I'm freeeeee!!!

I left for work today, in the time it took me to walk from the front door of the house to get into the car, I had a pounding headache already. 4 days, 9 hours to go was all I told myself the entire drive to work.

The first call I took was from some jackass who just didnt understand, no matter how much he bitched, policy wasnt going to change for him. When I got off the phone with him, I decided, "thats it", I'm done. Was chatting with Crystal thru Gmail's built in chat feature and told her I'd had enough. Went and talked to our Operations manager and told her how I felt, and her response was 100% supportive of my decision. Not that I needed her blessing, but it was nice to know that I had it. Then I went and talked to my immediate supervisor Todd and told him I was done and that Toni the Ops manager wanted him to come in the office, he said "bah, calls are holding" and that was the last I heard from him. Oh well. So, Toni went and found the HR lady Dolly and arranged for me to do my exit interview with her before I left. Great, one more thing I dont have to come back for. 30 minutes later, I had my marching orders and out I went.
Damnit does it ever feel good knowing I dont have to go back there! I'm free!!!! More time with Crystal, more time with Elliot, maybe even time for some freaking free time of my own, woot!

4 days, 9 hours....

Thats all I have left at BOEC. Still seems like such a long long time, but I'm going to try and stick it out...mostly cause I'm all out of sick and vacation time :)

Yesterday we had our going away BBQ here at the house. It was a good time, I hope everyone enjoyed being here as much as we enjoyed having everyone. Steve and Ronda again saved the day, the disappeared into the house for about 20 minutes at one point, I figured maybe they were making out or something, but no...they were inside putting food away and cleaning up the kitchen!!!!! IDIOTS!!!! Thats not what guests do!!!! It is however what the coolest friends in the world do. Going to miss them alot, thankfully they have agreed to let us have them down for superbowl/Elliots 1st birthday come february.

Softball is all over, we had our final game Monday night, lost...again. Not sure if we still werent in a good division or what, but we just couldnt hold up as the game went on, started out up 9 to 3, then ended up losing 14 to 9. We didnt do so hot after that first spurt of runs, only went thru the batting order twice, I was walked and had a single.

The house is almost completely packed up. All thats left really is the kitchen, our computers, and bedding/linen. Most of all that will be done the day before we load the truck. Still not looking forward to the drive, but we are all squared away with the new apartment after a minor snafu. Somehow, our application and deposit check have been lost in the mail...not every encouraging since it had our social security numbers on it, and a check...sigh. Thankfully we mailed it right from the post office, so the chances of it getting stolen are alittle less likely than had we used our own mailbox. I'm hoping something was wrong w/ the address or something and it will get returned to the post office box sometime this week. Got a new application faxed to us, filled out, then my dad bailed us out and took them a deposit, the apartment is all ours. Just have to pay them the rest of the rent when we get into town, then give my dad his 100 bucks back and we are good to go.

Crystal had an eye doctors appointment today, but before she left, Elliot was really fussy, it was afternoon nap time, but he was fighting it pretty good. So I took him in and we layed on the bed together, apparently, he wasnt the only one that needed a nap :)

Beer drinking idiot!

