The race was great, Amy and I managed to get most of the beers before the boys did, we are so good at this.
And of Course - Tony Won!
Monday, July 30, 2007
Brickyard 400
For the 2nd year, Dave, Amy, Rich and myself were off the Brickyard 400. It was a sweltering hot day and we were grateful for the seats under the stands! Surrounded by Jeff Gordon fans, I proudly wore my Tony Stewart shirt, they were not all happy.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Whew! Another stressful day
Work is 24/7, my mind reeling with all the tasks needing to be accomplished, support to be given and engaging everyone of my skills to keep them all juggling. It does get tough at times. The two biggest items on my plate, Kelsey getting an endoscopy and moving the hosting servers for work. Both truly require my full attention.
Kelsey, if you have read previously was suspected have had ulcers, she was going in for an endoscopy to verify this and to what extent. Selfishly I was again putting work before my family and had been considering canceling and re-scheduling this because as life always likes intervene, the final move and her endoscopy fell on the same day. I am so glad I didn't. She was scheduled for early in the morning so it meant we had to be up and out to go downtown. Jarod wanted to go along and to my surprise, he was up and moving, a little sluggish. Kelsey understandably was scared, but overall was a true trooper. I got to participate along with her in tasting the nasty medicine she had to hold in her throat for numbing (I tasted it, its truly nasty). Off I went to wait with Jarod. I don't know how long had past and they came and got us. She was in recovering, drowsy from the meds and just as silly as could be. The Dr. came in and let us know what was going on, not good but manageable. Poor girl had been suffering with a small intestine & 3 stomach ulcers along with an inflamed esophagus. The plan of action, medicine and absolutely NO, NO ibuprofen and aspirin, this was the probably the root cause of her troubles. I feel responsible for this, both girls use ibuprofen on a regular basis for their various sports related injuries and bruises. Ice and ibuprofen was my usual response for first level of treatment. This ain't all bad, but not good on a regular basis especially when taken on empty stomachs. Learn and live. Tylenol is safest on your innards just in case you wanted to know.
As she was getting awake enough to get her moving, she realized she was hungry, still being silly from the meds, a very quick litany of food thoughts spewed from her mouth.......oh I want, two mcdonald cheeseburgers, no taco bell, no arby's, hardees oh I am so hungry. We settled on Denny's and proceeded to head out. She didn't eat, tried, but when it finally came down to it, she was still not fully up from everything. Off home to get her settled I was forced to leave her at home in the care of Jarod with explicit instructions to keep her down....don't let her do anything!!!!
Off to work I went, my mind switching gears and trying to figure out what order and items still need to be completed to get the servers moved. Moving servers is difficult, it's like unplugging a hugely sophisticated stereo system, throwing all the cables in a box, mixing them up a bit and then trying to resemble it all in its new home - remembering everything that had to be moved, components that need to be connected and testing it all to make it worked. Thankfully for myself I am organizer, it makes my brain be able to focus on getting the tasks done rather what needs to be done.
I arrived to my new recently moved office with my computer system running, files/supplies in boxes with construction workers all over the place. I tried to get going but damn, its pretty hard, already stressed, and trying to think when you have people working on ductwork over your head and full blown construction work happening all around you. Interrupted twice for them to work over my cube after just being there an hour, the many tasks that needed to be done, I and another choose to head out knowing we could better focus elsewhere. Back in the car again, by this time I have already put a good 100 miles on the car, stress building for the days events and worry about Kelsey.
What do I arrive to? My biggest fear, Kelsey is up and baking banana bread and doing laundry....where is Jarod, the boy was passed out. I allowed her to finish and ordered her back to bed where with my fussing out to her to stay down, she did. With a school meeting that evening, I got straight into getting everything setup for the server move, its an orchestration with trying to keep everyone on the same page and trying to account for everything that might go wrong, the move was to occur at 6pm. With my plan in hand to minimize downtime on the site, everyone notified, feeling satisfied I done what I could do, I left for the meeting .
Boring meeting, but necessary - school starts in a few weeks - Alex being a freshman, its required - course I was distracted the whole time hoping everything with the move was going smoothly and that we had covered all bases.
