- Not sure which is worse: the doctor visit or the waiting in the lobby. At least i’ll know one way or the other today #
- Why would my stupid phone ask me to save a blank message to the drafts folder? #
- Sitting here, after fasting, is pretty much the suck. I am pretty damn hungry. #
- With my phobia…starting the day at the doctor’s office is pretty much hell. #
- Ok people the neighborhood doc is NOT the ER even if English isn’t your first language. #
- Waiting room too warm for long sleeves, exam room cold enough for a jacket…what the heck? #
- Watching nodes install != fun #
- Hamish misses Freddy…poor kid. #
- Having to call Anna to hear her voice sucks…she should be home not far away. #
- Bah! Diet drinks suck hard. Hating this whole blood sugar thing with a passion. #
- Desktop comp dead at the house. No twitter for the wifey right now. I do miss her tweets. #
26
Oct
Even with all of the chaos and confusion that is a given in a house with seven children, any of those families who get profiled on TV shows who say it’s not chaotic are liars, every day has its bright moments. Not all are easy to see with everything else going on around us but if you stop and look you can find the most beautiful moments hidden under the surface of all the chaos.
Son the third just wandered up to me while I was sitting here tapping out some notes for my training materials. I was getting ready to tell him to go on and play because I am busy when he smiled and said “I love you daddy”, reached up his arms and gave me a hug and kiss. What you have to understand about son the third is that he doesn’t just give a little peck. He places his kisses very carefully and if you are, for instance, walking out the door to go to work and lean over and give him a quick peck he doesn’t have time to get his placement. You have to let him pick where on your cheek he’s going to kiss and then wait for the kiss. Sometimes all it takes is a hug and kiss to make all the stress melt away. That and his constant smiles make going out of town a real bitter experience.
I am starting to not like the out of town stuff at all as I miss my family too much. But that’s another discussion.
I also need to mention “Daddy whatever you cook is my favorite food ever” courtesy of son the third as well.
26
Oct
Well the first shift at the tattoo shop netted exactly nothing. I don’t think business won’t pick up but it is a new shop. I needed the dosh for gas this week but I’ll manage one way or another. It was a fun night overall regardless of the two piercings coming in not ending up getting pierced. (one wanted studs and a piercing gun and the other wanted nostril screws) At least I get to make a supplies order so I won’t miss out on those again. I did get to see a new band call 7 Shot Screamers who rocked the house. I got a CD out of them and will be writing up a review and posting a track or two soon.
I am done updating the training materials and am now simply validation the changes. The next course will have material that works step by step and not be as clunky. It wasn’t a bad course but had we been given time to validate the materials it would have been even better.
I am working on dealing with some behavioural issues with the boys right now and that’s pretty rough. It’s like they don’t care about discipline at all. I am having to resort to multi-faceted punishments where they get something right away, like wall-sits, and something that lasts, like grounding. I’ll keep escalating until they have nothing but beds in their rooms if I have to and to the point that their day consists of sitting against the wall if they are not doing school work. They don’t get to win this fight.
Anyway that’s the weekend in a nutshell. I actually wanted to write more this time but time is not on my side today so you will all have to settle for a summary. Have a great week and I’ll try to jot something down here more frequently,
24
Oct
Today I have make an appointment with a doctor to be tested for diabetes. I have always known the I have blood sugar issues but the symptoms, as of late, are impossible to self treat or ignore. I am honestly scared to death at the moment. I have huge lifestyle changes to make. There is a good chance I am what they call pre-diabetic which means I have the same problems as a diabetic only slightly less. My blood sugar still goes up with the wrong food and drink but not as much, I have the cognitive issues only less so, an so on. Even if it is full on type 2 diabetes or the not quite there yet diagnoses I can get rid of it through weight loss and excercise. Sounds like that’s not all that bad but I have never been good at the diet part of things and the menu I am looking at is boring beyond belief. It may sound like I am whining about something trivial in the grand scheme of things but I am seriously horrible at changing my diet. I am seriously bad at working out due to bad knees, ankles, and back. It’s a scary prospect. Don’t get me wrong I will change my diet and lose the weight I need to lose but it won’t be easy for me.
It’s not simply lamenting the loss of fun food but rather being very concerned about my resolve. You see my father failed at losing the weight and is now an insulin dependant diabetic. He was never bad the resolve issue but the family didn’t help him with his food selection or sacrifice by eating what he needed to eat instead of regular food. One main difference is that I am the cook in this house and everyone eats what I cook and not the other way around and I think that will make a huge difference.
The first two days of the training class were not good. Aside from errors in the materials, which were to be expected, the hardware just wasn’t up to the task. That was fixed on day three and the last two days were good. We got good marks on the evaluation forms and today I am making edits to the materials and stepping through all of the labs step by step to insure accuracy. You may think that should have been done prior to the class and you would be right. However when you have a PM that bids 40 hours for something that took 180 hours in the end including the PM himself working on it full time and schedules those 40 hours for less than a week before the class starts it turns out you don’t get to validate your materials all that well.
We worked through the issues and pulled a fun and interactive class. The students got to see more of the cluster management system than they would have otherwise and were not upset about it at all. The hardware issues were a black mark on our preperation but that doesn’t fall on me so I am not concerned about it. I am in charge of the edits and in charge of planning hardware for the next time. You can bet that the materials will be near perfect and the hardware won’t come down in a screaming crash. I only have a day to make the edits but they are not hard to make. The walkthrough I am supposed do today as well but I have sent an email with some test times on some of the things that are required and it cannot be done properly the same day as the edits are made. The walkthrough will be done by Monday before lunch and I will take whatever heat they offer because I am going to do it right and not slack off and have to present a course with possible errors in December. I am covering my own ass two months ahead of time and will stand up and take that heat with pride.
I am also picking up a second job, strictly part time and strictly one weekend night twice a month, doing piercing again. You see my friend has opened a new tattoo shop and needs someone to cover a Saturday night shift every other week so the main piercer can spend time with his kids as he doesn’t have custody. So I will be dual booting. Consultant for most of the month and reprobate two Saturdays a month. It should be plenty of fun as well as making me some extra cash.
I guess this could have been two posts but I am not given to splitting things up too much these days.
