. . .and the sky is gray

We moved into the new house on May 8th, with everything going well.  We've been here now for a little over 8 weeks and have been enjoying living in a larger house.  Megan has made friends with several girls her age in the new neighborhood, and Ian with a boy down the street.  We've been taking lots of walks and bike rides too.

The old house on Loyala still hasn't sold yet though, and the furlough days start next week, so money is going to be tight over the next three months.  We're still cutting the old yard and Melissa and I always talk about the feelings we have when we go inside the house, all the memories from the years of living there.  We sat on the old deck last Saturday night and watched the Huber 4th of July fireworks like we did in previous years.

We stayed home on the 4th yesterday, both kids have been diagnosed with the whooping cough.  I was kicked out of work Wednesday at 1 and then today at 11 in the morning.  Makes for a nice, long weekend.

I made the colossal mistake of getting the kids a terrier puppy last Thursday.  We kept him for a week, but I sold him via Craigslist today to two young college girls who seemed thrilled to take him.  Megan named him Toby, and he was a sweet, loving puppy.  But my allergies grew worse the longer Toby was in the house, I hated the constant stress of dealing with a high energy, untrained chew machine in our new house.  So I broke the news of Toby's new owners to the kids and Megan had a meltdown, crying her eyes out despite all her anxious behavior over the last week around the dog.  I think it was my worst day as a parent.

Melissa left for work earlier tonight and the kids and I rode over to a local school's playground.  They're now watching a Transformers cartoon in the living room as I type this post.  We took them to the drive-ins for the first time this Wednesday night to watch Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University.  They kids made it maybe 10 minutes into the 2nd movie before crashing hard, and we got home around 12:30.

My reading has gone through the roof this spring and early summer.  I just haven't been gaming on the computer as much as before, and I've decided after the move to slow my book collection's growth rate by using the local library.  So I've borrowed the Saxon Chronicles series and a few others.  I've probably read close to 10 books since moving into the new house.

All the leaves are brown. . .

Melissa and I closed on a two-year-old house this Monday evening.  It's considerably larger than the one we've lived in on Loyala Chase Lane for the last 14+ years, and it has a considerably better school district for the kids.  Movers are scheduled for next Wednesday, May 8th, and I'm off all next week to help with everything.  Our old house has been on the market since mid-February and no bites yet, but hopefully it sells sometime this summer.  Fingers crossed, because starting in June we're owing two mortgage payments each month, which isn't a fun financial situation to be in.  We also picked out a new living room furniture set this past Sunday, with Megan being the one to eyeball it first.  It's a $3k sectional with a chaise and massive ottoman and is 14' long and barely fits in the new house; along with Time Warner cable, it's scheduled to arrive on the 9th.

Iron Man 3 came out today, so I think Ian and I will catch a matinee sometime this weekend.  The kids are at my mom's tonight, Melissa goes into work at 11 and is downstairs asleep right now, and I just got back from filling up both cars and then going for possibly my last walk down Forest Ridge Blvd.  I sat on the deck before doing this finishing The Wise Man's Fear, a 1k-page fantasy boat anchor.  Terry Brooks has a lot to answer for in his afterlife.

Going to be damn strange leaving this house.  Today, May 3rd, was my last one driving to work from it after 14 years.  We brought both kids home from the hospital to this house, I'll never forget coming home for lunch back in 2000 and finding Melissa upstairs painting the spare bedroom wall's with a picket fence, the moon and sun on opposite walls.  I've never lived anywhere longer except for the house I grew up in Possum Woods, and that's not by much.  I'm extremely unfond of moving, as most people are, so I can only hope the new house is the last, that we live there for at least 20 years, and that if we move again it's to a small brick ranch we retire to.

Melissa just woke up from her 2-hour nap.  She'll leave in a bit and I'll have the house to myself for the night.  At least until I fall asleep an hour or so after she leaves.  The exciting Friday night of a 48-year-old married father of two.

Parenting Pitfalls

Interesting last few weeks.  Got over a nasty head cold/virus that left me feeling like garbage for a good solid 10 days.  Finally woke up this Tuesday feeling human again.

Our 12-year-old rear projector TV finally gave up its hold on life, the day before we put our house up for sale.  Perfect timing.  So off to Amazon I went where I bought a Samsung 55" flat screen, a Blu-ray player, and a Sony sound bar.  Melissa picked up a nice stand at a local furniture store.  Total unexpected cost: $1400.  Ouch.

We spent two hours last night at a model home specing out a potential build that we both thought was just too expensive.  We need to take our time and not rush into anything.

Megan left me a note that reads how she feels like she doesn't belong to the family after watching me cuddling with Ian on the couch.  Really upsetting to me, it's the last thing I want one of my children to feel.  So I typed up a note telling her how I'd love to always cuddle with her, how she's my special little girl, and that mommy and daddy love her every bit as much as we love Ian.  We'll see how she reacts to it tomorrow morning.

Why, hello there!

It's been almost a year since I touched this blog.  The sad thing to admit is that I had to Google to find it since I'd somehow managed to not transfer or maintain its address in my browser's favorites list.  C'est la vie.

Work is as ever a roller coaster ride that alternates between being good and being an absolute unsatisfactory bitch of a stressful grind.

