Weekend update

On Tuesday, if you read my blog, I mentioned that I wasn't feeling well so we'll start with an update there. Technically, I'm still sick but I've learned how to control it to a degree. I still wake up having to go pretty bad, sometimes twice, but I've figured out that if I take a couple of Immodium when I get up, after an hour or so, I don't have to go anymore and have very few cramps, in other words, pop a couple and I can get through the day. Tonight I took a couple before bed and we'll see if I can actually not wake up with the cramping. Something else we've noticed is that when I lay on my left side, even for 5 minutes, it makes me have to go. Cheri said that's the way she was when she was pregnant so maybe I just need to poop a baby.

Why don't I go to a doctor? Well, I tried. He couldn't get me in but I could go see a nurse. I went home early from work on Thursday and went ahead and put a vacation day in for Friday so I made an appointment with him for Friday morning. I got up and didn't go (I was shocked) but I was still having the cramping so I went ahead to the appointment even though I was thinking I was probably at the tail end of it. Since I hadn't gone since early afternoon on Thursday, he basically thought the same thing and told me to call back on Monday if it was still a problem. The problem was, as soon as I got home from his office, I was running to the bathroom (I didn't take Immodium that morning, hadn't figured that part out yet.)

Since I had the day off and after an hour or so after taking the Immodium, we headed out to run errands. The first errand (and the most important) was to go to the cafe and get a Greek Skillet (Finally!). We were about half way through our meal and my uncle walked in and got a table so Cheri snuck over and sat down with him. Once I got done eating, I went over to his table and hung out with him while he ate.

My new mugshot

Afterwards, we headed for the license branch to change the address on our drivers license (we moved, in case you hadn't heard). They had to take new pictures, which sucked. Why do they have the camera at the angle of shooting up? In this age of a selfie, shouldn't they know that the best angle, at least when you're fat like I am, is shooting down. I'll get the new license in the mail in 7-10 days. This will actually be the first time I changed my address in around 10 years, which is about 4 places ago. I kept telling myself that I'm not going through with the hassle until I bought a house. I just wasn't expecting it to be 10 years. After that we basically did our usual weekly stuff, groceries, drugs and Lowe's (that's becoming a weekly trip) then headed home.

Finally!

Saturday, my stepdad and I finally got around to see the new Star Wars movie. It was so much better than I was expecting. I won't go into how awesome it was, you probably already know. They apparently changed all the seating in the theaters to recliners as well so it was very enjoyable. I do need to get Cheri out there to watch it, even if I have to "suffer" through it again. The things we do for love. Just as I was leaving for the movie, Cheri came home from a moving sale that she had been at in the morning, trying to find stuff for the house. Cheri bought another dresser for our room but didn't have enough room in the van so I had to go out and get in on Sunday.

We were sitting around most of the evening on Saturday, Cheri was doing some online shopping for the house and I was doing some research and eventually bought a Fitbit for myself. I've been debating on picking one up so I finally decided to do it, I ended up picking up the Fitbit Charge, which oddly enough is the top of the line for the "inactive" line. I thought that was fitting. I chose it mainly because it had an automatic sleep setting to track how well you sleep and I can wear it on my wrist. I have always kept an eye on my steps on my phone but this is supposed to be more accurate. Plus, I tend to leave my phone when I walk around the house so I miss out on some steps here or there. Our daughter has Amazon Prime so we use her account to get the free 2 day shipping. I figured if I was lucky, I could get it on Monday but probably Tuesday.

Sunday, we were chilling in our recliners when the doorbell rang. I answered it to find a package from Amazon on my doorstep. I got the Fitbit in less than 24 hours, holy crap, talk about service. I charged it (it was dead) and have been wearing it most of the day. I think I got all the settings where I want them so we'll see tomorrow and see how the day went. I'm sure you'll probably start to see updates on this blog about my steps and stuff, even if only so I can use my "fat ass" label again. If you have one and want to sync up with mine, I'd tell you to send a request but to be honest, I'm not even sure how to do that other than Facebook friends so first, you'll have to tell me what to do. I do plan on starting to walk after work again, I'm not sure how much I'll get in when the weather gets real cold again because let's face it, I'm not that dedicated. I'm going to try to remember to weigh myself at work (we don't have a scale here) in the mornings (before I eat) everyday and see if I actually lose some weight. I'm pretty sure most mornings I won't even remember.

