• Pet Peeves

    Living with a bunch of house guests this past month had really exposed a bunch of pet peeves that I have.

    • I hate when the toilet seat is left up.
    • I hate when the toilet paper roll is put on wrong. (paper goes over, not under).
    • I hate when lights and TV are left on when nobody is watching them or in that room.
    • I hate when someone fills the dishwasher wrong and nothing comes clean.
    • I hate when someone puts dishes away in the wrong places.
    • I hate when knives are facing the wrong way and are in the wrong spot on in the knife block.
    • I hate clutter and things that aren’t in their proper place.

    It sounds like I am full of hate, but I’m really not. I just like everything in order and in it’s place. If it’s not it drives me crazy.

    We are heading to Denver on Friday for my Sister college graduation. Everybody will still be here when we leave, but they should be moving back to the Wife’s Aunt’s house this coming weekend. I am looking forward to everything getting back to normal after our weekend in Denver, but still keeping my fingers crossed.

  • Hoping For Normalcy Soon

    Hopefully things will get back to normal around here soon. We are hoping that the Wife’s Aunt gets back into her house today. The water has gone down enough that the backway should be travelable soon. I don’t mind having houseguests, but her Aunt has been here since Easter, and Grandma and Grandpa have been here for two weeks. It’s getting a little long.

    Yesterday it was just me and the Grandparents at home all day. I am not much of a people person to begin with, but how much do I have in common with an 80 year old? I didn’t have much to talk about. Grandpa pretty much watched TV all day as I sat on my computers. Grandma isn’t doing so hot, but the cancer hasn’t spread as far as they had feared. She had surgery Wednesday, and is on a feeding tube now. Grandpa was in charge of keeping her fed.

    I on the other hand was in charge of keeping Grandpa fed. He is obviously from a different generation than me. He has nothing to do with the kitchen. He wont cook. He wont even nuke leftovers, or even make coffee. He is totally a nice guy, but all his life the kitchen as been the “women’s place”. Plus I am sure he feel out of place, and doesn’t know where anything is in our kitchen. I didn’t really know what to cook, so we had leftovers for lunch, and I just ordered a pizza for supper.

    It was a little weird when lunch time came, and right at noon he walked into my computer room and told me it was time for lunch. He is pretty much programed to eat the same time every day. Not that that’s a big deal, I know I have my little quirks too.

    Today should be another busy day. More of the wife’s family is coming to visit from the east coast. They will only be here for the day to visit though, as they fly back tomorrow. I am really looking for things to get back to normal around here soon.

  • Bad News

    The roads are still flooded by my Wife’s Aunts house. It sounds like she is going to be living with us a few more weeks until the water goes down. This weekend we learned some bad news that is going to bring even more house guests for who knows how long.

    My Wife’s, Grandpa’s Wife has esophageal cancer. It’s going to be pretty tough on my Wife’s Grandpa. His previous Wife died of cancer 20 years ago, and now he has to go through it all again. She probably isn’t going to last long though. It’s in her esophagus and as spread to her lymph nodes, lungs, and possible her liver. That would be tough for a young person to fight off, let alone an 80 year old.

    They are from a small town in northern Minnesota, so they will be staying with us for a while as she is going to have treatment done at the Roger Maris Cancer Center here in Fargo. It will inconvenience us a bit, but it’s the least we could do to help the family out.

  • Weekend With Crazy Family

    We just got home from spending the weekend with my family. We went to the Water Park of America. It was pretty cool. They say it’s the largest indoor water park in the US. We had a great time in the water park, but I am a little sore now and have a black eye. Coming down one of the slides my face smacked into the back of the Wife’s head. That didn’t feel too good.

    The worst part about the weekend was dealing with my family. I totally disagree with my Mom, Brother, and Sister-in-Law on most subjects is seems like. I just kept my mouth shut most of the time. They are so close minded it does no good to state my points. They are so against all prescription drugs. They think their only point is to make the drug companies money. I agree that drug companies push them to a point, but many people do actually need them for certain things. That have even bought into the whole antivaxxer movement. They believe all the non-sence that they cause autism. The funny thing is they all take a bunch of vitamins and herbal crap that pretty much only line the pockets of the salesmen.

    They are also all Jesus freaks. They were talking about how good the movie Fireproof was. I normally couldn’t care less about what actors beliefs are, but I have a hard time with Kirk Cameron. I have seen some of his anti-evolution nonsense videos, so I refuse to watch anything he is in. It’s pretty save to say I wouldn’t like anything he ever does anyway.

    For being Christians they are also so full of hate. They pretty much believe that anybody that isn’t American, white, straight, and not from California, are out to destroy our country. I had to bite my lip on many occasions for their idiotic comments.