So, the other night Crystal and I had just put Elliot to bed. It's been so hot we got a window air conditioner and put it up in our spare bedroom and moved all of our beds in there so we could all sleep at night. It's unfortunately on the front of the house and we live on a well used road. We were getting ready watch a movie on our laptop in bed when I hear the sound of breaking glass skidding along the road. No biggie, I figured some ass decided it would be neat to throw a bottle out the window as he was driving along. Then I hear a car go by, and the sounds of more breaking glass...wtf? So I jump out of bed to go see what the hell is going on. To my surprise (ok,not really surprised) some jerkoff decided to throw out a bag of his trash into our street...right in front of the house! So I throw on some shoes and head out to clean up the mess. It was mostly beer bottles in the bag, and boy did it smell yummy...or at least it would have if I were a transient who had been living on the streets for the last decade. So I start picking up the mess, almost get ran over by at least 8 passing cars...I'm wearing a really light blue shirt at the time, oh and this just happens to be right under a street light..how did these people not see me? So after yelling at all the passing cars various ethnic slurs and general screams of discontent at almost being hit, the mess is cleaned up. Now what to do with it...hey, whats this piece of paper here in the mixture of stink and broken glass? A piece of mail? Hey look, another piece of mail, and another. Would you look at that! The addresses are all the same, someone must be missing these broken bottles and missing mail....I think I'll return it! So in the house I go to google map the address and get my car keys. Off I went to find my new best friends, after all, only a pal would leave you a treat like that with out calling first. Just as I was about to pull onto this meatheads street...low and behold, another bag of garbage laying in the street. I should have picked that one up too, but who am I to take away the thrill of the hunt for someone else! I make the final turn onto their road, and my blood pressure and adrenaline go thru the roof, right where this house should be, some shmuck is standing in the road taking his boat trailer off his pick up...its fight time! woo!!! So I pull up and ask the guy all snotty "Is this 4517?", his response comes back to me in this little mousy voice "no, this is 4512, you looking for someone?" No you dolt, I just wanted to see if I could find 4517, yes I'm looking for someone! So I tell this guy what happened, and he says to me "well good for you". Directly across the street from his house, there they are, my nemisis, the evil doer's, the scurge of the earth, and I'm going to make them pay! So I take the box of crap from my trunk (by the way, temperature of about 95 out, dried up beer, and other various bits of garbage, combine well in a confined trunk space for 5 minutes, yields 3 gag reflexes when opening the trunk) and walk it up to the door. Place the box on the front step, ring the door bell about 30 times in 10 seconds, listen to their little P.O.S. dog bark like he is going to come and attack me...nothing. No one is home...or at least not answering the door. Damnit! Right then and there I should have just dumped the box out on their step, but I didnt. Why? I'm not sure...I think I'm going to have to make up for it and go back though...the local grocery store has 5 dozen eggs on sale, and I am moving out of state in a few days :)

Update on Us

It's hot! Today was another day in the upper 90's maybe 100. I haven't watched the news to see the official high but I know it was pretty damn hot. Friday was 105 or some ungodly high temperature like that so Peanut and I went to my parents for the day to hang out in their air conditioned house. We got home about 7:30 and it was still 95 outside. Inside our house wasn't much better, maybe around 90. Gave Peanut a bath and put him in bed, then I was off to work. got home at 4:30 in the morning and it was still 82. House never did cool off and poor Peanut was awake at 5:30, hot and sweaty and could not get back to sleep. So Mike took him so I could sleep but at 7, I needed to feed Peanut. After about an hour napping in bed, we were both awake again, still hot and sweaty. Mike *had* to stay home from work. There was no way we could of made it without him. I finally got some sleep about 10 until 12:30, and then Peanut got a couple hour nap while we got ready for another day at my parents. Before we went there, had to make a Walmart stop for diapers and some snacks and we were going to the checkout counter and see a pallet of a/c's they were just unloading. Like vultures to roadkill, we were drawn. After seeing the tag of $86, and demanding Mike to go get a cart for one, one of the employees plopped on on the bottom 1/2 of our cart and we were off. I think I might of killed someone to get one of those, that's how badly I wanted one again.

My parents are the best. We had a great afternoon with them lounging around in the house. Both of them just love being with Peanut so I hand him off to whoever is frothing at the mouth the moment we walk in the door and I'm not really needed until he's ready to eat again.

My niece Taylor spent the weekend out at mom and dads and here's Elliot and Tay swimming in the hot tub. She was so excited to hold and help him in there.



And when I couldn't stand over the side of the tub anymore and hold Elliot, Mom loaned me a swimsuit and I got in with him. The water was 92 or so and was perfect. Ignore the greasy, oily looking face. Did I say it was hot out? Still was around 93 or so.







And one more photo for today. Elliot's the cheerleader for
Mike's softball team. Here he is last week all decked out looking oh so adorable. The hat never stays on very long. It's still a little too big and falls into his eyes.

And for the grand great news of the day......I'm now UNEMPLOYED!!!!!! Woo hoo! Last night was my last night of work and I cannot be more excited. No more abuse from irrate, irresponsible parents who think the police are there to parent their children, no more having to be nice to the stupid, uneducated, drunk or crazy public. No more having my heart ache for an elderly person who's spouse passed away in the night and they just woke up to find them. No more parents saying their baby can't breath, or worse. No more unfair accidents where I listen to the people crying in the background. No more children calling saying their parents are fighting or worse, hurting or have hurt them. No more working nights, weekends, and every holiday in the calendar. And no more having to leave my sleeping baby in his father's very capable hands so I can go to work, only to be too tired the next day to truly interact with him the way I think he deserves to have his mom interact with him.

