Monday, July 18, 2011

Fortune and Gloating


IMG_0653, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

There's no way I can write this post without sounding like I'm gloating. Jon and I feel very fortunate over the last year. We managed to sell the drop zone and the airplanes, and last Thursday we closed on the old house getting exactly what we asked for it.

Because of the results of those two sales I was able to send a HUGE check to Wells Fargo and we are a little under $6000 away from paying off the new house.

OK so I am gloating. \0/ \0/ \0/

Right now we just plan to REST and not take on anything big. We are planning to put in a pool at some point but not until next spring.

In other news Brenden hates dentist drills so bad we had to take him to a hospital to get knocked out so that the dentist could fix his teeth. This happened Friday and the good news is Brenden is not feeling any pain. While it took all freaking day, Jon and I were totally entertained by the medicine the nurse gave Brenden before he was wheeled away for the actual work. Brenden was 8 miles high and VERY happy. And B took everything in stride. According to the nurse and many parents, many kids wake up disoriented and upset. Brenden woke up, sat up, blinked, and rolled over and went back to sleep. A chip off the old block!

Monday, July 11, 2011


bpic3, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Two weekends ago, the 4th of July weekend, the weekend right after my El Paso trip, we went camping. Jon, B and I, plus Stacey, Sierra and Andrew, went to Rickwood caverns state park, about halfway between Birmingham and Cullman.

Yes, it was hot. Saturday we went swimming in the park's pool, and I have come to realize that I would rather own my own pool than use a public pool again. Seriously, someone took a dump in the pool. EW!

Sunday we went to Smith Lake and swam. Yes I know fish take dumps in the lake but it has several billions more gallons of water than your average swimming pool. It was very hot.

The best thing was Sunday night we had popup thunderstorms. I'm not complaining it was really nifty to lay in the tent and watch the night flash up. There was no wind so I wasn't afraid of flying tree branches or anything.

Monday I went home early so I could get everything done that I hadn't done the week before.

So, this past weekend, Jon and Brenden went to visit Jon's brother, Joey. His son, AJ, who was born about 6 months after Brenden, has been diagnosed with leukemia, which sucks bad. I sent the kid a bunch of little gifts that he could play with in his bed and the post office mangled the box. I hate the post office. AJ is doing well and going through chemo and I admire Joey and Erin for handling it so well. I'd be in pieces.

So anyway, Jon and B went to visit, but I stayed home. I finally got some time by myself, and I only ventured out to go to the old house on Saturday to get some things out of the way. I discovered that the pool pump filter was leaking so I disassembled it, took the part that needed replacing to a pool place, and got a replacement part.

When I got back, and put it on, it leaked like a sieve. I took it off and realized the new part didn't have a needed o-ring in place. Silly me, no problem - I'll just use the old o-ring, right?

I had given the parts guy at the pool place the old part so he could get the part right. He returned the old part to me WITHOUT THE O-RING. WHY DID HE STEAL MY O-RING? I know he did. He walked out of the back and had the o-ring in his hands but I did not realize that it had been mine. WHY???!!!??

So I drove all the way back to Decatur, a 20 minute drive, to find the place had closed early. I refrained throwing the old part through their window with a note asking where the hell my o-ring was. Fortunately there is another pool place in Decatur that's farther away but at least open past 1 pm on Saturdays. They will get my business from now on unless they start stealing o-rings off my old parts.

The rest of the weekend? Very restful. I spent last evening on my porch watching some thunderstorms roll in.

Friday, July 01, 2011

El Paso, Texas


Downtown El Paso, Texas, originally uploaded by Paul Garland.

I don't want to be fired so I don't talk about my job here. But, I just spent the last week in El Paso, Texas on a business trip. What can I say? I'm glad I've tried to be helpful to the site implementers (they install and customize our software) over the years because I met a few of them and I finally got to attach some faces to email addresses. I couldn't do their job. They are constantly on the road and they spend ungodly amounts of time working.

El Paso was hot. Really hot. 112 degrees hot. And brown. And really, really close to Juarez, a very dangerous city. I ate some pretty good food. It was nice not to fight cats for some bed space. I missed Brenden, who lost another tooth.

I am worn out right now. We're going camping this weekend. I want to find a nice shady rock to crawl under for about a month.