9 mil. (not the actual gun I used)

My brother came by and picked me up to take me to his "gun range" which is basically a field with wooded area around it and dirt piles behind the targets. I had never even touched a gun, let alone fired one but this was something I had been wanting to do for awhile. After quick instructions from my brother, I shot off a clip of his 9 mil., I didn't think I was terribly impressive but he seemed impressed. I was only maybe 25-30 feet so I thought I should have had everything right around the bullseye but apparently it's not as easy as I thought. I went ahead and tried another clip and afterwards, my brother handed me the target and told me I should keep it and that I didn't realize how good that was.

I did alright.

AR Rifle (not the actual gun I used)

Next up, I tried my brother AR rifle. I shot a clips worth of that as well, I hit the targets maybe a third of the time from around 75-100 feet. The targets were only about the size of a softball so again, my brother praised me. I just felt awkward because I was around a bunch of guys who were probably way better than me.

Glock 40 (not the actual gun I used)

Later on, one of the guys let me shoot a clip of his Glock 40 just so I could see the difference between that and the 9 mil. I had shot earlier. A little more kick but I did alright with that as well.

12 gauge shotgun (not the actual gun I used)

Lastly, before we left, I went and shot my nephew's 12 gauge shotgun. There wasn't any targets out for it but I shot it just to see what it was like. I shot it until it was empty, maybe 6 or 7 shells, I don't remember which. Talk about a little kick, wasn't anything I couldn't handle but I won't be surprised if my shoulder isn't a little sore in the morning.

Once I got back to my mom's house, we headed back out to grab the dresser that Cheri had purchased. It's an old antique one, it doesn't look bad but Cheri said she's going to refinish it or something. It came with a mirror that attaches on top but I don't think she's going to attach it, last I heard it may go on a wall in the living room. We basically got another dresser because we had a whole wall with nothing on it and plenty of space, not that we couldn't use the drawers to but that was the real reason.

So that was my weekend, I can't even check anything off my honey to do list because we never finished anything. Oh well, I guess there's always next weekend.

Greek Skillet

What did I get all accomplished on the house this weekend? Not a damn thing.

We planned on going out for breakfast on Saturday morning to the local cafe because I have been craving their Greek Skillet, I absolutely love them. It has hash browns with all the usual veggies with lamb meat (what's used in Gyros) and Fetta Cheese with a couple of eggs on top. It is awesome which is why I had been craving one for awhile. My mom, brother and I love them so much that when we get one, we immediately take photo and send it to the other two just to brag. That's probably why I was craving one because my mom had sent a photo a couple of weeks ago. After breakfast, we were going to hit Lowe's and pick up paint and other stuff for projects this weekend.

Anyways, early Saturday morning (2:30 am), I woke up and had to use the restroom, which isn't normal. I never wake up having to go to the bathroom. I was having some diarrhea issues. I crawled back into bed and woke up again a couple of hours with the same issue. Again and again for 4 days. It started on Saturday morning and I was still sick this morning. For those of you that know me, I rarely ever get sick and when I do, it's a 24 hr bug and I'm done. I ended up having to call in sick yesterday and today so I'm sure they aren't real happy with me at work but it's a little hard to load trucks if I have to keep stopping to run to the restroom. They'll probably be the only 2 days I call in at work all year but they'll still be mad at me.

So that's what I've been doing since the weekend, absolutely nothing. The more I moved, the more often I had to go so I pretty much sat in my recliner with my legs up. Actually wishing I could go to work just because I was pretty bored.

Oh, remember that Greek Skillet I mentioned up there? Guess what I woke up to on Sunday morning. My brother sent this.