This is about all I can handle at my computer for now. Did I mention it's hot?! :o)

TTFN and stay cool ~Crystal

Just one more reason...

To hate my job. It's petty yes, but its the principle of the matter that irks me the most.

Last week for my birthday, I got a card from the ERC (Employee recognition commitee). Inside of this card was a "coupon" good for a "perfect schedule". Now, by sheer definition of the phrase "perfect schedule", doesnt that hint at the fact that I'd get to pick my entire schedule for a whole day? Good, I'm glad you think so too.

I was browsing thru the schedule today and looked at tomorrows schedule, I have a net to start my day, then 8 straight hours of phones...does the phrase "bullshit!" apply? I sure think so. So I send a message up to one of the supervisors asking, "hey, I have this card for a perfect schedule, can I use it for tomorrow?" So I get back the response "sure, you can pick up to 3 nets"....3? Did I get 4 hours off and I didnt know about it? Cause we have 5 shots during a normal day...why only 3? So I ask, I'm told "its only good for 3". Now I'm really confused, "how is it a perfect schedule if I only get 3, that doesnt sound like perfect, marginally better than normal maybe, but not perfect". Turns out this a rule they implemented after people complained when they came in and saw that someone had a "perfect schedule" of 5 dispatch nets and no phones...well hello you idiots, thats why its called a perfect schedule! Did it bother to pass thru the empty voids some of my co-workers call brains that they too have a birthday, minus the few that spawned straight out of hell, and would get a "perfect schedule" when the time came too? No, they are too busy trying to screw someone over and ruin a good thing for the rest of the work force. I'm so tired of working with the old croon's that do this crap I could just spit. Cant you people just freaking get along with each other? No, you cant. Thats why you suck! Thats why no one wants to work in that festering pit of slime and disgust. It takes quite alot to get me to hate something, but that place is and has been at the top of my list for sometime now. Its a damn good thing I'm almost out of there, I'm not sure how much more of the double standards I can stomach. I have 6 days and 9 hours to go, they will be lucky if they see me for half of it. If only the house had sold for just a bit more money, I could just not worry about having to be there for our benefits to carry over thru the month of August, nothing would please me more than to not ever go back. I hope some of you people wake up, find something that makes you happy in life and stop trying to make everyone you work with miserable. Not only does it make life worse for others, deep down inside its killing you. Get over yourselves, your not in high school anymore.

I'm getting off my soap box now, I need to try and go to sleep and this is just raising my blood pressure.

Initiate countdown in 3....2....1

We just heard from our buyers, the appraisal came thru and the house appraised at just over what we sold it for! WOOT!!!! Makes having turned in our notices feel a little better.

Crystal's not sure she's even going to back to work now, I envy her. Elliot sleeps so much better when she is home, we've decided it wouldn't hurt anything to have her just stay home and be with him. This whole situation is a bit stressful on Crystal to say the least, apprehension about moving, leaving "our" home, being away from each other for almost 2 weeks when I drive down there, its all becoming a reality, and with Elliot not sleeping so well, which means we aren't sleeping so well..Its just all adding up. So why not remove the one stressor that we have the most control over, bye bye 911 for Crystal. I still have 7 days and 9 hours to go...when you look at it like that, its really not so bad. If nothing else, I can look forward to the change in view :)

Baby Steps...

No, not those kind of baby steps. Elliot is still along ways from walking (we hope) but we have started a new game where we take him on the bed and let him pull himself up to a sitting position with alittle bit of help from mom and dad. Today we were playing this game (by we, I mean I) and didnt realize Elliot had just eaten, nor that I was putting so much pressure on his little tummy while he was sitting up. So after about 5 minutes of this, he decided that enough was enough. He thinks its funny to get pulled up and put into a sitting position, then to be allowed to fall gently back onto the bed. This time after sitting him up and stepping back, it was over to his left side he went. The best part of it is, he looks drunk...wayyyyyyyyyy drunk, complete with vomit :)


The appraisal was done on the house this afternoon. Supposed to hear back from them by tomorrow the gal said. We had the notification come thru from the lenders today, apparently the buyers have a bunch of money to use as a down payment, so they are only financing 185K, so we are golden as far as the appraisal goes, its just a matter of hurry up and wait now...and I thought I was getting away from that crap leaving the city! ha! Time to get in some more packing, I want to get as much done as possible before the actual day gets here, will make things alot easier.

