Meet Ace and Derrick. Ace is the sold white rat, fancy rat, that is. Aaron was given Ace by a friend. It took a lot of convincing for us to let him keep him. Then, I read that rats are much better off when they have a cage mate. So, I took Lucas to the pet store where he picked out Derrick. And, hey, I had nothing to do with picking the names.

I'm selling stuff on e-bay again. Just thought I would supplement the ole student loans with some cash.
Here is Daniel's PJs listed at $.99. Such a bargain!

I started this book yesterday and it is off to pretty good start. It's about a busy mom in England that also has a pretty demanding job. She is a hedge accountant, which means she manages risk associated with foreign currency investments. We just covered this topic in my advanced accounting class, so it will be interesting to see if I have any insight throughout the story.

Aaron's Smoking and my blog is messed up

After that last tacky post, I'm sure I had this coming. Aaron has been so curious about smoking lately. Everytime he gets mad at me, he spitefully retorts, "I'm gonna start smoking!" Oh yeah, he knows how to get to me! I came home yesterday to find him sitting pretty on the couch, all freshly showered, cologned, combed and calm. I asked him why he showered in the middle of the day...no reason, he says. But I knew. I knew in my gut he had been smoking. And he admitted it to me. This has to stop pronto. 3boyzdad and I have discussed what we should do, but we don't know. Do we make him smoke a pack, one after the other and hope it turns him off? I'm opting for showing immense disappointment in his choice.

My blog is going through puberty right now. That's why the side bar is messed up. I upgraded it to beta---whatever that means, and I deleted the annoying Hurricane Katrina ad at the top and ever since, the sidebar hasn't cooperated.

I'm about to be mean here.....

On the topic of school and the funny people you meet there, there is another person in a couple of my classes that is noteworthy. This is an older lady with a smoker's hack to beat all smoker's hacks.

I'm all for going back to school to better one's self, mind, job enrichment, etc. And all under the banner of you-are-never-too-old. It's true, you absolutely can't start to improve your mind or body too late. No matter what you choose to do, it will improve your overall life, I believe. So what makes this person any different? Well, my guess is she is too far gone, lung-wise, for much improving to be cost effective. And it's not like she 'used to' smoke. Oh no, she comes into class with a cloud of smoke enveloping her. Her poor voice sounds like it's been raked over bed of knives. 'Nuff said. And you know how we end a blog that rags on somebody? .....Bless her heart!

Happy Birthday Lucas!

6 Years Old!

This just happens to be his cake-tasting finger!!

Warning! Please read before considering having children!

Just beware. That's all I'm saying. It may not happen to you. I didn't think it would happen to me when I was young and naive, thinking I wanted lots of children to love all day.

Me, before children:




And after:


So sad!

This is a picnic....not a tea party!

http://danielmcvicar.blogspot.com

I just found this guy today. He is neat. Check him out!

My TO DO list:

1. Read more history
2. Get passports for the whole family
3. Learn how to vlog

Dreams

Lucas is scared of his dreams, all of a sudden. Sunday morning he came and got in bed with me, whimpering about a bad dream. I just snuggled him for a while. Later in the day, he brought it up several times. It must have been a pretty bad one, poor guy. So last night, he tried to stay awake so he wouldn't have any dreams. And for him, staying awake is not a problem. It was about midnight when he finally drifted off! Well, this morning he comes and gets in bed with me and says with his little lisp..."Mommy, my dream was disgusthting!" What a word! I didn't know he even knew it. Wonder what bedtime will be like tonight....

School

There are lots of characters at school that I think deserve some print time here. Students and instructors, alike. I don't buddy up with very many people at school. I guess I'm more of a loner, plus I'm much older than most of the day students.

We'll start with my commercial law class. The instructor, an absolute dinosour, is no joy to learn from. He walks in the room without ever addressing the class, turns and writes the days lesson on the chalk board, in cursive, in outline form. Mind you, we already have the text and an outline that he told us to purchase additionally. Once it took him 45 minutes of class time to do this.

In said law class, we have a student I'll call Mr. Suspicious. He always looks disbelievingly at Mr. Dinosour, as if the book can't be right. Mr. Suspicious asks questions like, "And how does that reconcile with what we just learned in the last chapter about bailments?" I just want to shake him and tell him he is probably not going to be the one guy that makes Mr. Dinosour and the rest of the legal field realize they've been operating under a misunderstanding of the universal commercial code. But, he'll just have to come to that realization himself one day.

Brand new habit

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I've been weaning Daniel off the bottle since he was just a little over 12 months. Now he is 17 1/2 months old. Why is it taking so long? Because 3boyzdad won't stop giving him a "tete" to go to sleep at night!! I tell him he's the one hooked on the bottle, not Daniel. Well, one night I substituted the pacifier, or "chupo" in español, and to my surprise, it is Daniel's new go-anywhere accessory!

Daniel and Grandma at Lake Murray over the Labor Day weekend.
















Labor Day. Aaron at the paintball field. He had a BLAST!











He took a shot to the mask!

Here is Aaron at one of his recent golf lessons. I think he really enjoyed playing this summer. His last lesson is tomorrow. Then, he will also take Golf as an elective at school after Christmas. I wonder how that is going to work.

My mom and I are taking the kids camping next weekend for Labor Day weekend. Hopefully, there won't be rain like this weekend! We pulled the RV out and filled it up with gas. I think the idle is low because it is dying at the stop signs, but otherwise, it's good to go.

