The end is near

So many things seem like they're coming to an end: school is almost over (can you believe we have a paper due on Dec 29?), our time 'working' at CITD is over, the pregnancy is almost over, the holidays are almost over, and football season is almost over (Go Gators!).  It's crazy to look back and remember this year, it has definitely been the most up and down year I can remember... so much has happened it is almost impossible to believe it was all in 1 year!  Started with Christmas/New Years Eve in Florida, then the two trips in the spring to be with the family as we let Nannie go be with the Lord, then the infertility stuff and the treatments, the layoffs at work, new pastor at church, the pregnancy,  saying goodbye to M&M, having like 10 foster kids in 2 months, J&B moving in and moving out, having A&R move in, the Psych eval and becoming a certified candidate in the UMC, the house being robbed.  Yikes, big year.  On top of that, I have been doing my darndest to stay on top of school and the house and still be involved in the family and the church.  Ttthhhhhhhhhhhhpppppppptttt.  Almost too much to imagine.  

Oh well, I guess that is life.  It's interesting to try and remember what life was like when I was younger, college aged or younger I guess.  I have always felt like I was super busy, like the crush of life was almost too much to bear.  The funny thing is, when I look back I can't believe I wasn't bored out of my mind then!  It's amazing how much pressure a full time job puts on you just from the perspective of time.  Having to get up and squeeze what feels like a full day of 'stuff' into the hours before you go to work and then again in the hours after the kids are in bed is crazy - but it is just you do when you're an adult.  Blargh, it sucks sometimes though.  Sometimes when I just veg out and watch football or a move I feel like I'm wasting so much time; it's so hard to remember that you absolutely must have down time.  

So, to add to the randomness, I'll talk about a movie I watched last night (between 2am and 5am while I was up suffering from a terrible sick stomach), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."  First of all, it wasn't a great movie.  I think the gross out jokes have been done better and with more finesse but whatever.  It did get a lot better towards the end and I'll give it a thumbs up because I've been a sappy romantic of late.  As I was laying on the couch after the movie ended (trying not to poop my pants), I realized that the movie sort of touched me because it was similar to the story of how I fell in love with Aimee.  I know this is crazy, but I sort of had my own Sarah Marshall (though not nearly as attractive or wealthy as Veronica Mars and much, much taller).  I realized this when I heard the line in the movie where one of the guys described his relationship with Sarah Marshall as 'time served' or something like that.  I was totally whipped by my ex and it took her throwing me away to really free myself from her.  When I was recovering but still in love I met Aimee and she was totally the 'cool Hawaiian chick' from the movie.  Like the characters in the movie, we just sort of accidentally fell in love with each other and before I knew it I couldn't imagine life without her.  I'm not really sure what my Vampire puppet opera was but I'm sure I could come up with something if I tried really hard.  Either way, in the end I found my Aimee and there couldn't be anyone better for me :)  

Alright, have to go read about Indian immigrants - I can't wait to be done with school!

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Posted in: church,family,florida,foster care,friends,hobbies,home improvement,pregnancy,school,work

Process Discipline

So, today I realized what my life has been missing. I think that this has come to me because I have started getting a taste of it and have begun to realize how important it is to me. Discipline. When I think back, the times when I have been healthiest, happiest, most productive; I have been the most disciplined. Disciplined with what I put in my body, what I do with my body, just how I live my life. At work we might call this process discipline. It's interesting when I think about how easy it is (relatively speaking) to take in foster kids and turn their lives around with just a little bit of discipline. I'm not even talking about discipline in terms of punishment or whatever, though it is amazing how a little dose of the time-out chair will turn children around. What I am talking about is the regular discipline of bathing, eating, brushing teeth, hugging, speaking, all of the hundreds of little things that we take for granted in life. Going to bed at the same time, having a set amount of time to eat dinner, feeding the dogs every day, these seem like such small little things but when are disciplined about doing them every day they can have a transformative effect on your life, or the life of your children. I hate to make this comparison, but I think children aren't that much different from dogs in that they crave structure and discipline. Having to feed the dogs every morning seems like a chore that you would regret but for children that have never been responsible for anything or had something they can count on every single day it can literally turn their whole life around. Children obviously learn so much faster than dogs and they pass through the phase and move onto greater challenges but I think that the comparison is valid for a certain stage of life.

