Blog Number 260

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today I feel like posting a few (random) pictures.  Let's start off with the return of biscotti in my diet.  The wife made a fresh batch on Saturday night so it was all ready for our Sunday AM coffee.  She tweaked the recipe a little though I thought the last batch was perfect.  She tried a whole wheat flower (so the biscotti looked more healthy) and added almond extract and crushed almonds as well.  I can't complain as I have not ever met a biscotti that I didn't like.

Yesterday night while the kids were at church (Kidz Praise) I headed out to Kohl's in search of a new (Texas) winter jacket.  I have a light brown jacket that I have had for years and it is full of stains that the wife has long since given up on trying to get out.  I hit the jackpot and ran into the 60% - 70% - 80% off racks.  I ended up with a jacket, another sweatshirt material coat, a sweatshirt, a few shirts, some socks and a sweater.  List price total for all of the items was around $350 but my final total came to just over $70 before tax.  One of the t-shirts was 90% off (see pic for reason why) and I am not too sure about the sweater.  It makes me think of the kind that Mr. Rogers would have worn.  I like it but I think I am a little to young for it really.  See for yourself.  I have all the buttons buttoned by the way.

This morning as I was heading out of the kitchen (with coffee and biscotti in hand) my eyes beheld the below site.  It seems the dog (not to be out done or left out) decided that since the cat was on the back of one of our living room chairs, she would sit on the back of the other one.  She did not stay there for long (just long enough for the picture).

Well, that is all the pics I have for you today.  Hope you enjoyed them.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 259

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We just returned from a nice breakfast at Panera.  Let me explain how we ended up there.  It all started last night at dinner.  The wife had made a soup consisting of milk (raw of course) and chicken broth (organic of course) as the broth.  It also contained spicy Italian sausage, potatoes, onions, and corn.  She has made this soup before and to say that is not our kid's favorite would be a massive understatement.  We are quite strict when it comes to eating the food placed in front of us and (as I mentioned in a recent blog) at times we have to resort to a timer to goad the kids into finishing before midnight.  Last night the kids were both picking at the soup.  They did not complain as complaining is not allowed and is usually met with additional soup placed in their bowls.  The son is really not fond of the broth portion and even though the wife was careful not to give him that much he still had a lot of broth left when all the rest of the soup was gone.  When he realized that he would need to drink the broth, the look on his face was one of horror.  The daughter on the other hand was just pokey in general as she is not fond of potatoes.  I asked the son what he was willing to do in order to avoid drinking the broth.  He did not quite understand what I meant so I asked him if he was willing to lick the dog's mouth in order to be allowed to be done eating.  I tried to pick something so disgusting that he would rather drink the broth.  He proceeded to get up with a smile of relief on his face and head toward the dog and pried open the dog's mouth.  It was then that I realized that he was not bluffing (as he sometimes does)!  He was actually going to lick the inside of the dog's mouth!  His hatred of the soup broth was so great that he would rather French kiss the dog than drink it!  I stepped in and told him I was just kidding but felt pity for him.  I mean, he must really be dreading finishing his soup.  I then asked the kids if they were willing to pay for bagels the next morning if we went to Panera.  They both agreed.  So, in essence, they bought their way out of finishing dinner.  As a result we went to Panera this morning.

In the mail yesterday we received a brochure from The Cleaning Authority.  The tag line on the brochure says, "Life's too short to clean your own home."  Wow what a statement.  Talk about targeting your audience.  I could paraphrase the tag line as follows...

• Do you have too much money and are you lazy?
• Did you buy way too big of a house and then had to take 2nd job so that you are never at home to enjoy said house?

The brochure also said that," Cleaning Service Makes a Great Gift."  Nothing says how much you care about a person than saying, "You know, your house is a mess and I know you are not capable of cleaning it yourself so I bought you some help."  The brochure offered no hint of pricing but referenced a number to call in order to get an estimate.  Sounds like you are getting a car repaired or something.  I feel a little better in that the brochure was addressed to the previous tenant of the house and not to us.  I am not as offended as I would have been if it had mine or my wife's name on the label.