Bastard! I'm still craving it and now I have to wait until next weekend because I know my wife won't bring me one to work. (Hint, hint)

Still waiting on you to impress me

When Cheri called our trash service on the 4th, they said that they would deliver the trash bin in 7-10 days. I'm pretty sure the 10th day would have been the 14th. Today is the 21st. Maybe I should send them a calendar, maybe explain how it works, you count the squares with the numbers on them until you use all your fingers, that will be 10 days.

Step 1: This is a calendar.

Cheri called again last Thursday (the 14th) to ask about it, they said it would be Friday or Monday. Fine. Monday comes and goes, still no bin. We received a bill last week, but no bin. So you want me to pay you, for a service that you were supposed to provide, even though you have yet to provide it? You've promised me a delivery by a certain date, and have not delivered, but you still want your money?

No money for you.

Cheri called again on Tuesday of this week and basically told them since we didn't have the bin yet, that they need to pick up our trash regardless since Wednesday was supposed to be our day and our garage was getting filled with trash, and that was after I've filled the trunk with bags and took them to the apartment dumpster, twice. They agreed to take up to 8 bags of trash and a box of cardboard (they do our recycling as well).

At the rate they are going, I might need one of these.

When I got home from work on Tuesday, I spent some time in the garage filling up lawn bags of all our kitchen bags. I was squeezing as much as I could in each bag, I wanted this trash gone. I got up to 4 kitchen bags in some of them. I actually ended up only using 6 lawn bags because I was cramming them full. Then as far as the cardboard went, remember last week when I said we had installed a new toilet? Well guess what box I used for the cardboard, the toilet box. I crammed all the cardboard from the packing boxes in that nice big box, sure it was sticking out a couple of feet, but it was all in the box.

I came home from work on Wednesday afternoon and it was all gone so hooray for them doing part of their job. When I came home from work today, the trash bin was at the end of the drive so hooray for them doing the 2nd part of your job. Let's just hope that everything else is smooth sailing from here on out, because as of now, they have yet to impress me.

Finally!

House update

So, since my last post, we have done a few things with the house. We might have everything perfect before we die, that's how I feel and we've only been here a few weeks. I joke with my wife that I don't have a "Honey To Do list", I have a "Bitch, Do This list." Mainly because I always refer to myself as her bitch. She doesn't like it, but she doesn't deny it, she says it makes her sound bossy. I do these projects to make her happy, she can't do them, otherwise I know she would.

Last week, my brother came over and helped me replace the toilet. We wanted to switch out the toilet in the master bathroom to a taller one because my wife has relapses of her MS every so often to where her knees hurt and it's hard for her to get up from a low seating position. I shouldn't say my brother helped because he pretty much did all of it. The only thing I was there for was to pick up the toilet. He got everything together, but the new hose between the floor and toilet leaked a bit so we headed down to Walmart to get thread tape. We went to Walmart because A) I had just replaced my car battery and needed to return my old one for my $12 back and B) my brother wanted to pick up ammo which conveniently, is right next to the tire entrance.

Saturday, we ran to the Habitat for Humanity store to look around and donate the old toilet. We didn't buy anything, but I still find it odd that I was shopping there. It's all home supplies, which is just something I never shop for. After that we went to Pet Smart for some food. Doing that on a Saturday was a mistake, I had to drag Cheri away from the kitten adoption thing that they had set up. She even said that she could very easily become a cat lady with 1000 cats. Once I got Cheri up on my shoulders and carried her out (not really) we headed to Lowe's. Does Lowe's have a rewards card? I need to look into that because I've been in 3 different ones in the last few weeks and tend to spend a bunch of money every time. Up until buying this house, I bet I hadn't been in a Lowe's or Menards this many times in my life. I could say the same for the local hardware store up the road. I may have been in there once or twice in my life, but I was there and back 3 times in a 2 day period and a couple of times since. Now if I could just learn to actually do all the home projects. We picked up more paint and wood and some small stuff at Lowe's before hitting the grocery store (I've been there a lot) and headed on home.

