Christmas has come and gone

Kind of obvious right?

Anyways I hope you all had a happy Christmas. Ours was great. Outside of the stresses of getting things ready in time. But before we go there let's back up a couple of days. All the way back to Thu. after work. I came home from work and to my horror found that someone cleaned my garage. Some of you might not see that as a bad thing but let me tell you why. As dirty as my garage was (it barely had a walk way to get from the house to the driveway) I still new where my stuff was at. When I came home all my hunting stuff was buried. I opened my garbage can in the driveway and some of the stuff I need was in the garbage. All the stuff that was scattered on the floor was now piled up from the floor to the ceiling on one wall. Needless to say I was not in a good mood. I was actually kind of pissed. Most of that was due to working an 11 hour day but also because of my garage, we still needed to go shopping that night for more gifts, and I needed to make a dish for the Christmas party at work. Any ways back to the garage. Apparently my s-i-l got bored and decided to clean the garage for me. That is something that I do alone. I knew it was a mess but I knew where my things were. I was going to clean it after duck season ended next month.

OK enough of that. Had the party at work on Fri. then came home early because of the sickness that I had earlier in the week. It started up really bad again while out shopping on Thu. night. I spent the rest of the day in bed.

Sat. I woke up to an early Christmas present from Summer. We woke up early and she initiated! Yes it was a great morning. :) Spent the rest of the day locked in my room wrapping presents.
That night we did our family tradition of driving all over town looking at the Christmas lights. Usually we go to a different city every year but we couldn't get the gas for it this year. All the overtime that I wrote about earlier was supposed to be here before Christmas. Unfortunately Sacramento screwed up the checks and we won't get them until the end of this week now. Dam state.
One last thing of importance for Sat. On the 14th I ordered a Gameboy on line for my oldest son. The online deal came with 2 games. When I placed the order it guaranteed delivery by Christmas. Well it never came. Actually the gameboy came but the games didn't come. I called the Mart by phone and they said there was a problem with the delivery. It won't be here until the 27th. I got a little flustered with the guy and said what about "guaranteed delivery" does that mean anything? Now he has a game boy with no games to open on Christmas day. He said he was sorry. And he could cancel the order. I said that's great. You sold us the games online for half the price you sell them for in the stores. Plus we live 30 miles from the nearest store. He refunded the 4 dollar shipping fee. WooHoo. So Summer and I had to go to the nearest store and break down. We used the credit card to by some last minute gifts. But I'm still happy with the way our shopping ended up this year. We paid cash for everything except 50 bucks we charged.


Christmas Day!
Summer and I woke up early again. Around 6:30. Again she initiated! Thats all I needed for Christmas. I was a happy camper. She initiated 2 days in a row.

Now our kids are not anything like I was as a kid. My sister and I were knocking on my parents door at 5 in the morning asking if it was time to open presents. And that was when we were in high school. :) Our kids on the other hand were still asleep at 8:30 in the morning. We have to wake them up every year. After we woke them up they opened their presents We went to my parents house. For more presents and dinner.

Let's just say that Santa was extra generous to the whole family this year. We got $350 worth in Gift Certificates to Home Depot. Exactly what we needed. And a portable DVD player for the Exploder. now long trips won't be a fight with the kids. Hopefully. My mom, dad and I all got GPS units for Christmas. They were even the same brand. Just different models. I think the best gift of the day goes to my youngest son though. My sister bought him a self inflating whoopi cushion. Thanks sis.
Played Texas Hold 'Em last night with my sister, dad, and grandma. No one had money and we were just learning so we didn't use money. Just assigned different colors different values. To bad for me as I was the winner last night.

So today of course we had to spend those GC's from Home Depot. We went and bought a new front door and security door. Summer wanted the security door after the incident with the guy with the pink purse.

So now we are up to date. Had a hard time finding pics without people in it. I like the picture feature and might try to use it more. We'll see. There's a good pic of Summer and I but I'm not sure if she'd like it. So if it's ok to post it Summer let me know.

