Journal

Thanks again to Adam!

There was a bit of a printing issue with the logo, and Adam got it fixed right quick which allowed me to get it to the place where I got it printed right before they closed (so I don't have to do it tomorrow).

Thanks Adam!

Ahhh Weekend...

So the weekend started off pretty good when, on Friday morning, the garbage man took a huge pile of garbage from our house (now that we put the right amount of extra garbage stickers on it). This includes Shannon's old desk (didn't hold up very well being outside for a week), Shannon's old TV stand, a bunch of lawn chairs of mine (that had been ruined by dirt, rain, winter, and hornets), and my old entertainment center that I had got while I was still in college (from Kelly, when she moved back to Chicago). All of this furniture was relatively cheap and it's surprising that it lasted as long as it did. Jerry actually came over to help me move the entertainment center outside and the speakers downstairs (kinda hard to move the Polk RT-20s by myself) (Thanks Jerry!).

Friday night I had intended to go see George Clinton, but...well...the rain was obnoxious and my desire to leave the house hit rock bottom (I had to force myself to go out to pick up a new prescription). We ended up staying in and watching a movie.

Saturday we reordered the living room. With the entertainment center gone, it really opened up the room (there's actually a slight echo in there now). It flows better...and all 3 sets of windows can have their shades up and, in theory, one would be able to get a nice breeze through the room when you open up the windows where you can.

I guess it's becoming more our place, rather then just my place...it's kinda nice...

Sunday we went to the Jordan Creek Animal Hospital company picnic. It was at the owner's house (very nice place). They had games for the kids, which resulted in more then a few adults getting squirted by water pistols, and a nice path through a wooded area of their property (with bridges and everything). I feel kinda awkward at these types of things, cause I don't have much to talk about with the people, cause my interest in animals usually relates to the occasional petting of some, and eating of others (not that they work on anything but cats or dogs). But when I think about it, it's probably the same as what happens when Shannon goes to things of mine or to C0 events (most of my friends are in IT or IT related fields). So...I did talk about food a bit, but not to much.

So now that I'm done with the Essence of Chocolate, I need to finalize what the plans are for my Birthday party...I need to have Shannon flip through the book and see if there's anything in there that she wants me to try...but I have a few ideas.

My mom is coming out to Des Moines for some continuing education classes...She'll be staying at our house for a couple of days...It'll be kinda wierd...it'll be the longest time I've had family stay (usually it's overnight). We'll see what happens.

Hangin' At Methodist with Cliffy

So Clif's been in the hospital for about a week now...and I had to go to CR to find this out. So I've hung out or visited him for most of this work week...even Shannon came up on Tuesday and we played games for most of the night...he should be getting out today (lets hope) and he'll get to head back home to CR.

It's been kinda fun...I don't get to spend a lot of time with Clif anymore and I've enjoyed it...it's too bad he had to get all sick to let it happen :-D

Anyways, I hope he escapes today.

Family and then working weekend...

So I took the day off, on Friday and went chocolate shopping and after Shannon spent half the day at work, we headed down to CR and spent a bit of time with Shannon's mom...dropped off Shannon's old TV and DVD player.

We headed out to dinner...I'm still not dreadfully please with the selection of restaurants in Cedar Rapids...you either have chain, a few high end (which from what I hear aren't generally worth it), and the occasional bright spot (we weren't in the mood for sushi or driving to Marion).

Then we went to see Sheleigh (sp? I can't for the life of me decide what the proper spelling of her name is) do her little dance recital. I'll admit, she was cute, and some of the dancing was good, but over all I got pretty bored...Watching kids you know dance is cute, watching other people's kids dance...um...*yawn*.

Anyways, supporting the family. Got a few pictures, played with the camera, figured out some of the features that I hadn't really used yet...

Afterwards, we headed out of the scary, fish smelling parking ramp next to the Cedar River and went over to the Matta's to crash for the night.

It's always nice to see them, I turned over the Essence of Chocolate book I had gotten signed for her at Kitchen Collage and we proceeded to chat and drink chocolate martini's. I also found out, to my surprise, that Clif had ended up in the hospital (in Des Moines).

It got late, we all got tired, and we headed to bed.

We ended up going to Perkins for breakfast/brunch (again, a surprising lack of good places to go in CR) and then we headed home.