Sunday, I slept in till just after 10 (I must have been dreading the day in my sleep.) I got up, put my painting shorts and a work shirt on and headed out to the living room. I painted the upper half of the living room with another coat of paint (Bungalow Gold) and touched up spots towards the ceiling, then I painted the lower half with primer and followed it up with a coat of an off white (Bistro). Let it dry and put another coat on, then let it dry and put another coat on, or at least three quarters of the wall since we ran out of paint. I wasn't expecting to have to put 3 coats on. After we let the last layer dry, we spent an hour rearranging the furniture. Cheri liked it the way we had it, but during the day, the light from the front windows glared into the TV so we were going to rearrange so we didn't have that issue. The problem was, the shape of the living room only allows it to really fit one way and that was the way it was originally. We figured that out after I moved everything 4 times. The couch and recliners were a piece of cake, the buffet, however, was not. The last spot we ended in, we quit, even though it'll probably get changed back in a few days, but I was to wore out to move it anymore and I heard a nice, hot shower calling my name.

                  Before                                                              After     

Today, I came home from work and sat on my ass all evening. I'm feeling it, my body is sore because it is old. I was also waiting for my trash bin from our trash pick-up that was supposed to start last Wednesday, but I'm still waiting on my damn bin. My garage is going to be completely full of trash at the rate they are getting me my bin. That's the excuse I'm using for sitting in the living room, I was waiting for our bin to get delivered, had to keep an eye on the driveway.

I tell myself this to make me feel better

So that's what we've done so far. I'll keep you updated with any other changes and believe me, there is plenty of coming.

• Den - Paint.
• Dining Room & Kitchen - Paint and Stain the cabinets.
• Garage - Rearrange and clean (clean probably won't get done till spring.)
• Living Room - Some touch up to the paint and put the wood (board and batten) up. Put some kind of tile at the front door (there's carpet there now).
• Main bathroom - Paint, possibly restain the vanity.
• Master Bath - Paint, possibly restain the vanity.
• Master Bedroom - Paint walls and possibly ceiling.
• Outside - Reseed grass (spring), stain the deck and the porch, put up a column, paint the door, replace the lamp post.
• Samantha's Room - Paint, take down fish wallpaper, put up chalkboard paint on one small mall.
• Trevor's Room - Completed.

Like I said, plenty to do. I reread all that and it makes it sound like we bought a dump, but in reality, the previous owners did a crappy paint job with colors we don't like, that would be most of our issues.

If you're happy and you know it

We've had a fairly busy last couple of weeks. In case you hadn't heard, we finally moved into our own home. After 5 years of trying, we have finally purchased a home and got out of our apartment. We pretty much got everything we asked for in our home. Big kitchen, garage, fenced in yard, big deck out back, a "den" for the kids to play their video games and the best part, all that in our budget. We closed on the 30th last month and came over here and painted my son's room and part of the living room, those were the priorities because the living room we'll spend the most time in and my son's room because it was a hideous lime green kind of color. His room got finished but we still have to finish the living room with another coat on the top half and we are doing board and batten on the bottom.

   

Before                                                   After

We are planning on painting pretty much every room eventually but we are going to do a room at a time to limit clutter of doing a bunch of rooms at one. Plus, we have a lifetime to make it the way we want. Trevor's room is checked off but we still need to get covers for the plugs because the previous owners apparently didn't take them off when they painted. They actually did a pretty crappy job when it came to all their painting. Lots of spots and drips, another reason we need to paint every room.

I just want to take a second to give a shout out to my family who are just as happy for us as we are. My mom, stepdad and my moms cousin have been very helpful with everything as well as my brother and his kids. On top of that, we've had many visits from family to check out the place.

I got the garage cleared enough (we were using it as a staging area when moving in) to get both our cars in, the night before the snow hit at that. Right now we have quite a bit of trash bags in there because our trash service is supposed to start this Wednesday but we haven't even received our trash bin yet. I'm hoping we get it by Wednesday so we can get some of it out. We already made one run over to the apartments to unload some, we were going to do that again today but it's really cold and snowing so we nixed that idea.