At any rate, this is something that I am missing in my life.  Maybe instead of referring to it as discipline, I will refer to it as living an intentional life.  It's interesting to me that this is the terminology that we use in seminary and also the same that we used in Aikido.  Aikido is really what got me thinking about it.  I was the healthiest I have ever been when I was practicing and I have been missing it lately.  I don't think it was solely the physical activity, I believe that a big part of it was the intentional manner in which I went through my daily life when I was heavy into practice.  Taking off my shoes when I enter a house and placing them neatly against the wall instead of just lumping them into a basket.  Having a regiment of movements and exercises that I did at different times during the day.  I had a class in seminary that required a certain amount of this effort as well, and it produced similar results which leads me to believe that it is not solely physical in nature.  Waking up every morning and spending a short period of time in reflection.  Having a meditation that I performed every night before bed.  I have started modifying my life to be more intentional over the past month or so and I believe it has already caused things to turn around.  Simple things like the pill box I put together has gotten me on track with my medicine and vitamins, a simple evaluation of my spending every night has resulted in us having more money, with no noticeable change in lifestyle.  Riding the bus has introduced a regularity of schedule that has caused me to be more productive at work, I think.  All in all, I am going to be looking for more discipline (intention) in my life.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the benefits with family and friends...I am notoriously lazy so I hope I can maintain.  Hopefully writing here will only help things.  

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Posted in: exercise,foster care,hobbies,school,work

Thanksgiving Day et al

Well, we had an interesting Thanksgiving. Work leading up to the holiday was sort of ridiculous, so many crazy things were expected and they were pressuring us to do things on production even though we had a 'code freeze', which really just means we're not supposed to do anything on production. Anyways, who cares about that - let's talk turkey! Heh, I went out to a few stores Wednesday night because I was afraid I didn't have enough peanut oil. I knew that Wal-Mart would have it but I hate that store with a passion and normally do everything I can to avoid. This night, though, it couldn't be avoided. So I went to Wal-queda and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think I have figured out how to shop there. Wear headphones. If I can avoid hearing people and just pretend that I'm in a foreign country where people don't obey the same rules of etiquette and personal hygiene that I am accustomed to I can manage to get in and out without going nuts. So I got the stuff I needed and headed home. Thursday morning I got up early and baked bread, made a nice breakfast with some young fried brown eggs-yum. Got the turkey fryer set up and spend the early morning cleaning up the house and back yard. After frying the turkey, we wrapped it up and went to our friends' house. I brought some of the little 'cocktail-smoky' pigs-in-a-blanket that my mom likes to make and they were a huge hit! Everyone loved my turkey, I got zero leftovers...they demolished that thing! It was a fun dinner, I really like the Wassons and family, they are such good people and so nice to invite us into their family. They're pretty close to my age too, which is nice for a change. After that we went over to Mike and Emily's new house, they are already decorated for Christmas(!) and it was so cute. We played some games and stayed until about 9:30, then headed home. All in all it was a fun day. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night coughing up a lung. For some reason when the weather turns I can't stay well. I had a hard time breathing and sat up for a couple of hours trying to calm down. I watched 'Wanted' during that time, which was a surprisingly decent movie. Then I went to sleep on the couch. I am so scared that I am going to get Aimes really sick. Then we had to get up early this morning for a visit from CPS and so I did some dishes and helped straighten up the house. Then, it was off to bed again - I slept until 12! I never do that ... so I guess I'm really sick. Then I got up, watched some football (Boy LSU sucks this year) and went out to work on my truck. Bad news, the alternator checks out so I have no idea why it is eating batteries. I guess there is a short somewhere...ugh. If it isn't one thing it's another. I wonder if life is always going to be like this? Always behind the 8 ball.

Anyways, I am home now, resting, and hopefully about to eat dinner. Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Posted in: family,foster care,friends,work

Craptastic

Well today capped off a pretty freaking rotten week. I'm really not even sure how long I have felt like things sucked, and there have been periods of time when it was great, but overall it has been the suck. I have been behind in school and it feels like things just pile up around the house. Aimee hasn't felt well either so that just compounds everything. Ugh, I don't even know what to say other than I just wanted to freaking write on here and say ugh. UGH. My truck also broke down today. I took the last half of the day off of work since I worked this weekend and put in a 12 hour day yesterday. Oh well, thank goodness for valleymetro. It is nice to just be able to jump on a bus and get where I need to go.