33

Today is the day, July 15th. 33 years ago, I was born. I can remember most of my life like it just happened yesterday, some good times, some bad. So why do I feel so old? Being a new dad doesnt help I'm sure, but that cant be all of it.

Taking a full day to recover from a night of softball doesnt help either...although I think alot of that is just from being out of shape. Once we get down into Tucson, I'm going to look into finding another coed team to play on, its fun and I enjoy playing. Hopefully we can find someone that can watch Elliot and Crystal can play too, I think that would be alot of fun.

The appraisal on the house is scheduled for next Tuesday. Feels like things are moving forward again after no word on anything. Also got the loan commitment today from the mortgage company, so the buyers are funded and ready to go w/ money. They've decided to just use the inspection that we had done back in October, and are instead going to spend the money on a home warranty instead. Not a bad idea on their part, just keeps them protected should anything go wrong...not that I think it will, but better safe than sorry.

We are still slated to close August 4th, and sounds as though Crystal and I have to go in and do our part of the paperwork either the 2nd or the 3rd. Hopefully its the 2nd cause I have to work the 3rd, but they say we can go in seperately, so no matter what day it happens, we will get it done, then we go pick up our money sometime on the 4th... so very exciting, all the new changes that are coming are going to be tough at first, like having to be apart from Crystal and Elliot for 2 weeks while we move is going to suck. I'm worried Elliot is going to forget who I am, but will spend sometime with him when they get down there and remind him who I am.

Time to get an hour of sleep or so before Elliot wakes up hungry. Happy birthday to me!

Big Boy

Down to 3 weeks before we sign closing papers on our house so I started sorting and packing up Elliot's clothes he's too big for. I put some premie clothes in a bag I'm donating to the hospital and the others I need to keep in a box for memories and possible later use, although I'd love to not have a baby so small again. I put Peanut's coming home outfit in a cloth bag that I'll store for him when he grows up. I layed his coming home pajamas on his body and WHOA! When did my WWB little Peanut turn into such a Big Boy? The photo isn't so great and I'll try to get a better one, maybe on his 6month Birthday for a better comparison. Looking at those pj's and packing around Peanut's 15 pounds sure makes it hard to remember he was no taller than the length of my arm and weighted 1/3 of what he does now. And all from breastmilk! I'm so proud of myself that I'm able to give him all the nutirents and vitamins he needs and that he's growing just like God designed him to do. So, breastmilk really is the best and my Peanut is proof of that.

On another topic, I have been sewing every spare chance I get lately. I've created a purse, a short-trip diaper bag/purse, and a wall-hanging that will go up in Peanut's room. Now, my next project is to do a quick quilting job on Mike's quilt and get it finished so I can get down to only having 3 tops that I need to quilt. Here's photos of my latest lovely creations:

Pink girly purse that has little rhinestones in the middle of the flowers.

Green diaper/purse bag. Have yet to try it out, maybe tonight. Target is always calling my name for something I "need".
Paper-pieced wall-hanging for Elliot . Each square is 4 inches big. Quick meaning for all of them 2nd row, left to right: Flag-cuz we're very patriotic and love the USA, sun setting on the ocean cuz we love the beach, red square surrounded by blue square is a type of log cabin block-log cabin cuz we're rednecks and I want to live on one when I'm rich, green diagonals was just for fun and boyish, yellow house cuz Elliots first house was yellow, sun because he is my sunshine. Bottom row, left to right: orange slices for fun, blue truck cuz he's a country boy and country boys like trucks, yellow flower cuz I needed 1 more block, heart for love, tree cuz he was born in the evergreen state, and embroidered one with his birth info.This was my first wall-hanging. Its for autumn, but I love it so its up year round.
Peanut is uber fussy so, TTFN ~Crystal

You have got to be kidding!

So Monday night we had another softball game. It started out like any other softball game really. We were down after the first inning 7 to 1, thats normal for us. Then our bats started working for us and we made a game out of it. Had it not been for some defensive errors (2 of which I'm not proud to say were mine!) we probably could have won the game. My first error came when I was playing left center (its coed so we get 4 out fielders). I'm playing deep cause a guy is up to bat and their guys were bombing the ball. A looping fly ball takes off heading right at me, but short, so I sprint forward to try and make the catch, I can tell right away its gonna be close, so as I'm running at it, I'm thinking "dive? dont dive? dive? dont dive? The out of shape side of my brain won the argument and no dive took place, if I had, I would have caught it, instead, it hits the ground just below my glove and takes off behind me...damnit!