The only issue we had with moving was with Comcast. We moved in on the 31st and we had scheduled for them to come out on the 31st. They didn't show up. After calling 4 times (kept getting hung up on when they tried to transfer me) and over an hour and a half of waiting, they couldn't do nothing. They claimed we had an appointment on January 9th, but they also claimed that we hadn't called them since April when we upgraded our equipment. They couldn't explain why I would have called in April and made the appointment for January. The best they could do was get someone out on the 19th. No, I'm sorry we'll get someone out there immediately, no nothing, our next appointment is the 19th.

The only reason I called them was because it was a holiday and the local office wasn't open, I always go in because their tech support via phone sucks. So I waited until the 2nd when they opened up and went down and talked to them, she sent a signal and I gave her my phone number. Just before they closed, she called me and asked if the signal worked, it didn't. So she schedule an appointment for the 7th and said she'd call if she could get it any earlier. She ended up calling the next day and got it bumped up another day. So we ended up going about a week with no cable or internet. It wasn't as horrible as it sounds since we had plenty to do around the house and I hit Redbox pretty consistently for stuff to watch in the evenings.

When they did come out, the reason the signal didn't work was because it was never hooked up from the pole. The previous owners had dish network, that explained that. He also upgraded our modem to a bigger one with 2 signals so we are hooked up to the fastest one and the kids to the slower one. That's fair, they don't pay for it.

So that's where we stand, we are extremely happy to be in our new home. I smile every time I pull in the driveway and hit my garage door opener. I smile when I hear the kids in the den chilling on the couch and recliner down there. Let's just say, I'm smiling a lot more these days.

Saturdays TV viewing, sorry honey

It's been a lazy day today. Which I guess tends to be a typical Saturday for us. We've basically been sitting around watching TV all day, getting caught up on the DVR. We record a lot of shows so we're always running behind on stuff. Cheri records a bunch of stuff as well but she usually watches most of those while I'm at work. I don't have a problem missing all of the reality TV that she watches. She can watch all the housewives, singing, dancing, little people and crime shows all she wants, but I'll pass. Sorry honey.

We've been saving up all our episodes of the Tonight Show because we usually watch those and @Midnight when we run out of stuff to watch. I've been catching up on the @Midnight episodes at my moms because she hasn't been home while I'm waiting for the kids to get off the bus so in the past week and a half, I've worked it down from 20+ episodes down to 7.

          

I watched Z Nation while Cheri was making lunch since she doesn't care about that show. Then we watched Satisfaction which pretty much ran us out of all of our shows. I figured I could get caught up on some sports that I had recorded.

I usually record all of the Chicago White Sox, Indianapolis Colts and any Michigan Wolverine games and by any I mean all sports. If I record it and don't watch it live, I check the score and delete the games if they lose. Why would I want to watch my team lose? The only games I do anything I can to watch live are Michigan football and men's basketball games.

First, I deleted the Michigan hockey game, I only watch those when there is hardly anything in the DVR and it was still over 50% full. Then I watched the Michigan women's basketball game against UCLA. They lost the game but I rarely get to watch them because they rarely broadcast them, at least around here so I watched it anyways. I have a little connection with the team as I took my daughter up there for a basketball camp last season and she got to meet most of the girls. We also drove up there about this time last year because I had off of work and watched a game live. After the women's game, I watched the men's basketball game against Northern Kentucky from earlier in the week. Sorry honey.

By the time that game was over I figured I'd cut my wife a little slack and we watched a few episodes of the Tonight Show. We never used to watch these talk shows (other than Cheri who watches Ellen) but we love Jimmy Fallon so we've watched it ever since he took it over. We watched 3 episodes and then it was just after 6 and I knew the Michigan men's game was on so I checked to see if it was recording and it wasn't, apparently it wasn't on TV but I could stream it, which means I had to watch it live. Sorry honey.

