Y8 D158

It's cold and windy outside. No rain yet, but the promise of it is there. I can't believe it's almost November 1st. Happy Halloween by the way. May you get lots of candy.

Had a quiet inside kind of day. I went to the store once while B was taking a nap. That was around 2. She was out of bottled water and I was bored. In two weeks I am back on the road and am looking forward to it. Especially since our public schedule is very sporadic right now. I am not even sure what I am supposed to be doing today. I have to send my boss an email shortly getting some direction. I have a couple of classes I can work on, but man, I don't want to do them. Not my favorite topics. More yawn than anything else.

We played some WoW and watched some TV. Nothing much else. Like I said, it was a boring inside kind of day. We watched some new neighbors move in on the first floor. 20 somethings with a baby. Wonderful. Luckily they're fair enough below us we shouldn't hear it. While we can't afford to buy a house, I do wish we had looked into house rentals. Depending on what they try to jack our rent to in September if we aren't ready to purchase, we may look into house rentals instead.

Don't know what else to talk about this morning. Nothing else to talk about. Yeah. I'm done.

Y8 D157

No sleeping for me today. Up at an early time. I just can't quite shake the last part of this cold. It's moved to my ears. I can't hear anything right now. The whole world is muted. Not a bad thing I guess.

Waited for B to get up yesterday to run errands. Mostly because one of the places I needed to go didn't open until 9 and I figured screw it, I don't want to go out multiple times. So around 10 we went out together and ran our morning errands. Petsmart, Home Depot (needed a replacement knob for something the stupid cat stole), Freddies for dinner ingredients, Taco Bell because reasons, Bed Bath Beyond for something specific only they seem to sell, and I think that was it. Got back around noon, ate, and then I started in on dinner.

Why so early? Because I made my own cheese yesterday and it takes hours. All of the cheese I made went into making a homemade lasagna which also takes hours. Seriously I was in the kitchen it felt from 1 until 7. I did make a nice batch of ricotta and mozzarella. Kind of cool making my own cheese. One more survival skill learned. The lasagna came out incredibly tasty. I was very impressed with the end result. It took all damn day, but it was worth it.

We watched a little tv, played some WoW, and went to bed around 11.

Nothing on the plate for today. Quiet day inside is what I have planned.

Y8 D156

I slept in until 6:30! We must have had a great anniversary. Why yes, yes we did. Since we opened presents at midnight, when we got up that was already done. I made B breakfast and then at 10 we headed to Color Me Mine. This is what B wanted to do for our anniversary and I made it happen. I expected us to be there for an hour or so. Nope. We were there for 4 hours almost to the minute. B painted this Snoopy Christmas mug and I did a Tardis. If you take it seriously it's a lot more involved than just slapping some paint on and going. We were there so long I even went across the mall for sushi and brought it back to eat while we painted. It wasn't too crowded and we had a great time. Came back home and B took a nap from 2-4.

Around 5:30 we headed downtown for our anniversary dinner. Miss Delta Southern cuisine. Shrimp and grits for me, shrimp po' boy and mac & cheese for B. We had a quiet window table and it was wonderful. Got home around 9. We both relaxed for a while then B had to deal with a troll. Some guy she used to know who apparently had the hots for her had to go and make some rude comment about how old I am in one of the pictures we took last night and that she posted to Instagram. His comments really pissed her off and she let him have it. I was really touched by how she came to my defense and put this guy in his grave.

We played WoW for a while then headed off to the bedroom. Yay anniversary sex. Two wonderful years. 48 to go.

Y8 D155

It's our anniversary today! Yay us! 2 years. I swear it feels like more than that, but in a good way. We stayed up until midnight so we could exchange presents right when it was officially our day. I got B a monogrammed robe from Pottery Barn and an Ariel onesie pajama set. She got me a make your own cheese kit (makes 13 lbs of cheese!!), a mickey mouse t-shirt, cotton candy, and q-tips. The 2nd anniversary is cotton and we both struggled a bit with it. Cotton is not an easy thing to buy presents as a theme. I would assume that the traditional must have been to buy linens or something. "Here me woman, here's new sheets for you to wash for me." Totally sounds about right. Either way, 2 years together married. Wow. And I am still happy. Go figure.