2 Batters later, another guy hits a ball, this one a screaming line drive that just gets passed our short stop and is rolling along the ground all nice and lazy...so I run at it and go down to one knee, glove on the ground to stop the ball, just when the timing of the ball should have hit my glove, I feel nothing...wheres the ball? I look down, nothing, then look behind me as the ball continues to roll along the ground..wtf? How the hell did that happen? Well, not to make excuses, but the ground out in that park isnt what you'd call "level", in fact, it resembles the moon..with grass. Lots of hills and valleys and bumps and whatnot, my little brother Geoff was playing left field right next to me, and he said it looked like the ball hit one of the many bumps and changed directions and went right past my glove...whatever, bunch of crap!!! With moves like those, no way I'm ever going to be able to fake my way into a special olympics team!

I did have some good moments at the plate though. I had 3 at bats, and went 3 for 3, 4 RBI's that I counted, and scored 2 runs. That was the first game that our bats have been working well enough to allow me to even cross home plate! So we are getting better as a team. I should mention however, that somehow, on my last at bat, I smashed the ball well enough I think I could have turned it into a double, however, the softball gods have other plans in mind for me. After I swung the bat, I took off running for first, somehow, as I released the bat, it came swinging back around and hit my right ankle, forcing my leg out of alignment just enough so that my left ankle came down and hit my right leg, thus causing me to go ass over tea kettle. I got slammed down to all 4's and ended up with this:














I'm gonna kinda miss playing with this group, I have alot of fun playing with them. Probably not as much fun as I'd have on that above mentioned Olympic team, but hey, its fun none the less. Crystal likes to remind me I looked like a tee baller out there trying to field that rolling grounder, isnt she nice?

This too shall pass...

Crystal snuck in a post on me today, shes a crafty one, so if you didnt read hers, make sure you do, it has an awesome picture on it :)

Now, on to my post.

As much as I dislike my job, I have to give credit where credit is due. They have a thing called CISM (which I think stands for critical incident stress management, or something along those lines). How it works is, when you take a particularly nasty call that effects your ability to do the job, you get to go home...and, news to me, you can take the next day off too. It doesnt cost you anything, no sick time, no vacation time, nothing. I've never used it before so wasnt sure how it worked exactly, but thank goodness Shay was working the day I had this call. I dont think I would have been so receptive to the help had it been someone I dont consider a good friend. She took me out on the patio at work and we talked about the call and how crappy it was, then she told me I could go home. So I took advantage of it and left after that call. Shay talked to Crystal at work and told her to tell me if I didnt feel up to working today to call her and she could take care of it for me. Again, thank goodness for shay. What little bit of sleep I did get wasnt good quality sleep, and all I could think of was that call, picturing the poor kid laying there bleeding from every hole in his head, and the sounds of mom vomiting in the background. Needless to say, I wasnt ready to come back to work. I probably should have just called the sup's and told them, but I wasnt in the mood to be questioned about it, not that I think they would have, but still. I called Shay and she took care of it for me and I took the day off. It ended up working out good in several different ways, Crystal got to catch up on some sleep, and I got a ton of daddy time in with Elliot. We watched tv, watched the cars drive past the house, walked around in the yard, had a bottle of milk and just relaxed. Being home was just what the doctor ordered, I'm still spending a fair amount of time thinking about the call, but its better than it was.

After Crystal got up, I decided it was time to let out some aggression, and what better way to do that than pounding nails into wood? So, got the lumber for the new front porch that had some rotted out posts and I knew would have to be fixed before we could close the deal on the house, and got cracking. 2 hours later, the new porch was born:

Monday Steve and Ronda are coming over to help me patch a spot in the roof. Then the house is truly done! All that will be left at that point will be packing packing and more packing.

Oh so sexy

Oh boy it's warm today. Not like it was a couple weeks ago, but 91 is too warm in a house with no a/c. Mike is home today and working on some of the last few things the house needed before we close. Now we're waiting to hear from the guy doing the appraisal and the inspection. After those, we're in the home stretch. Today, I'm ok with moving and having "our" house belong to someone else in less than a month. The excitement of not having to work nights/weekends/holidays and actually getting to have a normal schedule again with normal sleep is glorious and overtaking the sadness.

