It has been a while...

Since I have posted - or cleaned out my attic. I worked on getting out all of the empty boxes from my attic this weekend. I save the box from almost everything we buy and put it in the attic. Unfortunately, the attic was almost full, so I am throwing all of the empty boxes away. I don't think the trash people will be very happy with me. Hopefully all of the boxes won't still be sitting there when I get home.

$14,925

That was the total cost of my surgeries to remove the melanoma from my face. That is more than Zoe's birth cost! Luckily we have good health insurance so we only had to pay our regular co-pay. I get to have more surgery on my back on March 20th to completely remove the rest of an atypical mole, so I'm sure my health insurance company loves me.

Rachel has been talking about going to midwifery school. Obviously nothing has been decided, she is just looking into it. We would have to move to another state after she completed midwifery school, because midwives cannot deliver babies in AL. She always mentions Tennessee and Indiana. Every time she mentions Indiana, I always think of this:


Happy Birthday to Andrea today!

Ha - I suck at posting

Sorry for the long posting drought. I'm not promising to post more often, but maybe I will. We had a good Christmas and anniversary. I got lots of Blu-rays. New Years was interesting as I had to search far and wide to find a replacement lamp for my DLP TV. After calling many places and my dad calling many places, we finally found one place that had one in stock. I had to drive to East Lake near the airport, but I got the lamp put in so we could watch Kentucky's bowl game on my big TV. Next time I am going to plan ahead and purchase a lamp in advance online at a much cheaper price than I had to pay at the store.

I had a great workout today. I bench-pressed 295lbs 10 times! I had never done that before. That projects my max to be 384! We can build on this! Hopefully I can keep building on it anyway. I'm getting closer to my 400lb goal!

Maeve is still acting like Houdini. I thought I had the lock locked on her crate this morning, but apparently it wasn't latched all the way. When we got home, she came running out of the garage. She hadn't done much damage in the garage, but I can't believe she keeps escaping from her crate!

Fantasy football was fun. I came in second in one league and third in the other. Not quite as good as last year, but close. Congrats to Mark on winning one of the leagues. Fantasy basketball is going well. Our custom league is very competitive, with no one team holding a clear edge. In the other standard 10 team league I am in, I am in first place. There don't seem to be many good teams in that league. It is basically a three or four team race.

Why does Vista get such a bad rap? I've been using it for 2 years, and I really like it. It is more stable than XP, and I haven't run across very many application incompatibilties. As long as you aren't trying to use a really old program, there really aren't any problems. It is definitely a hardware hog, but as long as you have a dual-core processor, at least 2GB RAM, a good sized hard drive, and a nice video card for the fancy visual stuff, it will run awesome! Internet Explorer still sucks, but I like Firefox on Vista. Google Chrome and Opera run very fast, but both of them display some web pages a little strangely sometimes.

Kentucky's football team had a good year, with their 3rd straight bowl win. The basketball team is really coming along too. Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson are incredible. I feel like we can do pretty well in SEC play, and we should be in the tournament again this year.

The Spurs started out a little slow, with several injuries to key players slowing them down. After the slow start, the Spurs have really picked it up lately. They have been really clutch (and lucky) and won a few double overtime games and some other games on last second shots. I think they can really make some noise in the playoffs this year, but they may need one more decent player to make it to the Finals.

Survey From Rachel...From Meg...

Three names you go by:
1. Dave
2. David
3. Quattro

Three things you are wearing right now:
1. Blue shirt
2. orange boxers
3. khaki pants

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. Computer parts (for the server, for my home computer)
2. For Christmas vacation to get here

Three people who will probably fill this out:
1. Your Mom
2. Your Dad
3. Your Grandma

Two things you did last night:
1. worked out with Vinny
2. had diarrhea in the middle of the night (I drank a bunch of expired egg nog because I was out of protein shake mix)

Two things you ate today:
1. Quaker Oatmeal Squares
2. granola bar

Two people you last talked to on the phone:
1. Rachel
2. Mark

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
1. Take pictures at Target
2. Hang out with my family that is coming into town

Two longest rides you have taken:
1. From Bowling Green, KY to Canada
2. mountain biking 18 miles in three hours (it felt like longer)

Two favorite beverages:
1. water
2. wine

Should I Hang it up?

