same ol same ol

Well I am on the computer this afternoon, so I thought I might as well put a post up here see as how I have no excuse not to. :)

There is not much going on here that is new to report, Chloe left today to go on a trip with her friend down to some amusement park, she will be back in a few days, Fayth and Fin have found a deck of cards and are busy discussing the finer points and subtleties of "war". Naomi interviewed for a job at TAMC as a receptionist. We have not heard back yet but then again things run on "Maine time" here, hurry up and wait.

I have been working in the woodshop quite a bit, I built myself a new workbench, the first real and true workbench I have every had, I never though it was that big of a deal but let me tell you hand tool work goes so much easier on this thing, and it's a beast as well, It pushes 200 lbs on its own and then when I put all the tool boxes underneath...I bet I'm pushing a half a ton. well over a 1/4 at least.

anyhow just thought I'd drop a quick note and a few pics

We all miss you, and hope to see you all as soon as possible

D

Summer is Here

well it has finally warmed up around here, temperatures up into the low 80's wooo hooo, Honestly a polar bear like myself, I just love it cool so this is hot enough for me.

Oh yes and Happy Fathers Day to all of those out there who read this from time to time, especially to you Dad. I am the man I am today because of you . . . there are no words other than, thank you and I love you.

OK away from the serious. . . This morning I decided that my daughters have pre prepped them selves for the dawning "text messaging age" with all the lol, lmao, idk, bff, and wtf around I received a Father's day card from Infinity this morning, I knew she was working on it because the construction paper is in a cabinet by our bedroom door and I heard her rummaging through it while I was still laying in bed dozing. any how I got a yellow card, construction paper folded in half, that had three purple hearts scotch taped to the inside with strips of paper that made them spring off the page and wiggle in the air. on the hearts she had written three letters H. F. and D. She then went to the cutest pains to explain to me that for sure HFD meant happy fathers day.

"are you sure it doesn't mean Happy Farts are Dry?" I asked,
"NO" she said
"Harry Finds Dinner?"
"NO!"
"Hefalumps Fly Downwards?"
To this she stopped and I got THE LOOK, the one that says "dad you are just being stupid now" As if "Happy Farts are Dry" is smarter than hefalumps and their precarious flight patterns
"Dad...It means Happy Fathers Day"
"OK OK" I said, She won, she often does.

I also got a cool castle from Fayth that she made in school and has been hiding up in her room for almost a month. That is one hell of an accomplishment for her, she can never keep a secret for more that a few minutes at best, One of the things I love about her, there is no guile in that little girl, she can be stubborn to a T, but if you ask her she will tell you exactly what she is thinking whether you like it or not

Oh I have one more Infinity Story before I get going

Naomi conned Fin into folding the laundry for her the other day,
"If you're hungry then I will make supper, but I cannot possibly make supper unless you help me fold all these clothes" not that it takes much convincing usually to get her to do stuff, but sometimes... anyhow Fin agreed and began folding clothes in the living room while Naomi made supper.

Fin would run into the kitchen every couple of minutes and ask something like "whose shirt is this?" so she could put things in te right pile, eventually it was bound to happen she came into the kitchen with a pair of my boxer briefs.

"Mom . . . whose shorts are these?"
"Honey they're not shorts, they're your daddy's underwear"
Fin looked confused for a second and then asked
"Well. . . why do they have a pocket in them?" refering to the fly.

I do not know how Naomi kept a straight face...but she explained that they are not really a pocket, that boys used the fly to pee standing up.

To this Infinity made a face that said "Oh My God Gross!!" promptly held the item at arms length and walked back into the living room, obviously sorry she had asked.

Naomi came down to where I was working in the woodshop in the basement almost in tears she was laughing so hard...

Ya sometimes life is too good

Love you and miss you all.

Well, again it has been about a month since the last update here. But I have some good news that will probably equal more updates... Time Warner finally ran a cable line down our street, and in the next few days we will be upgraded from this dial up to full on cable high speed internet woo hoo!!! it is about time, now I will be able to get some things done.