And now for the picture of the day.... TA DA!
The last few days have been a trial for me and Peanut. Lots of fussiness and he's back to HATING his car seat. Running errands was torture the other day. Cried so hard for the 10 minutes it took to get home he and then was fine once he was able to get out. Today, he seems to be doing ok - but no carseat ride today. Hung out with his Dad while I slept this morning and then again while I napped this afternoon. Mike needed this extra Peanut time today and I'm thankful I was able to get some sleep before working tonight. The last night I have to be up until 4am because of work is going to go on my happy moment list. It doesn't rank up with having Elliot and marrying Mike, but it's on the same list.

This is about all for now. It's too damn hot to sit in the house anymore so we're going outside.

TTFN ~Crystal

Everything happens for a reason....

I'm usually a firm believer in this. Today my foundation was rocked alittle when I took a call that for the life of me, can think of no good reason for it to have happened.

I got the first of 2 calls from an elderly male who said that a car had just backed up and ran over a child...a 5 year old to be exact. I dont know how long it took me to get the call going, but I'm guessing just a few seconds. The caller was a bed ridden man who has an in home nurse come and take care of him. The boy was the nurses child. Since my original caller was bed ridden, he couldnt give me alot of information, so once I had the call going, thats about all I can do, so I disconnected. At this point, it was just another "poor kid, sheesh" and I was ready for the next call to come ringing into my ear. Low and behold, the next call comes from a cell phone, with alot of screaming in the background, then it disconnects. So I call back to try and find out whats going on and see if someone needs help, or its just a bunch of kids out of school with nothing better to do than prank 911...I'm wishing it had been a prank. On the call back, I get a guy who's a nervous wreck and can hardly talk to me. Come to find out, he's on site of the kid being ran over, I still dont know if he had any relation to the kid or not, at this point, I guess it doesnt really matter much. I try to get some info out of the guy and I can hear what I came to find out is mom screaming in the background, screaming and puking at the same time to be exact. The training kicks in and I start asking for the info that the old man couldnt give me, "is he trapped under the car", "is he awake", "is he breathing", the answers to all 3 being no. I try to get this guy to start CPR, I'm not even sure he knew what the initials meant, but he didnt want to try, I know thats his option, he doesnt have to do it, but I'd have given anything to swap places with him right then. Would it have made a difference if someone had tried? Dunno, but I'd have liked to have tried. My caller said mom was trying to do CPR, but with all the screaming and vomiting, I dont think it was as good an effort as someone else could have done, am I blaming her? GOD NO! I would have been a wreck myself had it been Elliot. Ever since he came along, calls involving kids have impacted me in a way they never used to. No call ever bugged me, ever. Sure some are ugly and remind me how evil man is, but they never upset me or anything. The whole time I was on these calls, it was Elliots face I pictured on that kid, it put a huge knot in my stomach which still 7 hours later is still in my stomach. Several times now today I've thought to myself "whats that mom doing right now", she sure isnt playing with her son, or putting him to bed, or giving him a bath. Her entire families lives must be in total turmoil right now, and I'm guessing it will be a long long time before it resembles anything close to what they considered "normal". Maybe this was a sign that my leaving 911 really is the right decision, for my own sanity, I'm going to treat it as such, I could think of alot better ways god could have pointed it out to me, but thats life. Did writing about this help? yeah, maybe alittle.

As little sleep as I'm going to get tonight, I know that mom is going to get alot less.

Like the old country song...

Take this job and shove it! I ain't working here no more!

Today I got to work and turned in my "tenative" notice of resignation from 911. So long as all goes well with the sale of the house, and I know it will cause GOD loves me ( no pressure big guy ), my last day as a 911 dispatcher will be August 3rd. Crystals last day is going to be July 24th (insert naughty cuss words chewing her out here). If I work one day in August my benefits continue thru the month of August, so since the 3rd is really my normal monday, I'll work that day and get our benefits paid for another month and then be free from the chains of city employment! Not that I've been keeping track, but I only have 16 more work days left to go, for some reason that doesnt sound as bad as saying 4 weeks, good god that seems like a long time.

