitely frustrating a lot of the time, I really respect and am proud of him for his fortitude – I just worry about when he becomes a teenager….
Hayden had an incident on Friday at his school where, apparently, four kids had him cornered. One had his arm pulled up behind his back, one was pulling on his tie, one was saying to “kill him”, and I’m not sure what the fourth was doing. We heard about this from his principal who said the students were suspended for a day since they have a no tolerance policy for violence, and they have to write a letter of apology to Hayden. We have no idea what triggered the whole event, but Hayden had an almost Zen-like view on the whole thing. He told Nickey that he wasn’t afraid because he didn’t feel like he was in danger. What? Four kids and one is saying they should kill him and he didn’t feel like he was in danger??? I want to hire a couple of bullies to teach these kids a lesson!! All I can say is I hope their parents don’t take this incident lightly. If it happens again I’m going to be really pissed.
Today Nickey drove down to San Diego for a scrapbooking thing. I’m not really certain exactly what it was but I know there were demonstrations, classes, and the opportunity to buy lots of stuff. She was gone all day so Hayden and I hung out in our PJ’s. We (read that as I) built a solar car experiment kit that Grandma gave him for Christmas, and we built a wooden tow truck that I believe the same Grandma gave to him. As Hayden does, after I built the solar car he reconfigured it in his own style and then took it outside to see how it would perform. At least he’s learning about solar and mechanical integration, even if it is by destroying all the work I did that took me several hours. It was a pretty fun day and we don’t get to spend many days where it’s just the two of us.
So many home projects to finish. I’m almost done with the latest bathroom project. The master bathroom had a termite issue on the exterior wall. I ripped out the drywall, cleaned up the wood and (hopefully) killed off all of the termites. It wasn’t a very large infestation and was pretty centralized so I feel confident it’s been remidied. I insulated the wall,drywalled it, mudded it, and put on two coats of primer. Now I just need to texture it then Nickey is going to repaint the whole bathroom. It’s taken me quite a bit longer than I thought it would to get this far, but then again that’s usually how it goes. The bathroom we completely gutted and refinished over a year ago still isn’t finished. I seem to hit something that blocks me and then it just stalls. I’m going to work on finishing that up next because if I don’t finish the projects I’ve started then I won’t be allowed to start any new projects – and I still need to insulate the bedroom walls before it starts getting too hot outside.
As I mentioned in my last update, I won a little bit of money in Vegas. One of the things I did with the money was to buy a treadmill. I’ve been wanting one for a while, and even more so now that I’ve started exercising again. Both Nickey and I have been using it pretty regularly so I think it was a good investment. Some would say that getting outside is the best way to exercise instead of a treadmill, but I’ve always been the type of exerciser that prefers privacy so I’m less likely to get out – I’ve been much more consistent when using a treadmill when I know I’ll be alone. The treadmill in the garage is perfect. I’ve got an old laptop out there – running Ubuntu of course – hooked up to speakers and wifi so we can listen to Pandora. I’m going try out Hulu one of these days and Nickey can put in one of her exercise dvd’s if she wants too. I can also download recordings from one of our Tivo’s to watch as well. Whatever it takes to make sure we keep on track.
Nickey was working for a medical company the last time I updated, but soon after left that job. She compared it to the movie Boiler Room. It really wasn’t the right environment for her and I was surprised when she took it in the first place. She soon found another job working as an assistant for, what I would call, a 78 year old dreamer. I’ve met him once and he’s a really nice guy. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to keep up on some of his responsibilities and has fallen behind on property taxes and other things. He told Nickey last week that he was in financial dire straits and couldn’t afford to keep her on as an assistant for more than a few hours a week. She’s now looking for another job. It’s too bad, working for Harry was exactly the type of job she fits I feel.
Work for me has been ramping back up again lately. So much so that we are looking for two or three more people to add to our department. We need a director of operations and one or two more systems administrators. It’s surprising how difficult it is to find quality people in the LA area – I would think it would be much easier considering how many companies there are in the area. I’m supposed to have my review on Monday – hopefully they won’t be looking for two to three SA’s afterwards 
I guess other than that, it’s been raining too much for me lately, the dogs are doing well, the cat is starting to look a little ragged, and I love riding my motorcycle to work every day. What more is there?
. When I woke up I decided to tackle one of the projects that had been on my list for a long time. I dumped out the planters in the backyard, refilled them with soil, then planted grass seeds, and covered them in clear plastic – sort of like a greenhouse. The hope is to grow grass in them for the dogs, they used to eat the plants in them anyway so grass would probably be better for them.