I've been sick

Sorry that I haven't been posting lately but I have been sick the last few days. Actually Summer and I have been sick for a few days. Thank God that her sister was here yesterday. I truly mean that too. Summer came home from work early and I was already at home from work sick. So s-i-l watched the kids while Summer and I were able to lay in bed and rest. I was to sick to even try to make a move on her. :( Now that is sick for me. I was feeling a little better last night so I tried to post but could not read the screen as I was seeing double. Couldn't read any of my favorites or anything.

So next week is my first appointment with the psychiatrist. It's a good thing too as our oldest son is really trying my patience at this time. He's done some really hurtful things the past few months and it's getting out of control. Sorry but that's all I can say at this point. But I will not be the only person seeing a shrink.

On to a kid subject that I can post about. I need help from experienced parents PLEASE. Our youngest son is 5 years old. From the day that he was brought home from the hospital he has slept in our bed with us. When he was 3 we got him to sleep in his own bed just to fall asleep. Then in the middle of the night he would wake up and walk into our room and climb in our bed. Without waking us up. We would wake up in the morning with him next to us. The only way we were able to get him to sleep in his own room all night was to sleep in there with him. About a month ago he finally started to sleep through the night in his own bed. Then after Summer quit the supermarket things went back to the way they were when he was 3. He is now back in our bed. He will fall asleep in his own bed but then in the middle of the night he crawls into our bed. We have tried many different things to get him to sleep in his bed in the past. Bought him a new bed, let him choose what he wants on the bed, letting him stay up till he fell asleep on his own, let him watch TV in his room till he falls asleep. When he first started to walk in the middle of the night we were told to put a lock on his door to keep him in there. I don't like that idea. Although they say it is for his safety because it keeps him where he is safe, and out of places where we can't see him. So what should we do?
Oh the only way to still get him to sleep in his bed just to fall asleep is to lay down with him. Then when he is asleep we can get up and leave. But then sometime between 10:30 and 6:00 he gets in our bed again.


One last thought for the day. As I was writing this I was also watching Dr. Drew on Discovery Health channel. One of the topics was a girl who had laser vagina reconstructive surgery. WHY??????? To me that seems like such a waste of money. So she had 3 kids. So what? Summer has had 2 kids and she is fine the way she is. What is the purpose of this? Is this what medical science is doing for us? Dr.s are now saying " Ok. So you've had a few kids and now your stretched out. Well thanks to medical science we can make you a virgin again.' What a waste. But that is just my opinion of course. Instead of tightening women's vagina's, lets cure breast cancer. Now that is a service that women really need.

Long weekend

Finally the weekend is over. Came home from work early on Fri. to get some housework done. Didn't turn out to well though. Had check book problems. It seems that using the check card wasn't such a good idea for presents this year. Although we did stick to our goal of no charging gifts on credit. The problem is that I would by stuff with the check card then come home and transfer from the savings to checking to cover the costs. Well I didn't do that soon enough on 1 occasion. Then Summer made an order online for me and didn't tell me. So that money didn't get transferred as well. Needless to say we bounced a few checks. I did get all the charges reversed though. The bank was supposed to transfer the money from savings to checking automaticly. Overdraft protection. But it wasn't set up like it was supposed to be. They refunded the bank charges.

Yesterday we picked up Summers sister. She will be staying with us for 3 weeks. The fun is already starting. After picking her up we went to the family Christmas party. It was great. My cousin introduced me to a new drink. Butterscotch Schnapps and Bailey's Irish Cream. MMMMMMM!!!!!!!! It was good. I got a Texas Hold 'Em set from the gift exchange. Now I need to learn how to play cards.

Attempted to go duck hunting today. A tree fell down and blocked the road to the club we were going to. So I got up early for nothing. We did pretty much finish all the shopping today. Just need the stocking stuffers.

Sorry it's short and boring but Summer wants the computer now. We really need another one.

Interesting conversation

Just wanted to let you all know that we are having a very good conversation over on Digger's Unsolicited Advice. I do recommend dropping by and giving it a read.