I loaded it up on the WatchESPN app and streamed it to the TV through my Chromecast and watched them take on Youngstown State. They've looked great the last few games but we'll see how well they do when we get into the Big Ten schedule next week and the opponents get a lot tougher.

After that game was over, we went back to watching Fallon again and got another 3 episodes in before Cheri decided she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. So here I sit, watching more basketball. I've got a couple of Bulls games on the DVR as well so I'm watching them take on the Philadelphia 76'ers from last week. On the plus side, former Wolverine point guard Nik Stauskas is on Philadelphia so I get to check up on him too.

There's been a lot of basketball today, not that I'm complaining. Cheri probably is though. Maybe tomorrow we'll finish off the last 3 Fallon's and the 7 episodes of @Midnight before I go to Netflix, I'm trying to rewatch all the episodes of the X-Files before the new ones come on in January and I'm only midway through the 2nd season. Then again, I do still have 2 more Bulls games to watch, plus the Colts are on tomorrow. Sorry honey.

Star Wars thoughts

No, I haven't seen it yet, it's not that type of post.

I am of course, super pumped for the new Star Wars movie, even though I probably won't go see it for a few weeks. Because as excited as I am to see it, I still hate people more. I will not go sit in a crowded theater and watch it, I'll wait a few weeks until all the hype is over, then go see it.

I loved the original trilogy but wasn't a fan of the prequels. I know that's not a new concept but the reason I like the first 3 but not the 2nd 3 is a different reason then most. I got into the characters from the original trilogy and I think that's why I couldn't really get into the prequels. They weren't the characters that I grew up with, at least for the most part.

Before you start going, ahh, you're full of crap. It's the same for Star Trek. I loved the original cast of Star Trek, I love the original series and the movies, that is, up until the Generations movie because that was the last of the original cast. I like the movies after that, just not like I loved the others. I never really got into all the other Star Trek TV series either, Enterprise, Deep Space 9, even the beloved the Next Generation. They're OK, I don't hate them, but I don't love them either.

When they brought back the Star Trek movies a few years back, I loved them. Why? Because they were the same characters. Yes, they had different actors and they were more or less, prequels as well, but it was the same characters. Kirk, Spock and Bones were back, and it was awesome. I've loved that they brought back my love for Star Trek because other than watching reruns or Netflix (I rewatched the Original Series awhile back) that was all they were, reruns. Now there are new stories with the characters I love.

Back to Star Wars, I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars because a lot of the same characters are going to be in it. I realize that they aren't the whole story but they will be there and maybe I will like the future Star Wars movies because of this one where they are kind of, handing off the torch, so to speak. So, like I said, I'm excited about the new Star Wars movies, not like a lot of people are, but excited none-the less. I'm just hoping it doesn't disappoint with bad story lines for the original characters.

My daughter is going to see it tonight, she asked if I was jealous. I said hell no. I am jealous that she is seeing it, but no movie is worth dealing with that many people. Even the new Star Wars.

All the posters above (except for the last one) were taken from one of my new blogs Movie Posters. I only post posters of movies I have seen which is why the last one is not on it, yet. I have it saved for when I do see it so I can post it. I copied a bunch over from my tumblr account so I posted 50 a day for 3 days but from now on, it will probably only be a week, if even that so feel free to join along.

Weekly round-up

On Monday this week, the realtor let us into the house just so we could measure windows and stuff like that. We took the kids with us so they could check it out, they've only been by it, never in it. I think they are both pretty excited about it, probably get more excited after we paint since my son's room is a lime green and my daughter's room has a fish mural on her wall. They were running around the rooms excited, none of us really wanted to leave. It sucks that the house is sitting there empty and we can't move in until we close.

On Tuesday, we met with an insurance agent because we have to have home owners insurance in place before we close. We went ahead and met with him to get quotes on car insurance as well to see if it was worth it to switch those over since you get a discount for having multiple policy's. He told us about this little blue thingy they hook up to your car and it monitors stuff like how fast you're going, how close you're following other cars, and you're mileage. If you don't break any of the "rules" then you get a 10% discount on your policy.

