.: bistan.net :.

So far, 2010 has not been a great year . . .

In January:

• Kimberlie’s mother died

In February:

• Mackenzie gets kid-mono.  Between the two of us, we spent almost two weeks away from work, doing nothing but this:

  

In March:

• We went through a tough eating-out hiatus.
• T-ball.  Need I say more?

In April:

• Tristan learns to stick things where they don’t belong.
• Tristan has a major accident during a day trip.
• I went to the doctor (for the first time in 20 years).

In May:

• A house catastrophe.
• No raises at work.

In June:

• I ended up in 2 graduate classes during a 4-week summer semester.  Of course, I ended up with A’s, but it was a tough month.
• Mackenzie ended up sick (and very irritable) for half of our trip to Philadelphia.

And now, July:

• The cat chewed up my Macbook power cord.
• We lost our “free” cable and I my iPhone and digital camera went for a swim . . . in the same week.
• Ants seem to invade a different room of our house everyday.

Of course, there are things that have been happening (or not) all year:

• The stock market has really sucked for the last few months.
• I’m 31 and still not rich enough to retire.
• Publisher’s Clearinghouse still hasn’t knocked on my door.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still love my life.  But even number years just never work out for us.  2008 was equally as bad.  2007 and 2009 were fabulous.  Let’s hope I can make it through the next five months alive!

With Toy Story 3 taking over the theatres, I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the toys from my own childhood.  We recently visited the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia and found that they had many of the toys from my childhood in mint condition.  Please forgive the photo quality.  All of these toys were photographed from behind a glass case with horrible lighting conditions.

These Fisher Price blocks popped up around 1976 and I popped out three years later, so naturally I had a set:

I also had one of these, although it remained at my grandparents house:

I miss my Construx set.  It was like an erector set for kids:

The Spirograph was awesome:

I have this exact set of Tinkertoys (on the right) in my attic:

My favorite toy growing up were Legos.  I still have thousands of Legos in my parent’s basement.  I wish I had room for them at my house.

I also had this Snoopy Sno-Cone machine.  It looks like this one is missing a piece — the red shovel.  The Snoopy on top served two functions.  You pressed it down to push the ice through and you turned it upside down to squeeze the syrup through.

I had this Popoids before I got into Legos:

I still remember the jingle “Pogo Ball is what you call it”.  And I had one:

I also had this exact Tonka truck.  Tristan has something similar, but it’s bigger and the quality is much less.

SuperSoakers were the watergun that every kid wanted.  I remember the SuperSoaker 50, SuperSoaker 100, and SuperSoaker 250:

My sister and I had lots of Little People sets.   Little People are still around, though they’ve evolved over the years.  She had the nursery set, seen below:

My sister was also very much into Barbies.  She had the McDonald set seen in the next two photos.  I’m trying to do whatever possible to steer my daughter away from Barbies.

So what does a museum do with surplus toys? Build sculptures of course! This is a real size sculpture of the arm/torch from the Statue of Liberty, constructed of old toys:

This is an life-sized elephant, also constructed from toys:

Who know’s what the next popular toy is going to be?  Right now, “Silly Bandz” are all the rage.  If you’ve looked closely at photos of my kids recently on this blog, you’ll see that they have an arm full.  The museum even had some on display, and they’ve only been around a few short months!

Of course, this is not my complete “Toy Story”.  I had tons of cool toys.  But visiting the museum and watching Toy Story definitely brought back memories!

In case you haven’t noticed, I have blogged nearly every day this week.  And some days (including today), I have blogged multiple times.  I still have lots of things to post, including Mackenzie’s 3K graduation from last month.  I think I’ll go have a cookie now.

If it’s not obvious, I’m clearly avoiding school-work by blogging.  (I have two more projects to turn in before Tuesday.  One is 75% done and I haven’t started the other.) I’m also considering promoting this blog more to my friends, etc. via facebook and twitter, so I need to populate it with lots of content.

Next week, I’ll be blogging live from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey.  Stay tuned . . .

So this is what I was doing seven years ago . . .

(Sorry for the low quality picture. This was before we were 100% digital!)

Tomorrow, I’m going to the doctor.  I’m scared to death.

It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve had a checkup.  When I was 10 or 11, my mother decided that it just wasn’t worth the battle. (I literally fought the doctors).  I had my final immunizations and bid the pediatrician farewell.