Kids are good.  Poor Megan came home on yellow yesterday for the first time in three years.  Ian of course eschews all rules and regulations and hurls his 5yo scorn toward all forms or figures of authority.  He is a bipedal manifestation of karma for me in this life.

Been slowly trudging through the Potter series, failing to see how they garnered so much commercial success.  I think I actually enjoy the movies more.

Melissa and I had our 20th anniversary last August.  It was a disaster from my point of view.

My mom and I had a huge blowout over the phone while I was at work roughly a month ago.  We really haven't spoken since.

I bought the latest LOTRO expansion right before Christmas and it's devoured my nightly hours.  Speaking of, I need to finish this update so I can log back in and play for a bit before bedtime comes around.

The road goes ever on

So it's been almost five months since my last update.  The holidays went well.  We bought a laptop the week of Thanksgiving, which Melissa and Megan both seem to enjoy quite well.  This allowed me to free up my computer and more of its USB ports, which are now properly used for gaming equipment (360 controller, pedals, flight stick).

The family had a good Christmas.  This winter has been incredibly mild, with not appreciable snowfall and no snow days away from work this season.  Today, the Ides of March, it's in the low 70s outside, with 100s of temperature records being broken across the midwest this month.

Blizzard announced the release date for Diablo 3 today, that date being May 15th.  Going to be a good spring for this geek, what with the second season of Game of Thrones starting on HBO in April and then the new Diablo the next month.  Finished Mass Effect 3 and its terribly bleak ending last night.  Stayed up too late, who knew that final mission would last for over two hours?  Just can't do that anymore at age 47, need my sleep more and more these days.

The kids have been good for the most part.  Ian is growing at a costly rate, outstripping his clothes and our food budget on a bi-monthly pattern.  Megan has been going through some development issues, though, struggling at school to fit in and be liked.  Breaks my heart when she says she had a bad day at school and that other kids were mean to her, but she needs to learn how to thicken her skin and cope; mom and dad won't always be there to comfort her, and the world is all too often a cold, cruel place.

Winter is Coming

The last month blew by fast.  Work has been fine, the kids good, no major illnesses or home repairs.  Megan had her fall break last week, so I took two days from work and we went to the Great Wolf Lodge, a hotel with an indoor swimming area that sports lots of water slides.  The kids had a blast.  Took them trick or treating Monday night too; Megan attired herself as a 80s valley girl while Ian was a bipedal cheeseburger.  They scored lots of candy, of which mom and dad have been availing themselves.

I have the collector's edition of the fifth Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, pre-ordered from Amazon for next week, the auspicious date of 11/11/11.  I can't believe it's been almost 18 years since I played the first game back in early 1994, a year that saw me at age 29, delivering pizzas, working through grad school, and still living in the apartment on East High St in Springfield.  But Skyrim is my official 47th birthday present, I warned Melissa not to spend any other money for it since the collector's edition is a whopping $150.  A foolish nerd and his money. . . .

Spoke with my old high school friend Bill Giffels for over four hours on the phone last week.  We hadn't talked since 2001, haven't seen each other since 1994, and naturally had lots to catch up on.  Ended up sending him a Core i5 750 processor I never tested or used as an upgrade for his aging home computer.

Melissa has been hitting me up for a laptop as a Christmas gift for her and Megan.  Market analysts are expecting the tablet incursion to drive laptop prices down quite a bit this holiday shopping season, so I'll keep an eye open for a good deal.  The bad part of the purchase would be the wireless router I'd have to buy; my old 4-port wired Linksys has been going strong since 1998.  I can't imagine how many gigs of game demos, videos, movies, drivers, patches, Windows updates, apps, and porn I've downloaded through it over the last decade, but it's refused to die.

Starting to get chilly outside, winter is definitely coming soon.  We took a family walk after dinner last night, strolled down to the neighborhood playground to let the kids frollic for awhile before heading back home.  Been having some small problems with various neighbors, one trying to dump her kid off on us as a daycare facility, another letting his child play unsupervised on our backyard playset without asking permission, and another letting their dog do its business in our yard.  Nothing that a zombie infestation wouldn't solve.

To Detroit and Back

Spent last week north of Detroit for a mandatory training class.  Stayed in a small suite across the street from a mall and just about every chain restaurant that can be named.  I hated every moment of it, being away from the kids for five days like that.  I left Sunday afternoon, with Megan on her bike at the street corner crying as I drove away.  But the days passed fairly quickly and the class itself wasn't too terrible.  And the kids were happy to see me, especially since I brought presents with me.

Been on a Todd Rundgren kick here lately, listening to his 70s hits.  Haven't read a single book in months, probably not since A Dance with Dragons came out in July.  I have, however, been getting my money's worth out of Netflix, mostly due to old TV shows.  My indefatigable LOTRO addiction was renewed last week with the release of the first new expansion in almost two years, an update that raises the level cap to 75 and introduces hours of new content.

Had a bad evening tonight with Megan.  She decided to conduct a major meltdown over her old PowerWheels car she's now too tall to drive.  She's basically mad that Ian is driving it, regarding it as her property regardless of the fact she can no longer enjoy its use.  I honestly don't know what to do with her at times.  I hear a lot of other parents suggest to ignore the yelling, but I'm not wired that way.  And I don't think allowing a child to behave that way will just self-correct over time; I think parents are just being lazy, failing to set expectations and boundaries, and simply taking the easier road in regards to parenting.  I just wish they came with manuals.