OUR LIFE IN 3D

Once Upon A Time….

Once upon a time, there lived this queen and a troll. Their first home together had everything they needed at the time, a big backyard, nice wooden cabinets, a fireplace, running water, and a roof.

But over time that house began to sink into the murk of their surroundings. The walls began to buckle. The lovely wood started to age and then decay. Their running water only ran cold…in the middle of winter. And their neighborhood may not have been the best place to educate the fine young minds of their two Princesses.

Something had to change!

They dreamed of a castle facing the sun, overlooking green fields and a calm pool of water. But every step they took they found their foot landing in something else entirely!

Yes, that seems to be the craziness of our lives lately, made to feel like an ogre as society keeps dumping on me. (sniff, sniff) I think I told you about everyone needing more money from us last week. Undaunted, we are still moving forward.

We moved all the furniture and pictures out of our living room, bedroom and hallways last weekend. So I have no computer to do posts. Plus I have to sleep in our Inlaws room this week with that ol’ forgotten mattress. I’ve had a kink in my neck ever since! You know the one…the one that makes it hurt to turn your head, lift things up, or roll your eyes at your wife. Yea. Moving is just not a fun thing to do!

But my blues are not limited to the moving. Here are the other Top 5 things that have eaten at me the past two weeks:

1. Caught the flu – for 18 hours but then an infection lingered for 10 more days. (cough, cough)
2. EVERY TIME I come home from work I get beaten up by my girls! Sure it all starts innocently enough with screams of, “Daddy’s home!” But then it all goes south as my oldest one crinkles her nose and threatens, “I’m gonna bust you up!” while my youngest takes great joy at “whackin’ my bottom”. She takes great pride at this skill.  ~ No respect!
3. Our youngest didn’t go to sleep until 4:00am last Tuesday. (!) She kept on creeping out of bed into our room and her sister’s. Of course if she’s not sleeping neither are we. Yes, we put her back in bed and threaten with bloody heck. But then I find myself lying awake, waiting to see if she gets out of bed again. These kids today! I never did that…I think.
4. This week the girls are forced to sleep together, with us moving into the spare bedroom. They, unfortunately, take this literally and our youngest likes to crawl in bed with the oldest…while she’s sleeping. Dylan came to get us at 2:00am. Then at 4:30 we heard the giggles and the chatting start again…while I lay awake with a crink in my neck and now muscle spasms from being too old to sleep on Grandma’s mattress.
5. Did I tell you I come home every night only to get beat up by my oldest and get my bottom whacked by my youngest and then there is no TV or computer to retreat to in order to unwhine / unwind before we go to bed in that nasty old bed that has no support what so ever for your neck and spine while I lay awake, in pain, wondering what ‘this’ night is going to bring after all the lights go out and planning a stategy for how I am going to get ot of bed in the morning??

Phew! That’s been life the past two weeks. But don’t get me wrong…..I don’t want to sound like a (big) whiner  with these moving ‘lows’! There have actually been some bright ‘highs’ these past few weeks as well. Take a look:

1. I can still beat my two girls at ‘Simon Says’. Did I tell you my TV is packed up this week? I upped my game!
2. I had to run to get milk and a few other things mid-week last week as we ran out early. I was actually quizzed by my wife on ‘how to shop’ to make sure I was getting the best deal! She IS a savvy shopper! Guess what? I failed! (meaning I didn’t have to go)
3. We made reservations for our summer vacay last week. It’s at a great family resort on the Jersey shore miracoulously spared by Sandy.

See future posts on this at the new “Travel Blog”  I am trying to create on my site…with YOUR help.

4. Our favorite house we were looking at, one of the one’s with the pool, was just reduced $14,000 last week. 

5. I was trying to explain the flow of hot air and cold air to Dylan one particularly cold night. I told her how the hot air rises to the secong floor and the cold air from there comes down to our room below, making the heater have to run harder. Dylan explains, “Its OK Daddy. I love hot air and I love cold air. You see, when you mix them both together it feels great!” 

6. Last week I had two region wide shouts , via email, based on some ideas I had and my performance. The emails were circulated all the way to our region VP’s. This week I was asked to join a corproate panel of 20 executives in our Logistics and Distribution departments focused on innovative ideas to save money for the company. The Director inviting me to join the panel tried to explain that it is an old panel set up 5-6 years ago. I reassured him that I would fit in quite nicely as I was kinda old myself!

7. Working for this snack food giant, I set Personal Bests in Christmas Cookies consumed, topping out at a full box last Monday(sigh). 

The second PB is I have been on the cookie wagon ever since. I have not had one single cookie, although there are still plenty around! 

8. Its been warm enough on a few days where I can hop on my bike over lunch and ride a few miles down to our favorite development and shop for houses. That has been a lot of fun and kinda vital based on #7 above! 

9. My post last week, Party Time, set a record  high for ‘Likes’ in one day.

The party crew: Dylan, holding Ariel in her PJ’s, Eric, and King Triton

~ OK, the record was just for my blog, not all of WordPress.

10. And while my blog has not seen a lot of fresh or creative ideas run across these pages the past two weeks (see #’s 1-5 in the section above) I actually did 3 Guest Posts for some of my favorite blogs the past few weeks, as well as having a few reblogs to other sites. Kinda cool I thought! 

11. Last week, our nanny wanted to take our two little cherubs to a Valentine’s party at the First Grade class her sister teaches. A big reason for doing this is that she wanted our 4 year old Dylan to READ to the rest of the First Grade class. She says Dylan already reads better than most of the first graders there. (Yeahhh!)

Speaking of Guest Posts, I am trying to create some Travel interest on this blog. We love to travel as a family, not doing it nearly as often as we would like. So I wanted to invite YOU to do a Guest Post on one of your favorite trips you would like to share.

Or, if you already did a post on a great trip, please let me know and I can reblog it here. I know some of you are real good at writing these travel stories. I think its one way for all of us to see parts of the world without leaving the comforts of our own computers. Think about it! Where would you like to share?