Meeting over, straight to my computer (its sick sometimes, I know this) I checked in with my developer who assists i - uh oh, trouble in paradise....plans had been changed without my knowledge, the result the site was down and that was a problem, ultimately my problem. Oh God, why do you do this to me, hey I am strong, but come on...give me a break here - a girl can only handle so much. Well, again, best laid plans and a change of plans it didn't happen that way. essentially by midnight everything was down on something that was completely out of my control, I would have to wait until morning to deal with ramifications and work on getting things fixed....Kelsey thankfully been following my instructions remained down for the rest of the day by 2am my mind slowly wound down enough to let me drop off into a fitful sleep....
Kelsey, if you have read previously was suspected have had ulcers, she was going in for an endoscopy to verify this and to what extent. Selfishly I was again putting work before my family and had been considering canceling and re-scheduling this because as life always likes intervene, the final move and her endoscopy fell on the same day. I am so glad I didn't. She was scheduled for early in the morning so it meant we had to be up and out to go downtown. Jarod wanted to go along and to my surprise, he was up and moving, a little sluggish. Kelsey understandably was scared, but overall was a true trooper. I got to participate along with her in tasting the nasty medicine she had to hold in her throat for numbing (I tasted it, its truly nasty). Off I went to wait with Jarod. I don't know how long had past and they came and got us. She was in recovering, drowsy from the meds and just as silly as could be. The Dr. came in and let us know what was going on, not good but manageable. Poor girl had been suffering with a small intestine & 3 stomach ulcers along with an inflamed esophagus. The plan of action, medicine and absolutely NO, NO ibuprofen and aspirin, this was the probably the root cause of her troubles. I feel responsible for this, both girls use ibuprofen on a regular basis for their various sports related injuries and bruises. Ice and ibuprofen was my usual response for first level of treatment. This ain't all bad, but not good on a regular basis especially when taken on empty stomachs. Learn and live. Tylenol is safest on your innards just in case you wanted to know.
As she was getting awake enough to get her moving, she realized she was hungry, still being silly from the meds, a very quick litany of food thoughts spewed from her mouth.......oh I want, two mcdonald cheeseburgers, no taco bell, no arby's, hardees oh I am so hungry. We settled on Denny's and proceeded to head out. She didn't eat, tried, but when it finally came down to it, she was still not fully up from everything. Off home to get her settled I was forced to leave her at home in the care of Jarod with explicit instructions to keep her down....don't let her do anything!!!!
Off to work I went, my mind switching gears and trying to figure out what order and items still need to be completed to get the servers moved. Moving servers is difficult, it's like unplugging a hugely sophisticated stereo system, throwing all the cables in a box, mixing them up a bit and then trying to resemble it all in its new home - remembering everything that had to be moved, components that need to be connected and testing it all to make it worked. Thankfully for myself I am organizer, it makes my brain be able to focus on getting the tasks done rather what needs to be done.
I arrived to my new recently moved office with my computer system running, files/supplies in boxes with construction workers all over the place. I tried to get going but damn, its pretty hard, already stressed, and trying to think when you have people working on ductwork over your head and full blown construction work happening all around you. Interrupted twice for them to work over my cube after just being there an hour, the many tasks that needed to be done, I and another choose to head out knowing we could better focus elsewhere. Back in the car again, by this time I have already put a good 100 miles on the car, stress building for the days events and worry about Kelsey.
What do I arrive to? My biggest fear, Kelsey is up and baking banana bread and doing laundry....where is Jarod, the boy was passed out. I allowed her to finish and ordered her back to bed where with my fussing out to her to stay down, she did. With a school meeting that evening, I got straight into getting everything setup for the server move, its an orchestration with trying to keep everyone on the same page and trying to account for everything that might go wrong, the move was to occur at 6pm. With my plan in hand to minimize downtime on the site, everyone notified, feeling satisfied I done what I could do, I left for the meeting .
Boring meeting, but necessary - school starts in a few weeks - Alex being a freshman, its required - course I was distracted the whole time hoping everything with the move was going smoothly and that we had covered all bases.
Meeting over, straight to my computer (its sick sometimes, I know this) I checked in with my developer who assists i - uh oh, trouble in paradise....plans had been changed without my knowledge, the result the site was down and that was a problem, ultimately my problem. Oh God, why do you do this to me, hey I am strong, but come on...give me a break here - a girl can only handle so much. Well, again, best laid plans and a change of plans it didn't happen that way. essentially by midnight everything was down on something that was completely out of my control, I would have to wait until morning to deal with ramifications and work on getting things fixed....Kelsey thankfully been following my instructions remained down for the rest of the day by 2am my mind slowly wound down enough to let me drop off into a fitful sleep....