We are now just hanging around the house until the mall opens.  We have some budgeted clothing money that is burning a hole in our pockets.  I am sure it will be and adventure.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 257

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Last night after the kids went to bed, the wife looked at me and said those three words husbands everywhere like to here.  "Get our laxatives."  Let me explain.  I mentioned last week that I was weaning myself off of caffeine (again).  Or rather that the wife was weaning me off of coffee in order to start a week long detox.  As you can see by the picture below, it is a kit that you buy.

This kit was enough for 2 detoxes (what is the plural of detox?).  Anyway, you take 3 fiber pills 30 minutes before breakfast (the big container), 1 milk thistle pill 2 hours after breakfast, 1 milk thistle pill 2 hours after lunch, 3, 4, or 5 (depending on what day you are on) fiber pills 30 minutes before dinner and a cleansing laxative pill before bedtime.  Also, you have to drink 96 oz of water spread throughout the day.

Now, I mentioned that you cannot have caffeine on this week long event but you also cannot have processed sugar or red meat.  Given that 96 oz of water is roughly 93 more oz than I usually drink per day and add in all else that I have to give up along with having to plan my eating / pill taking and you can guess that this has not been a fun week for me.  Fortunately though, since we started on Saturday, I only have 3 days left (including today).  After 4 days I cannot tell a real difference.  I do not feel especially cleansed.  Also, I am sick of drinking so much water (and having to use the restroom at an equally increased frequency).  It is nice to be off of coffee (again) though I guess.

Let me take this last paragraph to personally and publicly thank my wife (once again) for keeping me healthy.  I should live to a ripe old age and I can see myself at age 80 sitting down to breakfast with her, taking a pile of pills and chewing through my oat bran wondering if I would not have had more fun eating what I want and being dead at 55.  Fortunately for me, I don't have the choice of eating unhealthy stuff for if I do, there are more cleansing kits waiting for me (or [gulp] who knows what else).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 258

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am sitting here enjoying my white tea on my last day of exile from the real world (i.e. last day of the milk thistle detox).  I have 14 pills to go and then I am free.  Tomorrow AM the wife and I will enjoy the sweet nectar of life that is coffee and all will be back to normal in my world again.  I cannot wait but I will say that I have not really missed coffee as much as I thought I would (I only snuck down to the cafeteria at work once this week for a de-caf Starbuck's).

Yesterday at work was a little rough in that I was on the phone for 3+ hours from the start of my day up to lunch time almost.  One phone call after another whether it was a scheduled meeting or an ad hoc phone call to clear up matters.  I did not take my headset off and only hung the phone up to dial another number.  My first call on Thursdays is always with Egypt, The Netherlands, and Hungary.  English is the 2nd language for everyone on the call (except for me) so I feel bad sometimes in that I forced each participant to speak in a language that is not their native tongue.  Other than English however, no one on the call speaks a language that anyone else on the call understands so English has to be the choice.  In Egypt they speak Arabic, in Hungary the speak Hungarian (duh!) and the official language of The Netherlands is Dutch.  They tend to understand each other's English pretty well and (oddly enough) I am the one they cannot understand at times.  But this makes sense if you take into account that I am the only one that would use words like "wanna" (want to), "gonna" (going to), etc.  Also, I am the only one with the risk of using American slang or phrases that they would not understand.  I have met with this group every Monday and Thursday morning since last summer so we have a little bit of a rapport and can poke fun at each other.  Anyway, that was my first call and it just got crazier after that.  Fortunately for me the calls ended before lunch and I was free the entire afternoon to get some real work done.

Well, I better finish my white tea before it gets cold.  Can't wait til tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 256

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

After enjoying my 1/2 cup of coffee yesterday morning I am now enjoying a cup of green tea (sweetened with stevia).  This is of course in anticipation of some sort of week long detox process the the wife is putting us through.  As you can imagine, it is not something I am looking forward to.  Couple my green tea with the annoying-ness of the dog this morning (she wanted in and out the back door 4 times in about 40 minutes, mostly just to play) and my Saturday / weekend is off to a great start.  Speaking of the (annoying) dog, she has made herself at home and is quite comfortable in her new surroundings.

Exhibit A (comfortable in her Hello Kitty blanket lined cage)

This cage has a divider in it so you can limit the size of the area the dog can fit in.  This way you can buy a big cage (ka-ching) and still let the dog grow into it over time.  the  Hello Kitty blanket was a Christmas gift to the daughter a few years ago from my wife's mother but evidently now is the dog's.  As you can see, just a few months in and she has the run of the whole cage.

