Category: Cathy

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Evening is upon us – Football!

Bearden High School has a home game tonight. Sarah will be demonstrating her excellence. Last year we discovered it was neither cost effective or prudent to take the whole family so Cathy and I take turns going to the games to support the teamflags. Alright, usually Cathy goes. So tonight’s evening chaos is brought to you by Liquid Plumber, The BHS Band Boosters, McDonald’s, and the RedCross babysitting training. Participants in tonight’s chaos are Amy, Evan, Noah, and Dad. Absence from this evenings show is Tommy who stayed at the college to chill with his hommies, Sarah who when not flirting with Zak is spinning flags on the field, and Mom who is taking pictures of Sarah flirting with Zak. Mom shoves down a McDonald’s cheese burger and is out the door leaving Noah instructions to get the trash out of the kitchen then help Dad with Amy and Evan. Amy is told to help Dad with Evan. Mom leaves. Noah goes to the back of the house and plays video games. Dad blinks at the trash. Amy and Evan erupted into loudness contests. Dad tries to figure out how to divide time between refereeing Amy and Evan, working on the tub, and coding web applications. It’s quiet upstairs… too quiet…

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Our Life

Between coughing up my lungs today, I have been hard at programming on a project. I have some neat things happening but they never seem to happen quickly enough. I took only one break today to return something I borrowed longer than I should have. I am close on my code but it always seems like I need just another half an hour when our evening chaos erupts. This evening’s chaos was complicated by the high school parent night.

What is evening chaos? It starts when a child says he needs the mouse I stole from his computer so he can do his homework. Then Mom dashes out the door explaining the homework Amy has to do after the kids finish cleaning the kitchen table. That’s the table with 3 inches of soapy foam on it and a perplexed middle schooler asking, "uh. How do I clean that up?" Still he manages to leave the table a sticky mess. Evan, who is getting closer to being housebroken, pees on the floor in the girls room. I’m on the phone with the bank trying to get them to fax me a letter that they say they can’t mail to me for 10 days due to federal law. I need it Monday but preferably tomorrow. Dinner has to be made. Go downstairs and sharpen a pencil. Hear Amy and Evan start to fight. Cathy texts to tell me she is going to park illegally. I call to give her a hard time but get voicemail so I text her my approval and then she calls. Evan is screaming just because he has lungs that aren’t filled with gunk. Evan wants to help with Amy’s homework. Oh dinner. Noah has a question on his homework. Code? Sharpen pencil again. And… that’s just the beginning.

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Happy Anniversary Cathy!

She should have run like Hell! (our story) On February 12, 2000 we had our first date. Seven years ago today, Cathy and I were married at Gatlinburg’s Ye Ol’ Tyme Photo Boothe and its been one grand adventure since then!

August 25, 2001

How will we celebrate our anniversary? It is 4am and I am frantically programming to make some goals I set for this weekend and missed. Today, in between programming, I will try to find a divorce lawyer in Knoxville who actually returns phone calls so that I can have some old history reviewed. I have to do further negotiations with the karate studio who increased my monthly bill from $175 to $190 because I asked that the billing date be moved from the 20th of the month to the 5th of the month. Cathy will spend the day texting Tommy to try to convince him that if he is not in class he still has work to do. This evening we will rush through a chicken pasta dinner of Sarah’s request which due to the finickiness of our eaters has been reduced to basically sea shell shaped noodles, bite-sized broiled chicken, and mayonnaise with my special mix of seasoning (dill, oregano, garlic powder, sometimes onion powder but rarely, parsley, salt, and celery flakes). The boys…er…boy and I will rush off to a Scout meeting while Cathy fights the other children to clean up, bathe and get to bed. She will prepare their clothing and school bags laying them out neatly by the front door. Noah and I will return home. I will kiss Cathy and tell her I love her then return to programming. She will guide Noah through his evening ritual to usher him off to bed then she will spend a bunch of time hand washing dishes since the dishwasher long ago quit doing its job. Around midnight we will both crawl into bed, make a joke about being intimate, then fall asleep. Gifts? The karate studio gets those this year. Maybe we can send the girls to Blogher.

I cannot put into words how much I love Cathy! She moves me in so many ways. She has brought so much happiness into my life!

Cathy I love you! Happy Anniversary! I look forward to many more!