So today was a shitty day at work. I got sprayed in the face with emulsified asphalt. To hard to explain what it is. But lets say that it is hot and sticky. It is all over my face, beard and hair. I took a shower and was able to get most of it off my face. But it is still in my hair and beard. If it don't come out tomorrow I might have to shave my head and face. :(
My s-i-l got permission from her probation officer to come to our house for 3 weeks. So we are going to pick her up on Sat. morning. So we will be able to finish our shopping when she is here to watch the kids.
I just love shopping online. In a matter of 5 minutes sitting at home I was able to buy Summer 95% of her gifts. I'll finish the rest tomorrow online.
Sorry if it's not an exciting post but there's really not much happening. Still trying to figure out how to word what I want to say about my belief system. But some of it is coming out over on Digger's sight.

A correction

As I was re-reading last nights post I found a discrepancy. When I talked to the officer at work he did say that the police were notified about the guy at McDonald's. So I asked why was it then that there was no report of it in the police logs. He said because they never found the guy there was not a police report written. Therefore there was nothing to put into the logs.

An update on the guy with the purse

I talked to a police officer today at work. I was able to get the story from him about what really happened. The guy came to our house on Mon. morning as i said right after Summer walked in the door from taking our son to preschool. Then on Tue. around 3:30 or so the same guy was following 2 girls home from McDonald's. When they got close to my street the guy tried to coax them into his car by offering the little pink purse. They ran home and told their mom. Mom then called her husband who in turn called th police to make the complaint. The husband and wife also wanted to remain anonymous. So the police have no way of contacting them to get any more information. All that they were able to tell the police was a description of the vehicle he was driving.
The officer that I talked to said that they were patrolling the area for a few hours but were unable to locate the car. So I told him that I would have Summer call him when she was on her lunch break. She was able to give him a description of what the guy looked like. Apparently we are the only leads that they have. The officer did tell her that the next time someone comes over like that and looks suspicious to call the station. As long as they have a call about a suspicious person in a neighborhood they can stop him and talk to him. If they have no calls they can't stop him for just walking down the street. Interesting.
It is kinda freaky knowing that this guy has been in the vicinity for a few days trying to find little girls with a purse. SICKO! Hopefully I see him again. I really want this guy caught.

So much to talk about!

Well this might be a long post if I can stay awake. It's been a long week. I actually worked 20 hours of overtime since last Fri. night. I got called to work 3 times this past week for accidents on the highway. Then we had scheduled 8 hours for sealing cracks in the highway today. The interesting accident was last night. A person that goes to Summer's church (she's also the mom of one of our babysitters) was on the highway and tried to pass a fire truck. The truck WAS responding to a call and had it's red lights on. Well she tried to pass it and ended up T-boning it. Oh it was also in a no passing zone. Idiot number 1. Idiot number 2 was a person who tried to pass a hay truck on a 2 lane levee road. In the fog. He ended up driving off the levee and almost went into the river. Did I mention because of this idiot 5 other cars got hit? Luckily no one was injured. We just had to close down the highway for a few hours cleaning up the debri.
I'm not telling this to you all to bore you. I'm telling you so that you don't become like these other idiots. Please be careful when driving. Turn on your headlights in the fog. And DON'T pass emergency vehicles!