Sunday, July 22, 2007
It's Cheer Camp Time
Off to IU for a 4 day Cheer Camp for Alex. She will be a Freshman basketball cheerleader for the high school this year, cheerleading is all new to me. Thankfully, if she wanted to play soccer, basketball was the only squad she could tryout for, it keeps me warm! ;)
The girls left early in the morning, loading the buses was an interesting mass organized chaos children, luggage, huge coolers, bags of food all trying to get into 2 buses and one van. Off they went. There were several items, tryouts and the such through out the week the parents could attend, on a couple I would of like to have gone down, but by the time I put in all my hours at work (stress factor 9) and drive an almost 2 hours down to where she was, I just couldn't. It did provide Alex some private, bonding away time and of course fun. I know she missed me on Monday evening.
When Thursday came along, it was the parents responsibility to pick them up. Having taken a welcomed morning off of work, i rode down with a fellow parent for the days activities. We arrived at 9am with a gaggles of cheerleaders spread all over the center. Some practicing for the competition ahead of them, some hanging out and chatting and parents slowly filtering in and getting re-acquainted. After about an hour (and parents getting restless), the show began. Each squad was to compete in three different categories for camp trophies. I settled to sitting on the track (no bleachers) with a few of my favorite cheer moms to proceed to watch the festivities. Okay, I will admit it did get a little old when you have to wait for all the squads to go through their routines before having the opportunity to view your girls.
Alex is a flyer or the person who gets lifted up and in the older squads thrown into the air. Those who know Alex are saying 'well no duh!', for those who don't, she is very petite in stature and weight. This is both fun and scary for me to watch. She is trusting a bunch of girls to lift her by either both her ankles or just one and lift her above their heads. It takes practice, communication and trust on all their parts to ensure that Alex does not drop or get hurt. All the squads had some falters and Alex's was no exception. Don't ask me which routine this is, all I know Alex went to be lifted and some mis-communication ensued, bottom line, she bowed out and starting cheering. She didn't feel safe and good for her to understand this.
Will post a couple of videos & pics soon I took with my camera, you can see we are sitting on the track right along with the kids, oh my butt after hour 1. They won 1st place for their nicely executed Pom routine.
All Cheer Routines - Alex is one nearest camera on top!
Awards (finally) and now off to the dorm to get their stuff. We grabbed lunch and back home by noon. For me it was work, back to the stress of horribly tight deadlines and expectations with no support. I have not ever seen in my life the degradation of a company's culture than I have witnessed over the past year. I try to keep focused and get done what I can and need to, I ended up working late into the evening as always.
The girls left early in the morning, loading the buses was an interesting mass organized chaos children, luggage, huge coolers, bags of food all trying to get into 2 buses and one van. Off they went. There were several items, tryouts and the such through out the week the parents could attend, on a couple I would of like to have gone down, but by the time I put in all my hours at work (stress factor 9) and drive an almost 2 hours down to where she was, I just couldn't. It did provide Alex some private, bonding away time and of course fun. I know she missed me on Monday evening.
When Thursday came along, it was the parents responsibility to pick them up. Having taken a welcomed morning off of work, i rode down with a fellow parent for the days activities. We arrived at 9am with a gaggles of cheerleaders spread all over the center. Some practicing for the competition ahead of them, some hanging out and chatting and parents slowly filtering in and getting re-acquainted. After about an hour (and parents getting restless), the show began. Each squad was to compete in three different categories for camp trophies. I settled to sitting on the track (no bleachers) with a few of my favorite cheer moms to proceed to watch the festivities. Okay, I will admit it did get a little old when you have to wait for all the squads to go through their routines before having the opportunity to view your girls.
Alex is a flyer or the person who gets lifted up and in the older squads thrown into the air. Those who know Alex are saying 'well no duh!', for those who don't, she is very petite in stature and weight. This is both fun and scary for me to watch. She is trusting a bunch of girls to lift her by either both her ankles or just one and lift her above their heads. It takes practice, communication and trust on all their parts to ensure that Alex does not drop or get hurt. All the squads had some falters and Alex's was no exception. Don't ask me which routine this is, all I know Alex went to be lifted and some mis-communication ensued, bottom line, she bowed out and starting cheering. She didn't feel safe and good for her to understand this.