Worked on docs yesterday. Took a break to go to Costco and get B's medicine she needed. She went and got a haircut. Looks really good. We went to the store after dinner. Dinner was a nice pork roast with little red potatoes.

Overall it wasn't a very exciting day. But then again it was Thursday. What do you want out of a Thursday? We played some WoW. I have been super impressed with how well B has taken to the game. She loves playing her hunter. I have my panda almost up to level 65. Finally am getting to some new areas I have never seen. Have a flying mount. We are both enjoying playing which is nice. If we could play in the same room it would be even better. But it's okay.

Today I am taking the day off for us to do stuff. We have a few things planned. It should be a fun day.

Y8 D154

Yesterday was WEIRD to say the least. I got up at midnight, showered and acted like it was a normal day. At 1am I started the meeting for my class. By 1:30am I had everyone on and we got started. Class wasn't bad. 6 people total, 4 in one room, two at home. Everything was going well. I felt odd teaching at that time, but it wasn't horrible. We took lunch at 5am and that's when the problems started. When we got back from lunch at six, the 4 in the office had a network failure. None of them could connect to the server. We tried troubleshooting for a while but in the end decided to reschedule the second half of the class. All that to not even be able to finish. Argh. Talk about frustrating. We ended the meeting about 7:30 and I sent out emails to everyone explaining what happened and dates where I can do the second half again.

Now here's where the day gets weird. Essentially my day was over. I had already worked a full day. I laid down on the couch and fell asleep for about 90 minutes. B had a doctor appointment a 10 and she headed off to that. I was then sitting there going, ok, now what? A word about her doctor appointment; this was with a therapist to discuss her anxiety. This is also why I didn't go with her. She wanted to be able to talk comfortably and freely without me adding to her anxiety. The doctor ended up writing her a prescription for busperone. We shall see if it helps. They also recommended a visit with a more experienced doctor whom she will be seeing on Monday. All good in the end. I want her to be healthy and happy.

Around 12:30 she decided to take a nap. Her cold came back with a vengeance and she was running a fever of 102. We put meds in her and put her in bed. I went off to the store and to pick up her prescription at Costco. The store was fine, no issues there. I even picked up some contact paper for a project I want to work on. Everything in my office is light colored except for my desk. Instead of trying to paint and make a mess, I was reading about how to refresh something like this using contact paper. I picked up a sample roll to see how it would work.

Got to Costco and tried to get her meds. Nope. First they couldn't find it at pickup and we thought they might have called it into the wrong location. Okay. Went to drop off. Nope. Nothing. Um.. wait let me check this stack of papers. Yep here it is. Sorry. Fuck. How long? About an hour. Double fuck. This was all after waiting behind every old person in town. Sigh. FINE. Headed back home.

Got home and tried out a section of the desk with the paper. LOVE IT.  Makes the desk look clean and new. Now to do the whole thing while not disturbing everything on the desk. Yeah. Good luck.

For dinner we ate every leftover in the house. I am proud of us on that one. Nothing taking up room in our fridge. It's all gone. We watched a little TV and then played WoW. She is really loving the game. I am super impressed. She's got her hunter up to 43 and is doing alright on her own. I am up to 64 with mine.

Went to bed around 10:30. I had a great night sleep and in part it's because of an experiment we are trying. We moved the cat's food to the kitchen (was in B's bathroom) and their litter to the hallway closet (was in our bedroom closet). This way we can lock them out at night. So far so good. I don't see anything destroyed and their both still alive. All I can ask for right?

Don't know what's on the agenda today. As you can see I slept in for once. Not sure what's going on. I am off tomorrow as it's our 2 year anniversary and we are spending the day doing stuff for ourselves.

Y8 D153

I don't normally teach with the lights on, but since I have to start a class in an hour, I think I might need to leave the lights on or I will fall asleep. This is going to be a weird day.

I finally yesterday figured out why I hadn't heard from my boss. He eventually responded to some emails at like 2pm and it's because he is in Vegas. He's at the convention B and I were supposed to be at. The one where we got married two years ago. None of us peons went this year because IBM wasn't comping any tickets and we aren't having a booth. It's only a handful of people there for meetings and dinners. It's all good.