Now to the real posting. As I told you I stayed home from work on Mon. Well something happened that I never thought much about until yesterday. ***Side note: I'm finishing this now on Sun. afternoon. I was called back to work again last night and didn't get home till 1:30. So make that 24 hours of ot in the last week. End note. *** Now where did I leave off last night? Oh yeah. Mon. when I stayed home. So this guy comes and knocks on the door. Summer answers the door and this guy is asking her if we have any daughters or if we have any kids at all. He says he found this little pink purse on the street and is trying to find the 'poor little girl who lost her purse'. Summer tells him no we don't have any daughters. Well the guy sounded real pushy to me so I went to the door. I was sitting at the computer reading Blogs at the time. The desk was out of his sight so he didn't know I was there. As soon as I got to the door his whole attitude changed and he apologized for taking her time, and left.
Well on Thu. I was talking to a guy at work and his wife was talking to the principal at the elementary school. She said that a guy tried to lure 2 girls into his car earlier in the week with a little pink purse. The girls ran away from him. So we went to the police station to see if they knew anything. Well apparently the parents of the girls never told the police about the incident they just told the school.
So now both Summer and I a little bit on the paranoid side. I keep thinking about what might have happened if I wasn't home. Could it be possible that he knew she would be home alone on a Mon. morning and knew when she would be home from taking the youngest to school? He came to the door within minutes of her coming home. Summer keeps saying that she is glad that I stayed home from work that day. She's almost afraid to be home by herself now. Maybe I'm over reacting but that's just the way I am.

Now we go to Fri. night. I received the call from the Kaiser shrink and I have an appointment on the 30th of the month. Should be interesting. Summer and I went out to dinner without the kids that night. It was great. We had a good time together. But OMG it was expensive. Not really our dinner that was to be expected but the babysitter and the pizza for the kids. Since when did 2 medium pizzas cost 30 bucks?? 1 cheese and 1 pepperoni were 30 bucks. Holy crap. I was expecting maybe 20 tops. Really need to find different food for when we have a babysitter. After dinner we did a very small portion of Christmas shopping. By the time we got home it was 11:30 and the babysitter and our youngest son we crashed out on the couch. It took 10 minutes to wake her up so I could take her home. I felt bad about keeping her out so late. But apparently it was fine. I talked to her mom after work yesterday and she said anytime we wanted to use her to babysit that it would be fine. She was thrilled because our youngest told her that he loved her. But then again he tells everyone that he loves you if you give him what he wants. He's only 5.

I seem to have sparked up some interesting comments on my last post dealing with religion. As I said in a comment you all had some good points. I do have more to say about it but I need to get my thoughts together first. There are just to many things that I believe that go against everything that Christianity believes in. But more about that later.

Last weekend I told you that I had some things to talk about that I haven't talked about before. Well here it goes. So we have had quite a few conversations lately, and some of them have ben about sex. Without going into to much detail here after reading some of the Blogs that deal with clashing libido's, Summer told me that she thought that the only reason I was with her was because of sex. That could not be further from the truth. Yes I love to make love to my wife. Who wouldn't love to make love to their wife? But there is so much more than that. I married her because of who she is. She also seems to think that just because I touch her that I am trying to make love to her. That also is not true. I hold her, kiss her, touch her, all just to let her know that I love her. It's like digger of Reality and Redemption. I'm just looking for some intimacy. I don't ever want her to feel like I am pressuring her for sex. To me if she is being pressured then she won't be in to it. If she is not in to it then she won't enjoy it. If she don't enjoy it then I won't enjoy it. So why would I want to pressure her. The good thing is that since we have had these conversations She don't seem to be stressed out when I go to hold her at night.
So there you have it. I have posted a about sex and it was not offensive. (I hope).

This has been way to long of a post and I need to catch up on my reading so till next time.

A short post I promise

Well as predicted last night Summer stayed in the bedroom all night relaxing. I stayed on the computer until 10:30. I was fine with that I got to hold her for a little bit when I got in bed. The thing is that she told me earlier that she was in the mood for ice cream. So I went to the store and bought some Ben & Jerry's. MMMMMMMMM! Good Stuff. Well it's still in the freezer unopened. Why would she tell me she wants ice cream then lock herself in the bedroom? I just don't understand women.

On to what you all want to know about. I called Kaiser today. Unfortunately the counselor I wanted to see has moved to Oregon. So I can't see her. Summer is glad because when we saw this person for marriage counseling a few years ago she didn't like the counselor. But this time she's not going so what difference does it make? Anyways they would not set up an appointment for me yet. They need to have one of there psychiatrist's call me between 2 and 4 on Fri. to talk to me and see what I want and which person I should see. Then they will make the appointment.