Memorial Day weekend was funny, I felt like I needed to do something, I was very restless leading up to the weekend and I couldn't figure out why... well I guess over the last two years I've conditioned my body and soul to run on empty over that weekend with the running of the Woden Thor Medieval Festival and Joust along with my two friends Thom and Greg. I imagine it was easier here, in a completely foreign surrounding, than it would have been back home.
At any rate we did decide to go do something other than sit home for the weekend. We rented a hotel room and spent the weekend in Bangor. Walked around the down town. You'll see in the pic the girls standing infront of a bronze statue in the downtown area, I forget exactly who it is...some early politician and I want to say the name was Hamlin... but I don't remember now for sure, it really doesn't matter, It was a chance to get a pic of my girls!
We went to the mall, the girls each got a friend from the "Build a Bear Workshop" and a book from Borders... Naomi found a brand new favorite store. "Burlington Coat Factory" we spent a good amount there. and of course...we made it to Sam's Club... ya we really missed Sam's.

School finishes up for the girls here on the 11th, they are looking forward to summer vacation. Oh and Naomi's job... well it sucked pretty bad, it was out going calls to make sales and in the training they basically told her to lie to the customers, to saythings like "ya I just got my grandmother that phone and she loves it" or "my kids use that all the time" that kinda crap, It's not right and I'm glad she left. We'll find something. there is no real rush or hurry.

Yesterday we took Karen and went to visit the Aroostook State Park. a gorgeous park with lots of hiking trails, and picnic sites and some nice camping spaces to. A couple of mountains with a lake right next to them. A beautiful clear lake that the girls had fun wading around in. actually they got soaked, but that was their problem, the sky was sunny, mid 70's for a temp, perfect, we let he kids run, sat around and killed a few beer and grilled out some hot dogs and brats. Chloe got a leech on her foot while she was in the water... just a little one, she was fine with it until Karen poured some salt on it and it started to wriggle and writhe... :) I let her suffer for a minute (I'm such a good dad) then I scraped it off for her, but it was funny as hell. Packed up and got out of there just ahead of an evening thunderstorm... pretty much perfect.

Naomi got the calls last night from her friends rockin out at June Dairy Days, I know she misses June Dairy Days like I miss the Medieval Festival. We are looking at probably not making it home this summer at all, but looking at trying to make something happen around Christmas. Gives us a goal anyhow.

Balloons, Confetti, Music, Dance, and the Sounds of the Soloist Kuzu

Greetings.
Well things are moving along here alright. Lately we've been helping our friend Karen move from one house to another. She was living at the base of one of the mountains up here called Big Rock in Mars Hill, about 1/2 hour south of us, but it was pretty isolated up there, no neighbors at all, and if any of you know Karen you know how much of a social person she is. So she started looking around and found a place to rent only about 3 miles away, big yard to mow, fire pit by the back deck. A nice place. Anyhow, we've been helping her paint and move in. We'll try to get everything done this weekend.

As a family we also have Big BIG news!!!! are you ready??? The Wii has arrived!!! (balloons and confetti, music and dancing) That's right, Mom and Dad finally followed up on one of their own campaign promises when it came to relocating, and the children (and the parents) now have the hottest video game system on the planet ...until the next one ... or this one may be out dated already....whatever its still fun. A couple of games and a Wii fit to boot, I have to say even Naomi, who is not a video game person, is enjoying playing.

But Wait thats not all. Naomi has gotten herself a job! (more confetti, more balloons, more music and more dancing, this time clothing optional) ;) She found work at a local call center called "Connect America" Its not an incredibly great job, and she's not completely satisfied wth going back to work on the phones...but she is happy to be getting out of the house, she has felt a little pent up as of late. and its easy work that she knows how to do well. She still has apps in at TAMC and is going to be putting some in at a local bank, where we hear an opening is iminent. but it is funny that it is easier to find work when your working but it is true.

and to facilitate that comes the third piece of big news, we're finally getting a second vehicle (we're outta balloons, confetti, and tired of dancing...cue the old man in the corner with a kuzu) Someone I work with is selling us a car for 750$, which is a pretty good deal here in Maine where you have to deal with yearly car inspections and what not. So we're happy, and things are looking pretty good.

