Mental Junk

Just got back from the police station to drop off a rusting hunting knife.

I found it on our lawn – didn't know what it was, until I picked it up.  I thought it was a gardening saw – the kind of serated blade for cutting down small trees and scrub brush.  Kris was out there last fall playing with his new brush cutter/weed eater, so I though he may have forgotten it out.

I unsheathed it – and saw it was a hunting knife.  The best part?  There seems to have been dried blood on the blade.  Great.

I thought about calling the station to have an officer come down to pickit up, but I already touched it – and don't really want it in the house until they come by.  So, I just drove up and dropped it off.

With the car break in and now this, maybe we should move?  Na.  Still love the house.  It was probably someone driving by and threw it out the window.  I can still live in my happy little world.

Sunday morning we were rushing around trying to get to Church on time (as usual).  I put Nate into the car and noticed all the stuff from our glove box emptied out on the front seats.  When I went back in the house to get Cam, I asked Mic why she left everything in the open for people to see.  When she said she hadn't, we both had the same thought go through our minds.  Was anything missing?  Was the GPS still in the console?

When I headed out with Cam to buckle him in, I took a look, and sure enough – no GPS.  Crap.  Oh well – that sucks.

As it turned out, we had left the doors unlocked.  We got home early Saturday afternoon, and thinking we would be heading back out, we didn't lock the doors.  We ended up staying in, and so, never gave it another thought.

We headed into Church counting our blessings that at least nothing was damaged.  I decided to file a police report just to make fencing it that much harder.  I doubted I would ever hear anything about it, let alone see it again.  When I headed into the station to make a report, I was told that the officer I should speak to would be back on duty at 7pm Sunday evening and I should call him to file the report.

Sunday afternoon, after a bit of running around, we came home and ran into our neighbors.  Rick told me what happened – he saw the guy in our car and called the cops.  Rick then followed the guy until the officers showed up.  Awesome.

At 7, I headed into the station to make the report after the officer called to say he had our property and to come in to claim it.  The GPS wasn't out of the car for 24 hours!  Amazing.

So, thank you Rick, and thank you DRPD.

Just to record this day, we are running from a new server out there.

I broke down and bought some space in the cloud, let's see how this fairs from shared hosting and VPS.

So far, I am pretty impressed.  The cost vs performance and control is just great!

Root!  Woot!

I'm stubborn.

Very stubborn.

Trouble is, so are my kids.  That is where we clash a lot.  If I tell them "No, don't touch that." – just once, then I have to keep telling them that.

Nate has discovered this weekend that I actually mean it when I tell him to stay off the living room end table.  I keep telling him (and so does Mic) over and over all weekend until I have to get up, pull him down and place him in the chair for a time-out.  3 minutes of sitting there without getting down.  After the 15 or so minutes of starting over because he constantly gets down, he is finally let down.  What does he do?  GOES RIGHT BACK ON THE TABLE!!

So, the cycle of life punishment repeats itself.  Needless to say, neither of us have had a great weekend.  A lot of crying, a lot of hurt feelings and a whole lot of stubbornness.

We eventually worked things out (I WON!!) but there were many times during the past two days I kept questioning whether I should just give in and let him fall from the table to learn.  That would be soooo much easier!  The trouble is, I don't think he would have fallen.  The kid has good balance when he isn't tired, and even if he did fall, the guy would just shake it off and take it in stride.  He has such a high pain threshold I doubt he would notice.

I know my stubbornness may be a problem in my parenting skills/style.  It may not be a good thing, but I don't know if it is such a bad thing.  If I did give in he would just learn that if he tries long enough he would eventually get his way.  I remember going through the same thing not long ago with Cameron.  With him – it was shoes.  I had the same thoughts and concerns back then too.

I have since come to understand that what is best for them is usually what is hardest for me.  Which SUCKS.  I mean, this weekend was just the three of us (Michelle was working).  So we could have spent the time playing and horsing around.  Instead, there was a lot of crying and screaming.

Oh well.  Cameron has learned from the shoe incident (and some more since) that I usually win on the stubborn front. Nate will too.  It willjust take a few more clashes like this weekend to enforce it.  Michelle likes to compare it to the elephants in the zoo that are only tied down with light ropes and they don't go anywhere because they were tied down with heavy chains in their youth so they learned if there was something around their feet there was no point in trying to move.

So, we are raising a couple of elephants.  Trust me, some days it  sounds like it around here.

Up at David's there is still a lot of snow.  More snow than I have seen here all winter.

We took the boys up there to romp around on Feb. 27th.  They had a blast!

I love posting these.  My Dad comes up with great solutions to minor problems all the time. The shame is that not a lot of people get to see how creative and ingenius he is.  This is just another example of that.

He just bought himself a new laptop and doesn't like the touchpad, so he got a small mouse with it.  Now, however, it no longer works well as an actual "LAP"+"TOP".  So, he made a portable desk for it.

The side mousepad folds up.  It even has a slot carved out for the mouse!

Since it is one of the new small netbooks, the whole thing folds up and fits into a normal laptop case with the PC tucked safely inside.

My Dad sent me a photo of his latest invention.   It seems to be some form of thermal recovery device.

May you wonder no longer where I get my creative geekyness.

Thanks Dad!

15:47:25 Michelle  
Hey. I talked to your mom. She got her results. The doctor said it was a benign tumor.