Oh well, I'm done - I didn't even rant, I just wanted to UGH at you. UGH UGH UGH.

In other news, Tim came over last night and we ate chili. It was grand.

UGH.

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Posted in: foster care,friends,pregnancy,school,work

Ugh

So I'm sick. I went home from work on Friday with a sick stomach, I was hoping and praying it was something I ate. Turns out it wasn't. I spent the whole weekend just sick enough to feel like crap but not sick enough to warrant staying in bed all day. Of course, it hit its peak on Monday and I just felt like absolute garbage all day. Now it has progressed to my lungs and I have kind of a yucky cough and that strange feeling like my lungs are full of glass. I sure hate that. Of course it is made worse by the fact that Aimee is pregnant. I have been sleeping on the couch and generally avoiding being close to her because I don't want to get her sick. The worst part is waking up in the morning and taking care of the girls while Aimee gets ready for work. To cap it off things at work have been sort of stressful and of course I have like 900 things to read and write about for school. Last night I had to finish up my paper on Judaism and I just couldn't manage it without a nap so I laid down on the couch just about 30 minutes after I got home from work and went to sleep. That did the trick and when I woke up I finished the darn thing and emailed it to my prof. I hope it doesn't suck (it does suck, but I figure if I pray enough maybe God will change all the words around and somehow when the teacher reads it somehow it will make sense).

On a side note, I have been super bummed out lately that the guys that broke into our house stole my cameras. I finally bought a little point and shoot type of camera like our old one so at least we'll be able to get some pics and movies of the kids and Aimee's pregnancy. (just so I don't forget, I should point out that right now Ave and Rosa are sitting on the floor going 'Daaa da da da da Gooo Gators!' over and over and over again) I was planning on inviting our friends over and taking Christmas portraits, I don't know if there is anyway I will be able to get a decent camera by then. It really bums me out thinking of all the crap I sold on Craigslist and eBay to get the money for the kit I had. My biggest problem, of course, is that I don't want to spend all of that money and get the same camera I had before. It is now 2 models behind the latest and greatest. I definitely got to the point before it was taken that I was running up against its limitations. The nice thing about the SLR is that I had a nice collection of lenses that would would have worked with a brand new body when I decided to upgrade, but now they are gone. It is frustrating. Anyways, I know this is a very first world problem to have and I shouldn't complain ... especially since the economy is in the pooper and people are getting laid off left and right. Ah well, if only I was perfect :)

I had started writing a long piece here about the election but I think I'll save that until later.  I know you guys can only stand for me to bloviate for so long :) 

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Posted in: family,hobbies,school,work

Someone has a case of the Mondays :(

Well, it's Monday. I guess the only good thing you can say about Mondays is I get to work from home. It's nice to not have to get up and get cleaned up and head into work on Monday mornings, it's sort of like having a 'practice' day for the rest of the week. Get up, get the kids off to school and come back home with a donut from QT (Krispy Kreme yay!) and a Diet Coke and sit down to the computer to go over my email from the weekend. I have a pretty nice office at home, but it can be hot as blazes this time of year. Plus, it's on a separate A/C ( a window unit) and I can just feel money burning out of my wallet when it runs during the day. Anyways, it's quiet and Aimee and the kids know not to really bother me when I'm in there working os it works out well.

In other news, my mom is here this whole week. Yay! It's so nice having her around, I wish sometimes that she just lived here with us :( The girls love having a grandma so much, and it's so nice to have family around. I don't even think we'd mind having her just live with us in the same house...heh, she'd probably go crazy though having to live in our house with our crazy style.

Life has been interesting lately, we have a lot going on and it seems like we have no one to talk to about it all. I know some of the reasons why, but it just seems like the Wickershams are alone an awful lot these days. On top of that, I have been sick for like 3 weeks now. I guess I need to break down and just go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor though. I know I have friends that are doctors, so I'm sorry if you read this. I think I have written about this before, but the doctor always tells me two things. "It's a virus and there's nothing I can do." This is sometimes accompanied by, "I'm going to give you antibiotics for no real reason other than you might get an infection to accompany your virus." This really pisses me off, btw. The second is, "You're too fat." Now, I know I'm fat but I really don't think that every illness I've had since I was 15 stems from the fact that I'm overweight. Apparently, I'm 'morbidly obese' because I'm 5'8" and I way 200 pounds. Even when I was really trim and fit and ran and did Aikido 3 times a week I weighed 180 pounds. Ironically, I went to the doctor then when I was hard as a rock and in the best shape I've been in since college and the doctor told me I was sick because I was too fat. Whatever, I won't keep ranting about this, my point was just that I'm sure when I go to the doctor they're going to tell me I have a virus and I'm too fat and that's why I can't get rid of this rattling cough I've had for 3 weeks.