Rachel says I should hang it up and quit blogging. Should I quit? Am I doing such an awful job of keeping up with my blog? I've seen worse. I don't want to quit.

Here is the survey thing I am supposed to do:

8 Favorite TV shows:

1: House
2: Criminal Minds
3: World's Dumbest...
4: Sportscenter
5: The Mentalist
6: Cold Case
7: Spongebob
8: Drake and Josh?

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1: Zoe's Kitchen
2: Cafe Trentuno
3: Olive Garden
4: Ruth's Chris
5: PF Chang's
6: California Pizza Kitchen
7: The Cheesecake Factory
8: Edgar's Bakery

8 things that happened yesterday:

1: Got up at 5:10
2: took the dogs for a walk at 5:50
3: took the kids to the bus stop and school
4: went to work
5: ate Zoe's Kitchen for lunch
6: took one of the luggage rack crossbars off of the 4Runner, then put it back on because it made the car look bald. (removing the crossbars on your luggage rack is supposed to decrease wind resistance improve gas mileage by 4-5% at 75mph).
7: microwaved some bacon for brinner
8: Something else before bed that I will not name...

8 things to look forward to:

1: the end of the election
2: the weekend, and my trip with Rachel
3: Christmas
4: Thanksgiving
5: beating Mark at fantasy basketball again
6: Getting 2 days off work next week
7: beating Mark at fantasy football again
8: food

8 things I love about fall:

1: colder weather
2: fires
3: roasting marshmallows
4: defrosting the car every morning
5: not being hot when I am outside anymore
6: eating Christmas candy
7: decorating the house
8: the girls' excitement about everything

8 things on my wish list:

1: I wish someone would stain our playset for me
2: ninja lessons
3: new monitor for our desktop computer
4: UK football to go to a bowl game again this year
5: UK basketball to be nationally relevant again
6: a clean, organized garage
7: Spurs to win another title
8: More pirate themed fantasy team names

The padlock worked...

We put a combination padlock on Maeve's crate. It is the luggage type with three number dials so Zoe can work it easily. Houdini hasn't escaped since, although she has tried to chew the lock off.

Darbie has been acting weird since we got the new dog. She seems scared of her, and Darbie hasn't been eating as much as usual because Maeve keeps trying to eat every time Darbie does. Darbie normally eats 1 1/2 cups of Science Diet food each day. It seems to be the right amount, she is maintaining a healthy weight. Darbie tends to eat it over the course of the day as opposed to all at once. Maeve needs 2 1/3 cups of food because she is a growing puppy, and also eats it over the course of the day. Now they are sharing the puppy food and a food bowl (except sometimes when we give Darbie hers on a paper plate - poor Darbie).

Yesterday, I put 2 1/3 cups of food in the bowl and took Maeve outside, thinking Darbie wouldn't eat very much of it. When I came back inside, the bowl was empty. Darbie had eaten it all very quickly. A few minutes later I needed to go to Lowe's to get a new aerator and some plumber's tape for our kitchen faucet, so I decided to take Darbie with me. She could use the exercise, and Lowe's allows dogs in their store. Darbie normally only poops in the morning and/or evening - afternoon poops are rare. While we are in the plumbing aisle, Darbie suddenly starts trying to poop. She got a little turd out before I stopped her, then we got some paper towels from an associate to pick up the turd. On the way out of the store to throw away the turd and let Darbie poop outside, another turd flew out of her butt. I picked that one up with the paper towel and took Darbie outside. I threw the turds in the trash can right outside the store and Darbie proceeded to take a huge dump right on the sidewalk. Nice. I was a little embarrassed and afraid to walk Darbie around the store anymore so I put her in the car. I went back inside and bought the stuff I needed and acted like nothing had happened. All that food she had eaten forced the poop right out of her. I guess that will teach me to assume that Darbie won't eat all of the food in the bowl. She is a beagle, after all, and was probably doing it to spite the puppy.

Houdini Update

Houdini (Maeve) escaped from her crate twice more - with weights anchoring all sides! I think we are going to buy a padlock or something. This is what the crate looked like when we got home today. I'm amazed she could fit through that tiny opening.