I tried to have a conversation about religion again with Summer. But it didn't go to well. I felt like I was being talked down to. All I wanted to know was what exactly is an evangelical Christian. When I hear the word evangelical I think of TV people who try to take your money. Then we started to talk about how I don't like the way that different religions always say that they are right and all others are wrong. Like my friend who is Christian says that only Christians go to heaven. None of the others do (Catholic, Jew, Mormon, etc.). My Grandma who is Catholic believes that Catholics are the right religion. And so on and so on. I believe that it don't matter what religion you believe in as long as you believe in something. Am I wrong?

Sorry it was longer than I wanted it to be.

It's back! (again)

Well It's finally back! Again. Yes Summer's Exploder is finally out of the shop again. It was released back into our custody last night. It runs great now. Much quieter than it was before, has more power off the line now (I could be just used to my Yota to though), and is pleasant to drive. Oh the most important part: It only cost 400 to fix it. The owner only charged 4 hours of labor and parts. So we didn't come close to breaking the bank. Our youngest son though almost did just that.

So I'm doing laundry on Sat. afternoon when I notice water all over the garage floor. The washer machine is spilling water from the drain onto the floor. So I run a snake down the drain. It still is not draining. So I go into the house and there is sewer water in the tub (front bathroom) and in the shower (Master bath). Great. Youngest son used too much tp again. So I run the snake in the cleanout in front of the house. It works enough to get the drains flowing. So I thought it was fixed.
Go hunting again on Sun. (it sucked again.) and when I get home and start dishes the shower is backing up with sewage again. Apparently I didn't clear the whole clog on Sat. and Summer and the kids were just piling tp against the clog all day. It was to dark to do anything that night so I called in sick to work yesterday. We ended up calling a plumber. That plumber charged us $214.00 to come run a snake down the cleanout. I couldn't believe it. I was glad he was able to use the cleanout though. He would have had to charge us 170 PER toilet to remove them and run a snake down those drains. What a rip off. But I was so glad that we had the money in the savings account to pay him. That way we didn't need to the Visa. The rest of the day was spent with Summer reading Blogs and making cookies. Finally. So we will start Christmas shopping this weekend. My dad and I have decided to take this weekend off of hunting. There is to much other stuff to do. I'm scheduled to work 8 hours of overtime on Sat. YAY :-)

Things between Summer and I are still going good. I'm calling Kaiser to make an appt. with a counselor tomorrow after work. Need to set a reminder. Was going to do it today but ended up putting the lights outside the house after work today.

In reading Summer's Blog I see that she is thinking about no longer posting on her site. She said that writing on it has caused me to much pain. Although it has hurt me reading what she writes, it's not the way she thinks it is. It hurts me because of what I have done to her to hurt her. At the same time I am so glad that she has written her feelings out. She has kept them in for so long now. She does admit that she feels better letting it all out. She also thinks that it is taking to much time from other things. Now that I can understand. Not saying she has more important things to do. I really want her to take more time for herself. That is one of the things that seems to be helping us out is me giving her more of her own time. For instance right now. We both had long days today and we both want to relax and unwind. We just have different ways of doing that. I want to be with her and just sit on the couch and hold her. That is how I unwind. She in the other hand wants to sit in the bedroom alone and read her bible. So I'm on the computer writing while she gets her alone time to relax. Then in about an hour I won't be able to take it anymore and got to bed.

I can't seem to find a fitting way to close tonight. So for now let's just say good night.

Where do I begin?