I got my route all planned out tonight after work, looks like its going to take me 2 very long days to get from here to Pheonix. I'm going to try and do it in those 2 days, then again, I may say screw it and just do it in 3. I've never been a good long distance driver, or never used to be anyway, I guess I'll have the chance to re-evaluate that here real soon. Now I have to call Budget and find out the mileage on their big trucks, I'm guessing it wont be much, and am hoping for 15 mpg freeway...I think I'm asking alot, but thats what I'm hoping for. It's going to cost an arm and a leg to just buy the gas for that pig.

Crystal has an early dentist appt. so off to bed, going to try and start getting some packing done tomorrow night, never to early to start.

Happy Birthday America!

230 years old and still kicking!

I like to think of myself as a patriot. I don't know where I got it from, altough I have some good ideas, its just a part of me I guess. So the 4th of July is one of my most favorite holidays. We didnt get to go see any big fireworks this year cause we didnt think those loud noises would do real well on Elliots ears, but also cause its passed his bed time, turns out its passed ours too, Crystal and I curled up on the couch together and tried to watch them on TV, we both fell asleep during the show..sigh. Thank goodness fireworks isnt what its all about.

We got to spend the day up at Crystals inhereted Aunt and Uncles house...you do the math.

They live in this kick ass old house, which they think was built in 1891..or somewhere around there.


It was originally just 2 rooms with a roof, they have a very old picture of the house that I'm kicking myself in the pants for not taking another photo of, but thats another story. Needless to say, the house is OLD! but very cool both on the inside as well as the out. I'm not sure how many acres they have, but its alot, Grandma Hazen (another inhereted realative) said that theres over 77 acres of old Hazen land that has been sold off in small bits and pieces. They've been on the land so long, the road leading to all the houses are on Hazen road. Now thats heritage. I didnt know if I'd ever get back to the house again, so I took a couple pictures of the surrounding area:





And my personal favorite:



All in all it was one of my more memorable 4ths, it wasnt the fireworks, there werent any of those, it wasnt the weather, even though it was just perfect, it was the setting and the company. Good people, good food, good times. I wish Jenny and Dee could have made it, would have been fun to see the other kids for one last get together before we move, thankfully theres still time to get in a family BBQ or something.

Off to start getting some packing done. Only 17 working days left at BOEC :)

I have seen the future, and it is good...

FINALLY!!!!

The house has sold! A very nice cool young couple has agreed to buy the house for 1 million dollars! Ok not that much, but its going to seem like that much to us when we get our cut. Its not exactly what we were hoping to get, but its enough to get us moved down to Arizona and front out bills for awhile til we get some steady income flowing from the business.

We are slated to close August 4th, so my last day of work will be August 3rd, then we'll have that weekend to finish packing and be out monday afternoon. So, if your local, and you have mondays off...you know who you are...be prepared to get asked to come help me load the truck! If I can get 10 people here to do it, should only take about an hour or 2 to get it loaded. Then we will spend the night with Crystals folks and I'll be off bright and early tuesday the 8th. We've decided that driving across the country with Elliot riding shotgun in the moving truck wouldnt be very fun, or productive. He's not a big fan of sitting in his car seat for more than an hour or two, so 12 a day wouldnt go over very well, not to mention having to stop and feed him along the way too. So Crystal will stay here with Elliot for a week or so while I drive down and find us a temporary apartment to live in. Then once things are going well and the money is flowing in, we will go and get a house to rent at first, then in a year or so, we will look for a house to buy, or some property and build a house on it...thats still up in the air. I really like what I see in the city of Marana Arizona, it looks to be about 15 to 20 minutes north of Tucson, but its up in a quickly developing area (what isnt down there?) so alot of my work would be in that general area where people are moving into town. I've noticed that alot of the neighborhoods down there are being built with city parks right in the middle and feature lots of walking paths and stuff thru them, which is a huge bonus. All this last week I had the oppurtunity to do new hire interviews at work, so I was home at night, what a shock. Crystal and I were able to load Elliot up in his stroller after dinner and go for walks, and we loved it, so does Elliot, so thats something we want to be able to have around us which will be nice, then maybe I can lose some of my BOEC gut and slim down some (translated:alot).

More updates to come, I'm working on a name for a new blog to start when we move down there, if someone can submit a name suggestion here in the comments section, and I use it, I'll excuse you from helping load the truck...yeah freaking right!