We organized for the rest of the weekend. I put a load of empty CD cases into plastic crates, leaving out only the CD cases that actually have CDs in them...Most of those are still stacked upstairs. The goal here is to get rid of the entertainment center, from upstairs (that I got in college after Chris and Kelly (I wonder where Kelly is, sometimes) broke up).

I also put away my N64, Playstation (not 2, that one is at Josh's) and Gamecube, and their games (the Gamecube games got put down with the Wii) and controllers and wires and what not. Maybe I'll sell them to a good home, but for now, They'll sit in a rubbermaid plastic bin...

Sunday I spent most of the day moving my website over and then figuring things out and getting it all setup.

I am a little miffed by the garbage pickup here in Des Moines. On the stickers it sounds like it covers 40 pounds of garbage.. So I guessed and said hey this old cheap TV stand weighs less then 40, it gets a sticker, this desk...weighs...maybe more then 40 (it was difficult for me to carry by myself, but not THAT hard), so it got 2 stickers...

But no, apparently there is a "large item procedure", which then requires that you have $5 of garbage stickers per item...

*sigh*

Oh well...I'll have to figure something out.

The truth is here...

So last night at the Vaudeville Mews, Brother Ali took the stage.

Josh and I headed downtown and ate dinner at the Royal Mile, before we headed over to the mews. We showed up to the hype man doing his thing, before he introduced Psalm One...She was...she was pretty good, not really my thing I guess I didn't relate to well to it.

The hype man came back...the DJ was really good and they hype man was only distracting from his goodness...it was kinda silly.

Brother Ali took the stage. He seemed pretty mellow and it was a good show, he did a set and then just started doing what people called out of the crowd. It was a pretty good show.

He left the stage. Easily 2/3rds of the crowd left. Josh even wanted to leave...but who knows about an encore...until the lights come up, the show isn't over. Anyways, he eventually came back, but instead of hitting the stage, he just walked on the side, right down into the much smaller crowd. He stopped right in front of Josh and I. I think he had some sort of air of recognition...(I've seen him 3 times, and Josh 5)...but who can tell? I'd like to think he did. I did actually talk to him in Omaha, for a short while at least. Anyways, he continued on, relatively ignoring this over excited (or high) young lad that was standing to his right. He still worked up the crowd, in a relatively mellow way dancing with this young lady next to me. He turned as all around and we were all dancing and he grabbed the back of my shirt, to help my rhythmless self move in time.

A bit later he left the crowd and called it a night.

It made a good show, into an amazing show.

No, there is to much, let me sum up.

Holly gave a nice simple review of memorial day. The only add I have to make is that we also played bocce with Brandon and Val, and Val doesn't so much look pregnant...even though she is.

Last night we watched From Here to Eternity with Chris and Holly. Holly made some lasagna it was pretty good (the movie and the food). I made some Ice cream...which was ok...they said it was good, but it wasn't really what I intended, so I wasn't dreadfully satisfied.

It was more like soft serve, but I think that is more because I didn't use the right amount of fat in my milk products. It called for 2 cups of heavy whipping cream (high fat) and 2 cups of half and half...but I used fat free half and half...so...uh...yeah.

Also I would add more cocoa powder and 1/4th less vanilla...at least...that is probably where I will start again. It wasn't to bad for a chocolate chocolate chip, but again, not totally satisfied.

Good thing this weekend is 3 Days...

So I left work early on Friday (one of the directors actually came around and said we closed at 3, I finished off what I was working on and left around 3:30). I ran some numbers did some calculation and some figuring.

When Shannon got home, I think I scared her when I told her I wanted to have a "State of the Union" talk...but really what I meant is that we need to figure out what we're gonna do, officially, with the downstairs room, how much we can spend, what it means, and set goals (financial and otherwise) for the future.

So we went over to the Gateway Market Cafe to have dinner and talk.

We agreed on a way to divide the chores around the house (The kitchen and all the things in it are my responsibility (cooking, cleaning, etc), the rest of the house is Shannon's...though this may sound unfair, the kitchen needs to be kept a lot cleaner then the rest of the house.). This also allows for me to have things place where I want them (which I can't really explain to Shannon cause there's lots of things in the kitchen).

We agreed that after we got the room downstairs the way we wanted it, to get to a certain point in our debt, before we can even think about buying anything large (this excludes the Wii and the trip to Ikea).

Afterwards we went shopping, and with all my internet research in hand made a very large purchase...what is it? Well that's a surprise.

After that, we drove it home, and put together some of the furniture that we had already bought for the basement. Shannon went to bed around 11, I went to bed around 2:30.