• Speed - as long as you don't go over 80 mph, you're good. So as long as I don't travel, I'm good, because I tend to set my cruise over 80 mph. I'll be good around town though.
• Driving to close - It apparently monitors your speed decrease or in other words, if you have to slam on your brakes. I don't really agree with this one, just because I slam on the brakes doesn't mean I was following too closely. What if something runs out in front of my car or someone pulls out in front of me, how are those my fault?
• Mileage - I believe he said as long as I don't break 12,000 miles a year, which would be a piece of cake since I only use it to work and back for the most part. I bet I average less than 15 miles a day and my car generally sits all weekend because if we do go somewhere, we take Cheri's.

I'm not real impressed with them at the moment considering it's now Sunday and I'm still waiting on the quote for the cars. Tuesday will be a week. I'm not sure if it will be cheaper anyways since we are currently with Geico but we'll see.

On Thursday, we went up to the hospital to visit a family member, hung out with them for about an hour then headed home. Cheri annoyed me on the way home, I was driving on a back road but we were coming up to an intersection with a main road so the lane broke into 4 lanes and there was a bunch of people sitting at the light. Cheri glances up from playing games on her phone to see all the brake lights and freaked out like I wasn't going to stop at all. She screeched my name and grabbed the handle on the door. I told her she either needs to keep her head down or up, no raising it up and freaking out over nothing. No side-seat driving.

On Saturday, we cleaned out the kids room and packed what we could. We ended up with 8 kitchen bags of trash and 5 bags for Goodwill and a box of books for the library. It sounds like their rooms were filthy but they keep them clean for the most part. A lot more clean than I ever did as a kid, you could never see my floor. This was all stuff in the closets and clothes they didn't wear anymore. I loaded up the car with the stuff for Goodwill and dropped my son off at his friends house for the evening and went to the local Goodwill drop off. While I was unloading the stuff I noticed my back tire was low so I headed over to the Martin's gas station because they had free air. Nope, not anymore, now they want $.75 for freaking air, there ain't no way I'm paying that so I went over to my moms and used my stepdad's air compressor, afterwards I decided to Google and see if anybody had free air anymore and the only place listed was Casey's Food Mart, which of course, was right across the street from Martin's where I was. Guess I should have Googled earlier.

It's usually a tradition that the grandparents take the grandkids to cut down their Christmas Tree but they had to cancel because of the aforementioned family member in the hospital so she's been helping out a bunch with that side of the family. So today, my brother and I decided we would surprise her and we took all the kids out, picked out a tree, cut it down and delivered it to her house. My stepdad was there so we set it up in the stand and he trimmed up the bottom so all she has to do is decorate it. Which she is going to do sometime this week and have the grandkids over to help.

That's a fairly busy week for us, most of the time we don't do much. I just want this month to fly by so we can get into our house. It's currently 63 degrees here (average this time of the year is mid 30's and snow) so I'm expecting by the time we can actually move, it will be below zero because that's how my luck is.

Home, Kids and Work - aka: Life

As of right now, we are waiting to hear from the bank on the exact day of our closing. He was estimating the 30th a couple of weeks ago and I know that all we were waiting on was for the appraisal on the house to come back to make sure we weren't overpaying otherwise they wouldn't have given us the loan. We heard back from the realtor and they received the appraisal on Thursday so I would assume the bank got it as well. So like I said, we are waiting on the bank.

The realtor is supposed to take us into the house tomorrow evening so we can measure windows and get a better feel for the place. That will hopefully help us how to set up the living room. Not that it really matters, we can always figure that out when we move.

We've been trying to figure out the layout of some of the rooms. Cheri has most of it figured out but we're not sure how we are going to do the living room. I made the comment tonight that we won't know how to do it until we figure out where the outlets are so we can put our recliners next to those. Have to be able to plug in the laptops and phones while we're watching TV. There is also a smaller living room in the basement that we planned on hooking up a TV with a couch and recliner down there. We'll hook up the game systems down there as well so when the kids have friends over, they'll have a place to hang. Just one problem, we need to get a TV to go down there. We could probably use the TV out of our bedroom but it's an old one and it'll be a pain to hook up these modern game systems to that old ass TV. Needless to say, we'll probably be shopping for a TV when we get our tax check in the new year.