Although, thanks to the lack of communication, I spent most of yesterday thumb twiddling. I did a bunch of reading at least. Got some knowledge in me. Played some WoW, watched some tv. B needed to go over to her cousin's place around 1 and I went with her. They were on a day trip to Mt Hood and needed someone to go over and walk the dog. Since it was the middle of the day traffic wasn't horrible and we were there and back in less than an hour. I needed to get out of the house anyway. I did go out at 6am yesterday to do some grocery shopping, but that was it. I needed a break.

Had Zoup for dinner which we got on the way back from the dog walking. Ate at 5pm because I went to bed at 7. Managed to sleep from 7 until almost midnight. No less than a normal night. Now to convince myself of that while I teach from 1am to 9am. This is going to be fun.

Y8 D152

It's the NyQuil. That's what's been causing me to get up so early. I just realized this. I have been taking it before bed the last three days. It's making me fall right to sleep, sleep straight through the night, but when REM is over, BOOM, I am awake. I woke up yet again at 3:15. I managed to fall back to sleep until 3:40, but here I am awake and I mean fully awake. Not groggy type awake but ready to go. Ugh. Tonight/tomorrow is my UK time schedule class, but watch, I won't be this awake for that. I have to go to bed at 6pm tonight so as to be up by midnight and start class at 1am. 1 to 9. This will be interesting.

Spent the day waiting for people to respond to things. I didn't hear anything from my boss all day which worries me. Either he was too swamped and nothing I sent him was that important (which it wasn't) or something happened over the weekend to him or the kids. I worry.

Either way, I spent the day waiting for the answers to questions that never came. At 6 we went out to have dinner with B's cousin and her parents. I don't say aunt and uncle because technically their no longer related. B's cousin's mother was only B's aunt by marriage and she is now remarried. Therefore technically while still the cousin's parents, there is no blood relation to B. Make sense?

We met up around 6:45 and had a nice dinner. I was in 'going out to dinner with clients' mode where I was polite, funny, and made sure everyone had a good time. I know I did well because on the way home B thanked me and said I didn't give her anxiety once during the dinner. Meaning I didn't talk about the wrong things, etc. I did good.

Got home around 9, put things away, got into bed around 10. Again, I fell right to sleep thanks to NyQuil. I am feeling better so it's doing its job, just getting me up too damn early.

Not sure what today is going to bring. We shall see.

Y8 D151

Slept in a bit this morning. Got up at 5:30. I was supposed to have classes all week and would have been up early but thanks to the UK folks being stupid, I didn't have to get up with an alarm. I went to bed around 10:30 so 7 hours of sleep is what my body needed. The NyQuil didn't hurt either. Yes, I am still sick. Even though I am pretending I am not, I can still feel it. My throat is scratchy, my head is hurting, and I can't breathe out of one nostril. Totally fine. Nothing to see. It's fine. Everything is fine.

As expected, didn't do much of anything. I cleaned, a lot. Especially here in the office. Biggest thing I did was finally hang my pin boards. This room has been in flux a couple of times and I didn't want to go through the hassle of putting these giant boards on the wall. Well I haven't moved anything around in quite a while and got sick of them leaning on my dresser in here. On the wall they go. I then rearranged the bookshelves to fit another Disney statue which cleared up the whole top of the dresser. Things look very organized and neat in here now. That makes me happy. A well organized work area puts me in a better mood. I also vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, and went to the store in the morning for stuff like kitty litter.

B is 99% over her cold but there's enough lingering that she spent the day in pajamas on the couch. We both played a bit of WoW. I was impressed at how fast she got through one set of quests that had me seriously frustrated when I did them. She managed to get through it in a third of the time. The advantage she had though was me telling her exactly what needed to be done. Part of my problem was not knowing where to go or what to do. I ended up having to look it up online.

Honestly that's about it. I made chicken for dinner, we watched some tv, and went to bed. Today I am going to see about rewriting one of our classes and then tonight we're having dinner with B's cousin and her parents who fly in from IN yesterday. THAT should be interesting as they are both younger than me. Not by much mind you, but this is going to be a bit weird for sure. Oh well.