Chloe just got back from a big class field trip to a couple of museums down state. One was a air and space type museum where the kids got to carry out the roles of astronauts during the apollo mission days, Chloe's job was on life support and she almost let the crew die!!! I guess you had to monitor your stuff and carry out experiments on a computer at the same time. SHe aparently is not a natural multi-tasker. But she had lots of fun. After the trip there was a school dance, we picked up her and her friend Chyane and they then had a sleep over here. (we're cooler now that we have the Wii) :)

Fayth and Fin both had "Crazy Hair" Day at their school this week, so I got some pics of them in the morning after Naomi had fixed their hair. You will also notice that Infinity has taken up boxing and has had both of her front teeth knocked out... well it would have made a good story. but it is fun to tease her about the way she tries to pronounce words sometimes. Hell she's just fun to pick on period!! The other pic is one I found on the camera as I was uploading onto the computer. Fayth aparently got into some experimental photography of her own... I don't know what she has stuck to her forehead, and I don't think I wanna know. but she's got that giggly look thats contagious, I had to add it here.

Well thats all I can think of this morning. Everyone have a good day

Clothes From WI

I guess you've all heard of "Pennies from Heaven". . . well yesterday my girls received "Clothes From Wisconsin" Kolin, Heidi, Bailey, and Qitara sent a HUGE box filled with three other boxes, each filled with a ton of clothes. and boy did they need those clothes too, Thank You Guys, I know you wanted a lot of pics, and I took them, but you're gonna have to wait until I go to work and use the high speed internet there to upload them, It will take days if I do it here at home on stupid, dumb, crappy, dial up. So I'll put up some teaser pics and a video the girls made for you and e-mail you the link to where I upload the other pics.

Love you guys and we miss you a lot.

D

The Goblin Queen

Hello, It has again been a while since I've made a post here. To be honest it is difficult to come up with some new and exciting news every time. I know it does not have to be ground breaking stuff, but what I'm typing to you guys should at least have some substance. To be absolutely honest, life is a bit boring here, not necessarily in a bad way. Really in a kinda relaxing way that is allowing us to focus on somethings we allowed ourselves to get distracted away from in the past, catching up on our bills is one, having less excuses to finish the novel I've been writing for a long time is another, I've made more progress on that since I've moved here than I have for several years.


So, Naomi is still attempting to find work, the market here is kinda thin so it hasn't been overly easy to find something appropriate, but she is also talking about going back to school for Nursing, I think that's great, I've been trying to get her to go back to school since I graduated in '99, I guess a decade of nagging will get you somewhere :)
I have had a rough week at work, nothing special or out of the ordinary, just the stress of spinning my wheels and a couple pretty good headaches to make the week a long one. I just wish I could get some people to understand that I'm not the enemy, I actually am trying to help improve things for the better and everyone's benefit. But hey, I will just have to keep forging ahead and progress will happen, Really a lot of progress has happened and I do understand that change is never easy for people. We'll get there, it's just baby steps along the way.
The girls have had a pretty good week. report cards are back, and all three scored A's and B's, the only marks are on organization skills, and this has to be something genetic anyhow, I don't worry much about it. They're my little scatter brains, and eventually they do much better, Chloe is beginning to grow out of it. The parent teacher conference for her was 15 minutes of letting me know how "incredible" she is, I admit. that feels pretty good to hear, and it makes me proud.
The girls got a bug up their butts the other night, Infinity had brought home a white 3D snowflake she made in class, and Chloe figured out how to make it so she made one for Fayth out of construction paper. Then they took the scraps from the snowflake and put them together to make a crown for the "Goblin Queen" !! Then the bobby pinned it to Fayth's head. It was fun listening to them giggle and play together, and as you can see from the pics, the crown and flakes turned out pretty cool as well. Infact later in the week, Infinity had to make her own crown for herself.