The last few days have definitely been interesting. Summer started her new job on Thu. We found out some things about the job that just didn't sit right with me. I tried to talk to her about them but she took it the wrong way. We thought originally that if she wasn't doing massages she would be answering phones and getting paid to do clerical work. That is not the case. If she is doing no massages she is not getting paid at all. In fact if she doesn't have a massage scheduled for that day then she don't report to work. Her employment status is 'on-call'. But she wants to go to work every day that she is scheduled to be there even though she is not being paid. Which is fine. It shows good work ethics. But here's the thing. While she is at work not getting paid we have a kid who is in daycare that isn't free. Plus if she stays home because she don't have an appointment they want her to stay by the phone just in case someone comes in for a drop in basis massage. So she can't go anywhere at all when it is her scheduled time for massages. Which includes every other Sat. She is at work now just to get into the routine of a new job and to get to know the residents. That's fine. But if she wasn't there right now we still would not be able to go somewhere as a family today because she would need to stay at home by the phone all day. The state tried to do that to us a few years ago. It went to court and the judge determined that it was illegal to expect someone to stay home with out pay on there day off just to wait for a call that might not happen. In this case I'm considering that if she does not have an appointment scheduled then that is her day off. The state wanted to have one person from each crew to stay home by the phone for an entire weekend just in case there was an emergency on the highways we work on (accident, pothole, dead animal). But they weren't going to pay you unless there was an actual emergency. To me they are doing the same thing to her.
Well when we talked about it she thought that I was mad at her. I wasn't mad at her. I was upset about the way they are expecting her to be employed. I was upset because now we are paying quite a bit in childcare every week and if she don't do a massage during the week she has no income. So how will we afford the childcare? If she is not actually doing a massage at the place of business then she should be free to do whatever she wants with her day. I also feel that she settled for this job just to get away from the grocery store. I don't want to settle for just any job. She has a real talent and I want to her to get what she deserves for that talent. She says that she is not in the massage business for money. She is in it to make people feel better. That is fine but we have bills to pay. We need to keep our heads above water. Right now we are barely able to breathe. When I try to talk to her about this she tells me I am just greedy. I'm not trying to be greedy. I'm being realistic. As I told her on her blog and in person "I see great things happening for you. But you will never see them if you settle for less than what you are worth. It's not about being rich. It's about getting what you are worth."
Enough of that for now. I think that dead horse has been beat enough.

On to happier things. I went to the shop after work yesterday. The owner said that they are putting the Exploder back together. A seal was pushed out of place by the excess pressure caused by to much oil. They put it back in place and we should be driving it by Tue. I want them to keep it for a day after it is put back together to make sure that it fine. I want them to drive it hard and I also want them to let it idle for a long time too. No word on how much it will cost though. At least it is getting close to being done. That made Summer extremely happy when I told her.

As I have stated before we have been talking quite a bit more lately. Some of the conversations have been great others not so good. She is having a hard time letting go of the past when I used to yell at her. Everytime we try to talk about something that we don't agree I can see her shut down. She keeps thinking is he going to yell at me again? I know it is my own fault for that. I just wish we could move pat it. We are both needing to say things to each other but we are both afraid to say them. I'm afraid of hurting her and she's afraid of making me mad.
We are also starting to read blogs together. We often find ourselves sitting at the computer together reading blogs. Here is a problem that I have not seen when i wanted her to get into Blogging. We only have one computer and now we are having problems because we want to make comments together or we both want to update our own sites at the same time. Really need to get a laptop for her. The reading blogs together gives us something else to talk about at night. We lay in bed talking about what is going on with so and so. Apparently she has a non sexual crush on FTN's wife. Whenever his wife comments she always says how much she loves what she has to say and how much she agrees with her. The latest agreement came when she replied to his post about the Scavenger hunt. (Which I was told to never try to do.)

And this brings us to our current quandary if you will. I have stated before that I don't want this to become a sexual Blog. I also said that Summer don't want me to post about sexual things because it makes her feel uncomfortable. Plus she don't like the subject. But some of the things we have talked about that I feel are important enough to share deal with sex.
I really don't want to leave you all hanging here but I need to get some stuff done now. So if you bare with me I will try to post again tonight.

A great big THANK YOU!

My wife and I would like to send out a great big Thank you to FTN for his latest post. The Clashing Libido convention. That was one of the funniest things I have ever read. I read it when I came home from work and laughed so hard it hurt. Over 3 hours later I would be driving down the road and just start breaking out in laughter again. So if you haven't checked it out yet go read it now. It will be well worth it.