My co-workers were in similar situations.  Our health insurance covers yearly well visits at no charge so we decided to go.  They visited their respected doctors in late 2009.  Now it is my turn to live up to my end of the bargain.

Did I mention I’m scared? I am petrified.

I’m totally clueless when it comes to medical stuff.  It’s probably a good thing that I’m not having any problems, because I don’t even know how to swallow a pill.  I’ve never swallowed one before.  In fact, the only non-liquid medicine that I have ever had was a hydrocodone pill chopped up in rocky road ice cream after my wisdom teeth extraction.

I don’t even know what to expect at a routine check-up.  I tried google, but it seems that everyone has different experiences.  I’m also scared of needles.  The last time I had blood drawn, was for the pre-marital blood test.  I passed out cold. On the floor.  They almost called an ambulance.  They brought me a green lollipop thinking it was a sugar issue.  I don’t even like green lollipops.  Let’s hope I don’t repeat that episode tomorrow.

So basically, I’m scared of doctors, I’ve never taken medicine, I don’t do well with needles, and did I mention that I’m extremely modest?  Why did I sign up for this?  Is (hopefully having a) long life worth all of this?

It’s going to take at least a ten mile run in the morning to alleviate this anxiety.

In a previous post, I talked about our restaurant addiction and how we are giving it up for March.

I’m happy to report that today is day #27 and we are sticking with it.  We did use our Chic-fil-A mulligan on March 6 and I have been extremely creative at finding free food at work.

I failed at the no-Coke goal.  I have had three so far this month: one with the Chic-fil-A meal and one after each 12K that I ran.  I am happy to report that the last two didn’t even taste good.

(On a separately related goal, I have not posted a Facebook status update since February 28! That one was easy!)

I have tried to talk Kimberlie into calling this silly goal quits.  It’s not like we’re doing it for lent or anything worthwhile.  This morning we were at the Cherry Blossom Festival surrounded by fair-food.  It was horribly tempting.  Same story two weeks ago at the Forsythia Festival.  But, I think the hardest times though have been the nights where Tristan has games right after work and we don’t get home until 9pm.  Stopping at Zaxby’s would be so much more convenient.

This goal really was pretty silly.  We are not eating healthier.  We are still pressed for time when it comes to preparing meals, so unhealthy frozen foods have become a staple. Maybe that’s better than restaurant food, but probably not.

On a positive note, we have saved tons of money this month.  I was more than thrilled at my credit card statement.  We only have four more days.  I can’t possibly screw it up this late in the game.  The hardest decision . . . is where to go eat on April 1.

Our lives have been incredibly busy lately: work, school, t-ball, races, and lots more.  With all of those obligations competing for our time, it is so easy to just zip through the drive-thru instead of preparing a meal at home.  In the last week or so, we have been eating out several times a day.  On Saturday: chicken biscuits after the 5K. On Sunday: McDonalds after church, O’Charleys for dinner. We have been eating out literally every day. That puts a strain on our wallet — and our health.  So for the month of March, we have decided to abstain from eating out.

I have also tried to limit my soda consumption in the past.  Unfortunately, in our combo-centric world, it hasn’t been possible to do so while continuing to dine out.  Who is really going to buy the chicken sandwich combo and fill the cup up with water?  So to take the health thing one step further, I have personally chosen to not drink coke during March.

Here are the terms of the restrictions:

• When there are events at work that have food, it doesn’t count as “eating out” — even if the food is pizza, etc.
• There is one exception: we can eat at Chic-fil-A once (because we have the calendars with the monthly free item).
• I am not allowed to drink any coke, even at the events above. This does not apply to other family members.

Today is day four and it has been tough.  Really tough.  I can’t remember the last time I went four days without a french fry and I never noticed just how many fast food commercials there are on the radio.  Also, social activities in the south are centered around food, so pledging not to eat at restaurants are starting to affect social aspects of my life as well.  The lack of coke has affected my motivation and energy.  It makes running a lot tougher when you take away a primary energy source. I am glad, however, that the symptoms of caffiene withdrawal have passed.

Can I successfully make it through the next 27 days? Tune in and see.

Once again this year, I’m not making “resolutions”.  I do have several goals for the new year.

Fitness Related:

Run a half-marathon in less than 2 hours. (Let’s hope this happens on January 9!)

Reduce my 5K PR to 22 minutes.

Run 1000 miles in 2010.

Restart and actually complete hundredpushups.com.

Commit to and begin training to run (not run/walk) an entire marathon.