Here is Chewy decorating the furniture last night. He is at the vet right now getting f-i-x-e-d. Shhhhhh. We didn't tell him anything about it.

Today I got a "gift" from one of my cats. Lucas went outside to play and there on the front porch was a carefully placed dead bird. I hope this doesn't become a habit. ...Off to clean it up...

I feel like I've made some permanent changes in my eating habits, so I thought I would list them here.

1. Changed from regular butter and margarine to fat free. There is one called Promise. It tastes okay. Parkay has a fat free spray-on that has the fake taste of buttered popcorn. It gets me by. It is worth it because I'm saving 7 to 9 fat grams per tablespoon which probably translates into an average of 12 to 18 fat gram savings per day when you think of buttering a roll or two with dinner and maybe having a toast with jelly in the morning.

2. I've tried to kick the coke habit (the cola kind) but it has been tough. I love the first few sips of a cold fresh coke. I found some cola can plastic tops so that you can "close" the can and put it back in the fridge. It saves the fizz a bit better than just sticking an open can in there. So now one 12 oz can of coke can easily lasts me all day. This way I don't feel obligated to drink the whole thing at once.

3. I'm reading nutrition labels and I found this website that has every food imaginable in different portions to measure calories, fat, and protein. It also has a "pantry" where you can save what you've eaten during the day and it will keep a running total. Pretty cool.

4. My portion control has really improved since I started writing down what I was eating. I haven't written it down for a while, but after doing it for over a week or so at the beginning I learned about what I could eat during the day. When I'm starving I eat cereal, fruit or graham crackers. I eat a Lean Cuisine every once in a while because that takes all the guess work out of what I'm eating. If I eat whatever the family is eating for a meal, I know I have to keep the main portion size to about a cup.

5. I changed from 2% milk to 1%. Can't even tell the difference.

Biking and Bonding

As I write this my hands and knees are throbbing with pain. Blood is hardened on my kneecaps. My right wrist feels terribly sprained...actually feels broken, but it still moves and the fingers are typing this almost as fast as usual.

Aaron and I went on our first "bike and bond" ride tonight. We were clipping along with ambitions to go all the way around Lake Overholser. The sun was giving way, finally letting the 100 degree temps fall into the high 90's. The wind was blowing through the hair on our non-helmetted heads. We stopped a couple of times to lake gaze and also check out the new playground the city has built on the West side. It is too cool, lots of slides and fun things for little ones to do. We got back on the bikes and headed out for the last stretch home.

The sun was setting now and I was telling Aaron how Lake Overholser used to just be for drugs and making out but now it is getting so beautiful and useful. There were many bikers out there, lots of couples walking across the dam, just gazing and talking. A few dog walkers, and of course, the everpresent fisherpeople. We laughed and I challenged him to a race which lasted all of about 5-10 seconds. He claimed victory as soon as he had a gain on me.

Then, I saw it. I thought about it. I wondered what the best plan of action would be. I chose to do nothing and when my bike and its inexperienced rider failed to go over the huge, metal hose across the middle of the bike trail I was thrown forward, my bike screeched to a halt and the handlebars flipped around twice. My face was spared the pavement by my hands, my knees were not spared. My whole left arm hit the pavement but didn't come out any worse for the wear.

I thought I was ruined plus my bike wouldn't budge. I figured it was trashed. I called for 3boyzdad to come get me, but he didn't answer. I tried my mom, no answer. Turns out, they were talking to each other! Aaron figured out that my handlebars just needed to be straightened back out. I got on and moaned all the way home about how much my wrist hurts and that I think I may need an X-ray. He reminded me that when he thought his foot was broken I just told him to give it time, it would get better. I explained that since I couldn't feel his foot it wasn't a pressing matter to me, but I could feel my wrist! Aren't I terrible.! It is hard to feel someone else's pain.

Lesson of the day: Wear your helmet, and when you fall off your bike, get right back on.

I got a new bike today! I'm so pumped. It is a Schwinn from a bike shop...as opposed to Walmart. I plan to supplement my two workouts a week with a couple of hours of bike riding. The cool thing is the city is working on connecting downtown, Lake Overholser and Lake Hefner all together via bike trails. How fun! I went out today and rode to Lake Overholser from my house and back. The trails there were great so now I just have to work up my stamina. Craziest thing, though, I took the bike out this evening just for the pic and it already has a flat! I'm taking that tire into the shop tomorrow.

This is Callie trying to drink the fishy water!

Had to take Daniel to the Dr. yesterday for a serious ear infection. He got antibiotics and is already much better. Lucas goes today for his 5 year check up. I think there will be a shot involved! Lucas is actually really looking forward to school starting. Two weeks to go.

Later.

Today was finals for the summer semester. Wahoo! It's over for me until August 21st. I know I made an A on my Finance final and an A for the class. And for Management I know I had an A before the final, but I spent all my precious study time on Finance. So management will either be an A or a B.

I spoke to the department chair about graduation and it sounds like I'm on track for graduating in the Spring. I have to get my transcript certified by my advisor, then apply for graduation. I talked to her about the Masters program. It is a new program for the school, there are seven broad business courses to take, none with as much homework as an upper level accounting course.

3boyzdad (whom I'm thinking of renaming Tenderheart because he can't stand to watch such things as Andrea Yates, or imagine taking a stray cat to the pound) started his new job at Dell on Monday and says everyone is really nice and he thinks he is going to like it fine. Their office will have a gym and they will pay him for doing things like joining a walking group and quitting smoking. It does sound like a super structured environment but otherwise very good.

I'm just a busy fireman taking a lunch break!