I'm hoping once we move I will be able to pick up walking again since I won't have to wait until the kids get off the bus at my moms. I can go straight home and go for a walk before they even get home. Not to mention we will be living in a neighborhood so I can walk without traffic as well. I also know how

The kids on again, off again relationship with their mother is off at the moment. They didn't want to go over for their last weekend because they can't stand the JackAss. You would think when your kids hatred for your husband out weights their love for their mother, that the mother would do something about it. The Ex got upset when the kids said they weren't coming over anymore and told them not to bother coming over for Thanksgiving and they haven't talked since. I'm not sure how long it will last, especially with Christmas coming but I know Samantha is actually ticked off at her mom at how she handled the whole situation so we'll see.

Not looking forward to tomorrow at work. We are switching over to a new computer system because we were bought out earlier in the year. Our system was newer then our purchaser and instead of them upgrading, it was cheaper to downgrade us. It'll probably be a mess all week.

Early resolution talk

Way back in 2013, I posted my one goal (resolution), I still haven't completed it. It was to own a home. It's not because of lack of trying though. We've been trying since then. In a little over a month it will be 3 years of trying.

We started off just trying to raise our credit scores. Mine was trashed before and then on top of that, my divorce trashed it more because the Ex doesn't pay anything off so I had to pay off everything that was hers but had my name on it as well. Cheri just didn't have a score because she had filed for bankruptcy when she got divorced. She was divorced sooner than I was but the bankruptcy was one of those that you pay off in payments so she didn't get credit for it until it was payed off. The problem was, when she moved up here to be with me, her Ex stopped paying his half and we had to pay it off as well. Basically, the exes screwed us, royally.

At the beginning of this year, we were finally approved to buy a house. The problem now, was finding one that we wanted. We have specific things we want in a home because we have no intention of ever moving again. We are 42 years old and we plan on dying here.

Our needs

• Decent sized kitchen with lots of counter space. Cheri spends quite a bit of time in the kitchen between suppers and occasionally baking. Our apartment has no counter space so she wanted counter space.
• 3 Bedrooms, 2 baths. We still have 2 kids at home plus a room for us so 3 bedrooms. 2 baths because we don't want to share a bathroom with the kids. In our apartment, everyone but myself shares a shower and that gets hard on occasion. If we had to settle for 1 bathroom we could have but we really wanted 2.
• A ranch style home. Between Cheri's back and MS, stairs are getting harder and harder for her to do so we wanted a ranch just so there were no stairs. Plus I'm fat and old so there's that.
• It had to be in a certain school district. We didn't want to change the kids schools, they both love where they are and we do as well.

That's it, which to us wasn't a lot. Out of those 4 things, the hardest one to fill was the last one. The school district we wanted to live in just isn't very big and when houses go up for sale, they go quick. It's the best school in that county by far. After spending a few months searching and not coming up with 1 house that fit that criteria, we started to look at having a modular built. We found land that we wanted, it was good location in the district, it was cheaper than most of the land so we checked into that.

The first thing we found out was our credit scores need to be even higher for a construction loan. So we starting working on getting our scores up again. This took a few months, again. When we were finally approved to build, the lot we wanted sold the week before. Any other land in the district we were willing to live, was double the price so now the home we had picked out to build wasn't fitting into the budget because the land was costing more.

Cheri still looked online every so often for homes to buy and she finally ran across one that we thought might fit our needs. She walked through it with my mom while I was at work and fell in love. I went through it the next day and approved (not that I would have said no) and we started on the paperwork to put in an offer.

That was about a month ago. Today, we are slowly packing up so we will be ready to move when we sign at our closing at the end of the year.

So we will start 2016 in our new home. 3 years later, we will fulfill the only resolution we've had for the last few years.

We are beyond excited.