Y8 D150

Almost had another 3am morning but luckily I feel back to sleep until now. Because 4:40 on a Sunday is much better. Yeah right. My cold is not any better nor is it any worse which sucks. It's kind of stuck. I am sucking down cough drops like crazy trying to keep my throat from killing me. That's the main focus of this cold for me - the throat. It's really hurting.

I keep seeing people post pictures of halloween parties and costumes. Um, still another week to go? Why so many parties this weekend? Eh. Who am I to judge.

We did some Christmas shopping yesterday believe it or not. Saw a couple of things, decided they were good gifts and didn't want to take the chance that they wouldn't be available later. Plus I ordered some stuff earlier in the year which is just now coming and needs to be wrapped up for Christmas. Yep. I am officially nuts.

Didn't do much of anything. Cleaned the house a bit. B caught up on some TV. We both played WoW. Went out shopping. Had Mexican for dinner. That was actually really good. We have been lucky in finding a place we both like that has good food. It's hard sometimes with Mexican places. It's either really good yet dumpy and not a sit down, or it's a sit down and it's too white washed. We have managed to find a place that fits both.

One thing interesting we did yesterday was go to the social security website. B got in the mail a summary of benefits letter and out of curiosity we created accounts on their site and reviewed our standings. If I work until 72 as of right now, I will get about $3800 a month in SS benefits for retirement. That's actually not bad at all. Better than I would have expected. B gets about $4. It's all good. Most important was when we looked at my reported income. I complain that in 2010 I took a huge pay cut and it's part of what screwed me over because I had to learn a different lifestyle. To be exact, I took a 95,000 pay cut. Yep. I went from 198 to 103 over the course of one year. Talk about a huge hit. No wonder I struggled so much. It was pretty amazing seeing it in black and white.

My buddy got his new car finally and sent some pics. Looks really good. Plus he looks really good. So much weight loss for him. It's nice to see him looking healthy and happy.

Went to bed around 11 but not before almost killing the neighbors below us. We couldn't figure out what the fuck they were doing at 10:30 at night to be making so much noise. Banging, dropping, etc. I was two seconds away from going down there and having it out. They need to learn to chill.

Not much going on today. Not sure if we have any plans to be honest. Don't think we do. Good.

Y8 D149

Not happy this morning. Not only because I woke up at 3:04 and managed to fall back to sleep for only 30 minutes but I caught B's cold. She came home with a horrible code from MI and I have been doing my best not to catch it, yet here I am at 3:53am with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and no will to sleep. Lovely. The throat part is the worst. That's my bread and butter people. God this room is a mess. I need to clean things in here. Anyway, here I am with a sore throat dying. Happy Saturday.

Yesterday it took everything in my power not to lose my shit with the UK client. I got up early to work on their stuff, managed to get a good chunk changed while waiting for direction on another piece. Around 7 they email me saying that the part I need isn't ready and won't be ready in time for next week's class so let's just postpone for a while. WTF? They were originally three days of booked training next week and now it's down to one. On top of that it's at odd times. 2am - 10am. I politely yelled at the PMs on our side about this. That once my time is booked, it's booked. We don't work the same way on the training side that they do on the consulting side. My boss is in agreement with me and he is wording his own response with a little more force than mine. They just totally fucked up my whole week next week. We could have given this time to a different client. We could have rescheduled some public classes. Now, I have multiple dead days next week. Fuckers.

I had another document to work on which took up the rest of my day yesterday. I finished around 2:30 with it. That part made me happy at least. Big chunk of work off my plate. Ran to the store to get some stuff for dinner and some juice for B. Came back, we watched some TV, had dinner, caught up on a couple of shows, then we both played WoW. She is almost caught up to me as far as her character level. That's good because when her and I are closer we can run dungeons together. She just needs a little more.

Went to bed around 10 as I was dying. I know I was doing bad as when I woke up, B was on the couch. Doesn't surprise me. I was probably snoring like crazy. Sorry.

Not much going on today especially now that I am sick. Lazy day ahead.