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Posted in: family,friends,work

Well, it's Saturday

Today is going to be a busy day. Our 4 best friends are all moving (luckily they only live in 2 different houses :) and I'm looking forward to a big day of helping. I love moving. It's weird, I think it's because my whole life people in my family have moved constantly. It's like a big fun family thing when people move. It's also Memorial Day weekend, which will bring welcome relief from work. The weather is also beautiful, which is really strange because it should be hot as balls right about now (knock on wood) in Phoenix. Seriously, last night we were freezing, it dipped down into the low 50's overnight and I don't think it's slated to go much over 70 today. It must be all those college kids bringing their midwestern weather back for us (thanks nicole!).

Speaking of work, yesterday was so hard. It seems like things have been coming to a head for 2 weeks at work and nothing happens (that's what she said). Yesterday there was a big ordeal about some stupid database userid and it caused a commotion in 3 different teams that wound up getting a bunch of directors in a room arguing for an hour. There are things I love about my job and things I hate, yesterday I hated it. It didn't help that during the middle of the day I had to take Mercedes across town for a hair appointment during my lunch break, which meant I didn't get to eat lunch, which meant I was cranky and irritable all day long. There was also a huge mixup around the payment for said hair which I won't get into but it did not help things at all. I have such mixed emotions about weddings in general, I won't get into it because I know it's not a good time to talk about it. It makes me a bit nervous because I'm officiating a wedding in October for one of my best friends who shares my opinions on marriage almost to a tee. This would be a great thing but I'm not sure his wife does and it might be incredibly stressful for everyone involved if things don't go well. I'll just say for the two of them that I hope they can remember that the wedding is supposed to be a joyous occasion that is about sharing your love and commitment with God, family, and friends. No one will remember whether you had wine from Costco or some fancy vineyard in California. Also, I really like cream puffs and shrimp, I have never been to a wedding that had creme puffs and shrimp that I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

Enough on weddings, I'll just say that I'm glad it's saturday and I don't have to think about weddings or work for 3 whole days. I'm really excited to get to moving, so I'm gonna jet and start getting Mercedes' new room in order!

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Posted in: family,florida,friends,work

Valley Metro

So, I like to ride the bus. Interesting people, saves on gas, don't feel as bad about having a big truck, it's nice to get a mile of walking in every day. I also enjoy not driving in Phoenix. Aimee can definitely tell when I've ridden the bus and when I've driven, because when I get home from work I have a completely different attitude. Plus, it's incredibly convenient in this city. For those of you that haven't lived outside of PHX, there aren't buses roaming around every city like they do here. Matt can attest to that. They have(had) several convenient ways to pay as well. You could buy a monthly pass that basically let you ride as much as you want whenever you want for one low monthly fee (I think it was somewhere between 30 and 45 bucks). For me, the best thing they had going were the 'tickets'. These were books of tickets that were basically one way passes. They didn't expire (hah, yeah right) and you didn't run the risk of using them to buy a coke at work when you were really tired. I think they dropped the price from 1.25 per ride to 1.20 but that wasn't really the impetus for using them. So I haven't really been riding since I had the kids, since I take them to school in the morning but I've been looking forward to riding again this summer.