I was up again at 6, and headed out after my morning ritual, to get some screws and what not that I needed for the furniture. I came home, still tried to get it all together, and then read some more and went out and got the screws that would actually fit the mount and that was the trick.

So this is why we were a bit late to Ahnaka's first birthday party. Though it seems like we weren't that late at all. So there was some grilling, some food, some cake, watching Ahnaka eat and then play in her own chocolate cake (very cute, which I had brought my camera), and then presents (mostly opened by Jerry, since Ahnaka was distracted by a ball, a stuffed kitty (our gift), and then a stuffed bear bigger then her (Patrick's gift)...

After a bit, Shannon wanted to head out and go furniture shopping, and so we did.

After a lot of looking, we ended up at homemakers, and with the help of one of their sales people, (she's in the million dollar club and I can understand why), with the help of Chris, Shannon and her fashion sense, we got a better idea of what we wanted down there, and then she said we probably shouldn't buy it.

Why?

Well unlike the previous time we were there, where the lady said sure it would fit, she actually said it'd be tough to fit it into our basement (29 inch doors (garage to laundry room or hall to stairs to basement). She had us go home and remeasure. Since it would've been a custom order, we would've had to cover the down payment (25%) and the delivery charge. We needed to hit about 33 inches to get them in there...and if we got that it'd still be a maybe.

It was not meant to be. Shannon was actually getting pretty down.

We then went to another furniture store (we hadn't been to yet) and they broke out a measuring tape and found several pieces that could fit through the door.

With that, Shannon felt fairly invigorated and we headed back to Homemakers with that in mind. Furniture with legs (that are removable) and relatively short backs (with cushions or pillows that go up higher). After searching, we found one...comfortable, we both liked it and decided to sleep on it.

After spending Sunday morning cleaning (the house really needed it), we headed out to Homemakers again. Normally I wouldn't wait on a sales person, because generally I don't find them helpful at all, but I wanted to make sure she got our sale, because between her advice about colors and the getting it into the house, she's was very helpful. So we actually waited for her to get done with another sale, before she could help us.

Then we proceeded to buy a love seat (the room doesn't so much accommodate the couch, at least in the way we want to use it), two chairs and an ottoman.

Shannon felt good, the room is mostly finished.

We're going to wait to see how things look before we buy things like end tables or the like...That way we'll get a good idea on how things will shape up in the room.

So now our family room is almost done...this will leave some what of a hole in the living room, since we don't really have something to replace what we're moving down stairs and what we're getting rid off...but we'll see what happens.

So after that we ended up going to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3...which was...better then the second, but not as good as the first. While the movie was just starting, Chris called to ask about going to the movie...so...that was kinda funny.

I returned the call after the movie and we talked about doing something laterish...it was already 8 or so. We headed over to target to get a few more things (new pill case for me for the Metoprolol XL, since it's gonna be taken at night) and a bunch of other stuff. And we finally found one of Ben and Jerry's new flavors, Steven Colbert's Americone Dream...woooo! Anyways, after trying to go where their flavor locater said and not having any luck, we finally found some. So we'll have that sometime.

We talked to Chris about maybe making some ice cream...since we have an ice cream attachment to our kitchen aid mixer, that we've never used. So we got home, I figured out what we'd need to do...and found out that we needed to freeze the bowl first...so there would be no ice cream making last night. I missed the call back from Chris and by the time I checked the phone it was getting pretty late so we decided to call it a night anyways.

This morning I got up bright and early again (6ish) and went downstairs to make the food for our lunch today: a chicken salad with bleu cheese (chicken, bleu, celery, green onions, pepper and mayo), a fruit salad (apples, cherries, strawberries, and a nectarine, with a little bit of sugar and some lemon juice).

This being done, we're ready to head over to Jen and Madd's to have a picnic with the rest of the Cribzero crew.

Yet another drug change...

So the Avalide at the 300/25mg dose is reacting to me similar to the Benicar...which is not good (yes, my kidneys hurt again, not as bad as before, but it's been getting worse over the last few days). I tolerated the 125/12.5mg dose for a week well, so the doctor says that we're rolling back to that.

He also added a beta blocker called Metoprolol XL 25mg. I'll start off with 1 pill then go up to two. This drug is supposed to block the action of some chemicals in the body (like epinephrine), resulting in a lower heart rate and blood pressure (and strain on the heart).

This is my doctors last chance. I will be switching doctors if I still react poorly to this.