Drop my weight down to 160.

Eat out no more than once per week.

Finance Related:

Eat out no more than once per week (this falls under both).

Be completely debt free by 2011.

Work/School Related:

Take two masters degree classes each semester and stay on top of them.

Stop passing up greener pastures.

Home Related:

Spend more time teaching my kids things.

Get rid of more junk.

Computer Related:

Tweet more.

Blog more.

Facebook less.

I think that’s enough for now. I’ll try to revisit this post every few months to see how I’m doing.

As a hobbyist photographer, I always want the best picture – especially when my child is performing.  We learned a hard lesson at the preschool open house last year: Don’t get there on time . . . get there very early!  So this year, we did.

Here is a question for the reader(s): Suppose you arrived somewhere an hour early to get a good seat.  You rushed home from work, rushed to change clothes, and had to entertain two small children for that entire hour.  All of that just so you could (hopefully) take some decent photos of your three-year-old child singing carols.  After sitting for 45 minutes (and trying to entertain those two small kids), the room is about 90 percent full.  There are several seats in the back and one seat next to you. A man with a cane sits in the empty seat next to you.  His overweight wife then asks you to give up your seat so that she could sit next to her “handicapped husband”.  What do you do?

Now I certainly have ranted before on this issue.  I hate it when handicapped people attempt to exploit their disability to gain something.  I politely suggested that they sit together in the back, however, the thoughts going through my mind were much more colorful.  Throughout the entire evening, the man kept making remarks to his wife about how sorry he was that she didn’t have a seat and how inconsiderate people can be.  I bit my tongue . . . so hard.  I haven’t had a reason to show anyone at Mackenzie’s preschool the ugly side of Jonathan and I certainly didn’t want to do it at the Christmas Open House.

Should handicapped people have reserved seating at the front when there are clearly no visual or hearing disabilities?  Parking is one thing, but seating is another.  Like you, I may have left my “What Would Jesus Do” bracelet back in the nineties, but I would have given up my seat to a blind or deaf person.  I will not, however, give up my seat to someone attempting to exploit their perceived handicap.  Notice I say “perceived”, because I doubt that toting around a cane makes you handicapped.

So that’s what Jonathan did.  What would you do?

Each Wednesday, Tristan brings home a folder from school.  It contains things like school work, behavior charts, PTA notices, notes from school, etc.  This past Wednesday, the folder included a request to “Help Light Someone’s Christmas”.  Basically, it’s the same concept as the Salvation Army’s angel tree: you sign up to purchase a gift for a specific amount and send the gift to the school.

Now we typically help various organizations, from giving in church to volunteering in various things, to sending canned goods to feed people who apparently only eat at Thanksgiving, to making donations, etc. Even with all of that, we have never received joy from giving.  In fact, we hate giving.  It’s like a chore.  We do it though for various reasons — whether political or religious or otherwise.  But because I love Heard Elementary School, I wanted to sign up immediately. 

Kimberlie tried to throttle me back.  We’re already room parents for Tristan’s class.  We donate classroom supplies and send paper money and sell wrapping paper and buy BBQ tickets and support the PTA, so I understood her concern. But being room parents, we’ve met all of Tristan’s classmates.  If there is someone in Tristan’s class, school, or our community who needs a token gift to improve their holiday season, I want to help.  I filled out the form and committed to purchasing a gift at the $15.00 level and returned the form. 

The next day, Kimberlie was picking up the kids from day care when Tristan handed her a paper light bulb.  It said “Jacket for a 6 year old girl, size 6/7″.  Her eyes teared up.  We don’t live in a wealthy community, but it is the suburbs and I never imagined that someone nearby might not even have a jacket.  We thought we were going to be purchasing a token gift for a child who might not have as many toys on Christmas morning as our kids, but instead, we were purchasing a necessity that in our household would never be considered a gift.  And so we were off — to find the perfect jacket!

Being the bargain-hunter than I am, we ended up with a $40.00 Old Navy jacket.  All of their outerwear was 50% off plus I used a 30% Stuff-n-Save discount to end up spending $14.00.  It could possibly end up being the nicest garment the unknown little girl owns.  Tristan’s birthday is coming up later this week and we actually enjoyed shopping for this unknown child more than we enjoyed shopping for our own child.  The jacket has already warmed our hearts — for the first time since I can remember, we feel good about giving.

Let’s hope the little girl can stay warm until Christmas!