  1. This post.
  2. 2007 anniversary
  3. 2006 anniversary
  4. 2005 anniversary
  5. 2004 anniversary
  6. 2003 (started blogging in ‘04)
  7. 2002 (started blogging in ‘04)
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My Sunday – a week at the University

I woke up this morning before everyone else and promptly began programming. As the morning wore on, Tommy’s departure time to return to school neared. His grandparents and Noah were to take him back to the University. Granny has not seen the campus and Noah was under the impression that it looked a lot like Hogwarts. I found a round tuit and decided to look at Tommy’s laptop which I’d been ignoring for work. LMU has 3 websites the students are required to use; a web-based email client (no pop3 or imap enabled on the exchange server which bites so I have been unable to setup GMail to check the Outlook Webmail), a blackboard (basically a portal by which professors can communicate with the students by posting assignments, slides, links, documents, etc), and a webadvisor (effectively a forum for the students to communicate as well as listings of groups, activities, etc on campus). The fourth website is a public calendar announcing events, activity schedule, and so forth. Tommy had looked at none of these. He had administrative e-mail a week old. He an assignment from a professor being ignored. And to top if off, I counted 30 hours of Internet gaming! Basically, if he wasn’t in class, he was playing games on the Internet. Two nights the gaming did not stop until 12:30am. I was beyond angry!

Now, in Tommy’s defense, this was first week of school, first week of not being under mommy and daddy’s thumb, first week of true independence. I am sure that many freshman behave this way. Also, Tommy has to figure out how to take in this new world which is overwhelming to him and a safe haven is his gaming. I simply fear Tommy falling behind and not being able to catch up.

So after a couple of hours of yelling, tears, and lectures, to which I am certain Tommy turned a deaf early early on, I installed some software to track his usage of ALL software, not just the Internet. (Thanks Tim!) I started to do some tricks to redirect certain gaming sites to education sites but really could not afford the time away from work so Tommy and I came to an agreement. At first the agreement was that the laptop would not go back to the University until he showed some seriousness about his studies; however, the laptop is a requirement of the university. We laid out some pretty clear expectations for Tommy and he is being given another chance. If he messes up, I will be severally crippling that laptop. Cathy will be spending this week on the phone with Tommy. I believe we also need to consider some serious NASA level check lists for Tommy. 1) Open eyes 2) Yawn (note: if yawn does not come from mouth, you could still be asleep, return to step 1) 3) Scratch 4) Sit up…

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Thank you Twitters!

We just had an enormous scare. It was expected. Sarah entered Rocky Hill Elementary School in the third grade. On her first day home, she failed to get on her bus and we drove to the school to pick her up. On her second day home, she rode the bus but did not get off at her stop which was no problem; the bus driver drove her back to the school and we picked her up. Amy now shares a similar story.

On Monday, I picked Amy up in the carpool because we had to rush over to the Expo Center to work the School Matters booth. That confused the teachers so on Tuesday they sent her to the carpool instead of putting her on the bus so I picked her up in the office. Today was her first day riding the bus home. I could not find Cathy and assumed she was napping. Tweet! I leashed Dharma for some much needed training, donned by iPod with some Jimmy Buffett playing, and walked calmly to the bus stop where I realized my cell phone (doubles as my timepiece) was still sitting on my desk. Much to my surprise, Cathy walks up to me announcing, "that’s strike 2!" referring to my failure to respond to her text message asking about where the children get dropped off this year. The bus pulls up and 4 neighborhood children bounce out but not our Amy. In our stunned silence, the bus just starts to pull away. We were too far away to converse with the driver. I almost whistled for him but assumed Amy was in the office at the school. A moment later one of the children is explaining that Amy was on the bus! I have transportation’s number on speed dial on my cell phone but the phone is on my desk 1/4 mile away and we are on foot. Cathy calls the school as we make haste toward the house and they explain that they don’t have a way to call the driver. No worries. The bus will just take her back to the school at the end of the run.