Will post a couple of videos & pics soon I took with my camera, you can see we are sitting on the track right along with the kids, oh my butt after hour 1. They won 1st place for their nicely executed Pom routine.
All Cheer Routines - Alex is one nearest camera on top!
A Few Pictures
Awards (finally) and now off to the dorm to get their stuff. We grabbed lunch and back home by noon. For me it was work, back to the stress of horribly tight deadlines and expectations with no support. I have not ever seen in my life the degradation of a company's culture than I have witnessed over the past year. I try to keep focused and get done what I can and need to, I ended up working late into the evening as always.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Happy 4th!
Happy Fourth Everyone!!!
Alex headed off to the beach to spend a weekend with one of her friends, Kelsey and I headed up north to meet our new editions to the family, to celebrate my mother's day of birth and spend time with family.
First - Happy Birthday Mom, this great lady came into this world on July 3rd and this year celebrates another good year of life - hey, I won't disclose her age but she's a youngster. Our gift to her this year, the opportunity to spend time with both her daughters, new grandson's her eldest granddaughter and of course, my brother in law and Dad.
After arriving into town on the 4th, Kelsey and I tired from the hectic weeks preceeding were pretty much in the mood to just hang and relax knowing the next day we would back into the car to be headed up north. We did enjoy a mini shopping spree for baby stuff in our anticipation of meeting our new editions to the family, that is always fun and thankfully for me, someone else is using it. Fun to buy but I would no longer want to be in a position to use it!
We headed up north to the land where they say 'eh, cows roam, cheese and bratwurst are readily available. The boys are beautiful and we all took many turns holding them, loving them and visiting with Steph & Todd. They are both looking tired and doing well taking each day and its challenges as they come along. Excited we of course showered them with all our newly bought things that provided which is always fun and geez, two boys, who doesn't need super industrial need a fork-lift size box of diapers.
Though we were excited to have the opportunity we also knew that we couldn't go overboard as not to stress them out. But this allowed us to visit with Steph & Todd, something I don't get to do often enough (miss u both).
The boys are movie stars in their own rights with video and pictures being taken constantly, with no flash as not to strain or hurt their still developing eyes.
Pics available of our visit shortly.
Kelsey we found is a natural at keeping the boys calm, but on her first try to change a diaper, well I will post the video clip soon! We came back home on Saturday, Alex arrived home on Monday after some car trouble delayed their trip home. I know Alex was so upset they had to stay in Florida one more day.
I hope your holidays were as enjoyable as my own!
Alex headed off to the beach to spend a weekend with one of her friends, Kelsey and I headed up north to meet our new editions to the family, to celebrate my mother's day of birth and spend time with family.
First - Happy Birthday Mom, this great lady came into this world on July 3rd and this year celebrates another good year of life - hey, I won't disclose her age but she's a youngster. Our gift to her this year, the opportunity to spend time with both her daughters, new grandson's her eldest granddaughter and of course, my brother in law and Dad.
After arriving into town on the 4th, Kelsey and I tired from the hectic weeks preceeding were pretty much in the mood to just hang and relax knowing the next day we would back into the car to be headed up north. We did enjoy a mini shopping spree for baby stuff in our anticipation of meeting our new editions to the family, that is always fun and thankfully for me, someone else is using it. Fun to buy but I would no longer want to be in a position to use it!
We headed up north to the land where they say 'eh, cows roam, cheese and bratwurst are readily available. The boys are beautiful and we all took many turns holding them, loving them and visiting with Steph & Todd. They are both looking tired and doing well taking each day and its challenges as they come along. Excited we of course showered them with all our newly bought things that provided which is always fun and geez, two boys, who doesn't need super industrial need a fork-lift size box of diapers.
Though we were excited to have the opportunity we also knew that we couldn't go overboard as not to stress them out. But this allowed us to visit with Steph & Todd, something I don't get to do often enough (miss u both).
The boys are movie stars in their own rights with video and pictures being taken constantly, with no flash as not to strain or hurt their still developing eyes.
Pics available of our visit shortly.
Kelsey we found is a natural at keeping the boys calm, but on her first try to change a diaper, well I will post the video clip soon! We came back home on Saturday, Alex arrived home on Monday after some car trouble delayed their trip home. I know Alex was so upset they had to stay in Florida one more day.
I hope your holidays were as enjoyable as my own!
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