We still have snow on the ground, but not much, it's disapearing all the time now and I almost have the whole yard back. It's been kinda rainy, crappy for the last few days but today there is a bright blue sky and lotsa sun. I think it'll be a nice day. Too bad I'm "on call" but I guess there's a little dog crap in every lawn. Happy Bunny Day everyone.

Curse The White Stuff That Falls From The Heavens!!!

Well I bet all of you just cannot guess what I've been doing this afternoon, into the earlier evening... Snow-blowing out 6 - 8 inches of the wettest, heaviest snow ever!
Just when things were beginning to disappear. . . bam . . . another snow fall, I don't think I will ever get the hang of how weather flows into this area. It is just unpredictable. I am used to weather moving generally from west to east, not necessarily the way it goes here. The coast causes lots of swirling type systems and that just makes it chaotic where its going to come from. This last storm actually moved out of the north east from Canada, and rolled over us moving in a south west direction. Personally I just give up trying to foretell what's gonna happen by looking at the radar maps myself. Well I suppose it could be worse, we could have moved to Fargo, Flooding and 18 inches....forget it.

At any rate, no real stories about the family since the last updates. We had parent teacher conferences and all three girls are adjusting and doing excellent in school, top notch work, and getting along with people as well.

so progressing forward, and still missing you all.

Shandara

Chloe brought home this picture the other day from school. She had Naomi help her go through our photo albums and picked out a pic of Shandara, a dog Naomi and her family had when she was she was a little girl. The media is scratch board where a white board is covered with a black crayon like wax and you scratch it off to make your marks.
I think she did an awesome job, the shaping is spot on and even the perspective of difficult things like the nose is well done, much better than I could have done.

hey a proud poppa's gotta share!

Cheers all later

Scenery Abound II

Here are the other images, It's funny that they post in the opposite order that I load them... whatever. From the top pic you can see how much of the ice we've lost around the house, I started that melt by spreading about 40 dollars worth of salt and sand a few weeks ago, now it's finally really paying off. If I had a bobcat or front loader I bet I could go out there and scrape the driveway clean today. I thought about lowering the clearance on the snow blower and using that, but then I thought about the rocks that would probably throw around. I think I'll wait and have a little patience, though you all know how hard that is for me.

Until next time.

D

Scenery Abound

Just was out taking Chloe to spend the night at a friend's house and decided to take the camera with me to shoot some pics of the scenery I was talking about last post. Apparently I can only upload 4 pics at a time so I'll be making at least two posts today. Today is beautiful, as you can see, not a cloud in the sky, high 20's low 30's and calm, with a good sun that's beating up on the ice. Get the hell out of here ice!

Big Sky Maine

Well, it's finally starting to warm up here, Thank Goodness!!
We are all so tired of the skating rink driveway. Naomi took her second spill on the ice this past weekend, this one was a doozie. Her feet went out from under her and she was flat on her back before she could even think. You know when you get that feeling that you are suddenly hanging horizontal in the air and dropped flat on your back side. Yup, it was a rough morning, but she has bounced back ok. Every muscle in her body hurt for the first few days but late yesterday she was finally starting to sound like herself.

Chloe, Fayth, and Fin are getting along very well, The move has been kind of amazing because where there used to be a lot of oil and water, now I catch them all playing together more. The only exception is maybe in the mornings getting ready for school, when they're all tired. Unfortunately I don't think I'm raising "morning persons" Maybe Infinity, but definitely not the other two.