I return to the house and decide to get back to work. Cathy is going to run around and fetch Amy, and her older sister and a friend from the high school. Everyone is calm. We part company and a few seconds later my cell rings to tell me the school called and Amy got off at Dunbarton Oaks! Tweet! That’s on the wrong side of the dangerous and busy, dreaded Northshore Drive! With Amy’s hard-headedness I could easily see her crossing Northshore. I direct Cathy, "take a right on Northshore then immediately turn left into Dunbarton Oaks." She calls back, "I’m at Kingsington." I picture her in Farragut (which she’s not) hours away from being able to reach Amy who is obviously playing Frogger on Boothillshores Drive. I race out the door and pretend like I’m still a sprinter in high school track. Tweet! It doesn’t matter if I have a heart attack as long as I reach Amy in time! I reach and cross Northshore. Cathy calls to say she has been in Dunbarton Oaks and one road closer to our neighborhood, which I’d forgotten existed, and there is no sign of Amy. Tweet! By this time, I’m at the same cross road as Cathy and I take the drivers seat in the van along with my wheezing. Tweet! Cathy gets a call to say a mother, who used to be a teacher, has Amy in her yard in Dunbarton Oaks and is waiting for us. Tweet!

Thank you to everyone who Twittered your thoughts as we lived this scare! Thanks to @Critter, @nathanblevins and here, @Digitarius, @knoxgirl75, @MariAdkins, @bobmissy07, @alanstevens, @overtlytrite, @dwneylonsr, @mwoodvols, and @areynolds65! And thanks to all others that were thinking of Amy. Hope I didn’t miss anyone. Thank you all! It would not have surprised me (nor Amy) much if someone pulled up and said, "I’m from Twitter! Stay right here your parents will be here in a moment." Of course, I hope she would not get in the car unless she knew you.

Related: I do blog the kids lives

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Rough start to 1st day of 5 kids 5 schools

Today we sent the 1st, 7th and 10th graders to school. Evan now has his grandmother’s defunct cell phone as a toy. It still has some juice so the screen lights up and the menus work. Last night when Cathy and I came to bed the crib was doing a flashy Close Encounters number. After silencing that visual alarm I set the phone by my bed. Well, apparently my mother-in-law gets up every day at 5am. At least, that’s when her cell phone alarm went off. I wanted to rise at 6 or 6:15. Never give yourself a choice! The secret to waking is picking a specific time and sticking to it. Also don’t do the easy the numbers; nothing that would be printed on a clock face. Wake at 6:01 not 6:00. Wake at 6:14 not 6:15 etc. I did wake at 6:00 without an alarm. And again at 6:07 when I stirred Cathy and decided today would be 6:15. I totally forgot the french toast and bacon I had wanted to prepare for their first day of school. At 6:54 Cathy kicked me out of bed and cursed me. We rushed Amy to readiness and at the last minute she decides on says she needs the restroom but could hold it until school. No way! We give her the time she needs and miss the bus by seconds. As we drive up the street, the bus is starting its turn onto Northshore Drive. Amy was not phased. She is simply jolly to be going to school.

Noah headed off in time very nonchalant. And Sarah is trying to carry far too much in one trip. Wet artwork, 3 flags, courier bag, and something else I cannot remember.

Good luck children! Have fun at school and learn much.

Oh, what of Tommy and Evan? They don’t start quite yet but to prepare Tommy for rising so early, he has to get himself up by 7am and be bathed and dressed else he loses computer privileges for the day. This morning he woke at 7am but his sister occupied the bathroom so he took advantage of the moment to sleep in his chair. Perhaps his time sound be earlier!

Update: Cathy points out that today went rather swimmingly despite the missed bus and I agree. "Rough" is relative.

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Let’s send Sarah and Cathy to Blogher!

I have tried Chipin a couple of times without success. Of course, the vasectomy chipin was a huge failure but did remarkably better than the new dryer chipin. I thought I would give Chipin one more try with a cause that is less about me and more about others, albeit, others close to me. See, we have three female bloggers in the house. Cathy blogs at Domestic Psychology. Sarah blogs on her own website. And Amy blogs on her own website. Granted, Amy and Sarah don’t post very frequently and sometimes their content is lacking a little substance, but they try. Amy’s composition and typing skills are age appropriate and Sarah would rather be on Facebook or MySpace.

Cathy would love to have the opportunity to participate in a convention. Blogher Nashville would be perfect! And I think Sarah would really enjoy it too. So I am giving Chipin one more try. Let’s send the girls to Blogher Nashville! Please consider contributing to their registration fees and hotel. Thanks! (I have also put a widget in the sidebar)