Exhibit B (confortable on our leather couch)

She has not quite figured out how to use her back legs for jumping but she does use them to crawl up onto the couch (another option of hers is to put her front paws on the couch and look longingly at one of us until we come over and hoist her back side onto the couch).  She has a favorite corner of the couch and (as with the cage) prefers to sleep on her back.

Exhibit C (comfortable being where I am at)

This is from yesterday morning (after my 1/2 cup of coffee).  She crawled to this position with no help from me and the wife was kind enough to capture this Kodak moment for me (and the blog).  Despite my often harsh tone and general ignoring of her, the dog has caught on that I am the Alpha Male and as such gives me the respect that I am due.

The wife just brought me another cup of green tea (woo hoo).  I will let you know if the dog finds any more areas of the house that she is comfortable in.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 255

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I just enjoyed a nice 1/2 cup of coffee.  But Jon, you say, why would you only be drinking a 1/2 cup of coffee instead of your normal 2 cups?  Well, I am glad you asked.  I am (once again) weaning myself off of coffee only this time I am doing it in a more intelligent way.  As you may recall, the last time I lost an entire Sunday suffering while I tried the cold turkey method.  This time, I am trying a smarter approach.  It is really not I who is weaning me actually.  It is my wife.  For she is going to have us go through some sort of detox thing starting Saturday.  From what I have been told by the wife, this detox thing will not be fun but it will be good for us.  I will have to let you know.  I drank only 1 cup on Tuesday and Wednesday and tomorrow I will again only have 1/2 cup and then Saturday I am done.  I can only hope my body is kind to me.

We went to a friend's house to watch the football games on Sunday.  It was terrible to watch the Colts first and then the Cowboys lose.  What a bummer.  It really put a damper on the crowd that was there.  The wife and I were quite depressed but we were able to offer comfort three hours later to the bulk of the people since they were all big Cowboys fan.  I feel your pain people (having just gone through it earlier in the afternoon).

Spanish is still coming along.  The lesson I am on now talks about various articles of clothing (raincoats, skirts, shoes, etc.).  As with previous chapters, nothing I can really use if I were to fly to a Spanish speaking country tomorrow.  8 lessons down and 76 to go to complete the first level of Spanish (I have purchased the 100+ lessons for level 2 as well so it will likely take me 2 years to get through it all I am sure).  I didn't expect to have Spanish down in 3 months or anything but 2 years (dos años) seems like a long time.  There is a level 3 available too so I will be in my early 40's by the time I am done!

Well I better get going to work.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 254

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Ah biscotti, how I loved thee but alas thou art no more.  We polished off the last of the 2nd batch of biscotti on Friday and I am going through a slight amount of withdrawal.  I got a little excited this morning when the wife had the cookbook open.  I got even more excited when the page was opened to the biscotti recipe.  She was right by the coffee pot when she was doing this so logically it meant that sometime this morning some biscotti would emerge from the oven.  Imagine my disappointment when I found out that she was not making any but was instead writing down the recipe for someone else in our ABF class.  Now not only will I not have biscotti but it is possible that someone I know will have some before I do.  I tried to feel good for the other person, but could not muster up any good feelings, only jealousy.

For most nights this week the pre-bedtime entertainment for the family was watching Tex Avery cartoons on YouTube.  The kids had never seen any classic Tex Avery stuff though they did recognize portions from the movie "The Mask" which was a tribute of sorts to Tex Avery and (as I recall) even had the Tex Avery documentary running on a TV in one scene in the background.  Anyway, once dinner and bath time is over, the kids are all over me to watch more cartoons (Droopy being their favorite).  Gotta love this internet thing, tons of truly useless things to do to waste your time.

The Colts play today in the early game and they are a big favorite.  This should worry any Colt fan as we typically do not do well when we are favored so I am a little nervous.  Since the Patriots won last night, things are shaping up for the rematch between the 2 powerhouse teams of the AFC.  The Giants/Cowboys will fight it out to see who plays the Packers next weekend.  That game will be for the right to see who gets killed by the winner of the Colts/Patriots game in the Superbowl.

I did spend the last part of my Christmas money on a web cam yesterday and the daughter and I already recorded a small video and sent it off to my mother.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts,

Jon