Well, when my truck was broken I grabbed a few tickets and headed down to my bus stop. Lo and behold, over the winter they revamped their fee-structure and INVALIDATED MY TICKETS! Now that really pisses me off. There is no reason why they couldn't continue to accept them for some REASONABLE amount of time and I can't imagine that they would EVER make it so you couldn't trade them out for the new tickets. Some more info (mainly for Matt, who is probably the only one who cares): One way fare is still 1.25, however they no longer issue transfers so your 1.25 gives you EXACTLY one ride. You get off the bus, you pay again. For 2.50 you can buy an 'all day pass' which lets you ride all day long (duh). So really, this is better for me because I used to pay 2.50 for 2 one way trips each day and if I wanted to ride to the mall or something for lunch I had to pay again. They sell books of one day pass 'tickets' @ 12.50 for 5 (which is basically the same as the 10 ticket books they used to sell. They now also sell 3, 7, and 31 day passes which I guess are good deals if that's what you need. All in all, I think it's a good thing because, frankly, the bus has been too cheap. If you look at a bus ride in any major metropolis I think you'll find that 2.50 for a whole day is still a steal.

So here is my gripe. Dec 2007: new rate plan goes into effect, Valley Metro stops selling tickets. Jan 2008 - March 2008: they 'blast' the (old) media telling people the fares are changing and (supposedly) tell you that you should cash in your old tickets because they are no longer going to work. April 2008: Any tickets you have from the 'old' (3 months ago) system are now garbage. Keep in mind that Phoenix is a city full of people who leave for months at a time. Admittedly, most of these people are here during the winter, but seriously, 3 months? And I never received a letter in the mail even though I purchase tickets all the time? No email, even though they have my email for purchase confirmations? What harm is there in allowing the old tickets to be traded in for, what, a year? Who cares? Even if you just allow them to be traded 2 for 1 for the new all day tickets. These things can represent a serious investment for some people. I bought them 4 books at a time...that was 48 dollars! All of the sudden they're garbage because I didn't ride the bus over the winter? I called in to complain and seek some sort of restitution but, alas, I was told to pound sand. Repeatedly, and by managers 2 levels up. I rode the bus home tuesday in a VERY bad mood (mainly because I had to borrow bus money) :(

Well, let me end this by saying I'm very pleased with Valley Metro (didn't expect that, didja?) I wrote them a letter stating very clearly my position and why I was unhappy with them. I told them that I was an advocate in my professional environment for riding the bus and I felt let down. I told them exactly what I wanted, which was a cashless trade; ticket for ticket. Well this morning, I received a phone call from Andrea, who told me that they would certainly trade me new tickets for old, and they were sorry for any inconvenience. At this point, I don't even care whether or not I get the new tickets (ok, I do) I'm just happy that they aren't completely unreasonable.

Good times.

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Posted in: friends,work

Crazy day

Well, today was an interesting day.  Lots happened, it's hard to believe it was only one day's worth of stuff.  First off, my truck was still not working this morning so I just rode the bus.  I found out that they no longer take the tickets I have so I almost didn't get to ride.  Luckily, I had a buck twenty-five and could ride it to work.  I called and bitched out the customer service people and they didn't care. I probably have $30 worth of those darn tickets (thanks Matt).  I wrote the customer service email address and explained why I think it's ridiculous that they won't trade them out at all for the new tickets.  We'll see how that pans out.  

When I got to work I had to give a demo of the project I've been working on to my new manager and the director of our group.  It was kind of a big deal and I was a little nervous but it went well (no crashes and no obvious bugs during the demo).  Aimee got really sick so I had to come home instead of going to church for a meeting (sorry Gena).  I had a bright idea about my truck and went out and just fixed it.  Straight up fixed.  Amen.  I can't believe I didn't see the problem earlier but I'm just glad it's fixed.  I had to go drop off Aimee's homework and pick up some lumber because the guy is coming tomorrow to fill in the window in the living room.  Fun Times!

Meanwhile, I was a little bored at work at the end of the day since I'm in the middle of few different tasks and didn't want to start something new.  So I just randomly decided to search for this guy I used to know on the internet.  A little background; when I was in junior high I had a pretty tight group of friends.  Well, this one guy had to move to Ohio all of the sudden with his family and it was like BAM he was gone.  I was never able to really keep in touch with him and my friends and I always wondered what happened with him.  When I was in college and discovered the web I thought for sure this guy would be on there.  So I searched and searched but couldn't find him.  Every year I got a bug in me and searched for him but never turned anything up.  Well for some reason today my google juice was flowing and I found a posting on a linux user group by a guy with the right name and I just emailed him.  BINGO!  It was crazy, I emailed all of my old group of friends his info and we played catch up.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm gonna get all the rest of the stuff done that I was planning on doing tonight!  

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Posted in: family,florida,friends,home improvement,work