    Don’t even get me started on their love for Fox News. I sat through about 5 minutes of that crap and I had to leave the room. I’m sorry, I like my news to actually contain facts and you can keep your idiotic opinions to your self. I am smart enough to come up with my own thank you.

    I love my family, but sometimes I think I am adopted.

  • Off to See Wicked

    I have this weekend off, but it going to be a busy one.

    We are heading back to our home town for the weekend.

    My Mom recently bought a piano, and she wants to get rid of her china hutch to make room for the piano, so we are taking the hutch. It would be tough to pack for the weekend and get everything in the cab of my truck, so we rented a trailer for the hutch. They wanted $133 to rent a trailer to haul one way, but only $15 a day if we bring it back to the same place we rented it from. So we will be towing the trailer there and back.

    So we will be spending Friday night and Saturday with friends and family. Then Sunday we have tickets to see Wicked down in Minneapolis. Erica went to it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, so I am sure we will have fun.

    We will then have a long drive back to get home in time for work on Monday morning. I am hoping the weather is good. So far they are just say flurries for Sunday.

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    I hope everybody is having a happy Thanksgiving. I wish we were having Thanksgiving. I have been married eight years, and it is still weird when I miss a holiday with my family. My family has rock solid traditions. Thanksgiving dinner is always on Thanksgiving, at Grandma’s house, at noon, not 11:30, not 12:30, but noon. Now it’s been moved to my Aunts house since my Grandma is getting up there in age and has downsized to an apartment.

    The Wife’s family celebrates holidays on different days sometimes to work with people’s schedules, so I won’t get my Thanksgiving dinner until Saturday. They also don’t have lutefisk, or lefse, because nobody likes them. I don’t know how they can be Norwegians and not like them. I guess I will have to do without this year.

    It was a beautiful day out today. It got up into the 40s, so I took advantage of it and got our Christmas lights up.

    Now I gotta find something to eat and watch some football for the rest of the day.

  • Thanksgiving Weekend

    This year we are spending Thanksgiving with the Wife’s family. We usually go to her Aunts house here in Fargo. Fargo is pretty centrally located for our families, so everybody heads here. Well, her Aunt’s house is a mess because they are remodeling a couple of rooms. That means everybody is going to be at our house. I hate having a house full of people. Our house is also smaller than her Aunt’s, so it’s going to be a little crowded. We are putting heaters and tables in the garage so everybody has a place to sit and eat. My job today is to clean and sweep out the garage. The Wife said she is going to handle everything else, so that’s cool. I will be glad when it’s all done.

    Thankfully this is all going to happen on Saturday and I have to work. I will miss out on all the fun. Shucks.

  • Adoption Update

    I have been kinda bummed out lately. We had to take this Talor-Johnson test for part of our adoption process. We didn’t think much of it. The wife and I both get along great. We know we will be great parents.

    last Thursday we got to see the results. I thought it was kind of a joke. There was a little sine wave on the chart of where we should be, and both the wife and I were totally opposite of it. WTF? Now we have to put the whole thing on hold for six months and see a marriage counselor. WTF? I don’t see how or what that stupid test sees. I don’t even know what we are suppose to talk about with a counselor. We don’t have any problems, or I guess we don’t have any problems that we know about. That test much be super awesome and finds our future problems. Whatever.

    It almost makes me want to say fuck it and forget about the whole adoption thing. The process is a pain in the ass. Tons of pointless hoops to jump through. it’s no wonder more people don’t adopt more often.

  • He is Out (Hopefully)

    So we game my Brother-in-law a three month noticed that we wanted him to move out. In that three months his didn’t look for a place at all. We were nice and gave him one more month, and he still hasn’t starting looking, and now that college is starting, all the cheap apartments are gone. When he got his current job he said it paid pretty good, so he quit his other part time job. This week we found out that his pretty good is only $8.50. I don’t know how a person could live on $8.50. I think him telling us was his way to try and buy more time here. A couple months ago he got a speeding ticket, so now his parents are making him pay his own insurance, he also got his second minor a couple months ago, so he has that fine to pay off, plus he has been putting off his student loans as long as possible and has to start paying on those. Basically after all his bills he would be left with $300 for rent and spending money. Not really enough to live off of. We kinda felt bad kicking him out, but he has known about it for months.

    Today the Wife talked to her Aunt, and she agree to have him move in with her until January when a few of his bills will be paid off, and hopefully he finds a better job.

    He should listen and follow his Aunts rules better than his sisters. I am sure she will charge something for rent and food. She wont put up with the phone ringing all hours of the night. I don’t think she will put up with his coming home at three in the morning and waking the whole house up. They have four dogs, they will wake the whole house up.

    These are all things that my Wife has gotten on his case about, but he just ignores her.

    My fingers are still crossed. I will believe it when it happens, but it is sure looking like it’s going to happen soon.