Rainy Weekend

The furniture that Dave and I picked out and ordered finally arrived yesterday. So we woke up and started cleaning the living room and moving everything out of the way. Part of what needed to happen was the furniture that was in our living room was being moved to the (kids) front room. We took the opportunity to finish spring cleaning and got everything all situated. The new furniture is nice, but it is different. Dave does not really like change, but I'm sure he'll come to love it. The best part is that his old, favorite couch is still in the house and he can go sit on it anytime he wants. In fact, he's been spending more time in that room anyways, listening to his "cans" plugged into the Deep Tracks channel on XM. Then, I can have the other room to myself to either listen to podcasts or watch all my TV shows that he hates. It's perfect. Since we have a Tivo in each room, everyone can have their own shows and watch them wherever they want.

Pepper and Chloe seem to like the new furniture as well. They're very happy with the new location of the old sofa since it allows them to see outside the window and bark at more stuff. Last night there were 2 cats outside and they were going crazy. I finally closed the blinds.

Jeff was up early this morning headed to some video store to get the Pokeman Diamond for his DS. He came home thrilled with his purchase and I doubt we'll see him the rest of the day.

This next week at work is going to be crazy. I start it all off on Monday by leaving early for a haircut. That should make everything else run smoothly as my hair has been driving me absolutely crazy since my bangs are so long and the rest is just overgrown and out of control.

Aaron got his internet working again and is still trying to decide on a phone upgrade. Now he wants to take bake the bike I bought him over Spring Break and get a trick bike instead of the 21 speed mountain bike he picked a month ago. I've got to dig out the receipt and see what Target's policy on such returns is. He also got suspended from school last week, for something stupid (doing something stupid, it wasn't stupid that he got suspended) and I was amazed that he wasn't in worse trouble from his Dad. He called me during the school day that he was home and apparently he had full privileges. I guess I can't expect Bob to know everything I've come to learn in 10 years of single parenting but it seems obvious if you don't punish a child, how do you expect him to be motivated to not do it again? I guess all the more reason he's with his Dad. I miss him like crazy, but I don't miss the trouble, the suspensions, the stress and the worry of the next call from the school or a distressed parent.

In addition to my usual addiction to Podcasts and now Twitter, I've added Stumbling to my list of things to occupy my time online. You install a toolbar into Firefox and when you are ready for a site (you setup categories) you click "Stumble!" and are taken to a random site that someone else has submitted. You then can give it a thumbs up or down. You can also submit sites that you find that might of interest to others. It's a lot of fun and definitely more broad than what I pick up in my Reader and I've found some really interesting stuff.

This last week Adam Curry from the Daily Source Code (on of my oldest and my favorite podcasts) was on vacation and had Mark from PCH filling in for him. It was hilarious! I don't listen to PCH because I think it's a little over the top, but the way that Mark made fun of Adam and pretending like he was tied up in the next room and he was using his laptop and interacting with his fans was priceless. Good times.

Hot and Cold

Last weekend we "decorated" the newly planted tree in the front yard. I even put some flowers around it. Hopefully they make it through the freezing mornings we've had.

Though Spring has sprung, it's really been a variety of weather these days. We had some warm days, followed by wind and then freezing nights again. I hate this time of year because no matter how you're dressed if it's windy, you're going to freeze and be miserable. I'm typically on the cool side so I like to dress warm but then if I go out and do any walking during the day, I roast and sweat. Oh well.

Saturday I went to the Fun Match at Ann Morrison Park and met Heather who showed both Tootsie Pop (Chloe's sister) and Tico. The weather started out nice, but as the clouds built up and the wind picked up it definitely cooled down. By the time we left, I was glad I was headed back indoors.

Saturday night Dave's friend Rick got married. It was a nice, simple ceremony and there were some of Dave's work friends there so I mostly visited with their wives. It was nice to get out and dress up, though I didn't wear anything fancy because the party was originally suppose to be outside I was (again) afraid of being cold.

Sunday I really just lounged around and even took a long nap. I spent a good part of the day up in the guest room with the computer, the Tivo, a stack of magazines and my heater blanket. I sewed up some of the girls' toys that had been ripped open and also straightened up the desk a bit more.

The last few weeks, I've really been struggling with depression and missing Aaron. It seems to get harder as time goes on and not easier like I thought it would. Combine that with being crazy busy and stressed at work and trying to workout and diet to lose weight for summer clothes and it's just overwhelming. The first phase in the work changes will happen on the 28th. We will be changing from GroupWise to Outlook for our email. This is going to be a MAJOR change for people and I'm really nervous about how it's going to go. Also at the end of the month, my gym that I've come to enjoy so much is closing. The owner has it for sale, but I doubt that someone would buy it and keep it open for business in such short time. I've been walking the dogs in addition to biking to the gym and working out so I'll just have to start taking longer walks. I've looked into joining the YMCA and may do that just so I have somewhere to go for Yoga/Pillates. I do enjoy that.

I really thought that once Aaron got his computer that I took him over Spring Break, I would hear from him more. I've emailed him more and still never hear from him. He calls when something isn't working right or he has question. I sent him money to get new pants since he apparently ripped his new pair that I bought him last month. I also sent him money for Easter since I had no idea what to get him or send him. I talked to him yesterday and it seems as though the one unsecured access point he was using at the apartment complex him and his Dad live in got locked down so now he has no internet :( I reminded him that his Dad said he would get him internet if he had a computer, so we'll see what happens next.

With the whole Twitter / Jaiku debacle (Leo leaving Twitter) I'm glad to see most like me, have stayed with Twitter and just signed up for Jaiku and put the feed in. I think that's an excellent solution. Twitter is fun, I enjoy seeing what others are up to, especially the ones I listen to their podcasts.

Spring Cleaning

Almost another month has flown by. After our trips, having company and both of us working a ton, we've started Spring Cleaning. This is mostly finishing moving in for me, but Dave is working on the yard and outside. After two weeks, it looks really nice. I finally got the linens put away this weekend and boy am I glad to have that done! I literally had 6 yard size trash bags full of linens to incorporate back into Dave's already full linen closet. It was all in there before, so I knew it was possible, but it was definitely like building the Flintstones closet.

I've still been going to the gym 4 times a week and have even been riding my bike to and from (1 mile each direction). I don't think I've lost any weight, but my clothes are fitting better. I didn't walk the dogs this past week because Madison has been over and a few days it was windy and I just didn't feel like it. So, I need to get back into that this week.

Another project I did this week was to swap out the "storage" pc to a faster one. The storage PC has all my music and audio books and I also sync it to the video ipod so it has my video podcast subscriptions. The old storage PC is going to become a true network storage for our home network and I'm going to try to use FreeNAS that I heard about on Dl.TV. Yes, all this because I watched a video podcast on home storage and thought it would be cool.

I've only talked to Aaron a few times when he's needed tech support on either using the Slingbox remotely or having me give his Dad the password to the ComputerTime program running on his PC.

Jeff was on spring break this past week and has recently gotten a job at Albertson's as a courtesy clerk. He seems to like it ok and I think at his age, it's definitely a good idea to work and if he's ever going to drive, he'll want the money.

As far as websites and podcasts, nothing really new, still Twittering and Folding and keeping up with all my favorite shows. I did sign up for Virb from Cali's recommendation and have been looking for old friends on MySpace.