Anyway with the warm up here it's been getting more beautiful, For most of the time since we've moved here you could not see much of the scenery while you were driving around, The snow was banked up super high along the sides of the road, I swear 12 feet or more in some places, so driving to work in the morning was alot like driving through a tunnel. Just the last few days, since the banks have dwindled, I have caught myself noticing more and more of the scenery going to and from work. At first I thought that I had just not paid attention before, then I realized that the sight was blocked before. This is a very scenic area, not terribly unlike LaCrosse in that respect, similarbut different, Where LaCrosse was beautiful, northern Maine has what I can only describe as a larger sense of perspective. When I look at the distance I'm not seeing a bluff that's a few miles away, I'm seeing a low mountain that is quite a distance away. Flat places of the country that I've lived in, Northern Minnesota and Nebraska, have a certain "Big Sky" feel to them. The sky is an obvious piece of the scenery, probably because there's so much of it. You hear the same about areas of Texas and Montana. Well I have to say that Aroostook County is an impressive combination of Big Sky and Rolling Scenery rolled together.

Added some pictures of a sunset from the other night, not a particularly fantastic sunset color wise, but a pretty typical sunset. Something about it caught me and I just needed to take some pictures, They really translate that Big Sky feeling I was talking about. Anyway...until next time.
D

We're Back Online

Well, well, well,
It's been a while hasn't it? I have to apologize for that, but I guess there's not much else I could do. After two months of searching, arguing, and pleading...there is NO high speed internet access for us where our house is located. Not right now anyhow. So as much as I hate it, we have finally succumbed to signing up for a dial up service. The slow speeds are killing me, but at least we'll be able to do things like add to this blog on a regular basis.

An update on us then... Things are going pretty well, a bit of the winter cabin fever for all of us but we're making it through, We've had a couple of rain falls but still have 2 feet of snow on the ground, and where there was no snow because of plowing or snowblowing - ice. Smooth and slick like a skating rink. Naomi took a slip the other day, not as bad as some of the ones I've seen her do in the past, kind of a slow motion jerk forward, she landed on her knee, has a pretty good bruise too. But she'll be fine.

Over the past week and a half I have been working on making a DVD movie of us to send home, we just watched the final product this morning and the girls all laughed at themselves and their antics, It's tough to be sure if they are overly pleased with themselves or embarrassed. probably a bit of both
not sure if I can get a portion of the video up here on the blog too, Maybe I'll try, (maybe not...dial up remember) Anyway I hope those of you who get a copy enjoy it, we're already working on ideas for the next one, If you have ideas let us know and we'll see what we can do.




The girls are now running along in school like nothings really changed, infact Chloe has just spent two weekends in a row spending the night at someone else's house. Fayth is making friends and Infinity has a "boyfriend" named Gavin, who she asks if she can call him at home just about every night after school, she gets really squirrly and cute when you pester her about how cute he is too... ahhhhhh young love.

Naomi is still looking for work, things are pretty tight for the whole community up here, and there are not a ton of jobs to be had beyond fast food, and we're doing fine on my income, I don't want her to go back into that unless its a last resort, The plus is (are you ready) she's finally talking about going back to school, possibly for nursing. I think that's great and I really can't wait to see it happen

Anyway, I don't want to make a long post too much longer, updates will be much more regular now
enjoy the day every one
D :)

living in Maine

Well we're here. Been here a while actually :) The cable company is giving us a bit of a runaround on getting tv and internet hooked up so actually I'm over at a friends house borrowing her internet.
For me the first week of work is down, and I have to say that it will be a big job getting things running the way they should be but we can do this. we can do this.
The girls have started school now, they're having an ok time of it. Infinity came home the first day saying, "I'm friends with like everyone in my class" I believe Chloe's doing alright even though she would never admit it out loud, no friends she says by she has found some "acquaintances" that she thinks will be ok friends "eventually" Fayth has found a few people she likes and she's been wearing herself out and she has really needed to you to bed earlier than normal
Naomi is finally up and looking like herself, she's been down with a horrible cold for the last week, but she's feeling much better now.

anyway the adventure continues and well catch up more with you later